LISBON TREATY DAY TODAY IF PASSED

THE WEEK LONG HOLIDAY OF SUKKOT BEGINGS TODAY AT 6PM UNTIL OCT 9,09 6PM
http://www.chabad.org/generic_cdo/aid/984606/jewish/Sukkot-Simchat-Torah.htm
AUDIO GODS EMBRACE
http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/571184/jewish/Sukkot-In-G-ds-Embrace.htm
SUKKOT AUDIO
http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/577224/jewish/Sukkah-Basics.htm

Investigation Could Sink American Police Force
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Friday, October 2, 2009

The plans of American Police Force to boss the $27 million dollar detention center in Hardin Montana as well as expand their presence across the country while training foreign troops inside the U.S. could be mothballed after Montana’s Attorney General launched an investigation and demanded the organization turn over all its records.

Suspicions that the paramilitary unit, which attempted to pose as law enforcement in Hardin last week by placing decals on SUV’s that read “Hardin Police Department,is a cut-out or a front group for a larger company, may be realized after AG Steve Bullock ordered Hardin city officials to turn over all their documents related to their dealings with APF by October 12.His office made a similar demand of American Police Force, including information that would back up (Michael) Hilton’s claims of multiple defense contracts with the U.S. government and other agencies,reports the Associated Press.As we have highlighted, APF grandstands as a major player in the world of international private security, even claiming on its own website that it runs the U.S. Training Center, a Blackwater or Xe owned facility. This has led many to claim that the company is a shell or a front organization for something far more sinister, rumors that have only grown with APF’s blanket refusal to name its parent company.The investigation was prompted by the revelation yesterday that APF founder Captain Michael Hilton is a career criminal and a convicted fraudster who has operated under no less than 17 different aliases. Hilton, a native of Montenegro, was sentenced to 6 years in jail in 1993 for Such schemes you cannot believe, according to Joseph Carella, an Orange County, Calif. doctor, namely a dozen counts of grand theft. Hilton has defrauded numerous different individuals to the tune of $1.1 million dollars over the past 20 years.

APF’s plans to construct another facility in Hardin that will train international paramilitary forces also looks doomed following intense media scrutiny of the organization’s shady dealings with local authorities and their probable violation of article 2 section 33 of the Montana Constitution.Judging by the reaction of Attorney Becky Convery, who negotiated the original deal between Hardin authorities and APF, the contract to man the detention center and build the training facility could be torpedoed.Convery said Two Rivers director Greg Smith had a tentative deal with Hilton’s company to provide law enforcement service, but she said it was never finalized and she was uncertain whether it would be legal,reports the AP.We are not at all pleased with American Police masquerading as if they were the police for the city of Hardin,she said.American Police Force and Hilton are now obviously engaging in desperate damage control, trying to offset concerns that they were on the verge of transforming the town into a privately run police state,as the AP article puts it, before press scrutiny forced them to put the breaks on.Hilton has now pledged to donate the SUV’s that were marked with the police decals to the city while still pushing ahead with plans to provide law enforcement for the area for $250,000 a year. The fact that APF’s training center plans to recruit foreign assets who could then be patrolling the streets of America bossing U.S. citizens is obviously a frightening prospect, completely unconstitutional, and another reason why APF needs to abandon its plans to act as a private police force completely.

WE JUST GIVE KING JESUS THE GOD OF ISRAEL AND THE WORLD THE PRAISE AND GLORY FOR EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES.KING JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION THERE IS NO OTHER.CALL ON JESUS NOW EVERY PERSON ON EARTH TO BE SAVED.ITS ONLY BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS WERE SAVED.

IRELAND VOTES ON THE LISBON TREATY TODAY.IF IT PASSES THE EU WILL HAVE A PERMANANT PREDIDENT TO TALK FOR ALL OF THE EU.IT WILL GET THE DEFENCE ARMY TOGETHER.IF IT DOES NOT PASS THE EU WILL GO TO A TWO TEER EU WITH 13 COUNTRIES AS THE MAIN CORE I BELIEVE AND WHOEVER JOINS UP ARE ALL ASSOCIATE EU MEMBERS.MY GUESS IS IT PASSES BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAYS THE EU PRESIDENT WILL GUARENTEE ISRAELS SECURITY OF PEACE AND SAFETY FOR A 7 YEAR TERM BEFORE THIS FUTURE FALSE MESSIAH BACK STABS ISRAEL.

TEXT OF LISBON TREATY
http://www.rte.ie/news/features/lisbontreaty/pdf/Reform-Treaty-03-Dec-07-CIG-14-07-cg00014.en07.pdf
http://www.rte.ie/news/features/lisbontreaty/treaty_sections.html
http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/full_text/index_en.htm
http://www.rte.ie/news/features/lisbontreaty/

Europe waits for Irish Lisbon treaty result - Europe is holding its breath after the Irish went to the polls on Friday for a rerun referendum on the Lisbon Treaty amid scaremongering warnings of economic catastrophe should they vote No for a second time.By Bruno Waterfield in Tallaght Published: 5:02PM BST 02 Oct 2009

Ireland is the only country, out of the EU's 27, to hold a popular vote on the Lisbon Treaty, a text that is largely the same as Constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters four years ago.Irish voters first rejected the EU Treaty 18 months ago by a margin of 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent but they have been asked to think again following pressure from other 26 European countries, which all denied popular votes to their citizens.Lisbon Treaty: Europe holds breath over Irish referendum Most opinion polling now gives the Yes camp a 55 to 60 per cent lead with fears that a renewed No will plunge Ireland's economy into a deeper crisis regarded as the main factor in the shift.Brian Cowen, the Irish prime minister, with the support of Irish and multinational big business has linked the vote to Ireland's economic future after the country was hit harder than most other EU member states by the global financial crisis. A Yes vote marks an essential step for economic recovery. Only with a Yes will we ensure investor confidence in Ireland,he said, at his final press conference before polls opened.No campaigners have dismissed Mr Cowen's claims that Yes vote will create new jobs as scaremongering and lies.

No campaign posters and billboards have displayed pictures of Mr Cowen, the most unpopular premier in the history of the Irish Republic, alongside the slogan,the only job Lisbon saves is his.As polling stations opened on Friday morning, hundreds of taxi drivers took to the streets, many bearing No to Lisbon placards, to protest at the government's handling of the economy.Liam Murphy, a Dublin cab driver, said: We have been fed lies and blackmailed with scaremongering about the economy. The treaty does not mention jobs. It is scaremongering by a government that just wants to hang on to its own jobs.Soaring unemployment and the economic crisis has hit Tallaght's working class estates, south west of Dublin, harder than most of Ireland but its people have remained defiant.At the St Kevin's Boys School polling station in Tallaght's Kilnamanagh district, Shane O'Leary insisted that he would still vote No.People have been scared. But the recession does not change this treaty or our rejection of it last time,he said.Kathleen Cummins, another No voter, said:I think we are being bullied and treated like children.But Charles Dussey admitted that he had changed his vote because of fears that the EU would pull the plug on funding if there was a second referendum rejection.The country is bankrupt. The EU is signing the cheques. We cannot bite the hand that feeds us at the moment,he said.

If the Lisbon Treaty is rejected by the Irish a second time then the EU would be plunged into a deep institutional crisis.We are hearing that the vote is very close and unpredictable,said an EU official last night.All 26 other EU countries have ratified the treaty by parliamentary procedures but the Polish and Czech presidents have delayed a final signing until the Irish vote.The results will be announced on Saturday afternoon.

Friday, October 2, 2009 EU presidents call for Yes vote JAMIE SMYTH in Brussels

THE PRESIDENTS of all three major EU institutions have made a final appeal to the Irish people to support the Lisbon Treaty.Prominent No campaigners around Europe also made a final appeal to Irish voters.European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek said yesterday he believed the treaty would make the EU more effective and democratic and is good for Ireland and the rest of the union. He also appealed for a high turnout.Friday is an important day for Ireland, and for the whole of the European Union. I hope the Irish people do come out and vote in large numbers, and I strongly encourage them to do so,said Mr Buzek in a press statement.Swedish prime minister Fredrick Reinfeldt, who is chairing the European Council as his country holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, said he was hoping for a Yes vote.That way the Irish people will have ensured that every member state has a commissioner. That is important for me, also coming from a smaller member state,he said.A spokeswoman for European Commission president José Manuel Barroso said now was the time for the Irish people to decide.

The president simply hopes as many as possible will use their democratic right and make their voice heard,she added.Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage MEP, who will be in Dublin canvassing today, said the Irish people shouldn’t be bullied into voting Yes and should choose democracy and not bureaucracy by voting No.Veteran anti-treaty campaigner and former Danish MEP Jens Peter Bonde said he didn’t want to tell people how to vote.I ask Irish voters to read the treaty and make up their own mind,he said.Lisbon transfers powers from voters to bureaucrats and reduces the influence of small member states. This is why I oppose the treaty.This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times.

We will be excerpting the Lisbon Treaty on these pages in the days leading up to the Irish referendum on Oct. 2. Below is from Chapter 2:

1. The common security and defence policy shall be an integral part of the common foreign and security policy. It shall provide the Union with an operational capacity drawing on civilian and military assets. The Union may use them on missions outside the Union for peace-keeping, conflict prevention and strengthening international security in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter. The performance of these tasks shall be undertaken using capabilities provided by the Member States.;(b) paragraph 1, renumbered 2, shall be amended as follows:(i) the first subparagraph shall be replaced by the following:2. The common security and defence policy shall include the progressive framing of a common Union defence policy. This will lead to a common defence, when the European Council, acting unanimously, so decides. It shall in that case recommend to the Member States the adoption of such a decision in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.

Voters go to the polls for second time on Lisbon Treaty-Masters of our fate | 02/10/2009 Yes and No supporters make final appeals to voters ahead of referendum | 02/10/STEPHEN COLLINS Political Editor

VOTERS GO to the polls today in the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The outcome will represent a defining moment in Ireland’s relationship with the European Union.The importance of the result for the country’s future prosperity, as well as its place in the world, has been stressed by both sides in the campaign.Taoiseach Brian Cowen has ruled out a third referendum on Lisbon and a second defeat would spark a political crisis at both national and EU level. Mr Cowen’s future as Taoiseach would be thrown into doubt by a second defeat on an issue of such vital national importance.The outcome will determine the future direction of our country and I am urging people to go out and vote and to think clearly before making this vital decision,Mr Cowen said yesterday.He said that while he believed support for a Yes vote was strong, nothing could be taken for granted and all those who supported the treaty would have to keep working until the close of polling.With a Yes vote, Ireland will retain the confidence that it is a positive and influential member of the union, and the union will be allowed to move forward to tackle urgent problems. With a No vote, confidence in Ireland will inevitably suffer,said Mr Cowen.Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the referendum would give Irish people an enormous opportunity to send a positive signal to our partners in the EU. A Yes vote will be a massive step, not only towards economic recovery, but also towards Ireland taking a lead role in European affairs,he said.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the referendum was one of the most important in recent decades.The Irish people will decide not just on their own futures but on the futures of generations to come. We have nothing to fear from the EU and we have everything to gain,he said.Mr Gilmore added that a No vote would send out a negative message internationally that would be no incentive to foreign investment and would restrict our capacity to create new jobs.Sinn Féin vice-president Mary Lou McDonald called for a No vote, saying the electorate should come out and reject the Lisbon Treaty as decisively as they had in 2008.This is a bad treaty negotiated by an incompetent government and if it goes through, it will seriously undermine Ireland’s position within the EU. A Yes vote will mean the loss of our automatic right to a commissioner, a massive reduction in our voting strength on the Council of Ministers and the handing away of our right to a referendum. If we hand this power away tomorrow, we won’t get it back,she said.Over three million people are entitled to vote in the referendum. Polling stations will open at 7am and will remain open until 10pm tonight. Counting of votes will begin tomorrow at 9am and the official result is expected in the early evening.Polling cards and a statement of information have been sent to voters, although some TDs have complained that the way they have been distributed together caused confusion.People will be entitled to vote whether or not they have a polling card but they may be required to produce evidence of identity. Anyone who fails to do so when asked will not be allowed to vote.

