WARNING UNSEEN DEEPWATER OIL DIASTER

G20 ministers to discuss Europe at Korea G20 meeting By Louise Egan – Mon May 31, 3:31 pm ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) – There will be considerable discussion about the European economy at the G20 meeting of finance officials and central bankers in Busan, South Korea, this weekend, a senior Canadian finance official said on Monday.The official told a briefing that the euro zone debt problems added new urgency to the need for countries to design credible plans to withdraw extraordinary stimulus from their economies next year.Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty also plans to stress at the meeting that many countries are reaching their limits in terms of fiscal stimulus.The Busan meeting will let finance officials prepare the groundwork for a leaders' summit in Toronto in June. It will focus on financial reform, including a proposed global bank levy, and start spelling out policies needed to rebalance the global economy as it starts to grow again, the official said.For example in large surplus countries like China, a more flexible currency would help boost domestic consumption, the official said.Canada has vocally opposed proposals for a global bank levy to ensure taxpayers don't bear the cost of future financial meltdowns.

But the official said Canada has received growing interest for its proposal for contingent capital, which would require banks to hold a substantial part of their capital in securities that could be converted to equity in a near-death experience.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will present more details of that alternative to his counterparts in Busan.The official also said the G20 finance officials will seek progress on commitments that countries have made to eliminate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.(Reporting by Louise Egan; editing by Janet Guttsman)

BIS Warns to Ignore Banker Doomsday Scenario Fearmongering and Racketeering
Zero Hedge June 1, 2010 The bankers’ bank, the BIS.BANK-INTERNATIONAL-SETTLEMENTS

Over the past two years, the one strategy that has elicited the greatest amount of anger in the general population has been the traditional resolution to the lowest common denominator strategy of fearmongering or racketeering by the financial elite, any time it was faced with a status quo extinction event. The primary example is the Fed and Clearinghouse Association’s threat that should the Fed be forced to disclose the details of its bailout of various banks (as two courts have already ordered it to do), the result would be the greatest run on US banks in history: If the names of our member banks who borrow emergency funds are publicly disclosed, the likelihood that a borrowing bank’s customers, counterparties and other market participants will draw a negative inference is great.This is nothing but the patronizing of the broader population by those who seek to preserve their millions in bonuses, while disguising their hypocrisy in bluster, and hoping that the topic will be promptly forgotten. Curiously one entity that has decided to take on this fire and brimstone head on and to warn the general population to ignore the bankers doomsday scenarios is the bankers’ bank, the BIS. As the FT reports, according to a soon to be released report by the bank’s Chief Economic Advisors Stephen Cecchetti, Banks are exaggerating the economic effects of the regulations they are likely to face in the coming years.While his focus is on the implications of the passage of the Basel III treaty, and to preempt counter lobbying by the bank themselves, his argument can be extended to ever instance in which banks present scenarios of collapse should they not get their way: as Cecchetti points out: the banks’ doomsday scenarios were based on their assuming the maximum impact of the maximum change with the minimum behavioural change.This is a huge point, as it means that even the failure of the TBTF banks could have been mitigated in the context of a controlled (and even uncontrolled) bankruptcy, and the only reason they were bailed out was to preserve the equity interests and the existing management team, period. This also means that the Fed and Treasury are nothing but vehicles for perpetuating Wall Street’s status quo, as we have claimed from the very beginning.

More from the FT:Mr Cecchetti, who has been given a mandate to assess the economic effects of the Basel III reforms by the Basel Committee on Banking Reform and the Financial Stability Board, is adamant the transitional costs of requiring banks to hold more capital and be more robust to sudden demands for funds aren’t huge.The estimates are still a work in progress, but he said that his sense was that the net impact of the Basel committee reforms on growth will be negligible and well within normal forecast errors. Average errors of economic forecasts for the level of global output on the relevant time horizon are lower than 0.5 per cent and far lower than industry estimates that the regulations could wipe 5 per cent from the world economy.

In the longer term, Mr Cecchetti said the result of a safer banking system would provide economic benefits rather than costs. Our preliminary assessment is that improvements to the resilience of the financial system will not permanently affect growth – except for possibly making it higher.

