EU TO YOUNG ARABS-WE ARE WITH YOU

PAYOUT BREAKDOWN OF EVERY OIL DOLLAR THAT AMERICA GETS

67% OIL PAYOUT
13% FEDERAL AND STATE TAXES
11% REFINERY COSTS
09% DISTRIBUTION & MARKETING

Tuesday, March 01, 2011 The Counterfeit Economy
The U.S. has a deeply counterfeit economy.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2011/03/counterfeit-economy.html

Counterfeit money exploits trust by presenting a facsimile of authenticity. A high-quality counterfeit bill (for example, the $100 bills exported by North Korea) are facsimiles of authentic paper notes which then gain the trust of users.A counterfeit gold bar is a piece of lead coated with a layer of authentic gold. The mechanism is the same: a veneer of integrity tricks the buyer into trusting the validity of the entire bar.

The U.S. has a deeply counterfeit economy.

The predatory mortgages of the subprime era were presented as legitimate mortgages similiar to time-honored 30-years fixed notes with a few minor differences. These were in effect counterfeit mortgages designed to fool the borrowers and buyers. They were mere simulacra of safe investments.Like the counterfeiter who plates the lead bar with a thin coating of gold, the ratings agencies coated the lead bar of toxic, high-risk mortgages with the gold veneer of a AAA rating.The buyers of the securitized mortgages were promised gold but they were actually buying lead--and the sellers knew it. The trust engendered by the AAA rating and the veneer of authenticity issued by Wall Street was exploited in a vast counterfeiting scheme of breathtaking depth and range.The budget of the U.S. government as presented by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is a counterfeit budget, inauthentic and riddled with blatantly false projections. As late as 2009, in the midst of the Great Recession, the OMB was projecting surpluses in the Federal budget by 2012.By 2009, the OMB had plenty of data on the recession and the opportunity to revise their previous estimates to more realistic levels.But instead, the OMB continued issuing pie-in-the-sky estimates which grossly underestimated future deficits:
2009 estimate: receipts: $2.7 trillion outlays: $3.1 trillion deficit: $–407 billion
2010 estimate: receipts: $2.93 trillion outlays: $3.09 trillion deficit: $–159.9 billion
2011 estimate: receipts: $ 3.07 trillion outlays: $3.17 trillion deficit: $–94 billion
2012 estimate: receipts: $ 3.26 trillion outlays: $3.22 trillion deficit: $+48 billion

The reality is that the 2012 deficit is expected to hit $1.6 trillion, a sum that equals 11% of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP).In other words, the OMB and the rest of the Federal machinery issues simulacra of authentic budgets--counterfeits designed to fool the people and win their trust via artifice and facsimiles of authenticity.As Bernie Madoff recently observed--and we can suppose he is an expert in manufacturing facsimiles, fraud, embezzlement and counterfeiting authenticity out of lies--the U.S. is a giant Ponzi scheme.The financial reforms are counterfeit reforms.The balancing the budget cuts are counterfeit.The projections of future growth are counterfeit.The unemployment numbers are counterfeit.The inflations statistics are counterfeit.And of course, the news which drives the stock market ever higher is also counterfeit.When everything is counterfeit, then what's left that's authentic and trustworthy? Essentially nothing.

BRIDGEWATERS DALIO ON CNBC-DEMISE OF THE DOLLAR
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000008442&play=1

Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash Pentagon study sees element By Bill Gertz The Washington Times 8:54 p.m., Monday, February 28, 2011
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49755779/Economic-Warfare-Risks-and-Responses-by-Kevin-D-Freeman

Evidence outlined in a Pentagon contractor report suggests that financial subversion carried out by unknown parties, such as terrorists or hostile nations, contributed to the 2008 economic crash by covertly using vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system.The unclassified 2009 report Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, states that a three-phased attack was planned and is in the process against the United States economy.While economic analysts and a final report from the federal government's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blame the crash on such economic factors as high-risk mortgage lending practices and poor federal regulation and supervision, the Pentagon contractor adds a new element: outside forces, a factor the commission did not examine.There is sufficient justification to question whether outside forces triggered, capitalized upon or magnified the economic difficulties of 2008, the report says, explaining that those domestic economic factors would have caused a normal downturn but not the near collapse of the global economic system that took place.Suspects include financial enemies in Middle Eastern states, Islamic terrorists, hostile members of the Chinese military, or government and organized crime groups in Russia, Venezuela or Iran. Chinese military officials publicly have suggested using economic warfare against the U.S.In an interview with The Times, Mr. Freeman said his report provided enough theoretical evidence for an economic warfare attack that further forensic study was warranted.The new battle space is the economy, he said. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems each year. But a relatively small amount of money focused against our financial markets through leveraged derivatives or cyber efforts can result in trillions of dollars in losses. And, the perpetrators can remain undiscovered.This is the equivalent of box cutters on an airplane, Mr. Freeman said.

