EU CORPS BLUEPRINT

EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH

GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

EARTHQUAKES

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

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

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

10 days after quake, 2 rescued from Haiti rubble By BEN FOX, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jan 23, 12:01 am ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – An Israeli search team pulled a severely dehydrated 21-year-old man from the rubble of his bedroom a staggering 10 days after an earthquake leveled much of the Haitian capital.Emmannuel Buso was so ghostly pale that rescuers said his mother thought he was a corpse. However, doctors found him in relatively good shape despite his ordeal and he is expected to make a full recovery.Buso said from his bed in an Israeli Defense Forces field hospital near Haiti's main airport that he survived by drinking his own urine and spent most of his time under the debris in a listless daze, at times dreaming of his mother and thinking that he had in fact died.I am here today because God wants it,Buso said in an interview with The Associated Press.The Israeli team is one of a number of such groups that have been searching countless destroyed buildings in the tropical heat following the 7.0-magnitude quake Jan. 12.Elsewhere Friday, an 84-year-old woman was said by relatives to have been pulled from the wreckage of her home, according to doctors administering oxygen and intravenous fluids to her at the General Hospital. Doctors said she was in critical condition.

The European Commission says international rescue crews have rescued more than 125 people since the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck, but successes have grown increasingly rare as time passes. Much of the focus of the quake's aid workers has shifted to helping the hundreds of thousands of newly homeless in the impoverished nation and some rescue crews have started to depart because of the time since the quake.The Israel team has found four people alive. Their field hospital has treated more than 500 people, delivering 14 babies.Maj. Amir Ben David, the head of the Israeli search-and-rescue team, said he has never seen anyone survive as long as Buso under such circumstances. He said the rescue is a reminder of the importance of continuing their efforts.This has given us a lot of hope that we can find more people, Ben David told AP.We will keep going until the end of our mission.Video of the rescue obtained by the AP shows rescue workers pulling the man, shirtless and covered in dust, from a crevasse in the wreckage of his family's two-story home in the Bel-Air section of the city near downtown. Way to go, one of the rescuers yells in Hebrew.Israeli searchers had been going through Port-au-Prince asking people if they knew of anyone who might be trapped. They encountered Buso's relatives, who thought he might still be alive.They pulled away some debris, called out to him and, to everyone's surprise, he responded.Buso, a slender student and tailor with deep-set eyes, said he had just come out of the shower when the quake hit.I felt the house dancing around me, he said from his bed, covered by a reflective heat blanket in the hospital field tent.I didn't know if I was up or down.

He passed out and lay in a daze, dreaming at times that he could hear his mother crying. The furniture in his room had collapsed around him in such a way that it created a small space for him amid the ruins of the house. He had no food. When he got desperately thirsty, he drank his urine.I was very scared, he said.My heart was jumping.Buso said his mother is living in a huge encampment of refugees from the quake across from the wrecked National Palace. He plans to join her there when he is released from the hospital. Capt. Kheir Ashraf, the doctor who treated Buso, said he has no doubts about the man was buried since the quake. But he also said Buso is in remarkably good health, all things considered. He is in good condition and he will recover,Ashraf said. Listen, his laboratory exams are better than mine.Associated Press investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

UN: Haiti government calls off search and rescue By VIVIAN SEQUERA and FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writers – JAN 23,10

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti's government has declared the search and rescue phase for survivors of the earthquake over, the United Nations announced Saturday, saying there is little hope of finding more people alive 11 days after much of the capital was reduced to rubble.The statement from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs came a day after an Israeli team reported pulling a man out of the debris of a two-story home and relatives said an elderly woman had been rescued. Experts say the chance of saving trapped people begins diminishing after 72 hours, but one mother still missing her children said it's too soon to give up.Maybe there's a chance they're still alive, said Nicole Abraham, 33, wiping away tears as she spoke of hearing the cries of her children — ages 4, 6 and 15 — for the first two days after the Jan. 12 quake.Meanwhile Saturday, mourners gathered near the ruins of the shattered cathedral to pay final respects to the capital's archbishop and a vicar in a somber ceremony that doubled as a symbolic funeral for all the dead.

I came here to pay my respects to all the dead from the earthquake, and to see them have a funeral, said Esther Belizaire, 51, whose cousin is among the dead.The 7.0-magnitude quake killed an estimated 200,000 people, according to Haitian government figures cited by the European Commission. Countless dead remain buried in thousands of collapsed and toppled buildings in Port-au-Prince, while as many as 200,000 have fled the city of 2 million, the U.S. Agency for International Development reported.
With the local government essentially incapacitated, the U.N. has coordinated rescue efforts alongside the U.S. and teams from around the world. Spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said the Friday afternoon decision does not mean rescue teams still searching for survivors would be stopped from carrying out whatever work they felt necessary.

It doesn't mean the government will order them to stop. In case there is the slightest sign of life, they will act, Byrs told The Associated Press. She added, however, that except for miracles, hope is unfortunately fading.All told, some 132 people were pulled alive from beneath collapsed buildings by international search and rescue teams since the Jan. 12 disaster, she said.An Israeli military spokeswoman said Saturday no decision had yet been taken to halt their search and rescue operations a day after they saved a 21-year-old man who survived in part by drinking his own urine.With the rainy season on the way, U.N. relief workers are concerned that many Haitians are still homeless and Byers said the focus now will be squarely on providing shelter and medical treatment. About 609,000 people are homeless in the capital's metropolitan area, and the United Nations estimates that up to 1 million could leave Haiti's destroyed cities for rural areas already struggling with extreme poverty.On Saturday morning, more than 1,000 people, many weeping and clutching handkerchiefs, gathered in a small park for the funerals of Msgr. Joseph Serge Miot, the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, and the vicar Charles Benoit. Classical music wafted over their two closed white caskets covered with flowers.This is for everyone, Cleopas Auza said of the ceremony before it began.

Nepthalie Miot, a niece of the archbishop, choked back tears as she described the man who would have worked to comfort the nation after the disaster had he not been killed himself.He was a very compassionate person. He tried to help the poor, she told the crowd, which included President Rene Preval, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and the Vatican's ambassador to Haiti, Archbishop Bernadito Cleopas Auza.Only a small number of funerals have been held since the quake, with most people buried anonymously and without ceremony in mass graves on the outskirts of the city, or burned in the streets.The hardest thing for us is the smell of all the dead bodies, said Josette Elisias, 45, wearing a red handkerchief to cover her nose and mouth on Saturday as workers cleared rubble and debris from streets with brooms, rakes and wheelbarrows.Scores of aid organizations, big and small, have stepped up deliveries of food, water, medical supplies and other aid to the homeless and other needy in seaside city. In the U.S., celebrities and artists made impassioned pleas for charitable donations during an internationally broadcast telethon Friday night. The Haitian people need our help,said actor George Clooney, who helped organize the two-hour telecast.They need to know that they are not alone. They need to know that we still care.More than a dozen Latin pop stars including Shakira, Ricky Martin, Gloria Estefan, Paulina Rubio, Daddy Yankee and Juanes were to appear Saturday on a special live edition of a popular Univision variety show to raise money for the American Red Cross to help aid earthquake victims. Frank Jordans reported from Geneva. Associated Press writers contributing to this story include Mike Melia, Jonathan M. Katz, Michelle Faul, Alfred de Montesquiou, Paul Haven and Ben Fox in Port-au-Prince; Eliane Engeler in Geneva; Morgan Lee and Charles J. Hanley in Mexico City; and Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem. (This version CORRECTS spelling of archbishop's niece's name to Miot.)

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.

Storm: Arizonans dry out, Californians head home By JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer – JAN 23,10

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif. – Hundreds of Southern Californians were back in their homes Saturday as a stampede of storms that brought lightning, vicious downpours and tornadoes turned to sunshine.In Arizona, snow continued to fall in Flagstaff as residents dug out from the biggest weather system to hit the state in nearly two decades. The storms flooded small towns, caused a train derailment and closed major interstates. Snow collapsed roofs in the northern part of the state.Forecasters said clear skies in California should last through Tuesday evening, when more rain moves into Southern California. It's not expected to last more than two days and won't bring significant rainfall, said National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Vanderburg.We'll have a few days to dry out and enjoy the sun before another, smaller system moves in, Vanderburg said.That one will be more of your average winter storm. It won't be a huge rainmaker.

Interstates closed in northern Arizona were open to traffic Saturday morning.

A 6-year-old boy who was swept away in rising waters about 70 miles north of Phoenix was presumed dead. The boy's father and sister were also swept by the current, but managed to get to safety.Three others died in vehicle accidents this week — two on Interstate 40 east of Flagstaff and one in Phoenix — as a series of storms moved through the state. At least two people were killed by trees toppled by high winds in California in recent days.Fears of debris flows northeast of Los Angeles subsided. Mandatory evacuation orders for hundreds of homes were lifted after public works experts determined the ground was safe — for now. The homes are in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains burned bare last summer by wildfire.

The city of Los Angeles canceled evacuations for all but one home.

The storm moved Friday into New Mexico, where high winds toppled a broadcasting tower in Alamogordo and Southwest Airlines cited concerns about winds and snow in suspending 14 flights in Albuquerque over a five-hour span Friday.The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning Friday for areas around Alamogordo, predicting up to six inches of additional snowfall.Flood control channels remained swollen and swift despite the drop in rainfall.In one dramatic rescue, a firefighter splashed into a raging Los Angeles River to rescue a German shepherd mix and managed to hang on safely, even after the dog furiously bit his arm and hand.Joe St. Georges, a 25-year Los Angeles Fire Department veteran, said he received a real bite in the thumb but was otherwise fine.To the north in Ventura County, the body of a 40-year-old man was found Friday in an overflowing creek. Matthew Chidgey, 40, told his roommate he wanted to venture into the closed park to see what the waterfalls looked like during the storm.The storms also drenched Las Vegas, where 1.69 inches of rain hit this week, more than the 1.59 inches of rain that fell all of last year.Across metropolitan Phoenix, downed trees blocked driveways, and palm fronds and other debris from the storm littered the streets. A teenager died after the vehicle he was in lost control while traveling through water Thursday afternoon on a Phoenix street.

In western Arizona, a 2-foot surge of runoff flooded streets and an unknown number of homes early Friday in Wenden, a community of 500 people. Flooding from the storm receded late Thursday but more water returned several hours later when a surge of runoff came through a nearby wash, said Lt. Glenn Gilbert, a spokesman for the La Paz County Sheriff's Office. Several busloads of people were evacuated from their homes in Wenden and taken to a high school five miles away in Salome. They're going to see their homes muddied up and basically destroyed, said Gregory Palma, chief of the local volunteer fire department. They'll just move back in and rip off their dry wall and do what they gotta do.California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for San Bernardino County, citing county estimates of 124 homes damaged by the storm and costs of more than $11 million for emergency response, building damage and debris cleanup. States of emergency have been declared for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Francisco and Siskiyou counties. The declarations will allow the counties to obtain state reimbursement for much of their damage and cleanup costs, although state officials said it was unlikely that the damage was serious enough for them to qualify for federal emergency aid. The city of Long Beach estimated $3 million in damage to homes and buildings. Flooding damaged the city's main library and buildings at California State University, Long Beach earlier in the week.

Ana Barenos said cars parked in her Long Beach neighborhood flooded up to the windows and water seeped into her basement. She blamed the city for not doing a better job clearing the storm drains before the heavy rains. We had to contract a company to take out the water and they took five hours to take all the water from under the house,she said.It cost a lot of money. I think they should clean the drains before the (rainy) season.Associated Press writers contributing to this report include Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff and Jacques Billeaud and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix.

Father loses grip, Ariz. boy swept away in flood By FELICIA FONSECA and JONATHAN J. COOPER, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 22, 7:19 pm ET

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – A father clung to his son and a tree in a rain-swollen northern Arizona river before losing his grip on the 6-year-old boy, who was swept away by the rushing waters and is presumed dead, a fire chief said.Searchers spent Friday looking for the boy's body with no success, a day after David and Katrina Baudek of rural Mayer loaded their two children, Jacob and Desiree, into a pickup during a powerful winter storm. They were trying to get Jacob to a hospital because he was sick, authorities said.The family left their home about 70 miles north of Phoenix and headed out on a dirt road that normally is passable.Tributaries of the nearby Agua Fria River had already flooded local roads. The Baudeks crossed one of them, then decided travel was too dangerous and turned back. They made it 40 feet across a 50-foot wash when the fast-moving water caught their Chevrolet Avalanche and carried it 20 feet downstream, said Mayer Fire Chief Glenn Brown.Katrina Baudek escaped to higher ground as her husband moved the two children into the truck's bed for safety.

A witness nearby heard the commotion and threw David Baudek a rope while someone called for help as storm waters rose and covered the truck's roof, Brown said. Separated by 40 feet of rushing water, rescuers could do nothing but beg for a helicopter — something weather conditions wouldn't allow, he said.After holding on to both children and the rope for about two hours, the father lost his grip and dove toward the shore. Somehow, possibly with the help of her mother, the girl reached safety on the shore as David Baudek clutched a tree and his son.He lost his grip, and Jacob Baudek was swept away.Seeing it, you cannot imagine how he was able to hold on as long as he did, Brown said.An Arizona Department of Public Safety crew flew over the area Friday where Jacob was last seen and spotted debris piles. Ground crews searched them and found the blue and green pajamas the boy was wearing more than a mile from where the truck got stuck, said Yavapai County sheriff's spokesman Dwight D'Evelyn. A backpack the boy was carrying also was recovered, he said.

But there still was no sign of the boy, who also was wearing black and green tennis shoes and had a red and orange blanket wrapped around him. Authorities fear his body might be buried in the mud, and the water would have to recede before it could be recovered, D'Evelyn said.The search was suspended Friday evening while authorities figure out what to do next, he said.Meanwhile, the family is stuck at home, a river physically separating them from authorities. They are doing the best they can under the circumstances, he said.Conditions wouldn't have allowed the boy to survive, he said.A 6-year-old, depending on his medical condition, would probably be unconscious fairly quickly and not have the knowledge of what to do or how to react and probably couldn't swim,he said.Even an adult would have a hard time in this situation.
Associated Press writers contributing to this report include Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff and Jacques Billeaud and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix.

THIS IS GOOD FOR ISRAEL IF ABBAS WON'T TALK PEACE.

US envoy fails to lure Abbas back to Mideast talks By DALIA NAMMARI, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 22, 1:30 pm ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank – President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy failed Friday to lure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas back to peace talks with Israel, as Abbas stuck to his insistence that an Israeli settlement freeze come first.The three-hour meeting between Abbas and Washington's envoy, George Mitchell, came a day after Time magazine published an interview with Obama in which the president acknowledged he may have overestimated his ability to revive negotiations.Mitchell, who also held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is to leave the region over the weekend. The envoy has said Obama remains committed to trying to broker a Mideast deal, but it's unclear what he could try next.Abbas has said repeatedly he will not resume negotiations without a complete Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state. The Obama administration initially demanded such a freeze as well, but relented when Netanyahu resisted.Netanyahu instead agreed to a 10-month slowdown in West Bank construction. But Netanyahu insists he will not relinquish any part of Jerusalem. The Palestinians seek the city's eastern sector as their future capital.

Netanyahu says he is willing to resume talks immediately and contends the Palestinians have set unreasonable preconditions. Talks broke down between Abbas and Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, in December 2008.However, Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the onus is on Israel, not the Palestinians.When we say a settlement freeze that includes Jerusalem, that is not a Palestinian condition, he said.That is rather an Israeli obligation, and the same thing is applicable to our demand to have negotiations resume where we left them in December 2008.Abbas and Olmert held talks for more than a year. The content of those talks was kept secret and no agreement was made public. Abbas aides have said resuming talks is pointless as long as Netanyahu refuses to pick up where Abbas and Olmert left off.Erekat said Mitchell appealed to Abbas to resume negotiations immediately but the Palestinians disagreed and asked Washington to have the Netanyahu government drop its conditions.A statement released later from the prime minister's office said Netanyahu stresses again that Israel does not place any preconditions on entering negotiations. The prime minister calls on the leaders of the Palestinian Authority to stop wasting time on talking about how to enter negotiations and sit down for negotiations instead.