Cecchetti continues:He gave three examples of banks over-estimating the likely effects of the new regulations, which are due to be agreed by the end of the year, with gradual implementation expected to start in 2012.First, he said banks were claiming that new liquidity rules would force them to swap large quantities of high-yielding loans for low-yielding government bonds, which would have an impact on their profitability and lending. Instead, he said, they could comply with the rules by lengthening the maturity of their liabilities so they better matched those of their assets at much lower cost.Second, he said, they assumed investors would demand the same returns on new tranches of equity capital when this equity would make banks more resilient, lowering risk to equity holders and the cost to banks.And third, he said, the warnings of high costs relied on banks’ estimates that the new rules would reduce credit growth and economic growth severely. We must always keep in mind that one of the causes of the crisis was that credit growth was too fast,he said.

If even the expert bankers of the Central Banks’ Central Bank are saying enough to banking fearmongering, it is time our own politicians followed suit. But here is where the core problem arises: politicians are nothing but bought and paid for puppets of the financial system. And by consistently siding with the Fed and Wall Street in their baseless threat, the public’s anger should be just as focused on Congress and Senate as it is on Wall Street. And while a purge of Wall Street can not occur within the confines of our legal system, as noted keenly by The International, politicians can at least be voted out. Which is why we are confident there will be an incumbent bloodbath come November, as D.C. is nothing more than a lighting rid for all the pent up anger from years of patronizing (not to mention robbery) by the financial elite which always knows what is best for the US middle class, especially if that something involves getting even deeper in debt-facilitated slavery.

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
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839263/site/14081545/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS TUE JUNE 01,2010

09:30 AM -3.25
10:00 AM -51.16
10:30 AM +20.42
11:00 AM +49.12
11:30 AM +41.57
12:00 PM +17.16
12:30 PM +38.09
01:00 PM +33.71
01:30 PM +74.97
02:00 PM +50.11
02:30 PM +27.60
03:00 PM +25.17
03:30 PM -31.06
04:00 PM -112.61 10,024.02

S&P 500 1070.71 -18.70

NASDAQ 2222.33 -34.71

GOLD 1,226.40 +11.40

OIL 72.36 -1.61

TSE 300 11,572.00 -191.00

CDNX 1488.75 -25.32

S&P/TSX/60 680.20 -11.43

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -85 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -90 points at low today.
Dow +61 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,227.00.OIL opens at $73.38 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -112 points at low today so far.
Dow +61 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -112 points at low today.
Dow +61 points at high today.

GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,248.20

Africa needs a stronger voice in global affairs: Sarkozy by Carole Landry – Mon May 31, 3:58 pm ET

NICE, France (AFP) – Africa will fuel world economic growth for decades to come and must have a stronger voice in global affairs, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday as he opened an Africa-France summit.France is seeking to renew its ties with Africa at the two-day gathering that will touch on global governance and Africa's campaign for more of say at the United Nations Security Council, the UN's top decision-making body.I am deeply convinced that it is no longer possible to discuss major world issues without the presence of Africa, Sarkozy told the 38 African leaders gathered in the Riviera city of Nice.Declaring that Africa is our future, Sarkozy said it was absolutely abnormal that no African country held a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.None of the problems, absolutely none of the problems that the world faces today can be resolved without the active participation of the African continent,he said.Africa's formidable demographics and its considerable resources make it the main reservoir for world economic growth in the decades to come.A failed Africa would be a tragedy for Europe,Sarkozy warned.

France is hoping to jumpstart the push for more African representation at the Security Council, where three of the 10 rotating seats are currently held by African countries.Sarkozy said he will put forward proposals when France takes the helm of the Group of Eight and Group of 20 clubs of developed nations next year to ensure Africa takes part in global economic affairs.Currently, South Africa is the only G20 member from Africa even though the continent overall is posting strong growth, despite the global downturn.African countries have since 2005 sought two veto-wielding permanent seats in an expanded Security Council as well as two non-permanent seats, but these calls have gone unheard.Hoping to relaunch debate, France is proposing that Africa press for one permanent seat, with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner stressing that it was important to be realistic.Many see the current setup in which five countries -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- hold veto power as a holdover from the Cold War.Echoing Sarkozy's call, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said we want to end at all cost the marginalisation of the African continent.The 25th Africa-France summit is Sarkozy's first since taking office in 2007 and reflects France's shift away from its traditional west African allies toward engagement with the continent as a whole.At a formal dinner, Sarkozy stressed that the time when Africa's political problems dominated the summit agenda was over and that the economy was now at the forefront.Today we can talk about technology, innovation and research with Africa,said Sarkozy.