Paul Bracken, a Yale University professor who has studied economic warfare, said he saw no convincing evidence that 'outside forces' colluded to bring about the 2008 crisis.There were outside players in the market for unregulated credit default swaps, Mr. Bracken said in an e-mail. Foreign banks and hedge funds play the shorts all the time too. But suggestions of an organized targeted attack for strategic reasons don't seem to me to be plausible.Regardless of the report's findings, U.S. officials and outside analysts said the Pentagon, the Treasury Department and U.S. intelligence agencies are not aggressively studying the threats to the United States posed by economic warfare and financial terrorism.Nobody wants to go there, one official said.A copy of the report also was provided to the recently concluded Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, but the commission also declined to address the possibility of economic warfare in its final report.Officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said senior Pentagon policymakers, including Michael Vickers, an assistant defense secretary in charge of special operations, blocked further study, saying the Pentagon was not the appropriate agency to assess economic warfare and financial terrorism risks.Mr. Vickers declined to be interviewed but, through a spokesman, said he did not say economic warfare was not an area for the Pentagon to study, and that he did not block further study.Mr. Vickers is awaiting Senate confirmation on his promotion to be undersecretary of defense for intelligence.Despite his skepticism of the report, Mr. Bracken agreed that financial warfare needs to be studied, and he noted that the U.S. government is only starting to address the issue.

We are in an era like the 1950s where technological innovation is transforming the tools of coercion and war, he said. We tend not to see this, and look at information warfare, financial warfare, precision strike, [weapons of mass destruction], etc. as separate silos. It's their parallel co-evolution that leads to interesting options, like counter-elite targeting. And no one is really looking at this in an overall systems way. Diplomacy is way behind here.Mr. Freeman wrote the report for the Pentagon's Irregular Warfare Support Program, part of the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office, which examines unconventional warfare scenarios.The preponderance of evidence that cannot be easily dismissed demands a thorough and immediate study be commenced, the report says. Ignoring the likelihood of this very real threat ensures a catastrophic event.The report concluded that the evidence of an attack is strong enough that financial terrorism may have cost the global economy as much as $50 trillion.Because of secrecy surrounding global banking and finance, finding the exact identities of the attackers will be difficult.But U.S. opponents in Russia who could wage economic warfare include elements of the former KGB intelligence and political police who regard the economy as a logical extension of the Cold War, the report says.

Asked by The Times who he thought to be the most likely behind the financial attacks, Mr. Freeman said: Unfortunately, the two major strategic threats, radical jihadists and the Chinese, are among the best positioned in the economic battle space.Also, the report lists as suspects advocates of Islamic law, who have publicly called for opposition to capitalism as a way to promote what they regard as the superiority of Islam.Further Pentagon Low Intensity Conflict office research into possible economic warfare or financial terrorism being behind the economic collapse by the Pentagon's Special Operations and was blocked, Mr. Freeman said.The Pentagon report states that the evidence of financial subversion revealed that the first two phases of an attack on the U.S. economy took place from 2007 to 2009 and based on recent global market activity, it appears that the predicted Phase III may be underway right now.The report states that federal authorities must further investigate two significant events in the months leading up to the financial crisis.

The first phase of the economic attack, the report said, was the escalation of oil prices by speculators from 2007 to mid-2008 that coincided with the housing finance crisis.In the second phase, the stock market collapsed by what the report called a bear raid from unidentified sources on Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and other Wall Street firms.This produced a complete collapse in credit availability and almost started a global depression, Mr. Freeman said.The third phase is what Mr. Freeman states in the report was the main source of the economic system's vulnerability. We have taken on massive public debt as the government was the only party who could access capital markets in late 2008 and early 2009,he said, placing the U.S. dollar's global reserve currency status at grave risk.This is the end game if the goal is to destroy America, Mr. Freeman said, noting that in his view China's military has been advocating the potential for an economic attack on the U.S. for 12 years or longer as evidenced by the publication of the book Unrestricted Warfare in 1999.Additional evidence provided by Mr. Freeman includes the statement in 2008 by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. that the Russians had approached the Chinese with a plan to dump its holdings of bonds by the federally backed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Among the financial instruments that may have been used in the economic warfare scenario are credit default swaps, unregulated and untraceable contracts by which a buyer pays the seller a fee and in exchange is paid off in a bond or a loan. The report said credit default swaps are ideal bear-raid tools and have the power to determine the financial viability of companies.

Another economic warfare tool that was linked in the report to the 2008 crash is what is called naked short-selling of stock, defined as short-selling financial shares without borrowing them.The report said that 30 percent to 70 percent of the decline in stock share values for two companies that were attacked, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, were results of failed trades from naked short-selling.The collapse in September 2008 of Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, was the most significant event in the crash, causing an immediate credit freeze and stock market crash, the report says.In a section of who was behind the collapse, the report says determining the actors is difficult because of banking and financial trading secrecy.The reality of the situation today is that foreign-based hedge funds perpetrating bear raid strategies could do so virtually unmonitored and unregulated on behalf of enemies of the United States, the report says.Only recently have defense and intelligence agencies begun to consider this very real possibility of what amounts to financial terrorism and-or economic warfare.As for Chinese involvement in economic sabotage, the decline in the world economy may have hurt Beijing through a decline in purchases of Chinese goods.Treasury spokeswoman Marti Adams had no immediate comment on the report but said her department's views on the causes of the economic crash were well known.

