EVENTS IN TIME (BIBLE PROPHECY LITERALLY FULFILLED)(BY GOD)

I WRITE NEWS ABOUT AND PUT NEWS ARTICLES ABOUT ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM PERTAINING TO BIBLE PROPHESY HAPPENINGS.JOEL 3:20 But Judah (ISRAEL) shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.(THATS ISRAEL-JERUSALEM WILL NEVER BE DESTROYED AGAIN)-WE CHRISTIANS ARE ALL WAITING PATIENTLY FOR THE PRE-TRIBULATION RAPTURE TO OCCUR.SO WE CAN GO TO JESUS AND GET OUR NEVER DYING BODIES.SO WE CAN RULE OVER CITIES OURSELVES.WHILE JESUS RULES FROM DAVIDS THRONE FOREVER IN JERUSALEM.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

HAITI MORE DESTRUCTIVE THEN 2004 INDONESIAN TSUNAMI

BECK 911 TRUTHERS CONTROVERSY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQpn0aR8kl0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y-LOPTw2Zc&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngY_jMYngyY&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-zRrutJ_Q&feature=player_embedded
http://www.infowars.com/sarah-palin-911-truther-controversy-makes-hypocrite-of-glenn-beck/

I CAN'T STAND IT THAT ALEX JONES WHO CLAIMES TO BE A CHRISTIAN HATES SARAH PALIN SO MUCH.BUT INSISTS ON LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS....SICK.ALEX YOU BETTER READ THAT BIBLE YOU CLAIM YOU READ WHEN IT SAYS THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BE DECIEVED BY DRUGS,THAT DOES NOT MEAN LEGALIZE DRUGS SO SATAN CAN DECIEVE EVERYONE ON EARTH AND SEND THEM TO HELL FOR DISOBEYING GODS WORDS.GET YOUR MORALS STRAIGHT JONES,STICK UP FOR CHRISTIANS AND SPEAK OUT AGAINGST SIN (DRUGS).

JONES CLAIMS PALINS A FAKE CONSERVATIVE,REPUBLICAN
http://www.infowars.com/neo-con-hierarchy-launches-dirty-tricks-campaign-against-real-constitutionalists/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQpn0aR8kl0&feature=player_embedded

JONES ALSO TALKS AGAINST ISRAEL WHICH I CAN'T STAND.AND IF PALIN IS A FAKE,I LIKE PALIN AND I STICK UP FOR ISRAEL,I GOT 2 UP ON JONES ALREADY.JONES BETTER GET HIS MORALS IN LINE WITH CHRISTIANITY AND HIS LEADER JEWISH KING JESUS.IF PALIN IS A NWO,BANK CONTROLLED SELLOUT,I WILL BE SHOCKED AND DISAPPOINTED.

JONES CLAIMS PAILIN AND PERRY ARE GONNA RUN FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT (A PAIR UP)IN 2012 AND BY BEING NWO BANK CONTROLLED WILL DESTROY THE TRUE CONSTATUTIONALISTS AND TRUE CONSERVATIVE BIBLE BELIEVERS AND DECIEVE THEM.

JONES IS TRYING TO GET MEDINA(LIBERTERIAN) IN TEXAS AND WILL DO ANYTHING TO PUT PALIN DOWN FOR GOING FOR PERRY INSTEAD OF MEDINA IN THIS ELECTION COMING UP.JONES SAYS THERE WAS A TEXAS WELL KNOWN TO EVERY HOUSEHOLD MEMBER IN THE GREENROOM TALKING WITH PERRY,AND PERRY SAID THIS IS ALL A SETUP TO INFILTRATE THE CONSERVATIVE,TEA PARTY MOVEMENT AND TO GET RID OF MEDINA IN TEXAS,JONES AND RON PAUL.WE WILL SEE IF THIS MEMBER COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET AND TELLS THE MEDIA THE SAME STORY.

Neo-Con Hierarchy Launches Dirty Tricks Campaign Against Real Constitutionalists Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Wednesday, February 17, 2010

A prominent insider has told Infowars that Texas Governor Rick Perry and other establishment neo-cons have decided to deliberately target grass roots constitutionalists with dirty tricks campaigns in an effort to derail and hijack the growing liberty movement whose influence is threatening to blow the Texas gubernatorial race wide open.Our office was contacted by a national personality, a household name, who told us that they were in a green room at a national public event a few weeks ago with Rick Perry. The individual was shocked when Perry said directly that there were three people who got under his skin and who had to be dealt with immediately.One – Debra Medina, two – Alex Jones, and three – Ron Paul.

Perry told the individual that these three people had to be targeted and stopped in order for the Republican establishment to shut down any real voices of opposition that were threatening to have an influence on the Tea Party movement, which has been blatantly hijacked by the neo-cons in recent months.Perry made it clear that these individuals and their supporters were the number one target of the neo-con hierarchy because the grass roots was threatening to regain control of the Tea Party movement that was first created by Ron Paul supporters back in 2007, but has since been hijacked by the Republicans.The insider expressed their shock that Perry would be so open with his comments, suspecting that Perry must have considered the individual to be a fellow neo-con. The insider’s deep concern about what was said prompted them to contact our office.Perry made the comments just a couple of weeks before gubernatorial challenger Debra Medina, the only true constitutionalist running for Governorship in Texas, was set-up by Fox News’ Glenn Beck, after the duplicitous talk show host smeared Medina and generated a fake controversy merely for saying that people should be free to question the official 9/11 story, a view shared by the vast majority of Americans.Perry, who was subsequently celebrated by Beck as the only remaining credible candidate after the smear attack on Medina, must have been in on the ploy. Within an hour of her appearance on the Glenn Beck radio show, Texas residents told the Austin-American Statesmen that they had received robo-calls on behalf of the Perry campaign demonizing Medina as an unstable 9/11 truther, echoing Beck’s manufactured talking point aired just an hour earlier.

There can no longer be any doubt that the RNC establishment is running a targeted smear campaign against real grass roots conservatives and libertarians because they are terrified that such individuals will be able to steer the Tea Party movement in a genuine national revolt against big government, thereby massively diminishing the power of establishment Republicans.This dirty tricks campaign is most likely being steered by Karl Rove, master Republican political strategist and former Rick Perry campaign manager. Rove cut his teeth in Texas, using his uncanny ability to manipulate federal prosecutors into going after the officeholder his client was trying to unseat,reports Harper’s Magazine writer Scott Horton.Horton reveals how Rove, in his capacity as Perry’s campaign manager for the powerful Texas office of Commissioner of Agriculture, eliminated Perry’s political opposition by using his influence to launch aggressive criminal investigations into their past and then hyping allegations of misconduct in the media.

Rove is a kingpin of smear and dirty tricks campaigns, and his fingerprints are all over this latest assault.We now have confirmation of everything we have been witnessing from the likes of Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and even establishment leftists like Chris Matthews, who have all been echoing the same talking points about grass roots constitutionalists and 9/11 truthers being terrorists and a threat to the President – this is all part of an orchestrated campaign to target real patriot leaders for character assassination and it is being directed from the highest levels of the Republican power structure.While Medina and Ron Paul are being attacked from above by the establishment, since this would be too obvious – Alex Jones is constantly being attacked from below by phony patriot groups in a ploy to make the smears look more organic and genuine in their nature.Ron Paul is setting the example of how the liberty movement can have an impact at the national level, while Medina is showing people that it’s possible to take back control at state level. Alex Jones is setting the example of how Constitutionalists can take back control of the fourth estate, the media.The burgeoning success of this combination has the establishment running scared, which is why they have resolved to sick attack dog media whores like Glenn Beck on any individual who poses a threat to the controlled left-right paradigm that Beck upholds while marginalizing any real voices of opposition to big government. As we have exhaustively documented, Beck poses as a grass roots libertarian and yet he is a virulent neo-con, constantly hyping an attack on Iran, supporting the bailout and calling for more new taxes.Beck is following the precise methods laid out by Obama White House regulation czar Cass Sunstein in his 2008 white paper. Conspiracy theorists,ie real Constitutionalists and grass roots activists, have been targeted as the number one threat to the power structure and Beck’s job is to neutralize their influence by using a mixture of infiltration, in claiming he is a libertarian yet leading his followers astray on key issues, as well as demonization, by claiming people who question 9/11 are an extremist fringe on both left and right, when in fact they make up no less than 84 per cent of the population.

