600,000 VISIT WESTERN TEMPLE WALL-AWAKENING

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.

HERE WE GO AGAIN PEOPLE ANOTHER 7.7 QUAKE IN INDONESIA THIS TIME.

Magnitude 7.7 quake shakes Indonesia's Sumatra
By Ahmadi Ahmadi – 8:30PM APR 6,10

SINABANG, Indonesia (Reuters) – A major earthquake of 7.7 magnitude struck off the coast of Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Wednesday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.A Reuters photographer in Sinabang on Simeulue island, south of Aceh, said there was panic and electricity was cut off after the quake. Metro TV reported that people rushed to higher ground in some areas.Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf said there had not been reports of damage or casualties so far.I am on the coast now, some people had gone to take refuge on higher ground but now they have returned to their homes, Yusuf told Metro TV.The quake, which struck around 5:15 a.m. (2215 GMT), was centered 200 km (125 miles) west-northwest of the coastal town of Sibolga and was at a depth of 31 km, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The epicentre was around 215 km from Medan, the largest city on Sumatra.

The Reuters witness said there were at least three aftershocks.The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially warned the quake could generate a local tsunami, but later canceled its tsunami watch, saying: Sea level readings indicate that a significant tsunami was not generated.An official from Indonesia's meteorology agency said a tiny tsunami of only 3 cm (1 inch) had been detected at Sinabang and lifted its own tsunami warning.A Metro TV reporter in the Sibolga area of North Sumatra said that he fell off his motorbike when the quake struck and the force left electricity poles swaying for minutes afterwards.In December 2004, a magnitude 9.15 quake off the coast of Sumatra's Aceh province triggered an Indian Ocean tsunami that killed about 226,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries.(Reporting by Ed Davies, Telly Nathalia and Olivia Rondonuw; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Major quake hits Indonesia, tsunami alert in Thailand 8PM APR 6,10

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) – A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia's Sumatra island early Wednesday, triggering a tsunami alert in nearby Thailand.The quake struck at a depth of 46 kilometres (29 miles) off the northwest coast of Sumatra at 5:15 am (2215 GMT Tuesday), according to the US Geological Survey, but there were no reports of damage.Indonesian geologists said it had a magnitude of 7.2 and the epicentre was 60 kilometres southeast of Sinabang, on Simeulue Island of Aceh province, which was devastated by a massive quake and tsunami in 2004.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a watch for tsunamis in Sumatra but said a destructive ocean surge was not expected.The National Disaster Warning Centre in Thailand said there was a high risk of a tsunami on the Andaman Coast, which was battered by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 that killed an estimated 5,400 people in Thailand alone.Officials in Sinabang and the Indonesian capital of Jakarta said there were no immediate reports of damage. Electricity was down in the Acehnese capital of Banda Aceh but mobile phones were working.Our personnel haven't found any damage in Sinabang, local police chief Dedi Junaidi told MetroTV.Residents of Banda Aceh said they felt the earth shaking powerfully for about a minute and many fled their homes or piled onto motorcycles to head inland in fear of a destructive tsunami.

People panicked and ran out of the house, it lasted almost a minute, an AFP reporter in Banda Aceh said.I saw a lot of people who live close to the sea using motorcycles to drive inland.Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.The meeting point of the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate off the western coast of Sumatra causes frequent earthquakes and scientists believe it is only a matter of time before a major catastrophe strikes the area again.Indonesia was the nation hardest hit by the 2004 tsunami, with at least 168,000 people killed when the sea surged over the northern tip of Sumatra after a 9.3-magnitude quake split the seabed to the island's west.A 7.6-magnitude quake killed about 1,000 people in the port of Padang, western Sumatra, in September last year.

Thousands refuse to go home after Mexican quake By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 6, 7:32 pm ET

GUADALUPE VICTORIA, Mexico – Thousands of people camped in cars, soccer fields and vacant lots Tuesday as aftershocks from Easter Sunday's big earthquake kept them on edge.About 25,000 people have been displaced by the magnitude-7.2 quake, most voluntarily, said Alfredo Escobedo, the civil protection chief for Baja California state. They are mainly in farming villages southwest of the city of Mexicali, near the epicenter.Right now, people are sleeping outside because they're afraid, Escobedo said. They go to work at day and go home, but they don't want to spend the night inside.He estimated 200 to 300 homes were destroyed in the quake that shook both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, but authorities did not have a precise count. Many of those homes filled with mud and water that seeped up from the ground, he said.The death count remained at two: a 94-year-old man and an unidentified transient.Some 700 aftershocks greater than magnitude-2.5 had been recorded since the quake Sunday. The largest in the sequence — a magnitude-5.7 — hit several hours after the main tremor. A magnitude-4.7 shock hit early Tuesday, centered 30 miles south of Guadalupe Victoria.The canal-laden region of farming villages cracked when the ground shook violently Sunday, spewing water through large crevices in the rich farm soil and cement floors.

That's how the Briseno family watched all seven of their homes sink to ruin on a single block, forcing them to sleep in their cars indefinitely.The earth just opened up, like a pencil goes across a sheet of paper, like a stripe goes across the floor, said Diona Garcia Briseno, the oldest of five siblings, who lost a home that she shared with her husband and their two children, 18 and 10.Garcia Briseno, 38, saw the ground crack and cough up water as she waited out the quake outside her home. After the shaking, she went inside to find that her cement floor was gurgling muddy water from underground. It lasted about six hours.It didn't come out with lots of force, but it was constant, she said.Asphalt buckled on streets all around the Briseno family's tiny farming village of Oaxaca, leaving gaps several feet (meters) wide. Dirt crevices that spouted water can be seen almost everywhere, some dry and some now puddles.Raul Lepe, 45, pointed to a 30-foot (9-meter) -long opening that ran across a dirt lot and spewed small volcanoes of water behind his clothing store. The floor of his home sustained cracks, forcing him to sleep in his pickup truck until an inspector visits.No one appears to have suffered as much property loss as the Briseno family, whose ancestors were one of the town's early settlers. Cruz Briseno arrived in Oaxaca as a young man shortly after the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

Raquel Briseno, Cruz's daughter, divided the family plot on Avenida Emiliano Zapata, giving a piece each to four children, keeping one for herself and leaving two for her brothers. The small, cinderblock homes on the dirt road are tightly spaced.
Farming has always driven the economy. The men in the Briseno family support their households by working six days a week for the equivalent of about $65 in a region where onions, radishes, asparagus and cucumbers are grown.Residents of neighboring Guadalupe Victoria, the closest town to the epicenter, are accustomed to earthquakes but nothing prepared them for Sunday's jolt. Some people aren't sure if they'll ever feel safe again.Sergio Ruiz Escalante, a 51-year-old construction worker, moved his family's beds outside to the back patio to sleep under the stars with his wife and three children. A fence fell outside his home but there was no other visible damage. He doesn't know when he'll sleep inside. I need to wait before I can go in with confidence, he said Monday while buying batteries in a variety store where ceiling tiles hung loose and shampoo bottles still littered the floor. Karla Jaramillo, an elementary school teacher in Guadalupe Victoria, said her school was built about 40 years ago and already survived a big earthquake in 1980.I wish the schools would have fallen,said Jaramillo, 30.I wish the kids didn't have to go inside a damaged building.Alfredo Soria, a 41-year-old lifelong resident, escaped with minor damage to his home — a damaged brick fence — but he's uneasy about going back. The dwelling across the street was also built around 1960 and was reduced to rubble Sunday, and he's convinced his own home will endure a similar fate when the next quake strikes.

It's already survived two earthquakes, it's not safe,said Soria, who is sleeping in his pickup with his three children. The Briseno family doesn't know where to go next. For now, they are sleeping in cars at the town's soccer field. The floors and walls of their homes are severely cracked, and thus uninhabitable. Several of their houses have about a foot (30 centimeters) of water and have sunk several inches (centimeters). Palmira Briseno, 31, said cracks spewed muddy water in her home. It was like there were fountains everywhere, she recalled. On Monday, about 10 people from the extended family sat under a tent made of wood poles and black plastic tarp, eating chips and chilies. Water that spewed from underground inundates their street.

Garcia's 10-year-old daughter hugged her during an aftershock and fought tears. AP Science Writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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.

Rio's worst rains in history kill at least 95 By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press Writers – Tue Apr 6, 6:39 pm ET

RIO DE JANEIRO – The heaviest rains in Rio de Janeiro's history triggered landslides Tuesday that killed at least 95 people as rising water turned roads into rivers and paralyzed Brazil's second-largest city.The ground gave way in steep hillside slums, cutting red-brown paths of destruction through shantytowns. Concrete and wooden homes were crushed and hurtled downhill, only to bury other structures.The future host city of the Olympics and football World Cup ground to a near halt as Mayor Eduardo Paes urged workers to stay home and closed all schools. Most businesses were shuttered.Eleven inches (29 centimeters) of frain fell in less than 24 hours, and more rain was expected. Officials said potential mudslides threatened at least 10,000homes in the city of 6 million people.Paes urged people in endangered areas to take refuge with family or friends and he said no one should venture out.It is not advisable for people to leave their homes, said Paes.We want to preserve lives.He told the Web site of the newspaper O Globo that the rainfall was the most that Rio had ever recorded in such a short period. The previous high was nine inches (24 centimeters) that fell on Jan. 2, 1966.President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged Brazilians to pray for the rain to stop.

This is the greatest flooding in the history of Rio de Janeiro, the biggest amount of rain in a single day, Silva told reporters in Rio. And when the man upstairs is nervous and makes it rain, we can only ask him to stop the rain in Rio de Janeiro so we can go on with life in the city.A representative for the Rio de Janeiro fire department, which was coordinating rescue efforts, said 95 people were known dead and 44 more had been hospitalized. Most of the victims were from Rio's hillside shantytowns whose homes were buried under tons of mud and rubble.We expect the death toll to rise,said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.Thousands of motorists were stranded overnight on highways blocked by rising water.Sergio Simoes, head of Rio de Janeiro's civil defense department, told the Globo TV network the amount of rain that fell was more than any city is capable of supporting.Claudio Ribeiro, a 24-year-old taxi driver, spent eight hours stranded on a highway.I have never seen anything like this, he said, wiping steam from the inside of his windshield to reveal a flooded roadway with hundreds of cars, taxis and buses packed together on high ground between raging torrents.Tell me, how is this city supposed to host the Olympics? Ribeiro said. Look at this chaos!

Neither the 2014 World Cup nor the 2016 Olympics will be held during Brazil's rainy season. It normally takes place during the Southern Hemisphere's summer in December through February, but has lasted into April this year.Silva played down the possibility that similar downpours could wash out the biggest sporting events Brazil will ever host. Normally, the months of June and July are calmer, and Rio de Janeiro is prepared to host the Olympics and is prepared to host the World Cup with a lot of tranquility,Silva said.It's not because of one catastrophe that we will think that it's going to happen every year, or all the time.Rio 2016 organizers said in a statement that Tuesday's rainfall was extremely unusual and could happen anywhere in the world. Organizers praised city and state authorities for responding quickly to the public safety crisis.Associated Press Writer Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Brazil, contributed to this report.

Flooding, mudslides kill dozens in Brazil: officials
by Claire de Oliveira - APR 6,10

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – Torrential rains triggered flooding and mudslides that killed 79 people in Rio de Janeiro state including dozens in the hillside shantytowns surrounding the city of Rio, authorities said Tuesday.Civil defense officials said about half of the fatalities occurred in Rio de Janeiro city, where authorities urged residents to remain indoors and not venture downtown, where streets were impassable.All the major streets of the city are closed because of the floods, Eduardo Paes, mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro said.Each and every person who attempts to enter them will be at enormous risk.In addition to Tuesday's dire warnings, local authorities closed schools to help keep residents off streets.In some parts of the area, abandoned cars were partially submerged, while others were stalled on local roads with motorists still stranded inside.Civil defense officials said most of the casualties were the result of landslides in the hillside slums that ring the city.Flooding also wreaked havoc with air traffic, causing serious airport delays while in some areas of the hilly metropolitan area of some 16 million people floodwaters unleashed mudslides -- a recurring scourge, especially in Rio's impoverished favelas, or shantytowns.President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticized decades of administrative malfeasance which allowed shoddy home construction in high-risk zones of the city's shantytowns.

The Brazilian leader was visiting the city for Tuesday for ribbon-cutting ceremonies for a new health center and a separate child care facility serving underprivileged residents of the city's slums.But those events were canceled because of the rains, which made it nearly impossible to travel from one part of the city to another.

Officials for too long, Lula said, have closed their eyes to substandard construction, even on Rio's landslide-prone hills. Lula vowed that his government would work to improve the quality of construction in these areas.Until the waters subside however, he said, there was little that could be done.All we can do is pray to God to hold back the rains a little, so that Rio can return to normal, and so that we can set about fixing the things in the city that need fixing, the Brazilian leader told local radio.The rains started during Monday's evening rush hour, catching workers heading home for the day off-guard.The heavy rains in Rio followed equally heavy deluges in Sao Paulo earlier this year after the wettest summer in the region in more than six decades, officials said.Those killer rainstorms across Sao Paulo state claimed dozens of lives.Inmet, the national weather service, said the El Nino phenomenon -- which warms surface waters in the Pacific Ocean and is linked to rainfall across the region -- was to blame for those earlier floods. Torrential rains triggered flooding and mudslides that killed 79 people in Rio de Janeiro state including dozens in the hillside shantytowns surrounding the city of Rio, authorities said Tuesday.