The Palestinians fear that Washington's failure to get Israel to halt settlement construction bodes ill for its ability as a broker once far tougher issues such as a partition of Jerusalem are on the table.Abbas is also concerned his personal standing — under constant assault from his militant rivals in Hamas — will erode further if he returns to talks while settlements keep expanding.Nearly half a million Israelis have moved to the West Bank and east Jerusalem since Israel captured the territories from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. With settlements chipping away at Palestinian-claimed territory, setting up a Palestinian state would be increasingly difficult.Earlier this week, Netanyahu added a new complication by saying he would seek an Israeli presence in a prospective Palestinian state to prevent the smuggling of missiles and other weapons.Mitchell started his latest mission Thursday, meeting with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders. Despite the gloom, the envoy said Thursday that Obama still hopes to see a Palestinian state alongside Israel in peace.We will pursue (that) until we achieve that objective, Mitchell said Thursday.In his interview with Time, Obama seemed pessimistic. I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn't produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high," Obama said.

Israeli minister warns of new war with Hezbollah
JAN 23,10

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel is heading toward a new war with Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah, a cabinet minister warned Saturday in remarks carried by military radio and the popular Ynet news website.We are heading toward a new confrontation in the north but I don't know when it will happen, just as we did not know when the second Lebanon war would erupt, said Yossi Peled, a minister without portfolio and a reserve army general.He was referring to the devastating war Israel fought with Hezbollah in 2006, which killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.Hezbollah is part of a new coalition government formed in November by US- and Saudi-backed Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. The group is also the only faction still armed after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.Although Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government, the latter has no influence on it, Peled said, adding the Jewish state will hold Hezbollah and its ally Syria responsible for any attack on Israel.Unlike many others (officials) I consider that peace is not a goal in itself but only a means to guarantee our existence,said Peled.Israeli officials have repeatedly warned in recent weeks that any attack by Hezbollah would be met with a strong response.Last week Defence Minister Ehud Barak warned Lebanon and Hezbollah against any attempt to undermine the calm prevailing at the border between the two countries.But in a statement issued on Saturday after Peled made his comments, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that Israel does not wish at all to have a confrontation with Lebanon.The Jewish state seeks peace with Lebanon and with all its neighbours,the statement added.

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).

THE EU DICTATOR

REVELATION 6:1-2,13:1-3,7-9,16
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.(THIS IS THE EU DICTATOR)
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.(7 HEADS ARE THE 7TH WORLD EMPIRE IN HISTORY (THE EU) AS WELL AS THE VATICAN WHICH IS BUILT ON 7 HILLS. 10 HORNS ARE 10 KINGS THAT ARISE FROM THE EU, THEN #11 COMES ON THE SCENE BECOMES THE HEAD OF 3 OUNTRIES AND THEN THE EU DICTATOR, COMES FROM 1 OF THE 3 COUNTRIES THAT RULE FOR THIS TERM. I BELIEVE THE 3 COUNTRIES RULING AT THE TIME ARE SPAIN AND 2 OF THE ORIGINAL 6 THAT STARTED THE EU. FROM 1 OF THESE 3 COUNTRIES COME THE FUTURE EU DICTATOR PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION WHO GUARENTEES ISRAELS SECURITY FOR A LAND FOR PEACE 7 YEAR TREATY.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.(THE JEWISH EU DICTATOR GETS HIS POWER FROM SATAN,HE COMES FROM THE OCCULT).
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.(THE DICTATOR HAS A FALSE RESURRECTION. JUST LIKE JESUS HAD A LITERAL RESURRECTION THIS DICTATOR GETS MURDERED AT THE 3 1/2 YR MARK OF THR 7 YEAR TREATY AND COMES BACK TO LIFE. THIS IS HOW HE CAN CLAIM TO BE GOD AND GET AWAY WITH IT AND CONTROL THE WHOLE EARTH.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

DANIEL 11:36-40
36 And the king shall do according to his will;(EU PRESIDENT) 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 A EUROPEAN JEW) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(HES A MILITARY GINIUS) 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 (CONTROL HEZBOLLAH,AL-QUAIDA MURDERERS ETC) with a strange god, 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.
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south(EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR PROTECTING ISRAELS SECURITY) and the king of the north(RUSSIA) 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.

We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.James Paul Warburg appearing before the Senate on 7th February 1950

Like a famous WWII Belgian General,Paul Henry Spock said in 1957:We need no commission, we have already too many. What we need is a man who is great enough to be able to keep all the people in subjection to himself and to lift us out of the economic bog into which we threaten to sink. Send us such a man. Be he a god or a devil, we will accept him.And today, sadly, the world is indeed ready for such a man.

EUROPEAN UNION ARMY

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)

EU mandarins drafting blueprint for diplomatic corps-Celebrating enlargement in Brussels in 2004: just 117 out of 1,657 officials in the commission's foreign relations branch are from new member states (Photo: ec.europa.eu)ANDREW RETTMAN
22.01.2010 @ 09:11 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Senior figures in the EU Council and the European Commission have filled the majority of seats on a committee responsible for designing the EU's diplomatic corps, as new member states fret about their future role in the service.
The European External Action Service (EEAS) will be built over the next two years on a blueprint to be put forward by EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton in late February or early March.Ms Ashton has created a high-level group of 13 people to advise her on the proposal. It held its first two meetings in January, with initial talks dominated by which bits of the commission budget, such as the €285 million a year Instrument for Stability or the €3 billion a year European Development Fund, the EEAS should gobble up.The high-level group includes several of the most influential behind-the-scenes figures in Brussels.From the EU Council side, the secretary general, Pierre de Boissieu, known as Cardinal Richelieu by some EU officials after the French 17th century arch-manipulator, is on the panel. The director of the council's legal service, Jean-Claude Piris, its top military strategist, Robert Cooper and its top political brain, Helga Schmid, are also in.

On the commission front, there are: President Jose Manuel Barroso's right hand man, Joao Vale de Almeida; its secretary general, Catherine Day; the head of its 136 foreign delegations, Patrick Child; Ms Ashton's head of cabinet and veteran British diplomat, James Morrison; and the director of the commission's legal service, Luis Romero Requena.Member states have four people: Spain's EU ambassador, Carlos Bastarreche; its top diplomat on security affairs, Carlos Fernandez Arias Minuesa; Belgium's EU ambassador, Jean de Ruyt; and Hungary's EU envoy, Gabor Ivan.A source present at the meetings told EUobserver that the relatively inexperienced Ms Ashton is holding her own. She's good at working the room, working the meeting so that everyone feels understood and then she takes her decisions,the contact said.But the tight deadline for the proposal has given the commission more power. Mr Barroso stole the march on Ms Ashton by setting up an internal working group on the diplomatic service last autumn. Catherine Day's people are already putting forward legal documents for Ms Ashton's group to rubber stamp.The influence of member states has been diluted by a proviso adopted by the committee in its first session. The four ambassadors take part on an individual basis and do not represent or speak on behalf of Coreper,the clause says, referring to the formal body of 27 EU ambassadors, which meets in Brussels once a week.Member states will get their say on the final proposal when it comes up for approval by foreign ministers in April. In the meantime, one of Ms Ashton's officials is giving regular briefings to Coreper to keep EU capitals on board. MEPs will also get to approve the diplomatic corps' budget. But consultation is limited to occasional phone calls to German centre-right deputy Elmar Brok, on the parliament's foreign affairs committee.

Thorny bramble

One thorny little bramble for Ms Ashton will be ensuring that new member states get a satisfactory share of senior appointments.The EU Council and the commission, which will furnish two-thirds of EEAS personnel, are currently dominated by people from old member states. Out of the commission's 1,657 foreign relations officials, 117 are from the 12 countries that joined the union after 2004. Just one of them, Hungarian diplomat Janos Herman in the commission's Norway embassy, holds a top-level post. The Brussels mafia has made sure that our dirty moustaches are kept out of this,one Polish-origin EU official said.Hungary's ambassador, Mr Ivan, sees no bias in being the only person from a new EU country on Ms Ashton's French and British-led group.I don't see any behaviour here against new member states, he told this website.The diplomat, who has 20 years' experience dealing with Brussels going back to Hungary's pre-accession talks, promised to watch over the interests of new member states, however.In the composition of the EEAS there should be attention paid to geographic balance. It's true that new member states are relatively underrepresented in the foreign services of the commission and council. I will pay attention to these issues,he said.

Berlin plans G20 financial oversight meeting
JAN 23,10

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will host a meeting of the Group of 20 nations in May to focus efforts on reforming financial regulation in the wake of new U.S. proposals for governing banks, a finance ministry spokesman said.In an interview in Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said proposals made last week by U.S. President Barack Obama have increased the chances of coming to an international accord.It is important that we do not relax our efforts now internationally, he said in comments to be published on Sunday.We'll also bring our own ideas to this debate, he said.Earlier German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that finance ministers, central bankers, and experts from the G20 developed and emerging nations would be invited to the conference, to be held in Berlin toward the end of May.The goal will be to accelerate coordination within the group, the magazine reported, adding that Germany wanted to prevent countries from working on financial oversight alone.(Reporting by Brian Rohan; Editing by Toby Chopra)

New EU-Mediterranean club opens in Barcelona
VALENTINA POP 22.01.2010 @ 10:50 CET

EUOBSERVER / BARCELONA - A new club of regional and local officials from European, North African and Middle Eastern countries - Arlem - was inaugurated on Thursday (21 January) in Barcelona, as part of a broader EU policy to build bridges with Maghreb and Mashreq people. Hidden behind palm and eucalyptus trees full of green parrots, the new club's luxurious home - a former royal residence called the Palau Reial - buzzed with security and VIP cars on the day. One couple was upset after being refused permission – as is normal on weekdays - to visit its Pedralbes gardens:No badge, no entrance, the gatekeeper said implacably. The woman in the couple gazed at the banner and its cryptic title. Arlem ...What is that? she asked. But the guard declined to say anything else and the couple walked away.The Association Regionale et Locale Euro-Mediteranee (Arlem) is a project designed to foster co-operation between local authorities on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea and to help members tap EU funds for environmental, energy and democracy-building projects.It is part of the more grand Mediterranean Union, which was launched by France in 2008 during its chairmanship of the EU and also has its permanent home in the old Catalan palace.

Spain, the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, is enthusiastically promoting the union's regional dimension, as embodied in the Arlem project.The Euro-Mediterranean Union is a great priority of the Spanish presidency. But if we want practical and tangible results, we must take into account regional and local authorities when constructing this space,Spanish secretary of state for foreign affairs Angel Torres-Quevedo said at Thursday's meeting.Arlem membership is not limited to states bordering the Mediterranean Sea: Nordic countries such as Finland were also present at the event, as well as Great Britain and Slovenia.Risto Ervela, from Sauvo in southern Finland, told this website that he is interested in taking part because his region is involved in the Baltic Sea strategy – another EU co-operation platform in the north - and wants to know what was happening in the south.

My region, Turku, only has partners in the Baltic Sea area: Poland, Russia, northern Germany. Our most southerly partner is France. But now maybe we can find new partners. There are many topics that we share - pollution of the sea, employment, he said.Out of Arlem's 40 European members, 30 people hail from the Committee of the Regions, a Brussels-based institution that gives advice on employment, environment and energy to EU policy makers. The majority of its North-African and Middle Eastern personnel has been appointed by national governments. Funding is provided from each member country, while the Committee of the Regions helps out with translation into the Arlem's three official languages - Arabic, English and French.Arlem is not a new institution, it is a network, a concept of working together, an open space for dialogue, without roof and without walls,Luc Van Den Brande, Arlem's freshly elected chairman, told press. A former premier of the Belgian region of Flanders, Mr Van Den Brande currently presides over the Committee of Regions, with his non-renewable mandate due to expire next month.The leadership of the assembly also includes a Moroccan co-chairman and representatives from Algeria, France, Jordan, Hungary and Croatia. Despite being domiciled in Spain, its general assembly is set to meet next time in Morocco in 2011 and, in the meantime, it is to look into practical ways of dealing with issues such as sea pollution and waste management, as well as more ambitious ideas such as city diplomacy - getting local leaders to help tackle international problems, such as the Turkish-Cypriot or the Israeli-Palestinian disputes.

The tranquility of Arlem's opening session was fractured by Yona Yahav, the mayor of the Israeli city of Haifa, who openly voiced dissatisfaction with what he called an attempt by Syrian and Lebanese envoys to sabotage his election to the governing board of the body.My expectations were that I was coming to a place which is open to new ideas. For the time being, I'm disappointed, he said.Mr Yahav said he wanted the example of Haifa to be lifted up as a model of reconciliation between Muslims and Jews, having integrated both groups in the city's government.Everything is on an equal basis, so that there is a feeling they are equal partners in the day-to-day shaping of the city,he said.

US welcomes EU's new foreign policy powers
ANDREW RETTMAN 22.01.2010 @ 09:23 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has welcomed the upgrading of EU foreign policy under the Lisbon Treaty at a meeting with the union's recently-anointed foreign relations chief, Catherine Ashton.These are historic times for the EU. I expect that in decades to come, we will look back on the Lisbon Treaty and the maturation of the EU that it represents as a major milestone in our world's history,Ms Clinton told press in Washington on Thursday (21 January).As the EU develops a more powerful and unified foreign policy voice in the wake of the Lisbon Treaty, our transatlantic partnership will continue to grow.She declined to mention Ms Ashton's British nationality in the context of the US and UK's old special relationship, amid concerns in some European capitals that Washington is increasingly keen to do business with Brussels rather than on a bilateral level.Her remarks also stand in contrast to fears voiced in the European Parliament last year that the US tried to scupper Lisbon ratification because it does not want to compete with a stronger Europe on the international stage.Ms Clinton and Ms Ashton indicated that the two powers stand side-by-side on future sanctions on Iran.Let me be clear: We will not be waited out and we will not back down. Iran has a very clear choice between continued isolation and living up to its international obligations, Ms Clinton said.Six years of dialogue by my predecessor Javier Solana has not brought us to the outcome that we would wish. And so we do have to consider what else needs to be done, and we stand ready to do that, Ms Ashton added.The pair also agreed that more needs to be done to help people in the Haitian countryside following an initial focus on its earthquake-struck capital, Port-au-Prince.The most critical issue on our agenda today was the people of Haiti,Ms Ashton said.

The event was not widely covered in US media. But it saw Ms Clinton praise Ms Ashton's personal qualities and refer to her by her first name in a sign of friendship.I am grateful to have such a strong, thoughtful, accomplished partner in the efforts that confront us,she said, adding later that: Cathy and I are statistics kinds of people.The EU foreign minister's visit to the US capital follows criticism of her handling of the Haiti crisis in the European Parliament on Tuesday, where French and German MEPs said she should have gone to Port-au-Prince to improve the union's visibility as a donor. The incoming French EU commissioner, Michel Barnier, on Wednesday attacked Ms Ashton on the same grounds, following a week of French grumbling that the US has taken a leading role in helping the one-time French colony.

Catherine Ashton became the EU's new foreign policy supremo on 1 December, the date of entry into life of the Lisbon accord. But she is currently juggling the creation of a new EU diplomatic corps in Brussels together with her international obligations. The whole thing is in statu nascendi. It's a bit chaotic for the time being,an EU diplomat said.