About 80 French business leaders including top bosses at oil giant Total and nuclear behemoth Areva are taking part in summit talks along with 150 heads of African companies. The push on the economic front comes as France has taken a back seat to China, Africa's biggest trade partner, which has injected billions over the past decade to tap into raw materials needed to fuel its hungry economy. Among the heavy hitters at the high-level talks are South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, who travelled to Nice just weeks before his country hosts the football World Cup, and Nigeria's new leader Goodluck Jonathan, sworn in this month.Zuma hit a sour note when he criticised host-country France for inviting coup leaders from Guinea and Niger to the summit, saying it amounted to a form of recognition to those who seize power through coups.We don't want to encourage military people to overturn others and become governments, because by inviting, it means recognition, that's how we are interpreting it in the continent, he told French news channel France 24.

Asian shares lower after US holiday
MAY 31,10

TOKYO – Asian stocks fell Tuesday in the absence of fresh cues following a market holiday in the U.S.Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average fell 82.22 points, or 0.8 percent, to 9,686.48 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.7 percent to 4,401.10.In Seoul, the Kospi lost 0.6 percent to 1,630.41 and Taiwan's benchmark fell 0.9 percent to 7,307.16. Hong Kong's Hang Seng bucked the trend, rising 0.1 percent to 19,787.89. U.S. financial markets were closed Monday for Memorial Day.

Japanese exporters mainly fell as the yen strengthened.

Political uncertainty also dampened market sentiment in Tokyo, where Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama faced mounting calls for his resignation after a small party left his coalition government in protest at the reversal of a campaign promise to move a U.S. military base off the southern island of Okinawa.In currencies, the dollar fell to 91.05 yen from 91.21 yen late Monday. The euro slipped to $1.2266 from $1.2304.
Benchmark crude for July delivery was up 32 cents at $74.29 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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.

40,000 may be evacuated in Philippine floods
MAY 31,10 10:40PM

MANILA (AFP) – Up to 40,000 people may be forcibly evacuated after torrential rains caused heavy flooding in the southern Philippines, an official said Tuesday.Ten villages in the town of Sultan Kudarat on southern Mindanao island were under waist-deep waters after a river overflowed its banks due to rains that began on Friday, local social welfare department head Pombaen Kadir said.We are preparing to evacuate them,Kadir told AFP.They still do not want to leave their homes which are now under waist-deep water, but we may force them to leave once the situation deteriorates.She said the main highway that cuts through the affected areas had been rendered impassable to light vehicles.Army troops in the area have also dispatched trucks to help in the planned evacuation efforts, she said.

Tropical Storm Agatha kills 145 in Central America By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA, Associated Press Writer - MAY 31,10 10PM

GUATEMALA CITY – Flooding and landslides from the season's first tropical storm have killed at least 145 people and made thousands homeless in Central America, officials said Monday.Dozens of people were missing and emergency crews struggled to reach isolated communities cut off by washed-out roads and collapsed bridges caused by Tropical Storm Agatha.The sun emerged Monday in hardest-hit Guatemala, where officials reported 120 dead and at least 53 missing. In the department of Chimaltenango — a province west of Guatemala City — landslides buried dozens of rural Indian communities and killed at least 60 people, Gov. Erick de Leon said.The department has collapsed,de Leon said.There are a lot of dead people. The roads are blocked. The shelters are overflowing. We need water, food, clothes, blankets †but above all, money.In the tiny village of Parajbei, a slide smothered three homes and killed 11 people.It was raining really hard and there was a huge noise, said Vicente Azcaj, 56, who ran outside and saw that a hill had crumbled.Now everyone is afraid that the same will happen to their homes.Volunteers from nearby villages worked nonstop since Sunday to recover the bodies in Parajbei, and on Monday they found the last two: brothers, 4 and 8 years old, who were buried under tons of dirt, rocks and trees.As a thank-you, rescuers got a plate of rice and beans from the mayor of nearby Santa Apolonia.