Financial Terrorism Wednesday, Mar 2, 2011
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/tvshow/2011/03/financial-terrorism/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/pentagon-study-08-financial-crisis-may-have-been-the-work-of-finanical-terrorists/
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/glenn-beck/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/glenn-beck/index.html#/v/4564441/beck-textbook-plants-seeds-of-socialism/?playlist_id=86917

On TV, Glenn warned of a recent report from a Pentagon affiliate that warned of possible financial terrorism takeing place on the U.S. The report broke out three different phases:

•The first phase was a speculative run-up in oil prices that generated as much as $2 trillion of excess wealth for oil-producing nations, filling the coffers of Sovereign Wealth Funds, especially those that follow Shariah Compliant Finance.
•The second phase appears to have begun in 2008 with a series of bear raids targeting U.S. financial services firms that appeared to be systemically significant [such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers]. … This created a system-wide crisis, caused the collapse of the credit markets, and nearly collapsed the global financial system.
•The risk of a Phase Three has quickly emerged, suggesting a potential direct economic attack on the U.S. Treasury and U.S. dollar. Such an event has already been discussed by finance ministers in major emerging market nations such as China and Russia as well as Iran and the Arab states. A focused effort to collapse the dollar by dumping Treasury bonds has grave implications including the possibility of a downgrading of U.S. debt forcing rapidly rising interest rates and a collapse of the American economy. In short, a bear raid against the U.S.financial system remains possible and may even be likely. [Emphasis added]

These items add to a growing list of elements in a Perfect Storm including revolution, rising oil prices, protests, the border, domestic radicals and more that Glenn fears are rapidly building to a fundamental change in the western way of life. People who want to collapse our society are seeing an opportunity, and Glenn will talk more about this tomorrow.(MAR 3,11)

THE NWO NUTCASES THINK BY MANIPULATING THE STOCK MARKETS TO KEEP THEM HIGH.PEOPLE WILL NOT NOTICE THE DOLLAR IS DONE FOR AND THE ECONOMY IS DEAD AND ON THE VERGE OF A WORLD COLLAPSE.BUT LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS IN 1 HOUR ALL STOCK MARKETS WILL COME TO NAUGHT-COLLAPSE.BUT THE SHEEPLE WON'T LISTEN TO TRUTH AND GO WITH THE SECULAR MEDIA LIES INSTEAD.

MARCH 2, 2011.Why the Dollar's Reign Is Near an End WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703313304576132170181013248.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

For decades the dollar has served as the world's main reserve currency, but, argues Barry Eichengreen, it will soon have to share that role. Here's why—and what it will mean for international markets and companies.By BARRY EICHENGREEN

The single most astonishing fact about foreign exchange is not the high volume of transactions, as incredible as that growth has been. Nor is it the volatility of currency rates, as wild as the markets are these days.Instead, it's the extent to which the market remains dollar-centric.Consider this: When a South Korean wine wholesaler wants to import Chilean cabernet, the Korean importer buys U.S. dollars, not pesos, with which to pay the Chilean exporter. Indeed, the dollar is virtually the exclusive vehicle for foreign-exchange transactions between Chile and Korea, despite the fact that less than 20% of the merchandise trade of both countries is with the U.S.Chile and Korea are hardly an anomaly: Fully 85% of foreign-exchange transactions world-wide are trades of other currencies for dollars. What's more, what is true of foreign-exchange transactions is true of other international business. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sets the price of oil in dollars. The dollar is the currency of denomination of half of all international debt securities. More than 60% of the foreign reserves of central banks and governments are in dollars.The greenback, in other words, is not just America's currency. It's the world's.But as astonishing as that is, what may be even more astonishing is this: The dollar's reign is coming to an end.I believe that over the next 10 years, we're going to see a profound shift toward a world in which several currencies compete for dominance.The impact of such a shift will be equally profound, with implications for, among other things, the stability of exchange rates, the stability of financial markets, the ease with which the U.S. will be able to finance budget and current-account deficits, and whether the Fed can follow a policy of benign neglect toward the dollar.

The Three Pillars
How could this be? How could the dollar's longtime most-favored-currency status be in jeopardy? See the share of global foreign-exchange transactions involving the dollar, and the dollar's share of official global foreign-exchange reserves.
.To understand the dollar's future, it's important to understand the dollar's past—why the dollar became so dominant in the first place. Let me offer three reasons.

First, its allure reflects the singular depth of markets in dollar-denominated debt securities. The sheer scale of those markets allows dealers to offer low bid-ask spreads. The availability of derivative instruments with which to hedge dollar exchange-rate risk is unsurpassed. This makes the dollar the most convenient currency in which to do business for corporations, central banks and governments alike.Second, there is the fact that the dollar is the world's safe haven. In crises, investors instinctively flock to it, as they did following the 2008 failure of Lehman Brothers. This tendency reflects the exceptional liquidity of markets in dollar instruments, liquidity being the most precious of all commodities in a crisis. It is a product of the fact that U.S. Treasury securities, the single most important asset bought and sold by international investors, have long had a reputation for stability.WSJ's David Wessel sits down with three senior experts in international finance - Edwin M. Truman, Joseph E. Gagnon and Eswar Prasad - for a discussion on the major issues facing currencies and the global economy.
.Finally, the dollar benefits from a dearth of alternatives. Other countries that have long enjoyed a reputation for stability, such as Switzerland, or that have recently acquired one, like Australia, are too small for their currencies to account for more than a tiny fraction of international financial transactions.