The revelation that the Republican dirty tricks machine is targeting Constitutionalists as the real threat to their power structure, and the fact that they are using the fake neo-con, the Benedict Arnold of our times, Glenn Beck, as their primary mouthpiece for this assault, speaks volumes about the level of influence the real liberty movement is now having on the body politic in America.
Internally, while the likes of Perry and Beck dismiss the real grass roots as fringe extremists,with Beck claiming earlier this week on his show that they make up no more than 10 per cent of the country, their constant attacks illustrate just how worried the neo-cons are about the growing liberty movement, which comprises far more than 10 per cent of politically active Americans.The phrase As goes Texas, so goes the U.S.has never been more appropriate. If Medina were to win the Governorship, Texas would become the bellwether trend setting state and provide massive impetus for the liberty movement to run candidates and win in other states across America. A Medina victory would send a big message to the country and grease the skids for true Constitutionalists to take over state houses, governorships and legislatures nationwide.A Medina victory would also legitimize the Tea Parties as a true organic movement of the people, and not as an astroturf offshoot of the Republican party, as the neo-con hijacking of the movement has allowed it to be characterized by the establishment media.A victory for the liberty movement in Texas would also completely derail funding for the North American Union, the Nafta Superhighway, cap and trade measures being enforced at state level, and a whole host of other unconstitutional initiatives that are being pushed by globalist and Bilderberg attendee Rick Perry.

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.

Clearing roads in winter requires snowphistication By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer – Tue Feb 16, 2:40 pm ET

CHICAGO – The forecast: a mighty winter blizzard sure to dump a record-setting blanket of snow that will grow from inches to feet overnight, just in time for rush hour.When it happened this month in Washington, they called it Snowpocalypse and an overwhelmed city couldn't keep its streets clear. When it happened last week in Chicago, they called it Tuesday and kept the blacktop black from first flakes to final drifts.I'd take my plow drivers and put them up against anyone in North America,said Bobby Richardson, Chicago's snow removal boss.Ten inches, a foot of snow? That's nothing for us. Nothing.That's not the case outside of Chicago and other cities in the American snow belt, where the strategy for cleaning the streets of winter's wrath is often based on a calculated risk that snow won't fall where snow usually doesn't. Most years, that gamble pays off. But this winter, historic blizzards have struck cities where traffic-snarling snowfalls are rare or even unheard of, exposing the dangers of counting on the Big One not to hit.You won't see bare pavement for at least three weeks — and that's if we don't get another snow next week,Steve Shannon, an operations manager at the Virginia Department of Transportation, said late last week about suburban Washington's Fairfax County.

To be fair, the one-two punch of storms that socked the East Coast this month were record-setting, with snow falling so fast and deep Washington pulled its plows from the road. A quarter were knocked out of commission entirely by the struggle of trying to move so much snow off the streets.And yet Richardson and his legendary snow-clearing legions argue that keeping a city moving during such a blizzard isn't an insurmountable task. Should as much snow fall on Chicago as it did in Washington this month, more than 500 plows and 1,000 workers — hardened by years of work in tough Midwestern winters — are prepared to wipe it all away.Chicago would get through such a storm, and while it would not be total normalcy, the city would still function,said Matt Smith, a spokesman for the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation.Buried by snow this month, cities across the Mid-Atlantic states were forced to scramble to locate plows, hiring hundreds from private contractors and seeking help from neighboring states.In Philadelphia, crews struggled Tuesday to clear sidestreets after two storms dumped 40 inches of snow in less than a week. They used small front-loaders to fit down streets too narrow for plows. They could only take small bites of snow and ice at a time, making removal time consuming, said Maura Kennedy, spokeswoman for Mayor Michael Nutter.No place seemed more unprepared for the weather than the Washington area: The federal government shut down for days as District residents complained of a spotty, haphazard response that left some streets all but abandoned.And in the South, where even a light dusting is enough to paralyze commuters until the weather warms up and melts away the problem, most major cities have only a handful of plows — if any at all. In Dallas, a city of 1.2 million people but not a single dedicated snow plow, authorities count on snowflakes melting the minute they touch the ground.That didn't happen last week, when the worst storm in nearly five decades dropped more than a foot of snow in northern Texas. All the city could do was send reconnaissance teams to identify slick spots and direct trucks to spread sand.Historically, that has handled every situation we face, city spokesman Frank Librio said.So, which city is best at cleaning up after the Big One? Chicago, Buffalo, N.Y., or some other snowy locale? Those who study the business of providing such services say looking at comparable data is the only way to credibly assess whether one snow removal strategy beats another. But not only does such information not exist, the hundreds of variables involved complicate any effort to devise a master strategy.

For example, St. Paul, Minn., is far hillier than its Twin Cities counterpart of Minneapolis, which is filled with more alleys and more cars — obstacles plows must dodge. Each snowfall is different, too: light, powdery snow falls when the temperatures drop close to zero, and wet, heavy snow comes when the temperature hovers around freezing.The snow and ice community has struggled with this topic for years as the methods, equipment, availability of resources and most importantly, level of service and winter severity, vary enormously from state to state, region to region, said Caleb Dobbins, a state maintenance engineer at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.What can be measured is preparation. With an annual average snowfall of 38 inches, Chicago maintains a fleet of 300 trucks specifically designed for removing snow, 200 others that can be fitted with plow blades and budgeted $17 million for the work this winter. Washington, with an average of 19.4 inches of snow each year, has 200 trucks that can be fitted with blades and a snow budget of $6 million. Some Washington residents say the district is in a no-win situation: slammed for not being prepared when the Big One hits, but likely to face criticism if it spent much more on snow removal. I don't know how prudent it would be to throw millions of taxpayer dollars at a problem that may not rear its head in a century, said Mike DeBonis, a columnist for the Washington City Paper. If the already cash-strapped city wanted to spend more on snow, he added, it would be forced to cut other, arguably higher priority services, such as garbage collection or tree trimming. Head farther South and the preparation naturally gets even thinner. In Pensacola, Fla., there is no budget for snow removal. The city has a fertilizer spreader that can work with sand, but no snow-clearing master plan that in snowbelt cities typically includes target times for clearing streets. If we knew a cold front was coming in, I'd have to go to a pool company and buy some sodium chloride,said Pensacola public works director Al Garza.Every time we take precautions, (we) stockpile some masonry sands in different locations and end up not using it.Then comes a month like February, when snow covers some ground in 49 states; two-thirds of the nation's land mass had snow cover Friday. While Garza was safe, snow fell just 40 miles north of Pensacola last week. After brief respite over the weekend, light snow fell again in Washington on Monday. The consequences of failing to clear that snow can be deadly. Each year, more than 1,300 people are killed and more than 116,000 injured in vehicle crashes on snowy, slushy or icy pavement, according to the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. A storm that shuts down roads also closes the door of business, costing communities hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales taxes and revenue from income taxes. The benefits of being better prepared far outweigh the costs — because it costs so much when the Big One does hit,said Greg Cohen, executive director of the Roadway Safety Foundation, whose own street in Washington was still unplowed several days after the storms hit. Then there's the politics of snow: Mayors know failure to remove it can cost them their jobs. Every mayor knows the story of Chicago's Michael Bilandic, the incumbent who lost in the 1979 Democratic primary after the city failed to clear streets fast enough after a storm. These days, voters embrace Mayor Richard M. Daley in part because the crews at Streets and Sanitation keeps the city in business every winter: The city's public schools haven't had a snow day in more than a decade. I got more calls from mayors during snow storms than at any other time, said Tom Eggum, a retired public works director in St. Paul. It's probably because of what happened in Chicago.