REUTERS/Casa Presidencial/Handout
It's a small thing, but it comes from the heart, Tulio Nunez told them through a translator.Nunez said he worried about the well-being of survivors in the area because landslides blocked roads and broke water pipes.They don't have anything to drink, he said.In all some 110,000 people were evacuated in Guatemala.Thousands more fled their homes in neighboring Honduras, where the death toll rose to 15 while meteorologists predicted three more days of rain.Two dams near the capital of Tegucigalpa overflowed into a nearby river, and officials warned people to stay away from swollen waterways.The risk is enormous, Mayor Ricardo Alvarez said.In El Salvador, 11,000 people were evacuated. The death toll rose to 10 and two others were missing, President Mauricio Funes said Monday night.About 95 percent of the country's roads were affected by landslides, but most remained open, Transportation Minister Gerson Martinez said. He said 179 bridges had been wrecked.The Lempa River, which flows to the Pacific, topped its banks and flooded at least 20 villages, affecting some 6,000 people, said Jorge Melendez, director of the Civil Protection Agency.

Officials warned that the Acelhuate River, which cuts through San Salvador, was running at dangerously high levels and threatened to spill over into the capital's streets. Melendez said classes would be suspended Tuesday in all primary and secondary schools and public and private universities across El Salvador. Agatha made landfall near the Guatemala-Mexico border Saturday as a tropical storm with winds up to 45 mph (75 kph). It dissipated the following day over the mountains of western Guatemala. The rising death toll is reminding nervous residents of Hurricane Mitch, which hovered over Central America for days in 1998, causing flooding and mudslides that killed nearly 11,000 people and left more than 8,000 missing and unaccounted for. Rescue efforts in Guatemala have been complicated by a volcanic eruption Thursday near the capital that blanketed parts of the area with ash. Associated Press writers Freddy Cuevas in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Diego Mendez in San Salvador, El Salvador, contributed to this report.

No shelter from the storm for Haiti quake victims By BEN FOX, Associated Press Writer – Mon May 31, 2:34 pm ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A hurricane season predicted to be one of the wettest on record opens Tuesday in the Caribbean, where hundreds of thousands of Haitian earthquake victims have only tarps or fraying tents to protect them in a major storm.

The Haitian government, which had five months to prepare, says it's still working on emergency and evacuation plans. But it is unclear where people will go with many churches, schools and other potential shelters toppled by the quake.Since the Jan. 12 earthquake killed up to 300,000 people and left more than 1.5 million homeless, there has been little progress on clearing rubble so people can return to their neighborhoods or building sturdier shelters.Dr. Jean Pape, one of the country's most prominent public health experts, estimates that only 1 percent of the masses stuck in dangerous flood zones have been relocated.There's no give here. Time is just running out,said Mark L. Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group. There's no question that large numbers, tens of thousands, are going to be in situations of misery when the rains come.Already, the moderate spring rains that drench Port-au-Prince almost daily leave camp residents up to their knees in putrid water.Claudia Toussaint, a 24-year-old camped near a golf course, dug a shallow channel in the dirt under her tarp in a futile effort to keep water away from her mattress.When it rains, we don't have anywhere to go, we don't have anywhere to sleep, she said.We just get soaked.The problem goes beyond more misery in about 1,200 temporary camps. Vast numbers of people are exposed to disease-carrying mosquitoes. Serious flooding could cause mass casualties even with thousands of aid workers and U.N. peacekeepers present.The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted as many as 23 named tropical storms, which would make this season one of the more active on record. The quake has forced Haiti to update its storm contingency plans, said Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, including positioning emergency food and equipment.

