END DISPERSANTS IN THE GULF-SCIENTISTS

Protester heckles Australian PM's climate speech
JULY 22,10

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was heckled by rowdy protesters on Friday as she announced her new climate change policy ahead of next month's elections.Security staff tackled one demonstrator to the ground and led him away in handcuffs, while chanting could be heard through much of Gillard's address at a Brisbane university campus.The prime minister made a slight pause and smiled briefly during the disturbance as she announced a community-based citizens assembly to advise on climate change.In my view, the consensus we build must be stronger and must go beyond the notional political consensus. We need community consensus, she said.The initiative means the government can delay a decision on an emissions trading scheme, which was twice blocked in parliament and then shelved, hitting the credibility of ex-leader Kevin Rudd.But Gillard said she backed a market-based solution to pollution, which the Labor government has pledged to cut by five percent from 2000 levels by 2020.

Climate and energy bill delayed as political support withers By Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers – Thu Jul 22, 7:23 pm ET

WASHINGTON — Bowing a lack of support, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid on Thursday said there'd be no vote this summer on a bill that would put the nation's first limits on the carbon pollution responsible for global warming.The decision could doom the measure's long-term chances as well.If Democrats lose their narrow majority in the Senate in the November elections, they'd have to relinquish the leadership power that would allow them to bring it up for a vote next year. Many — but not all — Senate Democrats support it, but not a single Republican has agreed to vote for it. A similar measure squeaked through the House of Representatives last year.Instead of a broad energy and climate bill, Reid said there would be a vote before the Senate takes its August recess on legislation that would increase liability on companies for oil spills, boost a conversion of 18-wheeler trucks from diesel to natural gas to save oil, and create a program that would give homeowners a price break on upgrades to save energy.The energy and climate bill would have required power plants, large factories and oil and gas companies to pay for permits to emit carbon dioxide, the gas from burning fossil fuels that traps heat in the atmosphere. Most of the revenues would have been refunded to consumers to compensate for higher energy costs.Reid said it was still possible there'd be a fall vote. However, he'd still face an uphill fight to get the 60 votes needed and the fall session will be short because of the upcoming election.Sen. John Kerry , D- Mass. , who'd been meeting with interest groups and senators from both parties for over a year to try to reach a compromise bill that would get enough votes, said the draft he proposed earlier this year would lower energy bills, create jobs in clean energy and reduce dependence on foreign oil.Some industries, however, warned that their costs would go up and they'd lose competitiveness if carbon pollution had a price. That message made some senators, including some Democrats, fear that they'd lose their seats if they supported it, Kerry said.

What you're seeing is classic special interest resistance, Kerry said at a town hall meeting earlier Thursday. He urged his supporters not to get discouraged but to take part in a grass-roots effort to drum up support.We need to take the fear out of this and empower our colleagues to go out and vote, he said.It is dismaying that the bill doesn't put a price on carbon because already-strong evidence about the direction of our climate has been confirmed again by NASA : The first six months of 2010 were the warmest January-to-June on record,said Rafe Pomerance , president of Clean Air Cool Planet . As the Earth's climate continues to rapidly move into unchartered territory, the U.S. Senate needs act. The failure to price carbon leaves a giant hole in U.S. energy and climate policy, and the long-term cost to the United States will be enormous.Reid said the scaled-down bill had enough Republican support to give them a chance to pass. It has four parts:

— Oil spill: Removes the $75 million cap on liability for oil spills retroactively to include April — the month when BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico .
— Energy efficiency: Establish Home Star ,a program that would provide rebates at the cash register for energy-saving investments for homes. Reid said it could spur 350,000 to 400,000 new jobs.
— Natural gas: Promote conversion from diesel fuel to natural gas for transportation, an idea pushed by oil and gas magnate T. Boone Pickens .
— Conservation: Add money to the Land and Water Conservation Fund , which gives money to federal, state and local governments to buy land, water and wetlands for recreation and preservation. Most of the money comes from fees paid for offshore oil and gas drilling.

President Barack Obama's adviser on climate issues, Carole Browner , said the White House could work with the Senate to keep looking for a bill that could pass. Obama has not publicly pushed for the measure in recent weeks.Environmental and health advocacy groups objected strongly this month to one of the compromise measures involved in the legislation. Utilities that rely on coal asked for some exemptions from Clean Air Act restrictions on the main air pollution from their plants — smog, soot and mercury — in exchange for their consent to going first with having to pay fees for their carbon pollution. The Edison Electric Institute , an industry group, and executives of several utilities, including Duke , made the case in lobbying sessions in Washington over the past two weeks. Six medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics , wrote to Reid this week saying there should be no delay of air pollution cleanup from power plants in any climate bill. Thirty-one environmental and health advocacy groups, including the Sierra Club and the American Lung Association , made the same case in a letter last week. The latest climate bill draft from Kerry and Sen. Joe Lieberman , I-Conn., would have set up a task force that would have considered requests from coal-fired power plants for exemptions from the three main air pollutants.

The U.S. gets about 50 percent of its electricity from coal.Forty years after the passage of the Clean Air Act, hundreds of coal-fired power plants throughout the country still do not have scrubbers to remove conventional air pollutants — nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and hazardous pollutants including mercury. Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury pollution in the U.S.The EPA has proposed strengthening the standards on air pollution in the next few years, saying that cleaner air would reduce asthma and other respiratory diseases, heart attacks and premature deaths.

Detained G-20 protesters allege police misconduct
Thu Jul 22, 7:57 pm ET

TORONTO – Some women arrested during G-20 summit protests in Toronto have alleged police made sexual threats against them while they were held in a makeshift detention center.The allegations were made in two video testimonials played at a media conference Thursday organized by the Toronto Community Mobilization Network in Toronto.One of the women, Amy Miller, said police told her she was going to be raped when she was detained for about 13 hours in a cell during the June 26-27 summit.

Toronto police spokeswoman Meaghan Gray says the police service is not responding to individual allegations. She says an officer could face lose pay, be dismissed or face criminal charges if found guilty of a serious complaint.(cn-cp)

HERES HOW THE SECULAR MEDIA IS SO DECEPTIVE.LAST NIGHT ON ANDERSON COOPER 360 SHIRLEY SAID THAT OBAMA NEVER SAID SORRY OUTRIGHT JUST IN A ROUND ABOUT WAY HE APOLOGIZED.TALK ABOUT COVERING UP FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION.

Sherrod gets biggest I'm sorry — from Obama By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press Writer - JULY 22,10

WASHINGTON – Flooded with apologies from everywhere, Shirley Sherrod got the biggest I'm sorry of all Thursday — from a contrite President Barack Obama, who personally appealed to the ousted worker to come back.Sherrod, who was forced to resign on Monday because of racial comments she made at an NAACP gathering, was asked by Obama to rejoin the federal government and transform this misfortune into a chance to use her life experiences to help people, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Obama had stayed out of the public brouhaha that followed Sherrod's ouster from the Agriculture Department after a conservative blog posted a clip of the black woman's comments and portrayed her as racist. Once it became clear that the speech in question was advocating racial reconciliation, not racism, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack apologized to her and offered her a new job Wednesday. Gibbs also apologized publicly for the entire administration.Thursday morning, Obama spoke by phone with Sherrod and said he hoped she would accept Agriculture's offer of a new position, Gibbs said. He added that Obama thought Sherrod was very gracious.Sherrod said she hadn't decided whether she would accept the invitation to come back, but she did accept the apologies.

