Monday, October 18, 2010

NATO EDGES CLOSER TO STRATEGIC CONCEPT

LORD MONCKTON ON WORLD GOVERNMENT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHyMYEzRyf8&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUUcb36a_4I&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA0xEM1KwG4&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7o1S4m5mCw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieC7HYC5cto&feature=player_embedded
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie5LVcmObI8&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOwjrTS4WXc&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2imb_XIuP-0&feature=player_embedded
GERALD CELENTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhRiVLUdx-M&feature=player_embedded
ALEX JONES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMUXvmPbuDE&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d6RQdIKgaM&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17CZXjuNZZw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0E8tIMUUiw&feature=player_embedded
RON PAUL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJEbFI03BNA&feature=player_embedded

ALEX JONES SHOWS THIS WEEK
ALEX JONES WEEKLY SHOWS AFTER 3PM
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101017_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101018_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101019_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101020_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101021_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101022_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101024_Sun_Alex.mp3

IF THE GOVERNMENT HAD THESE IDEAS BACK IN THE COLD WAR.JUST THINK NOW WITH WORLD GOVERNMENT HOW ANYBODY IN CANADA CAN BE DETAINED TO SHUT THEM UP ABOUT TRYING TO TALK OUT AGAINST WORLD GOVERNMENT CONTROL FREAKS.

Secret Cold War plan included mass detentions
Last Updated: Thursday, October 14, 2010 | 12:31 AM ET .CBC News


PROFUNC was a top-secret plan to detain thousands of Canadians, if needed, in the event of a national emergency. (CBC)At the height of the Cold War, the Canadian government crafted a top-secret plan to detain thousands of citizens with Communist links in the event of a national security threat, according to a joint CBC/Radio-Canada investigation.The secret contingency plan, called PROFUNC, allowed police to round up and indefinitely detain Canadians believed to be Communist sympathizers.The CBC's The Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada's Enquête investigative programs have unearthed troubling details about PROFUNC, which stands for PROminent FUNCtionaries of the Communist Party.

ENEMIES OF THE STATE:
Watch the full report on Radio-Canada's Enquête at 8 p.m ET Thursday and on CBC's The Fifth Estate at 9 p.m. ET Friday.The investigation has discovered that information gathered under PROFUNC's mandate may have been used during the 1970 October Crisis, when Canada invoked the War Measures Act and suspended civil liberties to end escalating violence sowed by the Front de Libération du Québec, known as the FLQ.PROFUNC is believed to be one of the most draconian national security programs in Canada's peacetime history.First devised in 1950 by RCMP Commissioner Stuart Taylor Wood, PROFUNC listed some 16,000 suspected Communists and 50,000 sympathizers who would have to be watched, and possibly interned, in a national security emergency.Under the plan, targets on the list could be detained indefinitely, subject to severe discipline, and shot if they tried to escape detention.The blacklist included prominent Canadian public figures — men and women, and their children — whose identities were kept hidden in sealed envelopes filed at Mountie detachments across the country. Files included personal details such as age, physical description, photos, vehicle information, and housing, even the location of doors to be used in potential escapes.The files were regularly updated until the PROFUNC's demise in the early 1980s, prompted by administrative changes introduced by Robert Kaplan, Canada's solicitor general at the time.

October Crisis suspects not just FLQ sympathizers
CBC and Radio-Canada have learned that PROFUNC's blacklist may have been used to bolster the number of suspects rounded up during the October Crisis 40 years ago, many of whom had no connection to FLQ activities.Daniel Waterlot, who used to manage a Communist bookstore in Montreal, was arrested during the October Crisis. (Radio-Canada)The October Crisis was triggered by a pair of political kidnappings orchestrated by two separate FLQ cells, British trade commissioner James Richard Cross, and, later, Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, who was eventually murdered.Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act on Oct. 16, in a bold attempt to stamp out the FLQ and resolve the kidnappings. With civil liberties suspended, police and army troops fanned out on the streets of Ottawa and Montreal to restore order.Retired Lt. Julien Giguère was head of Montreal police's anti-terrorism squad at the time.We had some names of FLQ sympathizers, said Giguère in an exclusive interview with Radio-Canada's Enquête program.The Sureté du Québec [SQ, provincial police] added some names.There were at most 60 names on the initial police list after the War Measures Act was invoked, Giguère said.CBC/Radio-Canada has learned that Quebec's provincial police, thought that list was too short, given the extreme measures implemented by Trudeau. So the RCMP stepped in, offering to add names to the list of roundup targets.As many as 500 people ended up in arrest in the hours following the War Measures Act was invoked including many with no known links to the FLQ.They came into my library and they broke everything, said Daniel Waterlot, who managed a Communist bookstore called Livres et périodiques progressistes in Montreal's St-Henri district at the time of the October Crisis. Me, I wasn't an FLQ, I was with the Communist Party. It's not the same thing.Waterlot's thick RCMP file contains no references to any FLQ activity. But CBC/Radio-Canada has found evidence that Waterlot was on the PROFUNC arrest list.With files from Enquête, the Fifth Estate Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/10/13/profunc-canadian-communist-blacklist.html#ixzz12jBm89vy

Scientific American: Kill More Babies To Save Earth Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com October 18, 2010

http://www.infowars.com/scientific-american-kill-more-babies-to-save-earth/

Image: D Sharon Pruitt

Following the leak of a United Nations blueprint which outlined the plan to replace fearmongering about global warming with the contrived threat of overpopulation, a Scientific American report mimics precisely that talking point, pushing the notion that programs of mass abortion and birth control need to be encouraged in order to reduce the amount of humans on the planet exhaling carbon dioxide.Ultimately, family planning alone – such as the use of condoms and other reproductive health services – in parts of the world with growing populations, including the U.S., could restrain population growth significantly, this analysis finds,writes David Biello.To back up his argument, Biello links to an article by the completely discredited eugenicist Paul Ehrlich, who once stated that everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam.

Ehrlich, who co-authored Ecoscience with White House Science Czar John P. Holdren, the textbook that advocates putting drugs in the water supply to sterilize people, mandatory forced abortions, and a tyrannical eco-fascist dictatorship run by a planetary regime, is infamous for his spectacularly inaccurate predictions about how overpopulation would destroy the environment.The article cited by Biello advocates a mass public relations campaign targeted at women to encourage them to have abortions in order to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In other words, more babies need to be killed to prevent them from exhaling CO2. Coincidentally, the cover of the Scientific American issue in which the article appears features a set of human skulls.As we revealed in a report last month, the true agenda behind fanning the flames of fears about overpopulation is to reduce living standards globally, by preventing the third world from ever becoming economically prosperous, while also eviscerating the middle classes of western nations.A leaked UN blueprint concerning the need to re-energize the move towards global government outlined a plan to re-brand global warming as overpopulation as a means of dismantling the middle classes while using global redistribution of wealth and increased immigration to reinvigorate the pursuit of a one world government.The aim of globalist institutions is to limit and redirect the aspirations for a better life of rising middle classes around the world,in other words to reduce the standard of living for the middle classes in Western Europe and America.Similarly, in his report, Biello decries the potential that richer people would lead to more consumption, once again revealing the eugenicist fervor that environmentalists embrace in deliberately preventing the third world from lifting itself out of poverty and mass starvation.

In reality, whenever a country is allowed to develop and become more prosperous, population figures drop naturally, underscoring the fact that environmentalists do not really care about the threat posed by overpopulation, their primary concern is the threat posed to the elite by a stronger middle class globally.Environmental controls which prevent third world nations from developing infrastructure are fueling overpopulation, starvation and misery, which is precisely how the elitists want it to remain.Warnings about the threat posed by overpopulation are fundamentally flawed. In reality, underpopulation will be seen as the biggest danger to human prosperity in the latter half of the 21st century.The UN’s own figures clearly indicate that population is set to stabilize in 2020 and then drop dramatically after 2050. As the Economist reported, Fertility is falling and families are shrinking in places— such as Brazil, Indonesia, and even parts of India—that people think of as teeming with children. As our briefing shows, the fertility rate of half the world is now 2.1 or less—the magic number that is consistent with a stable population and is usually called the replacement rate of fertility. Sometime between 2020 and 2050 the world’s fertility rate will fall below the global replacement rate.Of course, the globalist agenda to reduce world population by as much as 80% in the name of saving the environment, a figure achievable only via draconian and genocidal measures, has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with whittling down the number of slaves so that they can be more easily controlled on the plantation.Holdren and Ehrlich’s eco-fascist plan to sterilize people through the water supply is already taking effect, as global sperm counts drop and gender-bending chemicals pollute our rivers and lakes, while feminizing antiandrogens are sprayed on our food in the form of pesticides.Global sperm counts have dropped by a third since 1989 and by half in the past 50 years. The rate of decline is only accelerating as more and more couples find it harder to have children. In studies of white European men, the rate of decline is as much as 50 per cent in the last 30 years. In Italy, this equates to a native population reduction of 22 per cent by 2050. Population reduction is already occurring amongst native residents in many areas of Europe and America.The agenda to reduce global population, a process that could naturally be achieved by alleviating third world poverty and lifting the living standards of people worldwide, is instead being enacted through the deliberate mass poisoning of our food and water supplies.

In addition, governments are already developing neutron bombs that destroy humans but not buildings, for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world, according to a 2007 British Ministry of Defence report, which predicted that their use could lead to the application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues.As the video below demonstrates, overpopulation is a myth. Globalists and their eugenicist minions have misrepresented population statistics for decades in order to justify their agenda to wipe out large portions of the population. If this genocidal agenda continues, humanity will go the way of the Brontosaurus.