A range of documents, including a passport, driving licence, employee or student identity card will be accepted as photo ID.The ballot paper for the referendum will be white. If voters wish to approve the proposal, they should put an X in the square beside TÁ/YES or if they do not want to approve, they should mark X in the square beside NÍL/NO.This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times.

Ireland goes to the polls on Lisbon Treaty
Friday, 2 October 2009 10:52

More than 3m people are eligible to vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum today.
Polling stations around Ireland opened at 7am. They will close tonight at 10pm.

Turn out nationwide

In Dublin city there was an average voter turnout of 4.4% by around 10am. The area includes six constiuencies in central Dublin and turnout so far ranged from a high of 6% in Sutton, Dublin North East, to a low of 2.5% in Ballymun, Dublin North West.
Several polling stations in Sligo are reporting a very slow start to voting - just 14people out of 650 had voted in one booth by 9am in Tubbercurry.Turnout in Cork city is estimated at around 5% so far.In Co Kerry, the turnout in urban polling stations in Tralee and Killarney is estimated to be also at 5%.Enda Kenny, TD, Fine Gael leader, cast his vote at 9.15am in his home town of Castlebar.Voting is reported to be quiet since booths opened in Castlebar.The highest turnout so far this morning has been in Offaly in Ferbane with 9% of votes cast. In Tullamore town 5% have voted.

In Longford town there has been a voter turnout of 6%, while in Granard 3.5% have voted.People who have not received their polling cards are still entitled to vote once their name is on the electoral register and they have proof of identity. Every person over 18, who is an Irish citizen and is on the Register of Electors can vote. (Check the register)When a person goes to the polling station today they will be given one ballot paper and asked whether or not they approve of the proposal to amend the Constitution to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon. (Read the Treaty in English or Irish)If voters approve of the proposal, they should mark X in the square beside Tá/Yes on the ballot paper, if they do not approve they should mark X in the square beside Nil/No.If a voter has not received a polling card they should bring valid forms of identification, such as a passport, a driving licence, or an employee or student photo identity card, to the polling station.Counting of votes will begin at 9am tomorrow morning.

Ireland holds second referendum on Lisbon treaty
www.chinaview.cn 2009-10-02 15:03:18

DUBLIN, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Republic of Ireland held a second referendum on the European Union (EU)'s reform treaty Lisbon Treaty on Friday. Polling stations are open from 7 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) to 10 p.m. (2100 GMT). The poll at the referendum is taken in 43 parliament constituencies and the electorate currently stands at more than 3 million.All political activities will be prohibited in the vicinity of polling stations for the duration of the poll and for half an hour before and after the vote.After the close of the poll, the ballot boxes used at each polling station will be moved to a count center for the constituency concerned. At 9 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) on Saturday, the local returning officer will open the ballot boxes for the constituency and verify the ballot paper accounts.It is expected that the result of the referendum will be available in the late afternoon on Saturday and formally announced by the Referendum Returning Officer Maurice Coughlan, principal officer of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government at the Central Count Center, in St. Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle.

During the previous referendum in June 2008, Irish voters rejected the treaty with 53.4 percent voting No and 46.6 percent Yes due to their concerns over Ireland's military neutrality, its opposition to abortion, national rights on taxation. In June, the EU took a major step forward toward implementation of its reform treaty, agreeing to provide legally-binding guarantees to Ireland to overcome voters' misgivings.Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen has definitely ruled out a third Lisbon Treaty referendum or a change of government if there is another No vote.There won't be a Lisbon Three-that's for sure,he said. In his final plea for a Yes vote at the Friday referendum, Cowen claimed that passing the Lisbon Treaty would mark the first step in Ireland's road to economic recovery.He stressed that a No vote would lead to a period of uncertainty and that a two-speed Europe could follow.I think what's clear is that we would face into a period of extraordinary uncertainty in Europe,he said.You could well see the development of a two-speed Europe... Ata time of major economic challenge, what we need is stability and certainty in the direction which Europe is taking,he added.The Taoiseach noted that two out of every three jobs in Ireland were dependent on European markets and that Ireland needed to be part of the decision-making process.Cowen said it is an irrefutable fact that every time Ireland has voted to support the development of the EU, our country has benefited.Our infrastructure, both material and social, has thrived through our engagement with the EU,he added.

The Lisbon Treaty, signed by EU heads of state and government in December 2007 in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, replaced a failed EU constitution, which was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005.The charter must be ratified by all 27 EU member states and Ireland is the only EU member state to hold a referendum. So far, 26 countries have approved the document through parliamentary vote.Editor: Sun Yunlong

Czechs Attempts to Block Lisbon Treaty European Union With Turkey Thursday, 1 October 2009

Although the Czech Parliament ratified the Lisbon treaty in the spring 2009, Václav Klaus, the Czech President, has yet to sign it. President Klaus believes the Lisbon treaty weakens the sovereignty of the Czech Republic; therefore, he opposes the ratification of the treaty. He has tried to slow down the ratification process in the country in several ways. In September 2008, he stated that he would not sign the treaty before the Ireland referendum. Afterwards, some senators lodged a complaint against certain parts of the treaty and he declared that he would await the verdict of the Constitutional Court. Finally, the Court dismissed this complaint in November 2008.Recently, at the Constitutional Court on 29 September 2009, a group of Czech senators lodged a second challenge against the treaty and Czech President Vaclav Klaus has again said that he would await the decision of the Court to sign the treaty. According to the experts, it could take 6 months for the Court to give a decision. During this time, the UK general election will take place and according to opinion polls, it is predicted that the Conservatives will win the election, and the conservatives in the UK have promised that they will put the Lisbon Treaty to a referendum if it is not in force at that time. Therefore, by doing this, Mr. Kluas, as a euro sceptic leader, plans to create new obstacles for the Lisbon treaty in case of a Yes result in the second Irish referendum which will be held on 2 October 2009.

The Lisbon Treaty will cause a major change in the current EU structure through amending the previous treaties and the main aim of it is to make the EU stronger in the 21st century. Some important changes are the extension of the qualified majority voting (QMV), the creation of a President of the European Council and a High Representative for Foreign Affairs. As a result, the euro sceptics criticize it as weakening the sovereignty of member states.The Lisbon Treaty should be approved by all 27 member states in order to take effect in the EU legal system. However, the Czech Republic, Ireland and Poland have yet to ratify it despite other members’ ratification.Yilmaz KAPLAN (JTW)Journal of Turkish Weekly.

Blunt debate on Dublin streets ahead of Lisbon vote-Three million voters will go to the urns on Friday (Photo: EUobserver)HONOR MAHONY 01.10.2009 @ 17:43 CET

EUOBSERVER / DUBLIN - David Weafer, a taxi driver for 19 years, is definitely voting No. Brussels has turned into the Big Brother of Europe,he says, arms folded and leaning against his car, itself festooned with anti-Lisbon Treaty stickers.The EU has a social dumping policy that allows foreign workers to come in and take our jobs,he adds.The taxi industry is destroyed.Mary, a flower seller in the centre of Dublin, says apologetically that she doesn't know much about the treaty but she will give it the thumbs down because everyone she knows will do so when they vote in Ireland's highly anticipated second referendum on Friday (2 October).A rushing businessman has time to say: We'd be mad not to vote Yes. Where would the country be if we say No? while Susan, a dentist, says she still has to study the arguments but does not see any reason to change her mind from last time when she voted in favour of the treaty. Tony, a shopworker, expresses much the same opinion.Sixteen months on, Ireland is once again voting on the Lisbon Treaty - a dense and complicated document that will give the EU a strengthened foreign policy chief, a permanent president and remove member states' vetoes in several areas, particularly on questions related to justice and home affairs.The context is profoundly different the second time around. The financial crisis has rocked the country, turning it from having a much-admired and booming economy into the economic sick man of Europe, where the bottom has fallen out of the housing market, the banks are broke, unemployment is in double figures and GDP has dropped sharply.

Both the Yes and the No side have latched onto people's fears about their jobs and futures. Posters smother lamp-posts, road signs and public transport.Yes for jobs and investment,says one by Fianna Fail, the governing party. Another by the pro-treaty Ireland for Europe suggests a No vote will mean ruin while a Yes vote will bring recovery.Yes for jobs,says a Labour poster.€1.84 minimum wage after Lisbon? asks a poster by Coir, a socially conservative anti-treaty group; The only job it saves is his says another, featuring a picture of a downbeat-looking Prime Minister Brian Cowen.Although late into the game this time round, Libertas, the anti-treaty group that spearheaded the No campaign last year, is clearly visible. Their posters feature a forlorn looking young girl and the words: European democracy - 1945-2009?

It's the economy

The government's economic argument, which makes no direct reference to the Treaty itself, does strike a chord with some. David, a book-seller, says he voted No last time round but plans to vote Yes on Friday because Ireland is in so much trouble as it is.He reckons a No vote would mean less companies wanting to set up in Ireland because it is less appealing than other countries.The No side's arguments have been more varied. But claims by Coir about the minimum wage and the country's lack of voting weight under the new treaty have caused huge debate and were widely noticed.

Comparing the campaigns of last year and this year, Jens Kristian, a young Liberal from Denmark, handing out leaflets on behalf of Ireland for Europe, said the Yes side is clearly more organised.Last year I sat on the Yes campaign bus and there were just five people on it,he noted and one of them was the prime minister.His companions, three young Liberals from Germany, laugh and say they are really hoping for a Yes, before moving on to hand out more leaflets. In the early afternoon on Thursday, no anti-treaty campaigners are evident in the centre of town.

Result on Saturday

While the over 3 million Irish voters weigh up whether to vote in favour of the treaty or not, much of the rest of Europe is looking on with high interest. Dublin secured guarantees on the interpretation of the treaty on neutrality, tax policy and some social issues in order to pave the way for a second referendum. Now, the view of some capitals, particularly France and Germany, is that it is time for a Yes vote.The result, due on Saturday afternoon, will determine whether the treaty has to be binned or not - Prime Minister Brian Cowen has ruled out a third vote.With the government at historic lows in the polls and trying to push through yet another austerity budget, there is a fear that voters may use the referendum to attack the government - with a No likely to result in its fall.I'm blue in the face explaining to people to hold their fire," said Enda Kenny, the leader of the opposition Fine Gael party.

EU homeland security lacks democratic oversight, says watchdog
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today OCT 2,09 @ 09:29 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - As European 'homeland security' sector stakeholders meet this week in Stockholm, a civil liberties watchdog is warning that decisions on the expansion of this lucrative new sector, hived off from public view and with minimal democratic scrutiny, are being made by the very companies that will ultimately profit from from them. Civil liberties monitors worry about the lack of participation of European and national parliaments in the development of the security sector (Photo: The Blackbird)On Tuesday and Wednesday, security research stakeholders from across the continent met in Stockholm for the annual European Security Research Conference under the aegis of the EU presidency, currently held by Sweden.The conference, the major place to meet and discuss the creation of a security research area in Europe,according to the Swedish EU presidency, takes place as a new report from UK-based civil liberties monitoring group Statewatch, brings to light how the very companies that will profit from the bloc's €1.4 billion European Security Research Programme (ERSP) are the ones that are participating in its design and implementation.

