HERES SOMETHING I LIKE I JUST HEARD ON CBC NEWSWORLD.BENJAMIN NETANYAHU JUST LEFT CANADA AND CANCELS WASHINGTONS VISIT TO GO BACK TO ISRAEL TO DEAL WITH THESE EXTREME MILITANTS THAT WANT TO PUT SHIPS IN GAZA WITHOUT ISRAELS PERMISSION.ITS 3PM MON MAY 31,10.
EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK WEB
http://www.ecb.int/home/html/index.en.html
Trichet sees need for budgetary federation
MAY 31,10
PARIS – European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet says Europe needs the equivalent of a budgetary federation as a watchdog over eurozone governments' public finances as a response to the continent's government debt crisis.In an interview published Monday in the French daily Le Monde, Trichet said that existing European treaties would permit the kind of control and surveillance of government's public finances.Surveillance of budgetary policies, of eurozone economies' competitiveness, and of structural reforms must be radically improved, Trichet was quoted as saying. We are a monetary federation. Now we need the equivalent of a budgetary federation in terms of the control and surveillance of the application of public finance policy.
He suggested new institutional arrangements would not be needed at first, meaning the basic EU treaties would not have to be changed — a long and politically difficult process.Existing EU rules have not been enough to get countries to coordinate their fiscal management and keep them from running up too much debt.In the interview, Trichet said he supports European Union plans for EU oversight to go further and monitor how EU economies are performing.Earlier this month European Union officials urged a crackdown on widespread government overspending, calling for much closer economic coordination between EU nations to curb the acute debt crisis that started in Greece and has threatened to sink the shared euro currency.
The plan presented by the EU's executive commission advocated unprecedented scrutiny of countries' spending plans even before they go to their national parliaments — and new financial penalties for rulebreakers.That would deepen the ties that bind 16 nations in Europe's currency union and would curtail some nations' power over their own economies in an attempt to keep more reckless spenders like recently bailed-out Greece from dumping their debts on all eurozone members.Trichet said he doesn't understand criticism of the plan, notably in France, according to Le Monde.In a speech in Vienna on Monday, Trichet also refuted criticism of the ECB's controversial program to buy government bonds and support the bond market. Depending on how they are done, bond purchases by a central bank can increase the supply of money in the economy. That can both stimulate growth and cause inflation as well.
Trichet said that would not happen because the bank sterilizes its intervention, offsetting the impact on money supply. The Securities Markets Program should not be confused with quantitative easing. In simple words: We are not printing money, Trichet said, according to a copy of his speech on the ECB's website.In a separate speech Monday in Rome, Italian Central Bank governor Mario Draghi said the market intervention will have to be discontinued as quickly as possible, when markets resume trading of the securities of the countries involved.German central bank governor Axel Weber said in a speech in Mainz, Germany that it is essential that possible supportive measures be strictly targeted and tightly controlled.Weber, one of the ECB council members who has openly criticized the plan to buy government bonds, said he is critical of new monetary policies in overcoming the financial crisis and the stability-political risks that are connected with it. The risks need to be minimized.
The ECB’s response to the recent tensions in financial markets Speech by Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the ECB, at the 38th Economic Conference of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Vienna, 31 May 2010
http://www.ecb.int/home/html/index.en.html (OTHER SPEECHES)
Meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren,ich danke den Veranstaltern dieser Konferenz recht herzlich für die Einladung zur 38. Volkswirtschaftlichen Tagung der Oesterreichischen Nationalbank.
I would like to use the occasion of today’s conference to recall how the European Central Bank has reacted to the crisis and, in particular, put our most recent actions into this context. As I am sure you all appreciate, there is a single thread running through all of these actions, namely to ensure that we deliver on what we are expected to deliver: price stability across the euro area over the medium term. To those observers who have recently asked whether we have changed our orientation, I can only assure them that, on the contrary, it is the circumstances that have demanded special actions, and our orientation remains the same. As we all know, these are challenging times for Europe and for the ECB. We are confronted with tensions in financial markets, a difficult fiscal situation in some parts of the euro area and an associated adverse impact on the effective functioning of monetary policy. The current tensions are the most recent repercussions of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, which culminated by the failure of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. After that, we saw a sharp fall in global economic activity, hitting the euro area and other advanced economies hard. In the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, global trade volumes fell by 18 percent, the GDP of the euro area fell by altogether almost 4.5 percent and unemployment rose by 1.4 percentage points in just six months.
The ECB acted quickly and decisively in response to these circumstances. We reduced our key interest rates to unprecedented low levels and introduced a series of non-standard measures to support credit provision by banks to the euro area economy. This was essential at a time when the financial crisis had led to a virtual free fall in economic activity and severe problems in the money market were hampering the transmission of lower key ECB interest rates to money market and bank lending rates.
Our non-standard measures, which we refer to as enhanced credit support, aimed to sustain financing conditions and credit flows above and beyond what could be achieved through reductions in key ECB interest rates alone. They included lengthening of the maximum maturity of refinancing operations, extension of the eligible collateral list, provision of liquidity in foreign currencies, covered bond purchases, and, above all, provision of unlimited liquidity in all refinancing operations at a fixed rate. Enhanced credit support fostered a considerable improvement in market liquidity and helped to alleviate funding risks. The measures also protected us against any possible deflationary situation and helped focus on medium-term price stability.Earlier this month, at a time when we had already exited from some of our enhanced credit support measures, we were suddenly faced with renewed market tensions. This time, they erupted in a number of segments of the euro area’s debt securities markets. After very careful consideration of all implications of acting, as well as of those of not acting, we decided to intervene in these markets starting on 10 May by launching our Securities Markets Programme. Along with cuts in our interest rates back in 2008 and early 2009, and measures of enhanced credit support, this programme constitutes the third element of our response to the financial crisis. In my remarks today, I would like to give you some further details about this third element: why we have introduced it, how it is designed to operate and why it is in line with the key principles of our monetary policy-making. And I would like to place our actions in the context of the broader challenges for economic policy-makers and private sector decision-makers, in our collective pursuit of return to financial stability and ensuring a sustainable economic recovery.
The fundamental importance of a functioning transmission mechanism of monetary policy
Like all other non-standard measures we have taken, the Securities Markets Programme is time-bound in nature. It aims to ensure the proper transmission of monetary policy impulses to the wider economy and, ultimately, to the general price level. To achieve our primary goal of ensuring price stability, monetary policy-making needs to be effective. In this respect, well-functioning securities markets are indispensable.Let me briefly describe why this is the case. We implement monetary policy by setting our key policy rates. Through this, we directly influence short-term interest rates in the money market. Financial markets transmit this impulse along the maturity spectrum, since term rates reflect current and expected future short-term rates as well as risk premia. These rates, in turn, affect the costs of funding for households, for firms, and for governments. The resulting financing conditions affect economic activity and, in the end, prices. The functioning of the market for government bonds is central to the transmission of the ECB’s policy rates. This is because of several channels.Via the price channel, interest rates on government bonds influence financing conditions within the economy. For example, they are often used as a reference rate when a bank prices a loan for a customer, or when a company borrows money by issuing a bond. Sovereign financing conditions, under normally functioning bond markets, often provide a floor for the funding conditions of the private sector.
Interest rates on government bonds always include add-ons to compensate for liquidity risk and credit risk. But these risk premia should not become so large that they dominate the signal from the key policy rates to a point where it is no longer distinguishable and does not reach the real economy. This can happen when markets no longer function properly. Closely related is the liquidity channel, which comes into play at the start of the transmission mechanism, influencing short-term interest rates beyond the conditions set by policy rates. Government bonds are often used as collateral for banks’ refinancing operations. In fact, government bonds are the primary collateral used in the secured interbank market. If government bond markets are disrupted, this hampers the functioning of the interbank market and reduces liquidity in this market. The consequences are increased money market rates due to premia for liquidity risk. As a result, the capacity of banks to issue loans and refinance the real economy suffers. A third channel, the balance sheet channel , is indirect: lower government bond prices, which correspond to higher bond yields, imply valuation losses in the assets held by the financial and non-financial sectors. For banks, the lower capital base may mean that they can supply fewer loans to the economy. For borrowers, their creditworthiness is reduced, and this affects their capacity to borrow.Because of these channels, severe tensions in the bond market hamper the monetary policy transmission mechanism. The relation between our key interest rates and the rates applicable in the real economy gets out of order, and our main tool for influencing refinancing conditions in the real economy does not work the way it should.
This is the situation that threatened us at the beginning of this month, so we saw the need to act quickly to re-establish a more normal functioning of our monetary policy transmission mechanism. The very rapid consolidation of that situation depends crucially on the effective implementation of the fiscal retrenchment programmes that have been decided in a number of countries.
How the Securities Markets Programme works
Let me now explain how the Securities Markets Programme works. The programme consists of interventions in the euro area’s public and private debt securities markets. In order to sterilise the impact of these interventions on the liquidity conditions in the banking system, we re-absorb the liquidity injected. Thus, these measures do not influence our monetary policy stance.More specifically, the programme focuses on these securities markets that have been affected by severe disruptions recently. These tensions did not come out of the blue. The sky had darkened since the end of last year, when difficulties with public finances in some euro area countries came into the focus of financial market participants. Following prolonged discussions about the possibility of a loan support facility for Greece, tensions rose further towards the end of April and the beginning of May. On 6 and 7 May, on Thursday afternoon and throughout Friday, we observed a further deterioration in financial market conditions, both in Europe and, as a consequence, at the global level. On Friday 7 May, spreads on sovereign bonds in Europe, CDS spreads and indices of volatility and stress in the interbank market were signalling the spreading of severe tensions. Bond spreads for several euro area countries widened beyond any reasonable level. Liquidity in government bond markets of some euro area countries almost dried up. And the tensions in the sovereign bond markets spilled over to other market segments, such as the foreign exchange market and equity markets, where trading volumes and liquidity became erratic, and volatility spiked.
In view of these exceptional circumstances prevailing in the financial markets, we decided that exceptional intervention was necessary. The Securities Markets Programme and the principles of monetary policy-making As always, our actions have been guided by our principles. In this respect, let me focus on three aspects that are key for the credible conduct of monetary policy: price stability, central bank independence and the prohibition of monetary financing. First, price stability, which is our primary objective. The latest measures address a malfunctioning of certain market segments. Without such measures, the market problems could have created risks to the favourable outlook for price stability. However, we have not gone beyond the goal of re-establishing a more correct transmission of our monetary policy. We have not changed our monetary policy stance: we have maintained the present level of interest rates which is, in our view, appropriate; and we have not embarked on more ample liquidity conditions.Precisely in order to guarantee that the stance remains unaffected, we sterilise our interventions, as I have explained. The Securities Markets Programme should not be confused with quantitative easing. In simple words: We are not printing money. This confirms and underpins our commitment to price stability. Credibility is crucial for ensuring price stability. As long as inflation expectations remain well-anchored in line with our definition of price stability, long-term interest rates do not need to reflect the risks stemming from an uncertain inflationary process. In an environment in which the central bank fully preserves its credibility, economic agents do not need to try to anticipate uncertain inflationary developments, thus potentially fuelling inflationary pressures.