U.S. Debt Woes Expose Hidden Austerity and Looting of Public Assets
Eric Blair Activist Post October 18, 2010


The austerity sharks are circling their wounded prey. The U.S. economy continues to collapse amid dwindling stimulus funds, while states are barely able to keep their heads above water. In addition to cutting vital services to taxpayers, and seeking tax increases, some states are also selling off public assets in the politically acceptable name of privatization. This mass looting is happening just below the surface where the public, buried by their own individual problems, can hardly tell that it is happening.In June of this year Bloomberg reported that 46 states were facing bankruptcy with Greek-style deficits, where Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, was quoted as saying that States are going to have to cut back spending and raise taxes the same way Greece and Spain are.The article goes on to say:State budget woes are a worsening drag on growth as the federal government tries to wean the economy from two years of extraordinary support. By Jan. 1, funds from the $787 billion federal stimulus bill will dry up. That money from Washington has helped cushion state budgets as tax revenue has plunged.State leaders won’t be able to ride out this cycle the way they have in the past. The budget holes are too large. For the first time since 1962, sales and income tax revenue fell for five straight quarters, through December 2009, according to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York at Albany.

Despite the fact that average American citizens, much like the Greeks, had nothing to do with creating these massive budget holes, their Social Security is being raided, and public pensions have been invested in derivatives and other toxic time-bomb financial instruments. Now, they will surely face austerity measures of similarly reduced benefits and services accompanied by increased taxes to absorb the damage.Although spending cuts and smaller government through privatization might make sense when faced with growing deficits, we must be aware that austerity measures can also hide in the shadows of privatization.Some politicians are touting the privatization of public services and assets as part of the economic solution. However, the public is being left out of the discussion about which services will be affected, what public assets are being sold, who is getting contracts or purchasing assets and, finally, to what benefit to the people. Given the self-serving track record of a crony corporate State, we can only assume the worst — that none of these actions will actually benefit average Americans, but only provide continued cover for more looting.After generations of taxpayer-funded construction of buildings, highways, hospitals, jails, public water systems and the like, cash-strapped states are increasingly looking to sell off assets in order to meet budget shortfalls. This trend seems to be led by Governors like Chris Christie (R-NJ), with many candidates like Meg Whitman of California saying his privatization model for New Jersey is just what the doctor ordered for California. Meanwhile, California recently announced the sale of 24 government buildings to a private equity firm, following the Economic Hitman methodology where deliberately-suffocating public debt results in financial institutions ending up with all of the real assets at an extreme bargain.Privatization can actually cost the government more in many cases, yet result in reduced pay and benefits for workers — a hidden form of austerity to be sure. Even seemingly innocent privatization of things like toll booths and zoos, appears to be nothing more than austerity ploys by the government absolving itself from providing benefits like healthcare. Incidentally, now that 29 of the largest private employers in the U.S. are conveniently exempt from the new healthcare mandates, it is likely that “Toll Booth Willie” will lose his benefits when his station is privatized. Greek austerity protesters stormed the Acropolis for less.

In turn, privatization of public assets is taking place during a time of severe economic distress, therefore these assets rarely fetch their true value for the taxpayer. As John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural address: Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.Too often we are being forced to negotiate out of fear — fear of losing our job or benefits, our home, our retirement savings, and even our lives. Government uses this full-spectrum fear to impose heavy-handed legislation like monopoly healthcare or illegal pre-crime techniques used to catch the terrorists.Additionally, privatization of vital government services seems to make little sense when we wind up paying more for those services, or where companies perform Big Brother duties that previously required government officials to swear an oath to the Constitution and our personal liberties. For example, privatization of a war-making machine like Blackwater not only costs the public much more than the government’s own elite forces, but also poses the threat of unaccountable violence and even murder. Furthermore, what is to stop foreign companies from buying up critical public assets through private equity firms, or corrupting governmental duties and turning them upon American citizens? A somewhat recently privatized sector exemplifies the corrupting influence of privatization if not applied correctly (or legally): the surveillance of American citizens. It has been reported that over 800,000 private-sector workers have top secret clearance in their roles to monitor extremist activities in America. To accentuate the insanity, even private foreign companies are getting Homeland Security contracts for these duties. In addition to draining American taxpayers of money and rights, the privatizing of these activities is critically dangerous to our individual and national sovereignty in a way never seen before. Even the most staunch small-government advocates must see the folly in such privatization.The establishment would like to focus our debate toward public employees vs. public employees, unions or not, or big government vs. privatization; when in reality all possible solutions under the current corporate-state seem designed to suck the average citizen dry, while limiting services to just below riot-inducing levels. We’re told to be angry at a particular group that may get better pay and benefits than our own, all while the system and the Fed continue to inflate the cost of living for everyone through taxpayer-backed debt.Whether it is called big government austerity, or small government privatization, it’s still a reduced standard of living and a blatant looting of the public. This looting is meant to use the divisions between our separate groups as a distraction to enrich those without concern over such loyalties.

Speech Chairman Ben S. Bernanke At the Revisiting Monetary Policy in a Low-Inflation Environment Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Boston, Massachusetts October 15, 2010

Monetary Policy Objectives and Tools in a Low-Inflation Environment

The topic of this conference--the formulation and conduct of monetary policy in a low-inflation environment--is timely indeed. From the late 1960s until a decade or so ago, bringing inflation under control was viewed as the greatest challenge facing central banks around the world. Through the application of improved policy frameworks, involving both greater transparency and increased independence from short-term political influences, as well as through continued focus and persistence, central banks have largely achieved that goal. In turn, the progress against inflation increased the stability and predictability of the economic environment and thus contributed significantly to improvements in economic performance, not least in many emerging market nations that in previous eras had suffered bouts of very high inflation. Moreover, success greatly enhanced the credibility of central banks' commitment to price stability, and that credibility further supported stability and confidence. Retaining that credibility is of utmost importance.

Although the attainment of price stability after a period of higher inflation was a landmark achievement, monetary policymaking in an era of low inflation has not proved to be entirely straightforward. In the 1980s and 1990s, few ever questioned the desired direction for inflation; lower was always better. During those years, the key questions related to tactics: How quickly should inflation be reduced? Should the central bank be proactive or opportunistic in reducing inflation? As average inflation levels declined, however, the issues became more complex. The statement of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) following its May 2003 meeting was something of a watershed, in that it noted that, in the Committee's view, further disinflation would be unwelcome.In other words, the risks to price stability had become two-sided: With inflation close to levels consistent with price stability, central banks, for the first time in many decades, had to take seriously the possibility that inflation can be too low as well as too high.

A second complication for policymaking created by low inflation arises from the fact that low inflation generally implies low nominal interest rates, which increase the potential relevance for policymaking of the zero lower bound on interest rates. Because the short-term policy interest rate cannot be reduced below zero, the Federal Reserve and central banks in other countries have employed nonstandard policies and approaches that do not rely on reductions in the short-term interest rate. We are still learning about the efficacy and appropriate management of these alternative tools.In the remainder of my remarks I will discuss these issues in the context of current economic and policy developments. I will comment on the near-term outlook for economic activity and inflation. I will then compare that outlook to some quantitative measures of the Federal Reserve's objectives, namely, the longer-run outcomes that FOMC participants judge to be most consistent with its dual mandate of maximum employment and price stability. Finally, I will observe that, in a world in which the policy interest rate is close to zero, the Committee must consider the costs and risks associated with the use of nonconventional tools when it assesses whether additional policy accommodation is likely to be beneficial on net.

The Outlook for Growth and Employment
The arbiters across the river in Cambridge, the business cycle dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, recently made their determination: An economic recovery began in the United States in July 2009, following a series of forceful actions by central banks and other policymakers around the world that helped stabilize the financial system and restore more-normal functioning to key financial markets. The initial upturn in activity, which was reasonably strong, reflected a number of factors, including efforts by firms to better align their inventories with their sales, expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, improved financial conditions, and a pickup in export growth. However, factors such as fiscal policy and the inventory cycle can provide only a temporary impetus to recovery. Sustained expansion must ultimately be driven by growth in private final demand, including consumer spending, business and residential investment, and net exports. That handoff is currently under way. However, with growth in private final demand having so far proved relatively modest, overall economic growth has been proceeding at a pace that is less vigorous than we would like.In particular, consumer spending has been inhibited by the painfully slow recovery in the labor market, which has restrained growth in wage income and has raised uncertainty about job security and employment prospects. Since June, private-sector employers have added, on net, an average of only about 85,000 workers per month--not enough to bring the unemployment rate down significantly.Consumer spending in the quarters ahead will depend importantly on the pace of job creation but also on households' ability to repair their financial positions. Some progress is being made on this front. Saving rates are up noticeably from pre-crisis levels, and household assets have risen, on net, over recent quarters, while debt and debt service payments have declined markedly relative to income.1 Together with expected further easing in credit terms and conditions offered by lenders, stronger balance sheets should eventually provide households the confidence and the wherewithal to increase their pace of spending. That said, progress has been and is likely to be uneven, as the process of balance sheet repair remains impeded to some extent by elevated unemployment, lower home values, and limited ability to refinance existing mortgages.

