WELL AFTER 40 DEAD FROM THE RIOT-BURNING QURAN INCIDENT.THE AFGHANS ARE ACTING UP AND CALLING FOR DEATH TO AMERICA AGAIN.THE WESTERN SOLDIERS BETTER GET RIGHT OUT OF AFGHANISTAN QUICK.THE RIOTS AND BURNING AND KILLING WILL BE IMMENCE I BELIEVE.OBAMA GET THE AMERICAN TROOPS OUT NOW AND QUIT GUARDING THE POPPY DRUG FIELDS.QUIT PUTTING SOLDIERS IN DIRE STRAITS.
U.S. Marines Guard Afghanistan Poppy Fields
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNqIrDKnNE8
Afghanistan's Karzai slams U.S. over massacre ReutersBy Mirwais Harooni and Rob Taylor | Reuters – MAR 17,12
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday lashed out at the United States for failing to fully cooperate with an investigation into the massacre of 16 Afghan villagers by a U.S. staff sergeant and questioned whether only one soldier could have been involved.A series of blunders by the United States, including the killings in Kandahar province on Sunday and the inadvertent burning of copies of the Koran at a NATO base last month, has further strained already tense relations between the countries.This has been going on for too long. You have heard me before. It is by all means the end of the rope here, Karzai told reporters at the heavily fortified presidential palace.Flanked by senior officials, a tired and sometimes angry Karzai listened to village elders and the families of victims of the massacre, and dressed somberly in black for the start of an expected two days of talks to discuss the killings.Some at the meeting shouted, some demanded answers, but all said they wanted any soldiers involved punished.I don't want any compensation. I don't want money, I don't want a trip to Mecca, I don't want a house. I want nothing. But what I absolutely want is the punishment of the Americans. This is my demand, my demand, my demand and my demand,said one villager, whose brother was killed in the nightime slaughter.Furious Afghans and lawmakers have demanded that the soldier responsible be tried in Afghanistan, but despite those calls, the U.S. staff sergeant was flown out on Wednesday.The army chief has just reported that the Afghan investigation team did not receive the cooperation that they expected from the United States. Therefore these are all questions that we'll be raising, and raising very loudly, and raising very clearly, Karzai said.Karzai appeared to back the belief of the villagers, and many other Afghans including the country's parliament, that one gunman acting alone could not have killed so many people, and in different locations some distance apart.They believe it's not possible for one person to do that. In (one) family, in four rooms people were killed, women and children were killed, and they were all brought together in one room and then put on fire. That one man cannot do,Karzai said.
TWIN INVESTIGATIONS
With twin investigations still underway by both U.S. and Afghan officials, any discovery of more than one soldier involved in the massacre would be a disaster for NATO, with Western leaders needing to win over Afghans ahead of a withdrawal by most foreign combat troops in 2014.Civilian casualties caused by NATO forces hunting insurgents are a major source of friction between the Afghan government and its Western backers, and have damaged efforts to win the hearts and minds of locals in the decade-old war.Our families are finished and our houses are destroyed, said a furious Hajji Abdul Samad Aka, who lost 11 members of his family in the killings in two villages of Panjwayi district.An unnamed U.S. official told The New York Times the attack by the accused soldier was a result of a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues - he just snapped.The lawyer for the soldier said the staff sergeant was upset at having to do a fourth tour of duty in a war zone and was likely suffering from stress after seeing colleagues wounded.Anger over the massacre spilled into weekly Friday prayers at a major mosques in central Kabul with one cleric calling the shooting unforgivable and questioning how a soldier with alleged mental problems could be in the U.S. military.Revenge for the blood of these victims will be taken either today, tomorrow, in 10 years or the next 100 years, said Mullah Ayaz Niazi at Wazir Akhbar Khan mosque in Kabul's diplomatic enclave, which is also home to NATO headquarters.The soldier accused of the shooting was attached to a small special forces compound similar to others around the country which underpin NATO's anti-insurgent strategy.
On Thursday, Karzai called for NATO troops to leave Afghan villages and confine themselves to major bases, underscoring fury over the massacre and clouding U.S. exit plans.He also demanded the handover of security to Afghan police and soldiers by 2013, a year ahead of schedule.Such a move could undercut U.S. President Barack Obama's strategy for Afghanistan and hamper efforts to mentor Afghan police and help with local governance.In a further blow to NATO hopes of a negotiated end to the decade-old war, the Afghan Taliban said they were suspending nascent peace talks with the United States, following the massacre and ahead of the traditional summer fighting months.The United States said it was committed to political reconciliation involving talks with the Taliban but progress would require agreement between Kabul and the insurgents.The Taliban leadership were and may still be serious about talks, but instead of discussing how to end the war, they will now be persuading the rank and file to go out again this year and fight, Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network said.That another round of fighting and killing is now on the agenda is a difficult prospect to face, she wrote in a blog.(Writing by Jack Kimball, Editing by Rob Taylor and Sanjeev Miglani)
NOVEMBER 9, 2011 12:02PM Lifting The Veil on US Government Drug Dealing
I had a conversation with someone a while back. I would call this guy a good ol boy in the sense that he buys the nonsense being spewed by the mainstream media. He told me that the Occupy Wall St. was nothing more than a bunch of drug-addicted kids with nothing to do than complain. Now I may or may not disagree with OWS, but that's not the point of this post. After he made this statement, I mentioned that these kids he referred to were using drugs that the CIA is bringing into this country, and that the US military is tolerating the cultivation of poppy (which eventually becomes heroin) in Afghanistan. He almost wanted to kill me. The fact that I dared to question the sincerity of the US military and the CIA made him doubt my sincerity as an American citizen, and he made it a point to tell me that several times, even after I told him what to look up on the internet as proof. When I replied that dissent is the most sincere form of patriotism and that our forefathers stressed the fact that government is untrustworthy, he cursed up a storm and abruptly ended our discussion. Is it with that conversation in mind that I post the following articles and videos...The New York Times reported twice in 2008 that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother, a notorious drug lord, is on the CIA payroll. From the 2nd link: Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/world/asia/05afghan.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html?_r=1
Not surprisingly, the UN reported in October that there has been a sharp rise in poppy cultivation in the last year. Gee, I wonder why...:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/world/asia/un-reports-sharp-rise-in-opium-production-in-afghanistan.html?_r=1&ref=world
Fox News sent Geraldo Rivera to Afghanistan to cover, among other things, how the military tolerates the cultivation of opium poppies in a country that supplies 95% of the heroin in the world. Watching this video, Rivera and the Marine interviewed try to put lipstick on a pig, saying things like ...if we don't do it, they [the locals] will turn their backs on us. Sorry guys, but you're supposed to send good people to war to protect and preserve the liberty of others, not to grow stinkin' poppies. Maybe instead of tolerating the cultivation of poppy, GET OUT OF AFGHANISTAN:
Here is ABCNews reporting the same thing:CIA drug trafficking was exposed in the 1980's with the Iran Contra scandal, where the CIA was caught in covert arms deals with Iran who was under an embargo (hey, don't we wanna blow them up now?) and using the funds from the deals to give guns and supplies to the anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua in exchange for drugs that the agency shipped into the Untied States. The following videos detail the scandal, including interviews from whistleblowers and probably one of the most ludicrous statements I've ever heard from former CIA chief Dewey Clariage - Don't give me that conspiracy bullsh*t...There has never been a conspiracy in this country! The CIA is mixed up with drugs all over the world, but don't believe me, instead read this essay put together by California State University Northridge Professor and Chair of Department of Communication Studies Dr. Bernardo Attias. This essay contains tons of links for you to read for yourself. Maybe I'm not a scholar in the eyes of some, but this dude certainly is:
http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/news/cia.drug.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElEciFI0Pew&feature=player_embedded
http://open.salon.com/blog/ghost_writer_1/2011/11/09/lifting_the_veil_on_us_government_drug_dealing (WATCH ALL THE VIDEOS)
In 1988 Ron Paul went on the record stating that George H.W. Bush was deep into CIA drug trafficking and that he knew exactly what was happening. Funny that he's STILL the only politician speaking truth to power:Maybe the guy who wanted to kill me for even suggesting government drug dealing will stumble upon this and change his mind. Maybe not. I hope that one day, though, we'll all start to base our opinions on facts and not emotional repsonses like he did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGUoCyNZTMs&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SBh_hzU-jdI
Twin bombings in Damascus kill at least 27: Syria TV ReutersBy Dominic Evans and Crispian Balmer | Reuters – MAR 17,12
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Twin blasts hit the heart of Damascus on Saturday, killing at least 27 people in an attack on security installations that state television blamed on terrorists seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad.Syrian television reported that cars packed with explosives had targeted an intelligence centre and a police headquarters at 7.30 am (01.30 am EDT), blowing the front off one building and sending debris and shattered glass flying through the streets.Gruesome images from the sites showed what appeared to be smoldering bodies in two separate vehicles, a wrecked minivan smeared with blood, and severed limbs collected in sacks.At least 27 people were killed and 97 were wounded, another television channel said, quoting Health Minister Wael al-Halki.We heard a huge explosion. At that moment the doors in our house were blown out ... even though we were some distance from the blast," one elderly man, with a bandage wrapped round his head, told a public television channel.
No one claimed responsibility for the coordinated detonations, which echoed similar attacks that have struck Damascus and Syria's second city Aleppo since December.The explosions came just two days after the first anniversary of the uprising, in which more than 8,000 people have been killed and about 230,000 forced to flee their homes, according to United Nations figures.They also coincided with a joint mission by the Syrian government, the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation that was due to start assessing humanitarian needs in towns across Syria which have suffered from months of unrest.One source involved in the mission said team members were still gathering in Syria and it was not immediately clear if they would begin their work this weekend as previously planned.
ANNAN WARNING
The U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan, warned on Friday that the crisis could spill over into other neighboring countries and urged international powers to lay aside their differences and back his peace initiative.While the West and much of the Arab world have lined up to demand that Assad steps down, his allies Russia, China and Iran have defended him and cautioned against outside interference.The stronger and more unified your message, the better chance we have of shifting the dynamics of the conflict, an envoy said, summarizing Annan's remarks to a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation Security Council.Turkey said on Friday it might set up a buffer zone inside Syria to protect refugees fleeing Assad's forces, raising the prospect of foreign intervention in the revolt, although Ankara made clear it would not move without international backing.Television showed numerous men and women receiving hospital treatment for multiple wounds following Saturday's strikes. Syria's Sana news agency said the blasts had hit the criminal police force headquarters and the Air Security Directorate.The attacks followed three suicide bombings in Damascus in December and January which killed at least 70 people, and an attack in Aleppo in February that killed 28.Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, in a video recording posted on the Internet last month, urged Muslims around the region to help Syrian rebels.Syria has previously blamed al Qaeda for at least some attacks on its territory and vowed to respond with an iron fist.
The army has shelled rebel strongholds in various places in recent weeks before sending in troops to round up suspects. Opposition activists say thousands of civilians have died, with many bodies found bearing signs of torture.The Syrian government denies accusations of brutality and says it is grappling with a foreign-backed insurgency.Diplomats have warned that without a swift resolution, Syria will descend into a full-blown civil war.Syria lies in a pivotal position within the Middle East, bordering Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Iraq and Lebanon, and its 23-million-strong population comprises a mix of faiths, sects and ethnic groups.I think that we need to handle the situation in Syria very, very carefully, Annan told reporters in Geneva on Friday.Yes, we tend to focus on Syria but any miscalculation that leads to major escalation will have impact in the region which would be extremely difficult to manage, he said.The veteran diplomat presented Assad with a six-point peace proposal at talks in Damascus last weekend. Envoys said he told New York on Friday that the response to date was disappointing.Assad insists the Syrian opposition stops fighting first, while the United States, Gulf Arabs and Europeans have demanded that Assad and his much stronger forces must make the first move. Russia wants both sides to stop shooting simultaneously.Annan will send a team to Damascus early next week to discuss a proposal to deploy international monitors in the country, his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi has said.Increasingly alarmed by the growing violence, Turkey urged its citizens to quit Syria on Friday and raised the prospect of creating a safe zone on its border to protect the refugees.A buffer zone, a security zone, are things being studied,Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told reporters, adding this was not the only proposal under consideration.Ankara is wary of military intervention and has made clear any creation of a security zone would need some form of international agreement, not least because it would require armed protection and could alter the dynamics of the uprising.Turkey says it is now hosting 14,700 Syrian refugees after 250 people crossed its borders on Friday. Some 1,000 had arrived the day before, fleeing fierce fighting in Idlib province.(Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Giles Elgood)
Saturday, March 17, 2012
SAUDI 911 TIES TO FLORIDA SAUDI FAMILY
Saudi Royal Ties to 9/11 Hijackers Via Florida Saudi Family? Posted By Russ Baker On September 22, 2011 @ 8:30 am In
WhoWhatWhy has found evidence linking the Saudi royal family to Saudis in South Florida who reportedly had direct contact with the 9/11 hijackers before fleeing the United States just prior to the attacks. Our report connects some of the dots first laid out by investigative author Anthony Summers and Florida-based journalist Dan Christensen in articles jointly published in the Miami Herald and on the nonprofit news site BrowardBulldog.org [2].In early September of this year, Summers and Christensen reported that a secret FBI probe, never shared with Congressional investigators or the presidential 9/11 commission, had uncovered information indicating the possibility of support for the hijackers from previously unknown confederates in the United States during 2001.Now WhoWhatWhy reveals that those alleged confederates were closely tied to influential members of the Saudi ruling elite.[3]
The House
As reported in the Herald, phone records documented communication, dating back more than a year, that connected a Saudi family then living in a house near Sarasota, Florida, with the alleged plot leader, Mohammed Atta, and his hijack pilots—as well as to eleven of the other hijackers. In addition, records from the guard house at the gated community tied Atta’s vehicle and his accomplice Ziad Jarrah to actual visits to the house. Although requiring further investigation, this information suggests that the house may have functioned as an operational base for the hijackers.
According to interviews and records examined by The Herald, Anoud and Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii and their young twins abruptly departed their home in Sarasota only days before September 11, 2001 and traveled to Arlington, Virginia, where they stayed briefly at another house owned by Anoud’s father, Esam Ghazzawi.Then, still well before 9/11, the entire group, now including the father, flew to London and on to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Sarasota house was sold in 2003, as was a penthouse apartment [4] in another DC, suburb, Rosslyn, Virginia. The Ghazzawis do not seem to have set foot again in the United States.
New Revelations
Building on these revelations, WhoWhatWhy has found documents laying out the Ghazzawis’ royal connections through a nest of Saudi corporations that share the name EIRAD. Esam Ghazzawi is director of EIRAD Management Company, the UK division of EIRAD Trading and Contracting Co. Ltd., which among other things holds the Saudi franchise for many multinational brands, including UPS. Esam’s brother Mamdouh, whose name shows up on public records associated with family properties in the U.S., is the Executive Managing Director of the parent firm, EIRAD Holding Co. Ltd. EIRAD has connections to the US government via contracts. In 2008, records show, the State Department paid EIRAD $11,733 [5] for rental of facilities, presumably in Saudi Arabia.There is no indication that the company itself, or any of its officers or employees, have any connection to the 9/11 incident, or knowledge of anything regarding Mr. Ghazzawi’s activities in the United States. Calls for comment to the company’s main switchboard went unanswered during normal business hours; its website was not functioning properly and Saudi trade officials in the United States had not furnished alternative contact information at publication time.But the now-revealed link between the Ghazzawis and the highest ranks of the Saudi establishment reopens questions about the White House’s controversial approval for multiple charter flights allowing Saudi nationals to depart the U.S., beginning about 48 hours after the attacks, without the passengers being interviewed by law enforcement—despite the identification of the majority of the hijackers as Saudis.
In addition, the new revelations draw further attention to a web of relationships that include the long and close business, personal and political ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family.Saudi money is woven throughout business ventures connected to the Bushes. Saudi funds even helped bail out George W. Bush’s failing oil company early in his life. Jim Bath, a close friend of Bush in the Texas Air National Guard, went on to start a business in conjunction with two sons of powerful Saudi families—Khalid bin Mahfouz, whose family provides banking services to the Saudi royals, and Salem bin Laden, heir to the bin Laden family’s global construction empire and a half brother to Osama bin Laden. (For a detailed probe of the Bush family’s dealings with the Saudis, including substantial previously unreported material, see my book, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years [6].)
Details of The Herald’s Revelations
The Ghazzawi presence in the Sunshine State predated 9/11 by at least six years. In 1995 a young Saudi woman named Anoud Ghazzawi living in South Florida married a fellow Saudi native, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii (English spellings of his first name and surname vary, as is typical of Arabic names.) Anoud’s father, Esam, and his American-born wife Deborah bought the couple a stylish, three-bedroom house in a gated community in Sarasota. The house remained in the elder Ghazzawis’ names while the young couple lived there and began a family.Six years later, less than two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, Anoud, Abdulazzi and their children left their home on or about August 30, 2001 in great haste, taking off in a white van. This was about the same time that the hijackers were purchasing their tickets for the targeted flights.
The family apparently left with no advance planning, leaving behind almost all their possessions, abandoning three recently registered vehicles, including a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruiser, in the garage and driveway. As the Herald article [7] explained:
there was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms … all the toiletries still in place … all their clothes hanging in the closet … opulent furniture, equal or greater in value than the house … the pool running, with toys in it….The beds were made … fruit on the counter … the refrigerator full of food. … It was like they went grocery shopping. Like they went out to a movie … [But] the safe was open in the master bedroom, with nothing in it, not a paper clip. … A computer was still there. A computer plug in another room, and the line still there. Looked like they’d taken [another] computer and left the cord.After public disclosure of Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks, people in the gated community took note of the rushed departure and disappearance of the Ghazzawi-al-Hiijjiis. After all, the attackers were not just overwhelmingly of Saudi nationality, but three out of four of the future hijackers had lived and trained to fly in Venice, Florida, just 10 miles away from the house.The complex’s security officer alerted the FBI, which began an investigation into the house at 4224 Escondito Circle. (In addition, a suspicious neighbor alerted the FBI by email on the day of the attacks.)The Justice Department declined to give the Herald a statement, but, according to an unnamed senior counterterrorism officer who was one of two people who got into the house first and served as a key source for the paper, the investigation bore stunning fruit.[8]
Ziad Jarrah
Phone records showed communication, dating back more than a year, that connected those in the house with the alleged plot leader, Mohammed Atta and his accomplices, including eleven of the other hijackers. Other records, kept by guards at the gated community, documented numerous visits to the house by a vehicle known to have been used by Atta, and indicated the physical presence in the car of Atta’s purported accomplice Ziad Jarrah. It appeared as if the Ghazzawi house was some kind of nerve center for the entire operation.According to the senior counterterrorism officer, both Esam Ghazzawi and his son-in-law al-Hiijjii had been on a watch list at the FBI predating 9/11. An unnamed U.S. agency tracking terror funds had also taken an interest in them. 464 was Ghazzawi’s number, the officer said. I don’t remember the other man’s number.(9]WhoWhatWhy plans to continue doing this kind of groundbreaking original reporting. You can count on it. But can we count on you? We cannot do our work without your support.