What's Changing
But just because this has been true in the past doesn't guarantee that it will be true in the future. In fact, all three pillars supporting the dollar's international dominance are eroding.First, changes in technology are undermining the dollar's monopoly. Not so long ago, there may have been room in the world for only one true international currency. Given the difficulty of comparing prices in different currencies, it made sense for exporters, importers and bond issuers all to quote their prices and invoice their transactions in dollars, if only to avoid confusing their customers.Now, however, nearly everyone carries hand-held devices that can be used to compare prices in different currencies in real time. Just as we have learned that in a world of open networks there is room for more than one operating system for personal computers, there is room in the global economic and financial system for more than one international currency.OECD Secretary-General Jose Angel Gurria sat down with Dow Jones FX Trader during the meeting of G20 finance officials in Paris to talk about global imbalances and the euro zone's debt crisis.Second, the dollar is about to have real rivals in the international sphere for the first time in 50 years. There will soon be two viable alternatives, in the form of the euro and China's yuan.Americans especially tend to discount the staying power of the euro, but it isn't going anywhere. Contrary to some predictions, European governments have not abandoned it. Nor will they. They will proceed with long-term deficit reduction, something about which they have shown more resolve than the U.S. And they will issue "e-bonds"—bonds backed by the full faith and credit of euro-area governments as a group—as a step in solving their crisis. This will lay the groundwork for the kind of integrated European bond market needed to create an alternative to U.S. Treasurys as a form in which to hold central-bank reserves.China, meanwhile, is moving rapidly to internationalize the yuan, also known as the renminbi. The last year has seen a quadrupling of the share of bank deposits in Hong Kong denominated in yuan. Seventy thousand Chinese companies are now doing their cross-border settlements in yuan. Dozens of foreign companies have issued yuan-denominated dim sum bonds in Hong Kong. In January the Bank of China began offering yuan-deposit accounts in New York insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Allowing Chinese companies to do cross-border settlements in yuan will free them from having to undertake costly foreign-exchange transactions. They will no longer have to bear the exchange-rate risk created by the fact that their revenues are in dollars but many of their costs are in yuan. Allowing Chinese banks, for their part, to do international transactions in yuan will allow them to grab a bigger slice of the global financial pie.Admittedly, China has a long way to go in building liquid markets and making its financial instruments attractive to international investors. But doing so is central to Beijing's economic strategy. Chinese officials have set 2020 as the deadline for transforming Shanghai into a first-class international financial center. We Westerners have underestimated China before. We should not make the same mistake again.Finally, there is the danger that the dollar's safe-haven status will be lost. Foreign investors—private and official alike—hold dollars not simply because they are liquid but because they are secure. The U.S. government has a history of honoring its obligations, and it has always had the fiscal capacity to do so.But now, mainly as a result of the financial crisis, federal debt is approaching 75% of U.S. gross domestic product. Trillion-dollar deficits stretch as far as the eye can see. And as the burden of debt service grows heavier, questions will be asked about whether the U.S. intends to maintain the value of its debts or might resort to inflating them away. Foreign investors will be reluctant to put all their eggs in the dollar basket. At a minimum, the dollar will have to share its safe-haven status with other currencies.

A World More Complicated
How much difference will all this make—to markets, to companies, to households, to governments? One obvious change will be to the foreign-exchange markets. There will no longer be an automatic jump up in the value of the dollar, and corresponding decline in the value of other major currencies, when financial volatility surges. With the dollar, euro and yuan all trading in liquid markets and all seen as safe havens, there will be movement into all three of them in periods of financial distress. No one currency will rise as strongly as did the dollar following the failure of Lehman Bros. There will be no reason for the rates between them to move sharply, something that would potentially upend investors.But the impact will extend well beyond the markets. Clearly, the change will make life more complicated for U.S. companies. Until now they have had the convenience of using the same currency—dollars—whether they are paying their workers, importing parts and components, or selling their products to foreign customers. They don't have to incur the cost of changing foreign-currency earnings into dollars. They don't have to purchase forward contracts and options to protect against financial losses due to changes in the exchange rate. This will all change in the brave new world that is coming. American companies will have to cope with some of the same exchange-rate risks and exposures as their foreign competitors.Conversely, life will become easier for European and Chinese banks and companies, which will be able to do more of their international business in their own currencies. The same will be true of companies in other countries that do most of their business with China or Europe. It will be a considerable convenience—and competitive advantage—for them to be able to do that business in yuan or euros rather than having to go through the dollar.