In this respect, let me highlight that inflation expectations in the euro area have remained well-anchored in line with the Governing Council’s definition of price stability throughout the financial crisis. This is evidenced by a range of indicators. For example, in the Survey of Professional Forecasters, inflation five years ahead is continuously expected to stand either at 1.9% or 2.0% since the beginning of 2002. A second key principle guiding our action is central bank independence. We were fully independent in our decision to act as we have done. We have never hesitated to take the decisions needed to ensure price stability. And we will continue to act accordingly. Let me recall that in December 2005, we increased rates against the publicly expressed sentiment of the governments. In 2008 we did not hesitate to raise interest rates, even in a period of financial turbulence. We took this decision to prevent broadly based second-round effects at that time, with a view to counteracting increasing upside risks to price stability over the medium term.We always act fully in line with our own responsibilities. And that is the reason why we have been delivering price stability.Third, our actions are in full compliance with the prohibition of monetary financing and thus with our financial independence. The Treaty prohibits the direct purchase by the ECB of debt instruments from governments. We are buying bonds on the secondary market only, and we stick to the principles of the Treaty, which are price stability, our primary mandate, and central bank independence. Since our inception, we have always called upon governments to respect budgetary discipline. We had a lot of difficulty with several governments during the last ten years, both as regards their own national responsibilities and as regards their collegial responsibilities of peer surveillance in the Eurogroup. This period is over. We expect from governments strict respect for the principle of budgetary discipline and effective mutual surveillance.
The purchases made on the secondary market cannot be used to circumvent the fundamental principle of budgetary discipline. The Securities Markets Programme strictly aims at correcting malfunctioning of markets.The prohibition of monetary financing underlines precisely the fact that budgetary discipline is of the utmost importance. We have taken note of the commitments of euro area governments to take all measures needed to meet their fiscal targets. We have also taken note of the precise additional commitments taken by some euro area governments to accelerate fiscal consolidation and to ensure the sustainability of their public finances. It is crucial that governments implement rigorously the measures needed to ensure fiscal sustainability. It is in the context of these commitments only that we have embarked on an intervention programme in the securities markets.The Securities Market Programme is an extraordinary action, which was undertaken in the situation of severe tensions in financial markets. I would like to stress that the rigorous application of the adjustment programmes by governments is essential to guarantee the progressive return to a more normal functioning of financial markets.
Conclusion
Let me conclude.
Recent experience, since 2007, has demonstrated how important it is for all decision-makers to analyse lucidly the unexpected situations that they are facing and to act in a timely manner when needed. As soon as it became clear that the intensity of recent market disruptions could have implied very serious consequences for price stability in the euro area, we took firm action. As I have said time and again: we are permanently alert and always prepared to act when necessary.Price stability is the central contribution, which monetary policy makes to economic growth, to job creation and to financial stability. Our successful track record since the inception of the euro – both in terms of low inflation rates and well-anchored inflation expectations – is remarkable. Since the inception of the euro, more than 11 years ago until April this year, the average annual inflation in the euro area was 1.98%. This is exactly in line with our definition of price stability and it is better than the achievement of any major central bank over a period of many decades, including the Bundesbank. But the ECB’s measures cannot substitute for the actions required to address more deep-seated and fundamental problems. It remains for others – national governments, regulators and supervisors, and the private sector and financial industry – to proceed with the difficult, but vital, measures required to re-establish the trust on which a well-functioning market economy relies.Cohesive action at a European level is essential to alleviate the current tensions. Such action will also support a sound, longer-term economic recovery in the euro area and beyond. This will benefit all of us who live and work in Europe.I call on euro area governments to work together. Looking ahead, countries have to take up their responsibilities. Major improvements need to be made to prevent bad fiscal behaviour, ensure effective implementation of the recommendations made by partners and enforce real and effective sanctions in case of breaches. It is equally decisive for the European Commission and the Eurogroup to engage in an effective control of the evolution of relative competitiveness inside the euro area, including of the evolution of unit labour costs. And the implementation of structural reforms, under the surveillance of the peers, is of the essence to elevate the growth potential in Europe. I call on euro area governments in particular to work actively together to reach agreement on a quantum leap of the effectiveness of their collegial surveillance.
Thank you for your attention.
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http://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2010/html/sp100531_2.en.html
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all,(WORLD SOCIALISM) both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
CNBC VIDEOS
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HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS MON MAY 31,2010 (TORONTO STOCK EXCHANGE RESULTS TODAY)
09:30 AM +1.25
10:00 AM +70.25
10:30 AM +50.38
11:00 AM +46.20
11:30 AM +54.25
12:00 PM +50.00
12:30 PM +60.05
01:00 PM +72.43
01:30 PM +75.52
02:00 PM +77.70
02:30 PM +74.10
03:00 PM +74.20
03:30 PM +70.60
04:00 PM +91.60 11,763.00
S&P 500 HOLIDAY
NASDAQ HOLIDAY
GOLD 1,217.90 +2.90
OIL 74.44 +0.47
TSE 300 11,763.00 +91.60
CDNX 1514.07 +10.63
S&P/TSX/60 691.63 +6.40
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +20 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow +1 points at low today.
Dow +72 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,218.80.OIL opens at $74.34 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow +1 points at low today so far.
Dow +91 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow +1 points at low today.
Dow +91 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,248.20
STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Tropical storm kills 90 in Central America By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA, Associated Press Writer MAY 30,10 11PM
GUATEMALA CITY – The death toll in Central America from landslides and flooding triggered by the year's first tropical storm surged to 90 on Sunday, as authorities struggled to clear roads of debris and reach cut-off communities.Torrential rains that have pounded an area stretching from southern Mexico nearly to Nicaragua eased somewhat, as rivers continued to rise and word filtered out from isolated areas of more deaths in landslides.In Guatemala, 73 people were killed as rains unleashed lethal landslides across the country, according to government disaster relief spokesman David de Leon.Tropical Storm Agatha made landfall near the nation's border with Mexico with winds up to 45 mph (75 kph) on Saturday and was dissipating rapidly Sunday over the mountains of western Guatemala.In El Salvador, President Mauricio Funes warned that the danger had not yet passed and reported nine deaths.Although the storm appears to be diminishing in intensity, the situation across the country remains critical,Funes said.In Honduras, eight deaths were linked to the weather.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that remnants of the storm were expected to deliver 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 centimeters) of rain over southeastern Mexico, Guatemala and parts of El Salvador.Nervous residents still remember Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which parked over Central America for days, causing flooding and mudslides that killed nearly 11,000 people and left more than 8,000 missing.As of Sunday afternoon, 75,000 people in Guatemala had been evacuated, many to shelters. At least 3,500 homes sustained major damage.Thirteen died in one landslide that tore through the community of San Antonio Palopo on the steep banks of Lake Atitlan, a popular tourist attraction 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of Guatemala City.Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said 4.3 inches (10.8 centimeters) of rain had fallen in Guatemala City's valley in one 12-hours period.The rains unleashed chaos in the department of Quetzaltenango, 125 miles (200 kilometers) west of Guatemala City, where a boulder loosened by rains crushed a house, killing four people including two children. Four children were killed when rain-soaked earth gave way in the town of Santa Catarina Pinula, about six miles (10 kilometers) outside the capital.Cesar George of Guatemala's meteorological institute said the coastal community of Champerico had received 11.8 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in 30 hours.Rainfall from the Guatemalan interior also flooded rivers coursing away from the storm toward the Atlantic. The Motagua River flooded 19 communities near Guatemala's northeastern border with Honduras.
In El Salvador, there were at least 140 landslides throughout the country.Civil defense officials said the Acelhuate River that passes through the capital, San Salvador, had risen to dangerous levels and was threatening to overflow into city streets.Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras all declared emergencies designed to increase immediate government aid and resources. Guatemala City's La Aurora airport remained closed Sunday because of heavy ash that fell from last week's eruptions of Pacaya volcano. But volcanic activity had tapered off Sunday , allowing helicopters and small planes to deliver aid to communities still unreachable on washed out roads. Flooding and slides destroyed 505 homes in the Honduras and prompted authorities to evacuate 2,250 people.Associated Press writers Marcos Aleman in San Salvador, El Salvador, and Freddy Cuevas in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, contributed to this report.
Pacific volcano erupts near Marianas islands
MAY 31,10
SAIPAN, Northern Marianas – A volcanic eruption near the Pacific's Northern Mariana Islands shot clouds of ash and vapor nearly eight miles into the sky, federal scientists said.The eruption occurred early Saturday and appeared to come from an underwater volcano off Sarigan, a sparsely inhabited island about 100 miles north of the U.S. commonwealth's main island of Saipan.The Northern Marianas are about 3,800 miles southwest of Hawaii.USGS volcanologist Game McGimsey said Sunday that scientists are still trying to pinpoint the source but evidence is pointing to an underwater mountain.People on the island (Sarigan) heard a loud explosion and almost immediately there was a heavy ash fall which turned to a light fall fairly quickly, McGimsey told The Associated Press. He said there was no ash in Saipan or Guam.The eruption was fairly brief and no other volcanic clouds have been detected, said McGimsey, who is based in Anchorage, Alaska. Scientists don't know if the undersea activity is continuing.Satellite images showed the cloud reaching to 40,000 feet. But the USGS said it was largely water vapor and strong winds were dispersing it.
McGimsey said researchers flew over the area Sunday and spotted discolored water presumably over the volcanic vent, estimated at 1,000 feet beneath sea level.
Oil complicates forecasts on hurricane season eve By HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press Writer MAY 30,10 10:50PM
VENICE, La. – As hurricane season approaches, the giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is taking weather forecasters into nearly uncharted waters.The Gulf is a superhighway for hurricanes that form or explode over pools of hot water, then usually move north or west toward the coast. It's now the site of the worst oil spill in U.S. history and along the general path of some of the worst storms ever recorded, including Hurricane Camille, which wiped out the Mississippi coast in 1969, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.The season officially starts Tuesday, and although scientists seem to agree that the sprawling slick isn't likely to affect the formation of a storm, the real worry is that a hurricane might turn the millions of gallons of floating crude into a crashing black surf.They are going to destroy south Louisiana. We are dying a slow death here, said Billy Nungesser, president of coastal Plaquemines Parish.We don't have time to wait while they try solutions. Hurricane season starts on Tuesday.Those worries have only intensified as BP has failed time and again to stem the flow of oil gushing from the blown-out well.The company's top kill effort to plug the well with mud and seal it with cement was the latest in a string of failures to ease the spill. Another solution — a cap similar to an earlier one that failed — is in the works, but won't be tried for at least several days.