While nearly 70 percent of the U.S. population lives in an area that gets some snow each year, there's a consensus Chicago gets rid of it as well as any place else. The city received an A grade for clearing its main streets from the Illinois Policy Institute following last week's storm, which broke the single-day snowfall record for February by dropping more than a foot of snow on the city. A cool confidence flows through Richardson's downtown snow command center, where the city's deputy streets commissioner sleeps on a cot so he can work around the clock during a storm. He oversees a dozen dispatchers who comb through satellite data, watch giant screens showing up to 1,000 live camera shots of major streets, and call plow drivers to let them know they've missed a spot or need to drop their blade a little lower. The drivers at the other end of a dispatcher's call are often under the most pressure, intently focused for 12 or more hours at a time on the road ahead, anxious about clipping curbs, cars or even pedestrians as they clear Chicago's 9,500 miles of street lanes. They're helped by a merciless towing operation that clears illegally parked cars to make room for the plows. Cohen, the Roadway Safety Foundation chief, said Washington and other cities ill-prepared for snow should heed the lessons of this February winter and start preparing for the next Big One by building up that kind of snow-fighting force. But he doesn't have faith it will happen: As voters, people might remember street-clearing failures, but as taxpayers, they tend to forget as soon as the snow melts. People say it should be done, he said.But then no one connects the dots that someone has to pay for it.Associated Press writers Jessica Gresko and Sarah Karush in Washington, JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia, Jeff Karoub in Detroit, Briana Bierschbach in St. Paul, Minn., Linda Steward Ball in Dallas, Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y., and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.

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.

Haiti quake more destructive than 2004 tsunami: study by M.j. Smith – Tue Feb 16, 9:35 pm ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – The scale of devastation in Haiti is far worse than in Asia after the 2004 tsunami, a study has said, estimating the cost of last month's earthquake at up to 14 billion dollars.The report released Tuesday from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) raised the possibility that the quake could be the most destructive disaster in modern history.Its stark assessment comes with Port-au-Prince still lying in ruins more than one month on, while the bodies of more than 200,000 dead pile up in mass graves outside the capital.The study's release coincided with what would normally be Haiti's annual carnival, an explosion of pulsing music and colorful parades. But this year, the events have been cancelled as no one is in the mood to party.The preliminary IDB report estimated the damage at between eight and 14 billion dollars in what was already the poorest country in the Americas before the catastrophe.Factoring in Haiti's population and economic output, the upper estimate would make it the most destructive natural disaster in modern history, the bank said. Related article: Haiti gang turf wars.Indeed, in this respect the Haiti earthquake was vastly more destructive than the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 and the cyclone that hit Myanmar in 2008, an IDB statement said.It caused five times more deaths per million inhabitants than the second-ranking natural killer, the 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua.Haiti officials say more than 217,000 people were killed in the quake, or about 2.4 percent of the country's population of nine million.The 14-billion-dollar figure is the Washington-based bank's upper estimate for the cost of reconstructing homes, schools, streets and other infrastructure in Haiti following the January 12 quake.The IDB said a more detailed accounting of the situation would come in the following months but that its preliminary study showed that the reconstruction cost was likely to be far higher than anticipated.Meanwhile, Haiti's carnival celebrations, usually the culmination of weeks of parties, were replaced by mourning.

Everybody's sad, said Nanotte Verly, a 48-year-old mother of nine who lost her home in the quake and sells jewelry and wooden plaques praising Jesus on a roadside.All the buildings are still collapsed on the ground.More than a million Haitians are still homeless following the earthquake, living in squalid camps in and around the capital.Related article: Haiti's raucous carnival replaced by mourning

The traditional center of carnival celebrations, the Champ de Mars park across from the collapsed National Palace, is now a sprawling homeless camp housing some 16,000 people in a maze of tents made of scrap wood and sheets.Lemaire Sicard, 37, lives at the site and spoke of how the Champ de Mars would be filled with revelers and partying in years past.But now there's nothing, he said.It's not possible. There are people from this area who were hurt -- deaths also.While aid workers rush to distribute tarpaulins before the rainy season starts, the United Nations says only about 272,000 people have been provided with shelter materials so far. On his second day in Haiti to give a boost to the relief effort, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Canadian troops in Leogane, a town largely wiped out by the quake where the soldiers are helping set up a hospital. Harper had earlier said Canada would set up a semi-permanent, 11-million-dollar headquarters for the Haitian government, which currently operates out of a police building because the palace and many government ministries were destroyed in the quake. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was due to arrive here on Wednesday. In a positive sign for the quake-torn country, American Airlines said it would resume the first commercial flights to Haiti on Friday.

ISRAEL

Whose Promised Land? Psalm 78:54-55 (ISRAELS)
54 And He brought them to His holy border, This mountain which His right hand had acquired.
55 He also drove out the nations before them,Allotted them an inheritance by survey, And made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.

ISRAELS INHERITED LAND IN THE FUTURE

And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.

Freeze Inspectors Destroy Foundations
by Hillel Fendel FEB 17,10
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/136061

(IsraelNN.com) For the first time, Civil Administration inspectors enforcing the government-imposed construction freeze did not merely issue orders against building starts, but rather destroyed the foundations of one such infraction.It occurred in the Shomron (Samaria) community of Revavah. The ten-month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria was called three months ago, under heavy American pressure. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other government ministers have said that it would not last longer than ten months, but other officials have raised doubts as to whether Israel would actually be able to bring itself to buck international pressure and resume Jewish construction in these areas.The inspectors arrived in Revavah in the middle of the night, sneaking in the back way,according to the residents.They did not announce their arrival, but rather came through the fields,residents said.They could have been suspected of being terrorists, and there could even have been shots fired back and forth.Revavah spokesperson Naama Vachnish said, Their behavior was cowardly and shameful. They chose to act on lots that have building permits, in an anti-Zionist manner. Despite this, however, Revavah will continue to build and develop with even more force.

Dagan: Netanyahu's Fault
Yossi Dagan of the Shomron Residents Committee placed the blame on Netanyahu: This is another step towards his new position on the political left. We do not accept his cowardly hiding behind Defense Minister Ehud Barak; destruction of this nature does not happen without the Prime Minister’s knowledge.The Knesset Land of Israel Forum, too, opposes the incident. Headed by Chairmen MKs Aryeh Eldad and Ze’ev Elkin, the forum protested against the destruction, and added that it was ill-timed in taking place only a week after a terrorist murdered an IDF soldier at nearby Tapuach Junction.

Opposition Leader Livni: We Must Make Hard Decisions
by Hillel Fendel FEB 17,10

(IsraelNN.com) Ex-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, head of the Opposition in the Knesset, spoke at the Jerusalem Conference on her vision of Israel as a Jewish state.

Excerpts: My vision, and that of the Kadima party, deals with the continued existence of Israel as Jewish and democratic, living securely in the Land of Israel. This is a vision that is shared by many in this country – but unfortunately, there are deep rifts in our society, and these overshadow our mutual goals...The establishment of the State of Israel did not happen as a result of the Holocaust or by virtue of the UN declaration, but because it is the Jewish Nation’s legitimate right - the expression of our historic vision to return to our land. But sadly, that which was self-evident when the State was established, is no longer self-evident.

Livni related to the hostile Goldstone report, saying it originated in a council that promotes processes almost exclusively against Israel… The report is not only a delegitimization of Israel, but affects our very right to exist and defend ourselves. Hamas refuses to accept our existence, while the Goldstone report attempts to cut off our ability to fight terrorism. We must fight these threats together.In contrast with Minister Benny Begin, who said told the Conference on Tuesday that no solution is feasible in the foreseeable future and that we must strive simply to make the most out of the present stalemate, Livni said,We must make hard decisions, for if not, we will find ourselves living in two different societies [Jewish and Arab], hostile to each other, with different school systems and with nothing in common.If we don’t make hard decisions now, we are in danger of losing all that is precious to all of us. Our existence as a Jewish state is not just a technical matter... Maintaining a Jewish majority is important, but it’s not just a question of numbers, but of our ability to maintain an enduring Jewish national character – not only in Bnei Brak and Meah She’arim, but also in Tel Aviv.Livni said Israel must move forward towards a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, “because if not, we will end up not with one bi-national state, as some think, but with one Arab state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. We must make hard decisions – not out of weakness, but because it’s in our interest… The price of such an arrangement is dear – but not if we compare it to the alternative, namely, the loss of all that we believe in.

Livni also spoke about the need to define the parameters of a Jewish state, the role of conversion to Judaism, the undue influence of hareidi-religious parties on Jewish matters, the need for a Constitution, and more. Concluding on an optimistic note, she said,I believe that we will be able to form and reach a common denominator, not only politically, but also socially.