U.S. Impact
In this new monetary world, moreover, the U.S. government will not be able to finance its budget deficits so cheaply, since there will no longer be as big an appetite for U.S. Treasury securities on the part of foreign central banks.Nor will the U.S. be able to run such large trade and current-account deficits, since financing them will become more expensive. Narrowing the current-account deficit will require exporting more, which will mean making U.S. goods more competitive on foreign markets. That in turn means that the dollar will have to fall on foreign-exchange markets—helping U.S. exporters and hurting those companies that export to the U.S.My calculations suggest that the dollar will have to fall by roughly 20%. Because the prices of imported goods will rise in the U.S., living standards will be reduced by about 1.5% of GDP—$225 billion in today's dollars. That is the equivalent to a half-year of normal economic growth. While this is not an economic disaster, Americans will definitely feel it in the wallet.On the other hand, the next time the U.S. has a real-estate bubble, we won't have the Chinese helping us blow it.Dr. Eichengreen is the George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee professor of economics and political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His new book is Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com. Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all,(WORLD SOCIALISM) both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
CNBC VIDEOS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839263/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS THU MAR 03,2011

09:30 AM +2.52
10:00 AM +155.55
10:30 AM +156.55
11:00 AM +168.09
11:30 AM +167.22
12:00 PM +182.17
12:30 PM +177.06
01:00 PM +180.31
01:30 PM +188.88
02:00 PM +204.61
02:30 PM +202.87
03:00 PM +215.66
03:30 PM +201.62
04:00 PM +191.40 12,258.20

S&P 500 1330.97 +22.53

NASDAQ 2798.74 +50.67

GOLD 1,416.90 -21.10

OIL 101.83 -0.40

TSE 300 14,214.72 +70.70

CDNX 2410.82 +8.40

S&P/TSX/60 817.85 +4.86

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +115 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow +1 points at low today.
Dow +176 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,423.60.OIL opens at $101.55 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow +1 points at low today so far.
Dow +217 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow +1 points at low today.
Dow +217 points at high today.

GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,439.20 (NOT AT CLOSE)

Trade unions dare EU to hold referendum on economic pact
LEIGH PHILLIPS 02.03.2011 @ 17:43 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Angry at economic governance proposals by EU leaders that aim to push down wages, public sector unions have dared governments to hold referendums over a Competitiveness Pact currently being hashed out behind closed doors.Which of these EU government leaders dares to put the Competitiveness Pact, which goes so very far in asking for legal or constitutional changes to enforce budget deficit targets, to a referendum asking the people if they agree or not? Jan Willem Goudriaan, the head of the European Public Service Union, told EUobserver after reading a leak of the outlines of a radical eurozone reform plan.The blueprint, drafted by commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy and discussed on Monday (28 February) in Brussels by diplomats, is a shopping list of demands including: keeping down wages across the eurozone; reducing public services; constitutional changes limiting government borrowing; and moving away from labour-based taxation towards consumption-based taxation.One of the main elements in the four-page document, which was obtained and published by the FT, would require countries to align wages with productivity. The commission and Council would monitor wage and productivity developments, comparing unit labour costs across the EU for each major sector of the economy and against those in major trading partners - meaning those in, for example, the US and China.If wage increases in particular countries begin to cause an erosion of competitiveness the country will have to commit to address these challenges in a given timeframe.The document also says that collective bargaining - negotiations between workers and employers - must be decentralised. Centralised bargaining occurs when instead of one workforce negotiating with one employer, groups of employees in the same industry bargain with all the employers in that sector.

An earlier version of the pact had proposed an end to the indexation of wages to inflation, a phenomenon that occurs in a handful of member states in certain sectors. Under the Barroso-Van-Rompuy plan, this is changed to say that such systems must be improved, but still ensuring price competitiveness.The document explicitly demands wage restraint in the public sector to further open sheltered sectors and end the closed shop (where to be hired, one must be a member of a union).Member states would also be required to: introduce changes to their constitutions to limit national borrowing; harmonise their corporate tax base; and link retirement ages to life expectancy.Ensuring that member states stay in line, they would be monitored by the European Council on the basis of reports from the commission. The process would form part of the recently established European Semester, a centralised EU system of intervening in the drafting of national budgets. The authors appear to be aware that some of the suggestions go beyond what the EU itself is legally allowed to do. They argue that the move: requires a shift to a higher level of policy co-ordination, in particular in areas that fall under national competence.The add: [these changes] should involve a special effort going beyond what already exists and include concrete commitments and actions that are more urgent, more ambitious than those already agreed.

Although the document makes mention of respecting national traditions of social dialogue and industrial relations the proposals represent an unprecedented interference by the EU in the collective bargaining process.Mr Goudriaan said the proposals cover issues that are the domain of workers and employers and the EU institutions should keep their hands off them.The suggested proposals do nothing to get the many banks and their CEOs who engaged in speculation and short term greed, he said. He called the plan a power grab by conservatives, neo-liberals and above all corporate interests to bury social Europe for good.How does a wage freeze for a nurse that takes care of elderly people foster economic growth and address youth unemployment? he added.Yet somehow the exorbitant salary and scandalous bonuses of a banking, insurance or other company executive who cuts jobs and squandered away billions is supposed to assist Europe to grow out of our economic woes? There are no proposals in this pact to cut or tax these salaries.In some countries, there has long been a tradition of the state staying out the wage-setting process, known as autonomous collective bargaining. The unions fear the EU proposals will undermine these systems where they exist.An Austrian trade unionist, Oliver Roepke of the OVB, told this website: Since 1918, for example, in Germany, the only time the autonomous collective bargaining was abolished was under the Nazis.