Latvian parliament backs IMF bailout deal
ANDREW WILLIS 22.01.2010 @ 09:16 CET

A crucial vote in the Latvian parliament on Thursday (21 January) gave a renewed mandate to the government to continue talks with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union regarding the country's €7.5 billion bailout package.The vote was precipitated following a ruling last month by the country's constitutional court against government pension cuts, drawing a question mark over the country's ability to meet the terms of the international lending programme agreed in December 2008.But internal tensions within the ruling five-party coalition highlight the uneasy nature of the alliance, with the largest coalition partner, the People's party, rejecting the new mandate. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, from third-largest coalition party New Era, played down the conflict, but added that the People's party had not behaved constructively.This is not a vote about the coalition, this is a vote about the international loan programme, which has won majority support in parliament, he told reporters after the result. Fresh elections are scheduled to be held in October, although some analysts question the government's ability to hold on until then. Before the vote Mr Dombrovskis had warned that a rejection of the mandate would endanger Latvia's financial stability, potentially leading to credit rating cuts and interest rate hikes. The fractious coalition government of the small Baltic state of 2.2 million people is currently battling with an extremely tough economic situation after a decade-long boom imploded in 2008.Deep wage cuts have resulted in sporadic bursts of social unrest as the country battles the deepest recession of the EU's 27 member states, with unemployment currently exceeding 20 percent.

Currency devaluation as a means of potentially boosting the country's exports has also been ruled out by Latvia's policy makers, who have instead opted for a tight peg with the euro in the hope of joining the European currency club in the coming years. Financial markets have been nervous that Latvia's troubles could lead to regional contagion, although fears appear to have subsided in recent months. Sweden in particular has kept a close eye on Latvia's problems, with Swedish banks amongst the largest lenders in the region.

EU and US agree to increase airport security
VALENTINA POP 22.01.2010 @ 09:23 CET

EU and US interior ministers agreed on Thursday (21 January) to step up airport screening of passengers, increase onboard security and to improve data sharing after a failed attack last month on a US-bound flight departing from Amsterdam.Recognising their shared responsibility for preventing terrorist attacks on civil flights, ministers pledged to come up by April with concrete proposals on enhancing their security both on the ground and in the air.US home affairs chief Janet Napolitano said co-operation needed to be strengthened in the area of data collection, analysis and sharing, improvement of aviation standards and deployment of better screening technology.The EU commission has been mandated to speed up its evaluation of a Europe-wide roll out of body scanners, an issue which is still controversial for several member states and lawmakers concerned with privacy rights.Justice commissioner Jacques Barrot said a report will be soon published on the effectiveness of this technology, as well as its potential impact on health and its compatibility with individual rights.Ms Napolitano said the use of scanners is not the deciding factor nor essential for guaranteeing safety, although the US considers them as useful. It already has 40 up and running and plans to put 450 more in operation during this year. Great Britain and the Netherlands also have this technology in place, while France and Italy are carrying out feasibility tests. Others may follow suit: Germany, initially quite sceptical of these devices, now says it could reach a decision by mid-2010. It is not a question of acting under pressure, it is a question of national and European security, German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said, as quoted by AFP.Air marshals, already operating on some US flights, could be introduced in Europe as well, DPA reports.Obviously, we are looking at the possibility of posting people on board (passenger flights) to maintain security,Mr Barrot told journalists in Toledo.

EU countries could also share passengers data among themselves, not only with the US, as is currently the case with the Passenger name record (PNR) system. Under a deal signed in 2007, EU airlines operating trans-Atlantic flights have to forward their PNR data to the US security authorities, but they do not have to share data systematically with the security services in EU states. The set up is as if a terrorist could not fly from London Heathrow to Madrid Barajas, Spanish interior minister Alfredo Rubalcaba said. The informal meeting hosted by the Spanish EU presidency comes one month after a Nigerian man linked to Al Qaeda tried to detonate a bomb aboard a US bound airliner which took off from Amsterdam.European security flops continued earlier this month, with a Slovak test in which one randomly planted plastic bomb failed to be identified by airport officials in Bratislava and landed together with an unknowing passenger in Dublin. Irish officials were informed only three days later that the man was part of an unconventional security test. On Wednesday, Munich's airport temporarily closed after a man's laptop computer set off alarms that indicated explosives might be present. The incident caused a series of flight cancellations and delays.

JOHN LOEFFLER
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2010/01/john-loeffler-steel-on-steel-layers-of.html#links
TAMAR YONAH
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-world-is-saying-about-jews-1182010.html#links
AARON KLEIN AUDIO
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2010/01/wnd-on-air-aaron-klein-to-host-radio_18.html#links
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2010/01/exposed-secret-talks-to-carve-up-israel.html#links
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2010/01/hitlers-children-will-leave-you-totally.html#links
BANK REFORM STORIES
http://www.infowars.com/scandal-albert-edwards-alleges-central-banks-were-complicit-in-robbing-the-middle-classes/
http://www.infowars.com/banks-already-finding-ways-around-obama-financial-reforms/
http://www.infowars.com/economic-black-hole-20-reasons-why-the-u-s-economy-is-dying-and-is-simply-not-going-to-recover/
http://www.infowars.com/government-is-too-big-to-succeed/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcxLl8u30l8&feature=player_embedded
FARAH MISSION TO RESTORE AMERICA BACK
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=122633
ISLAM OUTRAGE OVER SCRIPTURES
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=122677

From The Times January 23, 2010-UN climate change expert: there could be more errors in report-Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent(Bob Strong/Reuters)Rajenda Pachauri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYj5baVfB0Y&feature=player_embedded

The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel's assessment of Himalayan glaciers. Dr Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for him to resign over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s retraction of a prediction that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. But he admitted that there may have been other errors in the same section of the report, and said that he was considering whether to take action against those responsible. I know a lot of climate sceptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them,he told The Times in an interview.It was a collective failure by a number of people,he said.I need to consider what action to take, but that will take several weeks. It’s best to think with a cool head, rather than shoot from the hip.

World misled over glacier meltdown
The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high. But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. The IPCC admitted on Thursday that the prediction was poorly substantiated in the latest of a series of blows to the panel’s credibility.
Dr Pachauri said that the IPCC’s report was the responsibility of the panel’s Co-Chairs at the time, both of whom have since moved on. They were Dr Martin Parry, a British scientist now at Imperial College London, and Dr Osvaldo Canziani , an Argentine meteorologist. Neither was immediately available for comment. I don’t want to blame them, but typically the working group reports are managed by the Co-Chairs, Dr Pachauri said. Of course the Chair is there to facilitate things, but we have substantial amounts of delegation.He declined to blame the 25 authors and editors of the erroneous part of the report , who included a Filipino, a Mongolian, a Malaysian, an Indonesian, an Iranian, an Australian and two Vietnamese. The co-ordinating lead authors were Rex Victor Cruz of the Philippines, Hideo Harasawa of Japan, Murari Lal of India and Wu Shaohong of China.But Syed Hasnain, the Indian glaciologist erroneously quoted as making the 2035 prediction, said that responsibility had to lie with them. It is the lead authors — blame goes to them,he told The Times.There are many mistakes in it. It is a very poorly made report.He and other leading glaciologists pointed out at least five glaring errors in the relevant section.

It says the total area of Himalyan glaciers will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035. There are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas. A table below says that between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840m — a rate of 135.2m a year. The actual rate is only 23.5m a year.The section says Himalayan glaciers are receding faster than in any other part of the world” when many glaciologists say they are melting at about the same rate. An entire paragraph is also attributed to the World Wildlife Fund, when only one sentence came from it, and the IPCC is not supposed to use such advocacy groups as sources. Professor Hasnain, who was not involved in drafting the IPCC report, said that he noticed some of the mistakes when he first read the relevant section in 2008. That was also the year he joined The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Dr Pachauri. He said he realised that the 2035 prediction was based on an interview he gave to the New Scientist magazine in 1999, although he blamed the journalist for assigning the actual date. He said that he did not tell Dr Pachauri because he was not working for the IPCC and was busy with his own programmes at the time. I was keeping quiet as I was working here, he said.My job is not to point out mistakes. And you know the might of the IPCC. What about all the other glaciologists around the world who did not speak out? Dr Pachauri also said he did not learn about the mistakes until they were reported in the media about 10 days ago, at which time he contacted other IPCC members. He denied keeping quiet about the errors to avoid disrupting the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen, or discouraging funding for TERI’s own glacier programme. But he too admitted that it was really odd that none of the world’s leading glaciologists had pointed out the mistakes to him earlier.Frankly, it was a stupid error,he said.But no one brought it to my attention.

TARP overseer: The banks will own all of us without reform
David Edwards and Muriel Kane Raw Story Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

The head of the Congressional Oversight Panel created in 2008 to oversee the TARP bank bailout says that President Obama’s proposal on Thursday to limit both the size of the major banks and the risks in which they can engage is very important.Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow,I head him say, We’re going to break apart too-big-to-fail, and we’re going to have an answer so that every financial institution, if it makes big enough mistakes, if it takes big enough risks and loses, every one of them can, in the end, die.The financial institutions have pushed him hard, Warren said of the president.They’ve pushed Congress hard. He’s pushing right back. … What I see is that the president is now going to go straight to the people, and he’s not going to let deals be cut in the back room. … The time is upon us. Either you vote for the banks, and you do it in a big public way, or you vote for the people.Warren emphasized that even though TARP is winding down, the bailout has left us with the reminder that You know, when it comes right down to it with these very large financial institutions, we will throw as many taxpayers under the bus as it takes to save them.She insisted, however, that Obama’s reform proposals amount to a statement that we just can’t afford to do that any more.
Without that,Warren remarked,quite frankly, our economy just can’t function. Those big banks really will own all of us.How are you feeling about the politics here? Maddow asked, citing resistance from Wall Street.I’m a teacher, I’m not a politician,Warren replied. But I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time.This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Jan. 21, 2010.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/tarp-overseer-the-banks-%e2%80%98will-own-all-of-us%e2%80%99-without-reform.html

Iran Calls for End to U.S. Dollar Hegemony
Press TV January 20, 2010

Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says adopting regional approaches can ensure sustainable security and stability in the Caucasus region.In a Wednesday meeting with former Armenian president Robert Kocharian in Tehran, Mottaki highlighted the age-old relations between Iran and Armenia and stressed the importance of maintaining calm in the Caucasus.The stability and security of the Caucasus must be strengthened with regional approaches.The interests of regional countries are served by strategic approaches that resolve regional woes and crises in the Caucasus region and guarantee sustainable security there, Mottaki was quoted as saying.The senior Iranian diplomat added that faulty economic systems were to blame for the global economic recession.This [global economic] crisis revealed that the approaches based on post-WWII theories are no longer applicable and world countries by adopting new economic policies must lessen the role US dollar in transactions as well as their dependence on international monetary organizations.

Kocharian, for his part, pointed to the relations between Iran and Armenia, saying, We will make every effort to expand relations with Iran.He went on to describe the presence of foreign troops in the Caucasus as harmful to the security and stability of regional states, adding that regional approaches are the best solution for development and stability.

SATAN COMES AGAINST ISRAEL

1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

SCOFFERS MOCKING CHRISTS LITERAL 2ND COMING TO EARTH BODILY.

2 PETER 3:3-7
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

College defends prof who mocked Christians-Seeks restoration of policy under which student told ask God for grade January 23, 2010 12:25 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh 2010 WorldNetDaily

Los Angeles City College professor's evaluation of student's speech, marked with the words, Ask God what your grade is.A California college is asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to restore a policy at the center of a case in which a professor berated a Christian student with the suggestion, Ask God what your grade is.The Los Angeles Community College District, the nation's largest community college system, filed the appeal of a lower-court decision in favor of student Jonathan Lopez, represented by the Alliance Defense Fund. As WND reported, Lopez, a student at Los Angeles City College, was delivering a speech on his Christian faith in speech class when professor John Matteson interrupted him, called him a fascist b----rd for mentioning a moral conviction against homosexual marriage. The professor later told the student to ask God what your grade is.Matteson also warned on his evaluation of Lopez's speech, Proselytizing is inappropriate in public school, and later threatened to have the student expelled. The subsequent lawsuit by the ADF targeted the school for the professor's comments but also sought removal of a campus sexual harassment and speech policy that court documents explained systematically prohibits and punishes political and religious speech by students that is outside the campus political mainstream.In his ruling, U.S. District Judge George H. King determined the campus policy was unconstitutionally overbroad and ordered it to be stricken from the college's website. Is free speech dead on arrival? Get the book that shows how Americans are being punished for stepping out of line! The college then told the judge it wanted him to reconsider the case, to which the judge responded,Defendants do not get a mulligan simply because they chose to retain new counsel.The appeal by the college district to the 9th Circuit followed.

The precedent the college seeks has attracted the attention of other free-speech advocates, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE, which battles college speech restrictions nationwide. FIRE has filed a brief in the case arguing the community college's policy contradicts both decades of legal precedent and the guidance of the federal Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights.The brief contends if the district police is permitted, it would gravely endanger the free speech rights of LACCD students and exacerbate the free speech crisis on America's college campuses.By continuing to defend an indefensible and unconstitutional speech code with this appeal, LACCD has proven not only that it does not care about its students' First Amendment rights, but that it doesn't care about wasting taxpayer dollars to argue against the Bill of Rights in court, said Will Creeley, FIRE's director of legal and public advocacy.FIRE is confident that the Ninth Circuit will recognize the impermissible flaws in LACCD's policy and reject this misguided appeal.The policy the school wants affirmed banishes generalized sexist statements as well as actions and behavior that convey insulting, intrusive or degrading attitudes/comments about women or men.Despite over two decades of federal jurisprudence finding policies precisely like LACCD's unconstitutional, LACCD is shamefully attempting to deny its students the First Amendment rights to which they are legally entitled,FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said.FIRE's brief explains why the Ninth Circuit must affirm the district court's decision and make LACCD's sexual harassment policy the latest addition to an unbroken string of unconstitutional codes struck down in federal court.

Judge King granted a preliminary injunction halting the enforcement of the policy because of its First Amendment violations. He then refused to grant the college's motion for reconsideration, calling the college arguments scattershot and disjointed.
Lopez had quoted Romans 10:9,Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
He told ADF, Colleges are supposed to be safe for free speech and the discussion of many ideas. What has happened to me is an assault on my constitutional rights. A victory in this case will guarantee that every student who attends the school now and in the future is allowed to freely express their beliefs, religious or otherwise, without fear.ADF Litigation Staff Counsel David Hacker said at that time if the school cared about free speech rights of students,they should not desire to pursue enforcement of such a bad policy.Lopez was participating in a class assignment to give a speech on any topic from six to eight minutes. During the November, 24, 2008 class, Mr. Lopez delivered an informative speech on God and the ways in which Mr. Lopez has seen God act both in his life and in the lives of others through miracles,ADF said.In the middle of the speech, he addressed the issues of God and morality; thus, he referred to the dictionary definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman and also read a passage from the Bible discussing marriage.Those comments led to the outburst from the professor, who canceled the remaining class period and mocked Lopez's faith on his grading review. By regulating speech on the basis of its content, no matter how disparaging or sexist, LACCD proposes to appoint itself (or complaining students) the judge of what speech shall be allowed on campus, FIRE official said in the brief.Such a result cannot be squared with the Supreme Court's pronouncement, issued time and again,that content discrimination isn't allowed. It also argued that the college's citation of the state education code wasn't valid. The rights enshrined in our nation's Constitution, including the guarantees of the First Amendment, are the highest law of the land, and they cannot be superseded by state statute or regulation, the brief argued.