Household finances and attitudes also have an important influence on the housing market, which has remained depressed, notwithstanding reduced house prices and record-low mortgage rates. The overhang of foreclosed properties and vacant homes remains a significant drag on house prices and residential investment. In the business sector, indicators such as new orders and business sentiment suggest that growth in spending on equipment and software has slowed relative to its rapid pace earlier this year. Investment in nonresidential structures continues to contract, reflecting stringent financing conditions and high vacancy rates for commercial real estate. The availability of credit to finance investment and expand business operations remains quite uneven: Generally speaking, large firms in good financial condition can obtain credit in capital markets easily and on favorable terms. Larger firms also hold considerable amounts of cash on their balance sheets. By contrast, surveys and anecdotes indicate that bank-dependent smaller firms continue to face significantly greater problems in obtaining credit, reflecting in part weaker balance sheets and income prospects that limit their ability to qualify for loans as well as tight lending standards and terms on the part of banks. The Federal Reserve and other banking regulators have been making significant efforts to improve the credit environment for small businesses, and we have seen some positive signs. In particular, banks are no longer tightening lending standards and terms and are reportedly becoming more proactive in seeking out creditworthy borrowers. Although the pace of recovery has slowed in recent months and is likely to continue to be fairly modest in the near term, the preconditions for a pickup in growth next year remain in place. Stronger household finances, a further easing of credit conditions, and pent-up demand for consumer durable goods should all contribute to a somewhat faster pace of household spending. Similarly, business investment in equipment and software should grow at a reasonably rapid pace next year, driven by rising sales, an ongoing need to replace obsolete or worn-out equipment, strong corporate balance sheets, and low financing costs. In the public sector, the tax receipts of state and local governments have started to recover, which should allow their spending to stabilize gradually. The contribution of federal fiscal stimulus to overall growth is expected to decline steadily over coming quarters but not so quickly as to derail the recovery. Continued solid expansion among the economies of our trading partners should also help to support foreign sales and growth in the United States. Although output growth should be somewhat stronger in 2011 than it has been recently, growth next year seems unlikely to be much above its longer-term trend. If so, then net job creation may not exceed by much the increase in the size of the labor force, implying that the unemployment rate will decline only slowly. That prospect is of central concern to economic policymakers, because high rates of unemployment--especially longer-term unemployment--impose a very heavy burden on the unemployed and their families. More broadly, prolonged high unemployment would pose a risk to consumer spending and hence to the sustainability of the recovery.

The Outlook for Inflation
Let me turn now to the outlook for inflation. Generally speaking, measures of underlying inflation have been trending downward. For example, so-called core PCE price inflation (which is based on the broad-based price index for personal consumption expenditures and excludes the volatile food and energy components of the overall index) has declined from approximately 2.5 percent at an annual rate in the early stages of the recession to an annual rate of about 1.1 percent over the first eight months of this year. The overall PCE price inflation rate, which includes food and energy prices, has been highly volatile in the past few years, in large part because of sharp fluctuations in oil prices. However, so far this year the overall inflation rate has been about the same as the core inflation rate. The significant moderation in price increases has been widespread across many categories of spending, as is evident from various measures that exclude the most extreme price movements in each period. For example, the so-called trimmed mean consumer price index (CPI) has risen by only 0.9 percent over the past 12 months, and a related measure, the median CPI, has increased by only 0.5 percent over the same period.2

The decline in underlying inflation importantly reflects the extent to which cost pressures have been restrained by substantial slack in the utilization of productive resources. Notably, the unemployment rate remains fairly close to last fall's peak and is currently about 5 percentage points above the rates that prevailed just before the onset of the financial crisis.In gauging the magnitude of prevailing resource slack and the associated restraint on price and wage increases, it is essential to consider the extent to which structural factors may be contributing to elevated rates of unemployment. For example, the continuing high level of permanent job losers may be a sign that structural impediments--such as barriers to worker mobility or mismatches between the skills that workers have and the ones that employers require--are hindering unemployed individuals from finding new jobs. The recent behavior of unemployment and job vacancies--somewhat more vacancies are reported than would usually be the case given the number of people looking for work--is also suggestive of some increase in the level of structural unemployment. On the other hand, we see little evidence that the reallocation of workers across industries and regions is particularly pronounced relative to other periods of recession, suggesting that the pace of structural change is not greater than normal. Moreover, previous post-World-War-II recessions do not seem to have resulted in higher structural unemployment, which many economists attribute to the relative flexibility of the U.S. labor market. Overall, my assessment is that the bulk of the increase in unemployment since the recession began is attributable to the sharp contraction in economic activity that occurred in the wake of the financial crisis and the continuing shortfall of aggregate demand since then, rather than to structural factors.3 The public's expectations for inflation also importantly influence inflation dynamics. Indicators of longer-term inflation expectations have generally been stable in the wake of the financial crisis. For example, in the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Survey of Professional Forecasters, the median projection for the annual average inflation rate for personal consumption expenditures over the next 10 years has remained close to 2 percent. Surveys of households likewise show that longer-term inflation expectations have been relatively stable. In the financial markets, measures of inflation compensation at longer horizons (computed from the spread between yields on nominal and inflation-indexed Treasury securities) have moved down, on net, this year but remain within their historical ranges. With long-run inflation expectations stable and with substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures, it seems likely that inflation trends will remain subdued for some time.

The Objectives of Monetary Policy
To evaluate policy alternatives and explain policy choices to the public, it is essential not only to forecast the economy, but to compare that forecast to the objectives of policy. Clear communication about the longer-run objectives of monetary policy is beneficial at all times but is particularly important in a time of low inflation and uncertain economic prospects such as the present. Improving the public's understanding of the central bank's policy strategy reduces economic and financial uncertainty and helps households and firms make more-informed decisions. Moreover, clarity about goals and strategies can help anchor the public's longer-term inflation expectations more firmly and thereby bolsters the central bank's ability to respond forcefully to adverse shocks.4 The Federal Reserve has a statutory mandate to foster maximum employment and price stability, and explaining how we are working toward those goals plays a crucial role in our monetary policy strategy. It is evident that neither of our dual objectives can be taken in isolation: On the one hand, a central bank that aimed to achieve the highest possible level of employment in the short run, without regard to other considerations, might well generate unacceptable levels of inflation without any permanent benefits in terms of employment. On the other hand, a single-minded focus by the central bank on price stability, with no attention at all to other factors, could lead to more frequent and deeper slumps in economic activity and employment with little benefit in terms of long-run inflation performance.Recognizing the interactions between the two parts of our mandate, the FOMC has found it useful to frame our dual mandate in terms of the longer-run sustainable rate of unemployment and the mandate-consistent inflation rate. The longer-run sustainable rate of unemployment is the rate of unemployment that the economy can maintain without generating upward or downward pressure on inflation. Because a healthy economy must allow for the destruction and creation of jobs, as well as for movements of workers between jobs and in and out of the labor force, the longer-run sustainable rate of unemployment is greater than zero. Similarly, the mandate-consistent inflation rate--the inflation rate that best promotes our dual objectives in the long run--is not necessarily zero; indeed, Committee participants have generally judged that a modestly positive inflation rate over the longer run is most consistent with the dual mandate. (The view that policy should aim for an inflation rate modestly above zero is shared by virtually all central banks around the world.) Several rationales can be provided for this judgment, including upward biases in the measurement of inflation. A rationale that is particularly relevant today is that maintaining an inflation buffer(that is, an average inflation rate greater than zero) allows for a somewhat higher average level of nominal interest rates, which in turn gives the Federal Reserve greater latitude to reduce the target federal funds rate when needed to stimulate increased economic activity and employment. A modestly positive inflation rate also reduces the probability that the economy could fall into deflation, which under some circumstances can lead to significant economic problems.

Although attaining the long-run sustainable rate of unemployment and achieving the mandate-consistent rate of inflation are both key objectives of monetary policy, the two objectives are somewhat different in nature. Most importantly, whereas monetary policymakers clearly have the ability to determine the inflation rate in the long run, they have little or no control over the longer-run sustainable unemployment rate, which is primarily determined by demographic and structural factors, not by monetary policy. Thus, while central bankers can choose the value of inflation they wish to target, the sustainable unemployment rate can only be estimated, and is subject to substantial uncertainty. Moreover, the sustainable rate of unemployment typically evolves over time as its fundamental determinants change, whereas keeping inflation expectations firmly anchored generally implies that the inflation objective should remain constant unless there are compelling technical reasons for changing it, such as changes in the methods used to measure inflation.In recent years, the Federal Reserve has taken important steps to more clearly communicate its outlook and longer-run objectives. Since the fall of 2007, the Federal Reserve has been publishing the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) four times a year in conjunction with the FOMC minutes. The SEP provides summary statistics and an accompanying narrative regarding the projections of FOMC participants--that is, the Board members and the Reserve Bank presidents--for the growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP), the unemployment rate, core inflation, and headline inflation over the next several calendar years. Since early 2009, the SEP has also included information about FOMC participants' longer-run projections for the rates of economic growth, unemployment, and inflation to which the economy is expected to converge over time, in the absence of further shocks and under appropriate monetary policy. Because appropriate monetary policy, by definition, is aimed at achieving the Federal Reserve's objectives in the longer run, FOMC participants' longer-run projections for economic growth, unemployment, and inflation may be interpreted, respectively, as estimates of the economy's longer-run potential growth rate, the longer-run sustainable rate of unemployment, and the mandate-consistent rate of inflation.The most recent release of the SEP was in June, and I will refer to those projections here, noting that new projections will be released with the minutes of the next FOMC meeting, in early November.

The longer-run inflation projections in the SEP indicate that FOMC participants generally judge the mandate-consistent inflation rate to be about 2 percent or a bit below. In contrast, as I noted earlier, recent readings on underlying inflation have been approximately 1 percent. Thus, in effect, inflation is running at rates that are too low relative to the levels that the Committee judges to be most consistent with the Federal Reserve's dual mandate in the longer run. In particular, at current rates of inflation, the constraint imposed by the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates is too tight (the short-term real interest rate is too high, given the state of the economy), and the risk of deflation is higher than desirable. Given that monetary policy works with a lag, the more relevant question is whether this situation is forecast to continue. In light of the recent decline in inflation, the degree of slack in the economy, and the relative stability of inflation expectations, it is reasonable to forecast that underlying inflation--setting aside the inevitable short-run volatility--will be less than the mandate-consistent inflation rate for some time. Of course, forecasts of inflation, as of other key economic variables, are uncertain and must be regularly updated with the arrival of new information.As of June, the longer-run unemployment projections in the SEP had a central tendency of about 5 to 5-1/4 percent--about 1/4 percentage point higher than a year earlier--and a couple of participants' projections were even higher at around 6 to 6-1/4 percent. The evolution of these projections and the diversity of views reflect the characteristics that I noted earlier: The sustainable rate of unemployment may vary over time, and estimates of its value are subject to considerable uncertainty. Nonetheless, with an actual unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent, unemployment is clearly too high relative to estimates of its sustainable rate. Moreover, with output growth over the next year expected to be only modestly above its longer-term trend, high unemployment is currently forecast to persist for some time.