MUSLIM NATIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barroso to young Arabs: We are with you
ANDREW RETTMAN 02.03.2011 @ 13:59 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has urged Moammar Gaddafi to step down and outlined ideas on a new EU north Africa policy ahead of an EU summit on Libya next week.It is time for him [Gaddafi] to go and give the country back to the people of Libya, he said in the EU capital on Wednesday (2 March).It is our duty to say to the Arab people that we are on their side. From Brussels I want to say this particularly to the young Arabs that are now fighting for freedom and democracy: We are on your side.Calling the series of revolutions in north Africa a rendezvous with history for the Union, he noted that the post-World-War-II and post-Cold-War EU itself is born from the fight against totalitarian regimes.Some are saying ... that Arabs are not fit for democracy. I believe that Arabs are fit for democracy and we are on their side, he went on. I think Europe would rather be guilty of holding on to dreams of democracy than to be accused of cynicism.The strong words come on day 16 of the violence in Libya which the EU estimates has cost up to 2,000 lives, created 140,000 refugees on the Tunisian and Egyptian borders and prompted the evacuation of around 9,000 EU citizens.

The commission chief was himself as a young man part of the underground in Portugal in the run-up to the overthrow of the authoritarian regime of Marcelo Caetano in what became known as the Carnation Revolution.Mr Barroso said he will step up emergency funding for food and shelter for refugees from €3 million to €10 million and send EU aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva to the region later on Wednesday to oversee spending.He mentioned that another €25 million is available from different budget lines, in part to help Italy and Malta cope with people fleeing the fighting. The commission chief will urge EU leaders at a Libya summit next week to create a new foreign policy for the Maghreb and the Middle East: We must not just deal with the fallout of this crisis. We must help address the root of this crisis. We need a new political paradigm ... we need a partnership for democracy ad shared prosperity.The new Barroso model is based on three parts.The commission wants to spend the €4 billion left in the pot up until 2013 for its 16 neighbouring countries to reward those that make democratic reforms.It is keen to see a new stimulus package to combat poverty and youth unemployment in the south. The package is to focus on small businesses and is to be funded in part by European Investment Bank loans and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development assistance.It also wants EU countries to ease visa conditions for students, academics, NGOs and bona fide businessmen.In the context of deep mistrust of the West in the Arab world due to EU countries' colonial history and their more recent embrace of dictators for the sake of oil, arms and counter-terrorism deals, Mr Barroso added: They [the Arabic freedom fighters] will follow their own road ... It is not up to us to tell them what to do.

EU pledges support as Libyan border crisis deepens
ANDREW WILLIS 02.03.2011 @ 17:29 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has upped an aid pledge from €3 million to €10 million and is working to co-ordinate EU member state offers of in-kind support such as tents and blankets, as tens of thousands of refugees continue to flee into Tunisia from strife-torn Libya. On Wednesday (2 March), the United Nations issued an international appeal for help, with latest EU estimates suggesting some 85,000 people have already fled to Tunisia since unrest began roughly two weeks ago. A further 40,000 more are waiting to cross the border, the UN said.EU humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva will spend Thursday in the border region assessing the needs of refugees. Clearly we have a unique moment in history ... there is a very serious humanitarian situation, she told journalists in Brussels before departing.Commission figures suggest roughly half those who have already entered Tunisia are of Egyptian origin, 3,000 are Tunisians returning home and around 1,600 are Libyans.Although their numbers are smaller, Black Africans from countries such as Chad and Eritrea are facing a particularly tough time, said Ms Georgieva.They are the least welcome in Tunisia ... [and] in Libya they feel they are being perceived as mercenaries [fighting for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi], she said.

The Bulgarian politician said food shortages were not yet the main concern, with provision of shelter, sanitary facilities, medical and onward transport options of greater importance. I would expect that we will see a flow of people towards Europe's borders, she said.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is among agencies providing support in the area. People are crossing in a smooth way at the moment. For the past eleven days, we have had shelters here, Soumaya Beltifa, an ICRC spokeswoman, told EUobserver by telephone. Currently based on the Tunisia-Libyan border, Ms Beltifa is part of a small unit including surgeons and anesthetists preparing to journey to the Libyan capital of Tripoli as home-grown doctors join those fleeing the country, compounding pressure on Libyan health services.Roughly 1,000 are reported to have died in the conflict so far, with tens of thousands of refugees also fleeing to Egypt were the border situation is described as being less critical.Violence inside Libya continued on Wednesday, with reports saying forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi had regained control of a number of strategic towns in the east of the country, including an important oil installation near the town of Brega. Conflicting reports suggested revolutionaries had regained control of the installation however.A targeted air strike was also carried on a weapons store about 6km outside the eastern town of Ajdabiya, reported Al Jazeera.