In an excerpt of an ABC News interview broadcast Thursday, Obama said Vilsack was too quick to seek Sherrod's dismissal.He jumped the gun, partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles, Obama said.The president said he's instructed my team to make sure that we're focusing on doing the right thing instead of what looks to be politically necessary at that very moment. We have to take our time and think these issues through.As top government officials begged for her forgiveness, Sherrod did not shy away from telling her story on television. She hopped from network to network, even chatting with the ladies of ABC's The View and letting CNN film part of her call with Obama as she traveled the streets of New York City in a car.Even the president of the United States had a hard time getting to Sherrod while she did interviews. Obama had tried to reach her twice Wednesday night but could not, said a White House official. She was on a plane traveling from Atlanta to New York, where she appeared on several morning shows.The fracas started when Sherrod was forced to resign as Georgia's director of rural development Monday after a conservative blogger posted a video of her telling a crowd at a local NAACP meeting about her initial reluctance 24years ago to help a poor white farmer seeking government assistance.

Sherrod took to the media Tuesday denying that her comments were racist, and the NAACP — which had at first condemned her remarks, then later apologized — posted the full 43-minute video showing the entire speech. The farmer in question also did interviews and said Sherrod had eventually helped him save his farm.Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart said he had posted a portion of Sherrod's remarks in an effort to illustrate that racism exists in the NAACP, an argument he was using to counter allegations by the civil rights organization of racism in the tea party movement.He was willing to destroy me ... in order to try to destroy the NAACP, Sherrod said Thursday. She said she might consider suing Breitbart for defamation.

Breitbart, who has not responded to requests for comment from The Associated Press, offered a narrow correction on his website, BigGovernment.com. He acknowledged that Sherrod's remarks about hesitating to help the white farmer referenced something that took place before she worked for the government. The site had previously said her comments were about her work as a USDA employee.Sherrod has said she resigned under White House pressure, but Vilsack has said repeatedly the decision was his. In offering his remorse Wednesday, he told reporters: This is a good woman. She's been through hell. ... I could have done and should have done a better job.As Obama stayed out of the public fray before the phone call, questions remained about White House involvement in the decision to ask Sherrod to resign. Had there been White House pressure? No, insisted Vilsack. He said he made the decision without knowing all the facts and regretted it.I am accepting the responsibility with deep regret, he told a news conference. Gibbs, too, has insisted the decision was made at the Agriculture Department. He told reporters that Obama spoke with Vilsack on Wednesday night, but he wouldn't discuss the substance of the conversation. Gibbs said he doesn't see any reason for Vilsack to resign. Associated Press writer Ben Evans contributed to this report.Online: Full video posted by NAACP: http://tinyurl.com/23jqz95

Leading Ocean Scientists Issue Consensus Statement to End Dispersant Use in Gulf, Call for Independent Research JULY 22,10

BLUE HILL, Maine, July 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --To break up crude oil unleashed by the Deepwater Horizon rig, BP has injected nearly two million gallons of Corexit chemical dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico. The massive volume of dispersants and the way they have been applied -- both on the surface and 5,000 feet beneath it -- is unprecedented. Once oil is dispersed in deep water, it cannot be recovered.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100722/DC39313LOGO)

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100722/DC39313LOGO)

Although the gusher is currently capped, deep concern about negative impacts the dispersant/crude oil mix will have on both the marine ecosystem and human health has prompted leading ocean scientists to issue a consensus statement that urges a halt to any further dispersant use in the Gulf.The statement, authored by Dr. Susan Shaw, Director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute, stands on a large body of research indicating that crude oil and dispersants are more toxic when they are combined than either oil or dispersants alone. The statement also calls for:Full public disclosure of all the chemical ingredients in the Corexit formulations and full toxicity data on these chemicals in combination with oil.Full public disclosure of information about adverse health effects and all monitoring and testing data collected by government agencies. Immediate funding for independent research to fully assess toxic impacts on the ecosystem and human health. The scientists believe the worst impacts of the disaster are yet to come, and without deliberate, independent scientific tracking and assessment, they could remain hidden.

Marine scientists and conservation organizations are invited to add their signatures to the document. It can be found on the website of the Marine Environmental Research Institute, www.meriresearch.org.

Initial signatories include:
Sylvia A. Earle, PhD, Ocean Explorer-in-Residence, National Geographic Society; Advisory Council Chairman, Harte Research Institute
Susan D. Shaw, DrPH, Marine Toxicologist, Director, Marine Environmental Research Institute
Carl Safina, PhD, President, Blue Ocean Institute
David Gallo, PhD, Oceanographer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
David Guggenheim, PhD, Marine Biologist/Conservationist, President, 1planet1ocean – a project of The Ocean Foundation
Edith Widder, PhD, President and Senior Scientist, Ocean Research & Conservation Association
Wallace J. Nichols, PhD, Research Associate, California Academy of Sciences

Inquiries from the press should be directed to:

Karen Coker, Marine Environmental Research Institute, kcoker@meriresearch.org, 207-374-2135

SOURCE Marine Environmental Research Institute.

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 FRI JULY 23,2010

09:30 AM -2.42
10:00 AM -30.05
10:30 AM +30.80
11:00 AM +12.90
11:30 AM +11.22
12:00 PM +14.00
12:30 PM +25.73
01:00 PM 17.71
01:30 PM +85.67
02:00 PM +87.34
02:30 PM +89.61
03:00 PM +107.70
03:30 PM +90.48
04:00 PM +102.32 10,424.62

S&P 500 1102.66 +8.99

NASDAQ 2269.47 +23.58

GOLD 1,187.10 -8.50

OIL 79.00 -0.30

TSE 300 11,714.20 +46.50

CDNX 1394.98 +6.56

S&P/TSX/60 683.67 +2.50

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -29 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -34 points at low today.
Dow +53 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,196.80.OIL opens at $78.57 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -34oints at low today so far.
Dow +113ints at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -34oints at low today.
Dow +113ints at high today.

GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,260.90 (NOT AT CLOSE)

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

Franco-German proposal attempts to side-step treaty change
ANDREW WILLIS Today JULY 22,10 @ 09:30 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - France and Germany have put forward a proposal that would enable greater political sanctions to be imposed on states that repeatedly break the EU's budgetary rules, but without the need for an immediate EU treaty change.In a joint letter to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, the two countries' finance ministers also call on member states to enact national laws to ensure budgetary responsibility, and appear to reject the European Commission's recent idea that financial sanctions be extended to all parts of the EU budget, including farm payments. Wednesday's letter (21 July) came after Wolfgang Schaeuble became the first German finance minister in recent times to attend a French cabinet meeting, a further sign that the two sides are keen to patch up their recent disagreements on how best to tackle Greece's debt crisis and the ensuing loss of confidence in the eurozone as a whole.Earlier this year, Mr Schaeuble presented EU finance ministers with an ideas paper calling for governments that repeatedly break the EU's budgetary rules to be stripped of their voting rights in Council of Ministers meetings in Brussels.But to date, the call has been largely opposed by Paris and other capitals, wary of embarking on another bout of EU treaty reform that such a move would likely necessitate. The latest initiative suggests neither side has changed their position, but proposes a temporary solution that could be hard to enforce.In the short-term, a non-binding political alternative could take the form of a political accord that would enable euro area member states either to bar an offending member state ... from taking part in specific votes or even specific deliberations, or to make a political commitment to neutralise the effect of that member's vote, Mr Schauble and Christine Lagarde wrote. Stunned by the eurozone's recent debt crisis that had some forecasting an imminent breakup of the 16-member currency club, European politicians have been scrambling to overhaul EU deficit and debt rules laid out in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP).

