NEW YEARS EVE AROUND THE WORLD TODAY

JOHN 1:1,14 JESUS IS GOD
1 In the beginning was the Word,(JESUS) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
14 And the Word (JESUS) was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

JESUS IS GOD - THE ONLY TRUE GOD OF ISRAEL AND THE WHOLE EARTH.NO EXCEPTIONS.

Malaysian court rules Christians can use Allah By EILEEN NG, Associated Press Writer Eileen Ng, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 31, 6:58 am ET

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian court ruled Thursday that Christians have the constitutional right to use the word Allah to refer to God, striking down a government ban as illegal.The landmark ruling appeared to be a victory for freedom of religion in the Muslim-majority country, where the ban had become a symbol of what minorities say is institutionalized religious discrimination.Government lawyers said they will consult with the Home Ministry before deciding whether to appeal Judge Lau Bee Lan's verdict in a higher court, where the ban could still be reinstated. They have one month to appeal.Lau said in her judgment that Christians have the constitutional right to use Allah and that the Home Ministry is not empowered to impose the ban.She was ruling on a lawsuit filed in late 2007 by the Herald, the Malaysian Roman Catholic Church's main publication, after the government blocked non-Muslims from translating God as Allah in their literature.This is indeed a landmark case for our nation, the Herald's editor, the Rev. Lawrence Andrew, said in a statement. He said the verdict upholds constitutional liberties of freedom of speech, expression and religion.Authorities have insisted that Allah is an Islamic word that should be used exclusively by Muslims, and its use by other religions would be misleading.

The ban had affected the Malay-language edition of the Herald, which is read mostly by indigenous tribes who converted to Christianity decades ago. The Mandarin, English and Tamil editions do not use the word Allah.About 60 percent of Malaysia's 27 million people are Muslim Malays. A third of the population is ethnic Chinese and Indian, and many practice Christianity.Thursday's verdict means that the Bahasa Malaysia-speaking community of the Christian faith can now continue to freely use the word Allah, a word that has been in their worships and instructions in the faith without any interference from the authorities, Andrew said.The government had argued that the Herald's online edition can be easily accessed by Muslims. Although the government has not said it explicitly, the fear among authorities is that Muslims might be tempted to convert to Christianity by reading Christian literature.Lau said the government argument is outdated. She said the Herald's readership is largely limited to followers of Christianity and that is a sufficient safeguard.Minorities have often said their constitutional right to practice religion freely has come under threat from the Malay Muslim-dominated government. The government denies any discrimination.Recently, the government confiscated 10,000 copies of Bahasa Malaysia-language Bibles because they contained the word Allah.The National Union of Malaysia Muslim Students urged the Home Ministry to appeal the decision.In the Malaysian context,the word Allah is exclusive and only refers to the concept of God that is understood by Muslims,it said in a statement. It warned that allowing the Herald to use Allah could cause confusion among Muslims who may leave their faith.

Christianity may put American in danger in NKorea By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 31, 4:46 am ET

SEOUL, South Korea – A Korean-American missionary believed detained in North Korea walked into the country carrying a Bible, intent on preaching Christianity in a country that bans illegal worship — a bold move that may put him at greater risk of harsh punishment.Determined to bring international attention to human rights abuses in North Korea, Robert Park slipped into the communist country on Christmas Day, activists in Seoul said Thursday. The 28-year-old bore letters calling on authoritarian leader Kim Jong Il to step down and close down camps for political prisoners. He carried a Bible in one hand and the text of a hymn in the other, they said.I brought God's love. God loves you, and God bless you, he shouted in Korean as he crossed a frozen river dividing China from North Korea, the activists said, citing the guides who led Park to the border.Park, of Tucson, Arizona, has not been heard from since, but one of the two guides — both North Korean defectors — brought back the black leather jacket, hat and gloves that Park handed over before fleeing across the border, said Jo Sung-rae of the Seoul-based group Pax Koreana.He asked us to give his clothes to the poor, Jo said Thursday after saying a prayer for Park at the South Korean border village of Imjingak.I'm sure that Robert is fasting in North Korea now as he had been fasting before entering there.North Korea announced Tuesday that an American was in custody after entering the country illegally, without identifying the person. It has said nothing more about the incident.The detainment comes four months after two American journalists arrested at the border were freed, their 12-year sentences for illegal entry and hostile acts commuted after former President Bill Clinton intervened.While Park's deliberate trip into North Korea has not garnered the same attention as the arrests of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, which occurred at a time of heightened tension between North Korea and Washington, his Christian mission may raise the ire of North Korean officials, analysts said.

North Korea's criminal code punishes illegal entry with up to three years in prison, but Park could be accused of attempting to undermine the regime with Christianity, analysts said.Robert attempted to spread the Gospel. He planned to spread the Gospel even to North Korean soldiers if they were to arrest him" and was secretly sending Bibles to the North as well as helping North Korean citizens defect, Jo said.North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but in reality the government severely restricts religious observance, allowing only worship at sanctioned churches.Underground worship and distribution of Bibles can mean banishment to a labor camp or even execution, according to defectors and activists. Still, more than 30,000 North Koreans are practicing Christianity in hiding, they say.North Korea could regard sending Bibles as an attempt to overthrow its regime, said Kim Soo-am, a North Korea expert at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.The North sees Bibles and Christianity as a threat to its regime.Park may be punished to serve as an example, said Paik Hak-soon of the private Sejong Institute think tank outside Seoul.Park openly went into the country to die a martyr while holding a Bible in his hand. North Korea has no choice but to impose a grave punishment on him, he said.One analyst called Park's presence troublesome for North Korea, but predicted the government would eventually expel him. Park's detainment comes just weeks after President Barack Obama's special envoy to North Korea made a milestone visit to Pyongyang.

North Korea will consider it as a minor issue and kick him out, said Jeong Kwang-min, a research fellow at the state-run Institute for National Security Strategy in Seoul.Fellow missionaries in Seoul said they hope Park will achieve his dream of liberating North Koreans from a dictatorship he felt compelled to fight at the risk of his own life. He told me it was God's will to send him to go to the North, Jo said. He told me he would never come out of North Korea unless its political prison camps are dismantled, even if it means dying there.Maggie Drabing, 26, a fellow missionary and English teacher from Houston, Texas, was among dozens who braved the biting cold to rally in Seoul on Wednesday in Park's support. She said she spoke to Park three days before he left for North Korea. He told me that 'You know, I want to get married and I want to have a family.But he said,I am willing to sacrifice that for God, and what God called on me to do.Associated Press writers Kwang-tae Kim and Soo Bin Park and AP Television News cameraman Yong-ho Kim contributed to this report.

Chinese Muslim region adopts law on national unity By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 31, 4:27 am ET

BEIJING – The government of a restive Chinese Muslim region rocked recently by ethnic strife said Thursday it has adopted what appeared to be a sweeping law barring the spread of views deemed to threaten national unity.The far-western, predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang said on its Web site that the vaguely described law on education for ethnic unity in Xinjiang was adopted Tuesday at a local legislature session and would take effect in February.Nearly 200 people died according to official count in violent ethnic riots that erupted in July between the Muslim Uighurs and the ethnic majority Han Chinese in the oil-rich region that abuts Pakistan and Central Asia. China blames the rioting on overseas-based groups agitating for greater Uighur rights in Xinjiang, but has presented no direct evidence.The Uighurs see Xinjiang as their homeland and resent the millions of Han Chinese who have poured into the region in recent decades. A simmering separatist campaign has occasionally boiled over into violence in the past 20 years.Chinese authorities view the control of information as key to heading off or controlling the spread of unrest. Since the riots in Urumqi, the Chinese government has blocked Twitter and Facebook, scrubbed news sites, unplugged the Internet entirely in some places and slowed it and cell phone service to a crawl in others to stifle reports about the violence. Limited Internet service slowly began to return to the region this week.The law passed Tuesday bars individuals and organizations from spreading opinions deemed not conducive to national unity and also from gathering, producing and spreading information to that effect.The state-run Xinhua News Agency cited an official with the Xinjiang Regional People's Congress as saying that anyone who endangers ethnic unity or provokes secession will face prosecution and penalties.