Secrecy Reveals Little Official Curiosity—or Coverup?
These stunning revelations—said to be based on the work of the swarm of FBI agents who descended on the gated community in the fall of 2001—would surely have generated headlines worldwide if they had become known after 9/11. But the FBI, for reasons unknown, failed to provide the information to Congressional 9/11 investigators or to the presidential 9/11 commission, and thus it has remained a secret for the past decade.In response to the Herald article, the FBI has issued a statement [11] saying that the occupants of the house had been tracked down and interrogated, and were found to have no connections to the hijackers. It is not clear when these interrogations are supposed to have taken place, or whether they were conducted by the FBI or by Saudi intelligence. But given the FBI’s poor track record for candor in the matter, the statement is being viewed with some skepticism.[12]
Inside the House
Adding to these doubts is an ineffective effort by the Bureau to woo the house owners back to Florida. According to Scott McKay, a lawyer for homeowners’ association of the gated community, known as Prestancia, the FBI attempted to convince the Ghazzawis they needed to come back in person to sign documents related to unpaid back dues to the association. This attempt proved unsuccessful when the Ghazzawis simply arranged to sign the documents elsewhere. These facts, reported by The Herald, raise questions about the U.S. government’s determination to interview the couple: Esam Ghazzawi’s signature was notarized in Lebanon—by a U.S. official no less—the vice consul at the US embassy in Beirut. His wife’s signature was also notarized—elsewhere in the United States, in Riverside County, California.The emergence of this information chagrined Bob Graham, the former Florida U.S. Senator. Graham was Senate Intelligence Committee chair (and a 2004 candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination) and served as co-chair of the congressional joint inquiry into 9/11. At the beginning of the investigation,he told The Herald, “each of the intelligence agencies, including the FBI, was asked to provide all information that agency possessed in relation to 9/11.Graham noted that the Bureau also failed to turn over information connecting the hijackers to other Saudis living in California, which his own investigators later discovered on their own.Just as strange, when Graham’s congressional investigators turned over a large body of information on the hijackers they had assembled to the presidential 9/11 Commission, it seemed uninterested. They did very little with it,Graham said, and their reference to Saudi Arabia is almost cryptic sometimes. … I never got a good answer as to why they did not pursue that.About the new discovery in Sarasota, Graham said it “opens the door to a new chapter of investigation as to the depth of the Saudi role in 9/11.”
All Eyes on Prince Sultan
Of special interest is the Ghazzawis’ boss, the chairman of EIRAD Holding Co. Ltd., Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud [13]. He is a prominent and powerful member of the ruling Saudi royal family who is expected to become crown prince, and thereby in line to become king. Born in 1956, which makes him approximately the same age as the Ghazzawi brothers, Prince Sultan bin Salman is a grandson of King Abdul Aziz (commonly referred to as Ibn Saud), founder of modern Saudi Arabia.[1] [14]
1. Saudi lineages are complicated due to men being named for their ancestors. For example, Prince Sultan (Prince Sultan bin Salman) should not be confused with his uncle, also known as Prince Sultan (Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud), who is Defense Minister and Crown Prince, or his late cousin Prince Sultan bin Faisal.
Prince Sultan’s family is of enormous importance in today’s Saudi Arabia. His father, Prince Salman, has been the governor of the province of Riyadh (the city of Riyadh is the Saudi capital) since 1962, and is considered an arbitrator among the frequently warring members of the Saudi royal family, with its 4000 princes. Salman is the second youngest of the so-called Sudairi Seven, an extremely powerful alliance of full brothers jockeying for power in the country.[15]
Prince Sultan bin Salman
A leading advocate of teaching Saudis to fly, Prince Sultan is the founder and Chairman of the Board of the Saudi Aviation Club, and Chairman of the King Khaled International Airport [16] (KKIA) Supervisory Committee. Since 2000, he has also headed Saudi Arabia’s tourism commission [17], placing him among a handful of the King’s grandsons to hold ministerial rank. One of his missions as head of the tourism commission is to repair the damage to Saudi Arabia’s image caused by the 9/11 attacks.In a document [18] released by Wikileaks, the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James B. Smith, characterizes Prince Sultan this way:With a powerful father who is the Governor of Riyadh and a strong candidate to be the next crown-prince, Sultan is well positioned to move up the Saudi government ranks… Sultan has visited almost every state [in the U.S.]. He joked with the Ambassador that ‘perhaps the only states he has not yet visited are the Dakotas.(He is extra well connected, with one brother serving as the deputy oil minister)Prince Sultan is closely allied with Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, the former longtime ambassador to the United States, who is often called Bandar Bush for his friendly relationship with the Bush family. Sultan and Bandar have worked together for years to promote Saudi interest in aviation.
The Bushes and the Royals
The Bush family have long been regarded as friendly with the prince’s family and their associates. Prince Sultan’s NASA mission is perceived as having been orchestrated [19] by George HW Bush as a favor to the Saudis. Associates of the Bush family have many connections with the Prince’s family. Prince Sultan’s father’s legal counsel is William Jeffress Jr, of Houston-based Baker Botts LLP [20], where James A. Baker III, longstanding advisor to the Bush family, including both Presidents Bush, is a senior partner. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Baker held the post of Senior Counselor for the Carlyle Group [21], a global asset management firm which is heavily invested in military contracting stocks [22]; among Carlyle’s large investors were the bin Ladens. (In a curious coincidence, Baker watched the live television coverage of the attacks from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel [23] in Washington, where he and representatives of Osama bin Laden [24]‘s extended family [25] were attending the Carlyle Group’s annual conference. In another odd coincidence, President George W. Bush himself was in Sarasota, reading to schoolchildren, at the very time the Sarasota-area-based terrorists were hijacking the planes. Indeed, he was a short distance from the home the Ghazzawis had recently abandoned.)President Bush’s actions in the aftermath of the World Trade Center and Pentagon assaults with regard to the Saudi royal family have long been known but have yet to be fully explored. Shortly after the attacks, President Bush permitted an exception to the ban on air traffic so that planes could take prominent Saudis out of the country. One of those leaving on the flights was the late Prince Ahmed bin Salman, brother of Prince Sultan.In a 2004 letter [26] to the New York Times, Prince Sultan responded to allegations surrounding those flights, and pointed to a conclusion in the 9/11 commission report: Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed on these flights.(Another Saudi who left the US after 9/11 was the architect Abdel Wahed El-Wakil, [27] who had a base in Miami and serves as an advisor to Prince Sultan.)Allegations of Saudi Royal Complicity[28]
Prince Ahmed with his horse
Sultan’s brother Prince Ahmed was the most westernized of the Saudi set. He raised racehorses in Kentucky and was the owner of the 2001 Kentucky Derby winner, with the perhaps unfortunate name War Emblem.Allegations concerning Prince Ahmed emerged in the 2003 book, Why America Slept, by the bestselling author Gerald Posner. Posner says that intelligence sources told him how in March, 2002, under interrogation (but before he was waterboarded 83 times in August [29]), Al Qaeda’s purported chief of operations, Abu Zubaydah, relaxed and began cooperating. Tricked into thinking he was in Saudi custody, Zubaydah asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the Saudi Royal family, who he said was his contact. He provided, from memory, the man’s private home and cell phones. This contact, according to Posner, was Prince Ahmed.Zubaydah is alleged to have said that Osama bin Laden had cut a deal with a top Pakistani military official, Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, who was close to Islamist elements in Pakistani intelligence. According to this account, the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki, signed off on this, and agreed to provide aid to the Taliban in Afghanistan and not to go after Al Qaeda so long as the terrorist group kept its gun sights trained away from the Saudi royals.In this version of events, Zubaydah is said to have also implicated Prince Sultan, along with another cousin, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, as Al Qaeda backers, and to have claimed that the Pakistani Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir and Saudi Prince Ahmed knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks.Though the interrogators were skeptical of these claims, Zubaydah often proved credible. Information he provided led to the capture of a senior al-Qaeda operative in Southeast Asia. Zubaydah would only talk when he thought he was in Saudi hands. When U.S. personnel, no longer posing as Saudis, confronted him, Zubaydah said he had made up his earlier statements. But investigators found no basis for believing the information to be false—and even found material that corroborated his claimed ties to high level Saudis. Not surprisingly, the Saudi and Pakistani governments insisted his claims were false in all respects.
One of the key figures named by Zubaydah, Prince Turki, had been removed from his position as Saudi intelligence chief on September 1, 2001, ten days before the attacks. Thus, he was apparently not in that post on the critical day. Yet, his removal was a temporary absence from the highest levels of Saudi leadership, and not necessarily an indication that he had fallen into serious disfavor. The next year, he was named Saudi ambassador to Great Britain, just as a shift in focus from Al Qaeda to Iraq was being pitched to the British. If Zubaydah’s claims are at all credible, the removal of Turki from an official position shortly before the attacks surely warrants additional analysis— as does the Ghazzawis’ hasty flight from the U.S. right in the same time frame.According to the book The Eleventh Day [30], by Summers and his co-author Robbyn Swan, Zubaydah is not alone in asserting a Saudi-Al Qaeda deal:In sworn statements after 9/11, former Taliban intelligence chief Mohammed Khaksar said that in 1998 Prince Turki, chief of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Department (G.I.D.), sealed a deal under which bin Laden agreed not to attack Saudi targets. In return, Saudi Arabia would provide funds and material assistance to the Taliban, not demand bin Laden’s extradition, and not bring pressure to close down al-Qaeda training camps. Saudi businesses, meanwhile, would ensure that money also flowed directly to bin Laden.
***
Prince Ahmed and another royal, Prince Sultan bin Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulazziz, were among the fifteen Saudis spirited out of the US, with President Bush’s approval, on September 16, 2001, via Lexington, Kentucky—i.e., out of Prince Ahmed’s U.S. backyard. Prince Sultan bin Fahd is the nephew of Prince Ahmed and Prince Sultan, and the son of Prince Fahd bin Salman (see below) who died unexpectedly shortly before the 9/11 attacks.It appears as if they didn’t want to be around to be questioned as to what role they had played and the best way to avoid that was to get out of the country,former Senator Bob Graham told [31] the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
As author Craig Unger notes in his book, House of Bush, House of Saud, FBI agents were stationed at all points of departure for the group of Saudis who massed in Lexington before departing the country, yet there’s no evidence they were asked any questions at all.Ironically, Posner, who is regularly cited by the corporate media for his views on the JFK assassination (he is a leading defender of the conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunman), is largely ignored for his work on the Saudi-9/11 connection, where he does posit high-level involvement. Posner is a highly controversial [32] and at times perplexing figure, but he insists he has solid intelligence sources, and the thrust of his claims have meshed with those of The New York Times intelligence reporter and best-selling author James Risen. As Risen wrote in his book State of War [33],Ever since the September 11 attacks, the trail back from al Qaeda to Saudi Arabia has been an intriguing path, but one that very few American investigators have been willing to follow. . . . [B]oth before and after 9/11, President Bush and his administration have displayed a remarkable lack of interest in aggressively examining the connections between Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Saudi power elite. Even as the Bush administration spent enormous time and energy trying in vain to prove connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in order to help justify the war in Iraq, the administration was ignoring far more conclusive ties with Saudi Arabia. Those links are much stronger and far more troubling than has ever been previously disclosed, and until they are thoroughly investigated, the roots of Al Qaeda’s power, and the full story of 9/11, will never be known.[34]
Prince Fahd bin Salman died six weeks before 9/11 attacks
Several of those alleged to have had knowledge of this putative scheme and its enormous implications met with untimely ends shortly after Zubaydah’s interrogation. In June, 2002, three months after Zubaydah’s capture, the man he identified as his controller, Prince Ahmed, died of what officials said was a heart attack while asleep. Another brother of Ahmed’s and Sultan’s, Prince Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulazziz, died of a heart attack on July 25, 2001, about six weeks before the 9/11 attacks. The death of Fahd, who preceded his brother as head of EIRAD, is described in a Riyadh-datelined article by Middle East Newsfile, as follows:Prince Fahd died suddenly. Prince Fahd did not show any symptoms of any ailment. He had, however, made an appointment with a dentist at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh to check a toothache.A cousin, Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, died when his car crashed en route to Salman’s funeral. Zubaydah had supposedly implicated Prince Sultan bin Faisal, and another royal, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir. as Al-Qaeda supporters. All these men were in their forties. Still another key figure in Zubaydah’s monstrous scenario met an untimely death. On February 20, 2003, Mushaf Ali Mir, the Pakistani air force chief, his wife and fifteen others, were killed in a plane crash.Not a hint of the above information appeared in the released portion of the presidential 9/11 commission report. It is not known whether any of it was in the 28 pages of material about Saudi connections that the Bush Administration censored on national security grounds.
A Long-Standing Relationship
The Ghazzawis’ relationship with the United States seems to date back to the 1950’s, when U.S. immigration records show that Abbas Ghazzawi visited New York. Abbas Ghazzawi was a prominent Saudi attorney. Esam, whose full name is Esam Abbas Ghazzawi, appears to be his son. (WhoWhatWhy was unable to reach Ghazzawi for comment on any of the matters in this article.)Abbas Ghazzawi, arriving on a first class ticket on a connecting flight that originated in Saudi Arabia, was traveling in an elite entourage. One companion, Rasem al-Khalidi, was a high-ranking Saudi monetary official [36]. Another, Faisal al-Hegelan, would years later serve in the all-important position of Saudi ambassador to Washington. He held that post during 1979-1983, a period that partly coincided with the Reagan-Bush Administration. His replacement was Prince Bandar, the Bush family friend jokingly called Bandar Bush.
[37]
Saudi Air Force AWACS
The focus of Saudi royals in their dealings with the United States can be seen in the conduct of al-Hegelan. As ambassador, al-Hegelan was principally concerned with propping up the Saudi regime. He had seventeen military attachés assigned fulltime to lobby for the sale of the advanced command-and-control aircraft known as AWACS to the Saudi air force. (see P. 17 of the book Arab Reach, by Hoag Levins.) Overcoming heavy pressure on Washington from the Israelis, the Saudis succeeded in getting Congress to approve the AWACS sale. Al-Hegelan also led a lobbying campaign against Secretary of State Alexander Haig’s public support of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. President Reagan, with strong input from his vice president, George H.W. Bush, removed Haig and replaced him with George Schultz, who sided with the Saudis; Schultz had been president of Bechtel, one of the largest construction contractors in Saudi Arabia, whose projects included the original Trans-Arabian Pipeline.We find the Ghazzawi clan again in the United States in 1970, when the young Esam married the American Deborah G. Browning. The marriage didn’t last long—in July, 1971 they obtained a divorce in Orange County, California.The first sign of the Ghazzawi clan on the east coast of the United States was in 1992, when Esam bought a penthouse apartment in the D.C. suburb of Rosslyn, Virginia. In various accounts, Esam is described as a banker or financier, who also works as an interior designer. He accrued additional property in Arlington, Virginia and Longboat Key, Florida, and his name turns up in connection with a fancy office building in the K Street lobbying corridor.In this period, Esam’s name surfaced when investigators probing the monumentally corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) [38] sought to recover assets from Saudi Prince Fahd bin Salman—brother of Prince Sultan bin Salman. The prince argued that his assets were being held in another account under Esam Ghazzawi’s name. Only low-level BCCI officials went to jail in the sprawling scandal, which involved banks and governments all over the world. Prince Fahd bin Salman is one of the relatives who died unexpectedly in the year of the 9/11 attacks. (The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations were repeatedly accused by investigators into the BCCI mess of obstructing their inquiries; it is worth noting that the Treasury Department official responsible for scrutinizing BCCI’s affairs in the Reagan-Bush administration was assistant secretary for enforcement John M. Walker Jr.—who happened to be George H.W. Bush’s cousin.)
In 1995, Ghazzawi’s daughter Anoud, living in South Florida, married Abdulazzi al-Hiijii, who was a university student in the area. Esam and Deborah Ghazzawi, apparently reunited sometime after their 1971 divorce, purchased the Sarasota home into which the couple moved. Abdulazzi appears to have received a B.S. and Masters of Information Systems from the University of South Florida. His Master’s should be noted in the context of only one of two items removed from the Sarasota house before the couple fled—a computer.Today, the family seems comfortably ensconced back in Saudi Arabia. In August, 2003, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii became a career counselor at the government oil company [39]—Saudi Aramco—a position he retains to this day. He served on the committee holding a symposium [40] about electronic services in the eastern (oil-producing) province of Saudi Arabia, held in Khobar in 2008.We found the American-born Deborah Ghazzawi, posting online [41] just three years ago for help on finding her username/password for a Saudi Blackberry sim card.
***
The seeming reluctance of the US government to pursue hints of possible Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks, wherever they might lead, is hardly an isolated failure. Richard Clarke, the chief counterterrorism official in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, has recently stated his view [42]that the CIA made an unsuccessful attempt to recruit two of the hijackers as double agents before the 9/11 attacks, then scurried to cover up this bungled effort. Clarke thinks evidence points to the spy agency itself allowing the hijackers into the U.S. as part of this scheme. If Clarke is correct, this would be another case of interested parties in the government keeping the truth bottled up for their own purposes.[43]
President Bush with Saudi King Abdullah
Even more disturbing, the final section of the Congressional inquiry’s report, on sources of foreign support for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, was totally redacted. It is still unavailable to the public on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. Both Graham and his GOP counterpart, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, determined that national security would not be harmed by releasing those pages. Yet they were withheld—on the orders of George W. Bush.Graham told the reporters he thinks suppression of the material provided protection of the Saudis from embarrassment, protection of the administration from political embarrassment … some of the unknowns, some of the secrets of 9/11.Tellingly, the venerable British insurance company Lloyd’s of London actively investigated Saudi complicity in 9/11. As reported [44] by the U.K. paper The Independent, a Lloyd’s unit has launched what is described as a landmark legal case against Saudi Arabia, claiming that the kingdom is indirectly responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Lloyd’s asserts that Saudi banks and charities acting as surrogates for the royal family gave the terrorist group the sustenance it needed to carry out the 2001 assault. (Lloyd’s is seeking to recover sums it paid to firms and individuals affected by the event.) Reports The Independent:The legal claim states: Absent the sponsorship of al-Qa’ida’s material sponsors and supporters, including the defendants named therein, al-Qa’ida would not have possessed the capacity to conceive, plan and execute the 11 September attacks. The success of al-Qa’ida’s agenda, including the 11 September attacks themselves, has been made possible by the lavish sponsorship al-Qa’ida has received from its material sponsors and supporters over more than a decade leading up to 11 September 2001.Bizarrely, several days ago, Lloyd’s quietly withdrew its suit, declining to explain why. But the move was conducted in such a way to suggest a possible settlement, thereby raising still more questions for investigation.[45]
President Obama with Saudi King Abdullah
Meanwhile, in the United States, a growing chorus of voices—some very establishment voices—are demanding accountability and candor. Graham and Clarke have now been joined by retired CIA officer Bob Baer, by several former FBI agents and by Tom Kean, chairman of presidential 9/11 commission, all of whom express concern that the full story has not been permitted to emerge.