Government Declares Massive Steps for Israeli Heritage
by Malkah Fleisher FEB 16,10

(IsraelNN.com) The State of Israel has begun a NIS 500 million investment plan aimed at refurbishing Israeli heritage sites.The sites will be featured on two new hiking paths, which will give trekkers an opportunity to connect to the land with their feet.Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced the plan at the annual Herzliya Conference. Now it turnsThe plan aims to allow students to walk the length and breadth of Israel.out that they are already well underway.A full outline of the plan will be presented to ministers at next Sunday's cabinet meeting. It is estimated to take approximately 6 years to complete.In his speech to Herzlyia Conference attendees, Netanyahu praised students for their talent and cosmopolitan thinking. But he said these attributes are not enough. He bemoaned the surroundings of cultural shallowness, of diluted knowledge and spirituality, which he said dilutes and weakens the national strength.The antidote, Netanyahu said, is reminding students of their Zionist heritage, encouraging them to find themselves in the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. His plan aims to allow them to do so by walking the length and breadth of Israel.

One trail will be called the Historic Land of Israel trail, leading hikers to dozens of ancient archaeological sites. The other will be the Israel Experience trail, meant to connect hikers with landmarks, museums, and memorials associated with pre-State Jewish settlement in Israel and the fight to create an independent Jewish country.Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov and Negev and Galilee Development Minister Silvan Shalom have already confirmed their cooperation on the project. MKs from the Knesset Lobby for Judea, Samaria, and Gaza have contacted the Prime Minister to request that he include heritage sites in Judea and Samaria, such as ancient Hebron and Shilo, on his list of locations to restore.Some of the sites possibly slated for renewal are Qumran, Masada, Tel Meggido, Neot Kedumim, Susia, Tiberias, Tel Lachish, Sde Amudim, Beit She'an, Caesarea National Park, Tel Arad, Tel Dan, and the City of David in Jerusalem.The program will also include the preservation of documents, songs, poems, and art deemed valuable to Israeli heritage.

MK Hotovely Surprises: Give PA Arabs Citizenship
by Hillel Fendel FEB 16,10(IsraelNN.com)

Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely said on Monday that in order to maintain a Jewish Israel as well as Judea and Samaria, Israel must grant Israeli citizenship to PA Arabs. She spoke at Panel 3 of the Jerusalem Conference, which was entitled,The Two State Solution, or Maybe Three, or One? Other speakers included:Yoram Ettinger, former liaison for Congressional Affairs at Israel's Embassy in Washington;
Cabinet Minister Benny Begin; Itamar Marcus, Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch; Ehud Ya'ari, Senior Commentator on Arab Affairs for Israel's Channel 2 TV; MK Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Prof. Aryeh Eldad (National Union).

MK Avi Dichter (Kadima), a former Minister of Public Security, was scheduled to speak, but sent word during the session that he would be unable to attend.

Hotovely: Support for Citizenship
The biggest headline of the session was provided by MK Tzipi Hotovely of the Likud, who is known for her nationalist views – yet came out in support of granting Israeli citizenship to the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. She began by agreeing that the idea of a Palestinian state is dead and buried, a passing illusion. They don’t want a state, as we saw in 2000 and 2008 when they rejected far-reaching Israeli proposals. From the Israeli side, as well, Ehud Barak told me that he has no dispute with Benny Begin about Palestinian intentions – meaning that he, too, knows that they do not accept or suffice with the idea of a state. The same is true around the world...But the bad news,she said,is what is happening here in Israel. For too many years, we have been passive and just let things go… I respect Benny Begin, but I disagree that we must simply continue not to decide. We must be pro-active in Judea/Samaria as we are in Jerusalem and in the Golan. The international community must not be allowed to be the main player; for too many years we have given the world too much importance; we have to know what we ourselves want.An important question is, What do we do with the Palestinians? They are people, a hostile element - what do we do with them? We must first apply Israeli law to Judea and Samaria – I don't say we must annex it, because it’s already ours – and this will help the 300,000 Jewish residents there; they are the only ones currently living under occupation. But what about the Arabs there? That’s the hard question. But all the alternatives are worse than what I’m about to say: We should consider giving them citizenship – I'm not referring to Gaza – on condition that we legislate a Basic Law that Israel remains a Jewish state. They will then have at most a 30% minority, not to mention that we have to make a national mission of bringing another million Jews on Aliyah from the West...

Minister Begin said flat-out:There is no chance for a solution at present; to say otherwise is irresponsible... We saw how Hamas defeated Fatah in Gaza inside the period of a week, among other things by throwing some Fatah men out the windows of a ten-story building… We should for now concentrate on making our relations with the Arabs of the PA as good as possible… Sometimes we have to simply realize that the reality is very difficult and cannot be made better in the foreseeable future. I said as much to US envoy Senator Mitchell several months ago.MK Hotovely: What about the Arabs in Yesha? That’s the hard question. But all the alternatives are worse than what I’m about to say: We should consider giving them citizenship.Commentator Ehud Ya'ari took an extreme approach, beginning by quoting a top aide to both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, Dr. Ahmed Haladi of London. Ya'ari quoted Khalidi, whom he called the leading intellectual of the Palestinian movement,as having said: The idea of a Palestinian state in the 67 borders is a punitive construct devised by the Palestinians' worst enemies – the U.S. and Israel – in order to constrain Palestinian aspirations territorially and force them to give up on their moral rights.

Force the Palestinians to Accept a State
Ya'ari said that the idea of a Palestinian state within the 67 borders, that is, in Judea and Samaria, has lost its appeal in the Palestinian public.It has lost its oomph. Every Palestinian I speak to agrees with me – but Jews, mostly from the left, have difficulty with this... The problem is that they are collapsing into our unwilling arms; what’s happening is reverse annexation.In effect, it's the Palestinian who have decided to annex us, and not the opposite. This is not a declared goal, but it is happening every day. And the question is if we accept it - or whether our real interest lies in stopping this process. My opinion is that we have only a limited time, 2-3 years at the most, to try to bring about a situation in which a Palestinian state is formed against their own will, to force them to accept sovereignty - because if not it will be too late.Yoram Ettinger expressed surprise at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for having rushed to announce support for a Palestinian state: We just heard that the popular Senator Bayh announced that he is not running for office again; it shows that no Democratic Senate seat is safe – and so why did Netanyahu run to Bar Ilan University to announce his consent to two states just because a weak president who had been in office for only a few months waved an index finger at him? Itamar Marcus of PMW presented a slide-show of sample from the Palestinian Authortiy media educating its children and public to hatred of Israel: We speak of two states, but the Palestinians educate their children to a world without Israel.In just one of dozens of examples, here is a children's show on TV - which is controlled by Abbas’ office – in which children are asked, Which is Palestine’s most important port – Jaffa, Akko, or Haifa [which are all Israeli cities since 1948]? They simply build for their children a new world without Israel, in which Palestine has totally replaced Israel... They call the Galilee 'the northern settlements,and Sderot is similarly a settlement.... There is a new weekly program called Returning - referring to Jerusalem, Lod, Jaffa, etc. There are many more examples...Marcus noted that a recent poll of Palestinian Authority youth between the ages of 18-24 shows that a full 91.7% of them say Israel has no right to exist.There is great support for terrorists and murderers: Camps, tournaments and more are named for Dalal Mughrabi – including a birthday celebration for her under the auspices of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – who committed the worst terror attack in Israeli history, the Coastal Road attack that left 37 dead... How can we sign an agreement with the PA leaders, if this is what their young think? MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union), said: I am in favor of the end of occupation and I support two states for two peoples. We must end the occupation – I am referring of course to the Moslem conquest of the Land of Israel that began in the 7th century. And we must have two states – meaning Jordan as the Palestinian country; the Arabs of Judea and Samaria can have resident status there, but will be citizens of Jordan and vote for the Jordanian parliament.As a doctor, I know that preventative medicine is better than treating a sickness, so my goal is to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state... Ya'ari said that we should force them to accept their own state. I never heard of such a thing happening anywhere in the world - forcing a people to have a state.

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).

Brussels threatens to widen net on currency swaps ANDREW WILLIS
16.02.2010 @ 17:17 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has said it will widen its investigation into complex currency transactions, used to hide the true extent of national debt levels, if evidence suggests they were deployed in more than one member state. The EU's statistics office, Eurostat, launched an investigation into Greece over the weekend, following recent reports that Wall Street investment banks provided Athens with swaps and other financial instruments throughout the last decade. Speaking after a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels on Tuesday (16 February), EU economy commissioner Olli Rehn said Greece has until 19 February to justify their legitimacy, adding that the net could be widened to other capitals. In case there is reason to expect that these kind of techniques have been used by other member states, not only Greece, then we will request information from other member states,said Mr Rehn. The Finnish politician said Eurostat had no evidence of other capitals using the swaps, but the statistics agency was also unaware of Athens' activities until very recently. Media reports over the weekend said Europe's other chronic big spender, Italy, has also used the off-balance sheet items in the past to hide its debt pile. Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou told journalists on Monday: Greece was not the only country using them. They have since been made illegal and Greece has not used them since.