None of the state media reports spelled out the criteria that would be used to determine whether a piece of information or an opinion could threaten national unity, or details on the penalties. Calls to the regional government spokesman's office rang unanswered Thursday.The law will promote equality, unity and harmony in Xinjiang and serve its long-term stability, the top legislator in Xinjiang, Eligen Imibakhi, was quoted as saying in the Xinhua report.Lawmakers began drafting the law in August 2008, Xinhua said. After the riots, Imibakhi told state media that authorities would speed up local legislation against separatism. China already has a national law against secession, though there are no similar regional laws. Imibakhi had said the legislation would provide legal assistance to Xinjiang's anti-secession struggle and crackdown on violence and terrorism.The violence, China's worst unrest in decades, started when police and Uighurs in Urumqi clashed amid a demonstration in the city's downtown.

Officials Claim Second Man Unrelated To Christmas Attack
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Thursday, December 31, 2009

Having first denied the very existence of a possible accomplice in the Christmas Day bombing attempt, officials are now denying that a second man detained in the aftermath of the Flight 253 incident had anything to do with the attack, completely contradicting multiple eyewitness accounts.Authorities have attempted to downplay the significance of other men seen involved in the plot, including an Indian man that helped bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab board the plane, another man witnessed filming the entire flight including the bombing attempt, as well as an Indian man handcuffed by the FBI after sniffer dogs detected something suspicious in his luggage.Federal officials did take a second person into custody at Detroit Metropolitan Airport shortly after an attempted bombing incident on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, but the passenger who got handcuffed was off a different flight, and the incident was not related, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official said today,reports the Detroit News.There was a second person taken into custody, but it had nothing to do with Flight 253, chief Customs and Border Protection officer Ron Smith said.They did see dogs, but again, it was a totally different incident,said Smith, who indicated that the arrest was drug-related.

However, this totally contradicts the circumstances of the aftermath of the incident as described by numerous eyewitnesses.It seems unlikely that the man could have been on a different flight because all the passengers from Flight 253 were kept in the same area away from other passengers, as would be required after an attempted terrorist attack. All three eyewitnesses that saw the man being led away were convinced that he was a passenger on the same plane.After the sniffer dogs flagged up the man’s luggage, Flight 253 passengers were told not to use mobile phones or computers and were then moved to another area. You’re being moved, the FBI told them,it is not safe here. I’m sure you all saw what happened and can read between the lines and why you’re being moved.Both Kurt Haskell and fellow passenger Daniel Huisinga said the FBI agents clearly indicated that they were being moved because explosives had been found in the Indian man’s bags. Why would passengers be told that the area was unsafe and then moved if only drugs had been found in the man’s bags? This contradiction has been completely ignored by the mainstream media, who have dutifully swallowed the denial that the second man was involved in the plot without question.In addition, when FBI agents interviewed eyewitness Kurt Haskell, they showed him photographs of the Indian man, suggesting they knew or suspected he was connected to the incident. If the man was on a different plane and detained on a drug-related charge then why days after the fact were the FBI still asking questions about him in relation to the Flight 253 attack? In addition, witnesses who described a well-dressed Indian man arguing that Abdulmutallab should be allowed to board the plane despite the fact that he had no passport have also been contradicted by new claims that the bomber was carrying a valid Nigerian passport and U.S. visa.The fact that officials first denied that the second man even existed, followed by subsequent attempts to whitewash his involvement in the attack is highly suspicious, especially in light of their refusal to even discuss the other men seen helping the bomber and then filming his attempted attack.As is routine with false flag terror attacks, the official story is formulated and maintained from the very start, no matter how many eyewitness accounts contradict and undermine almost every aspect of it. The fact that men who were clearly involved in the attack are now being protected by federal authorities makes it clear that the Christmas Day attack is a great deal more complex than how it has been sold to the public by authorities and the media.

Gold miners lead TSX higher at open
DEC 31,09

TORONTO (Reuters) – Toronto's main stock index opened higher on Thursday, following along as global markets, gold and oil were all higher on the final trading day of 2009.The S&P/TSX composite index was up 26.43 points, or 0.23 percent, at 11,743.89. Nine of the TSX's 10 main groups were higher, led by the materials group, which was up 0.8 percent.Gold miners were among the most influential movers as the price of gold topped $1,100 an ounce. Barrick Gold was up 0.9 percent at C$42.80 and Goldcorp rose 1.1 percent to C$41.55.(Reporting by Ka Yan Ng; editing by Peter Galloway)

Blast kills 5 Canadians in southern Afghanistan
Wed Dec 30, 10:09 pm ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Four Canadian soldiers and a Canadian journalist were killed when their armored vehicle was hit by a bomb in southern Kandahar province on Wednesday, the Canadian Defense Ministry said.Four other Canadian soldiers and a Canadian civilian official were wounded in the blast, which occurred about four km (2.5 miles) outside the city of Kandahar, the ministry said in a statement.The journalist killed was Michelle Lang, 34, a reporter from the Calgary Herald newspaper who was on assignment in Afghanistan for the Canwest New Service, according to the news agency.Lang, who had recently received a national award for her healthcare coverage, was on her first assignment in Afghanistan and had only been in the country since December 11.

The patrol was visiting community reconstruction projects, officials said.

The attack brings Canada's military deaths in Afghanistan to 138 soldiers. Lang is the first Canadian journalist killed covering the country's military mission, although several Canadian journalists have been wounded.Canada has a 2,800-strong military mission in Afghanistan, but it is scheduled to pull its troops out at the end of 2011.(Reporting by Allan Dowd; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Canada to suspend Parliament until after Olympics
By Randall Palmer – Wed Dec 30, 3:53 pm ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Canadian government will suspend Parliament until early March, a spokesman said on Wednesday, giving it political advantages but bringing an angry backlash from a sidelined opposition.Dimitri Soudas, spokesman for Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said the government would present a new policy speech on March 3, and a new federal budget the following day.That means Parliament won't resume on January 25 as previously scheduled, and debate on hot-button topics will cease.We're not out of the woods (economically) yet but we're not facing the same catastrophic possibilities of just one year ago, Soudas told reporters in a conference call.So we want to make sure not only that the economy stays on track but also that we are preparing for future growth, prosperity and a return to balanced budgets.Postponing the reopening of Parliament until after the Winter Olympics in Vancouver means the government will be able to avoid persistent questions on the treatment of prisoners who were handed over to Afghan authorities by the Canadian military in 2006-07.The government will also be able to take control of committees in the upper house of Parliament, the Senate. The Senate has been dominated by the opposition Liberal Party until now and the Liberals have blocked efforts at Senate reform.All three opposition parties charged that Harper was trying to duck parliamentary accountability.

Mr. Harper is showing his disregard for the democratic institutions of our country, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said in a statement.He said Harper was showing that his first impulse when he is in trouble is to shut down Parliament.Jack Layton, who heads the small, left-leaning New Democratic Party, told Reuters: It's a slap in the face to the democratic process and all those Canadians -- who were in the majority, actually -- who voted for other parties and expected us to be there to hold Stephen Harper's feet to the fire and make sure he didn't go racing off too far in any one unacceptable direction.The separatist Bloc Quebecois said Harper had shown no legitimate reason for paralyzing Parliament until March.Soudas said it was routine parliamentary practice and has been done 104 times in Canada's history, an average of two to three times per Parliament. This will be the second suspension since Harper was reelected in October 2008.The Conservatives have only a minority of seats in the House of Commons and need support from at least one other party to stay in power, but no election is likely in the near future.A Nanos poll issued earlier on Wednesday showed the Conservatives would handily win an election if one were held now, although possibly not with enough seats to win a majority of seats in Parliament.Nanos gave the Conservatives support of 39.5 percent of voters, compared with 30.2 percent for the Liberals. Under Canada's voting system, a party usually needs support from at least 40 percent of voters to win a majority in Parliament.