Tougher financial sanctions are also being considered as a means of enforcing stricter compliance, with a recent commission paper suggesting quicker and more automatic fines for fiscal miscreants, including the possibility of suspending all types of EU payments.The move is popular with states such as Poland who fear the current emphasis on cohesion funding could discriminate against the region's poorer states, but does not seem to have won the support of Paris and Berlin.The sanctions should be proportionate to the extent of non-compliance with the provisions of the Stability and Growth Pact. They should relate to cohesion policy (structural and regional funds),said Ms Lagarde and Mr Schauble.A French diplomat explained to EUobserver that Paris had not completely ruled out the idea of applying sanctions to farm handouts, with further discussion among the 27 EU states still possible.But as European farmers prepare themselves for a further reform to the bloc's agricultural policy post 2013, talk of suspended farm payments could prove potentially explosive in a number of member states.The finance duo also said that greater surveillance should be extended to private sector debt, identified as a key investor concern in the Spanish economy, where a low public sector debt going into the crisis was juxtaposed by the high level of liabilities held by many of the countries firms. The joint letter calls for various other components, largely already agreed by EU finance ministers who have met several times under the auspices of Mr Van Rompuy's task-force.Embattled German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be hoping that the new initiative will help to stifle criticism of her handling of the eurozone's debt dilemma, as a series of recent resignations expose further cracks in her centre-right coalition.

France and Germany to coordinate defence spending cuts
HONOR MAHONY Today JUNE 22,10 @ 09:25 CET

France and Germany are intending to co-ordinate defence spending cuts in a bid to ensure that joint programmes are not endangered by unilateral moves to rein in monies spent on military issues.According to a report in German daily Handelsblatt, German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg and his French counterpart Herve Morin on Wednesday (21 July) agreed in Paris to set up a working group to look into the matter, with a first meeting set for beginning of September.One of the themes of the group will be to see where savings can be made as well on major projects such as the building of the troubled A400m military transporter - already four years late and billions of euros over budget.We want to avoid that Germany or France take unilateral decisions that endanger common projects, said Mr Morin.Once considered a political taboo, a move to coordinate the streamlining of defence budgets among some member states is now something of a necessity as all governments tighten their belts in the face of the economic crisis.Both ministers also said they were convinced that a pan-European arms industry would develop. At the moment, there is a little co-ordination among member states, with governments spending differing amounts of GDP on defence and often investing in overlapping or similar programmes.

EU-UN co-operation

Meanwhile, the Irish Times has reported that Dublin is pushing for deeper EU military co-operation with the UN.In an informal paper presented to other member states, Ireland says the EU should look to how it can extend its support for the UN.
The paper suggests going beyond separate EU-led and UN-led missions to the concept of EU force components forming an integral component of a UN blue helmet operation.

Hungary tells IMF to take a hike
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today JULY 22,10 @ 09:30 CET

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is sticking to his government's position that the country will not impose further austerity measures and has said that there is no point in continuing talks with the International Monetary Fund.Hungary and the IMF had a deal, which expires in October. So there is no point in negotiating long-term questions with the IMF, the conservative Mr Orban said in Berlin on Wednesday (21 July) following a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.He said that the country should walk away from dealing with the international lender and negotiate only with the EU.Once it expires, we no longer have to negotiate with the IMF, but with the European Union ... We have to agree with the EU, not with the IMF, how we will reduce our budget deficit ... to less than three percent,he said.At the weekend, the IMF and the EU abruptly called off talks with Hungary over their review of Budapest's €20 billion bail-out, originally agreed in 2008. The two parties complained at the resistance on the part of Mr Orban's new administration to reducing the country's deficit to GDP ratio to below three percent in 2011.The prime minister's negotiators had tried persuade the EU-IMF team for some leeway in 2011 after agreeing to abide by this year's 3.8 percent of GDP goal.

Brussels and Washington also criticised Budapest for plans to impose a financial services and insurance firm levy, aiming to raise half a billion euros (187 billion forints), saying it would scare investors.The IMF said the levy is likely to adversely affect lending and growth.On Monday, the forint tumbled against the euro and the stock market slid. The next day, Hungary's borrowing costs climbed after a failed auction of government debt. Stocks and the forint have however since stabilised.Despite the pressure, Mr Orban appears unwilling to back down. Analysts believe he is keen to avoid what happened to the Socialist administration his Fidesz party trounced in the general election earlier this year. Having successfully slashed country's deficit from 9.3 percent of GDP in 2006 to 3.8 percent two years later through grinding austerity, the Socialists saw their support all but vanish.

Waiting in the wings, should Fidesz tumble, is the far right Jobbik party, who won 17percent in the same elections. Mr Orban is looking over his shoulder at the anti-gypsy but also anti-capitalist party, with local elections scheduled for October. Mr Orban appeared to win some support from Ms Merkel, who told reporters:Hungary in the long term must return to a stable footing. With a deficit of 3.8 percent it doesn't look that bad, although we have to look at next year,She did however side with the IMF and EU over the proposed financial services levy, saying that a similar EU proposal was intended to be used to create a rescue fund for future economic crises, and not for general government revenues.

Commission plugs nuclear fusion funding hole with EU research cash
LEIGH PHILLIPS 21.07.2010 @ 09:21 CET

An international project aimed at creating nuclear fusion energy that has met with runaway construction costs will receive a fresh injection of cash from the EU, with the European Commission diverting millions in research monies and other EU spending to plug the funding hole.The cost of building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter), a magnetic confinement fusion research project located in Cadarache, France, that is intended to provide a bridge between the lab and electricity-producing fusion power plants of the future, has expanded considerably since plans were first mooted.If successful, nuclear fusion is the perfect new energy source, as the process, the same as that which powers the sun, is produce from a fuel source that will not run out, is safe and does not produce radioactive waste or earth-warming carbon dioxide.But costs have soared far beyond original projects, to €16 billion at a time of draconian austerity measures almost everywhere, with the EU's share of the bill doubling.With EU member states unwilling to pay up, the commission has filled a €1.4 billion spending gap for 2012-13 by raiding the research funding budget.Some €460 million will redirected from the union's research programme and another €940 million will come from unspecified unspent EU funds.Iter can provide a safe, clean and inexhaustible source of energy for the future,said budget commissioner Janusz Lewandowski and research commissioner Maire Geoghegan-Quinn in a statement announcing the budgetary move.This is an immense prize.Despite its clean credentials, nuclear fusion is controversial amongst some greens, including the Green Party in the European Parliament, not for its effect on the environment, but for potentially diverting cash away from other cheaper renewable energy sources.A joint project between the EU, the US, Russia, Japan, China, India and South Korea, the plan had originally been to complete the experiment within 10 years. It is now thought results will not be achieved for another 30.