Spanish economy minister and current chair of the bloc's finance meetings, Elena Salgado, said Spain had not been approached by investment banks concerning the products.If such a proposal had been made it would not have been accepted, but there has not been any proposal along those lines,she said. Mr Rehn also extended a warning to the firms themselves. If confirmed that some investment banks have been involved in these kind of exercises, we have to see whether the rules have been respected,he said. Investment bank Goldman Sachs is alleged to have arranged so-called cross-currency swaps for Greece at the start of 2002, under which government debt issued in dollars and yen was swapped for euro debt for a certain period, to be exchanged back into the original currencies at a later date.The procedure is widely practised by governments looking for different currencies, but questions have been asked about the validity of the exchange rates used in the Greek case.The reports suggest Goldman Sachs used fictional rates to enable Athens to receive a far higher sum than the actual euro market value of its dollar / yen denominated debt, with the additional credit gained in this way going undetected by Brussels.

US bank plans

As well as formally adopting commission excessive deficit recommendations on a number of EU countries, and approving the Greek government's deficit cutting programme, EU finance ministers also listened to presentations from the bloc's various economic commissioners regarding plans for the next five years. Internal market commissioner Michel Barnier said the EU was currently studying recent US proposals to reform its banking sector, but indicated the EU was not intending to merely adopt them whole scale. You can't just transpose or copy the ideas or reforms proposed by [US President] Obama to the European continent,said Mr Barnier who is heading to Washington and New York in the coming days to discuss the plans with American officials. In Europe we have more problems related to the interconnection of the banks, rather than the specific nature of the activities or the scale of individual banks,he said. The US plans, named after their chief architect and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, aim to limit the size and risk-taking of banks operating in America.

Ministers choose Portuguese ECB deputy
ANDREW WILLIS Today FEB 17,10 @ 09:24 CET

EU finance ministers have thrown their support behind Portugal's Vitor Constancio to take over the key job of deputy head of the European Central Bank.The decision to replace current vice-president, Greece's Lucas Papademos, set to step down this summer, with another southern European, is seen as increasing the chances of German Bundesbank chief Axel Weber to take the top stop next year. Current ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet's term expires in October 2011, with senior EU posts generally filled to reflect a geographic balance. The recommendation adopted by the 27 EU finance ministers on Tuesday (16 February) in support of Mr Constancio will now go to the European parliament, the ECB's governing council and national leaders for ratification during a European summit next month.Mr Constancio is a former Socialist lawmaker and party leader and has been governor of Portugal's central bank since 2000 after a brief period at the helm between 1985 and 1986.He has been tipped to take the lead role in expanding the ECB's responsibilities for eurozone financial stability and will have a seat on the planned European Systemic Risk Board, intended to monitor the EU's financial system as a whole for the build up of risks.

Dove vs Hawk

Analysts say Mr Constancio is regarded as being on the dovish wing of the ECB's governing council.In contrast, the strong emphasis placed by ECB presidential contender Axel Weber on the need to control inflation with higher interest rates puts him among the council's hawks, with a balance between the two schools also usually sought. Mr Weber perplexed many economists in late 2007 with his repeated statements on the need for a tight monetary policy, even as the credit crunch took hold and others warned of a imminent slump in world growth. The German's main challenger to take over at the reins of the eurozone's central bank, charged with setting one interest rate for its 16 members, comes in the form of Italy's central bank governor, Mario Draghi.French and German officials argue it is too early to take any firm decisions on Mr Trichet's successor, although euro area members are silently lobbying for their preferred candidates in the background. Despite French attempts to install Jean-Claude Trichet, the bank's first president in 1998 was Wim Duisenberg, the former president of the Dutch central bank. Tensions were relieved by a gentleman's agreement in which Mr Duisenberg would stand down before the end of his mandate, to be replaced by Mr Trichet, an event which occurred in November 2003.

Kosovo optimistic on EU prospects two years after independence
ANDREW RETTMAN AND EKREM KRASNIQI Today FEB 17,10 @ 09:29 CET

EUOBSERVER / PRISTINA - Kosovo predicts that it will be an EU member before 2020. But two years after its declaration of independence, its EU integration process is facing problems. Asked by Austrian daily Der Standard in an interview on Tuesday (16 February) whether Kosovo will get into the EU by the end of this decade, its foreign minister, Skender Hyseni, said: I am optimistic that we will be in before that.Mr Hyseni forecast that the five remaining EU countries that do not recognise Kosovo - Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain - will reconsider their position after the international court in the Hague rules on the legality of its status, a move expected in June.My impression is that those states who don't recognise [Kosovo] can expect friendly pressure from others. Greece is going in the right direction, he explained.

The EU is deeply engaged in Kosovo.

Its rule-of-law mission, Eulex, is the bloc's largest in the world, with 2,600 people on the ground. Twenty EU countries take part in the International Steering Group, which helps oversee the Kosovo government. It has pumped in over €5 billion of aid since 1999. Despite the non-recognition issue, EU states have opened tentative talks on visa-free travel. A so-called tracking group meets around three times a year to pave the way for a pre-accession treaty, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA). One of the most frequently cited problems on Kosovo's path to normalcy is the well-funded separatist ethnic Serb movement in the north of Kosovo. But despite the EU's investment in Pristina, tensions between Eulex and ethnic Albanians are also on the rise. Eulex' judicial wing will on 22 February open a trial against Albin Kurti, the leader of the Vetevendosje (self-determination) political movement, for organising trouble outside official buildings in 2007.The trial has highlighted the fact that Eulex itself and its outgoing forerunner, the UN mission in Kosovo (Unmik) enjoy legal impunity, despite some controversial incidents. They are doing nothing against the Romanian Unmik policemen who killed Arben Xheladini and Mon Balaj in 2007 [two Vetevendosje activists], and who wounded another 80 people, by shooting rubber bullets at their heads from 20 metres away, Mr Kurti, who says he does not recognise Eulex' authority and who aims to boycott the court proceedings, told this website.The Vetevendosje leader pointed out that EU integration could aggravate Kosovo's economic problems in the coming years.If the visa free deal goes ahead, Kosovo's best and brightest are likely to make an exodus from the impoverished region. When the SAA is put in place, abolishing customs duties on EU imports, it will leave a major hole in Kosovo's budget. Two million Kosovar people are now turning into a nation of consumers of Serbian, regional and European products, Mr Kurti said on Kosovo's trade imbalance, which saw €1.4 billion of imports last year to €104 million exports.This [the visa deal] will cause a massive movement of our citizens into EU countries searching for a better life as they don't see any future in Kosovo. Just to recall, during the first three weeks after the EU scrapped visas for Macedonians, more than 160,000 Macedonian citizens left the country.

It is unclear how many have since returned.Meanwhile, Eulex spokesman Nicholas Hawton told EUobserver that the mission has made a a good start.It is fair to say there is frustration about the levels of unemployment, corruption, crime and other social problems. The reason Eulex Kosovo is on the ground here is to significantly improve the lives of ordinary people in one, crucial area - that of the rule of law.

DISEASES

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

DRUG PUSHERS AND ADDICTS

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

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

[FOCUS] Tuberculosis' deadly return to Europe LEIGH PHILLIPS
15.02.2010 @ 13:18 CET

EUOBSERVER / HEALTH FOCUS - Vladimir appears as an unwrapped mummy, a skeleton of a man whose paper skin pulls taught over his Siberian bones. Top off, in stocking feet and navy Adidas track bottoms, he lies on his side as a nurse sponges the wounds left from the surgery he's had to remove some ribs to let his one lung - the other also removed by the doctors - breathe more easily. He has an ancient sickness, tuberculosis, but his is a wretched new mutation of the disease that now seems impervious to almost all of mankind's very much ageing weapons against it. The 50-year-old former oil driller from Strezhevoy, a Rosneft company town in the far northwest of the Tomsk Oblast, is nevertheless surprisingly upbeat and chatty.I suppose I'll never run a marathon now,he jokes,I just wish I could at least walk a few metres without losing my breath.He's been in the Tomsk TB hospital undergoing treatment for a disease against which very few drugs work at all for four years now. He complains that four years is a long time for a hospital whose library doesn't have much of a selection, but he's happy his wife has not left him as, you know, it happens a lot in Russia,and that she and his children come to visit. But however bad he looks - there is a reason TB was once called consumption, or the wasting disease -his doctors say that he's actually on the mend and they are confident that in another two years he will be cured.He'll survive, says Dr Evgeny Nekrasov as he paints a picture of this very typical patient and his disease, proud of the work they are doing in Tomsk, Siberia's university town long forgotten, if it was ever known, by the rest of the world but a model region for Europe in combatting TB.