Monetary Policy Tools: Benefits and Costs
Given the Committee's objectives, there would appear--all else being equal--to be a case for further action. However, as I indicated earlier, one of the implications of a low-inflation environment is that policy is more likely to be constrained by the fact that nominal interest rates cannot be reduced below zero. Indeed, the Federal Reserve reduced its target for the federal funds rate to a range of 0 to 25 basis points almost two years ago, in December 2008. Further policy accommodation is certainly possible even with the overnight interest rate at zero, but nonconventional policies have costs and limitations that must be taken into account in judging whether and how aggressively they should be used.For example, a means of providing additional monetary stimulus, if warranted, would be to expand the Federal Reserve's holdings of longer-term securities.5 Empirical evidence suggests that our previous program of securities purchases was successful in bringing down longer-term interest rates and thereby supporting the economic recovery.6 A similar program conducted by the Bank of England also appears to have had benefits.However, possible costs must be weighed against the potential benefits of nonconventional policies. One disadvantage of asset purchases relative to conventional monetary policy is that we have much less experience in judging the economic effects of this policy instrument, which makes it challenging to determine the appropriate quantity and pace of purchases and to communicate this policy response to the public. These factors have dictated that the FOMC proceed with some caution in deciding whether to engage in further purchases of longer-term securities.Another concern associated with additional securities purchases is that substantial further expansion of the balance sheet could reduce public confidence in the Fed's ability to execute a smooth exit from its accommodative policies at the appropriate time. Even if unjustified, such a reduction in confidence might lead to an undesired increase in inflation expectations, to a level above the Committee's inflation objective. To address such concerns and to ensure that it can withdraw monetary accommodation smoothly at the appropriate time, the Federal Reserve has developed an array of new tools.7 With these tools in hand, I am confident that the FOMC will be able to tighten monetary conditions when warranted, even if the balance sheet remains considerably larger than normal at that time.

Central bank communication provides additional means of increasing the degree of policy accommodation when short-term nominal interest rates are near zero. For example, FOMC postmeeting statements have included forward policy guidance since December 2008, and the most recent statements have reflected the FOMC's anticipation that exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate are likely to be warranted for an extended period,contingent on economic conditions. A step the Committee could consider, if conditions called for it, would be to modify the language of the statement in some way that indicates that the Committee expects to keep the target for the federal funds rate low for longer than markets expect. Such a change would presumably lower longer-term rates by an amount related to the revision in policy expectations. A potential drawback of using the FOMC's statement in this way is that, at least without a more comprehensive framework in place, it may be difficult to convey the Committee's policy intentions with sufficient precision and conditionality. The Committee will continue to actively review its communications strategy with the goal of providing as much clarity as possible about its outlook, policy objectives, and policy strategies.

Conclusion
In short, there are clearly many challenges in communicating and conducting monetary policy in a low-inflation environment, including the uncertainties associated with the use of nonconventional policy tools. Despite these challenges, the Federal Reserve remains committed to pursuing policies that promote our dual objectives of maximum employment and price stability. In particular, the FOMC is prepared to provide additional accommodation if needed to support the economic recovery and to return inflation over time to levels consistent with our mandate. Of course, in considering possible further actions, the FOMC will take account of the potential costs and risks of nonconventional policies, and, as always, the Committee's actions are contingent on incoming information about the economic outlook and financial conditions.

References
Barnichon, Regis, and Andrew Figura (2010). What Drives Movements in the Unemployment Rate? A Decomposition of the Beveridge Curve,Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2010-48. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, August.

Bernanke, Ben (2007). Federal Reserve Communications,speech delivered at the Cato Institute 25th Annual Monetary Conference, Washington, November 14.

Bernanke, Ben (2010a). The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy,speech delivered at Macroeconomic Challenges: The Decade Ahead,a symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, held in Jackson Hole, Wyo., August 26-28.

Bernanke, Ben (2010b). Monetary Policy Report to the Congress,statement before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, July 21.

D'Amico, Stefania, and Thomas B. King (2010). Flow and Stock Effects of Large-Scale Treasury Purchases,Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2010-52. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, September.

Dickens, William T. (2009). A New Method for Estimating Time Variation in the NAIRU, in Jeff Fuhrer, Jane S. Little, Yolanda K. Kodrzycki, and Giovanni P. Olivei, eds., Understanding Inflation and the Implications for Monetary Policy: A Phillips Curve Retrospective. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, pp. 205-28.

Dowling, Thomas, Marcello Estevão, and Evridiki Tsounta (2010). The Great Recession and Structural Unemployment (1.3 MB PDF) ,in International Monetary Fund Country Report, 10-248. Washington: IMF, July, pp. 4-13.

Fleischman, Charles, and John M. Roberts (2010). A Multivariate Estimate of Trends and Cycles,unpublished paper, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Division of Research and Statistics, May.

Fujita, Shigeru (forthcoming). Economic Effects of the Unemployment Insurance Benefit (196 KB PDF) .Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Business Review.

Gagnon, Joseph, Matthew Raskin, Julie Remache, and Brian Sack (2010).Large-Scale Asset Purchases by the Federal Reserve: Did They Work? Staff Report No. 441. New York: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, March.

Hamilton, James D., and Jing (Cynthia) Wu (2010).The Effectiveness of Alternative Monetary Policy Tools in a Zero Lower Bound Environment (615 KB PDF) ,working paper. San Diego: University of California, San Diego, August (revised October).

Kuang, Katherine, and Rob Valletta (2010). Extended Unemployment and UI Benefits , Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, FRBSF Economic Letter, 2010-10, April 19.

Lindner, John, and Murat Tasci (2010). Has the Beveridge Curve Shifted? Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends, August 10.

Will G20 change its currency tune?
By Emily Kaiser - OCT 17,10


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – If the G20 wants to soothe currency tensions, finance leaders may have to do more than simply repeat a well-practiced refrain that too much foreign exchange rate volatility is unwelcome.These Group of 20 officials, meeting in South Korea beginning on Friday, face even greater pressure to deliver something substantive after the United States delayed a hotly anticipated report on whether China (or any other country) was manipulating its currency to gain a trade advantage.South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who will chair a G20 leaders summit in Seoul next month, said his biggest concern was that conflicts of interest between countries could develop into trade protectionism.This wasn't how leaders envisioned things playing out.When G20 leaders met in Pittsburgh a little over a year ago, they were so confident they had succeeded in ending the global crisis that they declared, It worked.This week's meeting of finance ministers was supposed to be relatively quiet, a final planning session to put the finishing touches on agreements, sketched out in Pittsburgh, to be signed at the Seoul leaders summit.Instead, a sluggish recovery in advanced economies and prospects for another round of Federal Reserve money printing have driven down the dollar. China's tightly managed currency has followed, while the euro, yen, real and other currencies have risen. Investor money has poured into faster-growing emerging markets, and some are at risk of overheating.

You have to be worried that other countries are getting cranky about the rise in their currencies,said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officers of Hugh Johnson Advisors LLC in Albany, New York.David Woo, head of global rates and currencies research at BofA Merrill Lynch, said the dollar's decline was orderly thus far, but policymakers would be on the watch for any sign that it was pushing up commodity prices.While a weaker dollar is desirable, a disorderly adjustment, which would exacerbate stagflation risks and undermine credibility, is not, he said.

DISORDERLY CONDUCT

Disorderly and volatile are two favorite terms for policymakers to describe undesirable foreign exchange moves, and they have cropped up repeatedly in comments from European officials this month.If the G20 finance leaders' closing statement this weekend includes nothing more than a repeat of those phrases, it would signal they are not prepared to embark on a Plaza Accord type of currency realignment plan.
The G20 is having enough trouble showing progress on the plans already agreed -- particularly a framework for balanced global growth introduced in Pittsburgh last year.Since that gathering, the global economy has reverted back to some of its old patterns.China's foreign exchange reserves, already the world's largest, rose by record-large $194 billion in the third quarter to $2.65 trillion. The U.S.-China trade deficit hit an all-time high of $28 billion in August.China's GDP figures, expected on Thursday, will likely show year-over-year third-quarter growth was a tad slower than in the previous period but still a robust 9.5 percent, according to economists polled by Reuters.U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reminded the rest of the G20 on Friday that the task of rebalancing did not fall only upon the United States and China.It requires policy reforms in all major economies, the Treasury Department said in a statement announcing the delay of its report on exchange rate policies.(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

ECB's Trichet rejects Weber view on bond buying
By James Mackenzie - OCT 17,10


RIMINI, Italy (Reuters) – European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet took issue with recent comments on ECB policy by Bundesbank chief Axel Weber, saying they did not represent the views of the central bank's governing council.In an interview with Italian daily La Stampa on Sunday, Trichet said the governing council as a whole did not agree with Weber's remark last week that the ECB's government bond-buying program had not worked and should be scrapped.No! This is not the position of the Governing Council, with an overwhelming majority, he said, according to an English transcript of the interview published on the ECB's website.This nonstandard measure, like all other such measures, was designed to help restore a more normal functioning of our monetary policy transmission mechanism. And we are withdrawing all the liquidity, euro for euro, that is supplied through this program,he said.He also struck a less hawkish note on interest rate policy than Weber, an influential member of the governing council and one of the top candidates to take over when Trichet's own ECB term expires next year.Asked later by reporters to elaborate on his comments and on Weber's position on the issue within the governing council, he said his position had not changed since the decision to implement the program was taken.I have nothing to add to what I said at the very moment we took the decision, he said. We took the decision, it was a decision taken with an overwhelming majority.