Vilna Gaon's Student's Grave Found on Mt. of Olives
by Hillel Fendel JULY 22,10

The discovery of a two-century old gravesite on the Mt. of Olives was particularly exciting for Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin, a descendant of a colleague of the deceased.The City of David (Ir David) Association, working to uncover the Ashkenazi section of the Mt. of Olives cemetery, discovered the gravesite under a pile of earth that covered it since the times of the Jordanians, between 1948 and 1967. The hand-chiseled gravestone states: This is the burial site of the holy pious one, R’ Saadiah Ashkenazi of holy blessed memory, died on the 25th of Av, 5513. The deceased is none other than the famous Rabbi Saadiah of Shklov, the top student of the Gaon of Vilna.Rabbi Saadiah immigrated to the Land of Israel, together with other students of the Vilna Gaon, at the behest of his teacher in 1809. Among others who immigrated at that time and created a strong Ashkenazi presence in the Holy Land were Rabbi Yisrael of Shklov, author of Pe’at HaShulchan, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov, for whom a street in Har Nof, Jerusalem is named, and Rabbi Hillel Rivlin of Shklov – ancestor of present-day Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin.

Speaker Rivlin paid a visit to the Mt. of Olives cemetery on Wednesday, and said that he was very moved to be standing at the gravesite of Rabbi Saadiah.It was Rabbi Saadiah who basically established the first Ashkenazi settlement in Jerusalem, Rivlin said. He was a legendary figure in my eyes, and the uncovering of his grave after 197 years under a landslide of earth is very moving and exciting for me.Rivlin lit a memorial candle at the site and recited several chapters of Psalms. He said that it is told about Rabbi Saadiah that his son, Natan Neta, became very ill, and Rabbi Saadiah prayed to G-d that he be taken sick instead. And so it happened: Within a few days, Rabbi Saadiah became ill, and died soon afterwards, while his son recovered and lived.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

PA Arabs Tell Pop Group: Don't Sing about Babylon
by Gil Ronen JULY 22,10

1970s disco group Boney M performed at Ramallah this week, but the local music festival prevented it from performing one of its biggest hits, because it mentioned the Jewish people's yearning for the Land of Zion, the Associated Press reported.

Lead singer Maizie Williams said Palestinian Authority concert organizers told her not to sing Rivers of Babylon.The organizers said they asked for the song to be skipped, because they found it inappropriate.The song's lyrics are a loose paraphrase from Psalm 137. They include the lines:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down;yea we wept, when we remembered Zion.
When the wicked Carried us away in captivity Required from us a song Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land.

Spokesmen for the PA, and for Arab countries in general, tend to vehemently deny the connection between the People of Israel and the Land of Israel. Yet the Bible – the book that Western civilization is built around – is rife with thousands of verses that establish the connection without a possible doubt. The Jews' yearning for Israel and the Divine commandment of settling in Israel is among the most central themes of the Holy Book, if not the most central one. Repeatedly in the Bible, G-d exhorts the Jews to obey his commandments or suffer banishment from the Holy Land.
Extremist Muslim and Arab culture seems to find this rock-solid fact increasingly unbearable in recent years, and seek to deny it to the world, and to themselves as well.I don't know if it is a political thing or what, but they asked us not to do it and we were a bit disappointed that we could not do it because we know that everybody loves this song no matter what, Williams said.I believe you should entertain wherever you are asked to entertain, whether it is Israel, whether it is Palestine, whether it is Lebanon, where ever it is, we go,she added.The band, which was hugely popular in Europe and Israel some 35 years ago, performed its other big hits for hundreds of fans at the Palestinian International Festival.The PA has been campaigning with some success to get international artists to stop giving concerts in Israel. The Pixies and Elvis Costello, among others, have canceled concerts in Israel following pressure from pro-PA groups. Elton John did not cancel his recent concert in Israel.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

Serious Dating at Mega-Event for Religious Anglo Singles
by Eli Stutz JULY 22,10

Micki Lavin-Pell thinks it's time that singles took their dating more seriously. She is the director of singles programming for Young Israel in Israel, and is also a marriage and family therapist. Israel National News spoke to her about one of the largest ever singles events in Jerusalem, the so called Mega-Event for Religious Anglos, Thursday July 29th.Lavin-Pell described the impetus for such a massive event, which is organized by the International Young Israel Movement. We want to create a venue so that religious English-speakers in Israel can meet in a way that is different than most other people meet. Many religious Anglos don’t like to go to parties and pubs. They would rather meet people in an environment that is conducive to meeting a person on a deeper level. Here, they will get to see someone in a place where they are not necessarily under the influence of alcohol, they have their head on their shoulders, and they are more serious.

There's more to the event, though, than just a better place for singles to meet. In addition to mixers and minglers, and a musical jamming performance by Yehoshua Rubin and Maury Epstein, there will be a workshop on how to date more successfully. We want to help people think about being more successful about their dating lives, says Lavin-Pell.The idea is to focus on what successful people do in their lives, and help these singles realize that if they apply some of those things to their lives on a regular basis and they may be more successful in their dating as well.When asked what kind of advice she has for singles, Levin-Pell says,One tip is to set goals for yourself, like you would for your career. If you invest in yourself, you'll be more successful. Also, if you look at yourself in a positive way, but acknowledge the negative things, then you'll be even more successful. I liken it to Roger Federer, who's the world's leading tennis star, but who doesn't ignore his weaknesses; rather, he deals with them. If you apply that to yourself, you'll be more successful in your dating.

Levin-Pell described the demographics of the expected attendees. The event is for religious Jewish English-speakers between the ages of 28 - 40, people who take themselves seriously, who are fun and easy going, but who have a strong sense of who they are and where they're going, mostly professionals. These are people who are willing to admit that they can do things better. About 300 are expected. There will be shadchanim (Jewish matchmakers) too, for people who are shyer.It's not just for extroverts. There will be lots of games that will help shyer people meet others. There will be situations that will help them meet a larger number of people. I can't say more without giving it away.When asked if there will be speed-dating, Levin-Pell says,we don't call it speed dating. She admits that there will be some, but that it will be done, in a less contrived, less speed-dating sort of way. Maybe less speedy.
Levin-Pell was emphatic about what makes a relationship succeed.When I help people understand what they loved about each other when they first got together, then that helps their relationship on the long term. I think it's really important that people communicate to themselves what they need and want in a relationship and then communicate that to their partners. If we can break through the fear to communicate from the get-go, we can get people to understand that they have to be open and know what they want in order to get what they want in a relationship.Jerusalem's Katamon neighborhood, where many of the singles live, is sometimes know as the swamp, alluding to the fact that a lot of singles seem to get stuck in a rut there. Levin-Pell says that can be overcome. I think that people create their own swamp and can surround themselves with their misery. But for people who are living a more uplifting life, who are inspired and have passion and desires and dreams and goals, then they're not in a swamp. It's really a state of mind.