A response team has been set up to deal with rain emergencies in camps.We don't need a hurricane to have problems in Haiti, we just need three or four days of continuous rain to have serious problems, he said in an interview with The Associated Press.But Bellerive couldn't say how the plans are being updated. And he said the country's condition remains fragile,even though aid groups and government officials have said since the quake that flooding is a major looming disaster.The Atlantic storm season always poses a risk in mountainous Haiti. Tropical Storm Jeanne killed nearly 3,000 people in 2004, and a series of 2008 storms killed 800 — mostly in the country's central region north of Port-au-Prince.The capital city rarely gets a direct hit; it is protected by the mountains that separate Haiti from the Dominican Republic. But even modest storms are deadly in this deforested nation where entire cities are routinely plunged under water.The international community and private aid groups have pledged or delivered $3.1 billion to help Haiti after the earthquake and are promising nearly $10 billion more for reconstruction.But so far, the government has relocated only about 7,000 vulnerable people to two safer camps.The relocation is slow because the crippled government doesn't have enough money to complete a job that includes not just setting up new tents, but providing work, schools and services. You can't just move people to a new location and say take care of your life.said Pape, director of the GHESKIO clinic.

The Salvation Army has started building two-room shelters for 600 families in the southern town of Jacmel despite bureaucratic delays in getting the material through Haiti's ports. The cement-secured wooden supports are designed to withstand winds of up to 30 mph, and the raised wooden floors to prevent Haitians from risking disease by using water flowing through their homes for hygiene and cooking. They expect to complete the structures within a month using Haitian labor. Protesters have criticized President Rene Preval for a lack of progress in reconstruction. Schneider says all involved need to move faster. It's not that people are doing things that are wrong, he said.It's that people need to do the things that they are doing faster.
Magdaline Oscar lives with her husband and 6-year-old son in a trash-strewn road that leads to the capital's main garbage dump. She showed visitors the murky water that pools under her tent and splashes through its torn sides. During storms, they flee to a neighbor's shelter, though many of the other tents in their encampment are also now damaged after five months of use. The wind and the water is destroying them,said the 26-year-old.I don't think it will last much longer.Elsewhere, people are taking a do-it-yourself approach — adding corrugated steel and plywood to homes first constructed from a few bed sheets and plastic tarps. Leon Louis was confident about his prospects as he set up a shanty in the Champs de Mars, the capital's central plaza. The rain might fall, but we'll be in a stable place,Louis said.
Associated Press writers Jonathan M. Katz and Yesica Fisch contributed to this report.

EARTHQUAKES

MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

Strong quake hits Andaman Islands: seismologists
Mon May 31, 5:11 pm ET

NEW DELHI (AFP) – A strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake hit off India's Andaman Islands early Tuesday, seismologists said, but no widespread tsunami was expected.The quake struck at a depth of 127 kilometres (80 miles), said the US Geological Survey (USGS), with the epicentre 120 kilometres from Port Blair on the Andaman Islands, which are located in the Bay of Bengal.The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was a very small possibility of a local tsunami near the centre but no threat of a destructive widespread tsunami.Myanmar lies to the north of the Andaman Islands and Indonesia to the south.New Delhi is more than 2,500 kilometres away to the northwest.The Andamans were badly hit by the 2004 Asian tsunami, which was triggered by an earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra that sent giant waves crashing into countries around the Indian Ocean.The Andaman Sea area witnesses frequent earthquakes caused by the meeting of the Indian plate with the Burmese microplate along an area known as the Andaman trench.

6.1 earthquake hits Costa Rica's Pacific coast
MAY 31,10

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A 6.1 magnitude earthquake shook the Pacific coast of Costa Rica on Monday night, the United States Geological Survey said.There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage caused by the offshore quake centered 46 miles southwest of the capital San Jose at a depth of 18.2 miles below the sea.

China says final toll from April quake near 2,700
Mon May 31, 8:40 am ET

BEIJING – The death toll from a devastating earthquake that struck a remote Tibetan region in western China has risen to 2,698, officials said Monday.Another 270 people remained missing after the April 14 earthquake that flattened tens of thousands of houses in Yushu county, the official Xinhua News Agency cited Qinghai Vice Governor Zhang Guangrong as telling reporters.The new figure is a jump from the previously reported toll, which stood at a little over 2,200 in late April, with 12,000 injured.