Multi-drug resistance

Vladimir has what is called XDR-TB, they say, or extensively multi-drug resistant TB, a form of the bacteria resistant to most drugs and that emerged in 2006 from the already robust MDR-TB, or plain old multi-drug resistant TB.TB is usually treated with a course of four standard, or first-line, anti-TB drugs over the course of six to nine months under the direct supervision of a healthcare worker. The full course can cost as little as $11. A patient is classified as MDR if he is resistant to the two most powerful of these. MDR takes longer to treat - up to 24 months - with second-line drugs that have more profound side-effects and that are much more expensive. An XDR patient is resistant to almost all of these first-line drugs and some second-line drugs are also ineffective. XDR TB treatment can cost a thousand times what everyday TB costs. In the most extreme cases, strains are resistant to all existing TB antibiotics.Vladimir, for his part, is resistant to eight first-line medicines and sensitive to just two of them. The doctors say that from the beginning, his TB developed in a very advanced manner. This was then compounded by the fact that he was not very compliant with his treatment, interrupting it to stay home.There were periods of alcohol abuse,his surgeon explains.It is this interruption that has been the major cause of the development of MDR and subsequently even more virulent XDR, in turn a product of deteriorating diagnostic facilities and healthcare systems that do not have the manpower or time to ensure at-risk patients continue to take their medicine. Patients believe they are better, because after a short period of treatment, many symptoms go away, but they are not cured, and then the drugs have a limited effect.Along with Africa, eastern Europe has the lowest success rate for TB treatment in the world. The breakdown of social safety nets, beyond just healthcare systems, growing HIV/Aids rates, alcoholism also contribute to the return of TB. And this before the onset of the economic crisis.At the Tomsk TB Hospital, chief doctor Golina Yanova reads off the statistics about her patients. All are middle-aged men. Only 2.5 percent have regular jobs. Ninety-five percent are homeless; 50 percent are disabled; 57 percent are alcoholics; 37 percent are convicts.At the same time, anybody can contract it. So it's both a medical and a social problem at the same time,she says.It's a litmus test for society as a awhile. I think we're going have many more patients here. There will be a lot more jobless and homeless as a result of the crisis.

Disease of the past

Still in many quarters considered a disease of the past - in the 1970s, like small pox, it was thought to be on the verge of eradication - even normal TB remains a killer. Roughly a third of the world's population carry a latent strain. The disease has returned in a novel form that is quietly stalking Europe, beneath the media's radar, most of the time marching a soldier's slow but steady stride westward, but at times moving as fast as it takes for a plane to travel from Tallinn's Lennart Meri airport to Heathrow. Experts worry that Europe, which spent millions battling a Swine flu that killed 14,286 last year, is at a loss when dealing with the threat from the more mundane but far more lethal TB, which strikes down 1.77 million people annually worldwide.Just to give this some perspective in terms of international health scares,explains Lee Reichman, the director of the Global TB Institute at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject.Sars killed 813 people; H1N1 has killed 3,917; the anthrax scare in the US after 9/11 - five; and mad cow disease - one.TB is the biggest single killer of any infection globally and has been neglected for very many years.As many as half a million TB cases identified each year are resistant to multiple drugs, 40,000 of them XDR. This latter form has so far turned up in some 50 countries. Of the 27 countries most affected by MDR, 15 are in the WHO European region, with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Russian Federation having some of the highest rates of drug resistance amongst new patients. Across the east, 14 percent of MDR patients have been diagnosed with XDR. This proportion ranges from range from four percent in Armenia to almost 24 percent in Estonia, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).Most European countries have been able to slightly reduce overall TB infection, but rates of drug-resistant TB have taken off. Cases resistant to one or more first-line anti-TB drugs were reported by all EU states in 2007, the most recent year for which data is confirmed. In 2005, the WHO declared TB a European region-wide emergency.Paul Nunn of the WHO says XDR is raising the spectre of something that we have been worried might happen for a decade - the possibility of virtually untreatable TB.But citizens and policymakers should not think that the problem is isolated to Russia, EU neighbourhood countries and new member states, particularly the Baltics. Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, the UK and Belgium have seen a growth in cases, particularly in large cities, which have seen previous declines in TB infection rates slow down or reverse.TB is a very real and growing threat to the whole continent,concluded a 2008 UK cross-party report.

Patient compliance

There is however no great mystery to solving the problem. Some new drugs would be helpful - the anti-TB vaccine was developed in the 1920s. Frontline workers like Dr Yanova worry that the bacili are becoming more and more resistant to second-line drugs.If this continues, we could lose a whole range of drugs.But fundamentally the problem is two-fold: a political commitment to tackling the problem - the first element of the WHO-recommended treatment strategy for detection and cure of TB, Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course, or Dots, is Political commitment with increased and sustained financing - and just ensuring patients take their drugs.
Tomsk, which is a pioneer in Russian treatment of the disease, enjoys some of the best numbers for the whole of the Russian Federation, with a 9.4 percent morbidity rate and a one to fourteen death-to-cure ratio.The region offers social support to all of its patients, support that includes food packages, hot meals, day care centres, travel vouchers - and, crucially, monitoring. Someone who stands there and watches while you take your medicine.Look, even I, a TB specialist, with how busy I am, would from time to time forget to take my medicine if I were infected. And if I would, how can we expect anyone else not to? asks Dr Reichman.

Orwell, Kafka, Chopin

The list of the great European writers, poets, artists and composers afflicted or struck down by ‘consumption' is long, including Kafka, Moliere, all the Brontes, Voltaire, Orwell, Gauguin (although he was finished off by syphillis), Modigliani, Chopin, and Stravinsky. While the disease was endemic of the urban poor, there was such an association between TB and art that some even thought the disease to endow artists with greater energy and creativity, delivering a kind of euphoria.Today, as before, the disease can in principle strike anyone but remains a malady foremost of the poor. However, in 2010, there is no artistic romance at all associated with TB. It is not John Keats, dead at 25 and the author of When I have fears that I may cease to be, who is the face of modern TB, but rather 25-year-old Maxim, a homeless young man from Tomsk.Maxim, too old now despite his still adolescent face to be described as a delinquent, has seen more days in jail than days in work. He reckons it was there where he caught MDR TB. It was also there where he was twice treated for the disease. Both times he broke off the treatment - the first time after two months of medication, the second time after four months.I felt better. I didn't like the side-effects and I felt cured,he explains sitting in the Tomsk TB Day Clinic. He's there now giving it a go for the third time. But what makes this time any different? Won't he just give up once again? Right now, he seems the opposite of Vladimir from the hospital. He appears as fit as any young man. One would never know he was sick from looking at him.I want to be completely cured now. I've had enough of getting sick again and again.His mother died of TB and his father died from alcoholism. He says he lives in the town's underground heating system, which he enters via a duct on Rosa Luxembourg Street, but the nurses say he exaggerates. It's been months since he was living in the heating system, one says, adding that he has an apartment now he shares with his mates. It's warm in wintertime,he insists.The translator warns against sympathising with Maxim.He's a criminal,he says,You must not feel sorry for him.Maxim was jailed for two and a half years for assault, his second sentence. He assaulted another man because he was drunk and he had led me to that point. I like drinking, and anything that comes my way,he declares with a bravado belied by his fidgety hands.But he wants to get a job now. Maybe a journalist, in Europe! His two mates, who've come with him to the clinic either for moral support or just for something to do, fall apart with laughter. He laughs along, but goes on to say he took some schooling while in prison.