The seven-year ERSP, launched in 2007, has the twin aim of delivering brand-new high-tech security technologies to Europe - from advanced profiling systems to unmanned aerial drones - and, explicitly, to foster a rapid growth in this lucrative sector in order to not let US companies steal a march on their European rivals.While civil liberties campaigners say that there is nothing wrong in principle with genuine, civilian-led efforts to deal with crime and catastrophic events, the report says that at every step of the development of a European security research strategy, there has been no democratic oversight.The group claims there is a clear conflict of interest as the design of the ERSP has been outsourced to the very corporations that have the most to gain from its implementation,highlighting defence giants Thales, Finmeccanica, EADS, Saab and Sagem Défénsé Sécurité.In the three different stages of the development of the ERSP, these multinational corporations have dominated the process while MEPs, national politicians and civil society have been all but excluded, the report shows.

Democratic sheen

In 2003, a Group of Personalities (GoP) was convened as an advisory body essentially to conceive the first principles for European security research.The GoP was composed of the EU commissioners for research and information society and as observers the commissioners for external relations and trade, along with the high representative for EU foreign and security policy, Nato representatives, the Western European Armaments Association and the EU Military Committee.Also represented on the GoP were the CEOs or senior directors of eight multinational corporations, including Europe's four largest arms manufacturers - EADS, BAE Systems, Thales and Finmeccanica - and IT firms - Ericsson, Indra, Siemens and Diehl.Four MEPs were present, adding a democratic sheen to the process,according to the report, two Christian Democrats, a Socialist and a Liberal, but one, Karl Von Wogau was also an advisory board member with Security and Defence Agenda, an arms industry think-tank and lobby group.The GoP's 2004 report stated that there was a strong case for subsidising the development of a European security sector, as it was falling behind the United States, noting that the US Department of Homeland Security budget includes around $1 billion dedicated to research.The report went on to say that as a result, Washington was taking a lead,which could be worrisome for the EU if the US was able to impose normative and operational standards worldwide.But this is also problematic because US industry will enjoy a very strong competitive position.Parallel to this first stage, the commission in 2004 established the €65 million Preparatory Action for Security Research, which funded 39 security research projects. Ahead of this, the commission issued no green paper on security research, which is the norm for setting out possible policy options, and no public debate.

20-year vision

After the GoP was wound up, the commission established the European Security Research Advisory Board (Esrab) in April, 2005, which moved on from first principles to setting the agenda for security research.Similar to its predecessor, the Esrab included many of the same stakeholder experts,including seven of the eight corporations that had sat on the GoP - EADS, BAE Systems, Thales, Finmeccanica, Ericsson, Siemens and Diehl.But there was no consultation of the European or national parliaments as to its make-up. The nominations instead came from EU ambassadors, the European Defence Agency and, again, unnamed stakeholder groups.In March 2007, the commission set up the European Security Research and Innovation Forum (Esrif), with a wider remit than the Esrab, going beyond research to development needs and to produce a 20-year vision for the sector.Here too, the 65 members of the Esrif plenary were selected in the same way as the Esrab without parliamentary input, no members of the European Parliament, and no representation from civil liberties or privacy organisations.But while MEPs were shut out of the process, representatives from some non-EU member states were welcomed aboard, including from the Counter-terrorism Bureau of Israel's National Security Council.

Moreover, Esrif was subdivided into 11 working groups with an additional 595 security research stakeholders, of the total 660 individuals participating, 66 percent came from defence and security contractors, again including EADS, Finmeccanica, Thales and the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe.

Three MEPs took part in the working groups and nine individuals from civil society, although again none from civil liberties groups.Esrif's report, a roadmap for security research until 2030 was to be presented at the European Security Research Conference in Stockholm this week, but the roadmap, a 300-page document, has been delayed for one to two months.The report says that the failure to separate the development from the implementation of the ERSP and the appointment of industry-dominated stakeholder groups to develop the policy they will eventually get paid to carry out represents an unlawful act of maladministration.The commission says that the Esrif is in fact neither a commission body nor a commission-driven exercise,a statement Statewatch calls astonishing as it suggests that the commission has effectively outsourced the strategic development of a €1.4 billion EU research programme to a wholly unaccountable, informal group.

No legal basis

But the report authors suggest that in fact the real reason the groups have been informal is due to the absence of a legal basis in the EU treaties for the commission to establish advisory bodies dealing with security and technology issues.
Instead of seeking to legitimise the commission's activities in this area, the EU and its member states have chosen instead to give a dubious mandate to an informal body.The report author says that as a result, the conclusions favour a high-tech blueprint for a new kind of security, one in which peacekeeping and crisis management missions make no operational distinction between the suburbs of Basra and the banlieues,a surveillance society where the type of aggressive systems used to make war are used domestically and along frontiers as well.The ESRP is promoting the development of a range of technologies that could engender systematic violations of fundamental rights, according to the report, including militarised border controls, surveillance and profiling technologies, the widespread collection and analysis of personal data, automated targeting systems, satellite and space-based surveillance, and crisis management' tools.It is not just a case of sleepwalking into a surveillance society,said the report's author, Ben Hayes,it feels more like turning a blind eye to the start of a new kind of arms race, one in which all the weapons are pointing inwards.

MEPs integral

The European Commission, for its part, feels that the people behind the report are getting worked up over very little, as the Esrif is only an advisory body and not the organ that actually crafts policy.The Esrif cannot design a [security research] strategy, this is up to the commission,the commission's acting enterprise spokesperson, Jonathan Todd, told EUobserver.Esrif is a Cars 21-type process in a larger format - involving industry, research, users, MEPs, civil society,he added, referring to the Competitive Automotive Regulatory System for the 21st Century, a high-level expert group that brought together all the main stakeholders in the car sector, including consumer and environmental organisations, to advise the commission on future policy.Cars 21 was also criticised by lobbying transparency campaigners during its existence for its dominance of the European Car Manufacturers Association (ACEA).The commission countered the suggested that the European Parliament was not getting a look in, with Mr Todd saying: MEPs are an integral part of Esrif.From the beginning we were conscious as regards civil liberties and believe that all what is happening has to happen transparently,he said.We are not in favour of a surveillance society.

Croatia resumes EU membership talks
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today OCT 2,09 @ 09:16 CET

Croatia, hoping to be the European Union's next country to join the bloc, resumes membership negotiations on Friday (2 October).The talks are being restarted now that a border dispute between the former Yugoslav nation and its neighbour and EU member state Slovenia is to be put to arbitration overseen by Brussels.The 27-country bloc and Croatia are expected to open six new chapters of the 35 policy areas that are up for negotiation at an intergovernmental accession conference in the European capital.It is also believed that an additional five may be closed on Friday as well.

If the results live up to diplomat expectations, Zagreb will have opened 28 chapters and closed 12 as of the end of the day.The border row, which centred on Zagreb and Ljubljana's inability to to agree on their common land and sea border, had held up progress in Croatian membership talks since last year, although the dispute dates back a further 18 years to the start of the break-up of the Yugoslav federation in 1991.Last December, Slovenia blocked Croatia's accession negotiations over the issue.

Rights to a patch of the Adriatic Sea close to the Slovenian city of Piran that Slovenia argues would secure its ships direct access to international waters has proved especially controversial.In September, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn had said he thought Croatia could complete its membership talks by mid-2010.Now that the border dispute has been removed from the enlargement discussion, some of the thorniest issues are now likely to include the fight against corruption and crime.
Sweden, which currently holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency, is planning at least two more intergovernmental conferences before the end of the year.

EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH

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

EARTHQUAKES

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:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) 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.

Fresh quake near Tonga, tsunami toll nears 200 By Tim Wimborne – OCT 2,09

LALOMANU, Samoa (Reuters) – Grieving Samoans buried their dead in unmarked beachside graves on Thursday as the gruesome task of recovering bodies from villages destroyed by four tsunamis continued and an aftershock shook the region.Some Samoans started rebuilding their South Pacific paradise, clearing debris from shattered homes, but others remained in nearby mountains, afraid to return to the coast for fear the ocean will again turn deadly.Leausa Letoa, his wife and four daughters refused to return home, preferring to camp under a blue tarpaulin in a hilltop banana plantation and cook what little food they have on an open fire.A fresh, smaller quake at magnitude 6.3 rattled the region south of Tonga on Friday, said the U.S. Geological Service. Tonga is west of the international dateline and a day ahead of Samoa.The death toll from Tuesday's tsunamis, caused by an 8 magnitude undersea quake, is near 150 in Samoa, 31 in American Samoa and nine in neighboring Tonga.

Officials feared whole towns have been destroyed on outlying islands and hundreds of people remained missing.Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi was near tears on Wednesday night when he called on this tiny South Pacific island nation to rebuild.The winds have uttered their strength, earth has spoken its grief and the wave has scattered its strength,Tuilaepa said in the chiefly Samoan language.Samoans are a deeply Christian people, but also an ancient Polynesian race with strong myths and legends about ancient gods linked to the ocean that surrounds them.Thousands of Samoans are homeless and hundreds injured. Many in the main hospital in the capital Apia have bruised faces and cuts on their arms and legs.Australian orthopedic surgeon Dr Rob Atkinson said wounds were similar to those seen in Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, which killed 230,000 people in 11 countries.

We're seeing a lot of lacerations, tiny cuts everywhere going in all directions thanks to the sharp rocks and coral,Atkinson said in Apia.They look as though they have been churned up in a massive, really dirty, washing machine,he told reporters.
Samoa's main morgue was full and two refrigerated shipping containers were quickly filling up with bodies, with local media reports the government was considering a mass burial.

GRIEVING SAMOANS

Some Samoans sat silently on the rubble on Thursday, looking out to sea, still shocked at the loss of life.People are staying away from devastated villages today. They're still in shock and a lot are not ready to start again,said Oxfam Australia aid worker Janna Hamilton.In the devastated village of Lalomanu, which bore the brunt of the waves that hit the south coast of Samoa's Upolu island, Biento Fua surveyed the wreckage of his family-run resort.Fua's 98-year-old father and 11 other family members died in minutes when the waves hit his five-bedroom home and he's not sure whether he can rebuild.Right now, not really fancying the idea of building again when it reminds us of a place that lost our dad, and so, perhaps not,Fua told Australian radio.Nature's taking its course and we may need to learn something from it.But others, like Faaolaina Kalolo, were unfazed by the scale of the task facing the Samoan people.We are so thankful to be alive. So many others in other villages have been lost,said Kalolo, who escaped the tsunamis by fleeing to a taro plantation in the hills when he heard his dogs barking and running away from the sea.