France says U.N. must take tough action against Iran
Fri Jan 22, 12:46 pm ET

PARIS (Reuters) – The United Nations should adopt strong measures against Iran to persuade Iranian leaders to engage in meaningful discussion about their nuclear program, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday.Addressing diplomats based in France, Sarkozy said the European Union should also assume its responsibilities in putting pressure on Tehran to enter into negotiations.To hesitate or to prevaricate in the face of such an issue would carry with it a great weight of responsibility, Sarkozy said.The only aim of sanctions is to lead Iran to the negotiating table,he added.Iran has ignored U.S. President Barack Obama's end-2009 deadline to respond to an offer from six world powers of economic and political incentives in exchange for halting its uranium enrichment program.However, U.N. security council members, Russia and China, both appear reluctant to impose more sanctions on Iran. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier on Friday that world powers should beware of pushing Iran into a corner.

But Sarkozy said the time had come for the international community to draw the consequences of Iran's refusal to talk.Despite all our efforts, and a new engagement by the United States, and despite our ambitious proposals for cooperation, the Iranian authorities are blocked in a one-way street of proliferation and radicalism, Sarkozy said.Today, they have added to that the brutal repression of their own people,he added.France wants the (U.N. Security) Council to adopt strong measures and for the European Union as well to assume its responsibilities, he said.He added that North Korea should be treated in similar fashion to force it to meet its international obligations.(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; editing by James Mackenzie and Matthew Jones)

Govt raises terror threat to severe by Alice Ritchie – JAN 23,10

LONDON (AFP) – The government has raised its terror threat assessment from substantial to severe, suggesting an attack was highly likely, ahead of international meetings on Yemen and Afghanistan in London next week.Home Secretary Alan Johnson announced the change on Friday, four weeks after the attempted bombing of an airliner heading from Amsterdam to the US city of Detroit.Johnson said the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, the assessment unit within the MI5 domestic intelligence agency, had taken the decision to up the threat level.This means that a terrorist attack is highly likely, but I should stress that there is no intelligence to suggest that an attack is imminent, he said.Johnson refused to say whether the amended assessment -- now four on a scale of five -- was linked to the attempted attack on the Northwest Airlines flight on December 25.We never say what the intelligence is, he said, adding: It shouldn't be thought to be linked to Detroit or anywhere else for that matter.But a US official, who requested anonymity, said that's the implication.The US Department of Homeland Security said the announcement brought Britain in line with US security measures introduced over the last few weeks.

The 23-year-old Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up the Detroit-bound plane with explosives hidden in his underwear was believed to have trained in Yemen after studying in London. Al-Qaeda claims it sent him on the mission.Johnson said the higher threat level meant Britain put more resources in, we heighten the state of vigilance.He stressed Britain continued to face a real and serious threat and urged the public to remain vigilant.The threat level was last at severe in July last year when it was downgraded to substantial, suggesting an attack remained a strong possibility.Alex Carlile, the British government's independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, said the move was aimed at making the public more aware, but was not designed to scare people.He said: The government has quite rightly decided that if you don't tell the public to be vigilant, they're not going to be vigilant.The message from the current change of assessment is not that we should be more afraid, but that we should be a little bit more vigilant than we have been.Mike Granatt, a former security official in the British government, told BBC radio: The main reason for alert states is to warn people who have a specific task that they ought to do something differently, they ought to be taking more steps or they ought to move to a different phase of the security plan.

India has increased security at its airports and warned domestic airlines about a possible hijack attempt after a tip-off from Western intelligence services, but there was no suggestion of any link to Britain's move.Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday reiterated the threats Britain faced as he announced the suspension of direct flights from Yemen until new security measures were in place. Brown said the Afghanistan-Pakistan border remained the crucible of terrorism, but the failed Detroit attack highlighted the threat from Yemen-based militants. A meeting in Britain on Wednesday was aimed at strengthening international support for Yemen in its efforts to combat Al-Qaeda. The day after, President Hamid Karzai would attend a high-level conference in London on the way forward in violence-scarred Afghanistan. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would also take part. Britain has been targeted by a number of attempted bombings in recent years, following the attacks of July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 others on the London transport system. Since the threat levels have been made public, they have twice briefly been raised to the top critical level, meaning an attack was expected imminently. The first time was in August 2006, after a plot to down transatlantic airliners was uncovered, and the second in June 2007, after car bombs failed to detonate in London and a burning Jeep was driven into Glasgow airport in an attempted attack.

Pope to priests: Go forth and blog By Ariel David, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jan 23, 7:33 am ET

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has a new commandment for priests struggling to get their message across: Go forth and blog.The pope, whose own presence on the Web has heavily grown in recent years, urged priests on Saturday to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures.And just using e-mail or surfing the Web is often not enough: Priests should use cutting-edge technologies to express themselves and lead their communities, Benedict said in a message released by the Vatican.The spread of multimedia communications and its rich menu of options might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, but priests are challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources,he said.The message, prepared for the World Day of Communications, suggests such possibilities as images, videos, animated features, blogs, and Web sites.

Benedict said young priests should become familiar with new media while still in seminary, though he stressed that the use of new technologies must reflect theological and spiritual principles.Priests present in the world of digital communications should be less notable for their media savvy than for their priestly heart, their closeness to Christ, he said.The 82-year-old pope has often been wary of new media, warning about what he has called the tendency of entertainment media, in particular, to trivialize sex and promote violence, while lamenting that the endless stream of news can make people insensitive to tragedies.But Benedict has also praised new ways of communicating as a gift to humanity when used to foster friendship and understanding.

The Vatican has tried hard to keep up to speed with the rapidly changing field.

Last year it opened a YouTube channel as well as a portal dedicated to the pope. The Pope2You site gives news on the pontiff's trips and speeches and features a Facebook application that allows users to send postcards with photos of Benedict and excerpts from his messages to their friends.Many priests and top prelates already interact with the faithful online. One of Benedict's advisers, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the archbishop of Naples, has his own Facebook profile and so does Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles.In Saturday's message — titled The priest and pastoral ministry in a digital world: new media at the service of the Word — Benedict urged special care in contacts with other cultures and beliefs.A presence on the Web, precisely because it brings us into contact with the followers of other religions, nonbelievers and people of every culture, requires sensitivity to those who do not believe, the disheartened and those who have a deep, unarticulated desire for enduring truth and the absolute, he said.Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, who heads the Vatican's social communications office, said that Benedict's words aimed to encourage reflection in the church on the positive uses of new media.That doesn't mean that (every priest) must open a blog or a Web site. It means that the church and the faithful must engage in this ministry in a digital world, Celli told reporters. At some point, a balance will be found.Celli, 68, said that young priests would have no trouble following the pope's message, but, he joked,those who have a certain age will struggle a bit more.On the Net: http://pope2you.net
http://www.vatican.va

150 bodies found in wells after Nigerian massacre by Aminu Abubakar – JAN 23,10

JOS, Nigeria (AFP) – At least 150 bodies were recovered from wells following deadly Muslim-Christian clashes in central Nigeria, a village headman said Saturday, taking the unofficial death toll past 400.So far we have picked 150 bodies from the wells. But 60 more people are still missing, Umar Baza, head of Kuru Karama village near the city of Jos, told AFP by telephone.We took an inventory of the displaced people from this village, sheltering in three camps, and we realise that 60 people can still not be accounted for, he said.We believe there are more bodies in the wells.
The Head of the Muslim volunteer team for the victims' burial, Mohammed Shittu, said further searches would be carried out on Saturday.Now we have 150 bodies in all, taken from the wells as from Thursday,he told AFP.From the account of survivors, some people fleeing attacks were ambushed and killed in the bush. That is why we are going there to search for more bodies.Global rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Saturday urged Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to order an immediate criminal investigation into credible reports of a massacre of at least 150 Muslim residents of a town in central Nigeria.A Muslim official who visited Kuru Karama to arrange for the burial of bodies told HRW that 121 corpses had been recovered, including those of 22 young children.Dozens of them were stuffed down wells or in sewage pits,HRW said in a statement.

The state government has given no official death toll for the violence, which broke out last Sunday in Jos, capital of Plateau State, and spread to nearby towns and villages.Some 18,000 people fled the fighting to take refuge in military barracks, churches and mosques around the city, according to the Red Cross, as the government called in the army to restore order.Religious leaders and medical workers said they had counted 288 bodies by Wednesday, before the dead started to be recovered from Kuru Karama, a Muslim enclave in a Christian region 30 kilometres (18 miles) south of Jos.Another 26 bodies were found and buried Saturday in a Jos cemetery.These 26 bodies buried were picked up today (Saturday) in two locations affected by the violence in Jos -- Rusau and Anguwar Rukuba, Shittu told AFP.HRW quoted witnesses as saying groups of armed men -- believed to be Christians -- attacked the largely Muslim population of Kuru Karama on Tuesday morning.After surrounding the town, they hunted down and attacked Muslim residents, some of whom had sought refuge in homes and a local mosque, killing many as they tried to flee and burning many others alive,the statement said.Christian and Muslim leaders in Plateau State have both said the unrest owed more to the failure of political leaders to address ethnic differences than to inter-faith rivalries. Jonathan pledged that the ringleaders responsible for the violence would be brought to justice, and ordered the army to take over security of the affected regions and sensitive neighbouring areas. The federal government is determined to secure convictions of the perpetrators of this crime, no matter how highly placed, he said in a broadcast late Thursday. Jos has been a hotbed of religious violence in Nigeria, whose 150 million people are divided almost equally between followers of the two faiths. An estimated 200 people were killed in religious clashes in the city in late 2008. Business was slowly picking up in Jos Saturday with more more shops opening and roadside hawkers displaying their wares, while long queues of residents scrambled for water at public taps. Although no military patrols were visible, checkpoints still remained.

Canada sets new time for monthly budget update
Fri Jan 22, 10:53 am ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Canadian finance ministry will release its monthly budget update, the fiscal monitor, at 12 noon (1700 GMT) on Friday instead of at 11 a.m., a spokeswoman said.(Reporting by Louise Egan; editing by Peter Galloway)

White House fights for Bernanke support in Senate By JEANNINE AVERSA and JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writers – Fri Jan 22, 8:20 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke encountered new Senate opposition Friday for another four-year term as the White House worked aggressively to keep his support from eroding further.President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner were on the phone throughout the day to key senators to shore up votes, said two senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to more freely discuss behind-the-scenes activity.On Friday, three Democrats — Sens. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Barbara Boxer of California and Jeff Merkley of Oregon — announced they would vote against Bernanke's confirmation. A fourth Democrat — Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, announced his opposition Thursday.And at least three senators who voted for Bernanke in the Senate Banking Committee last month were weighing their support.Despite the Democratic defections, the administration's concerns about the status of the nomination were lessened somewhat by the knowledge that several Republicans were committed for Bernanke, one official said.Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., joined the White House Friday in expressing confidence that Bernanke would be confirmed.

I'm fairly confident we will get a strong vote from Republicans — it may not be a majority vote but it will be a strong vote, said Gregg, a member of the Senate Banking Committee and former Budget Committee chairman.No one was declaring Bernanke's confirmation doomed, but the emergence of opposition and the shift by some to undecided reflected public anger over Wall Street bailouts that Bernanke helped engineer. It also signaled discomfort with Obama's economic policies, particularly in the wake of Tuesday's surprise Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts.In a boost for Bernanke, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada came out late Friday and endorsed him. Reid's previous silence about his position on the Fed chief stoked concerns about the nomination. An expert on the Great Depression, Chairman Bernanke helped steer us away from a second one, Reid said. Still, he said Bernanke must redouble his efforts to help struggling Americans.

Merkley, who opposed Bernanke in committee, said Friday he was opposing Bernanke's nomination. He blamed Bernanke not only for missing signs of the smoldering crisis. Ben Bernanke helped set the fire, Merkley said.Added Boxer: It is time for a change —it is time for Main Street to have a champion at the Fed, Boxer said.White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton, talking to reporters as Obama headed to Ohio Friday, said the president has a great deal of confidence in the actions Bernanke already has taken and believes he's the best person for the job.Burton said the White House still believes that Bernanke, 56, will get enough votes in the Senate to run the nation's central bank for another four years.Bernanke faces a 60-vote Senate hurdle because Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent liberal from Vermont, has placed a hold on the nomination. That means it will require a super-majority to bring the nomination to a vote. The actual vote on confirmation would still be a simple majority.The political waters have been getting rougher for Bernanke, and the Senate confirmation vote may be much tighter than many had anticipated just a month ago. Counting votes against him in committee, Bernanke has at least 10 senators publicly against him.Bernanke has no real Senate constituency with either party because he was appointed to his first term by President George W. Bush but is now closely linked to Obama's economic policies. Obama was not expected to hold it against Democrats who oppose Bernanke on the floor.

A spokeswoman for Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who voted for Bernanke in committee, said he is now undecided. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., was in the same position after supporting him in committee, according to a Democratic aide who would speak only anonymously because the senator hasn't announced his position. And Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., one of four Republicans to side with Bernanke in committee, said that while he wants to support him and is carefully examining Bernanke's record,I do reserve the right to vote against him — a view he expressed in committee last month.
Corker said a strong argument for Bernanke is that he is best equipped to mop up massive amounts of money pumped into the economy during the crisis to avert another dangerous problem: an outbreak of inflation. On the other hand, at some point you have to weigh that against the fact that regardless of what he's done, even if everything he's done has been perfect, you've got to understand that trust that the public has in the Fed today has been greatly diminished by the activities that have taken place over the last couple of years,Corker said in an interview. A time for a vote still hasn't been set. Officials at one time had hoped that it would come this week. Bernanke's term expires on Jan. 31. Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said that Democrats had asked GOP leaders to measure support among Republicans. We didn't think we'd even have to count,Stewart said. If Bernanke is not confirmed before his term expires, Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn would probably step in as chairman and run the central bank on a temporary basis. While praised for preventing the recession from turning into another depression, Bernanke's support of Wall Street bailouts — especially the $182 billion rescue of insurance giant American International Group Inc. — has touched a nerve on Main Street. The whole AIG issue — you'd have to be asleep not to know that that has certainly clouded the issue,Corker said. Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Laurie Kellman, Jennifer Loven, Alan Fram and Philip Elliott contributed to this report.

Goldman under investigation for its securities dealings By Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers – Fri Jan 22, 7:44 pm ET

WASHINGTON — One of Congress' premier watchdog panels is investigating Goldman Sachs' role in the subprime mortgage meltdown, including how the firm sold securities backed by risky home loans while it simultaneously bet that those bonds would lose value, people familiar with the inquiry said Friday.The investigation is part of a broader examination by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations into the roots of the economic crisis and whether financial institutions behaved improperly, said the individuals, who insisted upon anonymity because the matter is sensitive.Disclosure of the investigation comes amid a darkening mood at the White House , in Congress and among the American public over the long-term economic impact of the subprime crisis, prompting demands to hold the culprits accountable.It marks at least the third federal inquiry touching on Goldman's dealings related to securities backed by risky home mortgages.The separate, congressionally appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission , which was created to investigate causes of the crisis, began holding hearings Jan. 13 and took sworn testimony from Goldman's top officer. In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission , which polices Wall Street , is investigating Goldman's exotic bets against the housing market, using insurance-like contracts known as credit-default swaps, in offshore deals, knowledgeable people have told McClatchy .