Avi is a 37-year-old single who plans to attend next week's Mega-event. He's been living in Katamon since he made Aliyah four years ago from the Bronx, New York. Today he's self-employed, and is also into sports. Avi is no stranger to the dating scene. He yearns to find the right person and get married. Israel National News asked Avi about his experiences.INN: In what ways do you try to find your soul mate?
Avi: These days there are many different ways to meet people. You have Shabbat meals, setup dates, random parties, singles events, not to mention internet dating.
INN: Do people have a better chance these days, with all these new methods?
Avi: Ironically, it works the opposite. It seems like the more choices you have, the harder it is to choose.INN: Why is it hard to meet the right person? vi: I don't have all the answers. I think it gets harder as you get older. Part of it might be that there aren't too many choices. You don't want to make the wrong choice. You're not even able to. It's not like you bought an ice cream flavor you didn't like, so you just finished it and you're done with it. When it comes to making a choice that's going to affect the rest of your life, you're not able to make a choice that you think could be wrong.INN: Have you done a lot of dating? vi: There are times I did a lot of dating, other times less. In one case I dated a person for a period of a few months, almost a year.

INN: Do you get set up often? vi: When I came to Israel, I was starting over again. In America people knew me, and it's easier to set up a person when you know the person. When I came to Israel, it was hard to make good connections, because people didn't know me as well. There has to be a lot in common between the two people being set up, I believe.INN: Do you have hopes for this event? Avi Any time I try something, I always have some hope. If I had no hope I wouldn't go. Out of all the types of things I've done to improve my dating, this kind of event ranks somewhere in the middle.INN: Is it hard to make it in Israel as a single?Avi: It's a little harder as a single.INN: What are you looking for in a mate? Avi The number one thing is someone that I'm comfortable with. Someone with whom I feel at ease. I am also looking for someone with similar level of intelligence (however intelligent I am). I play a lot of sports, and would like to find someone who has appreciation for health and fitness. I played on a softball team at Kibbutz Gezer and I belong to a basketball group.

INN: What about religion?Avi: It's important to me. I'm looking for someone who keeps all the halachot (Jewish laws). I'm not Hareidi but I'm pretty strict.
INN: Why would someone want to date you?Avi: I'm intelligent. I'm a caring person. I think I try to be helpful to people. When I get close to people I try to understand them. I'm pleasant to be around. I'm pretty entertaining as well and I'm good with words and know how to be funny. I think I have a lot to offer.The Mega-Event takes place at an opportune time of the Jewish Calendar. It comes just three days after Tu B'Av, (the 15th of Av), a joyous holiday where traditionally, young Jewish men and women would go out to the fields and vineyards and find their matches.The event is co-organized by Yehoshua Rubin, a dating coach who heads the Ahava Rabba organization, and is partly funded by the Jewish Agency for Israel. Levin-Pell explained that the Jewish Agency realized that helping people find their mates will help them stay in Israel and therefore decided to support the event.
The Mega-Event is set to take place Thursday, July 29th 6 - 11 PM at the AACI building (37 Pierre Koenig Street, Talpiot, Jerusalem). The event is for single religious Jews aged 28- 40. There is a 40 shekel entrance fee.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

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.

Gulf storm threatens efforts to plug spill Kristen Hays And Anna Driver – JULY 22,10

HOUSTON (Reuters) – BP Plc oil spill workers in the Gulf of Mexico prepared for a possible evacuation on Thursday as a brewing tropical storm threatened more delays in efforts to end the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history.Some oil-skimming vessels came ashore as Gulf seas grew more choppy, and U.S. officials evaluated the growing threat from a tropical storm forming in the Caribbean near the Bahamas.Weather models project the storm will swirl across the Gulf near the site where crews are working to plug the spill before hitting the Louisiana or Texas coastline.Ships collecting seismic and acoustic data while the leak remains capped during a well pressure test and two rigs that had been drilling a pair of relief wells remain on site, BP said.There has been no evacuation of equipment, but that could change. Some skimmers have been coming in, command center spokeswoman Mary Kahn said.An evacuation could force a delay of 10 to 14 days in operations to end the spill, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said on Wednesday. Ships in the region need several days to disengage from the spill operation and head to safety.

The spill, triggered by an April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers, unleashed an environmental disaster in the Gulf, devastating the region's tourist and fishing industries.BP capped the blown-out well last week, choking off the flow of oil for the first time since the explosion. The company is conducting pressure tests to ensure the seal can hold, but those would be halted by an evacuation.Workers were close to completing a relief well designed to permanently plug the leak, but work has stopped to wait out the weather. BP also had been close to launching a static kill operation to pump heavy drilling mud and possibly cement into the well.Vice President Joe Biden was traveling to Alabama on Thursday to assess BP's efforts to counter the spill. He will meet with fishermen and small business owners from the area.The spill has sparked a crisis for British energy giant BP, which created a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the disaster. Company shares were up about 1.5 percent in morning trading in New York.A New York Times report on Thursday said workers on the doomed Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf expressed concern about safety practices in a confidential survey conducted a month before the oil rig exploded.In a survey commissioned by rig owner Transocean, workers said they often saw unsafe behaviors on the rig and indicated they feared reprisals if they reported mistakes or other problems, the Times said.The equipment assessment report cited at least 26 components and systems on the rig that were in bad or poor condition, the Times said.(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by David Storey)

Typhoon Chanthu lashes flood-hit China Peter Parks – Thu Jul 22, 9:35 am ET

CHONGQING, China (AFP) – Typhoon Chanthu lashed southern China on Thursday with punishing winds and heavy rain in the latest weather challenge for a country in which flooding has killed 700 people this year.Chanthu made landfall in Guangdong province with winds of up to 126 kilometres an hour (78 mph), as the nation grapples with its worst flooding in 10 years, which is expected to continue as the typhoon season gains pace.Chanthu's winds and rain were expected to rake Guangdong, the island province of Hainan and the Guangxi region with ferocious precipitation, the China Meteorological Administration warned.The typhoon made landfall near the city of Wuchuan. State-run television broadcast images of large waves crashing on to the Guangdong shore, trees flattened by wind and electric poles collapsed on to streets under pouring rain.It said electricity, telecommunications and water services were cut in some areas.Guangdong and Guangxi are among the areas already hit by torrential rains and flooding that has killed hundreds over the past several weeks and caused scores of rivers and lakes across the region to reach danger levels.At least 701 people have died from the beginning of the year to July 20, while 347 people remain missing, vice minister of water resources Liu Ning told reporters Wednesday.