Some fear a horrific combination of damaging winds and large waves pushing oil deeper into estuaries and wetlands and coating miles of debris-littered coastline in a pungent, sticky mess.And the worst effects of an oil-soaked storm surge might not be felt for years: If oil is pushed deep into coastal marshes that act as a natural speed bump for storm surges, areas including New Orleans could be more vulnerable to bad storms for a long time.Experts say there are few, if any, studies on such a scenario.In this untreaded water ... it's tough to theorize about what would happen, said Joe Bastardi, chief long-range hurricane forecaster with AccuWeather.com.The lone precedent, experts agree, is the summer of 1979, when storms hampered efforts to contain a spill from a Mexican rig called Ixtoc 1 that eventually dumped 140 million gallons off the Yucatan Peninsula. Hurricane Henri, a Category 1 storm, damaged a 310-ton steel cap designed to stop the leak that would become the worst peacetime spill in history.Still, while oil from that spill coated miles of beaches in Texas and Mexico, tropical storms and unseasonable cold fronts that year helped reverse offshore currents earlier than normal and drive oil away from the coast. Storms also helped disperse some of the oil, Bastardi said.That's what I think would happen this time, Bastardi said. I'm sure a hurricane would do a great deal of diluting the oil, spreading it out where the concentrations would be much less damaging.At least 19 million gallons, according to the latest estimates, have leaked from the seabottom 5,000 feet below the surface since the April 20 explosion of BP PLC's Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11. Syrupy oil has crept into Louisiana's marshes, coating plants, killing some birds and threatening wetlands.
BP has been scrambling for a way to stem the flow of oil. The most promising solution — but still without any guarantees — is the drilling of a relief well that has been ongoing. But that one be completed until at least sometime in August.By Aug. 1, even under the best-case scenario offered by federal scientists, there could be some 51 million gallons of oil that has spilled into the Gulf — five times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska's coast in 1989.If all that oil were put into gallon milk jugs, the jugs could be lined up and span a round-trip between Salt Lake City and New York City. Under the worst-case scenario presented by federal scientists, it could be twice that at more than 100 million gallons.The threat to the marshes could have implications lasting well beyond this hurricane season. Louisiana already has lost huge swaths of coastal wetlands in recent decades, and the oil is a major threat to the long-term viability of that delicate ecosystem. If the plants that hold the marshes together were to die at the roots, the base would wash away, leaving deeper water and less of a buffer for hurricanes, said Joseph Suhayda, director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center. That would increase the amount of surge inland, Suhayda said. Even without considering hurricanes, there is uncertainty about whether marsh cane and other plants will die to the roots or just above the surface from this oil spill. If the plants' roots survive, they could come back over time. If not, the results could be catastrophic.
I don't think anybody is going to know precisely. It depends on the quantity of the oil,said David White, a biological sciences professor at Loyola University New Orleans. There is a chance that a hurricane or tropical storm could offer wetlands a reprieve from the oil, at the expense of areas farther inland. A storm surge of several feet, even if it is carrying oil, would pass over the top of the outer, low-lying marshes and disperse the mess in less toxic amounts, Suhayda said. But such a storm could also push oil into freshwater marshes where ducks and geese thrive, White said.Experts are predicting a busy hurricane season with powerful storms. Bastardi predicts seven named storms, five hurricanes and two or three major hurricanes will have an effect on land this year. Colorado State University researchers Philip Klotzbach and William Gray predict a 69 percent chance that at least one major hurricane will make landfall on the U.S. and a 44 percent chance that a major hurricane will hit the Gulf Coast. Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 14 to 23 tropical storms this year, including up to seven major hurricanes.Hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through November. Early season storms are uncommon; the busy part of the season is in August through October. Stronger storms typically form during this time, like Katrina did in August of 2005.A hurricane like Katrina would be a worst-case scenario with oil pushed far ashore, said National Wildlife Federation scientist Doug Inkley.
It would suffocate the vegetation. You'd get oiled birds and other animals,Inkley said. It's virtually impossible to clean up oil.And oil rigs are often evacuated ahead of hurricanes, which would interrupt those containment efforts. It wouldn't take a hurricane to create a mess, even a tropical storm could cause problems,said William Hawkins, director of the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast research laboratory. A hurricane could also push the oil in a new direction. I think what worries us most is the hurricane taking oil to areas that probably wouldn't be hit hard otherwise, like the Florida Panhandle and Texas,said Gregory Stone, director of the Coastal Studies Institute at LSU. Even though the oil has yet to reach Florida, state Attorney General Bill McCollum recently sent a letter to BP asking the company to assure him it would pay up if a tropical storm or hurricane pushes oil ashore, which he believes will capture the oil in its path and deposit it much further inland.Bastardi said that in the near term at least, the storms themselves remain the chief threat. If a Category 3 hurricane is headed to the Texas Gulf Coast — and this is simply theoretical — I wouldn't be worried as much about damage from the oil, as the damage from the hurricane,Bastardi said.
POISONED WATERS
REVELATION 8:8-11
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood:(bitter,Poisoned) and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.(poisoned)
REVELATION 16:3-7
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.(enviromentalists won't like this result)
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they(False World Church and Dictator) have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
BP unsure how much oil in reservoir in Gulf spill
Sun May 30, 4:23 pm ET
COVINGTON, La. – BP spokesman John Curry says the company does not know how much oil is contained the vast reservoir nearly three miles beneath the seafloor.Curry said Sunday that the company didn't have time to properly analyze how much was in the discovery well. He says if the oil rig had not exploded, BP PLC ultimately would have drilled another well to complete that analysis.Curry says the uncertainty over how much oil is in the reservoir does not change BP's response. The company has been trying to stop the gusher for nearly six weeks and the realization that oil could be flowing into the Gulf for months is setting in for Gulf coast residents.
Oil rises above $74 as hurricane season looms By BARRY HATTON, Associated Press Writer - MAY 31,10
Oil prices moved above $74 a barrel Monday, extending gains from last week as markets prepared for what is forecast to be the worst hurricane season in five years.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for December delivery was up 54 cents to $74.51 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost 58 cents to settle at $73.97 on Friday.Trading volume was thin as markets in the U.S. and U.K. were closed for holidays.The hurricane season officially starts Tuesday. Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 14 to 23 tropical storms this year, including up to seven major hurricanes.If this scenario were to materialize, it would be the most active season since Hurricane Katrina ravaged oil installations in the Gulf Coast in 2005, JBC Energy in Vienna said in a report.The price rise was also sustained by the possibility that the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico could bring further restrictions on deepwater drilling, Commerzbank said in a report.Last week's rally added more than $5 to the barrel price. The rise slowed, however, after debt-burdened Spain's international credit rating was cut.Oil prices have swung in recent months between $87 a barrel and $64. U.S. economic data has pointed to improving demand but uncertainty over the debt crisis in Europe, which could check a global economic recovery, has kept investors jittery.Prices under $70 have clearly been seen by some investors as a buy opportunity in view of the brighter demand prospects,Commerzbank said.
Investors will be eyeing a key U.S. monthly employment report later this week for signs the economic recovery is still on track. Analysts expect the U.S. economy added about 500,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent from 9.8 percent in April.In other Nymex trading in June contracts, heating oil rose 1.28 cents to $2.0173 a gallon and gasoline gained 1.04 cents to $2.0370 a gallon. Natural gas was up 1.6 cents at $4.357 per 1,000 cubic feet.In London, the Brent crude July contact was up 61 cents to $74.63 on the ICE futures exchange.Associated Press writer Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.
China warns debt woes threaten global recovery By Chris Buckley and Yoko Nishikawa – Mon May 31, 4:17 am ET
TOKYO (Reuters) – China warned on Monday that Europe's struggle to contain ballooning debt posed a risk to global economic growth, raising the specter of a double-dip recession.Premier Wen Jiabao, addressing business leaders during an official visit to Japan, issued his warnings a day after France admitted it will struggle to keep its top credit rating and days after a downgrade of Spain's credit status again jolted financial markets.Referring to the risk of a second dip in global economic growth rates, Wen said: I believe that we can't say with absolute certainty, so we must undertake close observation and act to prevent it.The world economy is stable and beginning to revive, but this revival is slow and there are many uncertainties and destabilizing factors, he said, adding it was too early to wind down stimulus deployed during the 2007-2009 financial crisis.Governments around the world ran up record debts during the $5 trillion effort to pull the economy out of its deepest slump since the Great Depression and now face a tough balancing act: how to reduce debt without choking off growth.Some countries have experienced sovereign debt crises, for example Greece. Is this kind of phenomenon over? Now it seems that it's not so simple,Wen said. The sovereign debt crisis in some European countries may drag down Europe's economic recovery.
ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny summed up the task.The big challenge is to prevent a vicious circle in which (a) crisis of the public sector again leads to crisis developments in the financial and real sectors of the economy, he told a conference hosted by Austria's central bank.Greece stumbled into the global spotlight late last year when it sharply revised its budget deficit figures, provoking a series of credit downgrades and sending its borrowing costs soaring, which in turn fanned fears it may default on its obligations.While a 110 billion euro rescue package put together by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund helped avert an immediate meltdown, it failed to dispel fears that other highly indebted euro zone members such as Spain, Portugal and Italy may face a similar fate.
POLITICAL BACKLASH
A massive 750 billion euro emergency scheme cobbled together by EU leaders early this month, again with IMF help, aimed to deter with its sheer size possible speculative attacks on the euro zone's weaker members and thus support the euro.In return for the safety net, Athens, Lisbon, Madrid and Rome signed billions of euros in spending cuts and tax hikes to rein in debt, despite an outcry from trade unions and political backlash.IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn praised Spain's austerity package in a newspaper interview, saying they should help restore confidence.On Friday, Fitch became the second ratings agency to strip Spain of its top triple-A rating a day after it passed its austerity plan by a single vote.
However, recent opinion polls showing the ruling Socialists trailing badly behind the center-right opposition cast doubt whether the government will manage to muster enough support in parliament for its budget.Such concerns, have been plaguing the euro, which is heading for its worst month since January 2009, down more than 7 percent against the dollar since the start of May and heading for the sixth straight monthly fall. It was steady in Asia on Monday.It is difficult to see a recovery in market sentiment as there are worries that further bad news about southern European countries may come out, said a currency trader at a Japanese bank. Investors and policymakers around the world are also increasingly worried that Europe's efforts to cut debt will sap the continent's anemic growth, denting demand for exports from emerging economies and derailing the global recovery. The fact that not just the fiscally weakest southern European countries, but also nations at the euro zone's core are under pressure to cut debt and deficits amassed during the financial crisis, is adding to those concerns. On Sunday, France said keeping its AAA credit rating would be a stretch without some tough action on its deficit, while Germany indicated it might resort to raising taxes to bring its shortfall closer to the EU's limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product.