ONE PRESIDENT

Last week, Weber said policymakers should not wait too long before withdrawing emergency liquidity measures and raising interest rates, prompting widespread speculation of divisions among the ECB's leaders.As you know, I never comment on remarks made by fellow members of the Governing Council, Trichet told La Stampa.
What is important, of course, is that there is only one single currency; there is one Governing Council, only one monetary policy decision, and one president, who is also the porte-parole of the Governing Council,he said.At the last ECB press conference, I said very clearly that current interest rates are appropriate, he said, adding that the ECB had built a very, very remarkable track record on price stability, with average annual inflation of 1.97 percent since it took over charge of monetary policy.And thanks to this credibility, inflation expectations are extremely well anchored for the next five and 10 years in line with our definition of price stability, he said.

STRONG DOLLAR

Speaking to reporters, Trichet declined to be drawn on the discussion over a potential currency war between global powers as the dollar has fallen sharply, simply repeating warnings against excessively violent swings on forex markets.I have no new messages. Excess volatility and misalignments are counterproductive for stability. I appreciate the position, the statements of the U.S. authorities that the stronger dollar vis-a-vis the major floating currencies is in the interests of the United States of America.He said emerging market countries including China had agreed to reforms to improve exchange rate flexibility.I encourage all emerging economies that have large (current account) surpluses to go in this direction, he said in an Italian television interview later on Sunday. In the La Stampa interview, he repeated calls for decisive action by European governments to shore up their battered public finances and urged tougher measures against countries that break budget rules, including quasi-automatic sanctions.But he said that if another crisis threatened, it could be useful to create a permanent structure for managing renewed turmoil after the European Financial Stability Facility, the temporary bailout mechanism set up in May, expires in 2013.We said that such a stabilization fund could be imagined. It would then have to respect a number of criteria, he told reporters who asked about the prospect.It should be something which would not comprehend moral hazard. It would be something which should be based on very, very strong conditionality,he said.(Editing by Will Waterman and Maureen Bavdek)

Fed Ready To Act, But Bernanke Gives Few Clues On Plans
– Fri Oct 15, 7:33 pm ET


With economic growth less vigorous than we would like, Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke said Friday that the central bank stands ready to do more to bolster hiring and counter deflation risks. But he didn't give details about Fed plans to buy more Treasuries and other assets to keep borrowing costs low and spur demand for cars, homes and other goods.Bernanke did note the costs and limitations of unconventional policy, suggesting the Fed may not go for a shock-and-awe strategy. The dollar and Treasury yields rose modestly on his comments, though they are still down sharply since the Fed signaled Sept. 21 that more easing loomed. Equity investors seemed to focus on Google (NMS:GOOG) and GE (NYSE:GE - News) earnings and big banks' foreclosure woes.The central bank has already cut rates to zero and bought $1.7 billion in securities, but GDP growth has steadily slowed over the past three quarters. Though some policymakers oppose the idea, analysts expect the Fed to decide at its Nov. 2-3 meeting to buy up to $1 trillion in assets.Policymakers are prepared to provide additional accommodation to pursue their dual mandate of promoting maximum employment and stable prices, Bernanke told a Boston Fed conference.Unemployment will fall only slowly from a near-26-year high of 9.6%, he said, noting that the risk of deflation — a downward spiral of prices that hurts profits and discourages spending — is higher than desirable.His comments came as the Labor Department reported a 0.1% rise in September consumer prices, the smallest gain in four months.

Core costs, which exclude food and energy, were flat. Core CPI rose just 0.8% from a year ago, the smallest increase in 49 years.On a positive note, the New York Fed's Empire State manufacturing index, an early gauge of monthly activity, jumped 11.63 points in October to 15.73. Wall Street had expected a slim rise to 5.75. Readings above zero indicate growth.Also, September retail sales rose 0.6%, the Commerce Department said Friday, beating forecasts. August sales were revised higher. But continued gains are at risk, Bernanke said.Prolonged high unemployment would pose a risk to consumer spending and hence to the sustainability of the recovery,he said.

The Reuters-UMich consumer confidence index unexpectedly fell 0.6 point to 67.9. The expectations gauge did rise, though.The IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index released Oct. 12 hit a five-month high on hopes that the Nov. 2 elections will lead to a change in Washington.Confidence is only loosely tied to spending. September's retail gains were broad-based. Autos and parts led with a 1.6% gain. But other sales rose 0.4% on demand for furniture, electronics and appliances.Depressed consumers seem to be drowning their sorrows at the malls,Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, wrote in a note.Yet improved data likely won't deter the Fed, analysts said.This does not, however, obviate the Fed's inclination to ease further, said Richard DeKaser, chief economist at Woodley Park Research. The Fed's principal motivation at this time is its concern about deflation.

EU debates new debt rules as euro surges By GABRIELE STEINHAUSER, AP Business Writer – Sun Oct 17, 12:13 pm ET

LUXEMBOURG – European finance ministers plan to hash out a deal on stricter budget rules to avoid another government debt crisis, as a surging euro casts doubt on the continent's fragile economic recovery.Two differing proposals spelling out penalties for overspending governments will be considered, after ballooning debt and deficit levels in countries like Greece, Ireland and Spain shook the foundations of the 16-nation eurozone earlier this year.The two-day gathering beginning Monday in Luxembourg comes amid the specter of a possible global currency war, as governments around the world try to boost their economies by pushing down the value of their currencies, thus making their exports more competitive.The U.S. Federal Reserve on Friday spurred expectations of a new round of asset purchases, in effect pumping dollars into the economy and further weakening the value of the greenback. The euro jumped to $1.41 on Friday, from under $1.29 in early September.Yet the European Central Bank, which sets monetary policy for the 16 countries that use the euro, appears likely to remain on the sidelines in any currency war.Top EU officials, including ECB bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, have complained about China — a major trade partner — intervening to keep its currency weak. But the eurozone appears unlikely to take action beyond talk and diplomacy. In fact, several ECB officials in the past week have pushed for a quicker unwinding of the bank's crisis-relief measures, such as its government bond purchasing program.Such a hands-off policy by the ECB could mean trouble for the currency union's weakest members, which are facing harsh government budget cuts and are desperate for export-led growth.

The eurozone is likely to be the loser in this, said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London. He says big Asian economies like China and South Korea will race to keep their own currencies stable against the dollar.In an environment of competitive currency devaluation, the eurozone exporting its way out of this is not going to happen, Tilford said.That means there is all the more pressure for European finance ministers to come up with effective rules that keep public spending in check without endangering economic growth. But governments remain divided over proposals announced by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, last month.A second set of rules is being drawn up by a group led by EU President Herman Van Rompuy. This task force, which includes Trichet, EU monetary affairs chief Olli Rehn and the eurozone finance ministers, will meet for one last time Monday before presenting its report to EU governments at the end of the month.The commission wants to force member states whose deficit tops 3 percent or whose debt hits 60 percent of gross domestic product to set aside up to 0.2 percent of their GDP. If governments fail to follow the commission's recommendations, these deposits could be converted into fines.These penalties would be imposed automatically, unless they are overruled by a qualified majority of finance ministers — an approach backed by Germany. Other countries, led by France, are very reluctant to hand over that much power to unelected officials in Brussels.

More divisions remain over potential sanctions for countries that fail to address other issues, such a real estate and lending bubbles or uncompetitive wages — macroeconomic imbalances that many economists say were at the heart of Europe's government debt crisis.The EU finance ministers will also prepare their position for a meeting with their counterparts in the Group of 20 rich and developing nations beginning Friday in Seoul, South Korea. The currencies question is sure to dominate that agenda after recent talks at the International Monetary Fund in Washington failed to produce an agreement.European leaders will also have to decide whether they are prepared give up seats on the IMF's decision-making board to give developing countries more say, as the United States has demanded.Another possible issue in Luxembourg could be new regulation for hedge funds. Officials said they were nearing a compromise on a so-called European passport, that would allow non-EU-based hedge funds and fund managers access to the entire European market.The European Union is keen to have these hedge-fund rules drawn up before they head to Seoul, where leaders will discuss new global financial regulation.

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/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS MON OCT 18,2010

09:30 AM -2.43
10:00 AM +45.87
10:30 AM +50.94
11:00 AM +56.88
11:30 AM +40.72
12:00 PM +38.72
12:30 PM +44.77
01:00 PM +45.11
01:30 PM +53.70
02:00 PM +52.26
02:30 PM +74.74
03:00 PM +95.82
03:30 PM +79.62
04:00 PM +80.91 11,143.69

S&P 500 1184.71 +8.52

NASDAQ 2480.66 +11.89

GOLD 1,373.00 +1.00

OIL 83.19 +1.94

TSE 300 12,668.00 +58.90

CDNX 1838.21 +15.68

S&P/TSX/60 731.51 +3.43

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -6 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -8 points at low today.
Dow +69 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,366.77.OIL opens at $81.46 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -8 points at low today so far.
Dow +97 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -8 points at low today.
Dow +97 points at high today.

GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,375.00 (NOT AT CLOSE)

STAR OF DAVID IN DIAMOND
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdtF-eCaXI0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140115

Israel Blamed for American Policy in Sudan
by Maayana Miskin OCT 17,10


A senior Sudanese official has laid the blame for problems in his country at the feet of the pro-Israel lobby. Supporters of the Jewish state are to blame for United States President Barack Obama's about-face regarding independence for southern Sudan, said Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha.Obama has moved from supporting Sudanese unity to backing a referendum that may see the southern part of the country decide to seek independence.On Thursday, Obama said the referendum is one of our highest priorities.He warned that millions of people could die if war were to break out in Sudan again. Two million people were killed in previous battles between the northern and southern parts of the country.Preventing war will serve Western countries as well as Sudan, Obama said. War would destabilize the region, which could strengthen terrorist force, he explained.Northern Sudan is predominantly Muslim and is the seat of political power in the country, while the population of the south is largely Christian and animist. In addition to conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims, Sudan has been plagued by fighting in the Darfur region, where Arab Muslim militias have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of black Muslim villagers.

Taha said Obama's latest statements indicate Zionist interference. The United States was initially saying it wants Sudan to remain united, then it moved a little to say that what it wants whatever the southerners accept, and today it raises its voice saying that separation will be inevitable,he said. This shows that there are US pressure lobbies linked to Israel talking and pushing things in this direction.
Similar statements were attributed by the Sudan Tribune to presidential adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail.The vote in southern Sudan is scheduled to take place on January 9. Taha said that if the south votes to secede, northern Sudan will not use military force to impose unity. However, he warned that fighting could break out in the Abyei region, which is partially in the north and partially in the south.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)

EU Struggles with Immigration
by Maayana Miskin OCT 17,10


Germany's multicultural approach to immigration has failed, utterly failed, said Chancellor Angela Merkel in a speech to members of the Christian Democrats party. In the future, immigrants should be expected to integrate into German culture, she said.
While stating that immigrants should be expected to learn German, Merkel cautioned against setting standards too high. We should not be a country either which gives the impression to the outside world that those who don't speak German immediately or who were not raised speaking German are not welcome here,she said.If Germany were perceived as opposing all immigration, it would do great damage to the national economy, she said. Companies will go elsewhere because they won't find the people to work here anymore, she predicted.Merkel's speech was seen by many as a gesture to those in her party who have criticized her over the presence in Germany of immigrants who do not wish to adapt to German society.A recent survey found that almost one-third of Germans feel their country is being overrun by foreigners.Over 16 million of Germany's nearly 82 million citizens are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Four million of Germany's immigrants are Muslim, and the largest immigrant group is Turkish.Immigrants have won both praise and condemnation. German President Christian Wulff recently declared that Islam belongs in Germany.However, months earlier senior Central Bank official Theo Sarrazin said that Muslim immigrants are more likely than others to be strongly connected with welfare payments and crime. Sarrazin resigned after his statements created an uproar, but polls found that his views met with significant sympathy among the public.

Sweden: Anti-Immigration Party Grows
In Sweden, the Sweden Democrats won 5.7% of the vote last month, making it into Parliament for the first time. The party takes a strong stance on immigration. It hopes to cut immigration by up to 90%, and has accused Islam of standing in opposition to Swedish values.Party leader Jimmie Akesson said after the elections, We won't cause problems. We will take responsibility.Akesson denies charges that his party is racist or is against all immigration. He says the Sweden Democrats simply feel that immigration is happening too quickly. We haven't had the capacity to receive all those who have been let in. We haven't had the capacity to get them out into society, get them to work, to assimilate them into Swedish society,he told the Associated Press three months before the elections.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

Protests in Tel Aviv Against Israeli Pledge of Allegiance
by Chana Ya'ar OCT 17,10


Thousands of Jews and Arabs gather on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, to protest against the passage of a bill that requires gentiles to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish State.Demonstrators marched to the Defense Ministry, the seat of power of Labor party chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who voted against the measure. The protesters waved signs that read, No to Hatred and Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies.Organized by leftist entities, the rally comes six days after the overwhelming approval of the measure by the cabinet that was widely condemned by leftists and Arab legislators. Justice Minister Ya'akov Ne'eman has suggested that the law be amended so that Jews will also be required to pledge allegiance.

A Promise Kept, Halfway There
The cabinet vote was seen as a victory for Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) party chairman and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who made passage of the legislation a central plank in his election campaign two years ago.However, the bill, which passed the 30-member cabinet with a comfortable 22-8 majority, must still make it through a ministerial committee on legislation and the full Knesset before it can become law.In its current form, the legislation would require new immigrants who seek to become citizens and who are not Jewish to pledge allegiance to the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic country.Jews who are eligible to become citizens under the Law of Return will continue to receive citizenship as before.Even as thousands protested the measure on the Sabbath, tens of thousands began to roar their disapproval of those who opposed the measure, including far leftist journalist Gideon Levy, who last week penned, The Jewish Republic of Israel, a column in which he slammed the legislation and the state as a whole.Likud coalition chairman, MK Ze’ev Elkin, said prior to the vote that the decision to fix the Citizenship Law was a basic requirement and natural for anyone requesting to receive Israeli citizenship who does not originally belong to the Jewish people. Those who do not want to recognize these things can forgo the pleasure of requesting citizenship in this country,he said pointedly.It is strange that some Arab Knesset members who signed their own commitment to loyalty to the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state before elections hide this fact from the public, and stand at the forefront of the opposition to the new amendment.

I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag…
A similar, simple pledge of allegiance – originally written by a Christian minister, in fact – is likewise chanted daily by American children in every public school classroom in the United States, and has been since 1892. Its most recent revision in 1954 caused a great deal of controversy with the addition of the words, under G-d –but nevertheless, the revision passed.The American pledge of allegiance is always recited standing at attention, facing the flag, with the right hand held over the heart. Public government meetings as well as local organizations and sporting events are often opened with its recitation as well:I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, One Nation under G-d, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.With all the controversy over that 1954 revision, every school child still chants that pledge in each classroom from coast to coast every day in the U.S. – and no rioting, no demonstrations and no murders are seen. No international comment and no other country attempts or dares to dissuade the United States from insisting that each of its citizens repeat that pledge until he knows it by heart.And yet, when Israel’s sovereign government votes to create a pledge of allegiance of its own, the entire world erupts – beginning with its own citizenry.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

Interview: A Citizenship Law for Jews Around the World
by David Lev OCT 16,10


A change in the citizenship law is welcome, if only because it makes clear – both to Jews and others – that Israel is a Jewish state, says Rabbi Zalman Baruch Melamed, Chief Rabbi of Beit El. But if the Knesset is changing laws, Rabbi Melamed has what he says is a much better idea for legislation – a statute that would confer Israeli citizenship on Jews all around the world.Of course, such citizenship would require some action on the part of those accepting it – and it would be limited, Rabbi Melamed tells Israel National News. Those accepting the citizenship would not necessarily have to live here, but they should visit Israel on a regular basis and work for the country when they return to their homes. And, they would not be able to receive all the benefits and rights Israeli citizens have, since they do not have the responsibilities of living in Israel.Nevertheless, says Rabbi Melamed, granting such citizenship would be a positive thing, both for Jewish communities around the world and for Israel. It would increase the connection between Jews and the State of Israel, and make clear to everyone that this is a Jewish state.The Citizenship Law as proposed – which would require non-Jews seeking to become naturalized Israeli citizens – would have the same effect, making clear to those taking it that Israel is a Jewish state. However, it would not have any halachic (Jewish legal) impact on them. And of course, we do not discriminate against anyone, and we must treat them with respect and dignity,Rabbi Melamed says.But more important is encouraging Jews to strengthen their connection to Israel, Rabbi Melamed says – and a law that grants Israeli citizenship to every Jew would be an excellent way to do this. Any Jew that visits Israel should be able to become a citizen, at least to some extent. This is the state of the Jewish people,he adds.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

MUSLIM NATIONS

EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.

ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they (MUSLIMS) have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,(JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, PALESTINIANS,JORDAN) and the Hagarenes;(EGYPT)
7 Gebal,(HEZZBALLOH,LEBANON) and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA,ARABS,SINAI) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)

DANIEL 11:40-43
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.

EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.

JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

Carter a No Show in Gaza
by Chana Ya'ar OCT 17,10


Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter inexplicably proved to be a last-minute no show at the last minute in Gaza, bowing out of a tour with three representatives of a group calling itself the global Elders, comprised of retired world leaders.Carter, who has been to the region to meet with Hamas numerous times, was slated to arrive in Cairo on Friday for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak prior to his trip through the Rafiah crossing into Gaza, but for an unexplained reason, he did not appear. Last month the 86-year-old leader was hospitalized briefly in the United States for a stomach ailment.Sources said Carter would join the group later as it continued with plans for meetings in Damascus and Amman, as well as stops in Israel, Judea and Samaria.The group of famous retirees, which slammed Israel's blockade of Gaza an impediment to peace,includes Ireland’s former president and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, who proceeded to visit the Hamas terrorist ruled region on Saturday. The rest of the delegation includes Ela Bhatt, an Indian women’s rights activist, and Lakhdar Brahimi, a former United Nations envoy and foreign minister of Algeria.The Carter tour is allegedly intended to encourage support across the region for the current final-status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.The isolation of Gaza is not only illegal collective punishment, but also an impediment to peace,the group said Saturday in a prepared statement, after having spent the day in the region.