Goldman, the world's most prestigious investment bank, has denied any improprieties and said that the use of hedges, or contrary bets, is a cornerstone of prudent risk management.Asked about the Senate inquiry late Friday, Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally said only: As a matter of policy, Goldman Sachs does not comment on legal or regulatory matters.A spokeswoman for the Senate subcommittee declined to comment on the investigation, which was spawned by a four-part McClatchy series published in November that detailed the Wall Street firm's role in the debacle, which stemmed from subprime loans to millions of marginally qualified borrowers.The subcommittee, part of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee , is led by veteran Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan , who said last year that his panel was looking into some of the causes and consequences of the financial crisis.The panel has a history of conducting formal, highly secretive investigations in which it typically issues subpoenas for documents and witnesses, produces extensive reports and sometimes refers evidence to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.It couldn't immediately be learned whether the panel has subpoenaed Goldman executives or company records. However, the subcommittee has issued at least one major subpoena seeking records related to Seattle -based Washington Mutual , which collapsed in September 2008 after being swamped by losses from its subprime lending. J.P. Morgan Chase then purchased WaMu's banking assets.Goldman was the only major Wall Street firm to safely exit the subprime mortgage market. McClatchy reported, however, that Goldman sold off more than $40 billion in securities backed by over 200,000 risky home loans in 2006 and 2007 without telling investors of its secret bets on a sharp housing downturn, prompting some experts to question whether it had crossed legal lines.

McClatchy also has reported that Goldman peddled unregulated securities to foreign investors through the Cayman Islands , a Caribbean tax haven, in some cases exaggerating the soundness of the underlying home mortgages. In numerous deals, records indicate, the company required investors to pay Goldman massive sums if bundles of risky mortgages defaulted. Goldman has said its investors were fully informed of the risks.Federal auditors found that Goldman placed $22 billion of its swap bets against subprime securities, including many it had issued, with the giant insurer American International Group . In late 2008, when the government bailed out AIG, Goldman reaped $13.9 billion — a gigantic return on the modest premiums it had paid under the contracts.Goldman's chairman and chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein , appeared to acknowledge last week that the firm behaved inappropriately when he was asked about the secret bets in sworn testimony to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission .Blankfein first said that the firm's contrary trades were the practice of a market maker, then added: But the answer is I do think that the behavior is improper, and we regret the result — the consequence that people have lost money in it.A day later, Goldman issued a statement denying that Blankfein had admitted improper company behavior and said that his ensuing answer stressed that the firm's conduct was entirely appropriate.Senate investigators were described as having pored over Goldman's SEC filings in recent weeks. Underscoring the breadth of the Senate investigation is the disclosure by federal banking regulators in a recent filing in the WaMu bankruptcy case. In it, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. revealed that the Senate subcommittee had served the agency with a comprehensive subpoena for documents relating to WaMu, whose primary regulator was the Office of Thrift Supervision .The subcommittee's jurisdiction is wide-ranging,the FDIC's lawyers wrote.It covers, among other things, the study or investigation of the compliance or noncompliance of corporations, companies, or individual or other entities with the rules, regulations and laws governing the various governmental agencies and their relationships with the public.The subpoena, they said,is correspondingly broad.

The Puget Sound Business Journal first reported on the FDIC's disclosure. Goldman's former chairman, Henry Paulson , served as Treasury secretary during the bailouts that benefitted the firm and while other Wall Street investment banks foundered because of their subprime market exposure, its profits have soared. In reporting a $13.4 billion profit for 2009 on Thursday, the bank sought to quell a furor over its taxpayer-aided success by scaling back employee bonuses. It also has limited bonuses for its 30 most senior executives to restricted stock that can't be sold for five years.

STOCK RESULTS JAN 22,2010

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, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
CNBC VIDEOS
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HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS FRI JAN 22,2010

09:30 AM -1.71
10:00 AM -29.10
10:30 AM -34.01
11:00 AM -22.82
11:30 AM -13.90
12:00 PM -47.54
12:30 PM -35.44
01:00 PM -42.02
01:30 PM -69.53
02:00 PM -93.41
02:30 PM -96.51
03:00 PM -134.45
03:30 PM -177.07
04:00 PM -216.90 10,172.98

S&P 500 1091.76 -24.72

NASDAQ 2205.29 -60.41

GOLD 1,092.60 -10.60

OIL 74.24 -1.85

TSE 300 11,343.43 -125.67

CDNX 1549.67 -9.24

S&P/TSX/60 662.34 -8.53

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -69 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -232 points at low today.
Dow -1 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,090.40.OIL opens at $75.55 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -232 points at low today so far.
Dow -1 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -232 points at low today.
Dow -1 points at high today.

DOW HAS LARGEST 3 DAY DROP SINCE MARCH 2009.
S&P HAS LARGEST 3 DAY DROP SINCE JULY 2009.
GOLD TOUCHES 1 MONTH LOW.

MUSLIMS UPSET OVER SCRIPTURES ON GUNS

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.

Tijuana floods leave 10 missing; at least 1 dead By MARIANA MARTINEZ, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jan 21, 8:37 pm ET

TIJUANA, Mexico – Rains have unleashed heavy flooding in parts of the Mexican border city of Tijuana, killing a 5-year-old girl and leaving at least 10 other people missing, officials said Thursday.Storms also caused a plane to skid off the runway Thursday in the Tijuana International Airport. Nobody was hurt.Four days of storms have swelled the Rio Tijuana, which reaches the United States, sending torrents of water into some neighborhoods of the city across the border from San Diego.A flash flood swept away a car with a pregnant woman and her three children inside in the hilly Canon de los Laureles neighborhood Wednesday night, the Baja California state prosecutors' office said in a statement. Police later found the car with the woman, unharmed, and her 5-year-old daughter dead. The two other children, 7 and 2, are missing.Tijuana fire chief Rafael Carroll said the children are among 10 people missing and feared swept away by floods.At the airport, an Aeromexico flight originating in the northeastern city of Monterrey struggled to land and then skidded off the runway, its left wing ending up buried in the mud, said Baja California State Gov. Jose Guadalupe Osuna.One passenger, Clara Martinez Gutierrez, said the plane circled the airport several times before trying to land. She said the plane jumped upon landing and passengers were told to get into emergency positions.The pilot controlled the plane well, but in the end the left wing ended up buried in the mud, she said.

Meanwhile, an American citizen drowned Thursday morning when a huge wave swept him out to sea as he fished by the shore in the Migrino area of the southern part of the Baja California Peninsula, said local fire chief Gabriel Garcia Tinoco. The Mexican navy found the body of the California man at sea.The area where the man drowned is known for rough seas, and his death appeared unrelated to the storms affecting the northern part of the peninsula.

California on flood, mudslide alert as storms hit
Thu Jan 21, 7:36 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Torrential rain and strong winds pummeled California for a fourth consecutive day Thursday as officials warned of tornados, flash floods and mudslides in areas ravaged by last year's wildfires.Around 800 homes in hilly suburbs surrounding the Los Angeles area have been issued evacuation orders as the fourth storm to hit the region this week arrived, causing power outages and transport chaos.The National Weather Service said the storm could produce from one to two inches of rain in coastal and valley areas and two to four inches in the foothills and mountains.Scattered thunderstorms will occur and may become severe this afternoon, possibly generating waterspouts, small tornadoes and 60-mile-per-hour winds, according to an NWS advisory.Later Thursday the NWS issued a tornado warning for parts of southern California and Arizona.Around 3,000 homes in Los Angeles were left without power after electricity was knocked out late Wednesday, the Department of Water and Power said.A flash flood warning would remain in effect until late Thursday, officials in Los Angeles County said.

Residents of some 800 homes near hillsides denuded of vegetation in massive wildfires last year had been told to evacuate although around 25 percent of those had refused to leave.The Los Angeles County Fire Department is anticipating that a significant mud flow and debris flow is likely today, Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Deputy John Tripp told a morning briefing.Meanwhile Southwest Airlines suspended flights in and out of Los Angeles Airports citing unfavorable wind conditions.On Wednesday two Southwest jets were hit by lightning as they arrived at Burbank Airport before touching down safely.The storm caused huge waves at Southern California beaches, where several piers were closed.San Diego's famous SeaWorld marine mammal park was closed because of torrential rain.

4th California storm stokes mudslide fears By JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer – JAN 22,10

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif. – Hours of heavy rain fell Thursday on saturated Southern California as the fourth Pacific storm in a week came ashore, triggering dire warnings by authorities that huge mud flows were likely in foothill communities and residents of endangered homes should obey evacuation orders.A teen was rescued from a rushing river, but a companion remained missing in Orange County. And a motorist was rescued after a tornado knocked power lines onto a highway in the state's remote southeast corner, trapping the man inside his vehicle.Travel snarls mounted as major highways were closed by snow and tornado damage, and strong winds grounded flights at several airports. Another tornado left a trail of damage in a community northwest of Los Angeles.The siege of storms has led to several deaths statewide and street flooding in urban areas, and has turned the region's often-dry river and creek channels into raging torrents.Muddy water gushed down hills but there were no immediate major incidents, and officials appeared concerned the lack of massive debris flows from wildfire burn areas was misleading for residents.

Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Deputy John Tripp bluntly warned at the outset of the storm that significant debris flows were likely and probably would block potential rescue attempts.For those people that are still in the homes and are in those areas of threat, it's very likely we will not be able to reach you, he said.
By nightfall, the storm's main rainfall was passing but forecasts warned of volatile conditions through the night. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city's evacuation orders remained in effect.While the worst of the last few storms is behind us, there still is a significant threat from thundershowers that are forming off the coast and have the potential to bring lightning, hail, waterspouts and small tornados, he said.In the upper reaches of suburban La Canada Flintridge, where mountainsides rise sharply from the backyards of homes, authorities put pink ribbons on the mailboxes of residents who stayed behind so they would know where to search in the event of a catastrophe.One person who stayed was Delos Tucker, a retired geologist who has lived in the community since the homes were built in 1962.I'm just gambling it's not going to happen,he said.Let's hope I'm right.

As an overnight lull gave way to more rain at midmorning, public works crews shoveled mud from yards, driveways and gutters along Ocean View Boulevard in suburban La Canada Flintridge. The neighborhood was otherwise all but deserted, with newspaper and mail deliveries cut off.The county's extensive flood-control system was working, but many of the basins designed to catch debris-laden runoff from fire-scarred mountains were full and evacuations remained necessary, said Gail Farber, the Los Angeles County Public Works director.The basins are located on streams and other water courses emerging from the mountains to intercept surges of mud, boulders and other debris while allowing water to flow into open channels and underground storm drains that empty into the ocean.The new storm system shut down Interstate 5 in the snowy Tehachapi Mountains north of Los Angeles for the second day in a row. And the California Highway Patrol closed part of Interstate 80 in the Sierra Nevada after about a dozen cars and trucks crashed in a heavy snowstorm.In Orange County, firefighters pulled a 14-year-old boy from the swollen Santa Ana River, but an 11-mile search failed to find a companion the rescued boy said was also in the water. Orange Fire Department Capt. Ed Engler the search was called off by evening after efforts to spot the youth from bridges and helicopters.A tornado rampaging across desert highways near the Arizona state line toppled high-voltage power poles that trapped a motorist in a vehicle on State Route 78, said Terri Kasinga, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation. Lauren Bartlett, a spokeswoman for Southern California Edison, said the motorist drove through the wires and his vehicle got tangled in the lines. Crews cut off the electricity to the wires, allowing firefighters to rescue the driver. It was unclear if he was injured. The tornado also toppled three big-rigs on Interstate 10 and more power lines on U.S. 95. The I-10 reopened late Thursday afternoon, but the other highways were likely to remain blocked for two days. A fierce wind struck two neighborhoods in Ventura, and witnesses described a tornado, police Sgt. Jack Richards said. Trees were toppled, cars were damaged and a shed was torn apart in a 1 1/2-mile span through two neighborhoods. No one was hurt.

National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Boldt visited the scene and confirmed it was a small tornado. Southwest Airlines canceled hundreds of flights in Southern California and Arizona due to strong winds and heavy rains. More than 30,000 Edison customers were without power, and repair crews were having trouble reaching equipment in desert and mountain areas because of snow. Another 4,100 outages were reported in Los Angeles. Acting Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Francisco and Siskiyou counties because of the statewide storm impacts. By late afternoon the storm had added as much as 3.2 inches of rain to the 5 to 6 inches that fell earlier in the week across the fire-charred mountains of Los Angeles County.

Friday showers were expected to give way to a dry weekend.

The major area of concern has been foothill communities along the perimeter of the San Gabriel Mountains, where a summer wildfire denuded 250 square miles of steep slopes northeast of Los Angeles. The number of homes under evacuation orders has grown to more than 1,200 since the beginning of the week. Estimates of compliance have ranged up to 75 percent in some jurisdictions but down to 50 percent elsewhere.
Two people have been killed by falling trees, and police in Newman were searching for the body of a man who tried to drive across a flooded road. In San Jose, a man died after falling 30 feet from the side of a freeway after he got out of a car that spun out in the rain and then jumped out of the path of an out-of-control car. In San Diego, the Border Patrol said three people were rescued and treated for hypothermia after being swept away while trying to cross the storm-swollen Tijuana River from Mexico. California State University, Long Beach, remained closed after some buildings flooded Wednesday. The weather also forced cancellation of horse racing at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia and postponement of the second round of the Bob Hope Classic golf tournament near Palm Springs. Sea World in San Diego was also closed due to severe weather. The stormy weather also delayed last Saturday's planned departure of 16-year-old sailor Abby Sunderland from Marina del Rey on her attempt to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe nonstop and without assistance. The Thousand Oaks girl now plans to leave Jan. 23. Associated Press Writer Raquel Maria Dillon in La Canada Flintridge, Gillian Flaccus in Orange and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH

GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

EARTHQUAKES

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

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

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

Aftershocks again shake devastated Haiti capital
Thu Jan 21, 12:08 pm ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Two aftershocks has again rattled Haiti's capital, sending rescue teams scrambling off precarious piles of rubble and already traumatized residents fleeing into the streets yet again.There are no immediate reports of damage from either temblor. The U.S. Geological Survey has given a preliminary magnitude estimate of 4.9 for one that hit at 11:45 a.m. (1645 GMT) Thursday.Haiti has been hit by at least 50 aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 or greater since the Jan. 12quake that devastated the capital.None has caused significant damage, but they have hampered relief efforts and added to a sense of doom among the shellshocked populace.

Haiti to relocate 400,000 quake homeless By MICHELLE FAUL and TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press Writers – JAN 22,10

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Within days, the government will move 400,000 people made homeless by Haiti's epic earthquake from their squalid improvised camps throughout the shattered capital to new resettlement areas on the outskirts, a top Haitian official said Thursday.Authorities are worried about sanitation and disease outbreaks in makeshift settlements like the one on the city's central Champs de Mars plaza, said Fritz Longchamp, chief of staff to President Rene Preval.The Champ de Mars is no place for 1,000 or 10,000 people, Longchamp told The Associated Press.They are going to be going to places where they will have at least some adequate facilities.He said buses would start moving people within a week to 10 days, once new camps are ready. Brazilian U.N. peacekeepers were already leveling land in the suburb of Croix des Bouquets for a new tent city, the Geneva-based intergovernmental International Organization for Migration reported Thursday.The hundreds of thousands whose homes were destroyed in the Jan. 12 quake had settled in more than 200 open spaces around the city, the lucky ones securing tents for their families, but most living under the tropical sun on blankets, on plastic sheets or under tarpaulins strung between tree limbs.The announcement came as search-and-rescue teams packed their dogs and gear Thursday, with hopes almost gone of finding any more alive in the ruins. The focus shifted to keeping injured survivors alive, fending off epidemics and getting help to the hundreds of homeless still suffering.