Nanos polled 1,003 voters between December 10 and December 13. It considers its survey accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.(Additional reporting by Rod Nickel and John McCrank; editing by Peter Galloway)

Canada panel backs Arctic pipeline conditionally By Jeffrey Jones – Thu Dec 31, 8:52 am ET

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – The C$16.2 billion ($15.4 billion) Mackenzie pipeline in Canada's Arctic should be allowed to proceed, provided 176 recommendations aimed at securing socioeconomic benefits and minimizing environmental damage are followed, regulators ruled on Wednesday.In a much-anticipated report, the Joint Review Panel said it believed the huge gas project would bring overall benefits to Canada's Northwest Territories and avoid major ecological impact if the oil companies proposing the line and governments follow its list of measures.The list is as diverse as analyzing the impact of climate change on facilities buried in permafrost, monitoring grizzly bear dens, and assessing if alcohol and drug abuse programs in the sparsely populated region are adequate.The Mackenzie Gas Project and associated Northwest Alberta Facilities would provide the foundation for a sustainable northern future, the seven-member panel said.The challenge to all will be to build on that foundation.The pipeline would carry at least 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas a day to the Alberta border from fields in the Mackenzie Delta near the Beaufort Sea. In Alberta, the gas could be routed to numerous markets in Canada and the United States.The JRP report, which concentrated on the project's environmental, social and economic impact, comes more than two years after public hearings into the development ended. The project is led by Imperial Oil Ltd.Imperial and its partners welcomed what appears to be a vote of confidence for the long-delayed project, but could not say yet if any of the recommended measures appear onerous, spokesman Pius Rolheiser said.

The company has three weeks to respond to the report.It would be fair to say that we're pleased that the JRP has concluded that, with appropriate measures to mitigate potential impacts, the project be allowed to proceed, Rolheiser said.Imperial's partners are Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp, and Aboriginal Pipeline Group.Canada's National Energy Board will use the JRP report to help make its decision on whether the project can go ahead. That decision is expected in September.(To view the report's executive summary, including the list of recommendations, click on http://www.ngps.nt.ca/PDFs/JRP_report_ExecutiveSummary_E.pdf )

DELAYS, RISING COSTS

The Mackenzie project was first envisioned in the 1970s after oil companies discovered large gas deposits in Canada's Arctic. Imperial and its partners began studying the current incarnation of the project in 2000 and filed regulatory applications four years later.Since then, the Mackenzie project has been beset with a big cost increase, regulatory delays, lengthy talks with Ottawa over fiscal breaks and a transformation of gas markets due to the recession and development of massive shale gas reserves located close to major U.S. markets.Still, northern communities see the project as an opportunity for badly needed economic development, one that could provide careers for young people and spark spinoff businesses in the rugged region.As part of a deal with the oil companies, aboriginal groups along the proposed 1,220 km (760-mile) route have the right to own up to one-third for the pipeline.Environmental groups that opposed the project, such as the Sierra Club, argued during the JRP hearings that the bulk of the gas would be used to fuel development of Alberta's oil sands. (Reporting by Jeffrey Jones; editing by Peter Galloway)

EU CALLS FOR WORLD GOVERNMENT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7D21rPpBrk&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Feuro%2Dmed%2Edk%2F%3Fp%3D1277&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFs99zBTRO0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTfv6uOHgqQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVeMBNB0cII&feature=related
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4291770489472554607&ei=iaRTSrzHAoqUqQL1gMGqDw&q=EU&hl=en
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVeMBNB0cII&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVmtbLc4t6M&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Feuro%2Dmed%2Edk%2F%3Fp%3D1277&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5cqh26CC0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Feuro%2Dmed%2Edk%2F%3Fp%3D1277&feature=player_embedded
EXCELLENT EU REVIEW - WORLD REGIONS,GLOBAL CURRENCY
http://exposureroom.com/members/cybersilence.aspx/assets/d37a8ebc60694cc98173b8f32cfe898d/
EU-NEW SOVIET UNION
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM2Ql3wOGcU&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Cj1b-rp1E&feature=player_embedded
WORLD GOVERNMENT UNDER TREATYS-INTERNATIONAL LAW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_government
TRANSATLANTIC POLICY
http://www.tpnonline.org/

JOAN VEON ON TAMAR YONAH 2008 (WORLD GOVERNMENT)
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2009/07/we-are-already-under-global-government.html#links
GEORGE HUNT-WORLD BANK ,RELIGION&RULERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OvpjRglW9U&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFnxNowaaIU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=584x0zkmHgw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsZvQcZ9Mu4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGl3DHrVMFY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg90X7OkEsU&feature=related
INSIDE VIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BANKERS
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=36666041
UNDERSTANDING WORLD GOVERNMENT
http://www.womensgroup.org/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=504526035342184251
BANK OF INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENT PRESS
http://www.bis.org/events/agm2009/pcvideo.htm
HISTORY OF WAR AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1874212534444628577&hl=en

EU SPAIN #11

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


Spain test drives new model of EU leadership-The Lisbon Treaty was signed at a ceremony in Portugal in 2007 (Photo: consilium.europa.eu)HONOR MAHONY
Today DEC 31,09 @ 09:27 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Spain takes over the rotating presidency on 1 January, but it will be a six-month tenure with a twist, as Madrid is the first to grapple with the complexities of the EU's new legal framework.The Lisbon Treaty entered into force one month ago, ushering in a new layer of governance in the European Union - a permanent president of the European Council - but keeping the old system of rotating presidencies, only with a less prominent status.It will be up to Spain's prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to see how this plays out in everyday practice so that he and Herman Van Rompuy, the newly appointed EU president, are neither publicly nor internally stepping on each others' toes.Under the new system, Mr Zapatero and his government will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the bloc, including chairing nearly all of the monthly ministerial meetings in Brussels. Mr Van Rompuy's job will be to represent the EU externally at summits and to give political impetus to the regular meetings of EU leaders.The treaty leaves plenty of scope for potential turf wars: Spain has said that it would like to host the EU-US and Latin America summits, in a move that will propel Mr Zapatero into the global spotlight alongside Mr Rompuy. The possibility of having Barack Obama on Spanish soil for a summit is already sparking protocol speculation, such as who will be the first to shake the US leader's hand.

However, Spain has also been careful to make overtures in the run up to the New Year when it starts the presidency and Mr Van Rompuy formally takes up his duties.You will have the rotating presidency at your disposal ... so that you can properly carry out the function of leadership, the political management of the European Council, said Mr Zapatero earlier in December.My first objective during the six months is that there is institutional consolidation and clear visibility for the highest function that the Lisbon Treaty gives to the president of the European Council, he added.

Economic crisis

Practically, Madrid's overarching challenge will be dealing with the economic crisis. The European Commission will next year present a proposal for a 10 year strategy to bring the bloc to 2020, which it hopes to have a preliminary agreement on by a March meeting of EU leaders. Spain will have to do much of the behind-the-scenes legwork in working on the proposal with member states and MEPs. Madrid also wants to have financial supervision laws approved during its presidency, running to 30 June. Member states in December agreed to set up three pan-European watchdogs to supervise banks, insurers and trading exchanges. Another agency is to look out for wider risks to the economy. The broad agreement will now have to be turned into workable EU legislation.Another task will be how to take forward the vague and not very ambitious international agreement on climate change from the Copenhagen meeting in mid-December. The first step will be taken by the European Commission which will issue an analysis of the outcome for a ministerial meeting on 15-17 January. As with most presidencies, the Spanish are bringing their own particular issues to the EU negotiating table – in Madrid's case tackling gender violence.Diego Lopez Garrido, Spain's Europe minister, said the country wants an EU law to protect against gender violence and wants a non-discrimination directive approved under its watch as well.

Spain's presidency will also be affected by the fact that the European Commission will be mostly out of action for at least part of January as it waits for the new commissioners to be approved by the European Parliament. In addition, the parliament itself, newly elected since June, has yet to really cut its legislative teeth.And while there will be interest to see how much of the its ambitious agenda it can actually implement during its six months at the tiller, Madrid's enduring legacy is set to be the template it writes for how future rotating presidencies should function under the Lisbon Treaty.