No evidence,But None Sought
The 9/11 Commission report found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials financed Al Qaeda. But this carefully worded statement does not foreclose the possibility that members of the Saudi royal family personally provided financing, or that senior officials funded companies or outsiders that in turn provided financing.Many questions remain to be answered. For example, why did the Ghazzawi clan flee in such a hasty manner, pausing only to empty their safe but leaving food on the kitchen counter and their pool pump running? Was it because they had received some unexpected news, news so urgent and alarming that normal preparations for an orderly departure gave way to what appears to be a panicky exit? If this question seems inconsequential, think about what kind of news, in the days just before 9/11, could have prompted such intemperate flight from the United States by a well-connected clan of Saudis? The possible answers to this question could prove world-changing. The most important Mideast nation so far untouched by the dislocations of the Arab Spring is Saudi Arabia, the single largest supplier of petroleum [46] to the western world. If major players in that country’s ruling family are shown to have had a hand in the 9/11 attacks, it would be the equivalent of a geopolitical tsunami—upsetting powerful elites around the world. Is it any wonder that efforts have been made to prevent a no-holds-barred investigation of this connection? And isn’t it time, ten years later, to end this coverup — in the name of the common good? Former Senator Graham, for one, is increasingly adamant. As he told the St. Petersburg Times: These 19 people did not play out this plot as lone wolves. The chances that 19 people, most of whom had never been in the U.S., who did not speak English, and most of whom did not know each other, could have completed training, practiced and executed such a complicated plot defies common sense.Image Credits: 1 [47], 2 [48], 3 [49], 4 [50], 5 [51], 6 [51], 7 [52], 8 [53], 9 [54], 10 [55]Article printed from WhoWhatWhy: http://whowhatwhy.com URL to article: http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/09/22/saudi-royal-ties-to-911-hijackers-via-florida-saudi-family-0/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/fbi_hijackers.jpg
[2] BrowardBulldog.org: http://www.browardbulldog.org/2011/09/fbi-found-direct-ties-between-911-hijackers-and-saudis-living-in-florida-congress-kept-in-dark/
[3] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/a4s_SAUDIS091011hou_190629c.jpg
[4] penthouse apartment: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-state-of-nova/post/did-arlington-have-a-more-ominous-link-to-9-11/2011/09/12/gIQASuBCNK_blog.html
[5] paid EIRAD $11,733: http://www.fedspending.org/fpds/fpds.php?reptype=r&detail=-1&sortp=f&maj_agency_cat=19&datype=T&reptype=r&database=fpds&database=fpds&parent_id=4668&fiscal_year=2008&record_num=f500
[6] Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years: http://www.amazon.com/Family-Secrets-Americas-Invisible-Government/dp/1608190064/
[7] article: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/07/v-print/2395698/link-to-911-hijackers-found-in.html#ixzz1XVrxBRSy
[8] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/47049269_jarrah_pa_226.jpg
[9] Continue to Page 2 of 3: http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/09/22/saudi-royal-ties-to-911-hijackers-via-florida-saudi-family-0/2/
[10] click here to donate: http://whowhatwhy.com/donate/
[11] statement: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/15/2409359/fbi-no-link-between-sarasota-family.html
[12] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/4224escondito-300x234.jpg
[13] Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_bin_Salman_bin_Abdulaziz_Al_Saud
[14] [1]: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?ver=342-20110630#_ftn1
[15] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/MUSLIMS-IN-NASA.jpg
[16] King Khaled International Airport: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Khaled_International_Airport
[17] Saudi Arabia’s tourism commission: http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=106705&d=12&m=2&y=2008
[18] document: http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4094995.ece
[19] orchestrated: http://www.debbieschlussel.com/24268/sadly-obama-not-1st-to-use-nasa-for-islamo-outreach-reagan-bush-were/
[20] Baker Botts LLP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Botts
[21] Carlyle Group: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlyle_Group
[22] military contracting stocks: http://www.carlyle.com/Industry/Aerospace%20&%20Defense/item8359.html
[23] Ritz-Carlton Hotel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritz-Carlton_Hotel
[24] Osama bin Laden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden
[25] family: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family
[26] letter: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/opinion/l-saudi-flights-after-9-11-507474.html?ref=geraldposner
[27] Wahed El-Wakil,: http://www.answers.com/topic/abdel-wahed-el-wakil#ixzz1XaHiJFru
[28] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/oaks6.jpg
[29] waterboarded 83 times in August: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html
[30] According to the book The Eleventh Day: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/08/9-11-2011-201108#gotopage1
[31] told: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110909/ARTICLE/110909528/-1/sports?p=2&tc=pg
[32] highly controversial: http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/08/26/peculiar-posner/
[33] State of War: http://www.amazon.com/State-War-Secret-History-Administration/dp/0743270665
[34] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/fahd_bin_salman.jpg
[35] Continue to Page 3 of 3: http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/09/22/saudi-royal-ties-to-911-hijackers-via-florida-saudi-family-0/3/
[36] a high-ranking Saudi monetary official: http://www.eltaher.org/docs_photos/1955-Sayf-El-Eslam-Abdallah-and-Rasem-Al-Khalidi-image910_en.html
[37] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/saudiawacs.jpg
[38] Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_International
[39] government oil company: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/abdulaziz-alhijji/12/687/6b3
[40] symposium: http://www.eservices-sa.org/Event/UploadFiles/EBook3.pdf
[41] online: http://bloggerdollar.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Connect-to-Internet-with-Your-BlackBerry-without-Paying-For-Data-Plan
[42] stated his view : http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/11/september-11th-anniversary-richard-clarke-s-explosive-cia-cover-up-charge.html
[43] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/saudi-king-abdullah-with-Bush.jpg
[44] reported: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lloyds-insurer-sues-saudi-arabia-for-funding-911-attacks-2356857.html
[45] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/xin_50206060409301091329815.jpg
[46] single largest supplier of petroleum: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html
[47] 1: http://www.tampabay.com/multimedia/archive/00190/a4s_SAUDIS091011hou_190629c.jpg%20
[48] 2: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47049000/jpg/_47049269_jarrah_pa_226.jpg%20
[49] 3: http://www.browardbulldog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/4224escondito-300x234.jpg%20
[50] 4: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhATzmD0Q3dad-q2GSTKPMeJR5owcJ_8pjkjhze6tzulvFh9-Ho0kage_gPParw1MxOidAV0ezc5Tq28AiEZgLYmrRUhUxwtIILfdZwUwZYDzqu3C6xx1XZ2ZeTSkKMVTveZAjQ/s1600/MUSLIMS+IN+NASA.jpg%20
[51] 5: http://horseracing.about.com/library/graphics/tc01/oaks6.jpg%20
[52] 7: http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/%7Elouis/picture/person/s/fahd_bin_salman.jpg%20
[53] 8: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I3K-Vsq8_c0/TnIbh2USGcI/AAAAAAAAPmg/cGHbicW5H2Q/s400/saudiprince.jpg%20
[54] 9: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1SpwZG-Ga-awo1_5dpKfFViU4X6QZi4VHB1rZ9lBv2Q_Kfsxi_dsMGwJ-Lg-EQ8hJvh6co_XVEXf_OZk07Xeib-gcbKxHieHmg8kBqhpPO0I0nzkQZJzW3Tv15RWzMiSDMDIy/s400/saudi+king+abdullah+with+Bush.jpg%20
[55] 10: http://dc-cdn.virtacore.com/2011/08/xin_50206060409301091329815.jpeg%20
WhoWhatWhy has found evidence linking the Saudi royal family to Saudis in South Florida who reportedly had direct contact with the 9/11 hijackers before fleeing the United States just prior to the attacks. Our report connects some of the dots first laid out by investigative author Anthony Summers and Florida-based journalist Dan Christensen in articles jointly published in the Miami Herald and on the nonprofit news site BrowardBulldog.org [2].In early September of this year, Summers and Christensen reported that a secret FBI probe, never shared with Congressional investigators or the presidential 9/11 commission, had uncovered information indicating the possibility of support for the hijackers from previously unknown confederates in the United States during 2001.Now WhoWhatWhy reveals that those alleged confederates were closely tied to influential members of the Saudi ruling elite.[3]
The House
As reported in the Herald, phone records documented communication, dating back more than a year, that connected a Saudi family then living in a house near Sarasota, Florida, with the alleged plot leader, Mohammed Atta, and his hijack pilots—as well as to eleven of the other hijackers. In addition, records from the guard house at the gated community tied Atta’s vehicle and his accomplice Ziad Jarrah to actual visits to the house. Although requiring further investigation, this information suggests that the house may have functioned as an operational base for the hijackers.
According to interviews and records examined by The Herald, Anoud and Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii and their young twins abruptly departed their home in Sarasota only days before September 11, 2001 and traveled to Arlington, Virginia, where they stayed briefly at another house owned by Anoud’s father, Esam Ghazzawi.Then, still well before 9/11, the entire group, now including the father, flew to London and on to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Sarasota house was sold in 2003, as was a penthouse apartment [4] in another DC, suburb, Rosslyn, Virginia. The Ghazzawis do not seem to have set foot again in the United States.
New Revelations
Building on these revelations, WhoWhatWhy has found documents laying out the Ghazzawis’ royal connections through a nest of Saudi corporations that share the name EIRAD. Esam Ghazzawi is director of EIRAD Management Company, the UK division of EIRAD Trading and Contracting Co. Ltd., which among other things holds the Saudi franchise for many multinational brands, including UPS. Esam’s brother Mamdouh, whose name shows up on public records associated with family properties in the U.S., is the Executive Managing Director of the parent firm, EIRAD Holding Co. Ltd. EIRAD has connections to the US government via contracts. In 2008, records show, the State Department paid EIRAD $11,733 [5] for rental of facilities, presumably in Saudi Arabia.There is no indication that the company itself, or any of its officers or employees, have any connection to the 9/11 incident, or knowledge of anything regarding Mr. Ghazzawi’s activities in the United States. Calls for comment to the company’s main switchboard went unanswered during normal business hours; its website was not functioning properly and Saudi trade officials in the United States had not furnished alternative contact information at publication time.But the now-revealed link between the Ghazzawis and the highest ranks of the Saudi establishment reopens questions about the White House’s controversial approval for multiple charter flights allowing Saudi nationals to depart the U.S., beginning about 48 hours after the attacks, without the passengers being interviewed by law enforcement—despite the identification of the majority of the hijackers as Saudis.
In addition, the new revelations draw further attention to a web of relationships that include the long and close business, personal and political ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family.Saudi money is woven throughout business ventures connected to the Bushes. Saudi funds even helped bail out George W. Bush’s failing oil company early in his life. Jim Bath, a close friend of Bush in the Texas Air National Guard, went on to start a business in conjunction with two sons of powerful Saudi families—Khalid bin Mahfouz, whose family provides banking services to the Saudi royals, and Salem bin Laden, heir to the bin Laden family’s global construction empire and a half brother to Osama bin Laden. (For a detailed probe of the Bush family’s dealings with the Saudis, including substantial previously unreported material, see my book, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years [6].)
Details of The Herald’s Revelations
The Ghazzawi presence in the Sunshine State predated 9/11 by at least six years. In 1995 a young Saudi woman named Anoud Ghazzawi living in South Florida married a fellow Saudi native, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii (English spellings of his first name and surname vary, as is typical of Arabic names.) Anoud’s father, Esam, and his American-born wife Deborah bought the couple a stylish, three-bedroom house in a gated community in Sarasota. The house remained in the elder Ghazzawis’ names while the young couple lived there and began a family.Six years later, less than two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, Anoud, Abdulazzi and their children left their home on or about August 30, 2001 in great haste, taking off in a white van. This was about the same time that the hijackers were purchasing their tickets for the targeted flights.
The family apparently left with no advance planning, leaving behind almost all their possessions, abandoning three recently registered vehicles, including a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruiser, in the garage and driveway. As the Herald article [7] explained:
there was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms … all the toiletries still in place … all their clothes hanging in the closet … opulent furniture, equal or greater in value than the house … the pool running, with toys in it….The beds were made … fruit on the counter … the refrigerator full of food. … It was like they went grocery shopping. Like they went out to a movie … [But] the safe was open in the master bedroom, with nothing in it, not a paper clip. … A computer was still there. A computer plug in another room, and the line still there. Looked like they’d taken [another] computer and left the cord.After public disclosure of Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks, people in the gated community took note of the rushed departure and disappearance of the Ghazzawi-al-Hiijjiis. After all, the attackers were not just overwhelmingly of Saudi nationality, but three out of four of the future hijackers had lived and trained to fly in Venice, Florida, just 10 miles away from the house.The complex’s security officer alerted the FBI, which began an investigation into the house at 4224 Escondito Circle. (In addition, a suspicious neighbor alerted the FBI by email on the day of the attacks.)The Justice Department declined to give the Herald a statement, but, according to an unnamed senior counterterrorism officer who was one of two people who got into the house first and served as a key source for the paper, the investigation bore stunning fruit.[8]
Ziad Jarrah
Phone records showed communication, dating back more than a year, that connected those in the house with the alleged plot leader, Mohammed Atta and his accomplices, including eleven of the other hijackers. Other records, kept by guards at the gated community, documented numerous visits to the house by a vehicle known to have been used by Atta, and indicated the physical presence in the car of Atta’s purported accomplice Ziad Jarrah. It appeared as if the Ghazzawi house was some kind of nerve center for the entire operation.According to the senior counterterrorism officer, both Esam Ghazzawi and his son-in-law al-Hiijjii had been on a watch list at the FBI predating 9/11. An unnamed U.S. agency tracking terror funds had also taken an interest in them. 464 was Ghazzawi’s number, the officer said. I don’t remember the other man’s number.(9]WhoWhatWhy plans to continue doing this kind of groundbreaking original reporting. You can count on it. But can we count on you? We cannot do our work without your support.
Secrecy Reveals Little Official Curiosity—or Coverup?
These stunning revelations—said to be based on the work of the swarm of FBI agents who descended on the gated community in the fall of 2001—would surely have generated headlines worldwide if they had become known after 9/11. But the FBI, for reasons unknown, failed to provide the information to Congressional 9/11 investigators or to the presidential 9/11 commission, and thus it has remained a secret for the past decade.In response to the Herald article, the FBI has issued a statement [11] saying that the occupants of the house had been tracked down and interrogated, and were found to have no connections to the hijackers. It is not clear when these interrogations are supposed to have taken place, or whether they were conducted by the FBI or by Saudi intelligence. But given the FBI’s poor track record for candor in the matter, the statement is being viewed with some skepticism.[12]
Inside the House
Adding to these doubts is an ineffective effort by the Bureau to woo the house owners back to Florida. According to Scott McKay, a lawyer for homeowners’ association of the gated community, known as Prestancia, the FBI attempted to convince the Ghazzawis they needed to come back in person to sign documents related to unpaid back dues to the association. This attempt proved unsuccessful when the Ghazzawis simply arranged to sign the documents elsewhere. These facts, reported by The Herald, raise questions about the U.S. government’s determination to interview the couple: Esam Ghazzawi’s signature was notarized in Lebanon—by a U.S. official no less—the vice consul at the US embassy in Beirut. His wife’s signature was also notarized—elsewhere in the United States, in Riverside County, California.The emergence of this information chagrined Bob Graham, the former Florida U.S. Senator. Graham was Senate Intelligence Committee chair (and a 2004 candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination) and served as co-chair of the congressional joint inquiry into 9/11. At the beginning of the investigation,he told The Herald, “each of the intelligence agencies, including the FBI, was asked to provide all information that agency possessed in relation to 9/11.Graham noted that the Bureau also failed to turn over information connecting the hijackers to other Saudis living in California, which his own investigators later discovered on their own.Just as strange, when Graham’s congressional investigators turned over a large body of information on the hijackers they had assembled to the presidential 9/11 Commission, it seemed uninterested. They did very little with it,Graham said, and their reference to Saudi Arabia is almost cryptic sometimes. … I never got a good answer as to why they did not pursue that.About the new discovery in Sarasota, Graham said it “opens the door to a new chapter of investigation as to the depth of the Saudi role in 9/11.”
All Eyes on Prince Sultan
Of special interest is the Ghazzawis’ boss, the chairman of EIRAD Holding Co. Ltd., Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud [13]. He is a prominent and powerful member of the ruling Saudi royal family who is expected to become crown prince, and thereby in line to become king. Born in 1956, which makes him approximately the same age as the Ghazzawi brothers, Prince Sultan bin Salman is a grandson of King Abdul Aziz (commonly referred to as Ibn Saud), founder of modern Saudi Arabia.[1] [14]
1. Saudi lineages are complicated due to men being named for their ancestors. For example, Prince Sultan (Prince Sultan bin Salman) should not be confused with his uncle, also known as Prince Sultan (Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud), who is Defense Minister and Crown Prince, or his late cousin Prince Sultan bin Faisal.
Prince Sultan’s family is of enormous importance in today’s Saudi Arabia. His father, Prince Salman, has been the governor of the province of Riyadh (the city of Riyadh is the Saudi capital) since 1962, and is considered an arbitrator among the frequently warring members of the Saudi royal family, with its 4000 princes. Salman is the second youngest of the so-called Sudairi Seven, an extremely powerful alliance of full brothers jockeying for power in the country.[15]
Prince Sultan bin Salman
A leading advocate of teaching Saudis to fly, Prince Sultan is the founder and Chairman of the Board of the Saudi Aviation Club, and Chairman of the King Khaled International Airport [16] (KKIA) Supervisory Committee. Since 2000, he has also headed Saudi Arabia’s tourism commission [17], placing him among a handful of the King’s grandsons to hold ministerial rank. One of his missions as head of the tourism commission is to repair the damage to Saudi Arabia’s image caused by the 9/11 attacks.In a document [18] released by Wikileaks, the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James B. Smith, characterizes Prince Sultan this way:With a powerful father who is the Governor of Riyadh and a strong candidate to be the next crown-prince, Sultan is well positioned to move up the Saudi government ranks… Sultan has visited almost every state [in the U.S.]. He joked with the Ambassador that ‘perhaps the only states he has not yet visited are the Dakotas.(He is extra well connected, with one brother serving as the deputy oil minister)Prince Sultan is closely allied with Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, the former longtime ambassador to the United States, who is often called Bandar Bush for his friendly relationship with the Bush family. Sultan and Bandar have worked together for years to promote Saudi interest in aviation.