If the dogs run to safety, you follow. You run,he said.Prime Minister Malielegaoi called on church leaders to pray as Samoans grieved. One mother of two, Koke, simply wept as her daughters, Rachel, 7, and Emma, 3, were buried in an unmarked beachside grave at Lalomanu.Along the shore, rescuers worked frantically to recover bodies decomposing in the South Pacific heat.Most of the bodies we've come across are young kids and babies, who were already in a bad state of decomposition. It just makes you want to cry,said Samoa's fire chief Seve Tony Hill.Aid officials have warned of disease outbreaks with more than 1,000 people crowded into makeshift camps around Apia and a lack of fresh water.(Additional reporting by Baris Atayman in Samoa, Adrian Bathgate and Mantik Kusjanto in Wellington, Rob Taylor and James Grubel in Canberra and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles)(Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Nick Macfie)

3,000 may be trapped under Indonesia quake rubble OCT 2,09

PADANG, Indonesia – Indonesia's Health Ministry says nearly 3,000 people may still be trapped under rubble after a powerful earthquake two days ago.Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman for the ministry's Disaster Management Agency, said Friday 715 people have been confirmed dead and 2,400 hospitalized.Wednesday's 7.6 undersea earthquake caused devastation across large parts of West Sumatra. The most casualties were reported in the regional capital, Padang.Kardono said more than 20,000 buildings and houses have been seriously damaged or destroyed, and nearly 3,000 people may still be trapped in Padang and six other districts.Search and rescue teams were trying to find survivors, and a foreign aid effort flew in tents, water, medicine, food and hundreds of emergency workers.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PADANG, Indonesia (AP) — Rescuers pulled a teenager alive from her collapsed college 40 hours after a powerful earthquake devastated western Indonesia, while cries for help Friday from beneath a flattened hotel spurred the frantic search for more survivors.Two days after Wednesday's 7.6-magnitude quake that toppled thousands of buildings on Sumatra island, stricken residents in a district north of the hard-hit city of Padang, had yet to receive help. Most structures there had been leveled, and locals were using shovels and their bare hands to clear landslides and dig out bodies.The official death toll stood at 715, the Health Ministry's crisis center chief Rustam Pakaya told The Associated Press. The U.N.'s humanitarian chief in New York, John Holmes, said figures it had received suggested at least 1,100 people had died.Rustam said more than 2,400 people were injured, and thousands missing based on reports from relatives, though he could not give a firm number on the missing.

Against a grim backdrop of grief and destruction, rescuers found a reason to cheer: Ratna Kurniasari Virgo, 19, an English major sophomore, was found alive under the rubble of her college in Padang, the Foreign Language School of Prayoga. She was pulled out Friday morning, conscious, 40 hours after the quake hit at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday.With excited shouts and giving words of encouragement to each other, rescuers pulled Virgo hands-first from a hole drilled in the debris. Her olive colored T-shirt almost spotless, Virgo was laid on a stretcher before being taken to hospital.She is fine, conscious and does not have any life-threatening injuries, said Nining Rosanti, a nurse, at the hospital.Elsewhere in the city, at the site of the former Ambacang Hotel where as many as 100 were feared trapped, rescue workers detected signs of life under a hill of tangled steel, concrete slabs and broken bricks of the three-story structure, said Gagah Prakosa, a spokesman of the rescue team.We heard some voices of people under the rubble, but as you can see the damage is making it very difficult to extricate them,Prakosa said, as a backhoe cleared the debris noisily.The voices were heard 44 hours after the disaster, giving hope that many lives could still be saved.But as the first foreign relief teams made their way to the disaster scene, Indonesian officials said a lack of heavy digging equipment was hampering the search.Heavy equipment and rescuers are our priority, said spokesman Priyadi Kardono of the national disaster management agency.The damage from the undersea quake was believed most extensive around Padang, a coastal town of 900,000 people and the capital of heavily populated West Sumatra province.

But about 50 miles (80 kilometers) to the north, in the rural, hilly district of Pariaman, which is home to about 370,000 people, an AP reporter saw virtually no structures remained standing. The region was largely cut off and had received no outside help, leaving many to fend for themselves. Locals were using shovels and their bare hands to clear roads of landslides and dig out bodies.Officials said more than 10,000 homes and buildings had been destroyed there. It was unclear how many died.At a makeshift center for the homeless, dozens sheltered from the burning sun under a 15-by-30 foot (5-by-10 meter) canopy donated by a local business.It's too crowded here at night. We need more space and we need more shelter,said resident Ahmad Razali.I'm worried about looters. They are out there and the police are too busy to do anything. We haven't gotten any help from the government yet.Medical teams, search dogs, backhoes and emergency supplies, some of it given by other countries, were flown into Sumatra on Friday after Indonesia issued an appeal for international help.Please be patient,Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told the crowd of people whose relatives are missing, assuring them that the government was doing everything in its power to save lives.But death was pervasive as bodies began decomposing in the tropical heat.Paramedics laid out dozens of corpses at the Dr. M. Djamil General Hospital, Padang's biggest, which also was partly damaged in the quake. The air was filled with the wail of ambulance sirens.

Anwari, who uses only one name, burst into tears when asked who he was waiting for outside the hospital.Don't ask me about my daughter ... She is still missing, Anwari said, between sobs. Please don't ask me ... it reminds me of her.He was too distraught to say anything more.With communications and power supplies still down in many areas, fuel was being rationed to focus on locating the missing.Twenty-eight tons of supplies, including water, medicine and basic food provisions, were flown into regional airports to be distributed to the needy. Aid workers handed tents to some of the tens of thousands of people made homeless, disaster management spokesman Kardono said.Russia sent two planeloads of supplies, along with doctors and nurses to treat the seriously injured.Also donating millions of dollars in aid and financial assistance were governments and charities of Australia, Britain, China, Germany, Japan, the European Union, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Denmark and the United States, Indonesian officials said.President Barack Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, pledged to support earthquake recovery efforts there, as well as provide assistance to the South Pacific countries of Samoa and American Samoa, which were hit by a deadly tsunami Tuesday. The United States pledged $3.3 million in immediate assistance to Indonesia.Indonesia sits on a major geological fault zone and experiences dozens of quakes every year. Wednesday's quake originated on the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.It was the deadliest since May 2006, when more than 3,000 people died in the city of Yogyakarta.Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said the government has allocated $25 million for a two-month emergency response. She said the earthquake will seriously affect Indonesia's economic growth, because West Sumatra is a main producer of crude palm oil.Associated Press writers Ali Kotarumalos and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta and Eric Talmadge in Pariaman contributed to this report.

Military searches for bodies, brings aid to Samoas By ROD McGUIRK and AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press Writers – OCT 2,09

LALOMANU, Samoa – Some frightened Samoans who fled to the hills as a tsunami tore through their seaside villages vowed never to return to the coastline, while aid workers delivered water and medicine amid the growing stench of decay.Grieving survivors began to bury their loved ones. Others gathered under a traditional meeting house to hear a government minister discuss plans for a mass funeral and burial next week.The death toll from Tuesday's earthquake and tsunami rose to 169 Thursday as searchers found more bodies in Samoa, where 129 were confirmed dead, police commissioner Lilo Maiava told The Associated Press. Another 31 were killed in the U.S. territory of American Samoa and nine in Tonga.Maiava said drowning appeared to be the main cause of death, and some bodies were still being plucked from the sea. Police dug others from sand, mud and debris. Maiava said the search for bodies could continue for another three weeks.A refrigerated freight container was used as a temporary morgue for the scores of bodies at a Samoan hospital.The United States, Australia and New Zealand sent in supplies and troops, including a U.S. Navy frigate carrying two helicopters for search-and-rescue efforts. The Hawaii Air National Guard and U.S. Air Force flew three cargo planes to American Samoa carrying 100 Navy and Army guard personnel and reservists.Many residents who raced up hillsides as the tsunami closed in remained too scared to return to their villages. More headed to the hills Wednesday night after an aftershock shook the region.

It's a scary feeling, and a lot of them said they are not coming to the coastal area,Red Cross health coordinator Goretti Wulf said near the flattened village of Lalomanu on the devastated south coast of Samoa's main island, Upolu.The lesson they learned has made them stay away.Workers at Lalomanu's makeshift emergency supply base began carting water, food, tarps and clothes to 3,000 people in the hills.Wulf said drinking water was the most pressing problem. It is the end of Samoa's dry season, when rain is scarce, and the water pipes that supply the villages were destroyed.Military vehicles brought food, water and medicine and medical teams gave tetanus shots and antibiotics to survivors with infected wounds.Many survivors wore face masks to reduce the growing stench of rot.Samoan government minister Fiana Naomi asked around 400 grieving relatives for permission to hold a mass funeral next Tuesday. She said the government would provide free coffins for the 103 bodies in the morgue.

She said other bodies had already been buried due to advanced decomposition.

One family in Lalomanu held a burial Thursday, placing seven relatives in a single, hastily dug grave. One body had been retrieved from the ocean only hours earlier. They were buried next to the fresh graves of the family patriarch and a 7-year-old relative — other victims of the tsunami who were buried Tuesday.With 13 relatives dead, the Taufua clan is among the worst affected by the disaster.I'm not sure the word shock fully describes our sense of loss,relative Ben Taufua said.Nothing makes sense at all. ... The beach where all of this happened, all those lives were lost, it was paradise on Earth.The Samoas, which lie about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, have breathtaking scenery. Majestic beaches give way to volcano-carved mountainsides and tropical forests are dotted with taro and coconut farms.Before the disaster struck, the majority of the population in American Samoa lived below the poverty line. Tourism, along with tuna canneries and coconut plantations, represent the bulk of economic activity.New Zealanders Joseph Bursin and Nicky Fryar said they scrambled to reach high ground as the tsunami surged toward their beachfront vacation resort in Samoa. Their sandals were slipping off as they sprinted up a rock-covered hill and climbed over a lagoon full of mud.They remember the noise — the roar of the water, the clanging of metal roofing smashing against cars, the sound of buildings collapsing.We had about 15 or 20 seconds before the water came in underneath us,Bursin said.There were people behind us who didn't make it and were taken by the water.In nearby Tonga, National Disaster Management Office deputy director Alfred Soakai said 90 percent of the buildings on the northern island of Niuas were washed away, with the local hospital destroyed.Villagers in Niuas on Thursday received their first relief supplies of food, water, clothing, tarps and some bedding. Four seriously injured villagers were flown to a hospital in the capital, Nuku'alofa.McGuirk reported from Lalomanu, McAvoy from Pago Pago, American Samoa. Also contributing were Associated Press writers Fili Sagapolutele in Pago Pago, Ray Lilley in Wellington, New Zealand; Jaymes Song, Mark Niesse, Herbert A. Sample in Honolulu, and Sarah Skidmore in Portland, Oregon.

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.

AND PEOPLE HAVE THEIR HEADS IN THE SAND AND SAY THE BIBLE IS A MYTH AND JESUS IS NOT GOD.WELL THESE HEADLINES TODAY SAY KING JESUS IS GOD AND KNOWER OF ALL THINGS.PROPHECIES ARE COMING TO PASS SO FAST I CAN NOT EVEN KEEP UP WITH EVERYTHING.OH AND THE PROPHECIES ARE COMING TO PASS LITERALLY,NOT SPIRITUALLY OR ALLIGORICALLY.

Feds lift ban on Jesus on Capitol Christmas tree
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=111655

Super typhoon bears down on flood-ravaged Philippines By Rosemarie Francisco – OCT 2,09

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines declared a nationwide state of calamity on Friday as a super typhoon bore down a week after flash floods killed nearly 300 people in and around Manila.Typhoon Parma, about 150 km (100 miles) east of Luzon, was gaining strength as it churned west-northwest toward the mainland, bringing heavy rain.It was expected to make landfall in or near the northeastern province of Isabela on Saturday. The area is mountainous and not heavily populated, but Parma was likely to lash Luzon with rain over the next two days, making life worse in flood-hit regions.