Lithuania nuclear shutdown to test EU-Russia relations
ANDREW RETTMAN Today DEC 31,09 @ 12:26 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - One of Russia's fiercest critics in the EU, Lithuania, will at the turn of the New Year switch off a nuclear power station, in a move set to test the theory that Russia uses energy as a political weapon.The shutdown of the Ignalina plant - at 11pm local time on 31 December - is being carried out in line with Lithuania's EU accession promise amid concerns that its Chernobyl-type reactor is unsafe.The small, post-Soviet country is building a new reactor expected to go online between 2018 and 2020 and will from 2015 and 2016 benefit from new electricity supply bridges to Poland and Sweden.The interim period is set to see power prices spike by up to 70 percent at a time of recession, however. It will also see Lithuania almost entirely reliant on imports of energy from Russia amid the prevailing belief in former Iron Curtain countries that Moscow uses gas and oil cut offs as a tool of political pressure on its former vassals. Russia in 2006 shut off oil supplies to Lithuania via the Druzhba pipeline after Vilnius sold a major petrol refinery to a Polish bidder instead of a Russian state-owned firm. The dispute saw Lithuania threaten to veto a new EU-Russia treaty unless the EU commission intervened on its side. Relations on the Russia-Lithuania-EU axis were again tested in 2008 when Vilnius urged the EU to impose sanctions on Russia following its military attack on Georgia, another small, former Soviet country.Lithuanian president and former EU commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite has in recent days tried to reassure people that the Ignalina closure will not alter relations with its neighbour.

The Lithuanian energy system was and is dependent on Russia, because our energy sources, our supply of gas and power, are tied to that country, she told the Baltic News Service.But with the political climate set to sharpen in early 2010, as Lithuania gears up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union, some politicians are not so sure.If our parliament issues a declaration ...which they don't like, they will punish us, as they did Ukraine, a senior Lithuanian diplomat recently told EUobserver, referring to Russia's gas cut-offs during the term of office of Moscow-critical Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko.

MEPs heading to Iran despite US request to stay home
ANDREW RETTMAN Today DEC 31,09 @ 09:19 CET

A group of 15 US congressmen has urged MEPs to call off a trip to Iran in January. But the visit is scheduled to go ahead despite a worsening diplomatic climate.The US group, which includes both Democrats and Republicans, made its plea in a letter to European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek last week, the Wall Street Journal reports.
We believe that a visit from the EP would send the wrong message to the Iranian government and undermine the international efforts to end their nuclear program, it said.The EU delegation is set to travel to Iran between 7 and 11 January and aims to meet with members of the Iranian legislature, the Majilis, as well as human rights activists.It is to be chaired by German Green MEP Barbara Lochbihler and to include German Christian Democrat Kurt Lechner, who played down the significance of the visit in terms of international relations. We are not diplomats, he told the US newspaper.The EU and US are in talks with Iran about its nuclear programme, with Washington recently threatening to increase economic sanctions early in the New Year.

The MEPs' visit also comes amid violent clashes between Iranian opposition activists and state security services earlier this week that reportedly saw eight campaigners killed, drawing an EU rebuke.The [EU] Presidency re-iterates the commitment of the European Union to human rights and democratic values ... Brutal force against and the arbitrary detentions of demonstrators constitute gross violations of these basic human rights, it said.In August, the heads of mission of 20 EU member state embassies based in Tehran attended the inauguration ceremony of the Iranian president shortly after street battles which left up to 15 opposition activists dead.

The Swedish EU presidency at the time cited the need to keep diplomatic channels open as justification for its ambassador's presence at the event.

French court strikes down flagship carbon tax as unjust
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today DEC 31,09 @ 09:24 CET

French President Nicholas Sarkozy's flagship carbon tax has been struck down by the country's top court as unjust and counterproductive to the fight against climate change.The Constitutional Court on Wednesday (30 December) ruled that the law, announced in September and due to enter into force from 1 January, had included so many loopholes that some 93 percent of industrial greenhouse gas emissions would have been exempt.The judges found that this placed the overwhelming burden of the tax, set at €17 per tonne of CO2 emitted, on households instead of industry.The large number of exemptions from the carbon tax runs counter to the goal of fighting climate change and violates the equality enjoyed by all in terms of public charges, the court ruling read.Less than half of all greenhouse gas emissions would have been covered by the [tax], the ruling continued, totally exonerating from the tax the emissions of power plants, the emissions of 1,018 of the most polluting industrial sites.The tax thus would have targetted primarily fuel and heating,which are only one of the sources of carbon dioxide emissions.The plan would have brought in an estimated €4.3 billion to government coffers annually, although the scheme would have redeployed some of these monies by cutting income taxes and delivering green cheque dividends to poorer citizens hit by the increased fuel and heating prices.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the government would try to redraft the law, but analysts believe that the ruling strikes at the heart of the law's principles, and that a light editing job will be insufficient to win over the judges. Socialist Party grandee Segolene Royal cheered the ruling, calling the law ecologically ineffective and socially unjust.The Greens for their part back the principle of a carbon tax but welcomed the ruling, believing Mr Sarkozy's version of such a tax inegalitarian.Some environmentalists however were disappointed, worrying that the court had dealt a severe blow to any sort of taxation of carbon in the future.The Nature and Environment Federation of France (FNE) described the ruling as a catastrophic decision.

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

THIS FALSE FLAG TERROR ATTACK THAT HAPPENED ON DECEMBER 25TH 09 IS TO GET THE WORLD UNDER CLOSER SCRUTINY AND DICTATORSHIP.EVEN IN MY SMALL CITY THE VISA CARD MACHINES NOW HAVE A MICROCHIP IMPLANT IN THEM AS WELL AS YOUR PIN ,THEY SAY FOR GREATER SAFETY BUT WE KNOW ITS FOR EVERY TRACK OF THAT PERSON,ITS THE NEXT THING TO THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT UNDER OUR SKINS.WAKE UP FOLKS,PRAY GOD WILL KEEP US FROM THIS DICTATORSHIP AND TAKE US HOME IN THE RAPTURE OR PRAY THE WORLD WILL REPENT AND GO BY GOD (JESUS')WORDS AND NOT BY MENS MINDS.

Concerns remain in EU over nude airport scanners-Schiphol airport: keen to introduce mandatory scanning as soon as possible (Photo: afagen)ANDREW RETTMAN 30.12.2009 @ 09:58 CET

The Christmas Day airline bomb plot in the US has renewed calls for body scanners to be introduced in EU airports, but concerns over privacy and effectiveness continue to stand in the way.Authorities at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, where the would-be bomber boarded his flight with explosives packed in his underwear, plan to make body scans mandatory folowing a green light from the EU institutions.We think that the [EU] parliament in the next round will approve the body scanners, Schiphol Group chief operating officer Ad Rutten said this week in the wake of the US incident.The British government also promised a tough reaction. We intend to be at the cutting edge of all this new technology and to ensure that we put it in place as quickly as possible, home secretary Alan Johnson said. Body scanners use x-rays or microwaves to produce images that show any concealed parcels but which also reveal the passengers' intimate bodily curves to security staff.Firms that produce the technology - which costs over €70,000 per unit compared to €10,000 for an ordinary metal detector - saw their share value rise by over 10 percent following the US scare.Some EU airports, including Schiphol and Heathrow, already offer passengers the choice of using a scanner as an alternative to a physical pat-down. But uptake of the technology remains at an experimental stage due to concerns over privacy rights.The European Commission late last year withdrew a proposal to roll out body scanners across the EU after MEPs compared the process to a virtual strip search and called for a detailed impact assessment study, which remains ongoing.

The European Parliament itself mothballed six scanner units designed to improve security at its Brussels and Strasbourg buildings following the decision.Senior politicians in Germany, which last year criticised the commission plan as nonsense, remain sceptical about scanners despite the fresh concerns raised by the US plot.The attempted attack is not a reason for us to change security laws, Wolfgang Bosbach, the head of the German parliament's Internal Affairs Committee told Berliner Zeitung.