Study: Northeast seeing more, fiercer rainstorms By BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press Writer – Mon Apr 5, 6:34 pm ET

BOSTON – The Northeast is seeing more frequent extreme precipitation events in line with global warming predictions, a study shows, including storms like the recent fierce rains whose floodwaters swallowed neighborhoods and businesses across New England.The study does not link last week's devastating floods to its research but examined 60 years' worth of National Weather Service rainfall records in nine Northeastern states and found that storms that produce an inch or more of rain in a day — a threshold the recent storm far surpassed — are coming more frequently.It's almost like 1 inch of rainfall has become pretty common these days, said Bill Burtis, spokesman for Clean Air-Cool Planet, a global warming education group that released the study Monday along with the University of New Hampshire's Carbon Solutions New England group.The study's results are consistent with what could be expected in a world warmed by greenhouse gases, said UNH associate professor Cameron Wake. He acknowledged it would take more sophisticated studies to cement a warming link, though.I can't point to these recent storms and say, that is global warming, he said.What is more certain, researchers said, is the potential economic impact should the 60-year trend continue and require billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements to things in the region including roads, bridges, sewers and culverts.

The study examined precipitation data from 219 Weather Service reporting stations in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont from 1948 to 2007.The report found that in all but 18 of the stations, extreme precipitation events, defined as storms that produced at least 1 inch of rain over a 24-hour period or the water equivalent of snow, are occurring at a more frequent rate.Average annual precipitation in the region also increased, albeit slightly, by nearly three-quarters of an inch per decade over the 60-year period. That period included a marked drop-off in rainfall during the 1960s, when much of New England experienced drought, and again during a regional drought in 2001.When it came to the really big storms — ones that produce 2 inches or even 4 inches in a 24-hour period — the study found those also occurring with more regularity than in the past.As the world warms, Wake said, there is more energy to evaporate water, creating more water vapor in the air. That in turn can increase the number of storms and the amount of precipitation those storms produce, he said.The ferocious March storms — Providence, R.I., and other cities set a monthly record for precipitation, while Boston experienced its second-rainiest month since record keeping began — seem out of whack even with the findings in the report.

It's consistent, but it's way more than even the trends we've seen, he said.It's anomalous for sure.Global warming skeptic Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, said it would be unfair to use the recent floods as an example of what's in the study.You can't take an individual event and say it's a product of a certain trend, Michaels said.Previous studies have shown that New England's wettest days of the year are getting wetter over time, but there was no net change nationwide, raising doubt as to whether global warming is the culprit, Michaels said.Whether warming is the cause or not, if rainstorms are getting fiercer, there will be a price to pay, some experts noted.If you're spending more on dealing with extreme weather events, what does that take away from? said Ross Gittell, an economics professor at UNH and executive committee member of Carbon Solutions New England.Do you have to tax people more and that has a damper on the overall economy? he said.... Or does it take away from investments in education that could lead to more productivity and economic growth over time?(This version CORRECTS Gittell's first name to Ross, instead of Seth.)

Napolitano tours RI floods as state pleads for aid By RUSSELL CONTRERAS, Associated Press Writer – Fri Apr 2, 6:28 pm ET

WARWICK, R.I. – U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano took a helicopter tour over still-flooded Rhode Island on Friday, witnessing waterlogged shopping malls and homes with people's possessions laid out to dry in their yards, as residents and officials in the already economically troubled state pleaded for her to secure more federal aid.Napolitano called the flooding significant and pledged the federal government's help in the months to come. State officials, including U.S. Reps. Jim Langevin and Patrick Kennedy, pressed for more than what's already been promised.We were already reeling from a bad economy. This is the last thing that Rhode Island could deal with, and yet, here we are, Langevin, whose district was hardest hit, said to Napolitano during a news conference.Families, individuals, businesses need the help, as soon as possible.The National Weather Service said it did not expect the Pawtuxet River, source of much of the flooding, to go below flood stage until at least Sunday. Many neighborhoods and businesses have been underwater since Monday due to three days of record-setting rain that caused the worst flooding in the state in at least 200 years. It was the second round of major flooding this month.Gov. Don Carcieri has said the floods likely caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, and state labor officials said as many as 4,000 people are temporarily out of work.

President Barack Obama had already declared a disaster in much of Rhode Island, which triggers some federal money, although the state is required to match 25 percent of the disaster funds.Carcieri and members of the congressional delegation have asked the federal government to waive that requirement given the state's dire financial situation. The state has had years of budget problems, with a current deficit of $220 million, and the unemployment rate is at 12.7 percent, third worst in the country.Napolitano told The Associated Press she was considering the request, but she said the priority was to get the aid out that we know we can get out.She said Congress has strict laws about whether states qualify for the waiver but she would work with state officials on their application.Even residents wanted Washington to know they needed the help.Johnny Verdadeiro, a landlord in West Warwick who owns eight buildings, said he already knew he had to repair and replace boilers and hot water heaters — and he fretted there was more damage to come.

His message to Napolitano: Please send money.Kennedy and Langevin, both Democrats, also pressed for the government to give help in the form of grants, rather than loans.The storms hit during the holiest week of the Christian calendar. The Rev. Eliseo Nogueras, pastor of Gethsemane Church in Pawtucket, said the build-up to Easter Sunday has special meaning this year because of what the state's been through this week.It's typically a day when we remember Christ's sacrifice, he said of Good Friday.This week is tough. We've all been touched by what's happened, and it reminds us of what he did for us and how we should work together.As the waters receded, residents ramped up cleanup efforts and began to fully assess the effects of the water. In some places badly disrupted from the flooding, life was getting back to normal.The road connecting T.F. Green Airport in Warwick to Interstate 95 reopened at midday. The state's main airport stayed open through the flood, but the closure of I-95 and the connector road had caused headaches for air travelers for days.

Cranston residents were told Friday they could flush their toilets again after a sewage pump station that had been underwater for days resumed operations. In neighboring Warwick, crews restored sewer services but asked some residents to limit usage to avoid a backup.But Amtrak trains still were not operating Friday through Rhode Island because of water on the tracks. Service between Boston and New York was being rerouted through Springfield, Mass., and high-speed Acela Express service was not available between New Haven, Conn. and Boston. Many of the shellfishing grounds that were closed in the southern part of the state were scheduled to reopen Saturday, although others further north remained closed because of sewage and other contaminants in the water. In West Warwick, the epicenter for some of the worst flooding, the sights and sounds of cleanup were everywhere. On one street, floodwater had receded but police cruisers still blocked off side streets thick with mud. Fire trucks idled noisily in the street, and portable generators hummed, powering hoses that snaked out of basement windows, the water gushing out and sloshing into puddles in the street. David and Barbara Chappelle, whose basement flooded to the ceiling beginning Tuesday, were waiting for a building inspector to arrive and tell them whether they could go back in. Their house had no electricity or running water, and the floodwater was still 2 feet deep in the basement. My house is totaled — the heating system, the electrical, all my tools, David Chappelle said. Everything's going to be contaminated.Associated Press writer John Curran in West Warwick contributed to this report.

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).

EU keen to enshrine culture in economic planning
HELENA SPONGENBERG 06.04.2010 @ 10:55 CET

EUOBSERVER / BARCELONA - Europe should invest more in its creative industries as a source of future growth the European Commission has said, while EU ministers have called for culture to be put at the heart of the bloc's new economic plan, the Europe 2020 strategy.The EU executive is in late April set to adopt its Green Paper on Cultural and Creative Industries,aimed at unlocking the economic potential of cultural and creative industries in Europe - a sector that generates 5 million jobs and represents 2.6 percent of GDP in the 27-nation bloc.Barcelona park: The cultural sector includes areas as diverse as cinema, music, publishing, the media, fashion, interior and product design, cultural tourism, performing arts and heritage (Photo: Turisme de Barcelona / J. Trullas)The sector includes areas as diverse as cinema, music, publishing, the media, fashion, interior and product design, cultural tourism, performing arts and heritage.Speaking at the European Forum on Cultural Industries in Barcelona, the director general of the European Commission's education and culture department, Odile Quintin, outlined the general lines of the upcoming commission document.According to a study on the economy of European culture, commissioned by the EU executive: The cultural and creative sector is a growing sector, developing at a higher pace than the rest of the economy ...and the sector's growth in terms of jobs out-performs the rest of the economy.

The green paper will cover areas such as the financing of cultural and creative industries in Europe, the raising of professional standards in the sector, the protection of intellectual property and the management of copyright. It is also set to call for common cultural policies and the creation of a European judicial framework for the sector.Ms Quintin said the paper could also be taken into consideration when planning the EU's 2014 to 2020 budget, with negotiations set to start later this year. If creative and cultural industries are widely considered as a very strong input to growth, then we should invest more money, she told EUobserver.

Although the word culture is not mentioned in the draft Europe 2020 strategy, the European Commissioner for Education and Culture - Androulla Vassiliou - said that the cultural and creative sector will have a special place in initiatives such as innovation, competitiveness, the digital agenda and social inclusion,which already feature in the 2020 blueprint.The success of Europe 2020 will depend to a large extend on the contribution of the culturally related sectors of the economy. I hope our green paper will spark a lively and Europe-wide debate that will allow us to have a better understanding and take the next steps in the right direction, she said at the Barcelona event.EU culture ministers, also meeting in Barcelona last week, unanimously approved to put culture at the heart of the 2020 strategy due to the sector's social and economic potential. The ministers also stated a need for all member states to work in a harmonised and sustainable way to adapt to the new business models arising from the change from analogue to digital in the area.

Cultural diversity, not mono-culture

German conservative MEP Doris Pack, also speaking at the forum, warned that while Europe should insist on the economic value of cultural activities, it should not neglect cultural diversity, however.We don't want a mono-culture,she said. Along the same lines, Andy Pratt - the head of the Centre for Culture, Media and Creative Industries Research (CMCI) in London - cautioned that there is a danger of homogenising European culture.We have to be careful if we mainstream culture in European policies,he said.Culture would be everywhere, but nowhere.

Greece floats solution for Macedonia name dispute-The name Northern Macedonia might be acceptable to Athens (Photo: Aster-oid)ANDREW WILLIS 06.04.2010 @ 09:14 CET

A senior Greek official has indicated that Athens is ready to accept the name Northern Macedonia for its northern neighbour, in a development that could bring an end to the 19-year-old title dispute that has hampered Skopje's EU membership ambitions. The name Northern Macedonia fits with the settlement as envisaged by Athens, Greek deputy foreign minister Dimitris Droutsas told national media on Monday (5 April).Should Macedonian leader Nikola Gruevski reject this proposal he will have to explain to the Macedonian people why he is depriving them of their European prospects,Mr Droutsas added.Currently referred to as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) in official terminology, Athens is strongly opposed to a shortening of the country's name to simply Macedonia,a title already used by a northern province in Greece. The jealous guarding of the regional name has lead Athens to campaign against international recognition of its northern neighbour under the title of Macedonia, an independent nation following the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991.The Greek administration also insists that the issue must be resolved before Skopje can enter into EU accession discussions, a process that requires unanimous support from the bloc's full complement of members. An indication that a potential solution was being worked on came in late February when senior UN mediator Matthew Nimetz said Athens and Skopje shared grounds for resolving the dispute, suggesting any future name for FYROM could include a geographical determinant.

Greece's debt crisis

While a resolution to the Macedonian name dispute is important to Greece, Athens' attention has been focused on its ongoing debt crisis in recent months.EU leaders brokered a twin-track deal before the Easter break to provide financial support to the Hellenic state, together with the IMF, should Athens fail to raise sufficient capital on international markets to service upcoming debt obligations. But on Monday reports emerged that Greece is now having second thoughts about IMF involvement, concerned that the Washington-based lender will impose overly tough conditions in return for aid. As a result, it now wants to amend the deal reached at last month's EU summit, removing any financial contribution from the IMF, suggest the reports. The reason is that since the summit, (Greek) prime minister (George Papandreou) has been receiving information from the IMF about the possible measures and reforms it would be asking in exchange for financial support, a senior Greek official told Market News International.The measures are tough and might cause social and political unrest. After that, various cabinet members voiced their opposition to the IMF contribution,the source added.