The Civil Affairs Ministry said three million people have been evacuated.The flooding has intensified amid increasingly wet weather across several provinces since June. The ministry has said nearly 500 people have been killed or gone missing since July 1 alone.Liu warned of more misery to come as the typhoon season gets into gear, saying six to eight major typhoons were expected in the coming months.The weather administration warned people in Chanthu's westward-moving path to avoid unnecessary trips outdoors until the all-clear is given.At least two dozen flights in and out of Hainan's Haikou city were cancelled Thursday, airport officials announced.Elsewhere, the weather administration forecast light to moderate rain for the next three days across parts of China most affected by the recent flooding, including the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Anhui, and Yunnan.Liu said Wednesday that more than 230 rivers in the country had seen water levels rise beyond warning points, with two dozen exceeding historic highs.Tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed in floods and landslides, and economic losses have hit at least 142 billion yuan (21 billion dollars), he said. The deaths and damage are China's worst in a decade.The floods have dominated the country's attention for weeks, with state television each day broadcasting dramatic images of flood victims being rescued from raging rivers or plucked from rooftops in inundated villages.The situation has triggered fears China could see a repeat of disastrous 1998 floods, when heavy rain swelled the Yangtze, China's longest river, and many tributaries, leading to a series of devastating levee collapses.At least 4,150 people were believed killed, 18 million were evacuated and millions of homes destroyed in the country's worst floods in recent memory. Liu and other officials said the 2006 completion of the Three Gorges Dam -- which was built partly for flood control -- and other flood-control projects since then would prevent such a recurrence. And in a sign of slightly improving conditions, the dam, which was closed for more than three days amid heavy water flow, reopened to vessels on Thursday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Tropical Storm Bonnie moving toward oil spill By JUAN McCARTNEY, Associated Press Writer - JULY 22,10

NASSAU, Bahamas – Tropical Storm Bonnie steamed through the central Bahamas on Thursday night while tracking a course that could take it over the site of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.Rain and lightning raked the low-lying Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas, and forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm could reach the Gulf of Mexico by Saturday.On Thursday evening, the center said Bonnie had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph), and was centered about 165 miles (265 kilometers) southeast of the Bahamian capital of Nassau. It already had caused flooding in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.Capt. Stephen Russell, director of the Bahamian National Emergency Management Agency, said there were no reports of major damage, flooding or injuries on islands in the southeastern and central Bahamas already passed by the storm. The storm wasn't yet clear of the most heavily populated islands in the northeast, including New Providence and Grand Bahama.We are advising everyone to remain vigilant throughout the night and early morning when the storm exits the Bahamas, Russell said.A broken oil well has spewed somewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons into the Gulf before a cap could be attached. The crisis — the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history — unfolded after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.Some experts worry the hurricane season could worsen environmental damage from the spill, with powerful winds and large waves pushing oil deeper into estuaries and wetlands and also depositing more of the pungent, sticky mess on beaches.As the storm advanced Thursday, people stocked up on water and food in the southern Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, island chains that are well-accustomed to rough weather. Many businesses remained open, but schools were already closed for the summer.Shannelle Lightbourne, 27, shopped at a market in the island of Providenciales in Turks and Caicos after hearing warnings that it would rain heavily.

I am stocking up what I can, she said. I may not be able to leave my house.Donna Musgrove, a businesswoman in Providenciales, said some streets were flooded.It's raining from one end of the island to the other,she said. The skies are completely dark.The storm did not pose a threat to tourist resorts in the islands.Tourist Ezra Uzzel, 45, of North Carolina, said he would not cut short his two-week vacation in the Turks and Caicos.This if our third day, and if the reports are right, by the weekend we should have good weather again, he said.Residents in the southeastern Bahamas endured heavy rains and copious lightning, but no damages or injuries had been reported. Officials with the Emergency Operations Center said they would travel to the area with basic supplies as soon as the weather improved.Julius Bonaby, 47, of Bahamas' Crooked Island, said he went to the grocery store early Thursday and spent most of the day listening to radio weather reports with his wife and two children.There's a lot of wind, he said.We're hoping it'll pass over.A tropical storm warning was issued for the central and northwestern Bahamas, for Florida's east coast south of Golden Beach and also along Florida's west coast northward to Bonita Beach. The system was expected bring heavy winds and rains to the Florida Keys in the next few days, but emergency officials said they were not planning any mandatory evacuations since they did not expect a major storm surge. As a precaution, storm shelters will open for tourists and residents who live on boats or have special needs.U.S. forecasters said slow strengthening of the storm was possible during the next 48 hours.In the Dominican Republic, where roughly 1,500 people were evacuated, rice fields were destroyed and 14 communities left isolated after bridges collapsed. A 14-year-old boy died in Puerto Rico on Sunday after drowning in a swollen river.Haiti's Department of Civil Protection reported minor flooding in the northern Artibonite region but no injuries or major damage. Associated Press Writer Vivian Tyson in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, contributed to this report.

Judge approves $550 million Goldman settlement Larry Neumeister, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 20, 8:17 pm ET

NEW YORK – A federal judge on Tuesday approved the deal calling for Goldman Sachs & Co. to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges that the Wall Street giant misled buyers of mortgage-related investments.The agreement approved by U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones in Manhattan contained the largest penalty against a Wall Street firm in the history of the Securities and Exchange Commission.Announced last week, it calls for Goldman to pay a $535 million fine and $15 million in restitution of fees it collected. It also requires $300 million to be paid to the government and $250 million to be set aside to compensate two European banks that lost money on their investments.Karen Patton Seymour, a lawyer for Goldman Sachs, declined to comment on the approval.We are pleased with the court's approval of this settlement,said Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC Division of Enforcement.In the judge's order, Jones wrote that she was not ordering Goldman Sachs to pay a civil penalty beyond the $535 million, but was continuing to preside over the case to ensure the terms of the agreement were carried out.

She noted that Goldman Sachs, which did not admit liability, nevertheless agreed to cooperate fully with the government by producing documents and other materials and by making its employees available for interviews. The company also promised to require its employees to testify at trial and other judicial proceedings that may occur.Final approval of the settlement came on the same day that Goldman Sachs announced an 83 percent drop in second-quarter net income.Goldman Sachs Group Inc. blamed its earnings fall on a rough spring for the financial markets, and it included in the quarter the $550 million charge for the settlement with the SEC.The SEC filed a civil case against Goldman in April as it flexed its muscles against Wall Street following a series of embarrassments, including the agency's failure over two decades to detect that financier Bernard Madoff was stealing billions of dollars from his clients while portraying himself as among America's financial elite. Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence after last year admitting the fraud.The SEC had accused Goldman of selling mortgage securities without telling buyers that they had been created with input from a client that was betting on them to fail. The securities cost investors close to $1 billion while helping the Goldman client capitalize on the housing collapse, the SEC charged.In its settlement, Goldman acknowledged that its marketing materials for the deal at the center of the SEC charges omitted important information for buyers.The SEC has said its case continues against Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman vice president accused of shepherding the deal.Tourre filed documents Monday with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York asking the court to throw out the case. He denies he made any materially misleading statements or omissions, or behaved wrongly in connection to complex mortgage-linked securities called collateralized debt obligations.