The Bushes and the Royals
The Bush family have long been regarded as friendly with the prince’s family and their associates. Prince Sultan’s NASA mission is perceived as having been orchestrated [19] by George HW Bush as a favor to the Saudis. Associates of the Bush family have many connections with the Prince’s family. Prince Sultan’s father’s legal counsel is William Jeffress Jr, of Houston-based Baker Botts LLP [20], where James A. Baker III, longstanding advisor to the Bush family, including both Presidents Bush, is a senior partner. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Baker held the post of Senior Counselor for the Carlyle Group [21], a global asset management firm which is heavily invested in military contracting stocks [22]; among Carlyle’s large investors were the bin Ladens. (In a curious coincidence, Baker watched the live television coverage of the attacks from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel [23] in Washington, where he and representatives of Osama bin Laden [24]‘s extended family [25] were attending the Carlyle Group’s annual conference. In another odd coincidence, President George W. Bush himself was in Sarasota, reading to schoolchildren, at the very time the Sarasota-area-based terrorists were hijacking the planes. Indeed, he was a short distance from the home the Ghazzawis had recently abandoned.)President Bush’s actions in the aftermath of the World Trade Center and Pentagon assaults with regard to the Saudi royal family have long been known but have yet to be fully explored. Shortly after the attacks, President Bush permitted an exception to the ban on air traffic so that planes could take prominent Saudis out of the country. One of those leaving on the flights was the late Prince Ahmed bin Salman, brother of Prince Sultan.In a 2004 letter [26] to the New York Times, Prince Sultan responded to allegations surrounding those flights, and pointed to a conclusion in the 9/11 commission report: Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed on these flights.(Another Saudi who left the US after 9/11 was the architect Abdel Wahed El-Wakil, [27] who had a base in Miami and serves as an advisor to Prince Sultan.)Allegations of Saudi Royal Complicity[28]
Prince Ahmed with his horse
Sultan’s brother Prince Ahmed was the most westernized of the Saudi set. He raised racehorses in Kentucky and was the owner of the 2001 Kentucky Derby winner, with the perhaps unfortunate name War Emblem.Allegations concerning Prince Ahmed emerged in the 2003 book, Why America Slept, by the bestselling author Gerald Posner. Posner says that intelligence sources told him how in March, 2002, under interrogation (but before he was waterboarded 83 times in August [29]), Al Qaeda’s purported chief of operations, Abu Zubaydah, relaxed and began cooperating. Tricked into thinking he was in Saudi custody, Zubaydah asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the Saudi Royal family, who he said was his contact. He provided, from memory, the man’s private home and cell phones. This contact, according to Posner, was Prince Ahmed.Zubaydah is alleged to have said that Osama bin Laden had cut a deal with a top Pakistani military official, Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, who was close to Islamist elements in Pakistani intelligence. According to this account, the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki, signed off on this, and agreed to provide aid to the Taliban in Afghanistan and not to go after Al Qaeda so long as the terrorist group kept its gun sights trained away from the Saudi royals.In this version of events, Zubaydah is said to have also implicated Prince Sultan, along with another cousin, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, as Al Qaeda backers, and to have claimed that the Pakistani Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir and Saudi Prince Ahmed knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks.Though the interrogators were skeptical of these claims, Zubaydah often proved credible. Information he provided led to the capture of a senior al-Qaeda operative in Southeast Asia. Zubaydah would only talk when he thought he was in Saudi hands. When U.S. personnel, no longer posing as Saudis, confronted him, Zubaydah said he had made up his earlier statements. But investigators found no basis for believing the information to be false—and even found material that corroborated his claimed ties to high level Saudis. Not surprisingly, the Saudi and Pakistani governments insisted his claims were false in all respects.
One of the key figures named by Zubaydah, Prince Turki, had been removed from his position as Saudi intelligence chief on September 1, 2001, ten days before the attacks. Thus, he was apparently not in that post on the critical day. Yet, his removal was a temporary absence from the highest levels of Saudi leadership, and not necessarily an indication that he had fallen into serious disfavor. The next year, he was named Saudi ambassador to Great Britain, just as a shift in focus from Al Qaeda to Iraq was being pitched to the British. If Zubaydah’s claims are at all credible, the removal of Turki from an official position shortly before the attacks surely warrants additional analysis— as does the Ghazzawis’ hasty flight from the U.S. right in the same time frame.According to the book The Eleventh Day [30], by Summers and his co-author Robbyn Swan, Zubaydah is not alone in asserting a Saudi-Al Qaeda deal:In sworn statements after 9/11, former Taliban intelligence chief Mohammed Khaksar said that in 1998 Prince Turki, chief of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Department (G.I.D.), sealed a deal under which bin Laden agreed not to attack Saudi targets. In return, Saudi Arabia would provide funds and material assistance to the Taliban, not demand bin Laden’s extradition, and not bring pressure to close down al-Qaeda training camps. Saudi businesses, meanwhile, would ensure that money also flowed directly to bin Laden.
***
Prince Ahmed and another royal, Prince Sultan bin Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulazziz, were among the fifteen Saudis spirited out of the US, with President Bush’s approval, on September 16, 2001, via Lexington, Kentucky—i.e., out of Prince Ahmed’s U.S. backyard. Prince Sultan bin Fahd is the nephew of Prince Ahmed and Prince Sultan, and the son of Prince Fahd bin Salman (see below) who died unexpectedly shortly before the 9/11 attacks.It appears as if they didn’t want to be around to be questioned as to what role they had played and the best way to avoid that was to get out of the country,former Senator Bob Graham told [31] the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
As author Craig Unger notes in his book, House of Bush, House of Saud, FBI agents were stationed at all points of departure for the group of Saudis who massed in Lexington before departing the country, yet there’s no evidence they were asked any questions at all.Ironically, Posner, who is regularly cited by the corporate media for his views on the JFK assassination (he is a leading defender of the conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunman), is largely ignored for his work on the Saudi-9/11 connection, where he does posit high-level involvement. Posner is a highly controversial [32] and at times perplexing figure, but he insists he has solid intelligence sources, and the thrust of his claims have meshed with those of The New York Times intelligence reporter and best-selling author James Risen. As Risen wrote in his book State of War [33],Ever since the September 11 attacks, the trail back from al Qaeda to Saudi Arabia has been an intriguing path, but one that very few American investigators have been willing to follow. . . . [B]oth before and after 9/11, President Bush and his administration have displayed a remarkable lack of interest in aggressively examining the connections between Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Saudi power elite. Even as the Bush administration spent enormous time and energy trying in vain to prove connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in order to help justify the war in Iraq, the administration was ignoring far more conclusive ties with Saudi Arabia. Those links are much stronger and far more troubling than has ever been previously disclosed, and until they are thoroughly investigated, the roots of Al Qaeda’s power, and the full story of 9/11, will never be known.[34]
Prince Fahd bin Salman died six weeks before 9/11 attacks
Several of those alleged to have had knowledge of this putative scheme and its enormous implications met with untimely ends shortly after Zubaydah’s interrogation. In June, 2002, three months after Zubaydah’s capture, the man he identified as his controller, Prince Ahmed, died of what officials said was a heart attack while asleep. Another brother of Ahmed’s and Sultan’s, Prince Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulazziz, died of a heart attack on July 25, 2001, about six weeks before the 9/11 attacks. The death of Fahd, who preceded his brother as head of EIRAD, is described in a Riyadh-datelined article by Middle East Newsfile, as follows:Prince Fahd died suddenly. Prince Fahd did not show any symptoms of any ailment. He had, however, made an appointment with a dentist at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh to check a toothache.A cousin, Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, died when his car crashed en route to Salman’s funeral. Zubaydah had supposedly implicated Prince Sultan bin Faisal, and another royal, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir. as Al-Qaeda supporters. All these men were in their forties. Still another key figure in Zubaydah’s monstrous scenario met an untimely death. On February 20, 2003, Mushaf Ali Mir, the Pakistani air force chief, his wife and fifteen others, were killed in a plane crash.Not a hint of the above information appeared in the released portion of the presidential 9/11 commission report. It is not known whether any of it was in the 28 pages of material about Saudi connections that the Bush Administration censored on national security grounds.
A Long-Standing Relationship
The Ghazzawis’ relationship with the United States seems to date back to the 1950’s, when U.S. immigration records show that Abbas Ghazzawi visited New York. Abbas Ghazzawi was a prominent Saudi attorney. Esam, whose full name is Esam Abbas Ghazzawi, appears to be his son. (WhoWhatWhy was unable to reach Ghazzawi for comment on any of the matters in this article.)Abbas Ghazzawi, arriving on a first class ticket on a connecting flight that originated in Saudi Arabia, was traveling in an elite entourage. One companion, Rasem al-Khalidi, was a high-ranking Saudi monetary official [36]. Another, Faisal al-Hegelan, would years later serve in the all-important position of Saudi ambassador to Washington. He held that post during 1979-1983, a period that partly coincided with the Reagan-Bush Administration. His replacement was Prince Bandar, the Bush family friend jokingly called Bandar Bush.
[37]
Saudi Air Force AWACS
The focus of Saudi royals in their dealings with the United States can be seen in the conduct of al-Hegelan. As ambassador, al-Hegelan was principally concerned with propping up the Saudi regime. He had seventeen military attachés assigned fulltime to lobby for the sale of the advanced command-and-control aircraft known as AWACS to the Saudi air force. (see P. 17 of the book Arab Reach, by Hoag Levins.) Overcoming heavy pressure on Washington from the Israelis, the Saudis succeeded in getting Congress to approve the AWACS sale. Al-Hegelan also led a lobbying campaign against Secretary of State Alexander Haig’s public support of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. President Reagan, with strong input from his vice president, George H.W. Bush, removed Haig and replaced him with George Schultz, who sided with the Saudis; Schultz had been president of Bechtel, one of the largest construction contractors in Saudi Arabia, whose projects included the original Trans-Arabian Pipeline.We find the Ghazzawi clan again in the United States in 1970, when the young Esam married the American Deborah G. Browning. The marriage didn’t last long—in July, 1971 they obtained a divorce in Orange County, California.The first sign of the Ghazzawi clan on the east coast of the United States was in 1992, when Esam bought a penthouse apartment in the D.C. suburb of Rosslyn, Virginia. In various accounts, Esam is described as a banker or financier, who also works as an interior designer. He accrued additional property in Arlington, Virginia and Longboat Key, Florida, and his name turns up in connection with a fancy office building in the K Street lobbying corridor.In this period, Esam’s name surfaced when investigators probing the monumentally corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) [38] sought to recover assets from Saudi Prince Fahd bin Salman—brother of Prince Sultan bin Salman. The prince argued that his assets were being held in another account under Esam Ghazzawi’s name. Only low-level BCCI officials went to jail in the sprawling scandal, which involved banks and governments all over the world. Prince Fahd bin Salman is one of the relatives who died unexpectedly in the year of the 9/11 attacks. (The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations were repeatedly accused by investigators into the BCCI mess of obstructing their inquiries; it is worth noting that the Treasury Department official responsible for scrutinizing BCCI’s affairs in the Reagan-Bush administration was assistant secretary for enforcement John M. Walker Jr.—who happened to be George H.W. Bush’s cousin.)
In 1995, Ghazzawi’s daughter Anoud, living in South Florida, married Abdulazzi al-Hiijii, who was a university student in the area. Esam and Deborah Ghazzawi, apparently reunited sometime after their 1971 divorce, purchased the Sarasota home into which the couple moved. Abdulazzi appears to have received a B.S. and Masters of Information Systems from the University of South Florida. His Master’s should be noted in the context of only one of two items removed from the Sarasota house before the couple fled—a computer.Today, the family seems comfortably ensconced back in Saudi Arabia. In August, 2003, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii became a career counselor at the government oil company [39]—Saudi Aramco—a position he retains to this day. He served on the committee holding a symposium [40] about electronic services in the eastern (oil-producing) province of Saudi Arabia, held in Khobar in 2008.We found the American-born Deborah Ghazzawi, posting online [41] just three years ago for help on finding her username/password for a Saudi Blackberry sim card.
***
The seeming reluctance of the US government to pursue hints of possible Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks, wherever they might lead, is hardly an isolated failure. Richard Clarke, the chief counterterrorism official in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, has recently stated his view [42]that the CIA made an unsuccessful attempt to recruit two of the hijackers as double agents before the 9/11 attacks, then scurried to cover up this bungled effort. Clarke thinks evidence points to the spy agency itself allowing the hijackers into the U.S. as part of this scheme. If Clarke is correct, this would be another case of interested parties in the government keeping the truth bottled up for their own purposes.[43]
President Bush with Saudi King Abdullah
Even more disturbing, the final section of the Congressional inquiry’s report, on sources of foreign support for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, was totally redacted. It is still unavailable to the public on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. Both Graham and his GOP counterpart, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, determined that national security would not be harmed by releasing those pages. Yet they were withheld—on the orders of George W. Bush.Graham told the reporters he thinks suppression of the material provided protection of the Saudis from embarrassment, protection of the administration from political embarrassment … some of the unknowns, some of the secrets of 9/11.Tellingly, the venerable British insurance company Lloyd’s of London actively investigated Saudi complicity in 9/11. As reported [44] by the U.K. paper The Independent, a Lloyd’s unit has launched what is described as a landmark legal case against Saudi Arabia, claiming that the kingdom is indirectly responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Lloyd’s asserts that Saudi banks and charities acting as surrogates for the royal family gave the terrorist group the sustenance it needed to carry out the 2001 assault. (Lloyd’s is seeking to recover sums it paid to firms and individuals affected by the event.) Reports The Independent:The legal claim states: Absent the sponsorship of al-Qa’ida’s material sponsors and supporters, including the defendants named therein, al-Qa’ida would not have possessed the capacity to conceive, plan and execute the 11 September attacks. The success of al-Qa’ida’s agenda, including the 11 September attacks themselves, has been made possible by the lavish sponsorship al-Qa’ida has received from its material sponsors and supporters over more than a decade leading up to 11 September 2001.Bizarrely, several days ago, Lloyd’s quietly withdrew its suit, declining to explain why. But the move was conducted in such a way to suggest a possible settlement, thereby raising still more questions for investigation.[45]
President Obama with Saudi King Abdullah
Meanwhile, in the United States, a growing chorus of voices—some very establishment voices—are demanding accountability and candor. Graham and Clarke have now been joined by retired CIA officer Bob Baer, by several former FBI agents and by Tom Kean, chairman of presidential 9/11 commission, all of whom express concern that the full story has not been permitted to emerge.