EU relaxes rules on short-stay visas
ANDREW RETTMAN 06.04.2010 @ 09:29 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU has relaxed rules for people trying to enter its passport-free Schengen zone, in a move which spells good news for Belarus.Under the terms of a new code which came into force on Monday (5 April), people applying for a short-stay Schengen visa should wait no longer than two weeks for a consular appointment and should receive a decision no later than 15 days down the line.Children aged six to 12 years old should pay €35 instead of the standard €60 fee, while people aged 25 years or less taking part in NGO-sponsored events should pay nothing at all.People, such as lorry drivers, who need to come in and out of the EU frequently, and who are known ...for his/her integrity and reliability should be granted multiple-entry permits more easily.The rules apply to nationals from all foreign countries which normally require a visa to enter Schengen. But they are likely to have the biggest immediate impact on Belarus. The EU and Schengen accession of former Communist countries such as Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia in recent years has caused problems for people in neighbouring states, which saw a new visa regime all-but close borders from one day to the next.Moldova, Russia and Ukraine have in the meantime signed visa-facilitation deals with the EU, which offer even better terms on paper than the new code.

But Belarus remains frozen out due to its authoritarian government, causing problems for small-time border traders and pro-democracy activists alike, with the €60/visa fee being the equivalent of the monthly minimum wage in Belarus. The new EU rulebook recommends that young people and diplomats should be exempt from the fee altogether, but it does not make the waiver compulsory.It also envisages a common list of grounds for refusing visas from April 2011 onward. But individual member states will continue to set their own rules for long-stay visas of over 90 days' duration.The Schengen zone embraces 22 EU countries as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland and issued 10.4 million short-stay visas last year. Ireland and the UK have opted out, while Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania are still waiting to join.The visa code also sketches out a new role for the EU's foreign delegations, which are accreting more powers under the Lisbon Treaty.The delegations are to play a co-ordinating role in making sure that EU countries' consulates in third countries comply with the rulebook.

EU commission pushes Germany to boost demand-Germany needs to address domestic demand, say France and now the commission (Photo: Ledenyi)LEIGH PHILLIPS
01.04.2010 @ 09:39 CET

The European Commission has appeared to back suggestions from some member states, notably France, that Germany is too dependent on trade surpluses and needs to boost domestic demand to correct imbalances in the eurozone.While not going so far as to describe the European economic powerhouse as the China of the eurozone, the EU executive in its latest quarterly report on the eurozone, a special issue looking the effects of the financial crisis on the member states that use the euro, said: Action is also needed in member states that have accumulated large current account surpluses, clearly referring to Germany.In these countries, policies should aim to identify and implement structural reforms that help in strengthening domestic demand.
The report says that the imbalances in the eurozone exacerbated the effects of the crisis in Europe.Parts of the observed divergence of current accounts and competitiveness are a source of potential concern to the extent that they reflect underlying macroeconomic imbalances, which increased the vulnerability of Member States to the shocks of the crisis.The concerns obliquely referring to Germany in the report reflect similar criticisms explicitly made of the Berlin made by France.

Last week, French finance minister Christine Lagarde, in an unusually blunt statement said that the central European nation should move to help out other member states with high deficits to improve their competitiveness by hiking domestic demand.

Clearly Germany has done an awfully good job in the last 10 years or so, improving competitiveness, putting very high pressure on its labour costs. When you look at unit labour costs to Germany, they have done a tremendous job in that respect,she said in an interview with the Financial Times.[But] I'm not sure it is a sustainable model for the long term and for the whole of the group. Clearly we need better convergence.The commission report also takes as a conclusion that better fiscal co-ordination is required across the member states.The crisis has underscored the need for reforms and co-ordination across member states. A co-ordinated and ambitious policy response would ease the necessary adjustment processes but would also boost the euro-area's long-term growth prospects.The need for substantial adjustment remains. It should involve a rebalancing of relative prices and demand across member states.Such talk will be anaethema to some member states, notably the UK, outside the eurozone, who last week baulked at the inclusion of the word economic governance in a communique from EU premiers and presidents at their spring summit.The commission report does not however let Greece and other deficit countries off the hook. Athens in particular is taken to task.Greece is in a league of its own here, combining large and persistent fiscal imbalances and protracted losses of competitiveness.

Irish banks may need as much as €32 billion for losses
HONOR MAHONY 31.03.2010 @ 09:29 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - In what was billed as one of the most important speeches in the history of the state, Irish finance minister Brian Lenihan on Tuesday (30 March) revealed that the country's banks could face a capital shortfall of €32 billion.The sum, far higher than expected, is the equivalent of about 20 percent of Ireland's GDP, with around €22 billion needed to cover losses from bad property loans and a possible further €10 billion, depending on the extent of sour loans at Anglo Irish Bank.Speaking on bail-out Tuesday as some have dubbed the day, Mr Lenihan said the state of the banking sector was truly shocking and condemned the banks for playing fast and loose with the country's economy.The figures mark the culmination of a heady period in Ireland's financial history that saw banks lend almost without question to property developers during the boom years.When the extent of the toxic property loans became clear following the global financial crisis, the Irish government set about establishing a bad bank - the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) - to absorb the losses of five of the state's lenders.Since then it has been trying to establish the extent of the black hole in Irish banks' lending books.

Brendan McDonagh, head of Nama, said there had been an explosion in the size of loan books due to property lending between 2004 and 2008. All the good banking and lending principles went out the window, he said.Tuesday's figures reveal the extent of the black hole in the lending books, with Nama buying around €16 billion in loans for €8.5 billion. This represents a haircut of 47 percent, much higher than the 30 percent first estimated last year, reports the Irish Times.According to Mr Lenihan, AIB, Bank of Ireland, Irish Nationwide Building Society and the EBS would need €13.5 billion in new capital. Of this, he said AIB would need €7.4 billion, Bank of Ireland €2.7 billion, Irish Nationwide Building Society €2.6 billion and EBS building society €875 million.The Irish government is set to hold a majority stake in AIB and a minority stake in Bank of Ireland while Anglo Irish Bank was nationalised at the beginning of 2009.Reacting to accusations from opposition politicians that his policies created the property bubble, Prime Minister Brian Cowen refused to accept the blame, saying it was the result of the global financial crisis.The idea that Ireland would have been immune to what has happened in relation to the fall of Lehman and the total meltdown of the international financial system, it's time we actually recognised that this country couldn't be immune from those developments, he said, according to the Irish Independent.Tuesday's announcement represented the first complete loans to Nama. The first tranche of loans from Bank of Ireland will be transferred at the end of the week, while AIB and Anglo Irish Bank transfers will follow in early April. Nama said it expected to complete the transfer of the remaining loans from all five institutions by the end 2010 with the total amount of loans that will be acquired by the agency expected to be around €81 billion.The government is hoping that by taking the toxic assets off the banks' balance sheets, it will restore confidence and banks will begin lending again.

Meanwhile, the physical effects of the burst property bubble are visible around the country, which is littered with empty homes - around a quarter of a million of them. This both due to fact that projects have been left unfinished because the money ran out as well as the fact that the banks are not lending to first-time property buyers.

Cash-strapped states slow at tapping EU funds
VALENTINA POP 01.04.2010 @ 09:11 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Troubled economies such as Greece and Romania have so far managed to secure the least amount of EU money earmarked for infrastructure, energy and employment programmes in 2007-2013, a report by the European Commission shows.

The interim report shows that in the first three and a half years, Greece selected projects worth only 11.9 percent of a total sum of €20.4 billion available until 2013, while Romania has managed only a little more – 14.1 percent out of its allotted €19.6 billion.I would have been happier if Greece had more projects, regional policy commissioner Johannes Hahn said during a press conference on Wednesday (31 March).

Eurozone-member Greece has for weeks been at the centre of an EU debate over how to deal with its soaring deficit which threatens the stability of the single currency. EU leaders agreed last week to set up a financial mechanism based on loans from eurozone-countries and by the International Monetary Fund. Non-euro member Romania has already borrowed €20 billion from the IMF and the EU to cope with similar economic woes.Other laggards include big eastern recipients such as Poland – who managed to secure only 19.5 percent of a total envelope of €67.2 billion, while Bulgaria and Slovakia are also trailing behind.The champion among EU states in selecting projects so far is Belgium, with a rate of 61.1 percent, although its overall sum is considerably less at €2.2 billion for the seven-year period. The Netherlands, Estonia and Ireland have also managed to secure more than half of their funding.The EU's structural funds are aimed at helping poorer regions improve their decayed infrastructure, access broadband internet and to stimulate employment. But one of the austerity measures requested by both the EU and the IMF is precisely to reduce public spending and the size of the administration. This also translates into less administrative capacity to select projects and less money for the co-funding required by member states for most of the projects. Regional policy is no charity, we are trying to promote investments in regions and local structures, Mr Hahn stressed.There is a need to reinforce institutional responsibility for co-financing, he added.As for calls to simplify the burdensome and slow procedures, the Austrian commissioner said that one way to achieve that was also not to change the rules and regulations every year." A high level group is however already working on improvements which could be put in place from 2013 onwards.

EU fund smaller than a bank bailout

One of the EU's regional policy funds is the European Social Fund, with around €10 billion a year. It is tailored to projects fostering employment in all 27 member states.The size of the fund is smaller than the amount cleared by the EU commission's competition unit for the Irish government to bail out the Anglo-Irish Bank: €10.4 billion.Employment commissioner Laszlo Andor said that such big bailouts were initially needed to stabilise the financial system but are now only sporadic, with governments now focusing more on job creation.The economic crisis challenges the unity of the EU and the eurozone, and here the European Social Fund is helping, he said.The Hungarian politician rejected the idea of the fund being used to pay unemployment benefits.We have a very strong opinion about this, that is should be used to activate the labour market, for re-skilling programmes,he said. Asked specifically about Italy, he admitted that in reality, some of the ESF money was used by governments in their programmes for the unemployed.But this was always done with some active training elements and we have to keep it this way,Mr Andor added.

Direct Democracy: Citizen Initiatives Come to Europe TIME.COM By LEO CENDROWICZ / BRUSSELS - APR 6,10

What do Europeans really want? Lower taxes? Longer holidays? More chocolate? We may soon find out thanks to a new innovation in the European Union: citizens' initiatives.Meant to bring everyday Europeans closer to the E.U. institutions that govern them in distant Brussels, the direct democracy experiment allows citizens to sling their concerns onto the E.U. agenda. The principle is simple: if campaigners muster 1 million signatures for a proposal, they can ask the European Commission, the E.U.'s executive branch, to write new legislation. This is all about taking the E.U. outside of the Brussels beltway and giving it full democratic expression,said Maros Sefcovic, the E.U. commissioner in charge of putting the proposal into place. The E.U. often stands accused of complexity and detachment from its citizens. Fostering a lively cross-border debate about what we are doing in Brussels will lead to better rule-making, inspired by the grass roots.Last week, the commission published rules for the citizens' initiatives, saying that the 1 million names would have to come from at least nine of the E.U.'s 27 member states. There are no restrictions, however, on how people can collect signatures, be it in the street or on social-networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. Once the signatures are in, the commission has four months to either accept the initiative by drafting a proposed law to go before the E.U. Parliament, or reject it. Petitions can be killed off if the commission finds them outside its remit, or if they are manifestly against the fundamental values of the E.U. Sefcovic also included safeguards to prevent silly initiatives from being proposed or extremists from hijacking the process.

The E.U. plan does not go as far as other direct democracy systems in Switzerland or California, where citizens can pass regulations via ballot initiatives or referenda. But in some ways, it will likely be easier for E.U. residents to propose new laws. One million signatures sounds daunting, but that's just 0.2% of the E.U.'s total population. By contrast, Swiss initiatives require signatures from about 2% of the population to trigger a national vote. And in an age when musicians from Coldplay to Lily Allen have millions of followers on Twitter and Facebook, collecting 1 million names could be a snap.The new system has received a cautious welcome from Europeans. A group representing thousands of non-governmental organizations, including Greenpeace, the European Trade Union Confederation and the European Women's Lobby hailed it as an important new step to increase public participation in E.U. decision-making.But direct democracy campaigners are split on its merits. Bruno Kaufmann, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe think tank, welcomed the move, saying it will force people to reflect on how Europe really works. But Carsten Berg, coordinator of the European Citizens' Initiative, an organization advocating more direct democracy in the E.U., warned that the intrusive personal data requirements, narrow topics and unclear follow-up could render it unusable.And Janis Emmanouilidis, an analyst at the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based think tank, believes it could backfire. One million people is a low threshold and it risks falling prey to a tyranny of minorities backed by resourceful and well-organized interest groups,he says.

His ambivalence is shared by George Schopflin, a Hungarian member of the European Parliament. It is hard to think what subject might be suitable [for citizens' initiatives], he says. Many E.U. issues are unspeakably complicated. And many others that might engage European citizens, like whether we should all drive on the right, are too absurd for the commission to address.And for all the talk of stirring democracy, critics say the experience of such schemes in places like California and Switzerland shows that some initiatives fail to generate reasoned debate and open participation. Jean-Thomas Leseuer, head of the Thomas More Institute, a Paris-based think tank, says citizens' initiatives amount to mere democratic window dressing. It is not with old tools that we will build Europe,he says.This proposal is too heavy and complicated to impose on Europe before anything like a European consciousness exists. I bet that there will be very few initiatives.That may sound cynical and dismissive. But if a passionate European or two manages to collect 1 million signatures, they could prove him wrong.