Euro gains ground on upbeat data
Thu Jul 22, 7:14 am ET

LONDON (AFP) – The European single currency rose on Thursday, the day before publication of stress-tests on the ability of EU banks to withstand shocks, while traders were reassured by data from the eurozone.In morning trading, the shared eurozone unit advanced to 1.2824 dollars, up from 1.2757 dollars in New York late on Wednesday.Against the Japanese currency, the dollar weakened to 86.64 yen from 87.07 yen on Wednesday.An important leading indicator of economic activity, the purchasing managers' index for the 16-nation eurozone, accelerated for the first time for three months in July, research showed on Wednesday.The purchasing managers' index (PMI) compiled by data and research group Markit rose to 56.7 in July, from 56.0 in June. Any score above the 50-point line indicates economic growth.Although the market remains focused on global concerns over US growth and recent rumours over European banks stress tests results, the upside surprise in PMIs appears the have given a boost to the euro, said Credit Agricole CIB analyst Frederik Ducrozet.Elsewhere, the safe-haven yen was higher on Thursday, lifted by risk aversion amid worries about the US economic outlook and Europe's banking stress tests.Sentiment was hit after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday that the prospects for the world's biggest economy remained unusually uncertain.The stress-test results, due to be issued in London on Friday, are designed to assess the capacity of major European lenders to withstand economic or financial crises.Euro/dollar has pushed higher (on Thursday) as various European banks, including one or two in Greece and Portugal, expressed confidence about their performances in the EU stress tests,added Forex.com analyst Jane Foley.

The results of these tests are not due to be published until 1600 GMT tomorrow, although there is some pressure to bring forward the publication.The London-based Committee of European Banking Supervisors will to publish the results of tests done by national regulators on 91 European Union institutions that represent 65 percent of the EU banking sector.In addition to the 16-nation eurozone, banks in Britain, Denmark, Hungary, Poland and Sweden have been checked to see if they are sufficiently capitalised to withstand shocks such as those that caused the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.In trading in London, the euro changed hands at 1.2824 dollars against 1.2751 dollars on Wednesday, at 111.12 yen (111.90), 0.8401 pounds (0.8409) and 1.3343 Swiss francs (1.3400).The dollar stood at 86.64 yen (87.07) and 1.0406 Swiss francs (1.0506).The pound was at 1.5265 dollars (1.5162).On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold eased to 1,191.25 dollars an ounce from 1,191.50 dollars an ounce on Wednesday.

Debt-laden Dubai World tries to win over creditors Adam Schreck, Ap Business Writer – JULY 22,10

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Dubai World formally presented its $23.5 billion restructuring plan to scores of creditor banks Thursday as it seeks closure to its months-old debt crisis, but made clear that wrangling over the deal could grind on for some time.The meeting was the first full gathering of the struggling conglomerate's lenders since it outlined its financial rescue proposal earlier this year. It was held in the luxury coral-pink Atlantis hotel on the city-state's manmade Palm Jumeirah island — itself one of the big-ticket projects Dubai World spent billions on before its finances turned sour.The closed-door session was a chance for the indebted state-owned firm to present its proposal and answer questions from creditors, according to an official speaking on behalf of the company. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with company policy, said agreement on the deal was likely some months away.As is customary at this stage of the process, this was an informational session and no resolution was sought in the meeting, Dubai World said in a brief statement following the gathering. Creditor banks will now have the opportunity to review the information provided before responding to the proposal.Dubai World is seeking to win over 73 creditor banks to the restructuring plan it outlined in March.The proposal offers creditors full repayment on the principal of their outstanding loans over a five to eight year period, and gives them a range of repayment options. Some bankers have criticized the interest being offered, starting at 1 percent, as too low and below market rates.

We are not happy of course,Suresh Vaidyanathan, head of operations at Bahrain-based Alubaf Arab International Bank, said as he left the meeting. He cited concerns about the low prices and repayment guarantees being offered, and said the proposal depends on the company's ability to keep up its cash flow. But he acknowledged that his bank may need to take the offer on the table anyway.We don't want to be left out, he said.
Most other bankers attending the meeting declined to comment.Dubai World already has the support of seven core banks owed about 60 percent of the debt. They formed a coordinating committee to thrash out the broad terms of a repayment deal, which they agreed to in principal in May.The committee's international members are Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, HSBC Holdings PLC, Lloyds Banking Group PLC, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and Standard Chartered PLC. Local lenders Emirates NBD and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank are also part of the group.Dubai World said it will carry about $14.4 billion in bank debt if the restructuring plan goes ahead.The conglomerate's acute credit problems shocked world markets last November, reminding investors that the world's financial system remains exposed to immense amounts of debt that might not be repaid in full. Financial problems at the conglomerate — which has interests in businesses including ports, real estate and tourism — also raised fresh concerns about the lack of transparency in the oil-rich Gulf region.

The company's main real estate arm, Nakheel, met with its own set of creditors last week as it works to dig out from under $10.5 billion in debt. Nakheel is the developer responsible for building a series of islands shaped like palm trees and a map of the world off Dubai's coast.The sheikdom's financial problems don't stop with Dubai World. The International Monetary Fund estimates the emirate of Dubai and its web of state-linked companies are shouldering as much as $109 billion in debt.

Gaza tunnel smugglers cutting through Egypt's wall By KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 22, 4:12 pm ET

RAFAH, Gaza Strip – A Palestinian tunnel smuggler with a blowtorch sliced through an underground steel wall early Thursday, the latest of what officials say are hundreds of holes cut into the Egyptian barrier meant to stop smuggling of goods, cash and weapons to the blockaded, Hamas-run Gaza Strip.Smugglers say the wall was never a serious obstacle, and they are far more worried about competition from consumer goods being brought to Gaza legally, now that Israel has eased its closure of the Palestinian territory.Rare Associated Press Television News footage showed the smuggler breaching the wall.Look at what they call the best iron in the world, he said, his face covered by a black-and-white headscarf as he rested near the new opening. We melt it like cheese. He refused to give his name for fear of retribution from Egyptian authorities.The wall is seen as Egypt's most ambitious attempt to stop smuggling through the hundreds of tunnels that run under its 9-mile-long (15-kilometer-long) border with Gaza, a Palestinian territory sealed by Israel and Egypt since the violent Hamas takeover in 2007.The tunnels have been a lifeline for the Islamic militants, keeping them supplied with cash and weapons, while delivering consumer goods to Gaza's shops.Since work on the wall began last year, smugglers have cut hundreds of holes into the barrier of side-by-side steel planks that plunge about 60 feet (20 meters) into the ground, said two Egyptian security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

The barrier is to stretch along six miles (10 kilometers) of the border, where the tunnels are concentrated, and is more than half complete.Smugglers have bragged in recent months that they are able to cut through the wall, but Thursday marked a rare occasion when they were filmed in action.Before dawn, five tunnel workers walked about 200 yards (meters) from Gaza through a narrow underground passage just high enough for the men to stand until they reached the dead end of the steel barrier.The smuggler with the blow torch later said it was the third time he cut through the wall, and he expected the tunnel to resume operations within two days.Smugglers have raised the possibility that Egypt would try flooding the passages with water, though Egyptian officials have not confirmed such a plan.

It may not be necessary.