We're concerned about the effects of more rain on the relief work in flooded areas because the water level could rise again,Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said in a briefing aired live on national television.The Asia-Pacific region has been hit by a series of natural disasters in recent days, including Typhoon Ketsana which killed more than 400 in the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.Tens of thousands were also displaced in southern Laos and flash floods were reported in northern Thailand.Two powerful earthquakes rocked the Indonesian island of Sumatra, with the death toll likely to be in the thousands, and a tsunami battered American and Western Samoa, killing nearly 150.In Taiwan, authorities identified 12 villages for mandatory evacuation ahead of Parma and another storm in the Pacific, Typhoon Melor.The Taiwan government came in for heavy criticism after a deadly typhoon in August killed as many as 770 people.In the Philippines, harsh criticism of the slow response to last week's floods could affect the chances of Teodoro in next May's presidential election, where he seeks to replace President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Teodoro, also the head of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, has placed the military and police on alert and ordered civilian agencies to stockpile food, water, medicine, fuel and other relief supplies.Arroyo declared a state of calamity across the country, which will allow local governments access to emergency funds for relief work.She also ordered provincial governments to evacuate people living in low-lying areas in the path of Parma, by force if necessary.Airlines also canceled about 26 domestic flights to four destinations in typhoon-affected areas in the central Philippines from 1 p.m. (0500 GMT) on Friday, airport authorities said.The weather bureau said Parma, with gusts of up to 230 kph (143 mph) at the center, will be the strongest typhoon to hit the country since 2006.It's still very much possible that we will raise signal number 4 as it closes in on northern Luzon,Prisco Nilo, head of the weather bureau, told reporters.At signal number 4, residential and commercial buildings may be severely damaged, large trees uprooted, and power and communication lines may be cut.Last week's storm, Ketsana, left hundreds of thousands homeless in and around Manila and areas around a lake near the capital remain submerged under 2-3meter floodwaters. It also damaged or destroyed more than $108 million in crops, infrastructure and property.The Philippines is hit by frequent typhoons in the summer which often continue on their track to hit Vietnam, China and Taiwan before weakening over land.(Additional reporting by Ho Binh Minh in Hanoi, Ralph Jennings in Taipei, Martin Petty in Bangkok and Manny Mogato)(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Jerry Norton)

Tens of thousands in Philippines flee new typhoon By TERESA CEROJANO, Associated Press Writer – OCT 2,09

MANILA, Philippines – Tens of thousands of villagers fled the likely path of a powerful typhoon bearing down Friday on the Philippines, as the government braced for the possibility of a second disaster just days after a storm killed more than 420in four Southeast Asian countries.Heavy rain drenched mountainous coastal regions in the northeast as Typhoon Parma tracked ominously toward the coast, dropping heavy rain on areas still saturated from the worst flooding in 40 years.Parma was forecast to hit the east coast Saturday, packing sustained winds of up to 120 mph (195 kph) and gusts up to 140 mph (230 kph). Officials fear it may develop into a super-typhoon, the government's weather bureau said.President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a nationwide state of calamity — freeing up funds for emergency relief — and ordered six provincial governments to evacuate residents from flood- and landslide-prone areas in Parma's path.The earlier storm, Ketsana, wrought a trail of destruction across Southeast Asia, killing at least 422 including 293 in the Philippines, 99 in Vietnam, 14 in Cambodia and 16 in Laos.In the Philippines, National Disaster Coordinating Council chief Gilbert Teodoro said children can be evacuated from Parma's path by force, but adults will be given information to make their own decision.There is some resistance because they don't want to leave their homes behind for fear of looting,Melchito Castro, the disaster response chief in one threatened district, the Cagayan Valley, told The Associated Press.If they can't be persuaded, we will be forced to get all the children and minors.In Albay province alone, almost 50,000 people were evacuated Thursday and Friday with the help of the police and military trucks, said Cedric Daep, a top provincial disaster official.

The Philippines is hit by as many as 20 major storms a year and is well practiced at battening down. Typhoons in the region are most common and usually most powerful from August to November.Laundry worker Mely Malate fled with her husband and six children to an evacuation center in Albay, spurred by memories of a storm three years ago.During the last typhoon, we were trapped inside the house by the flood waters and we had to climb to the roof,she said.We are scared whenever there is a storm. When we left this morning, the river was already higher than normal.

Government chief weather forecaster Nathaniel Cruz said Parma appears to be carrying less rain but stronger winds than Ketsana, meaning the flood risk may be lower.But a vast swath of the northern Philippines, including the capital of Manila, is already saturated from Ketsana, and any more rain poses danger.In the capital, some store shelves were emptied of bottled water and packaged food as people hunkered down. Prayers asking that the country be spared another disaster were broadcast on government-run trains.Lake Laguna on the edge of the capital rose by more than 3.3 feet (one meter) as Ketsana passed and was in danger of spilling over into districts near Manila housing some 100,000 people, said Ed Manda, general manager of the Laguna Lake Development Authority.At a briefing Friday evening, weather bureau administrator Frisco Nilo said a high-pressure system near Hong Kong had caused Parma to slow slightly and might cause it to change direction, though it was still likely to hit the main northern Philippine island of Luzon.The typhoon comes as the Asia region struggles to recover from two major earthquakes, one in the South Pacific that caused a deadly tsunami, and another in Indonesia.Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila, Minh Van Tran in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Ambika Ahuja in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Flash floods kill 76 in southern India: official OCT 2,09

BANGALORE, India (AFP) – Flash floods and heavy rains sweeping southern India have killed at least 76 people over the past 72 hours, officials said on Friday.Sixty died in Karnataka state and 16 were killed in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, officials said.There has been incessant rainfall, R.P. Jagdish, a senior Karnataka government aide, told AFP by telephone.Army troops and air force helicopters were rescuing marooned villagers and distributing food packets and medical aid in areas cut off by flood waters.At least 25 villages are inundated and standing crops are completely destroyed,Andhra Pradesh disaster management officer Y.R.V. Sharma told AFP.

Authorities were shifting hundreds of people living in low-lying areas to school buildings and temples on higher ground.The monsoon season, which began in June, withdraws from the Indian subcontinent by the end of September.But a depression in the Bay of Bengal and heavy cloud in the Arabian Sea have led to intense rains in the southern states, weather officials said.

River of mud floods Sicilian city, at least 6 dead OCT 2,09

ROME – A river of mud unleashed by heavy rains flooded parts of the Sicilian city of Messina, leaving at least six people dead and several missing, Italian officials said Friday.The mudslides swept away cars and caused several buildings to collapse during an overnight rain storm, according to civil protection officials on the island's east coast.Rescuers were using dogs to search for the missing in hard-hit suburbs, though efforts were hampered by the fact that many roads and railways have been cut off by the mud flows, Mayor Giuseppe Buzzanca told Italy's Sky TV. Some isolated areas were reachable only by foot.Buzzanca said there were 20 people missing, while Fortunato Romano, the city's civil protection head, told Sky later Friday that five or six were still being sought.Sky broadcast images of streets clogged with mud and debris reaching as high as the door handles of cars and homes.

At least 100 people were forced to flee their homes, and more than a dozen were injured. Many were transported to hospitals by sea.Among the six killed was a man who was submerged and suffocated in the mud on the main piazza of a southern Messina suburb, the ANSA news agency said. Another man drowned in the flooded cellar of his country home, it said.

Tropical Storm Olaf moving north in the Pacific OCT 2,09

MIAMI – Tropical Storm Olaf is moving north in the Pacific off Mexico's coast.Olaf's maximum sustained winds are near 45 mph (75 kph). The storm is expected to begin gradually weakening.The tropical storm is centered about 490 miles (785 kilometers) west of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula and moving north near 12 mph (19 kph).

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU American training will be utilized to kill Jews
Muslim gunmen issue dire warning during sit-down interview with WND October 02, 2009
1:00 am Eastern By Aaron Klein 2009 WorldNetDaily

NORTHERN WEST BANK – Training received at current American-run courses for Palestinian militia men will likely be utilized in the not too distant future to kill Israelis, U.S.-trained Palestinian gunmen told WND in an exclusive, in-person interview this week. WND met seven members of the Palestinian Authority security forces who recently received training at U.S.-run bases as part of a stated effort to reform the PA's militias. All seven of the interview subjects formerly were leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group; some are suspected of still being involved with Brigades activities. They were all granted amnesty by Israel as part of a gesture to bolster PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization against Hamas.The meeting took place at a restaurant in a northern West Bank city that had been known as one of several major strongholds of the Brigades, the declared military wing of Fatah responsible for scores of suicide bombings and deadly shootings against Israeli civilians.The pardoned gunmen agreed to speak on condition their names be withheld and that WND does not print the name of the city in which the meeting took place, citing concerns over their current jobs in the PA's U.S.-backed security forces.

Some of the men present are notorious Brigades members.

Asked immediately why they agreed to be interviewed, one former Brigades leader replied,Because we know people call us Dayton's poodles, and we want everyone to know that in the next intifada we will be the leaders.All the trainings we received from Dayton and company will not affect our loyalty to our people and the resistance,said the former Brigades leader.

The others present concurred.

The gunman was referring to Keith Dayton, the U.S. security coordinator to the Palestinian territories who has been overseeing the training of Palestinian militias.Since the late 1990s, the U.S. has run training bases for PA militias. The U.S. also has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid and weapons to build up the PA militias.The past two years, the U.S. stepped up its efforts at training the PA, running more advanced courses guided by Dayton, who in 2007 initiated an advanced program for Palestinian police that trains 500 to 600 cadets at a time at the American bases.The U.S. currently operates training bases for the PA police and other militias, such as Force 17 and the Preventative Security Services in the West Bank city of Jericho and also at U.S.-operated bases in the Jordanian village of Giftlik.Historically, many members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist organization have served openly in the various PA militias, including in top positions. Starting in 2007, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert granted pardons for hundreds of Brigades members who were then folded into the PA's various militias full-time.WND reported two weeks ago Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has quietly continued the controversial practice of granting amnesty to Brigades terrorists despite the dismal track record under Olmert, when many of the pardoned Brigades members continued their involvement in anti-Israel terrorism after they received amnesty.

Speaking to WND, the Palestinian militia members were open about using their U.S.-training against Israel.We want a Palestinian state either through negotiations or through resistance,said one of the seven gunmen interviewed.The minute we see the negotiations with Israel are in vain, we will lead the confrontation just like we led it in the last intifada.Indeed, in that intifada, started after the Palestinians rejected an offer of a state in the summer of 2000, Fatah was responsible for far more terrorism than any other Palestinian group.Fatah was the leader of the revolution and will be the leader of any struggle against the occupation,another Fatah interview subject told WND.We cannot accept Dayton like we are garbage,he continued. No, we are Palestinian patriots. What we received from Dayton, we will use when the day comes for a confrontation.

Even Dayton reportedly recently implied his training may be used against Israel.

Speaking at a May symposium organized by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Nation magazine quoted Dayton warning that if a Palestinian state is not created within two years, his Palestinian troops might not continue taking orders.

With big expectations, come big risks,said Dayton.There is perhaps a two-year shelf life on being told that you're creating a state, when you're not.Robert Dreyfuss, the Nation blogger who was present for the speech, wrote,To my ears, at least, his subtle warning is that if concrete progress isn't made toward a Palestinian state, the very troops Dayton is assembling could rebel.Terrorist: U.S. training helped us kill Jews.Already, basic U.S. training provided during the 1990s helped kill Israelis, according to a Fatah militant interviewed by WND in 2007. Current U.S. training is far more advanced, and, if turned against Israel, may result in higher casualties.Abu Yousuf, a senior officer of Abbas' Force 17 Presidential Guard unit in Ramallah, described to WND in 2007 how his U.S. training helped him kill Israelis.I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than 1,000 Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these [American] trainings,said Yousuf.