Belgium moves towards banning the burka
VALENTINA POP 01.04.2010 @ 09:11 CET

Belgium may be the first European country to ban the full-covering Islamic veils from being worn in public, after a key-parliamentary committee on Wednesday (31 March) voted in favour of the move. The Belgian parliament's home affairs unanimously backed a proposal to ban the so-called burka and niqab, two forms of the Muslim veil covering the entire body and face. If the law is enacted, women who wear this in public would be fined 15-25 euros and may face a jail sentence of up to seven days.Lawmakers argued that all persons should be identifiable and not cover their faces unless their work requires it or if police approved carnivals and other festivities where people can wear masks.Several districts of Belgium have already banned the burka in public places, based on the same line of reasoning.Centre-right MP Corinne De Permentier, speaker of the parliament's lower chamber said this ban would liberate the woman from a burden, while insisting on the respect of public security,La Libre Belgique reports. Other lawmakers said the move would send a strong signal to Islamists,as this form of veil is usually worn in the most radical of the Muslim communities, for instance during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan.But Isabelle Praile, vice-president of the Muslim Executive of Belgium, said the law would breach the women's fundamental rights and freedom of choice and could actually aggravate the situation for those women who are forced to wear it.I am against imposing such clothing on women, but also against banning them. I know women who decided themselves to wear the full veil. And if it was imposed upon them, a ban won't change anything, on the contrary, it will confine them to the house and they will be completely invisible,she was quoted as saying by Belga newswire.

If the plenary also endorses the draft bill in the coming months, Belgium would be the first European country to ban the full-body veil. France has also been eyeing a similar move, but its top advisory body on constitutional matters on Wednesday said it would infringe with the country's main law.It appears to the State Council that a general and absolute ban on the full veil as such can have no incontestable judicial basis,it said. However, rules requiring faces to be uncovered in public places such as schools, hospitals and law courts could be justified for security reasons, the council said.Prime Minster Francois Fillon asked for legal advice before drawing up a law on the subject, but he is not bound to follow it. In January, a French parliamentary committee recommended a partial ban on Islamic face veils that could be imposed in hospitals, schools, government offices and on public transport.

Netanyahu will Take Part in Obama's Nuclear Summit APR 6,10

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will ignore any hard feelings he may have after his last visit to Washington, and take part in a world nuclear summit being convened by US President Barack Obama next week. Netanyahu's bureau announced Tuesday that he would be flying to Washington Monday, immediately after participating in an official ceremony marking the Memorial Day for the Holocaust and the Courage of the Jewish People.Netanyahu will be accompanied by Dr. Shaul Horev, Director of Israel's Atomic Energy Committee, and Dr. Uzi Arad, his National Security Adviser. He will likely not meet Obama outside of the summit.The decision to fly to Washington was not an easy one for Netanyahu, who was humiliated by the US President in his recent visit. According to some analysts, Obama believes that by publicly denigrating the Prime Minister he can cause a rupture in his ruling coalition or force Israel to make far-reaching concessions to its Arab neighbors.

Four objectives
The nuclear summit will host representatives from about 40 countries. According to Henry Sokolski, Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Obama is attempting to achieve the vision that he laid out in his speech in Prague one year ago. In that speech he laid out four general objectives, Sokolski told CFR.org.One was to reduce the number of nuclear weapons systems in the world and reduce the likelihood of their use. The second was to reduce or eliminate the prospect of any further nuclear testing. The third was to stop any further production of nuclear materials that could be used directly to make weapons. And fourth, he made a number of recommendations that he thought would strengthen the rules against the further spread of nuclear weapons capabilities, technologies, and materials.The summit does not include Iran, which has said it intends to host its own nuclear summit this month.

PM Tells UTJ: Ashkelon ER is Staying Put
by Gil Ronen APR 6,10

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met the Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman (United Torah Judaism) Tuesday evening and informed him that the bomb-fortified emergency room at Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital would be built in the location originally set aside for it, despite UTJ's demand to have it moved.The relocation of the ER came up for debate after ancient graves were found at the construction site. While most of rabbis consulted on the matter said the graves could be moved, UTJ and Litzman were obliged to follow a ruling by several leading Ashkenazi rabbis who said that the emergency room, not the graves, had to be relocated. The government complied with UTJ's demands, fearing a coalition crisis, but also appointed a senior-level committee to reexamine the matter.This decision caused an uproar because it would have involved a serious delay in the construction of the ER, which would keep patients safe from injury even if it were hit by an enemy rocket. The government was portrayed as preferring the dignity of the long-dead over the safety of living people.The Prime Minister informed Litzman that he could not go ahead with relocating the ER, because a consensus had formed against it among the senior figures in the medical community. Litzman, for his part, said that UTJ stands behind its decision to oppose the idea of moving the graves and building the ER on the original site. However, political sources estimated that UTJ will not bolt the coalition.

Sea of Galilee Rose Six Centimeters Over Pesach
by Gil Ronen APR 6,10

(IsraelNN.com) The Water Authority announced that the water level in the Sea of Galilee rose by six cm (about 2.5 inches) over the Pesach holiday. The reasons for this were that water flowed in from the Jordan River, and pumping from the lake was stopped during the holiday.The average flow rate in the Jordan River is currently at about 17 cubic meters per second, so the Sea of Galilee is expected to rise further over the coming days, at about 0.5 cm per day. However, the sea – known in Hebrew as the Kinneret – is still 3.87 meters below its full level.March was a drier-than-average month in all of Israel's water basins, especially the northern ones that saw almost no rain. Waters levels in Israel's rivers were low, but there was a surge in the water levels in the rivers of southern Israel at the end of the month. The flow of water into the Sea of Galilee was lower than average for this time of year because of the lack of rains. The water level in the springs that feed the Jordan River – the Dan and Banias – also began to descend.The Dead Sea rose by one centimeter this month after an 8 cm rise the previous month.

Mimouna Festival: More Dignified This Year
by Hillel Fendel APR 6,10

(IsraelNN.com) The central post-Passover Mimouna celebrations took on a different aura this year: Not crowded and noisy, but rather dignified and cultured.The World Federation of Moroccan Jewry (WFMJ) organized the central Mimouna event in Jerusalem this year in the Binyanei HaUmah Convention Center, with exhibits of films, books, artwork, jewelry and traditional dress.Celebrating ten years of existence, WFMJ no longer desires to see happenings in parks and massive celebrations, the organization announced.This time, we have chosen to restore the true character of the Mimouna celebrations,said Chairman Sam Ben-Sheetrit,namely, a festival of brotherhood and national tidings. It is a holiday of a glorious Jewry [in Morocco], the cradle of varied Jewish culture of intellect, philosophy, song, and human warmth.The day-long event included a musical appearance by famous musician Kobi Peretz, blessings from Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, visits by Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin and other politicians, and amateur art shows. A Moroccan Jewish musical performance was scheduled for 20:00 PM, and the public was invited to take part, free of charge.

Mimouna is a Jewish post-Passover celebratory tradition brought to Israel by immigrants from North Africa. It begins with a festive meal, with families gathering together and opening their doors to neighbors to enjoy singing, traditional foods and spiritual nourishment for the coming months. It was celebrated publicly in Israel for the first time in 1966. In 1968, it was celebrated by some 5,000 people in Sanhedria Park, which had returned to Jewish hands just a year earlier during the Six Day War. The Mimouna's popularity as a public event has grown each year and is now celebrated nationally by hundreds of thousands of people.

Jewish Spiritual Awakening? 600,000 Visit Kotel over Pesach
by Gil Ronen APR 6,10
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(IsraelNN.com) A record number of people, a vast majority of them Jews, visited the Kotel (Western Wall) plaza over the Pesach (Passover) holiday. According to the Kotel Heritage Fund and the Israel Police, more than 600,000 people from all Jewish streams – secular and religious, young and old – visited the ancient remnant of the outer wall that surrounded the Temple Mount.The Kotel authorities say that the stream of visitors to the Wall this year was much larger than in previous years, and that people kept on coming 24 hours a day, many walking from the Jaffa Gate and the markets, the Shechem (Damascus) Gate and the Jewish Quarter, and many others by bus or taxi. Private vehicles were not allowed into the Old City for the entire period.

Kotel Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich commended the police for securing the Kotel area and the approaches to it. These statistics point to the fact that that the Kotel is a spiritual home for all of the world's Jews, without any barrier or difference in status, and I hope that this trend will continue and that there will not be a single Jewish boy or girl who does not visit the Kotel, he said.

Spiritual significance
The number 600,000 is considered to have spiritual significance in the Jewish faith, and is especially relevant to Pesach, in which the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt is marked. According to the Bible, this was the number of Jewish adult men who participated in the Exodus. The number has also been associated with the impending salvation of Israel, with some mystically-inclined commentators noting that the number of Jews in the newly declared State of Israel in 1948 was roughly 600,000, and that the number of IDF soldiers in the Six Day War was also about the same. The First Jewish Temple was built by King Solomon and destroyed by the Babylonians after standing for hundreds of years, as recounted in the Book of Kings. The Second Jewish Temple, which sat atop the Temple Mount, was sacked and destroyed by Roman legions in 70 CE. When Islam appeared on the scene in the 7th century, Muslims conquered Jerusalem and built mosques atop the Temple Mount. Some Muslims now deny that the Jewish Temples ever existed, despite Biblical books, historical records and archaeological proofs to the contrary.

Rabbi Melamed: Is Secular Nationalism Morally Coherent?
by Hillel Fendel APR 6,10

(IsraelNN.com) The Third Annual Ramle Conference was held today to discuss The Difference between Israel and Other Nations: Renewing National Identity in Israel.

Co-sponsored by the Torah Core Group in Ramle, the Municipality of Ramle and the Kommemiyut Organization, the conference featured the following topics:

•Can Nationalism and Ethics Co-Exist?
•Changes in the Concept of Nationalism Since the Beginning of Modern Zionism
•Post-National Tendencies in Israel and the World
•National Pride and International Pressures: Does an Increase in Pressure Signify Internal Weakness?
•How to Prevent Clashes Between Knesset Laws/Diplomatic Agreements and Torah Law
•After 100 Years of Zionism, Must Israel’s National Values and Goals be Redefined?
•How to Enlist Our National Strengths
Among the speakers were:
•Ramle Mayor Yoel Lavi
•Rabbis Zalman Baruch Melamed, Yaakov Ariel, Dov Lior, David Stav, Tzefania Drori
•Prof. Asher Cohen, Bar Ilan University
•Yoram Ettinger, Israel-U.S. relations expert
•Yitzchak Meir, former Israeli Ambassador in Western Europe
•MKs Ze’ev Elkin, Uri Ariel, Tzipi Hotobeli, Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh)

Rabbi Melamed said, Secular nationalism cannot exist for long, because it is essentially insupportable from a moral point of view. Nationalism of this sort can exist only to the extent that it comes closer to belief in G-d, to the idea that G-d chose Israel to bring His word to the world, that this mission must take place in the Land of Israel. That type of nationalism is morally correct in saying that the Nation of Israel must return to the entire Land, be here alone, and fulfill all of G-d given destined goals which can only occur here in this Land. Without such a world view, I don’t see how an exclusive nationalist outlook can be supported morally.

Rabbi Melamed did not rule out working together with secular nationalist groups, however. We should work together with all those who wish to maintain the Land of Israel as the Jewish People’s home,he said. The objective of the annual Ramle Conference, say the organizers, is to create a framework and basic infrastructure for discussion based on Torah, au courant knowledge and expertise, and on the variety of opinions present in Israeli society… The very fact that it is held in Ramle, which is one of Israel’s mixed cities [Jews, Christians and Muslims] is an expression of support for the city and its residents in dealing with a challenge that exists here specifically and in our country in general.

Pro-Israel Christians Targeted by New Anti-Israel Movie
by Hillel Fendel APR 6,10

(IsraelNN.com) A new evangelical film, With God on Our Side, is coming out this month in an attempt to persuade pro Israel Christians to champion the Palestinian cause.

Revising Theology

Porter Speakman, the movie’s producer, has explained that it takes a look at the theology of Christian Zionism, which teaches that… the Jews are G-d’s chosen people [and] have a divine right to the land of Israel… This film demonstrates that there is a biblical alternative for Christians who want to love and support the people of Israel, a theology that doesn’t favor one people group over another but instead promotes peace and reconciliation for both Jews and Palestinians.Speakman said that the film’s title was inspired by the incident in the Book of Joshua (5:13-14) in which Joshua asks an angel who appears at the battlefront, Are you for us or for our enemies? and the angel answers, Neither. I am the commander of G-d’s army.Speakman said,We believe this verse is still true today, that G-d does not take sides with certain people groups, nations or agendas.[INN: A close reading of the biblical text shows that the angel did not say neither. His answer was no, as he was not there to fight as humans do. Two verses later, the angel clearly sides with the Israelites when he tells Joshua, I have given Jericho and its king into your hand.]