France, the euro zone's second-largest economy, expects the budget deficit to hit 8 percent of GDP this year, but aims to bring it down to the EU limit by 2013. Germany, Europe's biggest economy, expects its deficit to exceed 5 percent of GDP in 2010. In the future, major improvements are needed in the euro area to prevent bad fiscal behavior and to enforce effective sanctions in the case of breaches of fiscal rules, the head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet told the conference in Austria.Striking a more optimistic note, China's Wen said the world's third-largest economy and its prime growth engine remained on course to meet its growth targets this year, though he added it would require Beijing to maintain a certain level of intensity in its economic stimulus.(Additional reporting by Sarah Morris in Madrid; Writing by Tomasz Janowski; Editing by Neil Fullick)
FAMINE
REVELATION 6:5-6
5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.(A DAYS WAGES FOR A LOAF OF BREAD)
FAMINE
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Millions face hunger in arid belt of Africa By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer – Fri May 28, 12:20 pm ET
GADABEJI, Niger – At this time of year, the Gadabeji Reserve should be refuge for the nomadic tribes who travel across a moonscape on the edge of the Sahara to graze their cattle. But the grass is meager after a drought killed off the last year's crops. Now the cattle are too weak to stand and too skinny to sell, leaving the poor without any way to buy grain to feed their families.The threat of famine is again stalking the Sahel, a band of semiarid land stretching across Africa south of the Sahara. The U.N. World Food Program warned on Friday that some 10 million people face hunger over the next three months before the next harvest in September — if it comes.People have lost crops, livestock, and the ability to cope on their own, and the levels of malnutrition among women and children have already risen to very high levels, said Thomas Yanga, WFP Regional Director for West Africa.The U.N.'s humanitarian chief, John Holmes, said at the end of a four-day visit to neighboring Chad that many Chadians have gone as far as Libya to search for food.The level of malnutrition is already beyond the danger point, Holmes said Thursday.If we do not act now or as quickly as possible, there is a chance the food crisis will become a disaster.In Niger, some say the growing food crisis could be worse than the one that struck the country in 2005, when aid organizations treated tens of thousands of children for malnutrition.We have lost so much we cannot count, said one 45-year-old tribesman with a family of 20 to feed. He and others on Gadabeji Reserve drive starving donkeys through the burnt orange haze of a sandstorm to gather what little water they can on the desiccated plain and struggle to draw water from private wells.
Famine is nothing new to Niger, a former French colony nearly twice the size of Texas. The Sahel cuts through the middle of the country, serving as the dividing line between the sands of the Sahara and the lush farmlands of neighboring Nigeria to the south. Severe droughts have punctuated the region's history for centuries.Yet outside of uranium mining, agriculture serves as the sole economic engine for a country where just more than a quarter of the population knows how to read. Generation after generation follows worn seasonal tracks, their belongings often fitted onto a single donkey-driven pallet.Typically, the herders move south at the onset of December, searching for grazing lands. But this year they found only dried lakes and diminishing wells, said Hasane Baka, a regional administrator for AREN, a Nigerien development group for cattlemen.People were moving in all directions, Baka said.Some have crossed into Nigeria, begging for food on the streets of the northern city of Katsina. Others remain behind with their cattle, knowing the livestock would die on a long trip south that could end with Nigerian police simply turning them back. Instead, they wait for rains that might not come.Those who remain drive their cows into Dakoro, the largest and closest city for nomadic cattlemen. At the open-air market, the ribs of some cattle are starkly visible against their hides. Others die along the road or in trucks on the way.You can see the skin and bones of much of them, said trader Ibrahim Tarbanassa, 68.A single cow once sold for the equivalent of $200. Now, some go for as little as $120 — if they sell at all. Food prices remain high after speculators cornered the already poor harvest last year.
Even in better times, roughly half of Niger's children suffered stunted growth. Now, mothers walk their children as far as 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) to reach one of two aid stations operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, said Barbara Maccagno, the agency's medical coordinator in Niger. The two stations now see about 1,000 children a week, some two or three times underweight, Maccagno said. The number of admissions has doubled in recent weeks.It's very hot and without any food available to the family, we're afraid we'll see more, she said.Maccagno said her agency could offer children meals of vitamin-enriched powdered milks and other foods to help bring a child's weight up, but many children need up to five weeks to gain a stable weight. During that time, the mother must stay with the child, impossible for those who left other children behind, she said. Other agencies like Oxfam hand out cereals and grains directly to nomadic families living in the bush, but money for such aid is short because of the global economic downturn. The WFP said it has a $96 million shortfall for a program it planned for 1.5 million people in the worst-hit areas of Niger. Niger's government, now being run by a military council after a February coup ousted President Mamadou Tandja, has said it will provide more than 21,000 tons of food. In 2005, Tandja played down a similar food crisis, dismissing it as false propaganda used by the U.N., aid agencies and opposition parties for political and economic gain. Each drought and crisis ends up gaining its own name. In 2005, traders and nomads began to refer to the crisis as the Tandja famine.There's no name yet for the drought now facing the country. Many can only wait in a nation that faces cyclical hunger without an end in sight. Every time, it's the same situation,Maccagno said.Associated Press writer Dany Padire in N'Djamena, Chad, contributed to this report. Online: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/
http://www.msf.org/
Asian shares mixed after Spain rating downgrade
MAY 30,10
TOKYO – Asian stock markets were mixed Monday after more unsettling news about Europe's shaky government finances rattled Wall Street before the weekend.On Friday, the Dow Jones industrials shed 1.2 percent to 10,136.63 after Fitch Ratings gave Spain the second downgrade of its credit rating in a month. The rating agency's action gave investors another reminder of the long-term economic problems still facing debt-laden European countries, and perhaps the rest of the global economy.
Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average slipped 0.2 percent to 9,742.71 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.4 percent to 4,439.8. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was off 0.2 percent at 19,726.79.Meanwhile, South Korea's Kospi rose 0.2 percent to 1,626.55 and Taiwan's benchmark added 0.1 percent to 7,299.49.Concerns about a possible slowdown in global demand battered big commodity names. Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp. lost 1.6 percent and Australian miner BHP Billiton Ltd. fell 1.2 percent.
Japanese exporters gained as the yen weakened. Canon Inc. rose 1.2 percent, and Nissan Motor Co. advanced 0.5 percent.In Seoul, Ssangyong Motor Co. surged more than 14 percent after several companies, including India's Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., expressed interest in buying the troubled SUV maker.The S&P 500 index fell 1.2 percent in New York, while the Nasdaq composite index dropped 0.9 percent. U.S. financial markets will be closed Monday for Memorial Day.In currencies, the dollar rose to 91.43 yen from 91.02 yen late Friday. The euro rose to $1.2316 from $1.2272.
Crude oil for July delivery was up 36 cents at $74.33 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Fed's Bernanke urges G20 to pull together reforms
MAY 30,10
SEOUL (AFP) – US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday called for the Group of 20 world powers to more closely coordinate financial reforms in a bid to strengthen the global economy.Addressing a Bank of Korea conference via video link, Bernanke said there was a need for extensive international cooperation as governments overhaul market rules in the wake of the global economic downturn.On a global level, the leadership of the... G20 -- which Korea is currently chairing -- will be essential in ensuring that reforms are not only strong and effective but also consistent and coordinated across countries, he said.G20 finance ministers will meet in Busan, South Korea, later this week with talks likely to be dominated by the continued fallout from the global crisis.Strengthening the international financial system and ensuring that financial institutions are carefully regulated, well capitalised, liquid, and transparent will require extensive international cooperation,Bernanke said.Across the globe, governments are drawing up new measures to curb the excesses of financial institutions blamed for pushing many economies to the brink.But critics say national efforts will be largely ineffective in an age when banks and investment houses can make cross-border trades in a fraction of a second.G20 ministers will also grapple with the ongoing European debt crisis, which has called into question the strength of the global economic recovery.G20 leaders will meet in Canada in late June.
OK ISRAEL STORMED THE EXTREMISTS SHIP,NOW WHATCH THE ISRAEL HATE PROPANGANDA MACHINE BE IN FULL GEAR FOR ISRAEL PROTECTING ITS CITIZENS FROM EXTREMISTS.I HEARD YESTERDAY ON CBC THAT PEOPLE PLANNED TO STAGE PROTESTS IN CANADA NOW THAT BENJAMIN NETANYAHU IS HERE FOR A DAY OR SO YET.THESE PEOPLE DON'T KNOW THAT HATING ISRAEL MEANS DESTRUCTION TO THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE INVOLVED.GOD WILL NOT STAND FOR PEOPLE TRYING TO HURT THE APPLE OF HIS EYES ISRAEL-JERUSALEM AND ISRAELIS.THE WORLD MAY HATE ISRAEL BUT GOD (KING JESUS)LOVES AND PROTECTS HIS LAND WERE HE WILL BE RULING AND REIGNING FROM FOREVER IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE.IF YOU COME AGAINST JERUSALEM,THIS OIL SPILL IS A CHURCH CHOIR TO THE NUKE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD TO COME NEXT.
Israeli commandos storm aid flotilla; 10 killed By AMY TEIBEL and TIA GOLDENBERG, Associated Press Writers - MAY 31,10
JERUSALEM – Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing at least 10 passengers in a predawn raid that set off worldwide condemnation and a diplomatic crisis.Israel said the forces encountered unexpected resistance as they boarded the vessels. Dozens of passengers and at least five Israeli soldiers were wounded in the confrontation in international waters.Israel's tough response triggered widespread condemnation across Europe; many of the passengers were from European countries. The raid also strained already tense relations with Israel's longtime Muslim ally Turkey, the unofficial sponsor of the mission, and drew more attention to the plight of Gaza's 1.5 million people.Turkey announced it was withdrawing its ambassador to Israel, canceling three joint military drills and calling on the U.N. Security Council to convene in an emergency session about Israel. The Israeli ambassadors in Sweden, Spain, Denmark and Greece were summoned for meetings, and the French foreign minister called for an investigation.The violent takeover also threatened to deal yet another blow to Israel's international image, already tarnished by war crimes accusations in Gaza and its blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory.It occurred a day before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss the Middle East peace process.French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned the disproportionate use of force against the flotilla.
All light must be shed on the circumstances of this tragedy, which underlines the urgency of resuming peace talks, he said in a statement.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed regret for the deaths but blamed the violence on organizers of the flotilla, calling the effort a political provocation by anti-Israel forces.