Yousuf received U.S. training in Jericho in 1999 as a member of the Preventative Security Services. He is a Brigades chief in Ramallah, where he is accused of participating in anti-Israel terrorism, including recent shootings, attacks against Israeli forces operating in the city and a shooting attack in northern Samaria in December 2000 that killed Benyamin Kahane, leader of the ultranationalist Kahane Chai organization.After the Kahane murder, Yousuf was extended refuge by Yasser Arafat to live in the late PLO leader's Ramallah compound, widely known as the Muqata. Yousuf still lives in the compound.Olmert, while in office last year, granted Yousuf amnesty.Speaking during a sit-down exclusive interview for the book Schmoozing with Terrorists,Yousuf said his American training sessions were instrumental in killing Jews:All the methods and techniques that we studied in these trainings, we applied them against the Israelis,he said.We sniped at Israeli settlers and soldiers. We broke into settlements and Israeli army bases and posts. We collected information on the movements of soldiers and settlers. We collected information about the best timing to infiltrate our bombers inside Israel. We used weapons and we produced explosives, and of course the trainings we received from the Americans and the Europeans were a great help to the resistance.

Yousuf described his U.S.-provided training.I myself received American trainings in Jericho. Together with my Preventative comrades, I received trainings in intelligence methods and military trainings,he said.In the intelligence part, we learned collection of information regarding suspected persons, how to follow suspected guys, how to infiltrate organizations and penetrate cells of groups that we were working on and how to prevent attacks and to steal in places.On the military level, we received trainings on the use of weapons, all kind of weapons and explosives,Yousuf said.We received sniping trainings, work of special units especially as part of what they call the fight against terror. We learned how to put siege, how to break into places where our enemies closed themselves in, how to oppress protest movements, demonstrations and other activities of opposition.We also learned to discover agents that Israel tried to plant in our cells,he said.Yousuf stressed he isn't talking about U.S. training in order to irritate the Americans or the Israelis and not in order to create provocations.I'm just telling you the truth, he said.We applied against Israel all that we learned from the Americans.

MEDIA MATTERS Palin co-author probed, Obama's ignored-News outlets silent about fresh evidence terrorist Ayers wrote Dreams October 02, 2009 1:00 am Eastern
2009 WorldNetDaily

Politico's Ben Smith found it newsworthy that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin chose a partisan evangelical Christian to co-author her upcoming instant best-seller, but somehow he and the mainstream media have decided that serious evidence suggesting an unrepentant Marxist terrorist had a primary role in President Obama's highly acclaimed literary memoir is of no interest.Not a single mainstream reviewer or political editor has so much as mentioned the controversy over authorship of Dreams from My Father that was resurrected last week when a major new book reported Obama sought the literary assistance of William Ayers, founder of the radical Weather Underground group, points out WND columnist Jack Cashill.Cashill has written more than two dozen columns since June 2008, summarized here, making the case that Ayers –dismissed by Obama during the campaign as just a guy who lives in my neighborhood – shaped and refined Dreams with his exceptional writing skill and radical ideas.

Andersen, in Barack and Michelle: Portrait of a Marriage,writes that Obama was faced with a deadline with the Time Books division of Random House to submit his manuscript after already having canceled a contract with Simon & Schuster. Confronted with the threat of a second failure, his wife, Michelle, suggested he seek the help of his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers.Get Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage from WND's Superstore.Obama's 1995 book won the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album and drew praise from Time magazine, which called it the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.Cashill observes, in a column yesterday, that scores of major media organs have reviewed Andersen's book, including CBS News, USA Today, the Chicago Sun Times, the Seattle Times, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Chicago Tribune and the Telegraph of London. Yet none have mentioned the author's detailed narrative about Ayers collaboration with Obama.In a new column today, Cashill comment's on Smith's story yesterday in Politico about Palin's co-author, Lynn Vincent, a former editor for the evangelical World magazine.

Smith writes that Palin's most consequential choice since leaving the Alaska governor's mansion may be her co-author – a staunch conservative, devoted evangelical Christian, and intensely partisan Republican from far, far outside the Beltway.Vincent, Smith notes early in his piece, was co-writer of a memoir by controversial Gen. William Boykin and co-authored Donkey Cons,a book that describes the Democratic Party since its inception as pro-gangster and the party of treason and subversion.Cashill comments: It seems to me that having a collaborator who is a self-professed communist and unrepentant bomb thrower is more newsworthy than having a collaborator who is a Christian conservative with no known rap sheet.Cashill said it also struck him as newsworthy that Andersen had caught Obama in two lies – that he had little knowledge of Ayers and had written his memoirs by himself.I've written two books,Obama told a crowd of teachers in Virginia during the campaign last year. I actually wrote them myself.Cashill concludes,Had the truth about Dreams been shared widely during the 2008 campaign, Obama would never have been nominated, let alone elected.Andersen shouldn't be ignored, Cashill argues, pointing out the author has written 28 books, including best-sellers on the Clintons, Princess Diana and Caroline Kennedy.A former People Magazine senior editor, Andersen writes well, Cashill adds,checks his facts thoroughly, and appeals to the soft left center of the American media.Andersen clearly states the Obamas were convinced of Ayers's proven abilities as a writer,and Barack particularly liked the novelistic style of To Teach,a 1993 book by Ayers.

Obama hoped to use a comparable style for his own family history, but although he had taped interviews with many of his relatives, he could not find it in himself to write the book, Andersen reports.Andersen details Obama's blown advances, his futile trip to Bali to find an undisturbed place to write and the growing financial and emotional pressure to finish a memoir he had started four years earlier.Andersen says, finally, Obama's oral histories, along with his partial manuscript and a trunkload of notes were given to Ayers.Adds Andersen, Thanks to help from veteran writer Ayers, Barack would be able to submit a manuscript to his editors at Times Book.Cashill points out that revelation should be troubling to a book reviewer or editor, because Obama insisted throughout the 2008 campaign that he barely knew Ayers.

Obama was lying,Cashill states bluntly.More troubling,he continues,is that Obama allowed Ayers to crawl around inside his brain and define to the world who Obama is. Whatever Ayers was, he remains a small c communist and a sworn enemy of the marauding monster that is America.Cashill calls Dreams a politically calculated book,noting Obama nowhere acknowledges Ayers' help. In contrast, another Hyde Park neighbor, Palestinian radical Rashid Khalidi, thanks Ayers in the first sentence of the acknowledgements in his 2004 book Resurrecting Empire.Khalidi had no plans to run for office,Cashill points out.Cashill also points to textual evidence that strongly suggests Ayers was involved, though to a lesser degree, in Obama's 2006 book Audacity of Hope.Cashill observes that keeping the potentially damning revelation of Ayers collaboration secret gives Ayers significant leverage in his relationship with Obama.

Psychic punch

For Obama's literary acolytes,Cashill writes,which seem to include every book reviewer in the English speaking world, Andersen's account throws one more devastating psychic punch: Obama is not the literary wunderkind he is cracked up to be.Christopher Buckley, in one of his last columns for National Review, wrote, for example I've read Obama's books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine.Nobel prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison said she was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to reflect, to learn and turn a good phrase.I was very impressed. This was not a normal political biography,she said.Noted British novelist Jonathan Raban wrote: Every sentence has its own graceful cadence! He could as easily be a novelist as a politician! Based on Dreams,Raban calls Obama the best writer to occupy the White House since Lincoln.

Cashill says that if reviewers of Anderson's book wanted to assess the validity of the author's sources, they could have checked Cashill's work.In an interview on the Mancow talk-radio show Monday, Cashill notes, Andersen confirmed that he had two sources within Hyde Park.I would not be shocked if these sources were Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn,Cashill says.

BORN IN THE USA? Obama eligibility to see its day in court? Pivotal hearing decides whether birther case will be trashed, heard on merits October 02, 2009 1:00 am Eastern By Chelsea Schilling 2009 WorldNetDaily

A hearing Monday is set to determine whether the U.S. Justice Department will get its motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the constitutional eligibility of Barack Obama to hold the office of president or whether the case will move forward to be heard on its merits.California judge David Carter scheduled a tentative trial date for the case for Jan. 26, 2010. But, to meet that trial date, the case must survive an Oct. 5 hearing on the Department of Justice motion to dismiss.The California lawsuit is brought by several political candidates and party officials, including former U.S. ambassador Alan Keyes and Wiley Drake and Markham Robinson of the American Independent Party.They are suing Obama alleging that he was not and is not eligible to be president under the U.S. Constitution's demand for a natural born citizen in the Oval Office. Forty-six of the plaintiffs are represented by Orly Taitz, who has worked on a multitude of lawsuits over Obama's eligibility, and two – Wiley Drake and Markham Robinson – are represented by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation.Kreep told WND one of three things will happen Monday: 1) the judge will make no decision and choose to issue a decision later, 2) the judge could grant the Department of Justice's motion and dismiss the case, or 3) all or part of the case will move forward.Kreep said he doesn't believe Carter will decide to issue a decision later.I think he's ready to roll,he said.As for option 2, Kreep said the case will not be finished if the judge grants the DOJ's motion to dismiss.

If he does that, I know that I will file an appeal on behalf of my clients,he said. It's up to Dr. Taitz what she does.Taitz declined to comment on the Oct. 5 hearing In option 3, part of the case could be thrown out. If all or part of the case moves forward, Kreep said, I would be surprised if the DOJ didn't immediately file an appeal. The judge may knock out part of the case and we go forward and the DOJ appeals.He said if the case moves forward, the parties will begin discussing discovery, which is the right to see the records in contention.However, Kreep said, I do not believe that the Department of Justice will allow any discovery to go forward. They are going to do anything they can to block any discovery if we survive the motion. They could take up an appeal, they can file another motion, but they will do everything they can to block discovery.Justice Department lawyers representing Obama have claimed that the courts have no jurisdiction over any parts of the question.According to Sept. 25 court documents the DOJ filed in response to Kreep's opposition to dismissal, the DOJ states,The arguments made by these plaintiffs, in large measure, completely ignore the fact that Barack Obama is the president of the United States and seek to treat him as simply a candidate for office. Try as they might, plaintiffs cannot conceal the fact that what they are really seeking in this case is nothing less than a determination by this United States District Court that President Obama should be removed from office. The preposterous nature of this assertion is readily apparent. No single United States District Court has the power to try the question of whether a sitting president of the United States should be allowed to remain in office.

Kreep has requested immediate access to Obama's records such as his original long-form birth certificate and his Occidental College records. The plaintiffs' suspicion is that those records would, in fact, undermine the president's statements that he is a natural born citizen, which could disqualify him. For example, an original birth certificate could indicate that it was a delayed filing, which could open the door for a birth location outside the United States.Likewise, the Occidental College records could be significant if Obama attended on a program for foreign students, or represented himself as a foreign student at the time.The DOJ also filed a separate response to Taitz' opposition to dismissal on Sept. 25, stating,Much of the opposition filed by these plaintiffs is a disjointed polemic, completely devoid of citation to any case or statutory authority. Defendants will not waste the court's time, or that of undersigned counsel by seeking to respond to the many irrelevant statements and references made therein.In that filing, the DOJ also contends that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction and the plaintiffs lack standing.Both Taitz and Kreep have expressed significant differences of opinion in how the case should be handled. Should the lawsuit proceed, it will be the first time the merits of the dispute have been heard in open court.As for Monday, Kreep told WND,It's all in God's hands.WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a natural born citizen.The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums possibly exceeding $1 million to avoid releasing an original long-form state birth certificate that would put to rest the questions.WND also has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records and his adoption records.Because of the dearth of information about Obama's eligibility, WND founder Joseph Farah has launched a campaign to raise contributions to post billboards asking a simple question: Where's the birth certificate? Where's The Birth Certificate? billboard at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Las Vegas Strip.The campaign followed a petition that has collected more than 450,000 signatures demanding proof of his eligibility, the availability of yard signs raising the question and the production of permanent, detachable magnetic bumper stickers asking the question.