The film’s trailer claims, Palestinian Christians lived here for centuries in this land. Suddenly they meet Christian groups of people who say you are obstacles to the second coming of Jesus. You need to move out to make room for the Jewish diaspora to come here.Christian Arabs living in Israel have equal rights and complete freedom of religion. Those living in Palestinian Authority controlled areas lack basic rights and many have left for this reason. For a report on the situation, click here.Writing for Front Page magazine, Mark Tooley, President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, notes that anti-Israel activists rightly see American evangelicals as key to U.S. support for Israel. That is why they are targeting evangelicals with messages of pro-Palestinian solidarity as supposedly central to Christian compassion.Most of the millions of Evangelical Christians in the United States are staunch supporters of Israel politically. For an Evangelical's overview of the reasons for this, click here.Tooley explains that the film is an attempt to undermine Christian beliefs about modern-day Israel: Here, of course, is the simplistic stereotype about pro-Israel evangelicals the film hopes to perpetuate. American evangelicals self-servingly only support Israel because a Jewish presence there is central to their bloody thirsty, apocalyptic dreams about the Second Coming. The film soothingly implores evangelicals to consider a nicer path.

The Message
Tooley writes that the film’s main message to evangelicals, is that the Old Religious Right crassly imposed a pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy based on its end-times theology, creating untold suffering among largely innocent Palestinians, whereas more thoughtful, more compassionate evangelicals must instead stand with the Palestinians as the victim group most needing Christian compassion.Tooley calls this a new mythology that the Evangelical Left hopes to perpetuate about the Middle East.
The film interviews Ben White, an anti-Israel British journalist; Stephen Sizer, a Church of England priest and anti-Israel author who infamously has taken his message to Iran; Gary Burge, a professor at evangelical Wheaton College outside Chicago who is a critic of pro-Israel evangelicals; and Salim Munayer, a professor at Bethlehem Bible College, which markets Palestinian Liberation Theology.Munayer says that American evangelicals must be more concerned about their self-image. You need to understand how American Christians have been perceived by Middle Easterners,Tooley quotes him as saying.We stand for wars, we want to be richer, we don’t care for the poor, we want only our interests, we stand for moral values that stand for our desires. We stand for power and not stand for peace.

Tooley sums up: [The movie] With God on Our Side wants increased U.S. pressure on Israel to accommodate Palestinian demands, facilitated by reduced U.S. evangelical support for Israel. And the ultimate goal is what? A Palestinian state based on the unstable 1967 borders and ruled by Islamists like Hamas or kleptocratic secularists like Fatah? Or is it to dismantle Israel altogether in favor of a single nation, where an unrestricted right of return for Palestinians leads to a collapse of Jewish democracy? How are the dwindling numbers of Palestinian Christians faring under Palestinian rule now, and how would they fare under a victorious new, Islamic-dominated Palestinian state? Mostly, the Evangelical Left would prefer not to answer these questions, instead preferring guilt trips about supposed evangelical and American imperialist sins, and fantasies about a newly liberated and Christian friendly Palestine.Fortunately, most evangelicals will remain un-persuaded, despite the saccharine appeal of a film like..[this one].

Crews begin drilling into W.Va. mine where 25 died By LAWRENCE MESSINA, Associated Press Writer - APR 6,10

MONTCOAL, W.Va. – Rescuers held out slim hope Tuesday that four missing coal miners might have survived when a mine repeatedly cited for improperly venting methane gas exploded, killing 25 people in the country's deadliest underground disaster in a quarter-century.A day after the blast in southern West Virginia, desperate rescuers began boring into the mine in hopes of releasing poisonous gases so crews could go in search of the men. But Gov. Joe Manchin said it could be midday Wednesday before much progress is made.I don't want to give anybody any false hope, but by golly, if I'm on that side of the table, and that's my father or my brother or my uncle or my cousins, I'm going to have hope, he said.The missing miners might have been able to reach airtight chambers stocked with food, water and enough oxygen for four days. But rescue teams checked one of two chambers nearby, and it was empty. The buildup of gases prevented them from reaching the second chamber. Officials said they were 90percent sure of the miners' location.On Tuesday, bulldozers carved an access road to make way for drilling crews, who planned to dig four shafts to vent methane, a highly combustible gas that accumulates naturally in coal mines, and carbon monoxide from the blast site about 1,000 feet beneath the surface.Crews began drilling two side-by-side holes that start at 12 inches in diameter and narrow to 6 inches. They hoped to open more holes later Tuesday evening.Massey Energy Co., which owns the Upper Big Branch mine, was fined more than $382,000 in the past year for repeated serious violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment.The company's chief executive said the mine was not unsafe, but federal regulators planned to review its many violations.

In an area where coal is king, people anxiously awaited word on the missing miners. One resident hung a Praying 4 Our Miners banner outside a home. At Libby's City Grill in nearby Whitesville, the accident was the talk at every breakfast table. Owner James Scott was grieving his own loss — his 58-year-old uncle, Deward Scott of Montcoal, was among the dead.Neither his uncle nor his customers talked much about their work.I never heard anyone say anything about the mine, good or bad, James Scott said.You just don't talk about it.Diana Davis said her husband, Timmy Davis, 51, died in the explosion along with his nephews, Josh Napper, 27, and Cory Davis, 20.

The elder Davis' son, Timmy Davis Jr., described his father as passionate about the outdoors and the mines. He loved to work underground, the younger Davis said.He loved that place.Two other family members survived the blast, he said.On Tuesday night, about 50 mourners packed the creaky pews of St. Joseph Catholic Church, a modest building on a lonely rural road a few miles from the mine. As a flute played, and congregants prayed for the four missing miners, they also did their best to belt out hymns. Some wore their Sunday best while others wandered in wearing T-shirts, jeans and tattered baseball caps.During pauses, some leaned over and consoled each other.It's such a terrible time for West Virginia, but it's so important to ask for God's help, said Bishop Michael J. Bransfield.It demands our cares and it demands our prayers.At the time of the explosion, 61 miners were in the mine, about 30 miles south of Charleston.Before you knew it, it was just like your ears stopped up. You couldn't hear. And the next thing you know, it's just like you're just right in the middle of a tornado, miner Steve Smith, who heard the explosion but was able to escape, told ABC's Good Morning America.Nine miners were leaving on a vehicle that takes them in and out of the mine's long shaft when a crew ahead of them felt a blast of air and went back to investigate, said Kevin Stricklin, an administrator for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.The chief executive of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that a carbon monoxide warning was the first sign of trouble. Mine crews were checking on the alarm when they discovered an explosion had occurred. I don't know that we know what happened, Blankenship said.

Some may have been killed by the blast and others when they inhaled the toxic gases, Stricklin said.He described how the rescue teams gradually descended through a long, sloping shaft where the miners were operating a huge machine that carves coal from the walls. He said the teams increasingly encountered debris from the mine's ventilation system and other materials.Federal officials decided to call off the rescue after high methane gas readings in the far reaches of the mine. The decision was that you can't risk 40 rescue workers,Blankenship said. Stricklin said after the mine is safe to enter, rescue teams will try to reach a long section about 20 feet wide with barely enough room to stand. Besides the dark, the searchers must also navigate debris from structures shattered by the explosion, and sections of the track that were wrapped like a pretzel from the blast. There's so much dirt and dust and everything is so dark that it's very easy, as hard as it may seem to any of us outside in this room, to walk by a body, Stricklin said. Seven bodies have been recovered and identified. The names of the remaining miners were not released, but the AP was able to identify six of them through family members. Two injured miners were being treated at hospitals. Their names were not released either. Some grieving relatives were angry because they learned their loved ones were among the dead from government officials, not from Massey Energy executives. Michelle McKinney found out from a local official at a nearby school that her 61-year-old father, Benny R. Willingham, was among the dead. He was due to retire in five weeks after 30 years of mining.These guys, they took a chance every day to work to make the mining company grow, she said. And company officials couldn't even call us.

Blankenship said he attended briefings with family members, but largely left contact to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and Massey representatives. He said he was in the room when relatives were notified of the full extent of the tragedy, but the scene was so emotional that he did not interact with them. Manchin said a Massey official apologized to family members Tuesday for not being notified of the deaths. The death toll was the highest in a U.S. mine since 1984, when 27 people died in a fire at Emery Mining Corp.'s mine in Orangeville, Utah. If the four missing bring the total to 29, it would be the most killed in a U.S. coal mine since a 1970 explosion killed 38 at Finley Coal Co. in Hyden, Ky. There's always danger. There's so many ways you can get hurt, or your life taken,said Gary Williams, a miner and pastor of New Life Assembly, a nearby church. Though the situation looked bleak, the governor said miracles can happen and pointed to the 2006 Sago Mine explosion that killed 12. Crews found miner Randal McCloy Jr. alive after he was trapped for more than 40 hours in an atmosphere poisoned with carbon monoxide. Massey Energy, a publicly traded company based in Richmond, Va., ranks among the nation's top five coal producers and is among the industry's most profitable. It has 2.2 billion tons of coal reserves in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia and Tennessee.Blankenship said the mine was not thought to be unsafe by the agencies or the company.I think that what they (the Mine Safety and Health Administration) said is, You know, there's been a lot of debate about the ventilation.At the times the mine operates and men are in the mine, it complies with whatever the federal and state agencies have agreed.

Stricklin said he was concerned about an initial review of the more serious violations, which indicated that the operator was aware of some of these conditions.
Methane is one of the great dangers of coal mining. In mines, giant fans are used to keep the colorless, odorless gas concentrations below certain levels. If concentrations are allowed to build up, the gas can explode with a spark roughly similar to the static charge created by walking across a carpet in winter. Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed, Vicki Smith, Tom Breen, Tim Huber and Greg Bluestein in West Virginia and Sam Hananel in Washington contributed to this report.

Asian shares up slightly in early trade
APR 6,10

TOKYO – Asian stock markets were hanging onto slim gains in early trading Wednesday after a mixed session on Wall Street.Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average rose 0.2 percent to 11,302.57 ahead of the central bank's latest decision on monetary policy, due out later in the day. The Bank of Japan is expected to keep interest rates unchanged and hold off of additional monetary easing steps.Financial names rose sharply, with Mitsui Sumitomo Financial Group Inc. jumping 3.5 percent and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. up 1.4 percent.Hopes for continued low interest rates in the U.S. supported sentiment in Asia. Minutes of the Federal Reserve's March meeting signaled that rates would stay at record lows for the time being to help underpin the economic recovery.Australia's benchmark added 0.2 percent to 4,960.90. Resource-related shares were key movers, with mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd. climbing 0.4 percent.New Zealand's main index also rose, while South Korea's Kospi lost 0.2 percent.Overnight in New York, the Dow Jones industrials slipped about 4 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 10,969.99 as a rise in bank shares offset drops in some technology names.Oil and gasoline prices barely budged Tuesday, as traders took a break from a recent rally. Benchmark crude for May delivery rose 22 cents to settle at $86.84 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.In currencies, the dollar held steady at 93.76 yen. The euro fell slightly to $1.3378 from $1.3395 late Tuesday.

Fed keeps eyes out for speculative bubbles By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer – Tue Apr 6, 7:10 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve officials at their March meeting stressed the need to make sure record-low interest rates don't feed new speculative bubbles in stocks or other assets.At the same time, some officials said the Fed's pledge to keep rates low for an extended period doesn't mean a fixed period of time. Rather, it depends on the strength of the economy, according to minutes of the closed-door meeting released Tuesday. Many analysts have taken the pledge to mean rates would stay at record lows for roughly six months to help underpin the recovery.At the March 16 meeting of the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed officials argued that the pledge won't stop the Fed from boosting rates if the economy showed signs of picking up substantially or if inflation took off. On the other hand, the pledge could last for some time if the economy took a turn for the worse. A few members thought the risks of boosting rates too soon exceeded the risks of doing so later.To aid the recovery, the Fed held the target range for its bank lending rate at zero to 0.25 percent. It's stood at that level since December 2008. And it maintained a pledge — in place for a year — to keep rates at rock-bottom levels.The Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, regularly meets eight times a year in Washington. The meetings focus mainly on whether and when to raise or lower rates to aid or slow the economy. The committee's core function is to maintain economic health while keeping inflation in check.

Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, for a second straight meeting was the sole member to oppose keeping that pledge. Analysts saw Hoenig as concerned that holding rates too low for too long could feed some new speculative bubble in assets such as stocks or commodities.Fed members noted the importance of closely monitoring financial markets and institutions to help detect risks at an early stage. They cited, in particular, the need to monitor asset prices and loan levels.Information collected by Fed staff hasn't revealed significant threats in the financial markets or widespread high-risk-taking, the minutes concluded. Still, Fed officials said they would be on the watch for any such threats.

The Fed, though, has been attacked on Capitol Hill and elsewhere for failing to detect risks leading up to the financial crisis. Under various proposals to revamp the financial regulatory system, the Fed could win some powers and lose others.Some also blame for the Fed for feeding the housing bubble that eventually burst and plunged the country into the worst recession since the 1930s. Critics contend the Fed did so by holding rates too low for too long after the 2001 recession.On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average, which initially rose after the release of the Fed minutes, closed down nearly 4 points to 10,969.99. Broader stock averages eked out small gains.A major challenge for the Fed is deciding when to boost rates. Moving too soon could hurt the recovery. But waiting too long could unleash inflation.Hoenig favored dropping the extended period pledge. He would replace it with language saying economic conditions warrant low rates for some time.Hoenig suggested such a change would give the Fed flexibility to begin raising rates modestly when the time was right, the minutes explained.Hoenig said he believed the Fed would need to start boosting rates sooner rather than later.Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight, said the thrust of the Fed minutes suggested policymakers would continue to hold rates at record lows at their next meeting on April 27-28 and probably for most of this year.The Fed has leeway to hold rates low because inflation isn't a threat. Most Fed officials believed substantial slack in the economy would continue to tamp down inflation pressures, the minutes said.