Israeli security forces were on alert across the country, and the government advised Israelis to avoid travel to Turkey.There were conflicting accounts of what happened early Monday.An Al-Jazeera reporter on one of the Turkish ships said the Israelis fired at the vessel before boarding it. The Israelis, who had declared they would not let the ships reach Gaza, said they only opened fire after being attacked by activists with sticks, knives and live fire from weapons seized from the Israeli commandos.On board the ship we found weapons prepared in advance and used against our forces, declared Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon.The organizers' intent was violent, their method was violent and the results were unfortunately violent. Israel regrets any loss of life and did everything to avoid this outcome.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli aggression,declared three days of mourning across the West Bank and called on the U.N. Security Council and Arab League to hold emergency sessions on the incident.Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the rival Hamas government in Gaza, condemned the brutal Israeli attack and called on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to intervene.Israel's military chief, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, said soldiers were forced by violent activists to respond with live fire.The activists were headed to Gaza on a mission meant to draw attention to a 3-year-old Israeli blockade of the coastal territory. Israel imposed the blockade after Hamas, which it considers a terrorist group, violently seized the territory. Critics say the blockade has unfairly hurt Gaza's 1.5 million people. It's disgusting that they have come on board and attacked civilians. We are civilians, said Greta Berlin, a spokeswoman for the Free Gaza movement, which organized the flotilla. She spoke from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus and said she had lost contact with the flotilla. Before the ships set sail from waters off the east Mediterranean island of Cyprus on Sunday, Israel had urged the flotilla not to try to breach the blockade and offered to transfer the cargo to Gaza from an Israeli port, following a security inspection. Israeli naval commandos stormed the ships in a pre-dawn raid while they were in international waters after ordering them to stop about 80 miles (130 kilometers) from Gaza's coast, according to activists.
A Turkish website showed video of pandemonium on board one of the ships, with activists in orange life jackets running around as some tried to help an activist apparently unconscious on the deck. The site also showed video of an Israeli helicopter flying overhead and Israeli warships nearby. Turkey's NTV showed activists beating one Israeli soldier with sticks as he rappelled from a helicopter onto one of the boats. The Al-Jazeera satellite channel reported by telephone from the Turkish ship leading the flotilla that Israeli navy forces fired at the ship and boarded it, wounding the captain. These savages are killing people here, please help,a Turkish television reporter said. The broadcast ended with a voice shouting in Hebrew, Everybody shut up! The Israeli military said troops only opened fire after encountering unexpected resistance from the activists. Activists attacked troops with knives and iron rods, and opened fire with two pistols seized from the forces.A total of five soldiers were wounded, two seriously, including at least one hit by live fire, the army said. Two of the dead activists had fired at soldiers with pistols, the army said.They planned this attack, said Israeli military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovitch. Our soldiers were injured from these knives and sharp metal objects ... as well as from live fire.The ships were being towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod, and wounded were evacuated by helicopter to Israeli hospitals, officials said. One of the ships had reached port by midday. There were no details on the identities of the casualties, or on the conditions of some of the more prominent people on board, including 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, European legislators and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 85. Satellite phones on board the ships were turned off, and communication with a small group of reporters embedded with the Israeli military was blocked. The Free Gaza Movement is an international group of pro-Palestinian activists that claims the blockade, imposed three years ago after the militant Islamic Hamas group overran Gaza, is unjust and a violation of international law.
Organizers included people affiliated with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group that often sends international activists into battle zones, and the IHH, a Turkish aid group that Israel accuses of having terrorist links.
Hasan Naiboglu, the Turkish maritime affairs undersecretary, told the Anatolia news agency that Israel had jammed communications with the ships. He accused Israel of violating international law by carrying out the raid in international waters. Israel's Ynet news website said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called Turkish officials, including the defense and foreign ministers, to discuss the raid. The United Nations expressed shock and condemned the killings. We are in contact with the Israeli authorities to express our deep concern and to seek a full explanation, said a statement from the highest-ranking U.N. official in the region, Robert Serry.
The flotilla of three cargo ships and three passenger ships carrying 10,000 tons of aid and 700 activists was carrying items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and other building materials. This is the ninth time that the Free Gaza movement has tried to ship in humanitarian aid to Gaza since August 2008. Israel has allowed ships through five times, but has blocked them from entering Gaza waters since a three-week military offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers in January 2009.
The latest flotilla was the largest to date. -Goldenberg reported from aboard the Israeli warship INS Kidon. AP writer Selcan Hacaoglu contributed to this report from Ankara.
Israeli ships stalk pro-Palestinian aid flotilla By TIA GOLDENBERG, Associated Press Writer – Sun May 30, 8:35 pm ET
HAIFA, Israel – Israeli warships stalked a flotilla carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists, including a Nobel laureate and a Holocaust survivor heading for the Gaza Strip on Monday, edging closer to a naval showdown on the high seas.
Huwaida Arraf, one of the organizers, said the six-ship flotilla began the journey from international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Sunday afternoon after two days of delays. She said they expected to reach Gaza, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) away, on Monday afternoon, and that two more ships would follow in a second wave.The flotilla was fully prepared for the different scenarios that might arise, and organizers were hopeful that Israeli authorities would do what's right and not stop the convoy, she said.We fully intend to go to Gaza regardless of any intimidation or threats of violence against us,she said.They are going to have to forcefully stop us.
After nightfall Sunday, three Israeli navy missile boats left their base in Haifa, steaming out to sea to confront the activists' ships.Two hours later, Israel Radio broadcast a recording of one of the missile boats warning the flotilla not to approach Gaza.If you ignore this order and enter the blockaded area, the Israeli navy will be forced to take all the necessary measures in order to enforce this blockade,the radio message continued.The al-Jazeera satellite channel reported that the ships changed course to try to avoid a nighttime confrontation, preferring a daylight showdown for better publicity.The flotilla, which includes three cargo ships and three passenger ships, is trying to draw attention to Israel's three-year blockade of the Gaza Strip. The boats are carrying items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and other building materials. The activists said they also were carrying hundreds of electric-powered wheelchairs, prefabricated homes and water purifiers.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that after a security check, permitted humanitarian aid confiscated from the boats will be transferred to Gaza through authorized channels. However, Israel would not transfer items it has banned from Gaza under its blockade rules. Palmor said that for example, cement would be allowed only if it is tied to a specific project.This is the ninth time that the Free Gaza movement has tried to ship in humanitarian aid to Gaza since August 2008.
Israel has let ships through five times, but has blocked them from entering Gaza waters since a three-week military offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers in January 2009. The flotilla bound for Gaza is the largest to date.Some 700 pro-Palestinian activists are on the boats, including 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, European legislators and an elderly Holocaust survivor.The mission has experienced repeated delays, both due to mechanical problems and a decision by Cyprus to bar any boat from sailing from its shore to Gaza. The ban forced a group of European lawmakers to depart from the breakaway Turkish Cypriot northern part of the island late Saturday.Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade on Gaza after Hamas militants violently seized control of the seaside territory in June 2007.Israel says the measures are needed to prevent Hamas, which has fired thousands of rockets at Israel, from building up its arsenal. But U.N. officials and international aid groups say the blockade has been counterproductive, failing to weaken the Islamic militant group while devastating the local economy.
In particular, the ban on building materials has prevented Gazans from repairing thousands of homes that were damaged or destroyed in an Israeli military offensive, meant to stop Hamas rocket attacks, early last year.Israel rejects claims of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying it allows more than enough food and medicine into the territory. The Israelis also point to the bustling smuggling industry along Gaza's southern border with Egypt, which has managed to bring consumer goods, gasoline and livestock into the seaside strip. Israel has condemned the flotilla as a provocation and vowed to block it from reaching Gaza.Israeli military officials said they hope to resolve the situation peacefully but are prepared for all scenarios. Naval commandos have been training for days in anticipation of the standoff. Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity under official guidelines, said the forces would likely take over the boats under the cover of darkness.Palmor said foreigners on the ships would be sent back to their countries. Activists who did not willingly agree to be deported would be detained. A special detention facility has been set up in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod. At Gaza's tiny port, meant for small fishing boats, Hamas officials, activists and foreign nationals prepared to welcome the flotilla, sitting in some 40 small boats that were bobbing in the sea and decorated with the flags of the countries of the pro-Palestinian activists, including Turkey and Algeria.In other boats, Gaza boy scouts played music, while on shore, other activists released balloons with the faces of Palestinian civilians and militants killed in battles with Israeli forces.In Syria, eight Damascus-based Palestinian groups urged Arab and Muslim states to work to support the flotilla and warned Israel against committing any foolishness to impede the vessels.This could create more tension and trigger unpredictable reactions, said the groups, which included Hamas and the militant Islamic Jihad.Associated Press writer Menalaos Hadjicostis contributed to this report from Nicosia, Cyprus.
ANIMAL RIGHTS NUTCASES WILL NOT LIKE THIS ARTICLE.OH NO LEFTS WILL SAY THIS GUY IS A BLOODY RACIST BECAUSE GOD CREATED ANIMALS DIFFERENT COLOURS.
Malaysia minister: God made animals for testing By JULIA ZAPPEI, Associated Press Writer - MAY 30,10
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian minister defended an Indian company's plans to build an animal testing medicine lab in his state, saying Monday that God created monkeys and rats for experiments to benefit humans.The plans by India's Vivo BioTech Ltd. to set up a biotechnology center in southern Malacca state has come under fire by activists because it will conduct tests on dogs and primates to make medicines. The activists say Malaysia has no regulations on animal research, which could lead to test subjects being abused.But Malacca Chief Minister Mohamad Ali Rustam said the lab had received state approval, and animal testing was necessary to make drugs. The project is still in the planning phase.God created animals for the benefits of human beings. That's why he created rats and monkeys ... We cannot test on human beings, he told The Associated Press. This is the way it has to be. God created monkeys, and some have to be tested.He said Malaysian agencies, such as the wildlife department, could monitor that the animals were not abused and proper procedures followed. He said eating animals could also be seen as cruel, and yet it was widely accepted.Vivo inked a 450 million ringgit ($141 million) joint-venture deal in January to build the biotechnology center, including laboratories where trial medicines will be tested on animals. Its partners are state government-owned Melaka Biotech Holdings and local firm Vanguard Creative Technologies.
In a joint statement last month, Malaysia's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments decried the project because Malaysia has no laws protecting the welfare of animals used in experiments.The group opposed the proposed facility for both ethical reasons and the lack of scientific validity of using animals in testing.The groups has submitted a protest letter to the government, urging it to halt the project.Malaysia should not open the economy to businesses like this as it promotes cruelty, SPCA official Jacinta Johnson said.Activists say companies are increasingly outsourcing animal testing to Asia, where regulations are more lax and costs are lower than in the West.Vivo has said previously it may import beagles from Holland and try to obtain domestic primates for testing.Last year, a French pharmaceutical research company proposed building an animal testing laboratory in southern Johor state using imported macaques, but the project was suspended amid an outcry from environmental groups.