We're so, so hungry,said Felicie Colin, 77, lying outside the ruins of her Port-au-Prince nursing home with dozens of other elderly residents who have hardly eaten since the earthquake hit on Jan. 12.A melee erupted at one food distribution point as people broke into the storehouse and fought each other over the bags.As aftershocks still shook the city, aid workers streamed into Haiti with water, food, drugs, latrines, clothing, trucks, construction equipment, telephones and tons of other supplies. The international Red Cross called it the greatest deployment of emergency responders in its 91-year history.But the built-in bottlenecks of this desperately poor, underdeveloped nation and the sheer scale of the catastrophe still left many of the hundreds of thousands of victims without help. The U.S. military reported a waiting list of 1,400 international relief flights seeking to land on Port-au-Prince's single runway, where 120 to 140 flights were arriving daily.They don't see any food and water coming to them, and they are frustrated, said Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.Four ships managed to dock at the capital's earthquake-damaged port, holding out the promise of a new avenue for getting aid to the city. But the going was slow since only one truck at a time could maneuver on the crack-riven pier.The picture was especially grim at emergency medical centers, where shortages of surgeons, nurses, their tools and supplies have backed up critical cases.A large number of those coming here are having to have amputations, since their wounds are so infected, said Brynjulf Ystgaard, a Norwegian surgeon at a Red Cross field hospital.Food was reaching tens of thousands, but the need was much greater. Perhaps no one was more desperate than the 80 or so residents of the damaged Municipal Nursing Home, in a slum near the shell of Port-au-Prince's devastated cathedral. The quake killed six of the elderly, three others have since died of hunger and exhaustion, and several more were barely clinging to life.Nobody cares,said Phileas Justin, 78. Maybe they do just want us to starve to death.

In the first eight days after the quake, they had eaten just a bit of pasta cooked in gutter water and a bowl of rice each. On Thursday, they had a small bowl of spaghetti and five bags of rice and beans, and cooking oil, were delivered.A dirty red sheet covered the body of Jean-Marc Luis, who died late Wednesday. He died of hunger, said security guard Nixon Plantin. On Thursday, four days after The Associated Press first reported on the patients' plight, workers from the British-based HelpAge International visited and said they would help. One by one, such deaths were adding to a Haitian government-estimated toll of 200,000 dead, as reported by the European Commission. It said 250,000 people were injured and 2 million homeless in the nation of 9 million. As U.S. troops began patrolling Port-au-Prince to boost security, sporadic looting and violence continued. At a building in the Carrefour neighborhood where the multi-faith Eagle Wings Foundation of West Palm Beach, Florida, was to distribute food, quake victims from a nearby tent camp suddenly stormed the stores and made off with what the charity's Rev. Robert Nelson said were 50 tons of rice, oil, dried beans and salt. Fights broke out as others stole food from the looters. At least 124 people were saved by search-and-rescue teams since the quake, the European Commission reported. As hopes faded, some of the 1,700 specialists, working in four dozen teams with 160 dogs, began demobilizing.

Joe Downey, a fire battalion chief from an 80-member New York City police and firefighter unit, said this was the worst destruction his rescue team had ever seen.
Katrina was bad, he said of the 2005 hurricane.But this was a magnitude at least 100 times worse.On Thursday, 18 hospitals and emergency field hospitals were working in Port-au-Prince, but the burden was overwhelming. Doctors said patients were dying of sepsis from untreated wounds and they warned of potential outbreaks of diarrhea, respiratory-tract infections and other communicable diseases in the camps. A team of epidemiologists was on its way to assess that situation, the Pan American Health Organization said. On Thursday night, another aftershock sent some who were indoors back into the streets. Observers said it was briefer than others, including a magnitude-5.9 aftershock, that have hit Port-au-Prince since the earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey did not immediately have a measurement and geophysicist Susan Potter said that was understandable. She said people can feel aftershocks that register as little as magnitude-2.0, but detection equipment is not densely concentrated in Haiti and the service would not immediately detect anything weaker than a magnitude-4.5 there. Offshore, the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort was reinforcing its crew to 800 doctors, nurses and medical technicians, increasing its hospital beds to almost 1,000, and boosting its operating rooms from six to 11 in the next few days, the Navy said. Almost $1 billion in foreign aid has been pledged to help Haiti recover from the quake, and the White House said the U.S. share has climbed to about $170 million. The U.N. World Food Program said it has delivered at least 1 million rations to about 200,000 people, with each ration providing the equivalent of a daily three meals. In the coming days, it plans to deliver five-day rations to 100,000 people a day, it said. The U.S. military said it was resuming air drops of water and meals into zones secured by U.S. troops. More than 2,600 U.S. soldiers, Marines and airmen were on the ground, and more than 10,000 sailors and others were offshore. The U.N. was adding 2,000 peacekeepers to the 7,000 already in Haiti, and 1,500 more police to the 2,100-member international force. Associated Press writers contributing to this story included Alfred de Montesquiou, Mike Melia, Jonathan M. Katz and Kevin Maurer in Port-au-Prince; Charles J. Hanley and Martha Mendoza in Mexico City; Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, and Pauline Jelinek in Washington.

A look at foreign quake aid for Haiti By The Associated Press – JAN 22,10

Governments have pledged nearly $1 billion in aid to Haiti, according to an Associated Press estimate, including $575 million from the European Union's 27 nations. Those promises include:

AUSTRALIA: $13.8 million in aid pledged.

AUSTRIA: $1.9 million to United Nations and international aid organizations.

BRAZIL: $19 million in aid pledged. Eighteen flights have delivered 200 tons of aid including food, water, tents, medicine, a hospital and medical equipment. Forty six medical doctors and nurses have been sent, along with 50 firefighters who specialize in search and rescue using search dogs. Nearly 1,300 Brazilian U.N. peacekeepers are working in rescue operations.

BRITAIN: $33 million in aid. A 64-member search and rescue team is on the ground.

BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS: $80,000 in aid.

CAMBODIA: $50,000 in aid from the government; $10,000 from Cambodian Red Cross.

CANADA: $130 million in aid pledged. So far, Canadians have privately contributed more than $39 million and Ottawa will match those funds. Some 2,000 military personnel, including two warships.

CHAD: $500,000 in aid.

CHILE: 15 tons of food and medicine, search and rescue team, 20 doctors.

CHINA: $4.2 million in aid pledged. Deployed a 60-member rescue team to the island, including search and rescue specialists with sniffer dogs and monitoring equipment, medics, and seismological experts.

COLOMBIA: $900,000 in aid pledged through Colombian Red Cross. $1 million in food, water, tents and medical supplies sent. Colombia's air force has flown in more than 200 rescue and medical workers and 18 sniffer dogs.

CONGO: $2.5 million in aid.

COSTA RICA: Engineers, health workers, disaster experts.

CROATIA: $137,000 from the government and a similar amount donated from citizens to the Red Cross.

CUBA: 30 doctors.

CYPRUS: $141,000 in aid.

CZECH REPUBLIC: $1.1 million in aid pledged.

DENMARK: $9.67 million in aid.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: $11.4 million in aid.

FRANCE: $28.6 million in aid pledged, plus more than 500 personnel, especially rescue workers, and 61 tons (55 metric tons) of supplies. Dispatched Francis Garnier, a ship that specializes in humanitarian missions, and three military transport planes.

GERMANY: $14.28 million in aid pledged by government. $25.56 million donated by private citizens.

GRENADA: $215,000 in aid.

GUATEMALA: Rescue team.

HUNGARY: $140,000 within an aid program coordinated by the EU, plus three medical teams and three search dogs.

ICELAND: Search and rescue team.

INDIA: $5 million in aid.

ISRAEL: Established field hospital, sent some 150 doctors and rescue workers and 10 tons (nine metric tons) of medical equipment.

ITALY: $8.14 million as part of $131.37 million in emergency aid from EU member states. Separately it is donating $2.57 million to international groups to help children in Haiti. A field hospital that can treat 150 patients a day has been airlifted in.

JAPAN: $5 million in aid, plus $330,000 in emergency supplies. One 24-member civilian medical team on the ground, sending 110-member military team of medical and other personnel via a Japanese C-130 transport plane.

LIBERIA: $50,000 in aid.

MEXICO: Rescue team.

NEW ZEALAND: $1.4 million in government funding for relief efforts plus $1.3 million collected by nongovernment groups.

NETHERLANDS: $2.86 million in aid from the Dutch government, which has pledged to double the amount raised by the public. So far the appeal has raised $9.28 million. A Dutch plane with search and rescue team and sniffer dogs has been sent.

NORWAY: $17.5 million in aid earmarked for the World Food Program, Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross and other aid organizations. The country's Red Cross and other aid organizations have raised at least $4.5 million for the country.

PERU: Two planes with 50 tons of aid, mainly food; two field hospitals.

PORTUGAL: Around $860,000 from private donations. The government has sent a military transport plane with more than 20 emergency rescue workers and sniffer dogs, as well as medical equipment and water.

RUSSIA: Has sent 138 emergency workers, a mobile air hospital, and doctors and five transport planes to deliver aid.

SENEGAL: $1 million in aid. President Abdoulaye Wade has said he would give a region of Senegal to Haitians wishing to move to Africa. He argued that because Haiti was settled by African slaves they are owed a right of return. The eccentric proposal was met with criticism by many who say the government is not even able to house its own people.

SIERRA LEONE: $100,000 in aid. The government has also offered to send police, soldiers and medical teams.

SLOVENIA: $70,000 in aid, and has sent tents worth $98,000.

SOUTH AFRICA: $135,000 in aid, and has sent a search-and-rescue team and plans to send forensic experts to help identify bodies.

SOUTH KOREA: $10 million in aid from government, aid agencies, religious groups and business companies, plus relief workers.

SPAIN: $8.56 million in emergency aid disbursed, sending 450 troops, 50 doctors, technicians and specialists.

SWEDEN: $25.6 million to organizations working in Haiti, including the U.N. and E.U.

TAIWAN: $5 million in aid. Dispatched a team of 23 rescue personnel and 33 medical staff.

THAILAND: $120,000 in aid; 20,000 tons (18,000 metric tons) of rice.

UNITED STATES: $130 million in aid, according to USAID. Has sent about 12,000 military personnel so far, 265 government medical personnel, 18 Navy and Coast Guard ships, 49 helicopters and seven cargo planes to assist in aid delivery, support and evacuations. Is managing operations at the Port-au-Prince airport.

VENEZUELA: 679 tons (616 metric tons) of food and 127 tons (116 metric tons) of equipment, including water purification systems, electrical generators and heavy equipment for moving rubble. 225,000 barrels of diesel fuel and gasoline is on its way, and the Venezuela-led Bolivarian Alternative trade bloc also sent two ships carrying 5,248 tons (4,761 metric tons) of food aid. Search and rescue team.

INTER-AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK: $200 million pledged.

WORLD BANK: $100 million pledged.

WORLD FOOD PROGRAM: More than 250,000 ready-to-eat rations delivered. More than 10 million to arrive within the next week.

PERSECUSSION,BEHEADINGS

JESUS PERSECUTED BIGTIME

PSALMS 14:1
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

ISAIAH 53:4
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

MATTHEW 9:34
34 But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.

JOHN 8:41
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.

JOHN 10:20
20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?

PHILIPPIANS 2:10-11(JESUS GETS REVENGE)
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.(JUDGEMENT SEAT OF CHRIST AND FOR SINNERS, THE GREAT WHITE THRONE FINAL JUDGEMENT).

WE ARE CHRISTIANS WE WILL BE TREATED THE SAME.

2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5 (WHY WE ARE PERSECUTED BY THE WORLD)
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

MATTHEW 5:10-12
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

MATTHEW 24:9
9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.

JOHN 15:18-20
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me (JESUS) before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

REVELATION 6:9-11
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain(BEHEADED) for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

REVELATION 20:4
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

Australia, N.Zealand order review of 'bible' gunsights
JAN 22,10

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia Friday ordered its military to look at removing biblical references from weapons used by troops in Afghanistan, after New Zealand banned the completely inappropriate inscriptions.Australia's Defence Minister John Faulkner said the military had been unaware of the meaning of the letters and numbers etched into the US-made gunsights, which refer to passages in the New Testament.I have asked Defence to examine the options available to deal with this matter without compromising the safety of our troops and critically important capabilities, Faulkner said.Faulkner's comments came as neighbouring New Zealand condemned the inscriptions as potentially inflammatory.They cause the same problems as putting slogans on bombs. We should not be doing anything that might give opponents any propaganda leverage, New Zealand's Defence Minister Wayne Mapp told AFP.The markings are completely inappropriate and the Defence Force will be looking at ways to get rid of them, now and for future deliveries.

The rifle sights are inscribed with lettering such as JN8:12 -- an apparent reference to chapter eight, verse 12 in the Book of John which reads:Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.Australia and New Zealand both have forces operating in Afghanistan and there are fears that the references could endanger coalition troops fighting in Muslim-majority nations where the US military is already bitterly resented.The New Zealand Defence Force has 260 of the rifle sights, which come from the US company Trijicon, while Australia's military has some 1,050.Trijicon, which also supplies US and British forces, said it has inscribed references to the New Testament on the metal casings of its gunsights for more than two decades.But after angry reaction from Muslim and religious freedom groups to the news that it has multimillion-dollar contracts to supply hundreds of thousands of the gunsights to the US military, the firm said it would provide the US with kits to remove the references.

The Australian Defence Force, which has around 1,500 troops in Afghanistan, said it was unaware of the significance of the hard-to-spot references, which are in raised lettering immediately following the stock number on the metal casing of the gunsights, when it purchased the rifle sights.The sights were procured because they provide mature technology which is highly reliable, in wide use by our allies and best meet Defence requirements,a department spokeswoman said.The Department of Defence is very conscious of the sensitivities associated with this issue and is assessing how to address these as soon as practicable.

NZ army to remove Bible citations from armaments By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jan 21, 6:07 am ET

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Biblical citations inscribed on U.S.-manufactured weapon sights used by New Zealand's troops in Afghanistan will be removed because they are inappropriate and could stoke religious tensions, New Zealand said Thursday.The inscriptions on products from defense contractor Trijicon of Wixom, Michigan, came to light this week in the U.S. where Army officials said Tuesday they would investigate whether the gun sights — also used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq — violate U.S. procurement laws.Australia also said Thursday its military used the sights and was now assessing what to do.Trijicon said it has had such inscriptions on its products for three decades and has never received complaints about them before. The inscriptions, which don't include actual text from the Bible, refer numerically to passages from the book.New Zealand defense force spokesman Maj. Kristian Dunne said Trijicon would be instructed to remove the inscriptions from further orders of the gun sights for New Zealand and the letters would be removed from gun sights already in use by troops.The inscriptions ... put us in a difficult situation. We were unaware of it and we're unhappy that the manufacturer didn't give us any indication that these were on there, Dunne said.We deem them to be inappropriate.The Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight rifle sights used by New Zealand troops, which allow them to pinpoint targets day or night, carried references to Bible verses that appeared in raised lettering at the end of the sight stock number.

Markings included JN8:12, a reference to John 8:12: Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life, according to the King James version of the Bible.The Trijicon Reflex sight is stamped with 2COR4:6, a reference to part of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians: For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, the King James version reads.

Dunne said New Zealand's defense force has about 260 of the company's gun sights, which were first bought in 2004, and will continue to use them once the inscriptions are removed because they are the best of their kind.New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said the government was not aware of the inscriptions when the defense force bought the equipment.Now we are in discussions with the company in the United States who will ensure the inscriptions are removed, and we wouldn't want them on future sights, he told reporters.Earlier, Defense Minister Wayne Mapp said with New Zealand soldiers in Muslim countries, the Bible references could be misconstrued.We all know of the religious tensions around this issue and it's unwise to do anything that could be seen to raise tensions in an unnecessary way, he said.Trijicon said it has been long-standing company practice to put the Scripture citations on the equipment. Tom Munson, Trijicon's director of sales and marketing, said the company had never received complaints until now.We don't publicize this, Munson said in a recent interview. It's not something we make a big deal out of. But when asked, we say, Yes, it's there.Trijicon said biblical references were first put on the sites nearly 30 years ago by the company founder, Glyn Bindon, who was killed in a plane crash in 2003. His son Stephen, Trijicon's president, continued the practice.