By slack, Fed officials mean the fact that factories and other businesses are still operating below full throttle and that the job market — while improving — remains weak. Workers won't be able to negotiate sizable pay raises or other compensation any time soon.Companies will be hard-pressed to ratchet up retail prices when shoppers are reluctant to go on spending sprees. All those forces should keep inflation in check. In fact, Fed officials saw recent inflation readings as suggesting a slightly greater deceleration in consumer prices than expected. Assessing economic conditions, the Fed again said the economy was strengthening. But it cautioned that high unemployment, sluggish income growth and tight credit will restrain the recovery. And some members said the rebound might fade if significant job creation doesn't occur. Despite some improvements at the end of last year and heavy government support, housing activity appeared to be leveling off. Home foreclosures are also likely to stay quite high, the Fed said. Separately Tuesday, Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, suggested in a speech that the economic recovery will last even without a major turnaround in the housing market. Once the recovery is entrenched, Kocherlakota also thinks the Fed will be able to gradually sell some of its vast holdings of mortgage securities to reel in money pumped out during the financial crisis. The Fed would do so when it decides to tighten credit.If the Fed sold $15 billion to $25 billion of securities a month, it would take roughly five years for it to unload all the mortgage securities it bought during the crisis, Kocherlakota said. Such gradual selling, he said, would have little or no impact on the prices of the mortgage securities or on long-term mortgage rates.

Canada dollar edges above U.S. dollar; highest since 2008 By Claire Sibonney and Jennifer Kwan – Tue Apr 6, 6:14 pm ET

TORONTO (Reuters) – The Canadian dollar briefly pushed above parity with the greenback on Tuesday for the first time since July 2008, but slipped back to end the day just below the one-for-one level.Powered by rising commodity prices and an economic rebound that investors expect will soon trigger interest rate hikes, the Canadian dollar climbed as high as C$0.9988 to the U.S. dollar, or US$1.0012, after firmer economic data helped fuel investor demand for commodity-linked currencies.The currency finished at C$1.0012 to the U.S. dollar, or 99.88 U.S. cents, up from Monday's finish at C$1.0028 to the U.S. dollar, or 99.72 U.S. cents.The currency has risen more than 5 percent against the U.S. dollar so far this year after gaining almost 16 percent in 2009.The currency's rise has been supported by Canada's healthy fundamentals relative to the United States and other struggling Western economies, as well as by the improving global economic outlook.All these factors suggest the currency's strength may be more sustainable than when it last traded at par with the greenback about 20 months ago, said George Davis, chief technical strategist at RBC Capital Markets.The backdrop is basically pointing to a market that is looking for growth and expansion in terms of the economic cycle. That backdrop is lending itself very well to the Canadian dollar, Davis said.We've had, on balance, stronger than expected economic data here in Canada, especially when we look at GDP, retail sales and employment, and that has a lot of people in the market more convinced that the Bank of Canada is going to act ahead of the (U.S. Federal Reserve) in terms of raising interest rates.

CONDITIONAL RATE PLEDGE TO EXPIRE

The Bank of Canada has made a conditional pledge to hold its key interest rate at a record low of 0.25 percent until the end of June, provided inflation stays tame. But market players have begun to price in an earlier rate hike as the economy heats up after the recession.Yields on overnight index swaps, which trade based on expectations for the Bank of Canada's key policy rate, suggest rates will have risen by at least 25 basis points by July.The currency's march higher intensified around the release of Canada's February employment data on March 12 and bond yields rose on expectations of rate hikes, Davis said.Canadian money market yields were slightly lower on Tuesday.The bond market is flat today. It really hasn't reacted to the currency, said Sheldon Dong, a fixed income analyst at TD Waterhouse Private Investment.The rate hike expectations have been baked into the market. Technical trends have been indicating the Canadian dollar would be hitting parity. That's already been built in. There's just no fresh news.Canadian bonds mostly underperformed their U.S. counterparts, with the 10-year yield narrowing to 27 basis points from around 32 basis points on Monday.Market watchers said last week's U.S. payrolls data was an added boost to an already positive economic backdrop. The report on Friday showed employers in the United States, Canada's largest trading partner, created jobs in March at the fastest rate in three years as private firms stepped up hiring.That also followed stronger Canadian gross domestic product data for January. Strategists will now turn their gaze to Canadian employment data for March, which is due on Friday. (The currency has) been heading toward parity for weeks and it was inevitable. There's no surprise,said Jon Gencher, director of foreign exchange sales at BMO Capital Markets.This time seems to be a more of a sustainable move. I think for the next little while, we are certainly going to hover around parity,he added.

HOW HIGH CAN IT GO?

The Canadian dollar reached parity with the greenback in 2007, for the first time since the 1970s, climbing to a modern-day high of US$1.1039 that November. It last traded at par with the greenback on July 22, 2008, weakening as investors flocked to the safe haven of the U.S. dollar during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But it likely won't rise as high as the November 2007 level, said Davis, who sees it peaking at US$1.03.There were several unique factors related the currency's ascent in 2007, he added.There were a lot of M&A flows that were working their way through the market and that was propping up the Canadian dollar. That I think caused an overshoot. I don't think we have similar factors in place at this point in time ,Davis said. The Canadian currency could also face several headwinds as the Fed begins raising U.S. interest rates, possibly in the last quarter of 2010 or the first quarter of next year, he added, drawing investors to the greenback.

Steve Butler, director of foreign exchange trading at Scotia Capital, said the currency's rise might not keep pace with tighter monetary policy.Quite often you see that, once the rate hikes start, the currency doesn't keep up with the interest rate hikes. That may be the bubble that bursts,he said, adding that he sees the currency peaking anywhere between US$1.05 and US$1.06.It's going to be a slow and steady grind rather than an accelerated move from these levels.(Additional reporting by London FX desk; editing by Rob Wilson)

U.S. bank investors: Show me the money By Maria Aspan And Joe Rauch – Tue Apr 6, 1:20 pm ET

NEW YORK/CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) – Citigroup Inc (C.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) may soon show compelling evidence that they have stopped the bleeding in terms of credit losses and loan writedowns.But when first-quarter results start rolling in next week, investors who have fueled a blistering rally in bank shares will be looking for signs that banks are gearing up to actually make money, rather than losing less.Most analysts are wary of the continuing toll of consumer credit losses, mainly in credit cards and mortgages, at major U.S. banks. But they also see signs of improvement as the industry emerges from credit woes that began nearly three years ago.Earnings have stabilized but we're still at the stage of less-worse for these banks, said Ralph Cole, portfolio manager at Ferguson Wellman Capital Management, which owns JPMorgan shares.They're dealing with problems as they have to, and as they have the financial means to do so. They're earning their way out.In the first quarter, banks particularly benefited from lower funding costs amid an easing credit environment, which fed margin expansion.On Tuesday, Wells Fargo Securities raised large-cap U.S. banks by a notch to market weight, citing positive economic data and more clarity on asset-quality trends. Analysts picked Bank of America and PNC Financial Services Group Inc (PNC.N) as best positioned to benefit from an investor focus on normalized earnings.

Analysts' newfound optimism has been matched by investors. The KBW Bank Index (.BKX) rose 21.7 percent in the first quarter, far better than the 4.7 percent increase in the broader S&P 500 Index (.SPX).Citigroup shares posted the biggest gain among the top banks, up 22 percent.Bank of America and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) rose 18.5 percent and 15.5 percent, respectively. JPMorgan Chase was a relative laggard, gaining 7.5 percent.Analysts at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods forecast first-quarter net profit of $2 billion for the banks they cover, compared with a loss of $4.4 billion in the 2009 fourth quarter.But they still expect 38 percent of those banks to report losses.Of course, improvement among the top banks will be anything but uniform. Ranked by assets, Bank of America is No. 1, followed by JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.JPMorgan, which is expected to report earnings of 65 cents per share against 40 cents a year earlier, is widely seen as the strongest of the four biggest U.S. banks, having weathered the financial crisis better than most. Wells Fargo is projected to report 41 cents per share, compared with 56 cents a year ago, according to analyst surveys by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

On the rockier side of things are the two biggest bailout recipients among the top banks: Bank of America is projected to report earnings of 8 cents per share, down from 44 cents a year earlier, and Citigroup is seen breaking even after losing 18 cents a share a year ago.JPMorgan's the only one able to look forward, while Bank of America and Citi are still looking inward, trying to fix things, Cole said.That's an ongoing process. JPMorgan has the pieces that they want; now they have to figure out a way to grow.Citigroup could end up reporting a slightly better per-share result, while Bank of America could be slightly weaker, according to Reuters Starmine, which weights estimates according to analysts' track records.Given the healthy run-up in their stocks in the first quarter, Citigroup and Bank of America in some ways have the most to prove. But their shares are still trading under book value, while JPMorgan and Wells Fargo shares trade above book value.Citigroup and Bank of America still look relatively less expensive, said Michael Holland, chairman of Holland & Co, a money management firm that owns bank stocks, including JPMorgan. You still have some undervaluation.While many banks look healthier than they did a year ago, consumer credit and commercial real estate losses persist, and analysts agreed that a full recovery is not likely until next year at the earliest. With all these banks, we see a path back toward profitability, said Jefferson Harralson, a Keefe, Bruyette & Woods bank analyst.But investors could still be disappointed.Investors, in turn, may step back from the 2010 run-up in bank stocks if U.S. banks report disappointing first-quarter numbers. Expectations have been up, prices have been low, Holland said.We should look for some negative surprises.(Reporting by Joe Rauch in Charlotte and Maria Aspan in New York; editing by John Wallace).

Greece battered on markets, denies u-turn on IMF By Ingrid Melander and Harry Papachristou – Tue Apr 6, 3:06 pm ET

ATHENS (Reuters) – Markets pushed Greece's risk premium to a euro lifetime high on Tuesday amid growing doubts over the country's capacity to resolve its debt crisis and fresh skepticism about a European Union-International Monetary Fund aid mechanism.The crisis is far from over, said Diego Iscaro, economist at IHS Global Insight.The economy is still contracting, the structural reforms will still need to be implemented, the political situation is still uncertain.Returning to markets after a four-day Easter break, investors battered Greece over reports that it was seeking to amend an EU-IMF safety net despite Greek officials denying they intended to renegotiate the deal.Markets ditched Greek assets, pushing Greek borrowing costs to a record euro high, with the premium investors demand to hold 10-year Greek government bonds rather than euro zone benchmark German Bunds rising to as much as 409 basis points.There is a huge amount of uncertainty over the terms of the safety net,said Citigroup economist Giada Giani. This scares markets because they think that IMF involvement may entail debt restructuring.The euro lost ground against the dollar, and U.S. stocks opened lower on Greek worries, but later recovered.Markets are pushing to the limit to see where the threshold for the activation of the emergency plan is, said Giani.

PANIC

Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said Greece could not borrow at current rates of about 7 percent for long but said it had no intention to use the EU-IMF aid mechanism for now.Today was a very bad day for Greek bonds, Papaconstantinou told Mega TV. What happened today shows a panic by people with Greek government bonds in their portfolio.He said the spread jump did not immediately impact the country's finances as its borrowing requirements for April were covered.EU leaders agreed to the aid mechanism last month, saying Greece could be helped as a last resort through bilateral loans and money from the IMF if market financing becomes insufficient and if all euro zone states agree to it.But the IMF still has not spelled out how it would cooperate, and every euro zone country, including Germany, has a veto right, making it difficult to trigger the aid mechanism. Under domestic pressure ahead of a key regional election in Germany in May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has so far been reluctant to help Greece.Greek and German officials have traded heated rhetoric over the past few weeks, with Berlin saying Athens must clean up its own mess and Greek politicians lashing out at Germany for lack of solidarity.Faced with 23 billion euros of maturing debt in April and May, rising spreads make it more difficult for Greece to refinance and increase the chances the EU-IMF aid mechanism will have to be triggered.Analysts said the deal had failed to convince many investors. The general picture is that the aid plan is not as solid as it was first perceived by investors, said UBS strategist Justin Knight.There is a variety of questions asked by the market, including whether the IMF would request a restructuring of Greek debt and at what level spreads would trigger the activation of the aid mechanism.