WW3 THE 3 WAVES THAT MARCH TO ISRAEL
AMOS 9:10
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
DANIEL 11:40-45
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA 2ND WAVE OF WW3) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
45 And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200 MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)
The Third and Final Wave of WW3 is when all Nations march to Jerusalem, but JESUS bodily returns to earth and destroys them,sets up his KINGDOM OF RULE FOR 1000 YEARS THEN FOREVER.
2ND WAVE CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL
REVELATION 16:12
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.(THIS IS THE ATATURK DAM IN TURKEY,THEY CROSS OVER).
DANIEL 11:44 (2ND WAVE OF WW3)
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
REVELATION 9:12-18
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.(IRAQ-SYRIA)
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(1/3 Earths Population die in WW 3 2ND WAVE)
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand:(200 MILLION MAN ARMY FROM CHINA AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST) and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
SKorea steps up campaign over ship sinking By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer – MAY 31,10
SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea broadened efforts Monday to convince the world and its own public that North Korea sank one of its warships, sharing evidence with Russian torpedo experts and preparing a special briefing for influential bloggers and Twitter personalities.The persuasion campaign coincided with military exercises in which thousands of South Korean troops practiced fending off an attack from the North near the rivals' tense border. The drill, which the army said was routine and unrelated to the ship attack, involved building and defending pontoon bridges that scores of tanks used to cross a river as helicopters buzzed overhead.The South is lobbying for support for U.N. action against the North, blamed for torpedoing the Cheonan warship and killing 46 sailors in March. Winning Moscow's backing would be vital because Russia is a veto-holding permanent Security Council member and a traditional ally of North Korea, which denies attacking the ship.The Russian team — including torpedo and submarine experts — arrived Monday and received a briefing on the Cheonan probe, conducted by a multinational group of investigators. They were scheduled to examine the wreckage and visit the site of the alleged attack before finishing their report June 7, said a Defense Ministry official on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.Konstantin Vnukov, Russia's ambassador to South Korea, said, We are sending the experts to find out what exactly happened, who has to take responsibility and who did it.Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun told reporters, We are expecting to see a frank and deep exchange of views between our group of experts about our investigation results.
If the Russians endorse the findings, it could be key to getting Beijing to support South Korea's bid for sanctions. China is another longtime North Korean ally and permanent council member.The South Koreans shared the investigation's findings with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last weekend before a summit, but Beijing has yet to blame North Korea or support any potential U.N. action against its longtime ally.On Monday, Wen met with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who said Tokyo strongly supports Seoul's plans to bring North Korea before the U.N. Security Council for sanctions or condemnation.South Korea was also trying to convince skeptics at home that its Cheonan investigation was correct. The Defense Ministry said Monday that it will invite 70 Twitter users, bloggers and university students to view the wreckage for themselves — the first time ordinary citizens will be allowed to inspect the ship's remains.In South Korea's high-tech society, the new media users have developed an influential voice.A small group of pro-North Korean protesters gathered in central Seoul to protest the Cheonan probe. They held a large sign said, We want the truth of the investigation report.Protester Cho Joon-gyu, 32, social activist, said the government hasn't shown enough evidence. Nothing they say is clear enough, Cho said. And they are creating this anti-North Korea sentiment.Nearby, another small rally was held by anti-North Korean protesters. They carried signs saying, Punish those who spread false rumors.The event's organizer, Jeon Oh-hyun, said, What we want is an official apology from North Korea.Associated Press writer Claire Lee in Seoul and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo contributed to this report.
China offers billion-euro loan for Iran projects
Sun May 30, 3:56 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Beijing has offered a loan of one billion euros (1.2 billion dollars) to fund projects in Tehran, a report said on Sunday, in a sign of increased Chinese participation in the Iranian economy.Iran's Fars news agency, quoting a senior official from Tehran municipality, said the loan would have a repayment period of three to four years.The one-billion-euro Chinese funding is materialising, Hossein Mohammad Pourzarandi said, adding that the loan would be used for several construction projects, including road networks, undertaken by the municipality.In recent years China has emerged as Iran's main trading partner, with increased exposures in key economic sectors of the Islamic republic, including oil.Several Western energy companies have left Iran amid the increasing possibility of a new round of UN sanctions against Tehran for pursuing its controversial nuclear programme of uranium enrichment.They are being replaced mainly by Chinese and Iranian firms.
China holds back on blaming NKorea in ship attack By YOUNG-JOON AHN, Associated Press Writer – Sun May 30, 2:14 pm ET
SEOGWIPO, South Korea – China held back from joining the chorus of nations condemning North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship, making quick international sanctions unlikely but perhaps buying time while China quietly leans on its unpredictable, nuclear-armed neighbor.As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts Sunday, tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied in their capital, clapping their hands, pumping their fists and and shouting slogans against South Korea and America, according to video footage from APTN in Pyongyang.South Korea has taken punitive measures against the North since a team of international investigators said this month that a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine tore apart and sank the warship Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 sailors. North Korea vehemently denies attacking the ship and has warned that the South is risking war by attempting to punish it.Beijing didn't appear ready to support possible action in the U.N. Security Council against North Korea, its longtime ally. But Wen's closing remarks at Sunday's meeting seemed to signal that it was becoming more engaged in the crisis.The urgent task for the moment is to properly handle the serious impact caused by the Cheonan incident, gradually defuse tensions over it and avoid possible conflicts, Wen said.
Beijing has long tried to mediate disputes between the Koreas, and it often likes to maintain an appearance of neutrality. The Cheonan sinking poses an awkward challenge for China, which is under pressure to go along with sanctions but wants to maintain its friendship with North Korea, an unpredictable buffer state whose collapse could cause instability on a long Chinese border.China unwillingness to criticize Pyongyang now might mean it's trying to use quiet negotiations to convince North Korea to come clean on the ship attack, one of the South's worst military losses since the Korean War in the 1950s.If the ship sinking makes it to the United Nations, it's possible China will support sanctions like it did last year when the global body punished Pyongyang for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. But it also could make sanctions impossible as a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council.After strategic talks in Beijing last week, senior U.S. officials predicted that China will gradually endorse the view that North Korea should be held accountable for the torpedo attack.Wen's next stop after Korea was Japan, where he was expected to face more pressure to censure North Korea during a three-day stay.
During his visit to South Korea, Wen signaled that China was edging off the sidelines. He expressed condolences to the dead sailors' families and received an extensive briefing on the results of the multinational investigation that blamed North Korea for the ship attack.Wen also told his hosts that China will defend no one once it determines who sank the ship, the South Korean government said.South Korea plans to haul North Korea before the Security Council for sanctions or condemnation, but even if the South succeeds, it's unlikely Pyongyang will refrain from more provocative acts.In Washington on Sunday, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Fox News Sunday that he worries North Korea is planning something else.North Korea has accused the South of faking the ship sinking and enlisting its allies to do a phony investigation, a theme echoed at Sunday's rally in Pyongyang's main square.Because of the South Korean war-loving, mad puppets and American invaders, the North and South relationship is being driven to a catastrophe, Choi Yong Rim, a high-ranking North Korean Party official, told the crowd, which carried a huge portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
Such rallies are commonly held during times of tension.North Korean media continued a stream of threats about war. A news announcer on state TV warned, We are placed in a turbulent situation where war could break out at any moment.The announcer added, Under this kind of acute situation, trivial provocation or one gunshot can grow into an all-out war.On the South Korean side, President Lee Myung-bak on Sunday told his summit counterparts, We are not afraid of war but we don't want it, according to presidential adviser Lee Dong-kwan. Last week, South Korea laid out a series of punitive measures, including slashing trade, resuming anti-North Korean propaganda broadcasts across the border and launching large-scale naval exercises off the western coast. The North and South have technically remained at war since the 1950-53Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.North Korea has carried out a series of attacks on the South since then, but South Korea has never retaliated militarily.Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim, Claire Lee and William Foreman in Seoul contributed to this report.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they (MUSLIMS) have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,(JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, PALESTINIANS,JORDAN) and the Hagarenes;(EGYPT)
7 Gebal,(HEZZBALLOH,LEBANON) and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA,ARABS,SINAI) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
DANIEL 11:40-43
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS READ THE BIBLE THAT SAYS ISRAEL WILL BE NUKING THE RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIMS OUT OF COMMISSION FOR COMING AGAINST ISRAEL AND DIVIDING JERUSALEM.GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND 1000-10,000 ENEMIES DIE TO 1 ISRAELI IN WAR.DO USE LIKE THEM ODDS....GODS FOR ISRAEL AND AGAINST GOD(KING JESUS),ISRAEL,JERUSALEM HATERS.
Israel rejects new drive to ban nukes from Mideast By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer – Sun May 30, 4:10 am ET
JERUSALEM – Israel, thought to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, has rejected a new U.N. call to come clean about its secretive nuclear program, calling it a deeply flawed and hypocritical act that ignores the threat posed by its sworn enemy Iran.Israel declared late Saturday that it would not take part in a 2012 conference on establishing a nuclear-free Middle East — an Arab-led initiative backed by top ally U.S. and the 188 other signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Although a series of U.S. conditions put the conference in doubt, the resolution, and the surprising U.S. support it received, added new pressure on Israel to give up what is almost universally believed to be a sizable nuclear arsenal. Israel refuses to confirm or deny the suspicions.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to discuss the resolution with President Barack Obama when the two meet in Washington Tuesday, the Israeli leader's office said.Netanyahu was traveling in Canada Sunday, and a government spokesman declined what contacts had been made with the U.S. over the resolution.But an Army Radio reporter traveling with Netanyahu in Toronto said his office unsuccessfully lobbied the U.S. to block the resolution ahead of Friday's vote.Israel's so-called policy of nuclear ambiguity is a cornerstone of its military deterrence. It has long said that a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace must precede such weapons bans.Israel has never signed the non-proliferation treaty, which requires members to open nuclear facilities to inspection and to disarm. In its statement, it noted that since it's not a member, it is not a party to the resolution.This resolution is deeply flawed and hypocritical: It ignores the realities of the Middle East and the real threats facing the region and the entire world,the government statement said.