Rainer Wendt, the head of the German police union, the DPolG, told the same paper that full body scans would be going too far in terms of privacy violations, despite innovations which blur the details of passengers' bodies on the screen.Security experts said the US attacker came so close to success because intelligence agencies failed to communicate information acoss international borders rather than due to poor security standards at airports.A number of analysts have also noted that overcrowding and poor pay for security officials at air terminals shoud be addressed more urgently than buying new machines.Cheap flights are at the expense of security. Airport operators and airlines often work for minimal wages and save on personnel, Konrad Freiberg, the chairman of the GdP police union in Germany told the Passauer Neue Presse daily.

Nigeria airports to buy 3-D full body scanners
Wed Dec 30, 11:31 am ET

LAGOS, Nigeria – A Nigerian official says the nation will purchase 3-D, full body scanners after a man passed through Nigeria's biggest airport before trying to bring down a U.S.-bound flight on Christmas Day.Civil Aviation Authority chief Harold Demuren says he hopes the machines will be installed early next year.The announcement came hours after Dutch officials said they would immediately begin to use full body scanners on flights headed to the U.S. It is unclear if Nigeria will use the same technology as the Netherlands.Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, passed through Lagos and Amsterdam before attempting to detonate concealed explosives on a flight as it prepared to land in Detroit.

Bomb plot arrest highlight Nigeria's Islamist militancy by Jacques Lhuillery – Wed Dec 30, 1:57 pm ET

LAGOS (AFP) – The arrest of a young Nigerian for trying to blow up a transatlantic airliner has again highlighted the strong streak of Islamic fundamentalism that pervades much of Africa's most populous country.While the Nigerian government and Muslim authorities have condemned the failed bombing as an isolated act, radical Islamist movements are thriving in a country where 12 northern states reintroduced Islamic law in 2000.Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, charged with trying to blow up a US passenger jet over Detroit, may appear an unlikely radical as the son of a powerful banker whose abiding passion as a teenager was English football.But as a series of recent attacks on Nigerian government targets by Muslim hardliners shows, a combination of radical Islam and disaffected youths has proved a volatile cocktail on many previous occasions.In July, mainly young militants of the fundamentalist Boko Haram sect which seeks to unite Muslims under a Caliphate carried out simultaneous attacks in four northern states.The authorities' response was swift and brutal, killing at least 800 in a five-day crackdown and possibly twice as many according to Western intelligence sources.In the local Hausa language Boko Haram means Western education is a sin making it increasingly attractive among the impoverished youth of the Muslim-dominated north.The Nigerian government, while admitting that it has problems on its hands, insists that terrorism is alien to the country.One thing that I can tell you that we are not known for as Nigerians is terrorism, said Information Minister Dora Akunyil.We are not into terrorism; we may have several issues but definitely not terrorism. Our country abhors it.

But Nigeria's main armed rebel group in the oil-rich Niger Delta, MEND, said the government's show of surprise was misplaced, and accusing Abuja of allowing the situation in the north to fester as it kept its focus on the south.Northern Nigeria, home to a Muslim majority while the south of the country is mainly Christian, is fertile ground for international terrorism, MEND said.The Nigerian government has persistently turned a blind eye to Islamic extremists coming from Northern Nigeria, choosing instead to focus and waste its resources on military hardware and troop deployment in the Niger Delta.For decades after Nigeria's independence from Britain in 1960, there has been a long history of bloody clashes between ethnic and religious groups -- Sunni Muslims against Shiites, Christians against Muslims.For the federal authorities which have been battling the insurrection in the Delta for years, the Islamists' rise in the north is an extra challenge adding to the traditional rivalry and mistrust between southern Christians and northern Muslims.

In the south especially people have not forgotten the 1967-70 civil war after the attempted breakaway of southeastern Biafra, which had been preceded by a slaughter of Christians in the north.To complicate things, northern Nigeria borders Niger and Mali, a battleground for Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the former Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat whose activities have included kidnapping and killing westerners.The threat from Islamist militants prompted Washington in 2007 to establish the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.

AFRICOM has faced controversy, with governments of various African countries fearing it was the beginning of increased US military presence in the continent. But its commander, General William Ward, insisted during a visit to Algiers last month that the terrorist threat for north-central Africa's Maghreb and Sahel regions was real.

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.

Quake shakes wide area of US-Mexico border region By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 30, 6:53 pm ET

SAN DIEGO – A magnitude-5.8 earthquake rocked the U.S.-Mexico border region Wednesday, causing hospitals to evacuate in the Mexican industrial city of Mexicali as buildings swayed more than 100 miles to the west in San Diego and southwestern Arizona.

There were no reports of injuries or major property damage.The main quake was centered about 20 miles southeast Mexicali, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was followed quickly by a 4.8 quake and dozens of other aftershocks.In Mexicali, five hospitals were briefly evacuated, 90,000 customers lost electricity for 14 minutes and cell phones failed to work for 20 minutes, said Rene Rosado, director of the city's civil defense.City government offices closed for the day after the quake struck at 10:48 a.m. local time. About 300 employees emptied City Hall.People were very frightened throughout the city, Rosado said.There was minor damage to several buildings in Mexicali, a city of 750,000 people and capital of Baja California state, said Alfredo Escobedo, the state civil defense director.In Calexico, a California city of 40,000 people across the border from Mexicali, crews found no damage to bridges, buildings or roads, said City Manager Victor Carrillo.Basically it was a quick, shake-and-bake, jolt-type of thing that seemed to last 15, 20 seconds, 30 seconds at the max, said Carrillo, who was in a meeting at City Hall during the quake. I have quite a few items on the shelves in my office and they're all intact.

Citizen reports to the USGS indicated it was also felt in southern Nevada and metropolitan Los Angeles.In Yuma, Ariz., Sally Zeller, a 31-year-old waitress at Brownie's cafe, said she and most everyone in her restaurant felt the quake for several seconds.It rumbled under our feet and the soup counter rumbled against my hip, Zeller said.The chandeliers were swaying. It was like, Whoa! The quake was centered in a seismically active desert valley near cities with low-rise buildings.

It occurred 4.3 miles deep and was considered a shallow quake. Shallower quakes have the potential to cause more damage than deeper ones.A quake the size of Wednesday's main shock rattles the region about every 10 years, said Kate Hutton, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology.Associated Press Writers Alicia Chang and John Antczak in Los Angeles, Amanda Lee Myers in Phoenix and Mariana Martinez in Tijuana, Mexico, contributed to this report.

Rare New Year's Eve blue moon to ring in 2010 By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer – Tue Dec 29, 7:03 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue — the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor.A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.If you're in Times Square, you'll see the full moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant, said Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of a weekly astronomy TV show.The New Year's Eve blue moon will be visible in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. For partygoers in Australia and Asia, the full moon does not show up until New Year's Day, making January a blue moon month for them.However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve when part of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will not be visible in the Americas.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month — a blue moon — occurs every 2.5 years. The last time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028.

Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.Blue moon is just a name in the same sense as a hunter's moon or a harvest moon,Laughlin said in an e-mail.The popular definition of blue moon came about after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer's Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the almanac defined a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moons, not the usual three.Though Sky & Telescope corrected the error decades later, the definition caught on. For purists, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.In a tongue-in-cheek essay posted on the magazine's Web site this week, senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty wrote: If skies are clear when I'm out celebrating, I'll take a peek at that brilliant orb as it rises over the Boston skyline to see if it's an icy shade of blue. Or maybe I'll just howl.On the Net:http://www.miamisci.org/www/eventsplan.html

Chavez disputes Spanish official's climate remarks
Wed Dec 30, 10:38 pm ET

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trading barbs with Spain's environment minister over the Copenhagen summit on climate change.Chavez objects to remarks by Spanish Environment Minister Elena Espinosa, who suggested Venezuela and Bolivia were to blame for the lack of a solid accord.Espinosa was quoted as saying in the newspaper Publico that Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales opposed an accord, perhaps in defense of their oil and natural gas industries.Chavez said Wednesday that Espinosa's contention was false and he hopes it isn't the Spanish government's opinion.The leftist Venezuelan leader has blamed wealthy countries for the failure to agree on binding climate targets.

FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS

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

Shocked residents survey Australia wildfire wreckage
by Talek Harris – Thu Dec 31, 3:04 am ET

SYDNEY (AFP) – Shocked residents returned to survey the wreckage on Thursday after Western Australia's worst wildfire in 50 years engulfed 38 homes in an isolated rural community.Emotional householders were given the all-clear to go back to Toodyay, north of Perth, where the inferno raced across thousands of hectares (acres) of scrub and farmland destroying buildings, vehicles and cattle.Emergency crews worked through a second night to contain the blaze, and another major conflagration further north, and were felling unstable trees near roadsides to allow residents to return.The devastation evoked painful memories of February's Black Saturday fires, which swept through entire communities in the state of Victoria killing 173 and razing more than 2,000 homes.The Fire and Emergency Services Authority (FESA) said Western Australia had not lost so many homes to wildfire in half-a-century, and praised rescuers for saving hundreds more properties and lives.

Only four people were hurt in the Toodyay blaze, including three firefighters who were treated for smoke inhalation and dehydration. Hundreds of ground crew fought the flames backed by water-bombing helicopters.Firefighters worked hard getting the fire contained yesterday in difficult conditions and have done a great job protecting communities and saving hundreds of homes and lives, FESA said in a statement.The government announced emergency assistance, including a 3,000 dollar (2,700 US) grant for clothes and food for people who have lost all their belongings, after a natural disaster was declared.These fires are an enormous blow to the people whose homes and property have been affected by the fire, said Gary Gray, parliamentary secretary for Western Australia.My thoughts, and the thoughts of all Western Australians, are with them.Television pictures showed firefighters inspecting gutted homes, farm outhouses with collapsing roofs, burned-out cars and large swathes of charred crops.Several residents, left with little more than the clothes they were wearing, described terrifying scenes as they abandoned their properties to flames that reached higher than the rooftops.Householder Caroline Coate said she saw something I could only describe as rivers of lava and I knew my home was gone as she fled in her car.You've got no idea how bad it was, she said.I was just glad I got out when I did.Deanna Flavell choked back tears after realising her home and possessions had gone up in smoke.There's nothing left, it's all gone, she told Sky News.We've lost the whole house, the sheds, the lot.

Lesley Hugg, who runs two caravans parks in Toodyay, said one of her parks was now a gathering point for people who have lost their homes.It's just devastating, she told ABC radio.You want to bawl your eyes out. I'm just trying to stay strong to support and look after everybody, and just bring everybody together.The community spirit in Toodyay has just been wonderful. Everybody's offering vans and we've had so many people coming around here asking what can they do to help, so, it's been great.

METEORS HIT THE EARTH

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

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

Russia may send spacecraft to knock away asteroid By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 30, 9:34 pm ET

MOSCOW – Russia's space agency chief said Wednesday a spacecraft may be dispatched to knock a large asteroid off course and reduce the chances of earth impact, even though U.S. scientists say such a scenario is unlikely.Anatoly Perminov told Golos Rossii radio the space agency would hold a meeting soon to assess a mission to Apophis. He said his agency might eventually invite NASA, the European Space Agency, the Chinese space agency and others to join the project.When the 270-meter (885-foot) asteroid was first discovered in 2004, astronomers estimated its chances of smashing into Earth in its first flyby, in 2029, at 1-in-37.Further studies have ruled out the possibility of an impact in 2029, when the asteroid is expected to come no closer than 18,300 miles (29,450 kilometers) from Earth's surface, but they indicated a small possibility of a hit on subsequent encounters.NASA had put the chances that Apophis could hit Earth in 2036 as 1-in-45,000. In October, after researchers recalculated the asteroid's path, the agency changed its estimate to 1-in-250,000.NASA said another close encounter in 2068 will involve a 1-in-330,000 chance of impact.Don Yeomans, who heads NASA's Near-Earth Object Program, said better calculations of Apophis' path in several years will almost certainly remove any possibility of an Earth collision in 2036.

While Apophis is almost certainly not a problem, I am encouraged that the Russian science community is willing to study the various deflection options that would be available in the event of a future Earth threatening encounter by an asteroid, Yeomans said in an e-mail Wednesday.Without mentioning NASA's conclusions, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet.I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032, Perminov said.People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people, Perminov said.Scientists have long theorized about asteroid deflection strategies. Some have proposed sending a probe to circle around a dangerous asteroid to gradually change its trajectory. Others suggested sending a spacecraft to collide with the asteroid and alter its momentum, or hitting it with nuclear weapons.Perminov wouldn't disclose any details of the project, saying they still need to be worked out. But he said the mission wouldn't require any nuclear explosions.

Hollywood action films Deep Impact and Armageddon, have featured space missions scrambling to avoid catastrophic collisions. In both movies, space crews use nuclear bombs in an attempt to prevent collisions.Calculations show that it's possible to create a special purpose spacecraft within the time we have, which would help avoid the collision, Perminov said.The threat of collision can be averted.Boris Shustov, the director of the Institute of Astronomy under the Russian Academy of Sciences, hailed Perminov's statement as a signal that officials had come to recognize the danger posed by asteroids.Apophis is just a symbolic example, there are many other dangerous objects we know little about, he said, according to RIA Novosti news agency.AP Science Writer Alicia Chang contributed to this story from Los Angeles.

New Year revelers ready for better times in 2010 By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer – DEC 31,09

SYDNEY – Under explosive bursts of crimson, purple and blue, more than 1 million New Year revelers in Sydney got one of the world's biggest parties started Thursday — bidding farewell to the tough year that was 2009 and welcoming a new decade.As the family-friendly, pre-midnight fireworks show illuminated Australia's largest city, preparations were under way across the world for pyrotechnics, parties and prayers in the final countdown to herald the end of the period dubbed the Noughties.The mood of celebrations was tempered in some places by the effects of the financial downturn, which bit hard in 2009, sending economies into recession, causing millions to lose their jobs and home foreclosures to rise dramatically in some countries.

There were also reminders of threats and the fight against terrorism that during the decade led to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and rising militant violence in Pakistan.
The U.S. Embassy in Indonesia warned of a possible terrorist attack on the resort island of Bali on New Year's Eve, citing information from the island's governor — although local security officials said Thursday they were unaware of a threat. The e-mail warning to U.S. citizens said predominantly Muslim Indonesia's counterterrorism efforts have been partly successful in recent years, but violent extremists continue to pose a deadly threat.In Sydney, crowds — organizers expected more than 1.5 million people — thronged to harborside parks and public places for the annual fireworks extravaganza over the landmark harbor bridge and opera house. The twin shows, one at 9 p.m. and a bigger one at midnight, are the centerpiece of Australia's celebrations that generates some of the most striking images from a night of revelry across the globe.The mood was jubilant, though the economic crisis may mean 2009 was a year one that many people are glad to put behind them.I think 2010 will be a good year — you can never tell, but I think so, said Marek Kiera, a Sydney property investor who watched interest rates tumble amid the global financial crisis.We have invested so much in something that may go up in value, said Kiera, who went with his wife and three young children to a park in inner Sydney to watch the fireworks show.Hopefully there will be a boom like in the late '80s, when properties doubled in value.Smaller fireworks displays and partying were planned across Australia and the South Pacific, the first region to greet each new day because of its proximity to the International Date Line.In New Zealand, dance parties, bands and fireworks were planned in the main cities. In the capital, Wellington, celebrations included a display by world unicycle games competitors.Asia was be partying, too, though probably not as hard as most of Europe and the Americas. The world's most populous nation, 1.3-billion-strong China, uses a different calendar that will mark the new year in February. Islamic nations such as Pakistan and Afghanistan also use a different calendar.In the Philippines, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said hundreds of people were injured by firecrackers and celebratory gunfire during New Year's celebrations.