The references have stoked concerns by critics in the U.S. about whether they break a government rule that bars proselytizing by American troops. But U.S. military officials said the citations don't violate the ban and they won't stop using the tens of thousands of telescoping sights that have already been bought. The Australian Defense Department, which with 1,550 troops in Afghanistan is the largest contributor to that campaign outside NATO, said Thursday that it also used the sights but had been unaware of the significance of the manufacturer's serial number.
The Department of Defense is very conscious of the sensitivities associated with this issue and is assessing how to address these as soon as practicable," the department said in a statement.

Muslim anger over military Jesus scopes
Thu Jan 21, 5:50 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Muslim groups reacted angrily Wednesday after it emerged that the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan were using rifle sights inscribed with coded Biblical references.The company producing the sights, which are also used to train Afghan and Iraqi soldiers under contracts with the US Army and the Marine Corps, said it has inscribed references to the New Testament on the metal casings for over two decades.The British Ministry of Defense meanwhile announced it had placed an order for 400 of the gunsights with Trijicon but added it had not been aware of the significance of the inscriptions, in a decision criticized by the opposition Liberal Democrat party.The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) called on US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to immediately withdraw from combat use equipment found to have inscriptions of Biblical references after it emerged that Trijicon has contracts to supply over 800,000 of the sights to the US military.The Pentagon sought to defuse the brewing controversy, saying it was disturbed by the reports.If determined to be true, this is clearly inappropriate and we are looking into possible remedies, Commander Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman, told AFP.The codes were used as part of our faith and our belief in service to our country, Trijicon said.As long as we have men and women in danger, we will continue to do everything we can to provide them with both state-of-the-art technology and the never-ending support and prayers of a grateful nation, a company spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

The move appeared to be a direct violation of a US Central Command general order issued after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that strictly prohibits proselytizing of any religion, faith or practice.A whistleblower group that first alerted ABC News to the issue this week warned the practice was putting troops in harm's way by raising fears of Christian proselytizing in Muslim-majority nations home to militants resentful of US military presence.This is the worst type of emboldenment of the enemy that you can imagine, Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder and president Michael Mikey Weinstein said in an interview.Weinstein, a former White House legal counsel in Ronald Reagan's administration, said his group would submit a filing in US federal court in Kansas City, Missouri by February 4 in a related case.

Having Biblical references on military equipment violates the basic ideals and values our country was founded upon, MPAC Washington director Haris Tarin said in a statement.Worse still, it provides propaganda ammo to extremists who claim there is a Crusader war against Islam by the United States, he added.The shocking revelation raises fresh fears of Christian fundamentalism seeping through the US military's ranks.It's got to stop. It's wrong on a million levels, said Weinstein. This is massively endangering the lives and well-being of our members of the military.His foundation, he added, represents nearly 16,000 troops, the bulk of them Christians.

A Muslim-American soldier, who declined to be named due to fears of persecution, said he was ashamed and horrified by the writings on the gunsights of weapons he used during deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are many other soldiers who feel as I do. Many are Protestant and Catholic and they fear reprisal just as much as I do for trying to stand up to the Christian bullies in uniform who outrank us, he said in a letter dated January 14 and addressed to Weinstein and his foundation.
The Secular Coalition for America demanded the US military end its contracts with Trijicon. Trijicon knew that the scopes they were producing were for the use of the US military and their decision to keep these engravings shows a flagrant disregard by a private contractor of the laws that govern our land, said the group's director Sean Faircloth. According to photographs seen by AFP, the coded inscriptions include JN8:12, an apparent reference to John 8:12: Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.Trijicon, a defense contractor founded by devout Christian Glyn Bindon, vows on its website to follow biblical standards it says make America great.

Pope blesses lambs in annual ceremony
Thu Jan 21, 11:23 am ET

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has blessed two lambs whose wool will be shorn to make shawls for newly appointed archbishops to wear.The annual blessing takes place on the feast day of St. Agnes, a martyr of early Christianity often symbolized by a lamb.New archbishops receive the wool pallium on June 29. The pallium is a band of white wool decorated with six black silk crosses that is a sign of pastoral authority and a symbol of the archbishops' bond with the pope.

US envoy starts Mideast tour amid Obama pessimism By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jan 21, 5:44 pm ET

JERUSALEM – Washington's Middle East envoy launched a new effort Thursday aimed at restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, just as President Barack Obama expressed pessimism about the prospects.Already complicating envoy George Mitchell's mission was a new demand by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an Israeli military presence in the West Bank to stop weapons smuggling, even after formation of a Palestinian state.Mitchell met late Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose office released a brief statement saying they discussed ways to move the peace process forward and that contacts would continue.As Mitchell began his mission, his boss, Obama, admitted he overreached in the Middle East.In an interview with Time Magazine published Thursday, Obama said internal conflicts made it hard for the Israelis and Palestinians to restart talks, and I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that.He said Israel found it very hard to move with any bold gestures, while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had Hamas looking over his shoulder.

Obama concluded, I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn't produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high.Before meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres Thursday, Mitchell pledged to soldier on. He said Obama's vision is a Palestinian state alongside Israel in peace.We will pursue (that) until we achieve that objective, Mitchell said.The envoy is set to meet with Palestinian officials in the West Bank on Friday.Mitchell has been laboring without success for a year to get both sides back to the negotiating table, and Netanyahu's new demand made his mission even tougher.Netanyahu said Israel must maintain a presence on the eastern side of a prospective Palestinian state to keep militants from using the territory to launch rockets at Israel's heartland.The eastern side of such a state would be the part of the Jordan Valley that lies in the West Bank.Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh rejected the demand.The Palestinian leadership will not accept a single Israeli soldier on Palestinian land after ending the Israeli occupation,he told The Associated Press.

The Palestinians have refused to sit down with Israel until it stops all construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, saying it is eating up lands they claim for their future state. Israel, which captured both areas in 1967, has slowed settlement construction in the West Bank, but has applied no restrictions in east Jerusalem, which Netanyahu hopes to retain.Israel also says negotiations should begin immediately with no conditions, but the Palestinians accuse Israel of heaping plenty of conditions of its own, including the demilitarization of a future Palestinian state, the retention of east Jerusalem and now, a military presence along Jordan's border.The Israeli leader heads a coalition largely opposed to the sweeping territorial concessions that would be necessary to clinch a peace deal with the Palestinians. He himself had long refused to endorse the concept of Palestinian statehood, doing so only in June under intense U.S. pressure.

British banks study Obama finance plan
JAN 22,10

LONDON (AFP) – Britain's banks have said they are studying proposals by US President Barack Obama to limit the size and scope of American banks and finance firms to work out whether they want to head the same way.We will be studying the proposals in detail to see where the US and international proposals align with what is already being discussed in terms of reforms in Britain, said the British Bankers' Association on Thursday.The country's banks are listening and they are changing, working with our regulators and the international authorities to restore confidence in the world's financial system, said the group in a statement.They added discussions were ongoing on whether further measures are necessary.Obama's announcement Thursday sought to roll back corporate excesses and limit dangerous risk-taking, blamed by many for sparking the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.It was also the latest attempt by the White House to harness popular fury at Wall Street bonuses and tight credit markets.The president struck a defiant tone at the White House, warning: If these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have.

WTO chief sees US-China trade friction rising By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jan 21, 2:49 pm ET

GENEVA – Trade friction between the United States and China over everything from cars to chemicals will increase in the coming years as the world's biggest importer and exporter buy and sell more of each other's goods, the World Trade Organization's director general said Thursday.Pascal Lamy said his institution was up to the task of ensuring that Washington and Beijing never get into an all-out trade war that could have devastating consequences for the global economy. The WTO will be challenged over the next two years as unemployment figures remain high and test the free trade credentials of world leaders, he predicted.There is no risk of slipping into a trade war, Lamy said in an interview with The Associated Press.Placing the U.S.-China relationship in a historical context, Lamy compared it with the tensions that existed between Washington and Tokyo in the 1980s and between the U.S. and Europe over different periods in recent decades.In these cases, disagreements increased as the value of their trade expanded, he said. But the international trade body with its negotiations and rules for settling legal disputes defused the tensions.The United States and China are engaged now in a series of trade spats over issues such as steel, poultry, patents and Hollywood films. Google's threat to pull out of China over concerns about censorship and security also could sour relations between the two countries.The question is not whether there is friction, the question is whether it is handled the right way, Lamy said.

The 62-year-old Frenchman, a former European Union trade commissioner, is now in his second term as director general of an organization that resolves international commercial disputes and negotiates new rules for export of farm produce, manufactured goods and services.In the 4 1/2 years since Lamy entered office, healthy economic growth has been replaced by a crippling global slowdown. Annual trade crashed by 10 percent after 16 years of uninterrupted growth. And the vision of a 150-nation deal to tear down trade barriers around the world has been partly replaced by the immediate challenge of preventing countries from erecting new obstacles to each other's goods.Lamy credited the WTO's close monitoring of countries last year for preventing a slide into global protectionism where countries break the rules to shield domestic jobs from foreign competition — pressure that was only natural, he said, as financial markets collapsed and whole economies teetered on the edge.We are certainly not out of the woods on protectionism, Lamy said.The fundamental reason there is a protectionist impulse has to do with the job market. We know that unemployment will remain high this year, maybe even next year.He didn't elaborate, but some trade observers believe the danger could be even greater in 2010 as governments shift their focus to job creation plans from last year's stimulus packages and financial bailouts.As governments try to make it easier on national companies to hire people, free-trade principles may be sacrificed along the way, with the ultimate risk being a worldwide descent into a trade war as happened during the Great Depression, the argument runs.Lamy has been pushing governments to complete what he says is the final lap of the Doha global trade round, which could add billions of dollars to the world economy.The negotiations launched in Qatar's capital in 2001 aim to reach a binding treaty that would slash subsidies and cut tariffs in agriculture and manufacturing, including for new economic powerhouses like China, India and Brazil.

But the talks are mired in disagreement. The round is already six years behind schedule, and even a completed accord would have to win parliamentary approval in most countries and Senate ratification in the United States.With unemployment over 10 percent and President Barack Obama's Democratic Party showing weakness, it is unclear how committed the United States is to finishing the round.Lamy said he believed Washington was committed to a pledge it made with other countries last year to wrap up an agreement by the end of 2010. Whether the Americans would take on such a challenge in the current environment, he declined to answer. That's more a question for them, than a question for me, Lamy said.They tell me ... they want to conclude the Doha round by the end of this year.

Asia tracks US tumble after Obama bank proposal By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, AP Business Writer – JAN 22,10

HONG KONG – Asian stock markets tumbled Friday after President Barack Obama proposed a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street banks to avert future financial crises.Losses spread across most markets and sectors across the region, following an overnight retreat in the U.S.Commodity prices eased while the dollar lost ground against the yen and euro.Obama said he would seek to limit the size and complexity of large financial companies so their collapse wouldn't imperil the broader financial system and economy, leading to more bailouts at taxpayers' expense. The move comes amid growing public frustration with Wall Street and bank rescues.As in the U.S., bank stocks fell in Asia but other industries also suffered steep drops as investors scaled back their riskier bets amid uncertainty about the ultimate effects of the U.S. proposal.Japan helped lead Asia's declines, with the Nikkei 225 stock average diving 267.70 points, or 2.5 percent, to 10,600.70.Elsewhere, Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 530.16 points, or 2.5 percent, to 20,332.51 and Korea's main market index lost 43.79 points, or 2.5 percent, to 1,678.22.

China's Shanghai benchmark fell 2.4 percent, India's market shed 1.5 percent and Australian stocks retreated 1.6 percent.U.S. futures were little changed, pointing to a flat open on Wall Street Friday.In the U.S. Thursday, Wall Street was yanked lower by heavy selling in bank stocks.The Dow fell 213.27, or 2 percent, to 10,389.88, its biggest point and percentage drop since Oct. 30.The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 21.56, or 1.9 percent, to 1,116.48. The Nasdaq composite index fell 25.55, or 1.1 percent, to 2,265.70.Oil prices fell in Asia, with benchmark crude for March delivery down 31 cents at $75.77 a barrel. The contract dropped $1.66 to settle at $76.08 overnight.The dollar weakened to 89.98 yen from 90.49 yen. The euro was higher at $1.4121 from $1.4082.

China, Europe put markets on edge
Thu Jan 21, 11:45 am ET

LONDON (AFP) – Stocks got some much-needed support Thursday from unexpectedly high earnings at US banking giant Goldman Sachs despite market jitters over China's economy and huge national debts in Europe.Investors are worried that the Chinese economy, which is now the key driver for global growth as Europe and the United States are only slowly emerging from the world economic crisis, may be beginning to overheat.China's economy expanded by 8.7 percent in 2009, new data out on Thursday showed, while the business consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) forecast that China could overtake the US as the world's top economy by 2020.But China's biggest rise in inflation in 13 months underlined the broader challenges of breakneck growth, and came as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund warned again that the country could face an economic bubble.China gets a touch of overheat -- markets across the rest of the world shudder! That is the way of things today in a global economy controlled as much in the East as it is in the West, said analyst Howard Wheeldon at BGC Brokers.The concern over China is playing out against a backdrop of investor nerves over the global economy, with the IMF and the United Nations this week both warning of a possible double-dip recession this year.Those worries have been heightened in Europe, where several governments are struggling to cope with rising debt levels. Debt troubles in countries like Greece and Portugal have also dragged down the euro against the dollar.

Capital Economics, an economic consultancy, said that there are still major uncertainties over the likely strength and sustainability of the upturn.Meanwhile, those euro-zone economies with a combination of fiscal strains and competitiveness problems face a painful period of adjustment.There was some good news for the stock markets, however, from the United States where Wall Street juggernaut Goldman Sachs on Thursday reported impressive fourth-quarter and full-year profit despite the downturn.European equities are getting a lift from the Goldman Sachs results this afternoon, said David Morrison, an analyst at financial spread-betting firm GFT, adding:Profits were very strong and well above the consensus estimate.But he warned: Gains may be tempered however until after investors have heard what the president has to say about investment bank regulation today, referring to a planned announcement by US President Barack Obama.Wall Street stocks suffered their biggest drop for the year on Wednesday following news that China was planning to rein in credit after explosive growth last year. In Europe, bourses in Paris and Frankfurt lost 2.0 percent in value.European markets were sluggish on Thursday but avoided the sharp falls of the previous day.London's benchmark FTSE 100 inched down 0.09 percent in afternoon trading, Frankfurt's DAX gained 0.37 percent and the CAC 40 in Paris fell 0.67 percent.The Tokyo Stock Exchange's benchmark Nikkei-225 index closed up 1.22 percent on Thursday, shrugging off the negative lead from Wall Street as foreign investors bought heavyweight companies such as Toyota and Sony.Faster-than-expected Chinese growth has heightened fears that the People's Bank of China may hike interest rates this quarter, said analyst Jane Foley at online trading site Forex.com.This may not yet be a consensus view but the rise in tightening fears was sufficient to push most Asian stock indices lower, which led to a flurry of dollar buying.The euro fell amid worries about China and the fiscal crises in Europe.

The euro was changing hands at 1.4093 dollars in afternoon trading in London, compared to 1.4103 late in New York on Wednesday. The euro had hit a five-month low against the dollar on Wednesday. The IMF warned Portugal on Wednesday of the critical importance of getting its public finances amid existing concerns over Greece's own massive debt troubles. As soon as markets had digested the situation in Greece it's now Portugal's turn,said Commerzbank analyst Antje Praefcke, adding that the IMF report put additional pressure on the euro.