It singles out Israel yet the terrorist regime in Iran, which is racing to develop nuclear weapons and which openly threatens to wipe Israel off the map, is not even mentioned in the resolution, it added.Despite its assertions to the contrary, Iran is widely suspected to be seeking to build nuclear weapons.Israel sees Iran as its fiercest threat because of its nuclear program, its ballistic missiles capable of hitting the Jewish state and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated references to Israel's destruction.The Arab proposal for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction was first endorsed at a 1995 non-proliferation conference but never acted on. At this month's review of the treaty at U.N. headquarters, many delegates considered a conference to begin talks on a nuclear-free Middle East to be a critical part of the final resolution.The review's spotlight on Israel put the Jewish state in an uncomfortable position. While it tirelessly lobbies the international community to preventing Iran from acquiring atomic weapons, it insists on maintaining a veil of secrecy around its own nuclear capabilities.Details and pictures leaked in 1986 to the Sunday Times of London by Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Israel's Dimona nuclear plant, led foreign experts to conclude Israel has dozens of nuclear weapons.After Friday's vote, U.S. National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones said Mideast peace and full compliance by all countries in the region to their arms control and nonproliferation obligations are essential precursors of a nuclear-free Middle East.The compliance demand appeared to be aimed at Iran, which is a party to the nonproliferation treaty.Jones also faulted the resolution's decision to single out Israel while failing to mention Iran, which he said poses the greatest threat of nuclear proliferation in the region. A sticking point had been a passage naming Israel, reaffirming the importance of Israel's accession to the NPT,a move that would require it to destroy its arsenal. On the other hand, the final document did not single Iran out by name as a member nation that has been found to be in noncompliance with U.N. nuclear safeguards agreements.
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
Future Palestinian state must be demilitarized: Netanyahu
Sun May 30, 3:17 pm ET
TORONTO (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that a future Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized to prevent Iran setting up a proxy state in the West Bank.We must ensure that we achieve a peace that is anchored in security, the only peace that will endure is a peace we can defend, Netanyahu said, speaking to some 7,000 members of Toronto's Jewish community at a pro-Israel rally.A future Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized.Netanyahu is on a visit to Canada ahead of a trip to Washington to discuss with US President Barack Obama fragile US-brokered indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel has pushed for the talks to focus on security.Netanyahu said that after previous Israeli withdrawals from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, the areas were taken over by Iranian-supported Hezbollah and Hamas.We cannot afford to have that mistake repeated a third time, we cannot afford a Iranian presence on the hills over Tel Aviv.he said.
WORLD GOVERNMENT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnq5cQMiAB8&feature=related
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2009/07/we-are-already-under-global-government.html#links
DICK MORRIS-This truly creates a global economic system. From now on, don’t look to Washington for the rule making, look to Brussels.
EPHESIANS 6:10-13
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,(DEMONIC ANGELS IN HIGH PLACES) against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.(SPIRTIUAL DEMONIC PERSONS)
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
LUKE 4:5-7(BECAUSE SATAN OFFERS WORLD POWER, WORLD ORDERERS HAVE ACCEPTED SATANS GIFT)
5 And the devil, taking him (JESUS) up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
DANIEL 12:4,1
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
REVELATION 13:1-3,7,8,12,16-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
16 And he causeth all,(WORLD SOCIALISM) both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
REVELATION 17:3,7,9-10,12,18
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.James Paul Warburg appearing before the Senate on 7th February 1950
Like a famous WWII Belgian General,Paul Henry Spock said in 1957:We need no commission, we have already too many. What we need is a man who is great enough to be able to keep all the people in subjection to himself and to lift us out of the economic bog into which we threaten to sink. Send us such a man. Be he a god or a devil, we will accept him.And today, sadly, the world is indeed ready for such a man.
TORONTO GETS 4 SOUND CANNONS FOR G-20 AT END OF JUNE
http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/77858--toronto-police-purchased-4-sound-cannons-for-g20-report
Bilderberg: The Open Conspiracy Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com Friday, May 28, 2010
Now that the agenda for global government and a centralized world economic system is public and out in the open, the importance of the Bilderberg Group’s annual conference rests on grooming political candidates. The lion’s share of Bilderberg’s 2010 agenda has already been announced by its members weeks before – it will revolve around a potential military strike on Iran as well as the future collapse of the euro.Trilateral Commission members, who routinely also attend Bilderberg’s annual confab, have let slip that a war on Iran is being seriously debated, while the elite continue to exploit the fallout from the economic crisis to push for centralized financial regulation.The consequences of a military strike on Iran will cause a split between Bilderberg luminaries, just as it did before the invasion of Iraq at the 2002 meeting.During the recent Trilateral Commission meeting in Dublin Ireland, which routinely discusses an almost identical roster of topics to subsequent Bilderberg gatherings, chief advisor to the Russian leadership Mikhail Slobodovsici unwittingly told a We Are Change member he mistook for a colleague, We are deciding the future of the world….We need a world government, he said, but, referring to Iran, said we need to get rid of them.The continued push to pose as the saviors while offering global governance as the solution to the economic crisis was also re-affirmed in a recent speech by IMF chief and BIlderberg member Dominique Strauss-Kahn, when he told an audience of elitists in Zurich that the globalists need to see the crisis as an opportunity to push for a new global currency issued by a global central bank.Our sources close to Bilderberg emphasize the fissure that exists within globalist circles. Younger elitists and the nouveau riche are concerned that the global economy is being sunk too quickly and too soon, and that the consequences will be so drastic in the long term that even the wealth and influence of insiders will be threatened.
These divisions in the context of geopolitics was also addressed recently by Trilateral Commission co-founder and prominent Bilderberger Zbigniew Brzezinski, who in addition revealed that a global political awakening, in combination with infighting amongst the elite, was threatening to derail the move towards a one world government.The fact that globalists are also debating the timeline as to if and when the euro single currency will collapse, and whether it will be followed by the U.S. dollar has also been publicly discussed in recent weeks.Former Bank of England policy maker David Blanchflower recently told Bloomberg News that the euro region could break up as a result of the debt crisis in Greece which threatens to spread to other countries on the continent.As veteran Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker points out in his latest article, the corporate media has already been preconditioning the public to accept Bilderberg’s agenda for weeks.Bilderberg-controlled news outlets in Europe and the Western Hemisphere are conditioning the public to accept two of the super-secret elite’s major goals in advance of its meeting June 4-7 in Sitges, Spain: a U.S. attack on Iran and a financial bailout of Greece and other European Union (EU) countries,writes Tucker.With the agenda for global government now past the point of secrecy and out in the open, the Bilderberg group’s primary role is to groom political candidates for future high-power positions within the new world order hierarchy.The most interesting aspect to come out of this year’s conference in Sitges Spain is the question of who will be attending. While David Cameron’s new coalition government in the United Kingdom has opposed the expansion of Bilderberg’s European project in rhetoric, they have been busy appointing pro-Euro politicians to influential posts. The possible attendance of Cameron and his new sidekick Nick Clegg will be interesting to watch, as will the question of whether any members of the ousted UK Labour Party are invited. With leadership elections imminent after the resignation of dutiful Bilderberg servant Gordon Brown, Bilderberg will be keen to vet potential future Prime Ministers such as David Milliband.
US Constitution May Be Suspended: War, National Emergency and Continuity of Government Peter Dale Scott Japan Focus May 30, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNhFiWF3qlw&feature=player_embedded
Cheney and FEMA had been working on COG planning as a team throughout the 1980s and 1990s.In July 1987, during the Iran-Contra Hearings grilling of Oliver North, the American public got a glimpse of highly sensitive emergency planning North had been involved in. Ostensibly these were emergency plans to suspend the American constitution in the event of a nuclear attack (a legitimate concern). But press accounts alleged that the planning was for a more generalized suspension of the constitution.As part of its routine Iran-contra coverage, the following exchange was printed in the New York Times, but without journalistic comment or follow-up:
[Congressman Jack] Brooks: Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C. were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster? Both North’s attorney and Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Democratic Chair of the Committee, responded in a way that showed they were aware of the issue:Brendan Sullivan [North's counsel, agitatedly]: Mr. Chairman? [Senator Daniel] Inouye: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch upon that? Brooks: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was an area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.Inouye: May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.[1]
But we have never heard if there was or was not an executive session, or if the rest of Congress was ever aware of the matter. According to James Bamford, The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed.[2] (Key individuals in Congress were almost certainly aware.)Brooks was responding to a story by Alfonzo Chardy in the Miami Herald. Chardy’s story alleged that Oliver North was involved with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in plans to take over federal, state and local functions during a national emergency. This planning for Continuity of Government (COG) called for suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law.[3]To my knowledge no one in the public (including myself) attached enough importance to the Chardy story. Chardy himself suggested that Reagan’s Attorney General, William French Smith, had intervened to stop the COG plan from being presented to the President. Seven years later, in 1994, Tim Weiner reported in the New York Times that what he called The Doomsday Project – the search for ways to keep the Government running after a sustained nuclear attack on Washington –had less than six months to live.[4]To say that nuclear attack planning was over was correct, But this statement was also very misleading. On the basis of Weiner’s report, the first two books on COG planning, by James Bamford and James Mann, books otherwise excellent and well-informed, reported that COG planning had been abandoned.[5] They were wrong.
Mann and Bamford did report that, from the beginning, two of the key COG planners on the secret committee were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the two men who implemented COG under 9/11.[6] What they and Weiner did not report was that under Reagan the purpose of COG planning had officially changed: it was no longer for arrangements after a nuclear war, but for any national security emergency.This was defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.[7]In other words extraordinary emergency measures, originally designed for an America devastated in a nuclear attack, were now to be applied to anything the White House considered an emergency. Thus Cheney and Rumsfeld continued their secret planning when Clinton was president; both men, both Republicans, were heads of major corporations and not even in the government at that time. Moreover, Andrew Cockburn claims that the Clinton administration, according to a Pentagon source, had no idea what was going on.[8] (As I shall explain later, this sweeping claim needs some qualification.)The expanded application of COG to any emergency was envisaged as early as 1984, when, according to Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan,Lt. Col. Oliver North was working with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency . . . to draw up a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency. The plan, part of which was codenamed Rex 84, called for the suspension of the Constitution under a number of scenarios, including a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.[9]
Clearly 9/11 met the conditions for the imposition of COG measures, and we know for certain that COG planning was instituted on that day in 2001, before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. The 9/11 Report confirms this twice, on pages 38 and 326.[10] It was under the auspices of COG that Bush stayed out of Washington on that day, and other government leaders like Paul Wolfowitz were swiftly evacuated to Site R, inside a hollowed out mountain near Camp David.[11]What few have recognized is that, nearly a decade later, some aspects of COG remain in effect. COG plans are still authorized by a proclamation of emergency that has been extended each year by presidential authority, most recently by President Obama in September 2009. COG plans are also the probable source for the 1000-page Patriot Act presented to Congress five days after 9/11, and also for the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Endgame — a ten-year plan, initiated in September 2001, to expand detention camps, at a cost of $400 million in Fiscal Year 2007 alone.[12]At the same time we have seen the implementation of the plans outlined by Chardy in 1987: the warrantless detentions that Oliver North had planned for in Rex 1984, the warrantless eavesdropping that is their logical counterpart, and the militarization of the domestic United States under a new military command, NORTHCOM.[13] Through NORTHCOM the U.S. Army now is engaged with local enforcement to control America, in the same way that through CENTCOM it is engaged with local enforcement to control Afghanistan and Iraq.We learned that COG planning was still active in 2007, when President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD 51). This, for the sixth time, extended for one year the emergency proclaimed on September 14, 2001. It empowered the President to personally ensure continuity of government in the event of any catastrophic emergency.He announced that NSPD 51 contains classified Continuity Annexes which shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure. Under pressure from his 911truth constituents, Congressman Peter DeFazio of the Homeland Security Committee twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter signed by the Chair of his committee. His request was denied.