The certification of live birth posted online and widely touted as Obama's birth certificate does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same short-form document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true long-form birth certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release for public or press scrutiny.Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a natural born citizen, no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama's claim to a Hawaiian birth.

Huge threat to power grid-Homeland Security official admits vulnerability
October 02, 2009 1:00 am Eastern 2009 WorldNetDaily

2003 blackout in New York

WASHINGTON – Department of Homeland Security official John Verrico admitted that a Chinese researcher had detailed precisely how vulnerable the U.S. electric grid is to a cyber-terrorist attack.The disclosure reveals the government's familiarity with a report released more than six months ago, in which Jian-Wei Wang used publicly available data to explain exactly how the United States' West Coast grid was connected and how the computers that control the grid could be easily sabotaged.

Wang and his colleagues at the Dalian University of Technology in China demonstrated how an attack on even the most unimportant and least used networks within the power grid could cause what engineers refer to as a cascading failure, or a domino effect, in which one grid after another becomes overloaded and shuts down.Most Americans can recall an event fitting this description when in the summer of 2003, a surge at one plant in Ohio caused just such a cascading failure and led to complete blackouts in New York City, on much of the East Coast and even in the Midwest. More than 45 million people were left without electricity, and telephone and even water services were disrupted. In all, the outage caused more than $10 billion in losses.

Official reports immediately denied any possibility of terrorism, but a Wall Street Journal report in April of 2009 revealed that hackers from China and Russia have twice breached the national security grid and may have left software programs behind that could be used to remotely crash the system. The same type of hackers successfully compromised a water treatment facility in Australia and caused 200,000 gallons of sewage to flood a city.Some experts believe the 2003 blackout was in fact caused by a hacker – a software bug within an operating system responsible for managing alarm systems led operators to believe systems were functioning normally when, in fact, they were on the verge of collapse. The worm inside the computer system at just one facility contributed to the scale of the catastrophe. The Obama administration claims the problem is being solved with $200 million of funding, but the reality is that much of the grid uses 1940s equipment and that a few terrorists with a little explosive material – like the kind used at many construction sites around the country – could attack the grid in dozens of vulnerable places at once.

Threats to the grid are not limited only to terrorist attacks or hackers. As Newt Gingrich pointed out in a recent speech, a nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere above a U.S. city could act as an Electromagnetic Pulse device, destroying the electrical circuitry that powers every computer in the city. His claims are based on the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack from April 2008.Natural disasters can also wreak havoc on our relatively fragile infrastructure, as was the case in New Orleans after Katrina, after the blizzard of 2006 that dumped 26 inches on New York City, and after floods in north Georgia in September of 2009.Citizens who sit back and expect the government to help them may be shocked to find that getting the power turned back on is not always easy and is rarely a priority for officials. In some cases it takes weeks before all the power facilities are back on line and lines are connected.In response to the growing threat, many consumers are turning to alternatives, such as the one offered by Solutions from Science, an Illinois-based company that sells a solar-powered generator. Bill Heid, the chief executive officer of the company, explained how the solar power generator works.The solar powered generator harnesses free energy from the sun, stores it and then delivers it cleanly and quietly whenever you need it,explains Heid.Unlike traditional gasoline powered generators, the solar powered generator uses entirely free energy from the sun, and emits no fumes and makes no noise.If you've ever used a gas-powered generator, you know how loud they are and how much they smell,he said.That's hardly a practical solution in a residential situation.

The solar-powered generator raises another concern of many survivalists whose plans rely on traditional gas or diesel powered generators; the long-term availability of those fuels in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster. If the electric grid is down for any reason, the pumps at gas stations won't work and if there is any serious disruption to the electric grid, the entire just in time inventory system will fail altogether.Consumers who have worked hard to prepare by counting on their traditional generators may find themselves with an expensive piece of equipment that does nothing but take up room.Heid explains, A gas powered generator may run out of fuel in as little as a few hours. If you've planned ahead maybe you've stored extra fuel, and if you've taken precautions to prevent it from spoiling, maybe that will buy you a few extra days, but then what? What will your family do when there is no more gasoline? Many observers have pointed out that the problems facing the U.S. power grid are likely to remain with us for generations. The aging infrastructure, the left's opposition to nuclear power, a growing population and increased electric consumption are driving demand, while fossil fuel prices inch upwards year after year.In the book,Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security,author Amory Lovins makes the case that the U.S. energy infrastructure is even more susceptible to disruption, by accident or through malice than even imported oil.It is this growing danger of blackouts that has driven many consumers to prepare for the worst, while praying that day never comes. Other consumers cite a desire for peace of mind, recognizing that without electricity, even the best-prepared family will suffer many hardships that could be avoided.The rather minor glitch that led to the blackout in the northeast in 2003 disrupted water service, communication, transportation and even contributed to the deaths of more than a dozen people. Some consumers were without power for days. A few citizens remained calm and confident in their homes, despite the chaos outside, because of their preparations.As Heid says,Having a solar generator is like having a secret power plant hidden in your home…with clean, quiet, permanent electrical power at your fingertips.

Washington doesn't get it: Iran just wants the bomb Thursday, 01 October 2009 07:26 News from Jerusalem .Ahmadinejad believes his is a divine mission to usher in 12th Imam OR MAHDI(WELL BOY)Islam is boyish,Childish,not manish.

Over the summer, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden boldly asserted that Israel,as a sovereign nation,has the right to protect itself against a nuclearizing Iran. In law, the precise protective action that Biden had in mind is called anticipatory self-defense.Now, however, official Washington is offering Jerusalem much less audacious advice than undertaking a permissible preemption. In essence, the current and still plainly futile message is tougher sanctions.On several occasions, the international community has imposed serious sanctions against Iran. Nonetheless, uranium enrichment has only accelerated in that country. At no time, in fact, has Tehran shown even the slightest inclination to value a promised proper place in the world higher than simply getting the bomb.Once again, Washington just doesn't get it.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands, of course, that his country can rely on its Arrow anti-missile system for only a very limited measure of active defense. Israel's ballistic missile defense network can never provide the Jewish state with adequate security from a nuclear attack on its civilian population. Recently, Defense Minister Ehud Barak affirmed this essential understanding, stating explicitly three times that all preemptive options must remain on the table.No country can be expected to cooperate in its own annihilation. Leaving Iran to the manifestly unpersuasive sanctions of the United States, and/or of the United Nations, could bring Israel to the outer limits of survival. If U.S. President Barack Obama already understands this, and if he also cares about Israel's survival, he would not now be demanding that Netanyahu hew obsequiously to a discredited and banal policy of contradictory Iran options.For now, Israel's best hope would seem to lie in some prospect of internal Iranian reform, and Jerusalem should therefore do whatever it can to help along any such transformation.At the same time, it is entirely possible that the Islamic Republic of Iran will remain unchanged with respect to its basic critical stance on Israel, and that suitably enhanced forms of essential military preparedness will have to be implemented in Israel.

Here is the key issue: As long as Israel can reasonably assume that any expected Iranian leadership will remain rational, Prime Minister Netanyahu could focus on living with a nuclear Iran.Such a coexistence policy would represent a regrettable, but largely unavoidable, position, one that would need to be backed up with a selectively partial end to Israel's nuclear ambiguity (the so-called bomb in the basement), and with genuinely credible threats of Israeli nuclear reprisals for nuclear aggressions. More precisely, these deterrent threats would have to include aptly explicit references to Israel's nuclear targeting doctrine (counter-city or counter-value,never counter-force), as well as compelling evidence of both the survivability and penetration capability of Israel's deterrent nuclear forces.If, however, Israel cannot reasonably assume that all still-plausible Iranian leaderships will remain rational, Netanyahu would need to make highly informed judgments concerning the expected probability of Iranian leadership irrationality.

Where such an expectation would be low,Israel could continue to rely in part on the enhanced nuclear deterrence measures just discussed. (There would also have to be a complementary and partial reliance on ballistic missile defense, or the Arrow). But where such an expected probability would be deemed high,Israel could have no rational alternative to some form of preemption against pertinent Iranian nuclear assets or infrastructures.It follows from all this that virtually any necessary nuclear policy taken by Israel vis-a-vis Iran will offend Washington, and that Netanyahu will simply need to accept such a negative political response from Obama as the distinctly lesser evil.The writer is a professor of international law at Purdue University and was chairman of Project Daniel, a small private group that delivered a special report,Israel's Strategic Future,to former prime minister Ariel Sharon in January 2003.haaretz.

PA envoy to Geneva: We'll withdraw support for Goldstone report Friday, 02 October 2009 06:17 News from Jerusalem .The Goldstone Report

The Palestinian envoy in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraisha, told his Israeli counterpart Aharon Leshno Yaar that the Palestinian Authority (PA) plans to announce that it will be withdrawing its support for the adoption of the Goldstone Report during the UN Human Rights Council's vote on Friday.The report accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes during their conflict in Gaza in January, an allegation Israel condemns and claims is the result of bias against the Jewish state.Leshno Yaar, who spoke with the Palestinian envoy Thursday evening, said the development proves Israel's strategy to declare that the adoption of the report may hinder the peace process was correct.Following his recent meeting with US President Barack Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New York, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the adoption of the Goldstone Report by the UN would prevent Israel from taking any risks within the framework of the peace process, as the report would limit the Jewish state's ability to defend itself.Netanyahu and other Israeli ministers said adopting the report would also hurt the democratic regime's war on terror.Israel and the US have called on the PA to withdraw its support for the report.

Leshno Yaar told Ynet that Netanyahu's remarks contributed to the PA's decision, as have Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's diplomatic efforts to undermine this political report.Earlier Thursday, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon told foreign ambassadors in Israel that approving the report will render the Human Rights Council a terror rights council.Richard J. Goldstone, the South African judge who led the inquiry into Operation Cast Lead rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that the report would compromise the Middle East peace process.I think he got wrong what our report is all about. He talked about Israel's right to self-defense. That is not what the report was about,Goldstone told reporters in Washington Thursday.ynet.

Shalit to get prayer book Thursday, 01 October 2009 07:10 News from Jerusalem .Kidnapped Soldier Gilad Shalit (Photo Noam Rotem)

Sources involved in negotiations on prisoner exchange deal say videotape deal made possible when Palestinian group agreed to deliver Book of Psalms Rabbi Ovadia Yosef sent to kidnapped soldier.Further developments expected soon, but a deal is still far away,one of sources says.Hamas members have received the Book of Psalms sent to Gilad Shalit from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and promised Egyptian negotiators that they would deliver it to the kidnapped soldier, Ynet has learned from sources involved in the negotiations on a prisoner exchange deal.On Friday, Israel is slated to receive a videotape containing a sign of life from the captive, in exchange for the release of 20 Palestinian prisoners.The Psalms and prayer book were handed over to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by Interior Minister Eli Yishai about two weeks ago, during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Cairo.Mubarak gave the books to Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman and asked him to make sure that they reach the soldier.According to the sources, the trust which led to the recent moves began building up when Hamas agreed to receive the books and deliver them to Shalit. Up to now, the Palestinian group has refused to transfer anything to the captive soldier, for fear that Israel would take advantage of the situation in order to try and locate him.