Mind-bogglingly stupid

Whether Maxim migrates westward or not, TB in Europe is increasingly being associated not with the old artistic stereotype, whatever the fate that befell Satine, in Moulin Rouge. In tabloids and the minds of conservative policymakers, it is not the starving artist but the starving immigrant that is the face of TB. There is a danger even from articles such as this that readers conclude that a wave of TB is set to consume Europe, infesting it from the undersides of lorries and the insides of shipping containers.Frontline workers are scornful of this sort of thinking. Sergey Mishustin, the day clinic's chief doctor, says anti-immigrant policies have the perverse result of spreading the disease rather than preventing it.

Last year in the Tomsk region, we detected TB cases amongst migrants from other regions. Our laws say they are supposed to be deported, but fully understand, by doing that, we will help to disperse the disease, in buses, aircraft. That is why we took them under treatment. We try to provide healthcare to all immigrants that come to the Tomsk region.Dr Reichman fears how the disease will play out with rising anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe:Russia's feeding eastern Europe; eastern Europe is feeding the rest of Europe, without even showing a passport and it's got a lot of the western countries really worried. Portugal was the highest in Europe, but then they got their act together and they lowered it down, but it was people coming from Angola, Sao Tome - high-incidence areas. It builds a stigma, and will lead to some ticklish situations.But recognising where it's coming from is really a double-edged sword, because the minute you say, ooh, we have to think about people coming from these areas, the first thing the right-wing will say is: Keep em out! But you can't keep them out. You shouldn't want to keep them out in the first place, but even if you want to keep them out, you can't keep them out.He is scathing about Italy's recent security package, which requires that doctors report irregular immigrants to the police.It's very obvious what will happen - it happened in the US - when an illegal immigrant is not able to access healthcare.He'll get sicker and he'll spread his disease. These are airborne diseases. Someone's coughing and sick but he thinks: If I go to the doctor, my God, they'll deport me.So he gets worse and worse and worse until they have to carry him in and how many has he infected in the meantime? It's actually a health benefit for everyone if they access healthcare.It's mind-bogglingly stupid this sort of politics.

Berlin Declaration

We have yet to see which way the European Union as a whole goes. In 2007, Portugal's turn at the bloc's rotating presidency dovetailed with its newly aggressive approach to the disease, borne of its realisation that it was amongst the worst hit sites in Europe to produce a new desire at the European level to tackle the problem.With TB a real example of how one country's weakness in healthcare undermines even excellent healthcare provision in its neighbours, that year saw the bloc as a whole commit to greater European engagement on the issue, with EU Health Ministers signing the Berlin Declaration, which called for greater action to combat TB and specifically MDR-TB.In June 2009, the World Health Organisation and the European Commission's health department met to discuss ways to better engage Europe in TB control and to re-invigorate the Berlin process.It's an airborne disease, You can't have a great health system really tackling the problem next to a country where it's lousy, reminds Dr Reichman. It has to be tackled internationally.He is guardedly optimistic now that the disease is beginning to get some of the attention it deserves.Five years ago, there was no interest at all in Europe. It wasn't sexy enough. It's beginning to get a bit sexier in Europe now, or, rather, I don't know if sexy is the right word yet. Acknowledged is perhaps better.EUobserver's special focus section delves into the challenges confronting healthcare, this most cherished element of the European welfare state. See more: Health Focus.

Stocks rise on upbeat earnings, economic reports By STEPHEN BERNARD and TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writers – FEB 17,10

NEW YORK – Upbeat earnings from Deere & Co. and a better-than-expected housing report pushed stocks higher Wednesday.Overseas markets also rose following improving earnings in Europe from companies including French bank BNP Paribas.The report on housing construction and Deere's results should keep traders focused on the U.S. economy for at least another day. Investors turned their attention from concerns overseas to domestic growth Tuesday, and sent stocks sharply higher.The Commerce Department said construction of homes and apartments rose to an annual rate of 591,000 in January, better than the 580,000 units forecast by economists polled by Thomson Reuters.A collapse of the housing market helped push the economy into recession, but recent reports on the sector have showed some signs of stability. Applications for building permits, a barometer of future activity, fell 4.9 percent to a rate of 621,000. However, a drop was expected after two months of big growth.

The Federal Reserve also issued a promising economic report. The Fed said production at the nation's factories, mines and utilities rose 0.9 percent last month, the seventh consecutive month of growth. It was also better than the 0.6 percent growth forecast by economists.Ken Kamen, president of Mercadien Asset Management in Hamilton, N.J., said there is still underlying sense of unease in the market. Traders' focus has been shifting almost daily from jobs and housing to debt problems in Greece and other countries.From day to day there's no one boogeyman or no one exciting thing, Kamen said.People age getting neck strain spinning their head from side to side looking at all the different pieces of information.In late morning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 24.94, or 0.2 percent, to 10,293.75. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 2.72, or 0.3 percent, to 1,097.59, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 5.82, or 0.3 percent, to 2,220.01.Deere continued a run of strong earnings reports this week. The heavy equipment maker reported a much better than expected fiscal first-quarter profit, and raised its full-year earnings forecast. The stock jumped $2.80, or 5.2 percent, to $56.58.Meanwhile, Walgreen Co. said it will purchase New York-area drugstore operator Duane Reade for about $623 million in cash. Including $457 million in debt held by Duane Reade, the entire transaction is valued at $1.08 billion. Shares of Walgreen rose 10 cents to $34.18.

Investors will also get details later in the day about the Federal Reserve Board's meeting last month.Stocks rose sharply Tuesday after better-than-expected earnings from companies like Barclays PLC, Merck & Co. and Abercrombie & Fitch provided reassurances that the economy is improving.Simon Property Group's takeover bid of rival mall operator General Growth Properties also indicated companies are becoming more confident.Stocks had been dragged down in recent weeks because of overseas concerns, including Greece's debt crisis and moves by China to slow its economy. Those concerns appear to have eased, allowing investors to again focus on the domestic economy.The Dow soared nearly 170 points, or 1.7 percent, on Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 1.8 percent, while the Nasdaq composite index jumped 1.4 percent.Meanwhile, bond prices fell Wednesday. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.70 percent from 3.66 percent late Tuesday.The dollar rose modestly against other major currencies. Gold prices dipped. Crude oil fell 36 cents to $76.65 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Among companies reporting earnings, Whole Foods Market Inc. rose $3.19, or 10.5 percent, to $33.71 after the grocer posted a 79 percent gain in its first-quarter earnings and it boosted its forecast for the year. More than two stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 292.9 million shares compared with 277.5 million shares traded at the same point Tuesday. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 1.81, or 0.3 percent, to 622.65. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.9 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 1.1 percent, and France's CAC-40 jumped 1.7 percent. Earlier, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 2.7 percent.

OBAMAS FULL OF HOGWASH,THE STIMULUS ROBBED AMERICANS OF $28 TRILLION DOLLARS TO THE BANKS AND $50 TRILLION WORLDWIDE TO THE BANKS AND GROWING QUICK AS THE BAILOUTS JUST KEEP ON COMIN FROM THE ENDLESS CASSHFLO FROM THE FEDERAL RESERVE.

GAIN 100,000 JOBS,LOST 10 MILLION JOBS AND THE STIMULUS SAVED AMERICA,WHAT HOGWASH.THE LIES AND AND DECEPTION JUST KEEP ON COMIN.FOR SURE NOW THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS TO COME UP WITH NEW FALSE FLAG ATTACKS OR COLLAPES OR DESTRUCTIONS TO KEEP AMERICA UNDER A DICTATORSHIP.

Obama says stimulus bill saved troubled economy
FEB 17,10

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama hailed Wednesday's one-year-old economic stimulus law as an accomplishment that staved off another Great Depression and kept up to 2 million people on the job.Still, with millions still out of work and losing patience, Obama acknowledged that to them, It doesn't yet feel like much of a recovery.Marking the anniversary of the $787 billion American Economic Recovery and Investment Act, Obama aimed his message at people skeptical about the expensive relief measure and Republican lawmakers who voted against it and continue to hammer him about it.To the public, Obama explained, as he has many times before, that the stimulus plan was composed of tax cuts for most Americans along with help for state governments, extended social service benefits and huge investments in energy, education and infrastructure.One year later, it is largely thanks to the recovery act that a second depression is no longer a possibility, Obama said.To his Republican critics, who say the bill was a costly, debt-financed blunder that has not delivered on the promise of job creation, Obama challenged them to take up the case with people who have stayed employed or have found help solely because he and the Democratic-run Congress acted.Obama even delighted in recounting a section of his State of the Union address last month in which he talked of the tax cuts from the stimulus plan and watched Republican lawmakers fail to applaud the idea.They were all kind of squirming in their seats ... It was interesting to watch, Obama said.And Obama made sure to commend himself and his own team for taking action.