The international community continued to debate the need for a no-fly zone above Libya in order to prevent similar air attacks adding to civilian causalities. Arab League foreign ministers on Wednesday afternoon were preparing to reject outside intervention however.In a televised address, Colonel Gaddafi said he would fight until the last man and woman, warning that thousands of Libyans would die if Western forces intervened.

The Fairy Tale Stops in Tripoli
by Amiel Ungar MAR 2,11

The fairy tale stopped in Tripoli. At first it appeared that Libya's Moammar Qaddafi would succumb in short order as did the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. His support appeared to be unraveling as diplomats and high-ranking officers and even Cabinet members scurried to disassociate themselves from the regime that they had long served.It also seemed that given the enthusiasm for the insurgents, the international rules of the game were being changed. Articles to the tune of It's Time to Get over Iraq appeared in liberal-left journals claiming that military intervention in Libya would not be a bad thing and could save human lives. Even the United Nations belatedly be stirred itself to oust Libya from the Human Rights Council and passed a Security Council resolution subjecting the Qaddafi regime to sanctions with Russia and China agreeing. France, badly burned by its association with the ousted regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, dispatched planes to offer medical supplies to the liberation forces in Benghazi. British Prime Minister David Cameron was feverishly planning the establishment of a no-fly zone in Libya that would nullify Qaddafi's major military advantage.A different reality soon began setting in. Qaddafi counterattacked and consolidated his hold on the capital, prepared for a protracted civil war. The Russians made it clear via their ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, that the no-fly zone will not have the United Nations imprimatur.

Rogozin: If someone in Washington is seeking a blitzkrieg in Libya, it is a serious mistake, because any use of military force outside the NATO responsibility zone will be considered a violation of international law.Russia was still opposed to regime change A ban on the national air force or civil aviation to fly over their own territory is still a serious interference into the domestic affairs of another country. Besides, Lavrov claimed that the passing of a sanctions resolution had made no-fly superfluous.If there is no UN sanction and there won't be because Russia and China will veto such a measure in the Security Council, then France retreats to the position that it adopted prior to the invasion of Iraq. French foreign minister, Alain Juppe, said: Let me put it clearly here: No intervention will happen without a clear UN Security Council mandate.And the French foreign minister added an additional warning:I don't know what would be the reaction on the Arab street, if Arabs around the Mediterranean saw NATO forces landing on southern Mediterranean territory.Former British Conservative, Prime Minister Sir John Major, implored his country to secure a UN mandate. David Cameron's liberal democratic partners, who have long regarded the Iraq invasion as original sin, scoffed at David Cameron's proposal for military action.Given Turkey's membership in NATO, it will also prove impossible to use NATO as a vehicle for military action. Erdogan opposes sanctions, let alone intervention, saying that Any type of sanctions or intervention that would punish the Libyan people is unacceptable and would cause massive problems.

Sanctions take some time to have any effect. The problem in Libya is the here and now. Sanctions did not bring down Saddam Hussein.Libya's Qaddafi is also not going to weep about being barred from visiting Western Europe; he probably feels that the worst way to hold on to his regime is to exit the country, even for a shopping spree.
The freezing of ibyan assets abroad represents a problem, but one can be sure that the regime has sufficient stashes that cannot be touched. There are loopholes in the sanctions and plenty of African countries from which Qaddafi has recruited mercenaries or in which he has invested will be happy, for a certain consideration, to serve as conduits for evading the sanctions.South Africa is prepared to mediate between the sides. Taking into account its record of mediation in Zimbabwe and the Ivory Coast, where autocrats remain in power, Qaddafi can expect to be around for quite some time.The West, and particularly the United States, is leery of military intervention due to its costs and unpredictable results. However, the alternative is a bloody war of attrition with no guarantee of Qadaffi's ouster.(Israel National News.com)

Hamas, PA Two-Faced on Facebook Revolutions at Home
by Gavriel Queenann MAR 2,11

Mass demonstrations sweeping North Africa and the Middle East have inspired some disgruntled Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to try to organize their own Facebook Revolution, the Associated Press reports. Populist movements have topped governments in Egypt and Tunisia, and threaten other regional governments, like those in Libya and Bahrain.But while the PA and Hamas have supported such movements abroad, they are cracking down on them as they begin to emerge at home.In recent weeks, using Facebook to organize, hundreds of protestors have appeared in Arab towns in Judea and Samaria waving Palestinian Authority flags and calling for reform. Smaller gatherings have occurred in Gaza, ruled by the PA's rival Hamas.Organizers hope for mass rallies in both locations on March 15th. But Arabs in areas controlled by the Fatah-led PA and Hamas face a unique reality that Arabs under other autocratic regimes do not. While seeking an independent Arab state in the Jewish heartland, they do not constitute a unified polity residing in a contiguous area or have a single administrative body to protest against. Ruled by rival governments wedged on different sides of Israel, its not clear whom the protestors wish to confront or what their common cause may be. Some want the rival PA governments to reconcile. Others demand they resign. Still others want to demonstrate against continued Israeli presence.The Western-backed PA, under the supposedly reformed terrorist group Fatah, administers several semi-autonomous cantons in Judea and Samaria, while the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007. The division between the two factions has crippled the Arab nationalist cause in these areas and led Hamas and the PA into perennial armed conflict. In Gaza, Hamas has been incrementally imposing its own stringent brand of Sharia Law, while in Judea and Samaria, Mahmoud Abbas has postponed elections for national posts for almost two years, banned its people from working for Israelis or dealing in Israeli goods, and used his US-trained and funded security forces to quell dissent.