China poured millions of dollars for relief efforts and deployed thousands of workers into the region after the quake struck. Sitting at around 13,000 feet (4,000 meters), the area's remote location posed logistical difficulties.Zhang also said 11 of the victims had not been identified, and that the deaths included 199 students.

The figures released by Zhang were confirmed by Liu Wei, a provincial spokesman, reached by phone.Liu attributed the rise in the death toll to the discovery of more bodies, increased reporting of deaths by relatives and more deaths from the county's migrant population registered.The government has capitalized on the full-scale relief operation to show it cares about China's Tibetan communities, some of which staged large anti-government protests in 2008.

Pacific volcano erupts near Marianas islands
Mon May 31, 7:12 am ET

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.

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.

Scientists warn of unseen deepwater oil disaster By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Writer – Mon May 31, 5:11 pm ET

NEW ORLEANS – Independent scientists and government officials say there's a disaster we can't see in the Gulf of Mexico's mysterious depths, the ruin of a world inhabited by enormous sperm whales and tiny, invisible plankton.Researchers have said they have found at least two massive underwater plumes of what appears to be oil, each hundreds of feet deep and stretching for miles. Yet the chief executive of BP PLC — which has for weeks downplayed everything from the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf to the environmental impact — said there is no evidence that huge amounts of oil are suspended undersea.BP CEO Tony Hayward said the oil naturally gravitates to the surface — and any oil below was just making its way up. However, researchers say the disaster in waters where light doesn't shine through could ripple across the food chain.Every fish and invertebrate contacting the oil is probably dying. I have no doubt about that, said Prosanta Chakrabarty, a Louisiana State University fish biologist.On the surface, a 24-hour camera fixed on the spewing, blown-out well and the images of dead, oil-soaked birds have been evidence of the calamity. At least 20 million gallons of oil and possibly 43 million gallons have spilled since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank in April.

That has far eclipsed the 11 million gallons released during the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska's coast in 1989. But there is no camera to capture what happens in the rest of the vast Gulf, which sprawls across 600,000 square miles and reaches more than 14,000 feet at its deepest point.Every night, the denizens of the deep make forays to shallower depths to eat — and be eaten by — other fish, according to marine scientists who describe it as the largest migration on earth.In turn, several species closest to the surface — including red snapper, shrimp and menhaden — help drive the Gulf Coast fishing industry. Others such as marlin, cobia and yellowfin tuna sit atop the food chain and are chased by the Gulf's charter fishing fleet.

Many of those species are now in their annual spawning seasons. Eggs exposed to oil would quickly perish. Those that survived to hatch could starve if the plankton at the base of the food chain suffer. Larger fish are more resilient, but not immune to the toxic effects of oil.The Gulf's largest spill was in 1979, when the Ixtoc I platform off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula blew up and released 140 million gallons of oil. But that was in relatively shallow waters — about 160 feet deep — and much of the oil stayed on the surface where it broke down and became less toxic by the time it reached the Texas coast.But last week, a team from the University of South Florida reported a plume was headed toward the continental shelf off the Alabama coastline, waters thick with fish and other marine life.The researchers said oil in the plumes had dissolved into the water, possibly a result of chemical dispersants used to break up the spill. That makes it more dangerous to fish larvae and creatures that are filter feeders.Responding to Hayward's assertion, one researcher noted that scientists from several different universities have come to similar conclusions about the plumes after doing separate testing.No major fish kills have been reported, but federal officials said the impacts could take years to unfold.

This is just a giant experiment going on and we're trying to understand scientifically what this means, said Roger Helm, a senior official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.In 2009, LSU's Chakrabarty discovered two new species of bottom-dwelling pancake batfish about 30 miles off the Louisiana coastline — right in line with the pathway of the spill caused when the Deepwater Horizon burned and sank April 24.By the time an article in the Journal of Fish Biology detailing the discovery appears in the August edition, Chakrabarty said, the two species — which pull themselves along the seafloor with feet-like fins — could be gone or in serious decline.There are species out there that haven't been described, and they're going to disappear, he said. Recent discoveries of endangered sea turtles soaked in oil and 22 dolphins found dead in the spill zone only hint at the scope of a potential calamity that could last years and unravel the Gulf's food web. Concerns about damage to the fishery already is turning away potential customers for charter boat captains such as Troy Wetzel of Venice. To get to waters unaffected by the spill, Wetzel said he would have to take his boat 100 miles or more into the Gulf — jacking up his fuel costs to where only the wealthiest clients could afford to go fishing.