The National Emergencies Act, one of the post-Watergate reforms that Vice-President Cheney so abhorred, specifies that: Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002). Yet in nine years Congress has not once met to discuss the State of Emergency declared by George W. Bush in response to 9/11, a State of Emergency that remains in effect today. Appeals to the Congress to meet its responsibilities to review COG have fallen on deaf ears.[14]Former Congressman Dan Hamburg and I appealed publicly last year, both to Obama to terminate the emergency, and to Congress to hold the hearings required of them by statute.[15] But Obama, without discussion, extended the 9/11 Emergency again on September 10, 2009;[16] and Congress has continued to ignore its statutory obligations. One Congressman explained to a constituent that the provisions of the National Emergencies Act have now been rendered inoperative by COG. If true, this would seem to justify Chardy’s description of COG as suspension of the Constitution. Are there other parts of the Constitution that have been suspended? We do not know, and the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee has been told he cannot find out.Plans drafted by a secret committee, including corporation heads not in the government, have provided rules that allegedly override public law and the separation of powers that is at the heart of the Constitution. Congress is derelict in addressing this situation. Even Congressman Kucinich, the one Congressman I have met, will not answer my communications on this subject.Yet as I see it, the only authorization for the COG planning was a secret decision by President Reagan (NSDD 55 of September 14, 1982) which in effect federalized the counterinsurgency planning (called Cable Splicer), which he had authorized in California when governor there.
It is clear that the planning by Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the last two decades was not confined to an immediate response to 9/11. The 1000-page Patriot Act, dropped on Congress as promptly as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution had been back in 1964, is still with us; Congress has never seriously challenged it, and Obama quietly extended it on February 27 of this year.We should not forget that the Patriot Act was only passed after lethal anthrax letters were mailed to two crucial Democratic Senators – Senators Daschle and Leahy – who had initially questioned the bill. After the anthrax letters, however, they withdrew their initial opposition.[17] Someone — we still do not know who – must have planned those anthrax letters well in advance. This is a fact most Americans do not want to think about.Someone also must have planned the unusual number of war games taking place on 9/11. COG planners and FEMA had been involved in war games planning over the previous two decades; and on 9/11 FEMA was again involved with other agencies in preparing for Operation Tripod, a bioterrorism exercise in New York City. [18]Someone also must have planned the new more restrictive instructions, on June 1, 2001, determining that military interceptions of hijacked aircraft had to be approved at the highest levels of government (i.e. the President, Vice-President, or Secretary of Defense).[19] The Report attributes this order to a JCS Memo of June 1, 2001, entitled Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects.But the written requirements had been less restrictive before June 1, 2001, and I am informed that the change was quietly revoked the following December.In The Road to 9/11 I suggest the change in the JCS memo came from the National Preparedness Review in which President Bush authorized Vice-President Cheney, together with FEMA, to tackle the… task of dealing with terrorist attacks.[20] Not noticed by the press was the fact that Cheney and FEMA had already been working on COG planning as a team throughout the 1980s and 1990s.[21]As I wrote above, it is necessary to qualify a Pentagon official’s claim (to author Andrew Cockburn) that the Clinton administration had no idea what was going on in COG. Let me quote from my response to Cockburn’s book in my own, The Road to 9/11:
[Weiner’s] article persuaded authors James Mann and James Bamford that Reagan’s COG plans had now been abandoned, because there was, it seemed, no longer any enemy in the world capable of . . . decapitating America’s leadership.[22] In fact, however, only one phase of COG planning had been terminated, a Pentagon program for response to a nuclear attack. Instead, according to author Andrew Cockburn, a new target was found:Although the exercises continued, still budgeted at over $200 million a year in the Clinton era, the vanished Soviets were now replaced by terrorists. . . . There were other changes, too. In earlier times the specialists selected to run the shadow government had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike. But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players’ roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks. . . .You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration was extraordinarily inattentive, [they had] no idea what was going on.Cockburn’s account requires some qualification. Richard Clarke, a Clinton Democrat, makes it clear that he participated in the COG games in the 1990s and indeed drafted Clinton ’s Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 67 on Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government.But COG planning involved different teams for different purposes. It is quite possible that the Pentagon official was describing the Department of Defense team dealing with retaliation.
The Pentagon official’s description of a secret government-in-waiting (which still included both Cheney and Rumsfeld) is very close to the standard definition of a cabal, as a group of persons secretly united to bring about a change or overthrow of government. In the same era Cheney and Rumsfeld projected change also by their public lobbying, through the Project for the New American Century, for a more militant Middle East policy. In light of how COG was actually implemented in 2001, one can legitimately suspect that, however interested this group had been in continuity of government under Reagan, under Clinton the focus of Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s COG planning was now a change of government.[23]Understandably there is great psychological resistance to the extraordinary claim that Cheney and Rumsfeld, even when not in government, were able to help plan successfully for constitutional modifications, which they themselves implemented when back in power. Most people cannot bring themselves even to believe the second, known half of this claim: that on September 11, 2001, COG plans overriding the constitution were indeed implemented. This is why the first two print reviews of The Road to 9/11, both favorable and intelligently written, both reported that I speculated that COG had been imposed on 9/11. No, it was not a speculation: the 9/11 Commission Report twice confirms that COG was instituted on the authority of a phone call between Bush and Cheney of which they could find no record. No record, I did speculate, because it took place on a secure COG phone outside the presidential bunker – with such a high classification that the 9/11 Commission was never supplied the phone records.
A footnote in the 9/11 Report says
The 9/11 crisis tested the U.S. government’s plans and capabilities to ensure the continuity of constitutional government and the continuity of government operations. We did not investigate this topic, except as needed to understand the activities and communications of key officials on 9/11. The Chair, Vice Chair, and senior staff were briefed on the general nature and implementation of these continuity plans.[24]
The other footnotes confirm that no information from COG files was used to document the 9/11 report. At a minimum these files might resolve the mystery of the missing phone call which simultaneously authorized COG, and (in consequence) determined that Bush should continue to stay out of Washington . I suspect that they might tell us a great deal more.What is the first step out of this current state of affairs, in which the constitution has in effect been superseded by a higher, if less legitimate authority? I submit that it is to get Congress to do what the law requires, and determine whether our present proclamation of emergency shall be terminated (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002).An earlier polite, judiciously worded appeal to this effect failed. It may be necessary to raise the issue in a larger, albeit more controversial context: the scandal that a small cabal was able to supersede the Constitution, and Congress has failed, despite repeated requests, to do anything about it. I would hope that Americans concerned about this matter would raise it with all the congressional candidates in the forthcoming elections. At a minimum, candidates should promise to call for a full discussion of the proclaimed national emergency, as the law requires.
Notes
[1] New York Times, July 14, 1987.
[2] James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 74: The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed. Rather than through legislation, it was created by Top Secret presidential fiat. In fact, Congress would have no role in the new wartime administration. One of the awkward questions we faced, said one of the participants, was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack. It was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them. Cf. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 145.
[3] Miami Herald, July 5, 1987. In October 1984 Jack Anderson reported that FEMA’s plans would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, effectively eliminate private property, abolish free enterprise, and generally clamp Americans in a totalitarian vise.
[4] Tim Weiner, New York Times, April 17, 1994.
[5] Bamford, A Pretext for War, 74; cf. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 138-45.
[6] Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 183-87.
[7] The provisions of Executive Order 12656 of Nov. 18, 1988, appear at 53 FR 47491, 3 CFR, 1988 Comp., p. 585, http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12656.html. The Washington Post (March 1, 2002) later claimed, falsely, that Executive Order 12656 dealt only with a nuclear attack.Earlier there was a similar misrepresentation in the New York Times (November 18, 1991).
[8] Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy ( New York : Scribner, 2007), 88.
[9] Ross Gelbspan, Break-ins, Death Threats, and the FBI (Boston: South End Press, 1991), 184; cf. New York Times, November 18, 1991.
[10] 9/11 Commission Report, 38, 326; Scott, Road to 9/11, 228-29.
[11] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11 (Washington: Department of Defense, 2007), 132.
[12] Scott, Road to 9/11, 238, 240-41.
[13] U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Northern Command, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/northcom.htm. Cf. John R. Brinkerhoff, PBS, Online Newshour, 9/27/02: The United States itself is now for the first time since the War of 1812 a theater of war. That means that we should apply, in my view, the same kind of command structure in the United States that we apply in other theaters of war. Brinkerhoff had earlier developed the martial law provisions of REX 84 in the Reagan era.
[14] Cf. Peter Dale Scott and Dam Hamburg , To All Readers: Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!!!, 911Truth.org, March 24, 2009,http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090324183053848).
[15] Peter Dale Scott, To All Readers: Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!!! (with Dan Hamburg), http.//www.truth.org, March 24, 2009, http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090324183053848#r7.
[16] White House Press Release, September 10, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Notice-of-continuation-from-the-president-regarding-the-emergency-declared-with-respect-to-the-September-11-2001-terrorist-attacks/. A press briefing by Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs the same day did not mention the extension.
[17] Cf. Time, Nov. 26, 2001: While Daschle, the Senate majority leader, could have been chosen as a representative of all Democrats or of the entire Senate, Leahy is a less obvious choice, most likely targeted for a specific reason. He is head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is involved in issues ranging from antitrust action to antiterror legislation [emphasis added]. See also Anthony York, Why Daschle and Leahy? Salon, November 21, 2001, http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2001/11/21/anthrax/index.html.
[18] Brian Michael Jenkins and Frances Edwards-Winslow, Saving City Lifelines: Lessons Learned in the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks (San Jose, CA: Mineta Transportation Institute, San José State University, 2003).
[19] 9/11 Report, 17; cf. fn. 101, 458.
[20] Houston Chronicle, May 9, 2001; Road to 9/11, 209.
[21] James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 139; James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse ofAmerica’s Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doublesday, 2004).
[22] Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 144.
[23] Scott, The Road to 9/11, 186-87.
[24] 9/11 Commission Report, 555.
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