Oil prices slide below $76 in Asia on weak demand By EILEEN NG, Associated Press Writer – JAN 22,10

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Oil prices fell below $76 a barrel Friday in Asia, dampened by evidence of weak demand after government figures showed the United States continues to use less energy than last year.Benchmark crude for March delivery shed 21 cents to $75.87 a barrel at midday Kuala Lumpur time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.On Thursday, the contract dropped to $75.66, the lowest price since Dec. 23, before settling at $76.08, down $1.66.The losses were also fueled by declines on Wall Street after President Barack Obama proposed tougher bank regulations, which may see less hot money flowing into commodities markets. Goldman Sachs and other major banks have helped funnel billions of dollars of speculative money into oil and natural gas contracts during the past several years.Market sentiment is bearish as fundamentals remain weak but prices could bounce back if it hits $75. There will be some support at this level, said Clarence Chu, a trader with Hudson Capital Energy in Singapore.Energy prices tumbled after the Energy Information Administration reported Thursday that demand for gasoline and jet fuel both weakened during the past few weeks.America is consuming less petroleum than the same time last year, and refineries, which have struggled to pass higher crude costs along to consumers, are now operating at the lowest levels since September 2008. Natural gas supplies dropped more than expected to 2.6 trillion cubic feet and are now slightly lower than the five-year average.

In other Nymex trading in February contracts, heating oil eased 0.47 cent to $1.981 a gallon, while gasoline rose 0.15 cent to $1.984 a gallon. Natural gas futures gained 4.3 cents to $5.678 per 1,000 cubic feet.In London, Brent crude for March delivery lost 11 cents to $74.47 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

MEPs clear 25 out of 26 commission nominees
ANDREW RETTMAN 21.01.2010 @ 15:15 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The President of the EU parliament, Jerzy Buzek, has confirmed that 25 out of the 26 nominees for the next EU commission have been formally approved by MEPs.I have on the table 25 letters, all the commissioner designates have now been accepted by the committees of the European Parliament, with one commissioner and one hearing still missing, he said after a behind-closed-doors meeting of EU parliament heads in Strasbourg on Thursday (21 January).Joseph Daul, the head of the parliament's largest political faction, the centre-right EPP, told German press: I think his [EU commission President Jose Manuel Barroso] team is going to be approved with a very, very large majority.A spokesman for the second largest faction, the Socialists, said: We don't expect any hiccups.The MEPs' conclave also decided to hold a hearing for the outstanding commission candidate, Bulgaria's Kristalina Georgieva, on 3 February, and a plenary vote on the full commission team on 9 February.Mr Barroso is to meet Ms Georgieva for the first time in Brussels later on Thursday. Sofia put forward the nominee, a high flier in the World Bank, after its initial candidate, senior centre-right politician Rumiana Jeleva, was rejected on grounds of incompetence.Ms Jeleva has since stepped down as Bulgaria's foreign minister. I did not believe that an attack inspired by the Liberals, realised by the Greens to the benefit of the Socialists would go that far, she said on national radio on Wednesday.The 25 positive assessments will give a fair wind for Mr Barroso for the 9 February vote.Concerns had earlier emerged on whether the EPP would take revenge on the anti-Jeleva coalition by trying to topple a Socialist or Liberal candidate. The Netherlands' Neelie Kroes, Slovak Marios Sefcovic, Finland's Olli Rehn, Lithuanian Algirdas Semetas and Sweden's Cecilia Malmstrom were in the firing line following weak hearings with parliament committees over the past two weeks and, in the case of Mr Sefcovic, due to alleged anti-Roma remarks.

Spanner in the works

Thursday's meeting of MEP heads also discussed progress on a new inter-institutional pact currently under negotiation with the commission. MEPs are seeking new powers such as the right to vet senior EU diplomatic appointments and to help initiate EU laws. A spokeswoman for Mr Barroso said on Thursday that the negotiations are going very well ...we're very optimistic.But parliament is using its potential veto on the new commission team as leverage in the institutional talks.The German centre-right MEP in charge of the institutional negotiations, Klaus-Heiner Lehne, told the MEPs' conclave that: If there is no agreement, I will ask for a delay of the vote [on commission nominees], a parliamentary source said.The contact added that the scheduling of the 9 February session is designed to maximise pressure on Mr Barroso. MEPs will on the day first vote on the inter-institutional deal, then take a break for internal talks within the political factions, before coming back to vote on the commission team.

Member states set for tussle with parliament over 18 MEPs
HONOR MAHONY 21.01.2010 @ 09:27 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU President Herman Van Rompuy has formally requested the European Parliament not to call a broad discussion on how to legally establish the 18extra MEPs foreseen under the Lisbon Treaty in the Brussels assembly.In a letter unveiled by EU parliament chief Jerzy Buzek on Wednesday (20 January), Mr Van Rompuy asked MEPs to let member states call an intergovernmental conference (IGC) to tweak the EU treaty, without prior discussion in a convention. Spain, currently heading the EU presidency, is pressing for a quick amendment to allow the new MEPs entry into the parliament for the 2009-2014 mandate. Madrid has made the issue a priority as it stands to gain the most, with four extra Spanish MEPs entitled to come to Brussels.Of the other 11 member states concerned, eight are entitled to one more MEP each and three countries to two more deputies.Parliament may yet dig in its heels on principle, however. The house was angered by France, which failed to make arrangements prior to last year's European elections allowing for the two extra French MEPs to take part in the vote. Instead, Paris has suggested it will handpick two deputies from its national assembly and parachute them into the EU legislature.

I think that this is sufficient breach of the democratic legitimacy of parliament that we should precede an intergovernmental conference to discuss this matter with a convention, UK Liberal MEP Andrew Duff told this website.A convention requires the involvement of representatives from the European Commission, European Parliament, national parliaments and member states - the last one was called in 2001 to draw up what eventually turned into the current Lisbon Treaty.

Pandora's box

Member states fear that calling a convention could lead to other issues being examined, perilously soon after they closed their last round of institutional talks, which lasted some eight years.MEPs, on the other hand, argue that the remit of both gatherings could be made very narrow and that the convention could be limited to just two or three days.It would be possible to draw the brief for the convention and the IGC extremely tightly - that the parameters of the things to be discussed could be specified, said Mr Duff.The issue will be discussed by representatives of the political groups in the parliament's constitutional affairs committee next week and is due for a wider discussion by the committee as a whole in February. Spain is hoping that the IGC will be called as soon as possible, said a spokesperson, and that if it falls during its presidency, running until the end of June, then all the better.The anomaly with the MEPs arises because the June elections took place under the Nice Treaty but the Lisbon Treaty, in place since 1 December, increases the number of deputies. Most of the member states affected by this change took account of this in the June elections by simply electing reserve MEPs.

French gambit

France's hope that the extra two deputies can be picked from its national parliament goes against treaty rules.Meanwhile, the overall number of MEPs is set to rise to 754 with the 18 extra names - three more than foreseen under the Lisbon Treaty - because Germany, which is to lose three deputies, will not reduce its number until the next legislature in four year's time. The two factors require temporary changes to be made to the Lisbon Treaty.The new MEPs will mean that the Swedish pirates party, amongst others, will get an extra deputy - set to be the youngest member of the parliament, Amelia Andersdotter. The Netherlands' anti-immigration PVV party will increase its seats from four to five, the same number as the Dutch Christian Democrats.Spain's IGC idea needs to be realised quickly if it is to make political sense. An amendment changing the number of MEPs would need to be agreed by all 27 national parliaments - a lengthy process occasionally taken hostage by other political issues. Any delay in ratification risks bringing the date by which the extra deputies are actually in parliament with full rights close to 2014 - the date of the next European elections, when the legal problem will cease to exist.

UN fudges Copenhagen Accord deadline
LEIGH PHILLIPS 21.01.2010 @ 10:23 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - As the European Union tussles over which carbon reduction figures to inscribe in the annexes of the controversial Copenhagen Accord produced in the dying hours of December's climate summit, the UN's climate change chief has warned that few countries, including the major emitters, have so far signed up with their own emission reduction plans.Whether the European bloc signs up with a commitment of 20 percent, 25 percent or 30 percent CO2 cut, it is likely become one of the few powers that respond to the accord in time.Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters in Bonn on Wednesday (20 January) that just days away from a 31 January deadline, fewer than 20 countries out of 192 have submitted their targets for emissions reductions or, in the case of developing countries, the mitigation actions they intend to take.As a result, Mr de Boer announced that the deadline has been lifted, saying that the date is flexible.I see the accord as a living document that tracks actions that countries want to take, he said.It's a soft deadline. Countries are not being asked to sign the accord to take on legally binding targets, only to indicate their intention.In their attempts to sell the skeletal document, its authors had previously touted the end-of-January deadline as delivering the substantive element of the accord.Rich countries were originally supposed to have inscribed their CO2 reduction targets in an annex to the accord by the end of this month, while developing countries were not strictly bound by this date.

But all talk of deadlines has now been abandoned.

The Copenhagen Accord, drafted by Brazil, China, India, South Africa and the United States, is not legally binding, and does not commit countries to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. It contains very little in the way of detail, although it does contain a goal of limiting average global temperature increase to no more than two degrees Celsius and proposes a $100 billion a year mix of private and public monies to be delivered to developing countries to pay for adaptation to climate change and to cover the costs of moving toward a low-carbon growth path. The UN process only took note of the document, with even South Africa, one of the negotiators of the text, at the time describing it as being not acceptable.The EU for its part remains divided over whether to inscribe in the annex its existing commitment to a 20 percent cut in CO2 on 1990 levels by 2020 or move up unilaterally to a 30 percent cut. The EU has so far said it will move to a 30 percent cut if other powers make comparable offers. As it stands, the US is currently on track to offer a cut of 17 percent on 2005 levels, equivalent to a three to four percent cut on 1990 levels.The UK, France, Germany, Belgium and Spain, currently holding the EU's six-month rotating presidency, all back a jump to 30 percent, while Italy and Poland remain dead set against such a move.Italy and Poland fear the costs for domestic industry and households will be raised sharply without similar commitments by other powers.
As a compromise position, Belgium has suggested a move to a reduction pledge of 25 percent.

EU commission embassies granted new powers-The commission's unit in China is among the list of 54 (Photo: ec.europa.eu)ANDREW RETTMAN 21.01.2010 @ 09:15 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU has converted 54 out of the European Commission's 136 foreign delegations into embassy-type missions authorised to speak for the entire union.The move follows the coming into force last year of the Lisbon Treaty, which has the creation of a new EU diplomatic corps as one of its main provisions. All 136 commission delegations were renamed EU delegations on 1 January. But only the 54 placements were at the same time quietly given fresh powers in line with their new names.The super-delegations have taken on the role previously carried out by the national embassies of the member state holding the six-month EU presidency at any given time.As such, they now co-ordinate the work of the member states' bilateral missions to the countries in question. The heads of the 54 delegations are also empowered to speak on behalf of the EU as a whole. But their statements have to be pre-approved by the 27 EU countries during meetings in Brussels.They are going to be a bit more political. They will provide the same function that was provided by the given [EU presidency] member state before,an EU official said. Eight of the new-model units are in Europe: Armenia, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Ukraine.

Twelve are in Asia and the Pacific Ocean: Afghanistan, Australia, China, East Timor, Fiji, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Vietnam. The rest is in Africa: Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe and the delegation to the African Union in Addis Ababa.

Some of the far-flung outposts concentrate on distributing aid and also do ad-hoc projects, such as promoting European film in Fiji.The 54 missions were selected by EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton following discussions with EU states. There is no deadline for the conversion of the rest.The choice is designed not to undermine the prestige of the Spanish EU presidency: None of the new placements are in former Spanish colonies in Latin America or in countries due to hold EU summits on Spain's watch, such as the US and Russia. China is the only exception, with a summit due on 15 March.

The choice was also guided by technical issues.

Most of the commission's delegations to international bodies, such as the UN in New York or the OSCE in Vienna, were not included because the EU is still working out how to handle its membership in multilateral forums under Lisbon.Some commission delegations did not have enough staff or were not yet plugged into the EU system for circulating classified information, known as Coreu.

MEPs call for delay on US bank data deal
ANDREW WILLIS 21.01.2010 @ 17:37 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek is planning to send a letter to the Council of Ministers, the EU institution representing member states, calling for a suspension of a recent agreement that was to enable the continued transfer of EU citizens' banking data to US investigators. The decision to call for a delay to the interim deal, scheduled to enter into force on 1 February, was made by leaders of the parliament's different political groups during a meeting in Strasbourg on Thursday (21 January).MEPs were infuriated when the Council agreed the interim deal with the US on 30 November last year, just a day before the EU's new rulebook, the Lisbon Treaty, came into force, which handed the euro-deputies a greater say over data protection issues.The controversial deal was negotiated to help the US out of a legal hole, following the relocation of the US database of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) to the Netherlands on 1 January. The EU Council has no right to allow the Swift agreement to take effect without the agreement of the European Parliament, said Green co-president Rebecca Harms and Green MEP Jan-Philipp Albrecht, a member of Parliament's civil liberties committee, in a statement. Parliament must not be bypassed by the [European] Commission and Council, which would be a breach of the Lisbon Treaty. Citizens' rights must be safeguarded, they added.

Ongoing controversy

The Swift issue has been an ongoing controversy for several years, with news that the US Department of the Treasury was secretly surveilling banking transactions data, including information on EU citizens, first hitting the headlines in 2006.
Names, addresses and national identification numbers are among the sensitive data screened under the procedure designed to fight terrorism. However, the agreement makes no provision for European investigators to access similar data on US transactions.In a bid to end the debate, the EU in 2008 appointed a special expert to assess how American authorities were dealing with the data. French judge, Louis Bruguiere, subsequently concluded that the US was not abusing the information and that the programme had significant security benefits for the EU itself.But in a strongly worded letter last week to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, whose country currently holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency, Mr Buzek already urged the Socialist politician to allow the parliament to vote on the sensitive text. He added that it would be unwise for the Council to force through such an inherently controversial agreement without first securing the parliament's assent.

Greece and China cause slump in value of the euro
ANDREW WILLIS 21.01.2010 @ 09:26 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Concerns over Greece and indications that China could take steps to cool its economy this year are weighing heavily on the value of the euro, with the common currency reaching a five-month low against the dollar in some markets on Thursday (21 January). In Strasbourg the day before, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told the European Parliament that Europe's economy is at a delicate moment.The euro has fallen steadily this week as investors keep a close eye on Greece's ongoing budgetary difficulties. A change of government last autumn resulted in a dramatic upward revision of the country's deficit forecasts, prompting credit rating cuts and raising the possibility of a possible Greek default and spillover effects to other euro area economies. This Greece news is a huge piece of news, Gregory Salvaggio, vice president of capital markets at the currency- trading firm Tempus Consulting Inc. in Washington, told Bloomberg.If we see sovereign debt default, it could lead to a fracturing of the euro zone, and the euro's shine as a reserve currency is certainly going to diminish, he added.

Sentiment that Europe's economy will perform less strongly than the US this year also contributed to Thursday's slide in Asian markets, with the euro hitting $1.4067, the lowest point since 18 August last year.The euro is now being targeted ...as one of the assets likely to underperform in 2010 based on headwinds, Omer Esiner, senior market analyst at Travelex Global Business Payments in Washington, told Dow Jones.

Chinese data

Fresh data pointing to strong economic growth in China also contributed to the euro's slump, as speculation mounted that Beijing may take further steps to cool its economy. On Wednesday China's banking regulator said it would rein in new lending this year. Figures showed China's gross domestic product expanded 8.7 percent in 2009, beating market expectations for 8.5 percent growth.The China data were strong, so people are now even more anxious over when the authorities might again try to apply the brakes on the economy, said Yasuo Nakayama, manager at Shinkin Central Bank, reports Dow Jones.With many economies around the world, including Europe, still struggling as a result of the financial crisis, speculation about Chinese tightening has raised worries about the potential impact on the world economy as a whole.