Tunnel activity has slowed in recent weeks, as smugglers try to gauge the impact of Israel's easing of the blockade in the wake of a deadly raid of a blockade-busting flotilla bound for Gaza in late May. The killing of nine Turkish activists aboard one of the ships prompted an international outcry, and Israel came under growing pressure to open Gaza's borders.Egypt also decided to ease its closure after the flotilla raid, opening its borders to restricted travel and limited humanitarian convoys. The move restored a link to the outside world for at least some of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians.Under the old blockade rules, only basic food and medicine were allowed into Gaza. In a first step after the flotilla, Israel decided to let in most consumer goods but said Gazans would continue to be banned from travel and exporting for the time being.For now, several smugglers say they are scaling back business or importing those items still restricted by Israel, including cement, steel and other construction supplies.One tunnel owner, who would give only an alias, Abu Kamal, said he is only using one of two tunnels at the moment because of a drop in business. He said one of his tunnels was blocked by the wall, but he managed to cut through it. Another, Hassan Geshto, said it cost him only about $400 to hire a crew to break through the steel wall when it blocked off his tunnel a month and a half ago. But he, too, has stopped working, because he says he can't profit enough from shipments to pay his workers. The metal wall has brought work for the blacksmiths of Gaza, he joked. But to us, the wall means nothing. If they build it down to 40 meters, we will dig to 50 meters. But once Israel completely opens the crossings into Gaza, the tunnels will die alone.Over the years, both Israel and Egypt have tried in vain to halt the smuggling. During Israel's nearly four decades of military occupation of Gaza, Israeli soldiers frequently searched the Gaza-Egypt border area for tunnels, often razing homes to expose tunnel entrances. After Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, Egypt came under growing pressure from Israel and the U.S. to halt the smuggling, particularly the flow of weapons to Hamas.Egypt has adopted an often contradictory approach to Gaza. It has been trying to contain the Islamic militants on its doorstep, but it also wants to avoid blame in the Arab and Muslim world for cooperating with Israel in maintaining the blockade.Associated Press writers Ben Hubbard in Ramallah, West Bank, and Maggie Michael and Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.

CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL 2ND WAVE OF WW3

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)

On North Korea and More, China Flexes Its Muscles By ISHAAN THAROOR TIME JULY 22,10

On Sunday, 20 U.S. and South Korean ships, more than 100 aircraft and some 8,000 personnel will take part in a four-day series of war games in waters off the Korean peninsula. There's little ambiguity about the purpose of these exercises, which are taking place in the shadow of a hostile North Korea that's allegedly responsible for the March sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean warship. [The war games] are designed to send a clear message to North Korea that its aggressive behavior must stop,said U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at an American base outside Seoul on July 20. In turn, the North Koreans issued a statement decrying what they deemed very dangerous saber-rattling.But Pyongyang is not alone in voicing its discontent. In recent weeks, a growing chorus of protest has come from Beijing, stoked in part by nationalist sentiment at home. A July 8 editorial in the Global Times, a Chinese state-run English-language newspaper, said the exercises could be interpreted as a direct threat to [Beijing's] territorial waters and coastline.China reportedly completed its own coastal-defense drill, dubbed Warfare 2010,on July 20. Government officials, both civilian and military, have issued a series of statements expressing a thinly veiled opposition to the planned U.S.–South Korean mobilization, and have warned against any interference in China's backyard. Earlier in June, tempers flared at a high-level regional defense summit in Singapore that was attended by Gates and counterparts from the Chinese top brass; American frustration with China's coddling of the North Koreans was met with rhetoric condemning U.S. meddling elsewhere in the region. An invitation for Gates to visit Beijing was rescinded.

China is North Korea's most important ally and trade partner, and Beijing went out of its way to soften a recent Security Council resolution that sought to punish Pyongyang for its supposed attack on the Cheonan that killed 46 South Korean sailors. Yet ultimately, experts say, current Chinese posturing is just the surface tension of a far greater and slower geopolitical shift. For decades along this rim of the Pacific, a de facto Pax Americana has reigned - U.S. bases and carrier groups guaranteed security for a number of nations finding their feet after World War II, keeping sea lanes open and allowing trade to flourish. But that implicit hegemony is being steadily challenged by an ascendant China, charged by a feeling of historical grievance and an eagerness to assert itself on the global stage. There's no question that the Chinese have a sense that they've been putting up with things for decades that have rankled them,says Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu. Now, they are starting to push back.China's new confidence can be seen in a range of arenas - from the economic clout gained from its vast foreign-exchange coffers to its ever lengthening diplomatic reach to its stubbornness on a host of global issues like climate change - but nowhere is this push-back more conspicuous than with the Chinese military, or People's Liberation Army (PLA). Though still a fraction of the U.S.'s own outlay, PLA spending has more than doubled in the past decade. In particular, Beijing has sought to beef up its blue-water navy, building a sophisticated submarine fleet, installing antiship ballistic missiles on a number of its vessels, improving its cybermilitary technologies and setting up a string of listening posts from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean. The keel of the first PLA navy aircraft carrier will be laid this year. This new suite of Chinese capabilities has no other purpose than to neutralize the U.S. presence in the Western Pacific,says Andrew Shearer, director of studies at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, Australia.China wants to maximize its power in Asia and, in the long term, squeeze out U.S. influence, island chain by island chain.

Analysts play down talk of a serious confrontation - the U.S. is still streaks ahead in its ability to project power across the planet and, with their economies so interlocked, disruptive conflict is in neither side's interest. But Washington can no longer take for granted its longstanding freedom to maneuver and deploy its forces in international waters, especially when it is perceived to threaten Chinese interests. Over the past couple of years, there have been a string of standoffs between U.S. surveillance vessels and Chinese ships in and around the South China Sea - a contested body of water that China considers almost as intrinsic to its sovereignty as Tibet or the island of Taiwan, despite the maritime claims of over a half dozen other countries. Now, says Ralf Emmers, an expert on maritime security at the Rajarantam School of International Studies in Singapore, China's increasing power is forcing other countries in the region to prepare for a scenario of Chinese dominance.In the past year, regional powers such as India, Vietnam, Australia and even countries with U.S. bases like Japan and South Korean have all taken significant measures to upgrade their navies; an Asia-Pacific arms race is on the cards. While the U.S. remains the preeminent force in the Pacific, Chinese officials are able to plan half a century down the line.If it was up to the Navy, I don't think the U.S. would see any sense in conceding its hegemony in the future,says Roy of the East-West Center.That would be the result only of a political decision.But, with American politics hobbled by recession, unemployment and wars in West Asia, it's no surprise that governments elsewhere may not be counting entirely on Washington's supremacy.This shift to a more multi-polar world, as the wonkish parlance goes, is not by itself a cause for gloom. The problem, say security analysts, is a lack of transparency on the part of the Chinese military. Militaries in general are very opaque organizations, but the PLA is even more so. No one knows its intentions,says Emmers. Quite a bit of work is needed for [the Pentagon and PLA] literally to get to know each other.

Even with healthier dialogue, some suggest a deeper ideological impasse. The success of China's authoritarian capitalist model, whose influence has spread to the shores of Africa and Latin America, has led to many commentators prophesying a new Beijing Consensus toppling the global status quo.The problem with China is that its international behavior is often not moderated by a spirit of democracy or transparency,says Shearer of the Lowy Institute. It's not the first time the U.S. has had to reckon with a world power whose values seem fundamentally different. As American troops train in the last remaining theater of the Cold War, the specter of a new and far more uncertain type of confrontation flickers nearby.