The sources involved in the negotiations added that the German mediator had received the videotape from the Egyptian intelligence representative, who got it from Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal, after the latter joined a Hamas delegation from Gaza, headed by Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahahr.Despite the active and efficient German mediation, the sources stressed that the recent development would not have been possible had Mashaal not arrived in Cairo, and had he not held talks with the Egyptian intelligence chief.The first report, they said, was published by an Egyptian security source, showing that Egypt's role is greater than described by the media.According to one of the sources involved in the talks,Further development are expected soon, but the road to completing the deal is still long and many obstacles and difficulties are expected.Israeli officials said Wednesday evening that the tape slated to be handed over to Israel is one-minute long and shows the kidnapped soldier with his face to the camera. The video will also include proof that it was taken recently.

Family to watch tape in private
The news on the expected tape was received with a lot of excitement by the residents of Mitzpe Hila, where the Shalit family lives.It's clear that the family members would want to watch the tape in private,said a member of the Gilad Shalit Campaign. Despite the great public and national interest, we are talking about parents and siblings who will be receiving a sign of life from their kidnapped son for the first time in years.Ronia Harari of Mitzpe Hila expressed her hope that this is only the beginning, and that the tape points to progress being made.My children were also very excited,she said. This is the first time they realized the whole issue of the price. The fact that 20 female prisoners are being released for one tape made them understand the meaning of the full price for Gilad's release.Gilad Shalit was kidnapped into the Gaza Strip 1,194 days ago.Ahiya Raved and Roni Sofer contributed to this report.ynet.

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

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HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS FRI OCT 02,2009

09:30 AM -1.11
10:00 AM +51.61
10:30 AM -10.00
11:00 AM -22.59
11:30 AM -18.97
12:00 PM -23.65
12:30 PM -5.21
01:00 PM -18.59
01:30 PM +9.00
02:00 PM -3.70
02:30 PM +10.15
03:00 PM +3.48
03:30 PM -10.73
04:00 PM -21.61 9487.67

S&P 500 1025.21 -4.64

NASDAQ 2048.11 -9.37

GOLD 1,003.10 +2.40

OIL 69.69 -1.13

TSE 300 10,958.33 -113.43

CDNX 1244.12 -4.59

S&P/TSX/60 653.16 -8.45

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +8.35%
S&P +14.02%
Nasdaq +30.47%
TSX Advances 395,declines 1,128,unchanged 220,Volume 452,502,766.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 322,Declines 552,Unchanged 304,Volume 231,231,621.

Dow -14 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -77 points at low today.
Dow +5 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $997.70.OIL opens at $68.90 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -77 points at low today so far.
Dow +5 points at high today so far.

DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 1,119,declines 2,504,unchanged 102,New Highs 62,New Lows 34.
Volume 3,414,202,406.
NASDAQ Advances 930,declines 1,656,unchanged 110,New highs 24,New Lows 19.
Volume 1,214,570,712.
TSX Advances 442,declines 849,unchanged 225,Volume 252,086,206.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 237,Declines 422,Unchanged 262,Volume 90,018,645.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -77 points at low today.
Dow +17 points at high today.
Dow -0.23% today Volume 219,746,055.
Nasdaq -0.46% today Volume 2,311,076,993.
S&P 500 -0.45% today Volume N/A

FRIDAYS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +8.10%
S&P +13.50%
Nasdaq +29.87%
TSX Advances 594,declines 864,unchanged 244,Volume 430,517,682.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 384,Declines 464,Unchanged 345,Volume 192,886,132.

Europe's banks pass stress tests
ANDREW WILLIS Today OCT 2,09 @ 09:29 CET

EU finance ministers meeting in Gothenburg on Thursday evening (1 October) said long-awaited stress tests show that the region's biggest banks have enough capital to survive another downturn. European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet said the news was reassuring, while Swedish finance minister Anders Borg, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, declared:They are sufficiently capitalised.The 22 largest banks in the EU – representing 60 percent of the region's banking assets - have been subjected to tests in recent months by the London-based Committee of European Banking Supervisors (Cebs) to assess their strength under an adverse scenario.The test results predict that were the EU's gross domestic product to contract by 5.2 percent this year and 2.7 percent in 2010, the 22 banks would face potential losses of €400 billion over the two years. However, the financial position and expected results of banks are sufficient to maintain an adequate level of capital also under such negative circumstances,the 27 ministers said in a statement.

Importantly, say the ministers, no bank would see its Tier 1 capital ratio fall below six percent under the adverse scenario, with current economic forecasts suggesting levels will remain well above nine percent. Tier 1 capital ratio is a measure of a bank's core equity capital to its total assets, with current global banking guidelines – known as the Basel II accords – suggesting banks should maintain a minimum level of four percent.While the tests were designed to see how banks would fair under adverse economic conditions, current forecasts predict the EU will contract by roughly four percent this year, with positive growth of 0.4 percent expected for 2010.

An exercise in deception?

The nature and delivery of the EU stress test results differ considerably from those completed in the US in May.While the US results for individually named banks were released to the public – causing many to quickly raise capital levels before the publication date – in the EU no individual bank or country-by-country breakdown has been released.European representatives at last week's G20 leaders' meeting in Pittsburgh managed to stave off US calls for greater capital requirements, fearing that European banks would struggle disproportionately with the extra burden. Now they may point to these latest results as an indication that all is well, suggest analysts.This resilience of the banking system reflects the recent increase in earnings forecasts and, to a large extent, the important support currently provided by the public sector to the banking institutions,the 27 ministers said in the statement.

ECB adds pressure for early exit strategies
ANDREW WILLIS 01.10.2009 @ 17:47 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet has said economic exit strategies should start at the latest in 2011 following a meeting of the euro area's 16 finance ministers on Thursday (1 October).Its important in our view that exit strategies start when the recovery does,he told journalists in Gothenburg, Sweden, in order to convince businesses and citizens that governments will reverse the huge debt build-up currently underway.However the group's chairman, Luxembourgish Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, refused to commit to an exact date, indicating that ministers will wait for economic forecasts to be published by the European Commission on 3 November before making a decision.His views reflect a split amongst ministers. It is understood that Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal are reluctant to commit to specific start dates.Also at the meeting, European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs Joaquin Almunia said now was the time to prepare the exit strategies but agreed that implementation should wait until economic recovery takes hold.He defined recovery as: growth forecasts in line with our potential growth without the help of the stimulus measures.

Crisis takes its toll on growth

The European Commission warned ministers that euro area potential growth rates have taken a big hit over the past year, cut from around two percent prior to the crisis to around one percent for the coming decade unless structural reforms are carried out.This is patently inadequate if we are to face up to the challenges of an ageing population and if we are to deal with the challenges of employment,said Mr Juncker.
New figures released by EU's statistics office on Thursday will add to the pressure for reform. The data show unemployment for the 16-country euro area rose to 9.6 percent in August, up from 9.5 percent in July. For the EU27, unemployment in August rose to 9.1 percent, compared to 9.0 percent in July.Mr Almunia signalled that the necessary structural reforms to raise potential growth levels should include changes to the labour market in order to improve good training ... and provide the right incentives to increase the employment levels in our member states.Other reforms were needed to improve the functioning of the financial markets and to boost productivity levels, he said. Components of the latter should include a full implementation of the services directive and greater efforts in the area of research and development.

With several ministers showing little appetite to return budget deficits to within the three percent of GDP level allowed under the EU's Stability and Growth Pact in the short-term, Mr Juncker warned that future deficit cuts will have to be speeded up.Once growth returns, we all consider that budget adjustments have to go beyond the 0.5 percent of GDP on which we agreed earlier,he said, a sign that major public spending cuts and tax hikes are likely to await EU citizens.

Currency rates

The finance ministers welcomed the statement made by leaders for the Group of 20 industrialised and developing nations last week, including the commitment to create a framework for balanced global growth.Economists lay much of the blame for the economic crisis on global trade imbalances that saw countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, and Germany stockpile currency reserves, while consumers in the US and UK ran up debts.Currency exchange rates are likely to play a central role in preventing the future build up of imbalances, with G7 finance ministers set to return to the issue when they meet in Istanbul, Turkey, over the weekend.

US targets banks in effort to restart NKorea talks By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Writer – OCT 2,09

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration's push to settle a tense nuclear standoff with North Korea is being spearheaded not by soldiers on a battlefield or big-name diplomats but by government officials knocking on the doors of banks throughout Asia.

The Democratic White House's effort borrows a page from former President George W. Bush's Republican playbook: Pyongyang unwilling to bend? Negotiating partners wary of tougher sanctions? Then bypass messy international diplomacy and hit the North where it hurts: its foreign bank accounts.American officials are traveling around Asia, targeting private banks that might have North Korean ties. They hope to block money that could be used for missiles and nuclear bombs and, ultimately, to drive North Korea back to stalled disarmament talks.The strategy is simple, according to interviews with past and current U.S. officials responsible for implementing it. And, they say, it works, which has not been the case with tortuous nuclear negotiations with the North.The officials tell bankers that North Korea uses its accounts to hide counterfeiting of U.S. currency, to launder money, to smuggle cigarettes and drugs. The banks could face potentially dire consequences if they were seen as helping illicit activities.

U.S. officials say bankers find their visits difficult to ignore.It's having an effect. We think that the word is out,said Philip Goldberg, President Barack Obama's point man on implementing new United Nations sanctions on North Korea. The effort encourages banks to give heightened scrutiny to any transaction that may be coming through with a North Korean label on it.Juan Zarate, a senior counterterror adviser to Bush who helped develop the strategy, said in an interview that the U.S. effort to harness the financial furies is making it very uncomfortable for the North Koreans to do business at all beyond their borders.Some, however, question whether the strategy is counterproductive and could cause North Korea to lash out or become more entrenched.Financial sanctions used in the service of regime change is a very, very dangerous weapon, which could lead them to military retaliation, said Selig Harrison, a North Korea specialist at the Center for International Policy. He has visited the North 11 times to meet with senior officials.As a senator, Obama criticized the Bush administration's handling of North Korea, although his main objection was to its early reluctance to engage in direct talks. His aggressive use of Bush's financial pressure strategy is an acknowledgment of its success in getting the attention of a country that has built a national ethos around defiance in the face of unrelenting outside pressure.Obama also has few alternatives: Military force against the huge North Korean army would be catastrophic; diplomatic efforts are unsure.Coincidence or not, as the United States steps up financial pressure, the North has begun making conciliatory moves, showing a new willingness to resume nuclear talks.Still, U.S. officials insist the tough stance will continue until the North takes irreversible steps to scrap its nuclear programs. Merely returning to disarmament negotiations will not be enough, they say.

The officials will not say which banks they have visited, recognizing the possible stigma attached to the meetings. But they say they meet frequently with bankers at their banks, in regulators' offices, in Washington, as well as talking over the telephone.Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for financial intelligence and an architect of the Bush and Obama administrations' North Korea strategy, said in an interview that he and his colleagues provide banks with important information about North Korea that they would not be able to obtain without U.S. government cooperation.Banks, Levey said, spend a lot of money in trying to protect themselves from illicit activity. Governments should try to help them.Banks may ignore that help at their own peril. The Obama administration can point to a U.N. resolution that decrees financial sanctions against designated entities that may be involved in missile or nuclear weapons financing or proliferation. Victor Cha, Bush's former senior Asia adviser, said the resolution makes a huge difference in getting banks' attention.The White House also has at its disposal a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of dealing with the North: the story of Banco Delta Asia, a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau accused of helping North Korea launder money and other illicit activities.The threat of the U.S. blacklisting BDA in 2005 effectively led to the North being severed from the international financial system, as institutions worried about jeopardizing their U.S. connections voluntarily stopped dealing with the bank and the North.Even if they have little risk of being blacklisted, financial institutions try to avoid activities that would tarnish their reputations and scare away current or future customers.Associated Press writers Jeremiah Marquez in Hong Kong; Ambika Ahuja in Bangkok, Thailand; Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.