REPORTS SPOOK MARKETS

Market News International quoted unidentified senior Greek government sources as saying Athens wanted to renegotiate the EU aid deal intended to protect Greece from potential default as it struggles to handle a 300 billion euro ($402.3 billion) debt in a crisis that has shaken the euro. The report had said Athens wanted to bypass a potential contribution from the IMF because Greece was concerned the IMF would impose tough conditions. But Papaconstantinou rejected the reports. These alleged statements have nothing to do with reality, he told Mega TV. Shares in the country's banks fell sharply, weighed in part by other developments. The European Union executive Commission and European Central Bank had no comment on the report on Tuesday. The IMF said it will begin a staff technical mission to Greece on Wednesday to look at fiscal issues. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou had said over the weekend that the worst of the crisis was over, but analysts said the latest jump in borrowing costs would make it even harder for Greece to cope. With something close to 20 billion euros of debt needing to be refinanced by the end of May, the latest rise in yields is a major blow to hopes that Greece might yet manage to muddle through on its own,said Jonathan Loynes, at Capital Economics. Needless to say, none of this is good news for the euro either.

BORROWING NEEDS

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday Greece was seeking $5 billion to $10 billion from U.S. investors to help cover its May borrowing needs of about 10 billion euros to roll over maturing debt and meet interest payments. The head of Greece's PDMA debt agency told Reuters last week Athens would issue a global U.S. dollar-denominated bond in late April or early May. He did not say how much it would seek to raise but said a roadshow would be organised after April 20. Investor uncertainty also grew following a report in Britain's Daily Telegraph saying wealthy Greeks and companies were looking to move their funds outside the country. It said big depositors had been clamoring to move cash to international banks such as HSBC (HSBA.L) or France's Societe Generale (SOGN.PA), which run large branches in Greece.

The report appeared to contradict recent data from the European Central Bank and comments to Reuters by analysts and Greek banking sources, who said there was no clear evidence of a major, extended deposit outflow from Greek banks. The 10-year Greek/German government bond yield spread widened to as much as 409 basis points from 349 bps late on Thursday. The previous January euro life-time high was 405 basis points. Greek bank stocks (.FTATBNK) closed down 4 percent. Five-year credit default swaps -- the price of insuring Greek debt -- rose to 400,000 euros to protect 10 million euros of government bonds, from 344,000 on April 5, according to Markit data.(Additional reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and George Georgiopoulos in Athens, George Matlock in London, Lesley Wroughton in Washington and Kim Coghill & Jan Dahinten in Singapore; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Stephen Nisbet and Padraic Cassidy)

Spread dread for Greece as debt confusion roils investors by John Hadoulis – Tue Apr 6, 3:23 pm ET

ATHENS (AFP) – Confusion on Tuesday about debt-hit Greece's crisis strategy and doubts over a still-vague EU-IMF support deal combined to hit the euro and further inflame Athens' daunting loan costs.A report that Greece might be seeking to bypass the International Monetary Fund in a reworked EU deal was followed by a sharp rise in Greek borrowing costs despite protestations from Athens to the contrary.Though the finance ministry insisted that Greece had never taken any action to change the terms of the deal, rates on the benchmark 10-year government bond jumped to over seven percent at one stage.That left the gap or spread between Greek and less risky German 10-year bond yields at nearly four percentage points, up very sharply from 3.42 percentage points on Thursday.At such a high cost, doubts began to set in about Athens' ability to raise more money from the markets because its interest pay-outs increasingly outweigh any savings it can make elsewhere in reducing public spending and the like.The euro meanwhile fell below the 1.34-dollar level as growing doubts about the handling of the Greek debt crisis undermined confidence in the eurozone, dealers said.Today was a very bad day for Greek bonds, Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told Mega television, while noting that Athens had not in fact taken out fresh loans and was not obliged to do so until May.The Greek state has covered its loan needs for April and now has needs in May. We have over a month ahead of us before we must borrow again, he said.

Greece last week said it planned to borrow in dollars at an unspecified upcoming date the equivalent of 11.5 billion euros (15.6 billion dollars) after seeing demand for its debt decline in Europe.Athens had hoped that the pledge by Greece's EU partners to intervene if it faced insurmountable difficulty in refinancing its debts would help bring down its borrowing costs.So far, that has conspicuously failed to happen and Papaconstantinou conceded on Tuesday that the ongoing debate over the specifics of the deal was not helping Greece.Talk of this celebrated (EU-IMF) mechanism is not in our interests at all at this moment, he said.This whole story will calm down once the country passes the May hurdle ... it is clear that we cannot continue with very high interest rates for long.The turmoil coincided with the expected arrival in Athens on Wednesday of IMF experts, which Greek sources insisted was merely to offer advice on managing the country's budget.The sense that Greece might be losing interest in the IMF-EU bailout strengthened on a Financial Times report that Papaconstantinou would take his case to the United States later this month rather than to Asia as had been planned.Greece is looking to diversify its investor base with this (US) issue, which means attracting emerging market funds as well as other investors, the FT quoted a Greek official as saying.The media have reported that Greece, concerned about the stringent measures likely to be enforced upon them by the IMF, are trying to bypass IMF involvement in their support package, increasing uncertainty,said Credit Agricole CIB analyst Stuart Bennett.

He said euro market sentiment had also been dented by continued disagreement amongst European leaders about the rates that Greece should be charged for any help.The pressure on Greece is becoming critical because it has to redeem old debt totalling about 20 billion euros by the end of May. The debt drama has put ominous new pressures on the EU and eurozone. Germany in particular is very reluctant to offer direct help, saying that high Greek borrowing costs alone would not be a reason to enact the safety net and that the only justification would be a threat to the stability of the eurozone. Among the constraints on German Chancellor Angela Merkel are hostile public opinion and rulings by the constitutional court that German participation in the eurozone must provide the same stability for Germany as it had before joining the zone. The IMF experts arriving on Wednesday are coming at the request of the government to give advice on how to manage its budget in line with draconian cutbacks promised to the European Union.They will also advise on how to combat tax fraud, widely considered to be an endemic and crippling problem for Greece.

Financial crisis panel turns to risky mortgages By DANIEL WAGNER, AP Business Writer – Mon Apr 5, 11:39 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A panel investigating the roots of the financial crisis will press current and former executives of Citigroup Inc. at hearings this week about the bank's role in spreading trillions of dollars in risky mortgage debt through the banking system.The hearings are the first by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to focus on a single company. Witnesses include former Citi CEO Chuck Prince and former Chairman Robert Rubin, who was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration.The panel also will hear from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan; a former risk officer with failed subprime lender New Century Financial Corp.; and former executives and regulators from government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae. The three days of testimony are designed to provide a firsthand accounting of decisions that inflated a mortgage bubble and triggered the financial crisis.Much of the tension at hearings Wednesday and Thursday will come as the 10 bipartisan commissioners examine Citi's role in financing, packaging and selling risky mortgage loans.Citi was a major subprime lender through its subsidiary CitiFinancial. The bank pooled those loans and loans purchased from other mortgage companies and sold the income streams to investors. As borrowers defaulted, Citi absorbed losses on mortgage-related investments it held on and off its books.

Mortgage troubles at Citi, defunct investment bank Bear Stearns and elsewhere exposed cracks in the financial system. In late 2007 and throughout 2008, those fissures grew into a full-fledged credit crisis that crippled the global economy.
Congress created the FCIC last year to examine the causes of that crisis. It is structured like the 9/11 panel that examined intelligence failures preceding the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.Like that panel, the commission has authority to issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify or force companies to turn over documents. The commission is charged with examining 22 topics — from executive compensation to tax policy — in a report it must issue Dec. 15.The hearing comes less than a month after fresh questions arose about political fundraising by commission chairman and former California Treasurer Phil Angelides.During his 2002 re-election campaign, Angelides solicited donations from a top executive with JPMorgan Chase & Co, according to a report issued March 18 by the Securities and Exchange Commission. JPMorgan is paid by California to underwrite billions of dollars in municipal bonds annually.The executive later sent a note to other key executives and a bank lobbyist calling Angelides an important client and asking them to help raise $10,000, the SEC report says. The executive oversaw the part of the company that includes the municipal bond business.The report does not address Angelides' role because the SEC does not have jurisdiction over campaign finance. Instead, the report deals with a rule that bars banks from underwriting bonds for governments within two years after a bank executive donates to an official in that government.

Greenspan's testimony Wednesday will open the hearings. Critics say his policy at the Fed of keeping interest rates low encouraged lending to borrowers who had little or no chance of repaying.Wednesday's remaining two panels will include testimony on subprime lending and risk management at Citigroup. Former risk management executives are expected to say they sounded alarms about the growing danger of Citi's mortgage lending and finance activities but were ignored by senior management.Prince and Rubin will testify together Thursday. The panel will then hear from regulators of Citi's Citibank subsidiary: Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan and former Comptroller of the Currency John Hawke Jr.Friday's testimony will focus on the role of Fannie Mae, the mortgage finance company whose rescue has required government commitments totaling $75.2 billion. The panel will hear from two former Fannie Mae executives and two former regulators of Fannie Mae and its sister company Freddie Mac.The commission staff has received written responses from Wall Street CEOs who appeared at the first hearing in January and has requested documents from some banks.

TSX slides off 18-month high as oils slip
By Ka Yan Ng – Tue Apr 6, 6:14 pm ET

TORONTO (Reuters) – The TSX fell on Tuesday with the energy group the chief laggard as investors took profits after two sessions of gains.The Canadian dollar was the standout piece of Canadian news as it hit parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time in more than 20 months. But the impact on Toronto stocks was muted.In the very short term we've run out of drivers to push the markets higher. We haven't yet seen any level of broad concern with regards to the Canadian dollar appreciation, said Elvis Picardo, analyst and strategist at Global Securities in Vancouver.He added that the next market movers will likely be corporate earnings, which will start coming out in the next few weeks.The price of oil had a seesaw session but settled higher for a sixth consecutive session, although the TSX's energy group, down 0.64 percent, failed to keep up with the commodity, an important Canadian export.Talisman Energy dropped 1.9 percent to C$17.83, while Imperial Oil lost 1.8 percent to C$40.95.The index's materials group was lower as well, down 0.59 percent, even as the price of gold firmed and copper hit a 20-month high.

Barrick Gold Corp, the world's biggest gold producer, lost 0.65 percent to C$39.44, but Teck Resources bucked the trend, rising 1.19 percent to C$46.75.The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index closed down 29.64 points, or 0.24 percent, at 12,156.71, falling after reaching its highest level in 18 months on Monday.The index was lower most of the day but briefly pared losses in the afternoon after minutes from the last U.S. Federal Reserve meeting suggested the Fed might continue to keep interest rates at their current ultra low level.We're kind of sailing into unchartered waters here so everyone kind of has a you go first attitude, said Bruce Latimer, a trader at Dundee Securities.People are bullish but they're hesitant...two steps forward, three steps back.Seven of the index's 10 main groups were lower on Tuesday. Among the advancing groups was infotech, up 0.16 percent, largely because of a 3.5 percent gain in Research In Motion. The BlackBerry maker released updated tools to make it easier and faster for developers to create feature-rich Web and wireless applications to be used on the company's smartphones. Shares of RIM rose to C$70.24.Also weighing on riskier assets were developments in Greece's debt woes. Greece's government, concerned that the International Monetary Fund could impose tough conditions in exchange for aid, wants to bypass an IMF financial contribution, senior government sources in Athens told media. A Greek finance ministry source denied the report.(Reporting by Ka Yan Ng; editing by Peter Galloway)

Black Widows Recruited for Terrorism in Russia By SIMON SHUSTER / MOSCOW APR 6,10 TIME.COM

One photograph has transformed the way many Russians look at terrorism. It shows one of the two women who allegedly bombed the Moscow subway: a cherubic teenager smirking as she waves a pistol in the air. The image of the stereotypical jihadi - the masked or bearded zealot holding a Kalashnikov or wearing an explosive vest - suddenly morphed into a more ambivalent yet still terrifying menace.Experts say this was exactly the aim of the groups that supposedly recruited Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, who, along with Maryam Sharipova, attacked two Metro stations in Moscow. Around the world, organizations like al-Qaeda are realizing that women can be far more effective than men at penetrating security checkpoints, making their attacks deeper and more lethal. Almost as important, a female face makes it harder to dismiss radical Islamism as simply evil. We all have mothers. We all tend to idealize women as nonviolent,says Anne Speckhard, who chairs a NATO expert group on the psychological and social aspects of terrorism. When they commit acts of terror, people start asking themselves, What would make a woman go there and do that? This is already a huge propaganda victory.Speckhard adds,If you put a woman into the role of carrying out violence - if you make her look like she's bereaved, she's suffering - you suddenly get your message across much more effectively.(After the Moscow bombings, a new cycle of retaliation?)