Significant amounts of crude oil seep naturally from thousands of small rifts in the Gulf's floor — as much as two Exxon Valdez spills every year, according to a 2000 report from government and academic researchers. Microbes that live in the water break down the oil. The number of microbes that grow in response to the more concentrated BP spill could tip that system out of balance, LSU oceanographer Mark Benfield said. Too many microbes in the sea could suck oxygen from the water, creating an uninhabitable hypoxic area, or dead zone.Preliminary evidence of increased hypoxia in the Gulf was seen during an early May cruise aboard the R/V Pelican, carrying researchers from the University of Georgia, the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi. An estimated 910,000 gallons of dispersants — enough to fill more than 100 tanker trucks — are contributing a new toxin to the mix. Containing petroleum distillates and propylene glycol, the dispersants' effects on marine life are still unknown. What is known is that by breaking down oil into smaller droplets, dispersants reduce the oil's buoyancy, slowing or stalling the crude's rise to the surface and making it harder to track the spill. Dispersing the oil lower into the water column protects beaches, but also keeps it in cooler waters where oil does not break down as fast. That could prolong the oil's potential to poison fish, said Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. There's a school of thought that says we've made it worse because of the dispersants, he said. Associated Press writer Jason Dearen contributed to this report from San Francisco.

S.Korea steps up efforts to haul N.Korea to UN
JUNE 1,10

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea Tuesday stepped up its campaign to hold North Korea responsible at the UN Security Council for sinking a warship, briefing visiting Russian experts and sending an envoy to the United States.A team of Russian naval experts arrived Monday to review the findings of a multinational investigation team, which concluded last month that a North Korean submarine torpedoed the South Korean ship with the loss of 46 lives.The Russians, including experts on torpedoes and submarines, will stay in South Korea until June 7 to debrief investigators, inspect the wreckage and visit the site of the sinking, defence and foreign ministry officials said.Russia's direct trust in our investigation results will make this case clear, and it's part of our stepped-up effort to muster international support, one official told AFP.South Korea has announced a series of reprisals including cutting off trade with its communist neighbour.The hardline state furiously denies involvement and has responded to the reprisals with threats of war, sending regional tensions sharply higher.The South, with US and Japanese support, will ask the Security Council to sanction -- or at least to censure -- the North for the sinking, one of the worst military attacks since the 1950-53 war.Seoul needs support from veto-wielding Council members, including Russia and China, which have traditionally been close to Pyongyang.The foreign ministry in Moscow has said it needs 100 percent proof of the North's involvement.Seoul has also asked China to send its own experts but Beijing has not responded, according to local media, some of which said the offer had been rejected.At a three-way weekend summit, China's Premier Wen Jiabao resisted pressure from the Japanese and South Korean leaders to publicly support the UN move or to condemn the North.

Wen instead called for efforts to ease regional tensions.Despite China's unclear stance, South Korea continued its campaign by sending Second Vice Foreign Minister Chun Yung-Woo, in charge of UN affairs, to the United States Monday for discussions with US officials.With the US government reviewing how to step up its own actions against North Korea, South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan said restricting cash flows to the North was an effective punishment.If the cash inflow into North Korea is restricted, I think it will lower the possibility of nuclear weapons development and deter belligerent behaviour, he said in a BBC interview aired early Tuesday.South Korea estimates that its own reprisals will cost the cash-strapped North between 260-300 million dollars a year.President Lee Myung-Bak instructed his cabinet Tuesday to draw up a long-term strategy for reunification of the peninsula despite the tensions over the Cheonan corvette's sinking.National security has emerged as an important task since the Cheonan incident, Lee told them.With regard to security, people usually think of confrontation. Fundamentally, however, we should draw up a strategy on security bearing reunification in mind.