No evidence,But None Sought
The 9/11 Commission report found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials financed Al Qaeda. But this carefully worded statement does not foreclose the possibility that members of the Saudi royal family personally provided financing, or that senior officials funded companies or outsiders that in turn provided financing.Many questions remain to be answered. For example, why did the Ghazzawi clan flee in such a hasty manner, pausing only to empty their safe but leaving food on the kitchen counter and their pool pump running? Was it because they had received some unexpected news, news so urgent and alarming that normal preparations for an orderly departure gave way to what appears to be a panicky exit? If this question seems inconsequential, think about what kind of news, in the days just before 9/11, could have prompted such intemperate flight from the United States by a well-connected clan of Saudis? The possible answers to this question could prove world-changing. The most important Mideast nation so far untouched by the dislocations of the Arab Spring is Saudi Arabia, the single largest supplier of petroleum [46] to the western world. If major players in that country’s ruling family are shown to have had a hand in the 9/11 attacks, it would be the equivalent of a geopolitical tsunami—upsetting powerful elites around the world. Is it any wonder that efforts have been made to prevent a no-holds-barred investigation of this connection? And isn’t it time, ten years later, to end this coverup — in the name of the common good? Former Senator Graham, for one, is increasingly adamant. As he told the St. Petersburg Times: These 19 people did not play out this plot as lone wolves. The chances that 19 people, most of whom had never been in the U.S., who did not speak English, and most of whom did not know each other, could have completed training, practiced and executed such a complicated plot defies common sense.Image Credits: 1 [47], 2 [48], 3 [49], 4 [50], 5 [51], 6 [51], 7 [52], 8 [53], 9 [54], 10 [55]Article printed from WhoWhatWhy: http://whowhatwhy.com URL to article: http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/09/22/saudi-royal-ties-to-911-hijackers-via-florida-saudi-family-0/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/fbi_hijackers.jpg
[2] BrowardBulldog.org: http://www.browardbulldog.org/2011/09/fbi-found-direct-ties-between-911-hijackers-and-saudis-living-in-florida-congress-kept-in-dark/
[3] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/a4s_SAUDIS091011hou_190629c.jpg
[4] penthouse apartment: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-state-of-nova/post/did-arlington-have-a-more-ominous-link-to-9-11/2011/09/12/gIQASuBCNK_blog.html
[5] paid EIRAD $11,733: http://www.fedspending.org/fpds/fpds.php?reptype=r&detail=-1&sortp=f&maj_agency_cat=19&datype=T&reptype=r&database=fpds&database=fpds&parent_id=4668&fiscal_year=2008&record_num=f500
[6] Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years: http://www.amazon.com/Family-Secrets-Americas-Invisible-Government/dp/1608190064/
[7] article: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/07/v-print/2395698/link-to-911-hijackers-found-in.html#ixzz1XVrxBRSy
[8] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/47049269_jarrah_pa_226.jpg
[9] Continue to Page 2 of 3: http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/09/22/saudi-royal-ties-to-911-hijackers-via-florida-saudi-family-0/2/
[10] click here to donate: http://whowhatwhy.com/donate/
[11] statement: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/15/2409359/fbi-no-link-between-sarasota-family.html
[12] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/4224escondito-300x234.jpg
[13] Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_bin_Salman_bin_Abdulaziz_Al_Saud
[14] [1]: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?ver=342-20110630#_ftn1
[15] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/MUSLIMS-IN-NASA.jpg
[16] King Khaled International Airport: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Khaled_International_Airport
[17] Saudi Arabia’s tourism commission: http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=106705&d=12&m=2&y=2008
[18] document: http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4094995.ece
[19] orchestrated: http://www.debbieschlussel.com/24268/sadly-obama-not-1st-to-use-nasa-for-islamo-outreach-reagan-bush-were/
[20] Baker Botts LLP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Botts
[21] Carlyle Group: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlyle_Group
[22] military contracting stocks: http://www.carlyle.com/Industry/Aerospace%20&%20Defense/item8359.html
[23] Ritz-Carlton Hotel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritz-Carlton_Hotel
[24] Osama bin Laden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden
[25] family: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family
[26] letter: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/opinion/l-saudi-flights-after-9-11-507474.html?ref=geraldposner
[27] Wahed El-Wakil,: http://www.answers.com/topic/abdel-wahed-el-wakil#ixzz1XaHiJFru
[28] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/oaks6.jpg
[29] waterboarded 83 times in August: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html
[30] According to the book The Eleventh Day: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/08/9-11-2011-201108#gotopage1
[31] told: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110909/ARTICLE/110909528/-1/sports?p=2&tc=pg
[32] highly controversial: http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/08/26/peculiar-posner/
[33] State of War: http://www.amazon.com/State-War-Secret-History-Administration/dp/0743270665
[34] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/fahd_bin_salman.jpg
[35] Continue to Page 3 of 3: http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/09/22/saudi-royal-ties-to-911-hijackers-via-florida-saudi-family-0/3/
[36] a high-ranking Saudi monetary official: http://www.eltaher.org/docs_photos/1955-Sayf-El-Eslam-Abdallah-and-Rasem-Al-Khalidi-image910_en.html
[37] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/saudiawacs.jpg
[38] Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_International
[39] government oil company: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/abdulaziz-alhijji/12/687/6b3
[40] symposium: http://www.eservices-sa.org/Event/UploadFiles/EBook3.pdf
[41] online: http://bloggerdollar.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Connect-to-Internet-with-Your-BlackBerry-without-Paying-For-Data-Plan
[42] stated his view : http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/11/september-11th-anniversary-richard-clarke-s-explosive-cia-cover-up-charge.html
[43] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/saudi-king-abdullah-with-Bush.jpg
[44] reported: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lloyds-insurer-sues-saudi-arabia-for-funding-911-attacks-2356857.html
[45] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/xin_50206060409301091329815.jpg
[46] single largest supplier of petroleum: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html
[47] 1: http://www.tampabay.com/multimedia/archive/00190/a4s_SAUDIS091011hou_190629c.jpg%20
[48] 2: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47049000/jpg/_47049269_jarrah_pa_226.jpg%20
[49] 3: http://www.browardbulldog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/4224escondito-300x234.jpg%20
[50] 4: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhATzmD0Q3dad-q2GSTKPMeJR5owcJ_8pjkjhze6tzulvFh9-Ho0kage_gPParw1MxOidAV0ezc5Tq28AiEZgLYmrRUhUxwtIILfdZwUwZYDzqu3C6xx1XZ2ZeTSkKMVTveZAjQ/s1600/MUSLIMS+IN+NASA.jpg%20
[51] 5: http://horseracing.about.com/library/graphics/tc01/oaks6.jpg%20
[52] 7: http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/%7Elouis/picture/person/s/fahd_bin_salman.jpg%20
[53] 8: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I3K-Vsq8_c0/TnIbh2USGcI/AAAAAAAAPmg/cGHbicW5H2Q/s400/saudiprince.jpg%20
[54] 9: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1SpwZG-Ga-awo1_5dpKfFViU4X6QZi4VHB1rZ9lBv2Q_Kfsxi_dsMGwJ-Lg-EQ8hJvh6co_XVEXf_OZk07Xeib-gcbKxHieHmg8kBqhpPO0I0nzkQZJzW3Tv15RWzMiSDMDIy/s400/saudi+king+abdullah+with+Bush.jpg%20
[55] 10: http://dc-cdn.virtacore.com/2011/08/xin_50206060409301091329815.jpeg%20
Friday, March 16, 2012
HARPER TALKS HONOR KILLINGS
IF YOU WANT TO WRITE TO ME YOU CAN'T ANYMORE.I JUST CHECKED MY HOTMAIL ACCOUNT stan120032000@hotmail.com IT CAN NOT BE ACCESSED BECAUSE THEY BLOCKED MY E-MAIL AND I'M NOT PUTTING MY PHONE NUMBER IN SO MY HOTMAIL ADDRESS I WILL NOT BE TRYING TO ANSWER ANYMORE AS GOOGLE BLOCKED THE ACCOUNT.THIS IS JUST ONE WAY GOOGLE CIA-AGENTS TRY TO STOP ME FROM GETTING TRUTH OUT.AND THEN I GOT PROOF OF WHEN I TRYED MY ACCOUNT MAR 16,12-1:30PM IN CASE THEY TRY TO SET ME UP THROUGH THAT ACCOUNT TO GET ME IN TROUBLE.OH AND ONE MORE THING I HAVE NOT EVEN LOOKED AT THE HOTMAIL ACCOUNT SINCE AT LEAST JAN 1,12.SO IF THEY TRYED ANYTHING AGAINST ME IN THE LAST 3 MONTHS FROM THAT ACCOUNT I HERE HAVE PROOF OF WHAT I WROTE HERE IF GOOGLE OR ANYBODY ELSES TRYS TO SET ME UP FROM THAT HOTMAIL ACCOUNT.AND I THINK ITS BEEN A YEAR AT LEAST SINCE I SENT AN E-MAIL FROM THAT ACCOUNT TO.SO IF THEY CLAIM I SENT E-MAILS FROM THAT ACCOUNT ITS BEEN SETTING ME UP TO GET ME IN TROUBLE.IN FACT I NEVER WRITE E-MAILS TO ANYONE ANYMORE AT LEAST FOR THE LAST YEAR.AND I WILL NEVER SEND OUT AN E-MAIL AGAIN EVER.EVEN IF I GET A NEW E-MAIL ACCOUNT SOMEWHERE.I JUST PUT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS TO ME OUT IN THE PUBLIC SO PEOPLE CAN KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT AND PROOF OF WHAT WAS DONE TO ME ON THAT DAY FOR A RECORD.IN CASE THESE NEW WORLD ORDER NUTCASES TRY TO SET ME UP OR HAVE ME KILLED.AND ON THE RECORD I WOULD NEVER COMMIT SUICIDE OR TRY TO HARM MYSELF IN ANY POSSIBLE WAY.FOR THE RECORD.
MURDER
GENESIS 4:8-11 (THE FIRST MURDER)
8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
GENESIS 6:11-13 (EARTH DESTROYED BECAUSE OF TERRORISM,MURDERS)
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with 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 through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
EXODUS 20:13
13 Thou shalt not kill.(Murder)(THAT INCLUDES ABORTION)
EXODUS 21:12
12 He that smiteth (MURDER)a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY PEOPLE)
REVELATION 9:20-21
20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils,(OCCULT) and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries,(DRUG ADDICTIONS) nor of their fornication,(SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE) nor of their thefts.(STEALING)
JOHN 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.(ISLAM MURDERS IN THE NAME OF THEIR MOON GOD ALLAH)
GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(ARAB/MUSLIM) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he will be a wild man;(RIOTS-BURNING-MURDEROUUS RAGE) his hand will be against every man,(ISLAM WANTS WORLD DOMINATION) and every man's hand against him;(DEFENDING THEMSELVES) and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.(ARAB/MUSLIMS LIVE WITH ISRAELIS)
In Shafias' home town, Harper talks about honour crimes-The Canadian Press Date: Friday Mar. 16, 2012 12:16 PM ET
http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-10/
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in Montreal to talk about honour killings.He visited a Montreal centre for victims of family violence to denounce crimes against women and girls committed in the name of honour.Montreal is home to the Shafia family. Three members of that family were convicted earlier this year of killing four others in a so-called honour crime.Harper dropped in on the offices of The Shield of Athena Family Services organization to raise awareness of what he called heinous acts.He discussed the issue during a visit to the riding of Outremont, which is held by NDP leadership hopeful Thomas Mulcair.Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120316/harper-honour-crimes-120316/#ixzz1pIXregzL
In Shafias' home town, PM Harper talks about honour crimes Friday, Mar 16, 2012 10:00 am | The Canadian Press
MONTREAL - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in Montreal to talk about honour killings.He visited a Montreal centre for victims of family violence to denounce crimes against women and girls committed in the name of honour.Montreal is home to the Shafia family. Three members of that family were convicted earlier this year of killing four others in a so-called honour crime.Harper dropped in on the offices of The Shield of Athena Family Services organization to raise awareness of what he called heinous acts.He discussed the issue during a visit to the riding of Outremont, which is held by NDP leadership hopeful Thomas Mulcair.Harper announced $348,150 in support of the Shield Of Athena centre for its community-based project, which is receiving funding through Status of Women Canada.
Harper’s promise fulfilled as House passes crime bill gloria galloway AND rhéal séguin OTTAWA AND QUEBEC CITY— Globe and Mail Update Posted on Monday, March 12, 2012 7:30PM EDT
After prematurely celebrating passage of their omnibus crime bill last week, the federal Conservatives have finally managed to push the controversial piece of legislation through Parliament.The final vote in the House of Commons on Monday means Prime Minister Stephen Harper has fulfilled his commitment to get the legislation passed within the first 100 days of this session.The New Democrats had used procedural wrangling to postpone the vote, which was supposed to take place last Wednesday, until Monday evening. But the federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson prevailed when the bill was passed by a vote of 154 to 129. With royal assent or an order in council, it will become law.The delay came as a great disappointment to victims groups who are very supportive of this, Mr. Nicholson told reporters on Monday.These are very reasonable measures, he said.They go after those who sexually exploit children, people in the child pornography business and it goes after drug traffickers. So this will be welcomed, particularly by victims, those involved with law enforcement and, as we know, Canadians are supportive of what we are doing in this area.
The legislation had been returned to the Commons from the Senate with amendments to allow terrorism victims and their families to sue state sponsors of terror. The government did not realize the amendments were necessary until it was too late to makes the changes when the bill was originally before the House.The Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers says the bill does not take into consideration that fact that many of the people who are now filling Canada’s jails are suffering from a mental illness.The Assembly of First Nations says the bill will compound the existing over-representation of aboriginal people behind bars.The Canadian Bar Association has come up with 10 reasons for opposing Bill C-10, including an accusation that that it will increase strains on a justice system already at the breaking point.And the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the government is ignoring 30 years of evidence from the United States showing that locking up more people, for longer, does not reduce crime.Newfoundland, Quebec and Ontario have all spoken out against the bill. And New Brunswick, which supports it, has said it can’t afford to pay the costs.Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier strongly condemned Ottawa’s refusal to cooperate with the province by rejecting proposals to amend Bill C-10. The province had proposed that the Conservative government include the notion of long term protection of the public that embraces the principle that rehabilitation rather than imprisonment of young offenders protects the public.Mr, Fournier said he will abide by this principle in implementing the legislation suggesting that Quebec may not seek the tougher sentences for young offenders as proposed in Bill C-10.The Quebec government estimated that it will cost the province $500-million to implement provisions in the Bill which will require new prisons as well as additional cost for longer sentences. Mr. Fournier has demanded that Ottawa pay for the additional costs.
The Ontario government of Dalton McGuinty said in a statement on Monday that provincial taxpayers cannot be expected to pay the full costs for federal anti-crime initiatives.Bill C-10 will significantly impact our correctional population and operating costs, said the statement.Our analysis has determined that the legislation may cost Ontario taxpayers more than ($1-billion), and may add as many as 1,500 additional inmates to the provincial correctional system, which would require a new 1,000 bed facility to be built. We expect Ottawa to do what’s right and provide additional funding to help Ontario deal with the consequences of Bill C-10.The federal government has responded to such demands by saying it has already increased the transfer to the provinces by billions of dollars.
What changes with the new crime bill-The new omnibus crime law approved by Parliament on Monday will:
- Increase penalties for sexual offences against children and create two new offences related to sexual exploitation of children;
- Increase the penalties for drug crimes including the imposition of a number of mandatory minimum sentences. Possession of six marijuana plants for the purposes of trafficking, for instance, would result in a mandatory six-month term;
- Keep violent and repeat young offenders off the streets while they are awaiting trial, require courts to consider adult sentences for youths convicted of the most serious crimes, and allow the publication of the names of violent young offenders;
- Prevent judges from imposing conditional sentences for crimes involving serious personal injury, crimes which carry a maximum prison term of 14 years or more, and some other specified offences;
- Enshrine a victim's right to participate in parole hearings;
- Extend the ineligibility periods for record suspensions,previously known as pardons, to five years for summary conviction offences and to ten years for indictable offences;
- Give the Minister of Public Safety more leeway when deciding whether an offender convicted in another country will be granted a transfer back to Canada;
- Allow victims of terrorism to sue individuals, organizations and foreign states for loss or damage;
- Authorize immigration officers to refuse work permits to foreign nationals when it is determined that they are at risk of humiliating or degrading treatment.
SINS OF PEOPLE
ISAIAH 5:20-25
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous 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.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
1 TIMOTHY 1:9
9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
ROMANS 3:13-18
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
2 TIMOTHY 4:3-4
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
DECIEVERS WAXING WORSE AND WORSE.
2 TIMOTHY 3:13
13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
MORE SIN SIGNS
EPHESIANS 5:5-8
5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
LEVITICUS 26:16
16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you( sudden) terror,(ISM) consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart:(WARS AND DEATH) and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.(CHINA CONTROLS AMERICAS ECONOMY BY BUYING UP DEBT)
Robocalls is too big an operation for just one Poutine loving man by Gustavo Vieira on Thursday, March 15, 2012 12:44pm
It seems another chapter is about to unfold in the ongoing Robocall saga. On Thursday, it was the National Post’s Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher’s turn, as they speculated that the calls may have been set up by a larger group of people. Their report says they have spoken to a source close to the robocalls probe who said Sona learned of his involvement from Sun TV, and confirmed that Sona could not have acted alone to set up the complicated scam, currently under the authorship of a mysterious Pierre Poutine.The report comes the day after the Globe and Mail’s Steven Chase and Daniel Leblanc reported that Elections Canada is now combing through emails and database records of the Conservative Party. Earlier this week on Tuesday, the 23-year-old former Conservative party staffer, Michael Sona, finally poked his head above the water in a brief statement to CTV where he said to have had no involvement in the fraudulent calls. Sona had been keeping a low profile since resigning from his job amid accusations that he had orchestrated a scam to divert voters from polling stations during the 2011 election in the riding of Guelph, while working as campaign staff for Conservative candidate Marty Burke.
Elections Canada sifts through Tory database to identify Pierre Poutine steven chase AND daniel leblanc OTTAWA— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Last updated Friday, Mar. 16, 2012 7:12AM EDT
Elections Canada is combing through internal Conservative Party e-mails and database records as it tries to close in on Guelph robo-call scammer Pierre Poutine, sources said.The election watchdog has gained access to the electronic logs that track who drew down information from the party’s database of voters in the riding of Guelph during the 2011 campaign.
Rae demands Royal Commission into robo-calls
Elections Canada is looking for evidence that the tightly held list was used by one or more political operatives as fodder for robo-calls that directed non-Tory supporters in the Ontario riding to the wrong polling station in the 2011 ballot.
Agency investigators are operating on the assumption that the hunt for the fake-call culprit who hid behind the alias Pierre Poutine will lead to the local Tory campaign in Guelph.The Conservatives keep track of supporters and other voters through a massive database called the constituency information management system (CIMS), which was created and expanded under Stephen Harper’s leadership of the party.Access to CIMS is controlled through personal accounts with passwords. One person familiar with the local Guelph campaign estimated that perhaps 10 to 15 people working there had personal CIMS accounts.Everything is logged, a Conservative source said.
Someone familiar with the investigation said that CIMS records indicate Michael Sona, then-communications director to candidate Marty Burke, never used his CIMS account to draw down lists of voters during the campaign.Mr. Sona resigned from his job with Tory MP Eve Adams’s office near the outset of the robo-call controversy. Anonymous Conservative sources have repeatedly alleged – without proof – that he played a role in the fake calls that were routed through RackNine, an Alberta firm that is not suspected of wrongdoing.Mr. Sona has publicly protested his innocence, saying he left Ms. Adams’s office only because the allegations swirling in the media prevented him from doing his job.Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey said the party has willingly turned over confidential records to Elections Canada to help its probe in Guelph. The party has not been served with a court order requiring it to do so.We have proactively reached out to Elections Canada and offered to assist them in any way we can, Mr. DeLorey said.That includes handing over any documents or records that may assist them.He would not divulge what the party handed over as we do not want to compromise any part of the investigation.Separately on Tuesday, friends of Mr. Sona’s said the former Conservative staffer is eager to prove he isn’t Pierre Poutine by submitting to a test. RackNine CEO Matt Meier spoke to the unknown man who set up the Pierre Poutine account at his calling firm and Mr. Sona has told friends he would like to participate in a voice lineup that challenges Mr. Meier to identify the caller.Mr. Sona has told former co-workers he learned from the Sun News Network that he was being fingered by Conservative sources in connection with the phony calls. Friends say the ex-aide was sitting in his office in late February when Sun News broke a story that Tories had tied him to a robo-calling scandal.The Sun News Network was the first media outlet to link Mr. Sona to the controversy.
The former aide has told friends he was stunned that nobody from the Conservative Party had ever mentioned a word of this to him before.He told them he offered his resignation to Ms. Adams and she initially refused it – but later accepted it after receiving a call from Jenni Byrne, now director of political operations at the Conservative Party. She served as national campaign manager for the Tories in 2011.
Elections Canada has alleged a political operative using the name Pierre Poutine engineered an off-the-books scheme via robo-calls and a disposable cellphone to discourage opposition voters from casting ballots in Guelph.Mr. Sona has repeatedly told co-workers that there’s no way he had the technical skills to engineer the robo-calls, telling them he fared poorly in math at school and that his computer knowledge is limited to one computer science course.Other sources familiar with the Conservative Guelph campaign said key officials knew in the days before the 2011 election that the Tories would lose the riding since the results from advance polls put them too far behind to catch up with the Liberals.Also on Tuesday, the Liberal Party boasted that it had sent data on its robo-calls in the 2011 election to Elections Canada. It said this included the scripts and recordings of automated phone messages.Elections Canada is fielding complaints from dozens of other ridings in which voters complain that live or automated calls sent them to the wrong polling station.The NDP and the Liberals have compiled examples of about 30 ridings where the script of the calls was basically the same: A call purporting to be from Elections Canada falsely informed the listener that their polling station was changed due to high voter turnout.This pattern hints at a bigger scheme, opposition parties charge.
Liberals are committed to co-operating with this investigation, Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae said. We are setting the standard for openness and transparency, and we expect that all other political parties will follow suit.Speaking to reporters later, Mr. Rae acknowledged the bounty of materials provided to Elections Canada did not include information on a Liberal robo-call in Guelph that attacked Conservative candidate Marty Burke for his stand on abortion.That was a local call that doesn’t have much to do with the national campaign, Mr. Rae said.The Liberals late last week admitted they had funded an anti-Burke robo-call during the Guelph race – a message that didn’t include the acknowledgment it was authorized by them.Liberal spokesman Dan Lauzon said that Guelph Liberal MP Frank Valeriote and his staff have already proven forthcoming and co-operative with Elections Canada over their robo-call.