This applies in particular to the terrorists known in Russia as the Black Widows, a name that plays on their alleged desire to avenge the deaths of their husbands (or other relatives) at the hands of Russian security forces working in the North Caucasus. In recent years, they have taken part in several vicious attacks in Moscow, including the bombings of two passenger planes in 2004 that killed 89 people. Abdurakhmanova, named by police as one of the two suicide bombers who struck the Moscow subway system on March 29, killing at least 40 people, seems to fit the mold. Her husband was a leading militant in the Russian region of Dagestan and was killed in a shoot-out with police on New Year's Eve. Sharipova, a schoolteacher, was also married to a militant Islamist in Dagestan. (See pictures of the deadly subway bombings in Moscow.)Yet it was by no means a simple act of revenge, say Speckhard and other experts, insisting it is wrong to imagine the Black Widows as loyal widows seeking justice. (Sharipova's husband is believed to still be alive.) The women are in reality the products of a sophisticated process of indoctrination with deep roots in the North Caucasus, where a less conservative form of Islam has meant insurgents have few qualms about using women in their attacks.The women who take part in terrorism do it not out of their own desire or willingness but because they are manipulated. They are given no other choice,says Yulia Yuzik, who has interviewed scores of Black Widows and their relatives in the Caucasus for her book Nevesty Allakhy (Brides of Allah).Yuzik says the recruitment process usually begins when a loved one collaborates with insurgents and then gets killed or persecuted by Russian forces. The family is often ostracized by other members of their community, who are desperate to avoid persecution themselves, Yuzik says.The community that welcomes you after that is the Islamist one. There you find self-respect. You are called a sister. You go to pray with them, socialize with them, and you integrate into these groups based around Islam. That in itself serves as a kind of counterforce to the security regime, a way of expressing grief and frustration.

Extremists within the community, however, can then begin to turn these emotions to the ends of terrorism, usually after an order comes down from insurgents in the mountains to prepare a suicide bomber. There are dozens of these Black Widows in the making at any given time, Yuzik says, so the Moscow subway bombings cannot simply be connected to the death of Abdurakhmanova's husband. Rather, she happened to be at the right point in the process of indoctrination when the order came down. Once the Islamist community begins insisting you martyr yourself, they do not let up. They will pursue you forever, and you have nowhere else to go. That is the trap.Women in such circumstances, says Speckhard, tend to be recruited because they are in search of psychological first aid.Working most often over the Internet, the recruiters play the role of a father to women left vulnerable by abuse or other trauma. To an extent it does help them. It's like a drug. It's short-lived. It gives you relief, but it's not a solution. And just like a drug addiction, it often ends tragically,says Speckhard, who has interviewed more than 300 perpetrators of terrorism, their victims and their loved ones for her book Talking to Terrorists.The ease of finding such women over the Internet, and their usefulness to terrorist groups, suggest that the role of women in jihadist movements will continue to grow. Even ultraconservative groups like al-Qaeda, which had long avoided recruiting women, have come around to the tactic, says Mia Bloom, author of Bombshell: Women and Terror. In Russia the problem is particularly acute, as more than 50% of the country's suicide attacks have been committed by women, compared with about 30% globally. Far more than those of male bombers, their attacks also speed the flow of new recruits and money into the terrorist organizations.The women come forward and shame the men into participating,says Bloom.They appeal to masculinity, to the manly urge to protect women, and that fills up their ranks and their coffers.

All of this presents a daunting set of challenges for law enforcement. More heavy-handed efforts to clamp down on them, like the ones being employed by Russia in the North Caucasus, now seem to be doing more harm than good, by multiplying the sense of mourning and hurt that then become potential hooks for recruiters. Any solution must now reckon with the fact that the war on terrorism has become more than a matter to be dealt with by force.

Vatican blasts anti-Catholic hate campaign By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 6, 5:57 pm ET

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic hate campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining the motive for these attacks on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.Herranz didn't identify the lobbies but defense of life is Vatican shorthand for anti-abortion efforts.Also arguing that Benedict's promotion of conservative family models had provoked the so-called attacks was the Vatican's dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano.By now, it's a cultural contrast,Sodano told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. The pope embodies moral truths that aren't accepted, and so, the shortcomings and errors of priests are used as weapons against the church.Also rallying to Benedict's side was Italian Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who heads the Vatican City State's governing apparatus.The pope has done all that he could have against sex abuse by clergy of minors, Lajolo said on Vatican radio, decrying what he described as a campaign of hatred against the Catholic church.Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based minister in the United Church of Christ who is faith work director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, described the cardinals' comments as diversionary counterattacks that are an affront both to the victims of clergy abuse and to gays and lesbians.

It makes me heartsick,she said.Sex abuse allegations, as well as accusations of cover-ups by diocesan bishops and Vatican officials, have swept across Europe in recent weeks. Benedict has been criticized for not halting the actions of abusive priests when he was a Vatican cardinal and earlier while he was the archbishop of Munich in his native Germany.The mainland European scandals — in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland — are erupting after decades of abuse cases in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and other areas.In Germany, nearly 2,700 people called the church's sexual abuse hot line in the first three days it was operating, a Catholic church spokesman said Tuesday.A team of psychologists and other experts have spoken with 394 people so far, ranging from several minutes up to an hour, Trier Diocese spokesman Stephan Kronenburg said.Most callers reported cases of sexual abuse, he told The Associated Press.Benedict has ignored victims' demands that he accept responsibility for what they say is his own personal and institutional responsibility for failing to swiftly kick abusive priests out of the priesthood, or at least keep them away from children.But he has been protected by a vanguard of senior Vatican prelates who are fending off what they contend is an orchestrated attempt to attack the leader of the world's more than 1 billion Catholics.The Vatican No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, rebuffed questions about the pontiff's silence on the topic, indicating that Benedict was standing firm.

He's a strong pope, he told reporters after arriving Tuesday in Chile. The Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as calling Benedict a great prophet of the Third Millennium.Bertone, now the Holy See's secretary of state but formerly Benedict's deputy when the future pope, then-called Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican's morals office, has himself been swept up in the scandals. During a May 1998 meeting at the Vatican, Bertone told Wisconsin bishops to halt a church trial against an ailing priest who was accused of sexually abusing 200 deaf children, according to a Vatican transcript. The priest died soon afterward.It's not true, it's not true! We have documented the opposite, ANSA quoted Bertone as saying in Chile.Let's not talk about this topic now, because otherwise we'll be here all day verifying precisely the action taken by me and by his eminence.On Easter, the most important day in the Catholic faith, the Vatican broke with tradition and began its service in St. Peter's Square with a ringing defense of Benedict delivered by Cardinal Sodano. The Vatican newspaper quoted Sodano on Tuesday as saying the church is certainly suffering because of pedophile priests but he asserted that Benedict XVI has apologized several times.But it's not Christ's fault if Judas betrayed him, Sodano said.It's not a bishop's fault if one of his priests is stained by grave wrongdoing. And certainly the pontiff is not responsible.Behind the unjust attacks on the pope are visions of the family and of life that run contrary to the Gospel, Sodano said. Now the accusation of pedophile is being brandished against the church.
He noted that past popes have also been criticized, including the offensive against Pius XII for his conduct during the last World War as well as that against Paul VI for his encyclical against birth control, the cardinal said.

Pius has been accused by Jewish groups and some scholars as not having done enough to save Jews from the Holocaust, although the Vatican contends he used behind-the-scene diplomacy to help them. Benedict has hailed Pius as a great pontiff, who is being considered for possible beatification. Vatican Radio, presenting listeners with some of the most vehement counterattacks yet, depicted the church as a victim.
There are those who fear the media campaign of anti-Catholic hatred can degenerate, Vatican Radio said. It noted anti-Catholic graffiti on walls of a church outside Viterbo, a town near Rome, and reminded listeners that a bishop was attacked by a man during Easter Mass in Muenster, Germany. The bishop fought back with an incense bowl.The radio likened the recent campaign to the persecution suffered by early Christian martyrs.The crowds, incited by the slanders of the powerful, would lynch the Christians, the radio said. In Munich, meanwhile, an independent lawyer hired by the Catholic church wrapped up his investigation of abuse allegations at the southern Ettal monastery.The investigation clearly shows a system of abuse that lasted for decades,Thomas Pfister told The Associated Press. There were some cases of sexual abuse at Ettal but most victims who came forward were physically abused and most cases took place before 1990, Pfister said in a telephone interview. The lawyer declined to elaborate as his final report will be published next week. Associated Press Writer Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to this report.

AMERICA (POLITICAL BABYLON)

EZEKIEL 39:21
21 And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.

ISAIAH 18:1-2
1 Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:
2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!

JEREMIAH 50:11,37,12
11 Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage, because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass, and bellow as bulls;(BACKSLIDERS)
37 A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures; and they shall be robbed.(A NATION OF MINGLED PEOPLE)
12 Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed:(MOTHER ENGLAND) behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

JEREMIAH 51:13,7,53
13 O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness.
7 Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.
53 Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the LORD.

REVELATION 18:3,5,7
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

JEREMIAH 50:3,24
3 For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.
24 I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD. (RUSSIA A SNEAK ATTACK ON AMERICA)

REVELATION 18:9-11,15-21
9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,(NUKE ATTACK I BELIEVE)
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
15 The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
16 And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
18 And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
20 Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

Obama calls nuke terrorism the top threat to US By ROBERT BURNS and ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writers - APR 6,10

WASHINGTON – Rewriting America's nuclear strategy, the White House on Tuesday announced a fundamental shift that calls the spread of atomic weapons to rogue states or terrorists a worse threat than the nuclear Armageddon feared during the Cold War.The Obama administration is suddenly moving on multiple fronts with a goal of limiting the threat of a catastrophic international conflict, although it's not yet clear how far and how fast the rest of the world is ready to follow.In releasing the results of an in-depth nuclear strategy review, President Barack Obama said his administration would narrow the circumstances in which the U.S. might launch a nuclear strike, that it would forgo the development of new nuclear warheads and would seek even deeper reductions in American and Russian arsenals.His defense secretary, Robert Gates, said the focus would now be on terror groups such as al-Qaida as well as North Korea's nuclear buildup and Iran's nuclear ambitions.For the first time, preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism is now at the top of America's nuclear agenda, Obama said, distancing his administration from the decades-long U.S. focus on arms competition with Russia and on the threat posed by nuclear missiles on hair-trigger alert.The greatest threat to U.S. and global security is no longer a nuclear exchange between nations, but nuclear terrorism by violent extremists and nuclear proliferation to an increasing number of states, he said, spelling out the core theme of the new strategy.

Obama's announcement set the stage for his trip to Prague Thursday to sign a new arms reduction agreement with Russia. And it precedes a gathering in Washington next Monday of government leaders from more than 40 countries to discuss improving safeguards against terrorists acquiring nuclear bombs.In May, the White House will once again help lead the call for disarmament at the United Nations in New York during an international conference on strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.Congressional Democrats hailed Tuesday's announcement, but some Republicans said it could weaken the nation's defense.Rep. Buck McKeon of California, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said the policy change could carry clear consequences for security and he was troubled by some of the language and perceived signals imbedded in the policy.Two leading Senate voices on nuclear strategy, Arizona Republicans John McCain and Jon Kyl, criticized the Obama policy's restrictions on using nuclear arms to retaliate against a chemical or biological attack.The Obama Administration must clarify that we will take no option off the table to deter attacks against the American people and our allies, the senators said in a joint statement.From the start of his term in office, Obama has put halting the spread of atomic arms near the top of his defense priorities. But during his first year he failed to achieve a significant breakthrough on arguably the two biggest threats: Iran and North Korea.Obama's current push for arms control initiatives is designed to strengthen international support for strengthened nonproliferation efforts.

Given al-Qaida's continued quest for nuclear weapons, Iran's ongoing nuclear efforts and North Korea's proliferation, this focus is appropriate and, indeed, an essential change from previous policy, Gates said.In presenting the results of the administration's policy review, Gates said a central aim was to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense strategy.That will include removing some of the intentional ambiguity about the circumstances under which the U.S. would launch a nuclear strike, Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.If a non-nuclear weapons state is in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its obligations, the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it, Gates said. If, however, such a state were to use chemical or biological weapons against the U.S. or its allies,it would face the prospect of a devastating conventional, or non-nuclear, military response. That is not a major departure from the policy of past administrations, but it is slightly more forthright about which potential aggressors might fear a nuclear strike, and which might not. This is not a breakthrough; it's a common-sense refinement of U.S. policy, said Daryl Kimball, president of the Arms Control Association. Gates said Iran and North Korea in particular should view the new U.S. policy as a strong message about their behavior. If you're not going to play by the rules, if you're going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you,he said. The major review of nuclear policy was the first since 2001 and only the third since the end of the Cold War. The version produced in December 2001 came just three months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. With the threat of terrorism in mind, Gates said the U.S. is not closing the door to the nuclear option.Given the catastrophic potential of biological weapons and the rapid pace of biotechnology development, the United States reserves the right to make any adjustment to this policy that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of biological weapons, the defense chief said. Some private nuclear weapons experts said Obama should have gone further to reduce reliance on U.S. nuclear weapons as a deterrent.There's no real indication of the deep shifts in thinking necessary to begin giving up the nuclear fix, said Paul Ingram, executive director of the British American Security Information Council.

U.S. allies, however, welcomed the outcome. The right signal at the right time, said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. Sharon Squassoni, a nonproliferation expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the administration's overall approach to nuclear policy, as spelled out by Obama and Gates, is clearer than those of previous administrations.The reworked policy, she said, is a significant but not radical departure.Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, appearing at the Pentagon news conference with Gates, said Obama has instructed his national security team to pursue another round of arms reduction talks with Russia, to follow up on the recently concluded replacement for the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START agreement.The aim would be to conduct wider talks to include for the first time short-range U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons as well as weapons held in reserve or in storage.