I was last here in 2008, just before the Gaza war. The situation has deteriorated to a shocking extent since then,Robinson told reporters. This is not a humanitarian crisis – it is a political crisis, and it can be solved politically. It is unconscionable and unacceptable that Israel and the international community have not lifted the blockade fully to allow Gazans to rebuild their lives and be part of the interconnected world that we take for granted.Israel earlier this year and allowed all goods to enter, except weaponry and dual purpose items, and the United Nations has stated there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Numerous investigations have also made it clear that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza; hundreds of tons of aid are trucked in to the region daily, including food stuffs, medical equipment and supplies, cooking gas, diesel fuel, dry goods and other necessities. Israel offered to truck in all the cargo on the flotillas that attempted to break the blockade. Those needing Israeli medical care are allowed to cross the checkpoints.Officials from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) briefed the Elders delegation on the services they provide to the region. In addition, they met with Hamas de facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and other local leaders, rights activists, business leaders and women’s organizations, according to the statement.

Holding 1.5 million people in what is effectively an open prison is deepening the sense of anger and injustice of the Palestinians,warned Brahimi, who said the group had come to show solidarity with them. This situation is a disaster. It is creating a generation of young people who have little to lose. This is not in anyone's interest.

Self-Imposed Isolation
Despite Haniyeh’s statement to the Elders that he believed it a national necessity to put an end to Palestinian divisions,it has been his faction that has consistently rejected efforts by various Arab mediators to reconcile Hamas and Fatah into a renewed Palestinian Authority unity government.It is also Hamas that continues to reject calls to renounce violence, uphold agreements of previous PA governments, and formally acknowledge the right of the State of Israel to exist.Gaza was split off from the rest of the PA in June 2007 when Hamas routed Fatah after winning a bloody milita war between the two factions. The region has been held in a death grip by Hamas ever since.The terrorist group kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit during a cross-border raid on an Israeli army base near a Gaza crossing in June 2006, prompting Israel to lock down the crossings for several years. Gilad is being held incommunicado in Gaza.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

Iran Becomes President of OPEC
by Chana Ya'ar OCT 17,10


The 12 member nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have elected Iran, OPEC's second-largest oil producer and one of its founding members, to become the organization's 2011 president.Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi announced Thursday the Islamic Republic would take up the rotating presidency in the 50-year-old organization for the first time in 36 years. Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi was unanimously elected to the position at a one-day meeting on October 14, during the organization's 157th session in Vienna.OPEC, which provides 40 percent of the world's oil, is comprised of Algeria, Angola, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ecuador and Venezuela.The group also decided not to make any changes to its official oil production target, currently standing at 24.84 million barrels a day. Current President Wilson Pastor-Morris of Ecuador told reporters after the meeting the decision was made because the market is good.The price of crude has varied between $70 to slightly more than $80 per barrel over the past year and was quote at $81.48 a barrel at the close of Friday's trading,. Strong energy demand combined with an uncertain economic future have prompted OPEC to maintain steady prices, rather than risk slowing a global economic recovery.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

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).

Member states strike deal on green toll for lorries
ANDREW WILLIS 15.10.2010 @ 17:32 CET


EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – European transport ministers have reached an agreement on a new set of rules that will enable member states to charge heavy lorries an additional green tariff according to the air and noise pollution they create.
Discussions on the so-called polluter pays system have been rumbling on for the past two years, with road haulage groups strongly opposed to the measure.These new rules send the right signals to operators,said EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas in a statement on Friday (15 October).The aim is to incentivise a shift in behaviour so companies invest in more efficient logistics, less polluting vehicles and more sustainable transport at large.In its current form, the EU's 1999 Eurovignette directive enables national governments to charge heavy lorries on roughly half of Europe's 30,000 km of motorways.Tolls are either time- or distance-based, and are designed to offset infrastructure costs.If the European Parliament gives its approval to Friday's deal, governments will then be able to charge the additional green tariff targeting pollution, if they wish.Agreement on the compromise text proposed by the Belgian EU presidency is a significant diplomatic coup for the country's caretaker government.

The deal will also allow member states to vary the tolls according to congestion levels, charging more at peak periods provided that lower tariffs are applied during off-peak periods.Nina Renshaw, deputy director of Transport & Environment, an environmental group that campaigns for sustainable transport, welcomed the deal.She urged MEPs to throw out an exemption for less polluting trucks, however. Transport ministers also took the bizarre decision to exempt current generation [EURO V] lorries from air pollution charges; that's rather like exempting smokers of low tar cigarettes from smoking bans,she said.The European Parliament should throw out this loophole when it reviews the legislation at its second reading.

EU sets sights on extending current climate deal at Cancun
ANDREW WILLIS 15.10.2010 @ 09:55 CET


EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European environment ministers have agreed a list of priorities for the upcoming UN conference on biodiversity, with the bloc's strategy for crucial climate change talks later this year increasingly shifting towards the issue of an extension of the existing Kyoto Protocol, long a bone of contention between rich and poor countries.The gathering in Luxembourg on Thursday (14 October) confirmed the EU headline target of halting biodiversity loss by 2020 and restoring the ecosystem in so far as feasible, while stepping up the bloc's contribution to avert global biodiversity loss.But Europe will not provide new money to other countries in this area at the moment, warned Flemish minister for environment Joke Schauvliege, ahead of the biodiversity talks in Nagoya, Japan, later this month (18-29 October).We have the economic situation, so we decided that we are not really able to put new money on the table in Nagoya, Ms Schauvliege said after the meeting which she chaired. The ministers indicated that Europe would push for an extension to the current multilateral treaty on reducing greenhouse gases - the Kyoto Protocol - at crucial UN climate change talks which start in Cancun, Mexico, next month.Under Kyoto, a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted in 1997, industrialised countries committed themselves to reductions in greenhouse gases. The EU and other rich countries have been opposed to a second commitment period after the current period ends in 2012 as they want emerging economies to agree to binding reductions before they pledge to make further reductions themselves.

Poor countries have robustly defended Kyoto, due to the language contained in it of common but differentiated responsibility, understood by developing nations to mean that those countries that caused the problem should pay for solving it and make binding commitments to CO2 reductions.The battle over the Kyoto Protocol has hamstrung climate negotiations for two years.The EU has no problem with the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, said Ms Schauvliege and Connie Hedegaard, EU climate action commissioner, in a joint statement. However, in backing the protocol, the bloc seeks to unwind the principle of common but undifferentiated responsibilities.But we would not do it without conditions. All major economies will have to commit themselves, and areas where the present Kyoto Protocol lacks environmental integrity need to be addressed, they added.Discussions also took place on whether Europe should make a unilateral decision to cut emissions by 30 percent on 1990 levels over the next decade, with the debate set to be taken up again next year. Europe has currently committed to a 20 percent cut.

GMOs

The other main topic on the environment ministers' agenda - how to regulate the production of GMOs inside the 27-member union - produced little agreement.A controversial commission proposal - that would return the ultimate decision on whether to ban or approve the production of certain GM crops to national governments - found little favour, with Germany and France among its opponents. Let me be very clear, in France we refuse even to enter into this discussion, said the country's secretary of state for ecology, Chantal Jouanno, indicating that the plan failed to deliver adequate impact assessments of GM agriculture on the environment, on human health, or on other socio-economic needs.The commission's position has been further complicated by the signing of a petition by over one million European citizens - a new procedure under the Lisbon Treaty - demanding a moratorium on GM crops.EU health commissioner John Dalli said the commission could not ignore the document, but stressed that the mechanics of the EU citizens initiative procedure had not yet been decided on by the European parliament.

EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0&feature=player_embedded

DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (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.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: 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 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)

DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.

DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.

REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)

Nato inches closer to new strategic concept
VALENTINA POP 15.10.2010 @ 09:27 CET


EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Foreign and defence ministers from Nato's 28 member states on Thursday (14 October) broadly endorsed a draft strategic concept meant to adapt the Cold War-era military alliance to new threats such as cyber attacks. But Germany and France are at odds over the role of nuclear weapons and missile defence.This document and the conversation it has sparked among member states serves an important function, which is to ensure that Nato evolves as the world evolves ... Relying on the strategies of the past simply will not suffice, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said at a press conference after the meeting.Praised by ministers for being short and readable,the final wording of the draft document put forward by Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen is set to be approved by heads of state and government on 19-20 November in Lisbon.I see real convergence arising on what modern defence entails and on balancing the importance of having a strong deterrence posture with the desire to strengthen arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation efforts,Mr Rasmussen said during a separate press briefing.The former Danish prime minister said he was confident that Nato leaders in Lisbon will agree to inter-linking European systems to a US-developed missile defence shield under the Nato umbrella.

I believe we are nearing a consensus at the Lisbon Summit for Nato to have a capability to defend all of Nato-Europe against the threat of a missile attack, Mr Rasmussen said.He added that the cost for Nato countries would be minimal, just €147 million for 10 years, divided by 28, and that Russia would be invited to participate as well.Asked by a Ukrainian journalist if other countries may also join the shield as partners, Mr Rasmussen said that he explicitly mentioned Russia because Nato has a special relationship with the country. But I would expect the invitation to be an invitation to other European partners as well,he added.As to France's comments that the shield would be inefficient, Mr Rasmussen said: I have not heard objections to moving forward on making a decision in Lisbon about a Nato-based missile defence system.French defence minister Herve Morin separately told journalists that the missile defence shield is similar to the unsuccessful Marginot defence line built by the French to protect them from a Nazi invasion in 1940.You protect yourself against the Apocalypse, when the best way of avoiding Apocalypse is to be able to make yourself respected with a military tool and a credible defence, he said.According Romanian foreign minister Theodor Baconschi, present at the debate, the French comments had to be read in the context of Paris' national policy regarding nuclear arms.There is this robust nuclear deterrence culture in France and they had to put this national accent, but they didn't break the consensus that Nato should develop the missile defence shield, Mr Baconschi said.Mr Morin's comments were also sparked by Germany's push to make nuclear disarmament a central point in the Nato strategic concept. Arms control and disarmament must be the trademarks of our political alliance,German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle said.Linking nuclear disarmament to the development of the missile shield, as the two countries suggest, is however out of the question for the US.I didn't hear anything about linkage in terms of missile defense and nuclear reductions. Indeed, a number of speakers today talked about as long as we live in a world of nuclear weapons that it is important that NATO remain a nuclear-armed alliance, US defence secretary Robert Gates said at a press conference.