MURDER
GENESIS 4:8-11 (THE FIRST MURDER)
8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
GENESIS 6:11-13 (EARTH DESTROYED BECAUSE OF TERRORISM,MURDERS)
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with 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 through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
EXODUS 20:13
13 Thou shalt not kill.(Murder)(THAT INCLUDES ABORTION)
EXODUS 21:12
12 He that smiteth (MURDER)a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY PEOPLE)
REVELATION 9:20-21
20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils,(OCCULT) and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries,(DRUG ADDICTIONS) nor of their fornication,(SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE) nor of their thefts.(STEALING)
JOHN 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.(ISLAM MURDERS IN THE NAME OF THEIR MOON GOD ALLAH)
GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(ARAB/MUSLIM) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he will be a wild man;(RIOTS-BURNING-MURDEROUUS RAGE) his hand will be against every man,(ISLAM WANTS WORLD DOMINATION) and every man's hand against him;(DEFENDING THEMSELVES) and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.(ARAB/MUSLIMS LIVE WITH ISRAELIS)
In Shafias' home town, Harper talks about honour crimes-The Canadian Press Date: Friday Mar. 16, 2012 12:16 PM ET
http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-10/
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in Montreal to talk about honour killings.He visited a Montreal centre for victims of family violence to denounce crimes against women and girls committed in the name of honour.Montreal is home to the Shafia family. Three members of that family were convicted earlier this year of killing four others in a so-called honour crime.Harper dropped in on the offices of The Shield of Athena Family Services organization to raise awareness of what he called heinous acts.He discussed the issue during a visit to the riding of Outremont, which is held by NDP leadership hopeful Thomas Mulcair.Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120316/harper-honour-crimes-120316/#ixzz1pIXregzL
In Shafias' home town, PM Harper talks about honour crimes Friday, Mar 16, 2012 10:00 am | The Canadian Press
MONTREAL - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in Montreal to talk about honour killings.He visited a Montreal centre for victims of family violence to denounce crimes against women and girls committed in the name of honour.Montreal is home to the Shafia family. Three members of that family were convicted earlier this year of killing four others in a so-called honour crime.Harper dropped in on the offices of The Shield of Athena Family Services organization to raise awareness of what he called heinous acts.He discussed the issue during a visit to the riding of Outremont, which is held by NDP leadership hopeful Thomas Mulcair.Harper announced $348,150 in support of the Shield Of Athena centre for its community-based project, which is receiving funding through Status of Women Canada.
Harper’s promise fulfilled as House passes crime bill gloria galloway AND rhéal séguin OTTAWA AND QUEBEC CITY— Globe and Mail Update Posted on Monday, March 12, 2012 7:30PM EDT
After prematurely celebrating passage of their omnibus crime bill last week, the federal Conservatives have finally managed to push the controversial piece of legislation through Parliament.The final vote in the House of Commons on Monday means Prime Minister Stephen Harper has fulfilled his commitment to get the legislation passed within the first 100 days of this session.The New Democrats had used procedural wrangling to postpone the vote, which was supposed to take place last Wednesday, until Monday evening. But the federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson prevailed when the bill was passed by a vote of 154 to 129. With royal assent or an order in council, it will become law.The delay came as a great disappointment to victims groups who are very supportive of this, Mr. Nicholson told reporters on Monday.These are very reasonable measures, he said.They go after those who sexually exploit children, people in the child pornography business and it goes after drug traffickers. So this will be welcomed, particularly by victims, those involved with law enforcement and, as we know, Canadians are supportive of what we are doing in this area.
The legislation had been returned to the Commons from the Senate with amendments to allow terrorism victims and their families to sue state sponsors of terror. The government did not realize the amendments were necessary until it was too late to makes the changes when the bill was originally before the House.The Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers says the bill does not take into consideration that fact that many of the people who are now filling Canada’s jails are suffering from a mental illness.The Assembly of First Nations says the bill will compound the existing over-representation of aboriginal people behind bars.The Canadian Bar Association has come up with 10 reasons for opposing Bill C-10, including an accusation that that it will increase strains on a justice system already at the breaking point.And the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the government is ignoring 30 years of evidence from the United States showing that locking up more people, for longer, does not reduce crime.Newfoundland, Quebec and Ontario have all spoken out against the bill. And New Brunswick, which supports it, has said it can’t afford to pay the costs.Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier strongly condemned Ottawa’s refusal to cooperate with the province by rejecting proposals to amend Bill C-10. The province had proposed that the Conservative government include the notion of long term protection of the public that embraces the principle that rehabilitation rather than imprisonment of young offenders protects the public.Mr, Fournier said he will abide by this principle in implementing the legislation suggesting that Quebec may not seek the tougher sentences for young offenders as proposed in Bill C-10.The Quebec government estimated that it will cost the province $500-million to implement provisions in the Bill which will require new prisons as well as additional cost for longer sentences. Mr. Fournier has demanded that Ottawa pay for the additional costs.
The Ontario government of Dalton McGuinty said in a statement on Monday that provincial taxpayers cannot be expected to pay the full costs for federal anti-crime initiatives.Bill C-10 will significantly impact our correctional population and operating costs, said the statement.Our analysis has determined that the legislation may cost Ontario taxpayers more than ($1-billion), and may add as many as 1,500 additional inmates to the provincial correctional system, which would require a new 1,000 bed facility to be built. We expect Ottawa to do what’s right and provide additional funding to help Ontario deal with the consequences of Bill C-10.The federal government has responded to such demands by saying it has already increased the transfer to the provinces by billions of dollars.
What changes with the new crime bill-The new omnibus crime law approved by Parliament on Monday will:
- Increase penalties for sexual offences against children and create two new offences related to sexual exploitation of children;
- Increase the penalties for drug crimes including the imposition of a number of mandatory minimum sentences. Possession of six marijuana plants for the purposes of trafficking, for instance, would result in a mandatory six-month term;
- Keep violent and repeat young offenders off the streets while they are awaiting trial, require courts to consider adult sentences for youths convicted of the most serious crimes, and allow the publication of the names of violent young offenders;
- Prevent judges from imposing conditional sentences for crimes involving serious personal injury, crimes which carry a maximum prison term of 14 years or more, and some other specified offences;
- Enshrine a victim's right to participate in parole hearings;
- Extend the ineligibility periods for record suspensions,previously known as pardons, to five years for summary conviction offences and to ten years for indictable offences;
- Give the Minister of Public Safety more leeway when deciding whether an offender convicted in another country will be granted a transfer back to Canada;
- Allow victims of terrorism to sue individuals, organizations and foreign states for loss or damage;
- Authorize immigration officers to refuse work permits to foreign nationals when it is determined that they are at risk of humiliating or degrading treatment.
SINS OF PEOPLE
ISAIAH 5:20-25
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous 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.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
1 TIMOTHY 1:9
9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
ROMANS 3:13-18
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
2 TIMOTHY 4:3-4
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
DECIEVERS WAXING WORSE AND WORSE.
2 TIMOTHY 3:13
13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
MORE SIN SIGNS
EPHESIANS 5:5-8
5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
LEVITICUS 26:16
16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you( sudden) terror,(ISM) consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart:(WARS AND DEATH) and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.(CHINA CONTROLS AMERICAS ECONOMY BY BUYING UP DEBT)
Robocalls is too big an operation for just one Poutine loving man by Gustavo Vieira on Thursday, March 15, 2012 12:44pm
It seems another chapter is about to unfold in the ongoing Robocall saga. On Thursday, it was the National Post’s Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher’s turn, as they speculated that the calls may have been set up by a larger group of people. Their report says they have spoken to a source close to the robocalls probe who said Sona learned of his involvement from Sun TV, and confirmed that Sona could not have acted alone to set up the complicated scam, currently under the authorship of a mysterious Pierre Poutine.The report comes the day after the Globe and Mail’s Steven Chase and Daniel Leblanc reported that Elections Canada is now combing through emails and database records of the Conservative Party. Earlier this week on Tuesday, the 23-year-old former Conservative party staffer, Michael Sona, finally poked his head above the water in a brief statement to CTV where he said to have had no involvement in the fraudulent calls. Sona had been keeping a low profile since resigning from his job amid accusations that he had orchestrated a scam to divert voters from polling stations during the 2011 election in the riding of Guelph, while working as campaign staff for Conservative candidate Marty Burke.
Elections Canada sifts through Tory database to identify Pierre Poutine steven chase AND daniel leblanc OTTAWA— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Last updated Friday, Mar. 16, 2012 7:12AM EDT
Elections Canada is combing through internal Conservative Party e-mails and database records as it tries to close in on Guelph robo-call scammer Pierre Poutine, sources said.The election watchdog has gained access to the electronic logs that track who drew down information from the party’s database of voters in the riding of Guelph during the 2011 campaign.
Rae demands Royal Commission into robo-calls
Elections Canada is looking for evidence that the tightly held list was used by one or more political operatives as fodder for robo-calls that directed non-Tory supporters in the Ontario riding to the wrong polling station in the 2011 ballot.
Agency investigators are operating on the assumption that the hunt for the fake-call culprit who hid behind the alias Pierre Poutine will lead to the local Tory campaign in Guelph.The Conservatives keep track of supporters and other voters through a massive database called the constituency information management system (CIMS), which was created and expanded under Stephen Harper’s leadership of the party.Access to CIMS is controlled through personal accounts with passwords. One person familiar with the local Guelph campaign estimated that perhaps 10 to 15 people working there had personal CIMS accounts.Everything is logged, a Conservative source said.
Someone familiar with the investigation said that CIMS records indicate Michael Sona, then-communications director to candidate Marty Burke, never used his CIMS account to draw down lists of voters during the campaign.Mr. Sona resigned from his job with Tory MP Eve Adams’s office near the outset of the robo-call controversy. Anonymous Conservative sources have repeatedly alleged – without proof – that he played a role in the fake calls that were routed through RackNine, an Alberta firm that is not suspected of wrongdoing.Mr. Sona has publicly protested his innocence, saying he left Ms. Adams’s office only because the allegations swirling in the media prevented him from doing his job.Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey said the party has willingly turned over confidential records to Elections Canada to help its probe in Guelph. The party has not been served with a court order requiring it to do so.We have proactively reached out to Elections Canada and offered to assist them in any way we can, Mr. DeLorey said.That includes handing over any documents or records that may assist them.He would not divulge what the party handed over as we do not want to compromise any part of the investigation.Separately on Tuesday, friends of Mr. Sona’s said the former Conservative staffer is eager to prove he isn’t Pierre Poutine by submitting to a test. RackNine CEO Matt Meier spoke to the unknown man who set up the Pierre Poutine account at his calling firm and Mr. Sona has told friends he would like to participate in a voice lineup that challenges Mr. Meier to identify the caller.Mr. Sona has told former co-workers he learned from the Sun News Network that he was being fingered by Conservative sources in connection with the phony calls. Friends say the ex-aide was sitting in his office in late February when Sun News broke a story that Tories had tied him to a robo-calling scandal.The Sun News Network was the first media outlet to link Mr. Sona to the controversy.
The former aide has told friends he was stunned that nobody from the Conservative Party had ever mentioned a word of this to him before.He told them he offered his resignation to Ms. Adams and she initially refused it – but later accepted it after receiving a call from Jenni Byrne, now director of political operations at the Conservative Party. She served as national campaign manager for the Tories in 2011.
Elections Canada has alleged a political operative using the name Pierre Poutine engineered an off-the-books scheme via robo-calls and a disposable cellphone to discourage opposition voters from casting ballots in Guelph.Mr. Sona has repeatedly told co-workers that there’s no way he had the technical skills to engineer the robo-calls, telling them he fared poorly in math at school and that his computer knowledge is limited to one computer science course.Other sources familiar with the Conservative Guelph campaign said key officials knew in the days before the 2011 election that the Tories would lose the riding since the results from advance polls put them too far behind to catch up with the Liberals.Also on Tuesday, the Liberal Party boasted that it had sent data on its robo-calls in the 2011 election to Elections Canada. It said this included the scripts and recordings of automated phone messages.Elections Canada is fielding complaints from dozens of other ridings in which voters complain that live or automated calls sent them to the wrong polling station.The NDP and the Liberals have compiled examples of about 30 ridings where the script of the calls was basically the same: A call purporting to be from Elections Canada falsely informed the listener that their polling station was changed due to high voter turnout.This pattern hints at a bigger scheme, opposition parties charge.
Liberals are committed to co-operating with this investigation, Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae said. We are setting the standard for openness and transparency, and we expect that all other political parties will follow suit.Speaking to reporters later, Mr. Rae acknowledged the bounty of materials provided to Elections Canada did not include information on a Liberal robo-call in Guelph that attacked Conservative candidate Marty Burke for his stand on abortion.That was a local call that doesn’t have much to do with the national campaign, Mr. Rae said.The Liberals late last week admitted they had funded an anti-Burke robo-call during the Guelph race – a message that didn’t include the acknowledgment it was authorized by them.Liberal spokesman Dan Lauzon said that Guelph Liberal MP Frank Valeriote and his staff have already proven forthcoming and co-operative with Elections Canada over their robo-call.
IRAN CUT OFF FROM GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM
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 FRI MARCH 16,2012
09:30 AM +2.43
10:00 AM -1.33
10:30 AM -6.40
11:00 AM +12.11
11:30 AM +2.65
12:00 PM +2.34
12:30 PM +4.54
01:00 PM +0.94
01:30 PM +0.49
02:00 PM +3.21
02:30 PM +2.87
03:00 PM +0.72
03:30 PM -10.75
04:00 PM -20.14 13,232.62
S&P 500 1404.17 +1.57
NASDAQ 3055.26 -1.11
GOLD 1,658.50 -1.00
OIL 107.19 +2.08
TSE 300 12,496.96 +41.14
CDNX 1606.17 +4.65
S&P/TSX/60 710.74 +3.08
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +27 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -6 points at low today.
Dow +31 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,652.20.OIL opens at $105.55 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -20 points at low today so far.
Dow +31 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -20 points at low today.
Dow +31 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,902.60 (NOT AT CLOSE)
Iran cut off from global financial system Associated PressBy DON MELVIN and JONATHAN FAHEY | Associated Press – MAR 16,12
BRUSSELS (AP) — Dozens of Iranian banks were blocked from doing business with much of the world as the West tightens the financial screws on a country it wants to prevent from developing nuclear weapons.The Belgium-based company that facilitates most international bank transfers on Thursday took the unprecedented step of blocking 30 Iranian banks from using its service. The move is likely to hurt Iran's all-important oil industry and make it difficult for citizens to receive money from relatives living abroad.The move by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, is part of a broader effort by Western nations to isolate Iran financially and force it to demonstrate that it is not trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but officials in many other countries believe otherwise.SWIFT said it was forced by recent European Union sanctions to discontinue service to the Iranian banks beginning Saturday. SWIFT is a secure private network used by nearly every bank around the world to send payment messages that lead to the transfer of money across international borders.The chief executive of SWIFT, Lazaro Campos, described the move as extraordinary and unprecedented.It is a direct result of international and multilateral action to intensify financial sanctions against Iran,he said.
There was no immediate reaction from the Iranian government or the banks involved. Not all Iranian banks are subject to EU sanctions, and oil experts say there will be ways for Iran to sell oil without using SWIFT.Still, blocking Iranian banks' access to SWIFT is tightening the noose on Iran, said Ali Ansari, an expert on the Middle East at the London-based Chatham House think tank.Sanctions long in place have failed to convince Iran to return to nuclear talks; the EU, which imports about 14 percent of Iran's oil, plans to institute an embargo on Iranian oil in July.The regime has been able to withstand these sanctions in part because high global oil prices have provided Iran, the world's third largest exporter, with record oil revenues. Iran exports 3.5 million barrels of oil per day, about 4 percent of the oil consumed in the world. Last year, Iran generated $100 billion in revenue from oil, up from $20 billion a decade ago, according to IHS CERA, a consulting firm.
Iran is expected to continue to sell to India, China and other major oil customers that are not participating in the EU embargo.But by forcing SWIFT to expel Iran, Western nations are trying to make it more difficult for Iran to sell oil even to willing customers. A single oil tanker can hold $100 million worth of oil, making electronic bank transfers crucial.Analysts expect Iran to try to skirt the sanctions in a few ways. It may exchange oil for cash, gold or other commodities directly. It may try to mingle its oil with oil from other countries in international terminals and pipelines to mask its origins. It could get help from the central banks of countries friendly to Iran.Throughout the history of the oil trade, someone always gets around trade embargoes one way or another, said Jim Ritterbusch, a veteran oil trader and analyst.Also, Iranian banks that have not been sanctioned by the EU could sell oil.Analysts say by reducing the number of customers for Iranian oil and making it more difficult to pay, Iran will be forced to accept a lower price for its oil and likely be unable to sell all that it hopes to.Judith Dwarkin, chief energy economist at ITG Investment research, said Spain and Japan are already reducing Iranian imports and Europe's large oil companies have also cut back ahead of the July deadline. Iranian oil shipments have already slipped in recent months. In February they fell to a 10-year low, according to the International Energy Agency.
Saudi Arabia has said it would increase production to make up for any shortfall resulting from the sanctions. Still, analysts say that will likely drive up prices because it will reduce the amount of wiggle room — called spare capacity in the industry — that the world's oil producers have to make up for shortfalls elsewhere.
Oil markets were largely unaffected by Thursday's announcement; traders had already pushed prices higher in recent weeks in anticipation that Iranian supply would be disrupted. Analysts say these worries have made oil $10 to $20 per barrel more expensive than they otherwise would be. In New York. Oil settled at $105.11 per barrel Thursday.Washington and allies Britain, France and Germany have taken a tough approach toward Iran over the nuclear issue but have run into resistance from Russia and China. The six nations have agreed to meet with Iran to negotiate a solution, but East-West disagreements within the group are greater than ever. Talks between the seven nations ended in failure more than a year ago in Istanbul, Turkey.SWIFT facilitates not only large bank-to-bank transfers, but small ones as well, which could lead to unintended consequences. Many Iranians, including opponents of the current regime, live abroad and send small amounts of money to their families in Iran back home on a regular basis.Mark Wallace, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who heads a group called United Against Nuclear Iran, wants all Iranian banks to be included in the sanctions.We should not be allowing any Iranian banks access to the international markets, he said. Still, he said, the sanctions are already having real bite, by crimping oil exports, leading the devaluation of Iranian currency, and making it harder for companies and Iranian elites to move money.The Iranian banking system is embattled,he said.Jonathan Fahey reported from New York. Chris Kahn contributed to this story from New York. Follow Don Melvin on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Don_Melvin and Jonathan Fahey at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey .
MUSLIM NATIONS
GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(FATHER OF THE ARAB/MUSLIMS) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man,(ISLAM HATES EVERYONE) and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.(LITERAL-THE ARABS LIVE WITH THEIR BRETHERN JEWS)
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.