The United States has lost an astounding 8.4 million jobs since this recession began in December 2007.Obama said the stimulus plan is on target to create or save 1.5 million more jobs, bringing up the estimated total to 3.5 million.But he sought to remind people that the goal of law was never to restore every job. The government can build confidence and demand and rescue people in hard times during a severe economic slide, Obama said, but it will always be businesses of the private sector that ultimately generate jobs and a recovery.Obama made repeated references to how well, in his view, his government has done with the stimulus.There has never been a program of this scale, moved at this speed, that has been enacted as effectively and as transparently as the recovery act, Obama added. Referring to Vice President Joe Biden and the other top aides, Obama said,This team has done an outstanding job.Biden, who has led the stimulus implementation, took his own swipe at critics. They're unwilling to step up, he said. Well not us.

THE EURO IS FADING NOW THE EU WILL BE COMING UP WITH A MICROCHIP IMPLANT TO HAVE A CASHLESS SOCIETY AND TO BE DICTATORIAL OVER EARTH CITIZENS.ONCE THIS MICROCHIP SYSTEM IS IN PLACE THEN THE NEW WORLD ORDER WILL COLLAPSE THE DOLLAR THROUGH CHINA AND RUSSIA DUMPING IT WHICH WILL COLLAPSE THE WORLDS ECONOMIES AND THE ONE WORLDERS THHROUGH THE EUROPEAN UNION CAN FORCE THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT ON ALL THE WORLD OR BE KILLED AND YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BUY OR SELL WITHOUT THIS IMPLANT(DICTATORIAL CONTROL)BY THE EUROPEAN UNION PRESIDENT.

Eurozone exports down 18 percent in 2009 By GRETCHEN MAHAN, Associated Press Writer –FEB 17,10

BRUSSELS – Eurozone exports fell 18 percent in 2009 as world trade contracted and the euro soared against the U.S. dollar, according to official EU data published Wednesday.The EU statistical agency Eurostat said the 16 countries that use the euro also consumer far less foreign goods last year, with imports from the rest of the world down 22 percent, as a recession held back company and consumer spending.

Eurozone exports to Britain, the eurozone's major trading partner, were down 22 percent while exports to the U.S. fell 20 percent. China was the only major economy to buy more eurozone goods, with a 2 percent increase, as it escaped the worst of the global downturn.Total eurozone exports were euro1.27 trillion ($1.74 trillion) last year, outpacing imports for a trade surplus of euro22.3 billion for the entire year.Before market tensions about the debt problems of countries like Greece hurt the euro in recent weeks, European businesses complained that the high value of the currency was hurting their ability to sell French wine or German cars to customers using dollars in the U.S. or Asia.For the 27-nation European Union, exports fell 16 percent while imports dropped 23 percent. It reported a trade deficit of euro105.5 billion.

China sells $34.2bn of US treasury bondsThe move means that Japan, which boosted its purchases, is once again the largest overseas holder of American securities Tania Branigan in Beijing and agencies guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 February 2010 13.42 GMT

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has said he is 'a little bit worried' about the safety of his country's investments in US bonds. Photograph: Greg Baker/AP-China relinquished its position as the largest overseas holder of US treasury bonds by selling $34.2bn (£21.7bn) worth of the securities in December, according to new treasury figures.The move means that Japan, which boosted its purchases, is once again in the top spot. China's sale contributed to a record drop in foreign holdings of short-term bills: in all, net overseas holdings of bills fell by $53bn. The previous record was $44.5bn in April last year.But overall, the US saw a net inflow of $60.9bn as investors bought longer-term securities.Analysts are divided on the significance of the Chinese shift. Some see it as a typical switch back to riskier assets as confidence in the economy grows, while others believe it reflects serious concerns about the US deficit – projected to reach a record $1.56tn this year.The sales also come amid friction over issues including the value of the yuan, which the US argues is far too low.

But some observers argue that the figures do not accurately reflect Chinese holdings. Not only could China be buying other dollar assets, but it could be buying treasuries through funds, they pointed out.Alan Meltzer, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told the Associated Press that China's shift should be a wake-up call for Washington.The Chinese are worried that we have unsustainable debt levels, and we do not have a policy for dealing with it, he said.Last year, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao told reporters: We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried.China's December sales still left it with $755.4bn of treasuries. Its huge holdings reflect the trade deficit between China and the US. US assets are thought to make up over two-thirds of its estimated $2tn foreign reserves.

Others said that figures are often volatile month-to-month and that Europe's debt crisis has put pressure on the euro and boosted demand for dollar assets.China may not be too happy with us right now, but you have to ask, what else are they going to do with their money? said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York.Japan added $11.5bn to its holdings, taking the total to $768.8bn – overtaking China for the first time since August 2008. Britain, Luxembourg and Hong Kong also made sizable purchases – with the UK buying $24.9bn of US government debt.Michael Pettis, professor of finance at Peking University, warned that the treasury figures gave only a very impressionistic record of Chinese holdings and that it was unclear what Beijing was buying with the money recouped.One possibility was that it was selling to invest in funds which then bought treasuries.You can sell what's in your name and have Merrill Lynch buy some for you. The net effect is that ownership hasn't changed,he added.The US is running a current account deficit; China has an account surplus. Directly or indirectly, the two are going to meet up.If that was the case, it could be simply an attempt to diversify or an attempt to send a warning to Washington to get a grip on its finances.Ho-fung Hung, author of China and the Transformation of Global Capitalism, said it was hard to tell whether China had a long-term strategy for selling US debt.I think decision makers know very well that any large-scale selling of US treasuries won't do any good to the Chinese economy, which still needs a sustained recovery of the US economy to pull up its export sector. Such selling will also devalue China's existing holdings of treasuries, he said.Dumping treasuries will also entail the problem of what to buy in return – definitely not euro or yen assets at the moment.

Oil prices extend gains after surge
Wed Feb 17, 8:31 am ET

LONDON (AFP) – Oil prices rose slightly on Wednesday after sharp gains a day earlier caused by weakness of the dollar and renewed tensions between crude-producing Iran and the West.New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, was up 31 cents at 77.32 dollars a barrel around 1200 GMT.Brent North Sea crude for April delivery climbed 32 cents to 76 dollars a barrel.Crude futures rocketed more than three dollars on Tuesday as the euro recouped some of its recent losses against the dollar after European Union finance ministers put pressure on Greece to tackle its massive debt problems.A weaker greenback makes dollar-priced crude cheaper for buyers using stronger currencies, boosting demand.The crude market had also rallied over oil-rich Iran's nuclear drive, traders said.Oil prices benefited from improving sentiment on the broader market, a pull back in the dollar rate and renewed geopolitical concerns, VTB Capital analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov said on Wednesday.Iran recently began enriching uranium to 20 percent purity, which Washington and other capitals said added to evidence that the Islamic Republic is seeking to build a nuclear weapon.Tehran denies the charge, insisting its goal is peaceful nuclear energy and research.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday looking to rally support for tough new UN sanctions against Iran, which she warned is turning into a military dictatorship bent on building a nuclear weapon.Responding on Wednesday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Clinton had spread lies.
Foreign exchange activity and Iran remained the focus in the absence of key US inventory data.The weekly figures, usually published by the US government on Wednesdays, has been delayed by one day owing to a public holiday in the United States at the start of this week.Oil prices were meanwhile pummeled recently owing to a falling euro and China's latest bid to cool down its booming economy, traders said.China is the world's second-biggest oil-consuming nation, after the United States.In foreign exchange trade, the dollar advanced slightly against the euro on Wednesday after a pull-back caused by reduced fears about the fallout from Greece's mountain of state debt.Last week, the euro slid to a nine-month low point of 1.3532 dollars, hit by worries that other eurozone countries such as Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and Spain could suffer similar fiscal problems as Greece.But it rose sharply on Tuesday in US trade after a meeting of European Union finance ministers called on Greece to prepare drastic action by March 16 to rein in its bulging public deficit --the highest in the 16-member eurozone. Radical new cost-cutting and tax-raising measures are set to be imposed under newly agreed European Union voting rules.

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

HAITI MORE DESTRUCTIVE THEN 2004 INDONESIAN TSUNAMI

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