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.

Strong typhoon blows for Philippines; 1,000s flee By JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press Writer – Sun Oct 17, 8:35 am ET

MANILA, Philippines – The strongest typhoon to threaten the Philippines in recent years menacingly roared toward the country's north Sunday, prompting thousands of villagers to flee to safety and sparking massive emergency preparations.Typhoon Megi had sustained winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour and gusts of 162 mph (260 kph) by nightfall but could strengthen as it moves west at 14 mph (22 kph) over the Philippine Sea. Forecasters said it's expected to slam into Cagayan province Monday morning.With its ferocious wind, Megi has become the strongest typhoon to threaten the country in four years, government forecasters say. A 2006 howler with 155-mph (250-kph) winds set off volcanic mudslides that buried entire villages, killing about 1,000 people.Weather officials issued the highest of a four-tier public storm alert for Cagayan and nearby Isabela province, warning of pounding rains and fierce wind that could significantly damage agriculture, residential areas, power and communications. They urged all outdoor activities to be cancelled and advised one family member to stay awake overnight for any contingency.Thousands of military reserve officers and volunteers were on stand by, along with helicopters, including six Chinooks that were committed by U.S. troops holding war exercises with Filipino soldiers near Manila, said Benito Ramos, a top disaster-response official.Rescue boats and thousands of food packs have been pre-positioned near vulnerable areas, he said, adding that schools along the typhoon's path would be closed.The weather bureau has warned fishermen and travelers to stay out of harm's way.

This is like preparing for war, Ramos, a retired army general, told The Associated Press.We know the past lessons and we're aiming for zero casualties.An angry President Benigno Aquino III fired the head of the weather bureau in July for failing to predict that a typhoon would hit Manila. More than 100 people were killed in Manila and outlying provinces by that storm.Authorities planned to start evacuating residents Sunday in and near areas where storm surges, flooding and landslides could happen. Dozens of families voluntarily moved out of their homes to safer ground Saturday in mountainous Isabela, Ramos said, estimating at least a few thousands of people have evacuated from their homes there and in Cagayan by Sunday night.In nearby Cagayan, a vast agricultural valley crisscrossed by rivers and creeks, authorities have ordered villagers to move out of high-risk neighborhoods in 12 coastal towns.If nobody will budge, we may carry out forced evacuations, said Bonifacio Cuarteros of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management office.

Farmers in Cagayan, a rice- and tobacco-producing region of more than 1 million people about 250 miles (400 kilometers) northeast of Manila, have been warned to harvest as much of their crops as possible before Typhoon Megi hits or risk losses, Cuarteros said, adding the typhoon would hit amid the harvest season.With its current course and speed, the typhoon is expected to barrel across the northern tip of Luzon island then blow into the South China Sea late Monday toward northern Vietnam or southern China, weather bureau official Nataniel Servando said.China's National Meteorological Center issued its second-highest alert for potential wild winds and huge waves,warning vessels to take shelter and urging authorities to brace for emergencies, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.

Flash floods kill four in Cambodia
– Sat Oct 16, 4:59 am ET


PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Four Cambodians including a four-year-old boy have been swept to their deaths in flash flooding in recent days as heavy rains battered the country, officials said Saturday.Three men drowned in different provinces, while a child disappeared during flooding in the Phnom Penh area and is presumed dead, the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) said.The floods hit many parts of Cambodia, but at the moment they have subsided, said Keo Vy of NCDM. We are on very high alert about flooding.Bad weather also forced officials at Cambodia's UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal to temporarily relocate high-profile Khmer Rouge leaders currently awaiting trial for crimes including genocide during the Killing Fields era.

A court spokesman said Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea had been taken to a new building at an undisclosed location.Former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, who was sentenced in July to 30 years imprisonment for war crimes and crimes against humanity, was also among those moved.Keo Vy said the deaths are the first due to flooding in Cambodia this year. He said 43 people were killed when typhoon Ketsana hit the country last year.Thousands were affected by the storms and floods engulfed large swathes of Siem Reap province, home to the temples of Angkor Wat.

LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)

JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS

Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.

DANIEL 11:21-23
21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.

DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

JEREMIAH 6:14
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

JEREMIAH 8:11
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

1 THESSALONIANS 5:3
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.

Israel, Hamas have resumed prisoner swap talks By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer – Sun Oct 17, 11:18 am ET

JERUSALEM – Israel said Sunday it has resumed indirect talks with the Hamas rulers of Gaza on swapping hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for a captive soldier held for more than four years.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the German mediator who has been working to broker a deal to bring home the soldier for about a year has returned to the region.We are operating at all times, in different and various ways to bring him back. One of these ways, even the main way, is this negotiation, which indeed resumed a few weeks ago, Netanyahu told Israel Army Radio Sunday.The announcement was the latest twist in a saga that has gripped the country's attention since Hamas-linked militants captured Sgt. Gilad Schalit in a June 2006 raid across the Gaza-Israeli border.Secret negotiations over a swap, mediated by Egypt and more recently by Germany, have repeatedly broken down, and talks have been stalled for months.Hamas, which seeks Israel's destruction, has no official relations with Israel.Deals proposed in the past would have entailed Israel swapping about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Schalit. The most recent talks broke down over Israel's refusal to release a number of prisoners who carried out deadly attacks on civilians because of fears they would return to violence. Hamas insists these prisoners be part of any deal.Hamas officials said over the weekend that the lead German mediator had returned to the region to resume talks. Neither Netanyahu nor Hamas officials provided any details about the current state of negotiations.

But Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha said the German mediator's visit was exploratory and that he had not brought a new offer.Netanyahu is misleading Israeli public opinion when he talks about his willingness to make major concessions in order to conclude the deal, Taha said.Since his capture over four years ago, Schalit has received no outside visitors, and little is known about his whereabouts or condition.Last October, Hamas released a short video of him that appeared to show him in good health. Before that, the only signs he was still alive were three letters and an audiotape. Hamas has not allowed the Red Cross to see him.Schalit's plight has touched many in Israel. Jewish citizens perform mandatory military service, giving many the feeling that his fate could have befallen someone in their family.Schalit's family has enjoyed broad public support for their campaign to release the soldier and went ahead Sunday with their regular weekly demonstration before each Israeli Cabinet meeting. Posters, bumper stickers and T-shirts with Schalit's image are common. Last summer, the family led crowds of marchers in a weeklong trek across the country to draw attention to the soldier's plight.Noam Schalit, the soldier's father, said Sunday he knows of no new progress in the talks.The release of prisoners is also emotionally charged for Palestinians.Palestinians view the 7,000 prisoners Israel holds as heroes, and most have a relative or know someone who has done time. Israel detains them for offenses ranging from participating in attacks to stone-throwing and belonging to organizations Israel considers illegal.Hamas is not part of U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and Hamas' rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Those talks, however, have stalled since their launch in Washington last month over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.

Israeli and Palestinian officials confirmed that plans to bring their leaders together at a meeting in France this week have been postponed. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had hoped to host the meeting Thursday. Late Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced the meeting was delayed, giving no explanation. Palestinian officials said the agenda still hadn't been settled.There was no immediate comment from Paris.In northern Gaza, meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed two militants.The Israeli military said its air force targeted a squad of militants preparing to fire rockets at Israel.The militants' affiliation was not immediately known, but they did not appear to be connected to Hamas or any other major group since there was no claim of responsibility.The Israeli military said more than 165 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel from Gaza so far this year.Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak contributed to this report from Gaza City, Gaza Strip.

China hits back over US green energy probe
OCT 17,10


BEIJING (AFP) – A US probe into claims China illegally subsidises its green-energy sector will backfire as Washington will be forced to reveal its own support for American firms, a senior Chinese official warned.The US alleges that China funnels huge subsidies to its green technology sector in a bid to dominate the fast-growing market, opening a new front in a wide-ranging tussle over trade between the two giant economies.In the strongest response from Beijing since US authorities announced their investigation on Friday, Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Bureau, accused Washington of ploughing billions into its green sector.Chinese subsidies to new energies companies are very small, Zhang said in a statement reported by state media on Monday.But the United States had subsidised the new energy enterprises with 4.6 billion US dollars in cash in the first nine months of 2010, including three billion to wind power enterprises.The statement said the US subsidises up to 2,300 energy-related programmes, including clean-energy projects.

Zhang speculated that the US probe was called to play to a domestic audience as America heads to the polls next month for midterm elections.I was very much astonished at it, wondering what the United States wants. Do they want fair trade, a normal dialogue or transparent information? he said.Judging from the procedures, I believe (politicians of) the United States are more willing to get votes, Zhang said.
The investigation was sparked after the United Steelworkers union -- one of the nation's largest -- petitioned trade officials to probe Chinese practices it claims contravene World Trade Organization rules.It also accused China of providing more than 216 billion dollars' worth of subsidies to green technology makers -- more than twice as much as the US spent in the sector and nearly half of the total green stimulus spent worldwide, according to the union.The claims have received strong backing from members of Congress including House speaker Nancy Pelosi.While both China and the US must continue to work toward a clean energy future, it is long past due for the Chinese government to play by the rules, she said last week.Figures released on Thursday fueled US concerns about trade imbalances with China. The Commerce Department reported the US trade deficit with China ballooned to a new record in August.The politically sensitive gap with China expanded eight percent, to 28.0 billion dollars, wiping out the previous record of 27.9 billion dollars set in October 2008.

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