IDF Foils Infiltration Attempt from Egypt-IDF troops fire at suspects who entered Israel through the border with Egypt. One person dead, three wounded.By Elad Benari First Publish: 3/15/2012, 11:14 PM
IDF forces were able to thwart an infiltration from Egypt on Thursday evening.The IDF Spokesman said in a statement that the troops, who were engaged in routine activity along the Israel-Egypt border, noticed a number of suspects who had infiltrated the border.The troops called on the suspects to stop and when they did not heed the calls, the soldiers opened fire. At the same time fire was opened from Egyptian territory. Three suspects were wounded by the fire.According to the statement, the three wounded infiltrators were captured after a short chase, and a fourth suspect was found dead. The wounded were air lifted for medical treatment in a hospital. No Israelis were wounded.In February, terrorists took advantage of the infiltrations from Egypt to place a powerful explosive device along the Israel-Egypt border. In light of the increasing attempts to infiltrate into the State of Israel, the IDF will increase its activities in the western border,said the Spokesperson’s statement.The phenomenon of illegal smuggling and infiltration into the State of Israel along the western border is exploited by terrorist organizations to carry out attacks against Israeli citizens and IDF forces,the statement added.The IDF will continue to act against anyone posing a threat to the security of the State of Israel and its people.
Legal Forum to Steinitz: Declare Gaza Enemy Territory-Legal Forum for the Land of Israel asks Knesset's Finance Committee to discuss Finance Minister's refusal to declare Gaza enemy territory.By Elad Benari First Publish: 3/16/2012, 4:15 AM
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel has approached the chairman of the Knesset’s Finance Committee, MK Carmel Shama-Hacohen (Likud), asking that he summon Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz to discuss his refusal to add Gaza to the list of enemy countries with which trade is forbidden.According to the Forum, Steinitz has refused to add Gaza to the list, saying that such a move could have political, economic and security consequences and that Israel would be accused of violating the interim agreements it signed with the Palestinian Authority.The Forum also said that Steinitz said that a decision to declare Gaza an enemy territory may adversely affect Israel's foreign relations.The Legal Forum’s representative, attorney Avi Har Zahav, said that Steinitz’s claims are ironic, considering the escalation this week, in which terrorists fired more than 200 rockets at southern Israel.There is a flagrant violation of the agreements on the part of the Palestinians, so why does Israel not take a stand so long as the agreements are not respected by the other side? Har Zahav said.Har Zahav said that the Legal Forum demands that the Finance Committee discuss the issue and examine the transfer of funds to Gaza, which fund acts of terror against Israeli citizens.
Such a step would signal to Hamas and to the world of the seriousness of Israel's intentions that Gaza is indeed hostile enemy territory and that action should be taken against it, he said.Despite the rocket barrage this week, Israel kept open the Erez Crossing for passengers and employees of international organizations operating in Gaza. Kerem Shalom was open for the delivery of 200 truckloads to Gaza residents.
Israel often helps the residents of the coastal enclave. This assistance includes medical care, and more than once Israeli doctors have been able to save the lives of Gazan children.Israel allows various goods to enter Gaza and also allows for the exporting of agricultural products, such as strawberries and carnations, from Gaza to Europe, as part of an extensive project financed by the Dutch government.
Earlier this week it was Steinitz himself who, along with other ministers, called for Israeli action in Gaza.The situation in Gaza has become intolerable,Steinitz said on Sunday. He called to target terror leaders, saying, The more that attacks from Gaza threaten central Israel, the more Israel needs to threaten Hamas’ leadership of Gaza.Israel cannot accept a Hamas government in Gaza in the long term, Steinitz warned.
Iron Dome Intercepts Rocket Aimed at Ashdod-No one was hurt. The rocket was the third Gaza terrorists fired at Israel today.By Gil Ronen First Publish: 3/15/2012, 9:23 PM
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153807#.T2K_a3m3hko
The Iron Dome anti-missile system successfully intercepted a rocket fired by Gaza terrorists at Ashdod Thursday evening.No one was hurt and no damage was caused. Sirens went off at Ashdod, Ashkelon, Tavneh and northern the Lachish area.The rocket was the third fired by Gaza terrorists Thursday. A Grad rocket was fired at Be'er Sheva in the morning hours. It was successfully intercepted by Iron Dome, and it caused no injury or damage.Earlier, another rocket fell in an open space in the Sdot Negev region. No one was hurt and no damage was caused.
Nasrallah Praises Gaza Terrorists for Rocket Attacks-Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah congratulates Gaza terrorist organizations for causing a half million Israelis to spend days in shelters.By Elad Benari First Publish: 3/16/2012, 3:12 AM
The leader of the Hizbullah terror group, Hassan Nasrallah, congratulated the terrorist organizations in Gaza on Thursday for causing half a million Israelis to spend days in shelters, as Gaza terrorists fired more than 200 rockets over a period of four days.In a recorded speech which was broadcast in Beirut and reported on Army Radio, Nasrallah said, This is a great formula and praised the people of Gaza for standing firm in the face of the Israeli airstrikes.Nasrallah also blamed Israel for the recent escalation in the south, saying, The forces of the occupation began the fighting with the air strike that killed the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees, Zuhir Qaisi.He added that the events in Gaza reminded us of the hypocrisy and double standards of the West,and criticized some of the Arab media which he claimed cast the blame on the Arabs for the last round of escalation.
Nasrallah also commented on the events in Syria, on the day in which the popular uprising in the country entered its second year, and called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.He added that those who rely on the fall of the regime, desertion or interference of foreign armies, are doomed to fail.He condemned the bloodshed in Syria and the harm caused to civilian lives.Our interest as Lebanese people is that the conflict in Syria be resolved,said Nasrallah.We fear a split, civil war or chaos in Syria.
Syrian forces press offensive in Idlib, 45 killed
ReutersBy Crispian Balmer | Reuters – MAR 16,12
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces pressed their military offensive in the northern province of Idlib, driving 1,000 refugees across the Turkish border as the bloody revolt against President Bashar al-Assad entered a second year with no sign of political solution.Forty-five civilians were killed in the frontier province, including 23 whose bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs, as well as five army deserters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.The bloodshed and continued flow of refugees prompted Turkey to suggest it might support a buffer zone inside Syria, a move likely to enrage Damascus.In an orchestrated show of support for Assad, huge crowds took to the streets of Syria's cities on Thursday, the first anniversary of unrest which started as largely peaceful protests against four decades of iron rule by the Assad dynasty.
Opposition activists said pro-Assad forces shot at crowds in various locations when they tried to protest against the 46-year-old leader, but residents reported that demonstrators did gather in the smart Shaalan district of Damascus to voice their anger.The U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan was due to brief the United Nations Security Council on Friday about his talks in Damascus and proposals to end the violence.The door of dialogue is still open. We are still engaged with Syrian authorities over Mr. Annan's proposals," Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in Geneva. He's been in telephone contact with the Syrian foreign minister during the course of the day ... as well as with international actors, member states with influence.Western diplomats expressed pessimism in private over Annan's chances of success.Syria said on Wednesday it had given a positive response to Annan's approach. A Middle Eastern diplomat characterized the reply from Damascus as not a No. But a senior Western diplomat in the region said Damascus had spurned Annan's ideas.
AID MISSION
Official media announced government forces had cleared armed terrorists from the city of Idlib, suggesting the army was gaining ground against the uprising, which has killed at least 8,000 people and crippled the economy.The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three soldiers were killed in Homs, further south.
The SOHR gets its information from a network of Syrian residents. Reports from Syria cannot be independently verified as authorities have barred rights groups and journalists and stalled on granting access for international aid groups.The U.N. aid chief Valerie Amos said Syria had agreed to a joint mission to assess the humanitarian needs of various cities and towns this weekend, but she indicated this was not enough.I repeat my calls to the government of Syria to allow humanitarian organizations unhindered access, so they can help people in need, in a neutral and impartial manner, she said.Turkey said 1,000 Syrians had crossed its borders in the last 24 hours, fleeing fighting in Idlib, raising the total of registered Syrian refugees in Turkey to 14,000. Among those who escaped was a Syrian general, the seventh to cross into Turkey.Deputy Turkish Prime Minister Besir Atalay told NTV television that Turkey, which hosts Syrian opposition activists, was working closely with the Arab League to tackle the problem.Of course Turkey has a lot of experience on this matter, about what can be done including the buffer zone which you mentioned. The subject you mentioned is among the possible things we will probably work on in the coming period, he said.Turkey set up a buffer zone along the border with Iraq during the Gulf War in the early 1990s, when tens of thousands of refugees headed towards Turkish territory.The United Nations says about 230,000 Syrians have been displaced from their homes, including 30,000 who have fled abroad, raising the prospect of a regional refugee crisis.
The government has blamed foreign powers and terrorist gangs for the chaos and say 2,000 soldiers have died in the uprising.Diplomats say the fighting is developing along sectarian lines, with the Sunni Muslim majority, who make up 75 percent of the population of 23 million, at odds with Assad's Alawite sect, which represents 10 percent but controls the levers of power.Despite growing international isolation and biting sanctions, Assad can still draw on significant support from within Syria and few expect a swift end to the violence. Deep divisions in opposition ranks have also helped his cause.Besides Damascus, pro-Assad rallies were staged in numerous cities, including Deraa, which was the epicenter of the original protest movement last year, but has been filled with security forces backed by tanks for the past 24 hours.
(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Merkel and Sarkozy: The end of the affair?
15.03.12 @ 09:50 By Honor Mahony
BRUSSELS - She needed him to soften the impression that Germany alone is leading Europe. He needed her to give the impression France is still, despite its economic difficulties, a political player.For months, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy were the eurzone's inseparable political duo. He was effusive and talked in a grand way about the historical importance of Franco-German relations. She, more pragmatic, concentrated on the here-and-now.From a frosty beginning their relationship evolved towards mutual respect. They met, bickered, compromised and then decided on eurozone policy.With France struggling to contain its budget deficit and French banks heavily exposed to Greece, Sarkozy embraced Merkel's economic view of the world - austerity measures until a balanced budget is achieved.He brought his admiration for the German model into his electoral campaign. She said she would support Sarkozy in his re-election bid no matter what he does and her Christian Democratic Party was equally warm. Plans were even afoot for the Chancellor to appear alongside the President in pre-election rallies.But with just weeks to go until the first round of the elections on 22 April, Merkozy - as their moniker goes - is no longer the talk of the eurozone.
Both sides have cooled. Sarkozy, after being mocked by opponents for being Germany's lapdog, no longer mentions Merkel or Germany in his campaign. His own party told him that it would do him no good to be seen alongside the German leader, who is associated with painful spending cuts in France.On Berlin's side, it is becoming clear that Merkel risked causing long-term damage to relations with Paris by refusing to meet with Sarkozy's main challenger, the socialist Francois Hollande - who, until very recently, had a firm lead in the polls.On Tuesday, Sarkozy publicly cemented the break, telling Europe 1 radio that at one moment or another he and Merkel would appear together to discuss Europe. But it would not be at a rally because an election campaign is the business of the French.His statement followed a major speech on Sunday which would not be viewed well in Germany, even allowing for normal pre-election hyperboles.Sarkozy threatened to pull his country out of the EU's passport-free Schengen zone unless more is done to stop irregular immigration and took a swipe at free trade, suggesting there should be a Buy European law.As his campaign takes on a more populist and right-wing tone, German newspapers have begun to ask if the Chancellor still wants to be seen as his running mate.Do you really want this guy, Frau Merkel? a headline by the Die Zeit newspaper said last week.
Meanwhile, for Sarkozy, the anti-immigrant stance seems to be paying better dividends than the Merkozy hook-up. Following Sunday's speech he pulled ahead of Hollande in polls for the first time since electioneering began in earnest.
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.
THE FIRST JUDGEMENT OF THE EARTH STARTED WITH WATER-IT ONLY MAKES SENSE THE LAST GENERATION WILL BE HAVING FLOODING
GENESIS 7:6-12
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
GOD PROMISED BY A RAINBOW-THE EARTH WOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED TOTALLY WITH A FLOOD AGAIN.BUT FLOODIING IS A SIGN OF JUDGEMENT.
Police: Lots of damage in Michigan town after suspected tornado ReutersReuters – MAR 16,12
(Reuters) - A suspected tornado touchdown in Michigan on Thursday may have caused lots of damage, including destroyed homes, near the town of Dexter, a county official said.A dispatcher with the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department said it was not immediately clear if anyone had been killed or injured.There are homes leveled at this point, he said.The National Weather Service had earlier issued a tornado warning for parts of the county and urged residents to take cover.(Reporting by James B. Kelleher; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
2ND WAVE CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL
REVELATION 16:12
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.(THIS IS THE ATATURK DAM IN TURKEY,THEY CROSS OVER).
DANIEL 11:44 (2ND WAVE OF WW3)
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
REVELATION 9:12-18
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.(IRAQ-SYRIA)
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(1/3 Earths Population die in WW 3 2ND WAVE)
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand:(200 MILLION MAN ARMY FROM CHINA AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST) and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
North Korea says it will launch long-range rocket
Associated PressAssociated Press – MAR 16,12
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea announced Friday it plans to launch a long-range rocket mounted with a satellite next month, a surprise move that comes weeks after it agreed to nuclear concessions including a moratorium on long-range missile tests.The launch is to take place exactly three years after a similar launch in April 2009 drew widespread condemnation from the U.S., South Korea and others as a cover for testing North Korea's long-range missile technology.Liftoff will take place between April 12 and 16 from a launch pad in North Phyongan province, a spokesman for the Korean Committee for Space Technology said in a statement carried by state media.The launch plan comes as North Korea prepares to celebrate the April 15 centenary of the birth of its founder, Kim Il Sung. Kim's grandson, Kim Jong Un, has led the nation of 24 million since his father, Kim Jong Il, died in December.
The announcement comes after North Korea agreed last month to suspend uranium enrichment, place a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, and to allow back U.N. weapons inspectors in exchange for much-needed food aid. Uranium enrichment is one way to make atomic bombs. In the past North Korea has also weaponized plutonium for nuclear devices.North Korea called the April 2009 launch a test of its satellite technology, but it was widely viewed in the West as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibiting North Korea from engaging in nuclear and ballistic missile activity.The statement from the North Korean space committee spokesman said a Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite designed to orbit the earth will be mounted on an Unha-3 rocket from the Sohae station in Cholsan County.He said North Korea would abide by international regulations governing the launch of satellites for peaceful scientific purposes.North Korea tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009 and is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for four to eight primitive atomic bombs, according to scientist Siegfried Hecker of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.In 2009, North Korea claimed it would begin enriching uranium, a second way to make atomic bombs, and revealed the facility to Hecker and North Korea expert Robert Carlin during a November 2010 visit.
Hecker says North Korea is not producing plutonium at the moment, but there's little information about whether they've made highly enriched uranium or tried to build a bomb using it.In Seoul, the Unification Ministry said it had no comment yet. South Korea is due to host the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul in two weeks, and North Korea's nuclear program was expected to be discussed on the sidelines of the gathering of world leaders.Associated Press writer Jean H. Lee contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea.
Israeli aircraft hit Gaza in response to rockets
Associated PressBy AMY TEIBEL | Associated Press – MAR 15,12
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli aircraft and Gaza rocket squads traded strikes across the border on Thursday as the Israeli prime minister blamed Iran for the violence from the Palestinian territory.Benjamin Netanyahu, going a step further in his warnings to Iran, hinted that Israel didn't need Washington's blessing to go ahead and attack Iran's suspect nuclear program.Thursday's cross-border violence tested a shaky truce Israel and Gaza militants reached earlier this week to halt a four-day flare in fighting. Since then, sporadic rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes have persisted.
Israeli aircraft struck two militant sites in Gaza before dawn Thursday in response to rocket fire a day earlier. Gaza gunmen retaliated by launching two rockets at Israel by midday, police said. No injuries were reported on either side.In a speech to parliament on Wednesday, Netanyahu accused Iran of arming, financing and training Gaza militants, and giving them their marching orders.Gaza is Iran, Netanyahu declared.Israel considers Iran to be its most fearsome enemy, in large part because it is convinced Tehran is developing atomic weapons technology, despite its claims its nuclear program is peaceful.In the U.S. last week, where he met with President Barack Obama, Netanyahu was markedly more vocal about Israel's willingness to attack Iran's program, alone if necessary, though he said no decision had been made on whether to strike.On Wednesday, he ratcheted up the tough talk, suggesting Israel would be ready to attack Iran's nuclear facilities even if the U.S. objected.Israel has never left its fate to others, not even the best of its friends, he said, citing Israel's 1981 attack on an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor, which at the time was condemned by the U.S.Also Thursday, an Israeli soldier was stabbed on Jerusalem's light rail, and police apprehended a Palestinian suspect at a Jerusalem crossing into the West Bank, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. He had no further details on the suspect or a possible motive for the attack on the train, which went into service in August.
A hospital official said the soldier was in serious condition with stab wounds near her heart.Train service was halted while a preliminary investigation at the scene of the attack was carried out, Rosenfeld said.Also Thursday, rights activists said the health of a Palestinian detainee who has been on a hunger strike for a month is deteriorating. Hana Shalabi, 30, has refused food since her arrest by Israel on Feb. 16. She is being held without formal charges in so-called administrative detention and is demanding to be released immediately.A doctor from Israel's branch of Physicians for Human Rights examined her earlier this week and reported advanced muscle atrophy and wasting, along with severe dizziness and muscle pain, especially in her chest and back.Israel Prisons Authority spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said Shalabi's condition is relatively okay. An independent ethics committee discussed her case this week and decided against force-feeding her, Weizman said. Shalabi remains in her cell, she added.Palestinian officials said four more administrative detainees have launched hunger strikes since the beginning of March. The oldest in the group, 72-year-old Ahmed Haj Ali, a lawmaker from the Islamic militant Hamas, joined Wednesday, said Issa Karakeh, the Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs.
Karakeh said it's the first time hunger strikers are targeting a specific Israeli detention policy, adding that more prisoners plan to launch hunger strikes next month. More than 300 Palestinians are currently held without formal charges. In all, more than 6,000 Palestinians are being held by Israel for security-related offenses.
Israel has defended administrative detentions as a necessary tool to stop militant activity.Rights activists say international law allows this practice only in exceptional cases and that Israel blatantly violates these restrictions.Associated Press writer Dalia Nammari in Ramallah, West Bank contributed reporting.
Worries over Iranian Jews if Israel attacks
Associated PressBy AMY TEIBEL | Associated Press – MAR 15,12
JERUSALEM (AP) — All but lost amid the heated talk about a possible Israeli attack on Iran's suspect nuclear program are the thousands of Jews who live in the Islamic Republic and could be caught in the middle.Although Iran has a history of treating its Jewish minority fairly well, some Iranian Jews who have emigrated to Israel worry that an Israeli attack could expose family and friends still in Iran to retaliation.Iran's government is unstable and unpredictable. If there is a war, you can't tell what the response to the community will be, said Kamal Penhasi, who runs Israel's only Persian newspaper, Shahyad, and its companion website.The level of worry among Jews in Iran themselves is harder to measure. At a tomb in southern Iran said to be the grave of the biblical prophet Daniel — a popular pilgrimage site for Iranian Jews — those visiting on a recent day were reluctant to talk about politics or the rising tensions between Iran and Israel, preferring to talk about their visit.