Many Filipinos, largely influenced by Chinese tradition, believe that noisy New Year's celebrations drive away evil and misfortune. But they have carried that superstition to extremes, exploding huge firecrackers and firing guns to welcome the new year despite threats of arrest.In Beijing, President Hu Jintao wished viewers a happy new year in his end-of-the-year speech broadcast on China Central Television. In Shanghai, some people paid 518 yuan ($75) to ring the bell at the Longhua Temple at midnight and wish for luck in the new year. In Chinese, saying 518 sounds like the phrase I want prosperity.Fireworks displays were planned to illuminate Hong Kong's crowded skyline, high-glitz parties were planned in Singapore and thousands gathered at Indonesia's national monument in the capital, Jakarta, for a fireworks show.Millions of Japanese were to welcome the new year by flocking to shrines to pray for good fortune in 2010.In Turkey, Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said authorities were deploying around 2,000 police officers around Taksim Square to prevent pickpockets and the molestation of women that have marred New Year celebrations in the past. Some officers would be under cover, disguised as street vendors or even in Santa Claus dress, Guler said. Firecrackers were already exploding across the Netherlands early Thursday on the only day of the year the Dutch are allowed to set off fireworks. Most such shows are do-it-yourself affairs where families spill onto the street in front of their homes and light strings of fire crackers and other fireworks. Many Dutch families also fire up their deep-fat frying pans on New Year's Eve to cook the traditional treat of oliebollen — deep-fried balls of dough laced with raisins and dusted with icing sugar. Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Cara Anna in Beijing, and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this story.

Yemen: Visa of Nigerian would-be-bomber expired By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press Writer – DEC 31,09

SAN'A, Yemen – The Nigerian suspected in the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner had stayed on in Yemen illegally after his visa expired three months ago and should have been stopped by authorities from leaving the country, Yemeni security officials said Thursday.Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab spent time in Yemen on two occasions before the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight.Yemeni officials said Abdulmutallab's student visa for Yemen, where he studied Arabic at a local language institute, was valid from Aug. 4 to Sept. 21.After his visa expired, the 23-year-old stayed on in Yemen until the first week in December, they said, but his whereabouts in the country is unknown.They added that Yemen's airport authorities and passport control should have prevented Abdulmutallab from departing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case with the media, pending the outcome of an investigation.The probe will look into why the Nigerian wasn't detained, questioned and prohibited from leaving the country, they said.Administrators at the school where Abdulmutallab studied believed he had left the country in September, they said.We arranged a taxi to take him to the airport on Sept. 21 and we said goodbye, school director Muhammad al-Anisi told The Associated Press. Our responsibility toward him ended that day.

Al-Anisi said no one from the airport security or immigration had subsequently contacted the school to ask about the student's whereabouts.Yemen has confirmed Abdulmutallab spent two periods in Yemen, from 2004-2005 and from August to December of this year. He was enrolled at the school during both periods to study Arabic.Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of Osama bin Laden's group, claimed it was behind the attempt to bomb the Northwest airliner.

Murder victims found hanging from Mexico overpass Wed Dec 30, 11:38 pm ET

odmsg OR CULIACAN, Mexico – The bound, beaten bodies of two men were found hanging by their necks from a highway overpass in northern Mexico on Wednesday, along with a handwritten message from a drug cartel.The men's hands were tied behind their backs, and shell casings at the scene in Los Mochis suggested the killers fired at the victims as they were hanging by their necks, Sinaloa state prosecutors spokesman Martin Gastelum said. The cause of death was still under investigation.Nearby, a message written on a piece of cardboard said in part that this territory already has an owner. The message appeared to be from the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, whose main leader, Arturo Beltran Leyva, was shot to death in a gunbattle with Mexican marines Dec. 16.The message suggested his death may have unleashed a turf battle for control of areas controlled by his gang.Sinaloa is considered the home base of some of the most powerful crime lords in Mexico, a nation that has seen drug-related violence kill more than 15,000 people since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on cartels in late 2006.In the border city of Ciudad Juarez, authorities said 12 people, including a 3-year-old child, were slain shootings Wednesday.Chihuahua state attorney general's spokesman Vladimir Tuexi said gunmen killed the little girl and a man as they rode in a pickup truck. A woman with them was wounded.At another location, police found the bodies of four men and a woman inside a pickup truck abandoned on a dirt road on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, Tuexi said.

Five other people were killed in other parts of the city, authorities said.

Also Wednesday, security forces in Ciudad Juarez arrested a kidnapping suspect after a shootout that closed a bridge to El Paso, Texas, for about two hours.Chihuahua state prosecutors spokesman Arturo Sandoval said shots were fired Monday night as the suspect tried to flee over the Zaragoza bridge to El Paso. No injuries were reported.Sandoval said the man was suspected in the attempted abduction of a 15-year-old girl.About 2,500 people have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez this year, making it Mexico's deadliest.Elsewhere in Mexico, gunmen attacked a car dealership and an adjacent hospital in the border city of Tijuana late Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of some patients. Baja California state prosecutors said no one was hurt.The attackers doused about 10 cars at the dealership with gasoline and set them alight. Cartels commonly extort protection fees from businesses, which are sometimes firebombed if their owners refuse to pay.Hospitals in the city have been attacked by drug gangs seeking to finish off wounded rivals. In the past, the facility targeted Tuesday treated people wounded in shootouts.

Egypt allows foreign activists to march into Gaza
DEC 31,09

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt has allowed 84 pro-Palestinian foreign activists to march to Gaza, which is under an Israeli-led blockade, an Egyptian official in the North Sinai governorate said.Some 1,400 activists from 43 countries had gathered in Cairo since Sunday to mark the first anniversary of the Israeli three-week offensive on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Egypt said 100 activists would be allowed to pass through.Egyptian authorities made an exception and opened the Rafah border on Wednesday and allowed activists from the Gaza Freedom March to pass through, Alhamy Aref, secretary-general of the North Sinai governorate, said.The activists, several hundred of whom were from France, had asked Egypt for permission to cross into Gaza but the Interior Ministry said the march was illegal and a threat to national security.The group has staged protests almost daily since Sunday in different parts of Egypt, surrounded by a heavy police presence. Such demonstrations are rare in Egypt but no violence broke out and no arrests were made, witnesses and security officials said.Israel controls the air space, sea access and most of the entry points into the coastal enclave of Gaza.Egypt controls the Rafah border, imposing restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and some foreigners. It is also building a controversial steel wall along its Gaza border to prevent smuggling.

Talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been suspended since the December start of the Gaza war, in which 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.The U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell is expected to visit the region in January for a fresh push to resume the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But months of Mitchell's shuttling between the sides yielded no concrete signs of progress in 2009.Egypt has been hosting talks with different Palestinian political groups to end internal disputes, mainly between the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank and the Islamist group Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip.Egypt and Germany have also been mediating a possible prisoner exchange by Hamas and Israel.Egypt has agreed to allow a food and supplies convoy led by independent British Member of Parliament George Galloway to pass into Gaza, but only if it lands by sea at Arish and passes through Rafah.The convoy was docked in the Jordanian port of Aqaba all last week seeking approval from Egypt to enter via Nuweiba on the Red Sea.(Reporting by Yusri Mohamed; Writing by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton).

Yemeni forces raid al-Qaida hideout, clashes erupt By AHMED AL-HAJ and DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writers – Wed Dec 30, 9:34 pm ET

SAN'A, Yemen – Yemeni forces raided an al-Qaida hideout and set off a gunbattle Wednesday as the government vowed to eliminate the group that claimed it was behind the Christmas bombing attempt on a U.S. airliner.The fighting took place in an al-Qaida stronghold in western Yemen, haven for a group that attacked the U.S. Embassy here in 2008, killing 10 Yemeni guards and four civilians. A government statement said at least one suspected militant was arrested during the clashes.The (Interior) Ministry will continue tracking down al-Qaida terrorists and will continue its strikes against the group until it is totally eliminated, Deputy Interior Minister Brig. Gen. Saleh al-Zawari told senior military officials at a meeting in Mareb, another province believed to shelter al-Qaida fighters.Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of Osama bin Laden's group, claimed it was behind the attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner. Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old passenger, was arrested Friday after he allegedly tried to bring down the Northwest Airlines flight, carrying 289 people.U.S. investigators said Abdulmutallab told them he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. Yemen's government has said Abdulmutallab spent two periods in the country, from 2004 to 2005and from August to December of this year, just before the attempted attack.