A recent attempt at reconciliation between the PA and Hamas floundered when Abbas announced elections as a sop to popular dissent, but restricted them to municipal rather than national elections. But despite their bizarre situation and the absence of a single unwanted leader to focus on, activist Hasan Farahat, 22, insists there is enough common cause for a revolution: Everybody is sick of the situation, he said. We want work, we want the right to speak freely. We want freedom.Hamas and the PA, however, see even small demonstrations as direct challenges. On Monday, Hamas cracked down on a small demonstration in Gaza City demanding reconciliation with the PA and seized video from a German TV crew showing a security official striking the protest organizer as he arrested him. In previous nascent protests, Hamas security arrested activists and seized phones and computers, according to the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights. PA security forces initially broke up protests - some with as many as 2,000 participants - by beating participants with truncheons. Organizers say they are being watched by the authorities and have received threats.

While the mainstream media and human rights groups often loudly decry the use of force on the part of Israel's security forces to break up violent Arab riots in Judea and Samaria, there has been little criticism of Hamas and PA violence against peaceful protest gatherings by Arabs in their administrative areas. Nor has either faction, both of which have vocally supported populist self-determination the Arab world, explained why they violently oppose it for the people whose cause they claim to champion.A poll of PA Arabs taken on February 24-26 indicated that they are not very interested in revolution anyway.(IsraelNationalNews.com)

ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST

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

ISRAELS TROUBLE

JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.

DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)

ISRAELS INHERITED LAND IN THE FUTURE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0&feature=player_embedded

DEUTERONOMY 7:7-8
7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people;(ISRAEL) for ye were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the LORD loved you,(ISRAEL) and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

ZECHARIAH 2:8
8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.

JEREMIAH 3:14
14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you:(ISRAEL) and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

ISAIAH 42:1
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect,(ISRAEL) in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

ISAIAH 45:4
4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

ISAIAH 65:9,22
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

ISAIAH 56:5
5 Even unto them (ISRAELIS) will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name,(ISRAEL) that shall not be cut off.

And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.

War Hero Kahalani: Armor Corps' Achilles Heel is Healed
by Gavriel Queenann MAR 2,11

The Trophy-Windbreaker System will enhance the performance of our forces on the battlefield, Yom Kippur War hero Brigadier General (res.) Avigdor Kahalani opined following the first successful use of the anti-missile system. The system was first used in combat Tuesday when it intercepted an anti-tank missile fired at an IDF Merkava IV tank on routine patrol along the security fence between Israel and southern Gaza.The system intercepted the anti-tank missile, fired by Hamas terrorists, and prevented it from damaging the tank or inflicting casualties. The terrorists were subsequently identified and killed by an IDF force operating in the area.In a conversation with the IDF Website, Kahalani, who is now chairman of Friends of the IDF, explained that the system is A real revolution for the Armored Corps. It is an especially significant active defense system that protects the lives of soldiers. Although there are not many [anti-tank] missiles [possessed by Hamas], they can cause significant damage, especially to fighters, hence its importance. Over the years anti-tank weapons were the Achilles heel of the Armor [Corps] and now it is resolved.

Kahalani also said the system must be installed as soon as possible on the rest of the IDF's tanks. A tank's operating profile will necessarily be different, he explained. Weapons systems can be deployed more freely and tanks will be able to focus on pursuit of the enemy. The crewmen sitting in the tank will be safe and won't have to fear rocket-fire from an unexpected direction. They will be concentrating on the battlefield and realizing goals more efficiently. It will make it easier to plan the battlefield.We must praise the system developers, Kahalani said. I say this not only from my own experience in the field, but also in my capacity as Chairman of the Friends of the IDF. The Trophy-Windbreaker system's ability to keep our soldiers safe is something wonderful and unusual, said Kahalani. This is a further contribution to Armored Corps, who can do their duty with a clearer sense of battlefield security.The Trophy-Windbreaker system, developed by Israeli weaponry manufacturer RAFAEL, is an active protection system that destroys incoming missiles and rockets in mid-flight. Details of how the system destroys incoming weapons have been kept deliberately vague.Avigdor Kahalani served as commander of an armored company on the Golan Heights in the Six Day War. He received the Medal of Distinguished Service for service in the war, after being badly wounded when his tank caught fire. He went on to receive the Medal of Valor for service during the Yom Kippur War, in which he commanded a hastily assembled group of tanks and crews from different armor units after the Israeli army was caught off-guard. The group repulsed a vastly superior Syrian force in what proved to be one of the turning points of the war.(IsraelNationalNews.com)