Abdulmutallab's Yemen connection has drawn attention to al-Qaida's growing presence in the impoverished and lawless country, which is located on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia.Wednesday's clashes took place in Hudaydah province, an al-Qaida stronghold along the Red Sea coast. A security official said the target was a house owned by an al-Qaida sympathizer. The official said the owner was arrested, a suspected al-Qaida member was injured and several militants who fled were being pursued. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.Before Wednesday's clashes, Yemeni forces backed by U.S. intelligence carried out two major strikes against al-Qaida hideouts this month, reportedly killing more than 60 militants.The U.S. has increasingly provided intelligence, surveillance and training to Yemeni forces during the past year, and has provided some firepower, according to a senior U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject.Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Yemen received $67 million in training and support under the Pentagon's counterterrorism program last year, second only to some $112 million spent in Pakistan.

He said the program was not a new one.We are going to work with allies and partners to seek out terrorist activity, al-Qaida, wherever they operate, plan their operations, seek safe harbor, he said.This is an effort that is years old now.In Holland, the Dutch government issued a preliminary report Wednesday calling the airliner plot professional, but describing the execution as amateurish.Dutch Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst told a news conference Abdulmutallab apparently assembled the explosive device, including 80 grams of PETN, in the aircraft toilet, then planned to detonate it with a syringe of chemicals. She said the explosives appeared to have been professionally prepared and then given to Abdulmutallab.

President Barack Obama has demanded a preliminary report by Thursday on what went wrong in the Detroit case. Obama said the intelligence community should have been able to piece together information that would have raised red flags and possibly prevented Abdulmutallab from boarding the airliner.Abdulmutallab had been placed in one broad database, but he never made it onto more restrictive lists, despite his father's warnings to U.S. Embassy officials in Nigeria last month.Abdulmutallab attended a two-week seminar in Houston in August 2008 that was conducted by the AlMaghrib Institute, a Web-based Islamic education center, said Waleed Basyouni, vice president of the institute. The institute is cooperating with authorities, he said.Meanwhile, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday that a man tried to board a commercial airliner in the Somali capital of Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe in a case bearing chilling similarities to the Detroit airliner plot. The Somali man — whose name has not yet been released — was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight took off. It had been scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. The aborted attack in Detroit was launched almost a year after al-Qaida's operations in Yemen and Saudi Arabia united to form Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, making Yemen its base.

Shortly after Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was formed, Saudi Arabia announced a list of 85 most wanted militants outside its borders. It said 11 of them were former Guantanamo detainees who had gone through its rehabilitation program. Three were confirmed to have gone to Yemen. They included Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, who later surrendered in Yemen and was handed over to Saudis, Said al-Shihri, the group's No. 2 and Youssef al-Shihri, who was killed in a clash with Saudis in southern Saudi Arabia. The Yemeni roots of the attack threaten to complicate U.S. efforts to empty the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where nearly half the remaining detainees are from Yemen. Finding a home for them is key to Obama's pledge to close the prison, but emerging details of the plot are renewing concerns about Yemen's capacity to contain militants and growing al-Qaida safe havens. Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., noted that of the 90 men remaining at Guantanamo, more than 60 have been identified as dangerous by the Pentagon. Yet, in the past few weeks, the Obama Administration has overseen the repatriation of six Yemenis from Guantanamo back to their home country, he said.As we learn more about Abdulmutallab's ties to Yemen and AQAP, it is increasingly clear that the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo is a flawed process demanding immediate review.Abdulmutallab spent about five months in Yemen leading up to the airliner attack and a year before that in 2004-2005, Yemeni officials said. Administrators at the San'a Institute for the Arabic Language said he was enrolled at the school during both periods to study Arabic. But staff and students said he spent at most one month at the school starting in late August. His time through December is unaccounted for. Acquaintances described the strict Islamic life he led, rejecting music, TV and mixing with women. All of them expressed surprise that the quiet man they knew would even consider to carry out such an act.

I saw him once tenderly kiss a baby,said Ahmed Mohammed, a teacher at the institute. Today, he's turned into a monster who would have killed children if the operation had succeeded.Abu-Nasr contributed from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Adam Schreck from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

US mulls new sanctions on Iran as year ends by Lachlan Carmichael – Thu Dec 31, 6:36 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Obama administration seemed more firmly set on pushing for fresh UN sanctions against Iran as Iranian leaders balk at a year-end deadline to engage world powers on their nuclear plans.However, with a UN diplomatic source in New York saying preliminary work on drafting a sanctions resolution is likely to begin in mid-January, President Barack Obama's team is keeping its options open.Even as we leave the door open to engagement, world powers agree that Iran will pay the consequences if it does not meet its international nuclear obligations, said Darby Holladay, a State Department spokesman.The five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, France, and Britain -- plus Germany are in the process of considering next steps consistent with our dual-track policy, he told AFP.A senior State Department official told AFP on the condition of anonymity that the Obama administration was pivoting toward imposing more sanctions against Iran while keeping the door open to engagement.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said two weeks ago that Iran had failed to build confidence.For example, she said Iran has balked at a US-backed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) proposal to ship abroad low-grade nuclear fuel so it can be further enriched and returned to refuel a Tehran medical research reactor.Such a move would buy breathing room as the big powers try to halt Iran's uranium enrichment -- which the West fears masks a drive to build a nuclear bomb. Denying the charge, Iran says it seeks peaceful uses of nuclear energy.Also undermining international confidence, Clinton said, is Iran's continuing crackdown on peaceful opposition to Iran's disputed election in June that gave incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad another term in office.

She said Iran also fanned fears about its intentions when it failed to come clean on a secret uranium enrichment plant near the holy city of Qom, and noted that Iran has subsequently announced plans for 10 to 20 new nuclear plants.A UN diplomat said on the condition of anonymity that there is growing concern among the P5-plus-1 over Iran and preliminary work on a new sanctions resolution is expected to start (in New York) in mid-January.One Western country believes new sanctions should target the insurance, banking and financial sectors, the diplomat said, declining to name the country.Several diplomats said the United States and at least some of its Western partners want to avoid hitting Iran's life blood -- its energy sector -- for fear it would trigger a broad-based Iranian nationalist reaction.They also doubt such sanctions would gain the support of China and Russia, which have been more reluctant than the Western powers to impose sanctions.They stressed it is both important not to hurt the Iranian people -- who are already suffering from the political turmoil -- and to keep the door open to talks, as some in the country's leadership appear more willing to engage than others.Analyst Karim Sadjadpour suspects Washington may target the Revolutionary Guards, which are managing Iran's nuclear program, liaising with extremist groups throughout the Middle East, and overseeing the brutal suppression of non-violent protestors.Sadjadpour, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told AFP that punishing the Guards makes sense because it potentially kills several birds with one stone, without alienating the Iranian opposition.Suzanne Maloney, a former State Department official, said the administration has paved the way as for sanctions as carefully as possible even if UN Security Council debate will be difficult. Still, there seems to be a sense that the Russians will come through this time around, and that this will facilitate Chinese cooperation and a more meaningful set of multilateral measures, Maloney told AFP. Maloney, who works for the Brookings Institution's Saban Center, said that she remains skeptical nonetheless about whether sanctions will change Iranian behavior.

In London, a Foreign Office spokeswoman declined to be drawn Thursday on the prospect of further sanctions, saying only:It's important that all countries comply with UN Security Council resolutions.We will need to consider our response in partnershikp with the IAEA and others including the E3+3, she added. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has raised the prospect of new sanctions if Tehran refuses to engage with the West, although his spokesman stressed last month that The priority always is to get the talks to work.