I prayed for peace in the world. I asked for health and blessing for all people, I prayed for all, said Erieh Dina, after she recited prayers in Hebrew next to her husband in front of the grave.The rising crisis illustrates the uneasy situation of Iran's Jews, the largest community in the Middle East outside of Israel and Turkey. They are believed to number around 25,000, after two major waves of emigration following Israel's founding in 1948 and the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Before the revolution they numbered around 100,000.Many in the community, centered in Tehran and the southern city of Shiraz, are affluent merchants. Publicly, they are supportive of a system that offers them protected minority status — though not equal access to certain government and military jobs — and assures them a seat in the Iranian parliament.No matter who dares to attack our country, we will stand against the threats like other Iranian people, the current Jewish lawmaker in the Iranian parliament, Siamak Merehsedq, told The Associated Press in Tehran. The Iranian Jewish community will stand by their compatriots under any circumstance, forever.In general, the community tries to lie low. Tensions between Iran and Israel have been high for years, and the leadership of hard-line Muslim clerics has not tried to retaliate against Iranian Jews, in part because it likes to tout their presence as proof of the government's tolerance. The biggest exception to that was the trial in 2000 of 13 Iranian Jews on charges of spying for Israel, which raised heavy international criticism.
The ornate tomb of Daniel in Susa, 450 miles (750 kilometers) southwest of the capital Tehran, is cited by Iranians as an example of the historic bonds of Jews and Muslims in the country. The site is popular among both Muslims and Jews, and some of the pious credit their prayers at the site for healing sick relatives or bringing rain for crops. Hundreds visit ever day, including high school students on field trips from around the country.The grave is in an underground crypt that is usually open only to Jews, while both they and Muslims can visit an above-ground shrine over it, dazzling with mirrored tiles. In a sign of respect to the Jewish community, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an inscription put on the grave reading, This is the shining tomb of the sagacious prophet Daniel, who directed believers while tolerating difficulties for the sake of God.But an outright Israeli attack against Iran would be unprecedented and could put a heavy test on the government's policy toward the community.Like the West, Israel is convinced Iran's nuclear program is being developed to build bombs, and not to generate energy and medical isotopes as Tehran claims.It sees a nuclear-armed Iran as threatening the Jewish state's survival, and sparking a nuclear arms race in a region hostile to Israel's existence. In the U.S. last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vigorously asserted Israel's right to defend itself militarily against the Iranian nuclear threat.Israeli officials say the presence of Jews in Iran won't influence Israel's decision on whether to strike.Iran's Jewish community is one of the world's oldest centers of Judaism, its historical roots reaching back 2,700 years. One of Judaism's most revered figures is Esther, the Jewish queen of Persia — and heroine of the Purim holiday — who foiled a vizier's plan to annihilate the empire's Jews.
Many observers think Iran would retaliate against an Israeli military strike by firing its large arsenal of missiles capable of striking Israel, or have its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza hit the Jewish state with short-range rockets and missiles. It could also strike Jewish or Israeli targets in other countries.But Meir Litwak, an Iran expert at Tel Aviv University, said it is doubtful the government would lash out at Jews in Iran.The regime has to treat Jews well to show that Jews can live under a Muslim regime as a protected minority, so there is no legal or moral reason for the existence of a Jewish state, he said.If they start killing their own Jews, international pressure would be far more than before.Iranian Jews living in Israel are not so sure. There are an estimated 250,000 Jews of Iranian descent in Israel, including the jailed former President Moshe Katsav, the former military chief and current opposition lawmaker Shaul Mofaz and one of the country's most popular singers, Rita, who recently put out a Farsi-language album.Penhasi is afraid that even if the Iranian government doesn't directly attack Jews, its police might stand aside if angry Iranian citizens decide to do so in the event of an Israeli attack.The government could say, The people did it and police forces couldn't stop them,he said.So far, there has been no reported cases of such attacks.Shahram Shahrooz, an emigre who moderates Farsi-language community radio and TV shows here, said Jews visiting Israel from Iran are fearful of attacks on Jews.They are afraid there will be chaos in the Middle East,said Shahrooz, who moved here with his family in 1989 at the age of 11. They know it won't end with a few booms. It will be a disaster for the region.The visiting Iranian Jews refused a request, passed through Shahrooz and Penhasi, to be interviewed by The Associated Press.Iranian emigres here maintain ties with the Jewish community in Iran over the Internet and by phone. Some Iranian Jews even visit, traveling through third countries, though the visits have diminished sharply since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel's destruction, became president in 2005.At the Daniel shrine in Iran, a 10-year-old Jewish boy Daniel Morim — named after the prophet — played in the courtyard. A Muslim visitor to the site, Khalaf Dahani, watched the yarmulke-wearing boy and said, Our God is the same. Let's appeal for peace.Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi contributed to this report from Susa, Iran.
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 FRI MARCH 16,2012
09:30 AM +2.43
10:00 AM -1.33
10:30 AM -6.40
11:00 AM +12.11
11:30 AM +2.65
12:00 PM +2.34
12:30 PM +4.54
01:00 PM +0.94
01:30 PM +0.49
02:00 PM +3.21
02:30 PM +2.87
03:00 PM +0.72
03:30 PM -10.75
04:00 PM -20.14 13,232.62
S&P 500 1404.17 +1.57
NASDAQ 3055.26 -1.11
GOLD 1,658.50 -1.00
OIL 107.19 +2.08
TSE 300 12,496.96 +41.14
CDNX 1606.17 +4.65
S&P/TSX/60 710.74 +3.08
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +27 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -6 points at low today.
Dow +31 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,652.20.OIL opens at $105.55 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -20 points at low today so far.
Dow +31 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -20 points at low today.
Dow +31 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,902.60 (NOT AT CLOSE)
Iran cut off from global financial system Associated PressBy DON MELVIN and JONATHAN FAHEY | Associated Press – MAR 16,12
BRUSSELS (AP) — Dozens of Iranian banks were blocked from doing business with much of the world as the West tightens the financial screws on a country it wants to prevent from developing nuclear weapons.The Belgium-based company that facilitates most international bank transfers on Thursday took the unprecedented step of blocking 30 Iranian banks from using its service. The move is likely to hurt Iran's all-important oil industry and make it difficult for citizens to receive money from relatives living abroad.The move by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, is part of a broader effort by Western nations to isolate Iran financially and force it to demonstrate that it is not trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but officials in many other countries believe otherwise.SWIFT said it was forced by recent European Union sanctions to discontinue service to the Iranian banks beginning Saturday. SWIFT is a secure private network used by nearly every bank around the world to send payment messages that lead to the transfer of money across international borders.The chief executive of SWIFT, Lazaro Campos, described the move as extraordinary and unprecedented.It is a direct result of international and multilateral action to intensify financial sanctions against Iran,he said.
There was no immediate reaction from the Iranian government or the banks involved. Not all Iranian banks are subject to EU sanctions, and oil experts say there will be ways for Iran to sell oil without using SWIFT.Still, blocking Iranian banks' access to SWIFT is tightening the noose on Iran, said Ali Ansari, an expert on the Middle East at the London-based Chatham House think tank.Sanctions long in place have failed to convince Iran to return to nuclear talks; the EU, which imports about 14 percent of Iran's oil, plans to institute an embargo on Iranian oil in July.The regime has been able to withstand these sanctions in part because high global oil prices have provided Iran, the world's third largest exporter, with record oil revenues. Iran exports 3.5 million barrels of oil per day, about 4 percent of the oil consumed in the world. Last year, Iran generated $100 billion in revenue from oil, up from $20 billion a decade ago, according to IHS CERA, a consulting firm.
Iran is expected to continue to sell to India, China and other major oil customers that are not participating in the EU embargo.But by forcing SWIFT to expel Iran, Western nations are trying to make it more difficult for Iran to sell oil even to willing customers. A single oil tanker can hold $100 million worth of oil, making electronic bank transfers crucial.Analysts expect Iran to try to skirt the sanctions in a few ways. It may exchange oil for cash, gold or other commodities directly. It may try to mingle its oil with oil from other countries in international terminals and pipelines to mask its origins. It could get help from the central banks of countries friendly to Iran.Throughout the history of the oil trade, someone always gets around trade embargoes one way or another, said Jim Ritterbusch, a veteran oil trader and analyst.Also, Iranian banks that have not been sanctioned by the EU could sell oil.Analysts say by reducing the number of customers for Iranian oil and making it more difficult to pay, Iran will be forced to accept a lower price for its oil and likely be unable to sell all that it hopes to.Judith Dwarkin, chief energy economist at ITG Investment research, said Spain and Japan are already reducing Iranian imports and Europe's large oil companies have also cut back ahead of the July deadline. Iranian oil shipments have already slipped in recent months. In February they fell to a 10-year low, according to the International Energy Agency.
Saudi Arabia has said it would increase production to make up for any shortfall resulting from the sanctions. Still, analysts say that will likely drive up prices because it will reduce the amount of wiggle room — called spare capacity in the industry — that the world's oil producers have to make up for shortfalls elsewhere.
Oil markets were largely unaffected by Thursday's announcement; traders had already pushed prices higher in recent weeks in anticipation that Iranian supply would be disrupted. Analysts say these worries have made oil $10 to $20 per barrel more expensive than they otherwise would be. In New York. Oil settled at $105.11 per barrel Thursday.Washington and allies Britain, France and Germany have taken a tough approach toward Iran over the nuclear issue but have run into resistance from Russia and China. The six nations have agreed to meet with Iran to negotiate a solution, but East-West disagreements within the group are greater than ever. Talks between the seven nations ended in failure more than a year ago in Istanbul, Turkey.SWIFT facilitates not only large bank-to-bank transfers, but small ones as well, which could lead to unintended consequences. Many Iranians, including opponents of the current regime, live abroad and send small amounts of money to their families in Iran back home on a regular basis.Mark Wallace, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who heads a group called United Against Nuclear Iran, wants all Iranian banks to be included in the sanctions.We should not be allowing any Iranian banks access to the international markets, he said. Still, he said, the sanctions are already having real bite, by crimping oil exports, leading the devaluation of Iranian currency, and making it harder for companies and Iranian elites to move money.The Iranian banking system is embattled,he said.Jonathan Fahey reported from New York. Chris Kahn contributed to this story from New York. Follow Don Melvin on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Don_Melvin and Jonathan Fahey at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey .
MUSLIM NATIONS
GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(FATHER OF THE ARAB/MUSLIMS) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man,(ISLAM HATES EVERYONE) and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.(LITERAL-THE ARABS LIVE WITH THEIR BRETHERN JEWS)
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.
IDF Foils Infiltration Attempt from Egypt-IDF troops fire at suspects who entered Israel through the border with Egypt. One person dead, three wounded.By Elad Benari First Publish: 3/15/2012, 11:14 PM
IDF forces were able to thwart an infiltration from Egypt on Thursday evening.The IDF Spokesman said in a statement that the troops, who were engaged in routine activity along the Israel-Egypt border, noticed a number of suspects who had infiltrated the border.The troops called on the suspects to stop and when they did not heed the calls, the soldiers opened fire. At the same time fire was opened from Egyptian territory. Three suspects were wounded by the fire.According to the statement, the three wounded infiltrators were captured after a short chase, and a fourth suspect was found dead. The wounded were air lifted for medical treatment in a hospital. No Israelis were wounded.In February, terrorists took advantage of the infiltrations from Egypt to place a powerful explosive device along the Israel-Egypt border. In light of the increasing attempts to infiltrate into the State of Israel, the IDF will increase its activities in the western border,said the Spokesperson’s statement.The phenomenon of illegal smuggling and infiltration into the State of Israel along the western border is exploited by terrorist organizations to carry out attacks against Israeli citizens and IDF forces,the statement added.The IDF will continue to act against anyone posing a threat to the security of the State of Israel and its people.
Legal Forum to Steinitz: Declare Gaza Enemy Territory-Legal Forum for the Land of Israel asks Knesset's Finance Committee to discuss Finance Minister's refusal to declare Gaza enemy territory.By Elad Benari First Publish: 3/16/2012, 4:15 AM
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel has approached the chairman of the Knesset’s Finance Committee, MK Carmel Shama-Hacohen (Likud), asking that he summon Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz to discuss his refusal to add Gaza to the list of enemy countries with which trade is forbidden.According to the Forum, Steinitz has refused to add Gaza to the list, saying that such a move could have political, economic and security consequences and that Israel would be accused of violating the interim agreements it signed with the Palestinian Authority.The Forum also said that Steinitz said that a decision to declare Gaza an enemy territory may adversely affect Israel's foreign relations.The Legal Forum’s representative, attorney Avi Har Zahav, said that Steinitz’s claims are ironic, considering the escalation this week, in which terrorists fired more than 200 rockets at southern Israel.There is a flagrant violation of the agreements on the part of the Palestinians, so why does Israel not take a stand so long as the agreements are not respected by the other side? Har Zahav said.Har Zahav said that the Legal Forum demands that the Finance Committee discuss the issue and examine the transfer of funds to Gaza, which fund acts of terror against Israeli citizens.
Such a step would signal to Hamas and to the world of the seriousness of Israel's intentions that Gaza is indeed hostile enemy territory and that action should be taken against it, he said.Despite the rocket barrage this week, Israel kept open the Erez Crossing for passengers and employees of international organizations operating in Gaza. Kerem Shalom was open for the delivery of 200 truckloads to Gaza residents.
Israel often helps the residents of the coastal enclave. This assistance includes medical care, and more than once Israeli doctors have been able to save the lives of Gazan children.Israel allows various goods to enter Gaza and also allows for the exporting of agricultural products, such as strawberries and carnations, from Gaza to Europe, as part of an extensive project financed by the Dutch government.
Earlier this week it was Steinitz himself who, along with other ministers, called for Israeli action in Gaza.The situation in Gaza has become intolerable,Steinitz said on Sunday. He called to target terror leaders, saying, The more that attacks from Gaza threaten central Israel, the more Israel needs to threaten Hamas’ leadership of Gaza.Israel cannot accept a Hamas government in Gaza in the long term, Steinitz warned.
Iron Dome Intercepts Rocket Aimed at Ashdod-No one was hurt. The rocket was the third Gaza terrorists fired at Israel today.By Gil Ronen First Publish: 3/15/2012, 9:23 PM
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153807#.T2K_a3m3hko
The Iron Dome anti-missile system successfully intercepted a rocket fired by Gaza terrorists at Ashdod Thursday evening.No one was hurt and no damage was caused. Sirens went off at Ashdod, Ashkelon, Tavneh and northern the Lachish area.The rocket was the third fired by Gaza terrorists Thursday. A Grad rocket was fired at Be'er Sheva in the morning hours. It was successfully intercepted by Iron Dome, and it caused no injury or damage.Earlier, another rocket fell in an open space in the Sdot Negev region. No one was hurt and no damage was caused.
Nasrallah Praises Gaza Terrorists for Rocket Attacks-Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah congratulates Gaza terrorist organizations for causing a half million Israelis to spend days in shelters.By Elad Benari First Publish: 3/16/2012, 3:12 AM
The leader of the Hizbullah terror group, Hassan Nasrallah, congratulated the terrorist organizations in Gaza on Thursday for causing half a million Israelis to spend days in shelters, as Gaza terrorists fired more than 200 rockets over a period of four days.In a recorded speech which was broadcast in Beirut and reported on Army Radio, Nasrallah said, This is a great formula and praised the people of Gaza for standing firm in the face of the Israeli airstrikes.Nasrallah also blamed Israel for the recent escalation in the south, saying, The forces of the occupation began the fighting with the air strike that killed the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees, Zuhir Qaisi.He added that the events in Gaza reminded us of the hypocrisy and double standards of the West,and criticized some of the Arab media which he claimed cast the blame on the Arabs for the last round of escalation.
Nasrallah also commented on the events in Syria, on the day in which the popular uprising in the country entered its second year, and called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.He added that those who rely on the fall of the regime, desertion or interference of foreign armies, are doomed to fail.He condemned the bloodshed in Syria and the harm caused to civilian lives.Our interest as Lebanese people is that the conflict in Syria be resolved,said Nasrallah.We fear a split, civil war or chaos in Syria.
Syrian forces press offensive in Idlib, 45 killed
ReutersBy Crispian Balmer | Reuters – MAR 16,12
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces pressed their military offensive in the northern province of Idlib, driving 1,000 refugees across the Turkish border as the bloody revolt against President Bashar al-Assad entered a second year with no sign of political solution.Forty-five civilians were killed in the frontier province, including 23 whose bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs, as well as five army deserters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.The bloodshed and continued flow of refugees prompted Turkey to suggest it might support a buffer zone inside Syria, a move likely to enrage Damascus.In an orchestrated show of support for Assad, huge crowds took to the streets of Syria's cities on Thursday, the first anniversary of unrest which started as largely peaceful protests against four decades of iron rule by the Assad dynasty.
Opposition activists said pro-Assad forces shot at crowds in various locations when they tried to protest against the 46-year-old leader, but residents reported that demonstrators did gather in the smart Shaalan district of Damascus to voice their anger.The U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan was due to brief the United Nations Security Council on Friday about his talks in Damascus and proposals to end the violence.The door of dialogue is still open. We are still engaged with Syrian authorities over Mr. Annan's proposals," Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in Geneva. He's been in telephone contact with the Syrian foreign minister during the course of the day ... as well as with international actors, member states with influence.Western diplomats expressed pessimism in private over Annan's chances of success.Syria said on Wednesday it had given a positive response to Annan's approach. A Middle Eastern diplomat characterized the reply from Damascus as not a No. But a senior Western diplomat in the region said Damascus had spurned Annan's ideas.
AID MISSION
Official media announced government forces had cleared armed terrorists from the city of Idlib, suggesting the army was gaining ground against the uprising, which has killed at least 8,000 people and crippled the economy.The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three soldiers were killed in Homs, further south.
The SOHR gets its information from a network of Syrian residents. Reports from Syria cannot be independently verified as authorities have barred rights groups and journalists and stalled on granting access for international aid groups.The U.N. aid chief Valerie Amos said Syria had agreed to a joint mission to assess the humanitarian needs of various cities and towns this weekend, but she indicated this was not enough.I repeat my calls to the government of Syria to allow humanitarian organizations unhindered access, so they can help people in need, in a neutral and impartial manner, she said.Turkey said 1,000 Syrians had crossed its borders in the last 24 hours, fleeing fighting in Idlib, raising the total of registered Syrian refugees in Turkey to 14,000. Among those who escaped was a Syrian general, the seventh to cross into Turkey.Deputy Turkish Prime Minister Besir Atalay told NTV television that Turkey, which hosts Syrian opposition activists, was working closely with the Arab League to tackle the problem.Of course Turkey has a lot of experience on this matter, about what can be done including the buffer zone which you mentioned. The subject you mentioned is among the possible things we will probably work on in the coming period, he said.Turkey set up a buffer zone along the border with Iraq during the Gulf War in the early 1990s, when tens of thousands of refugees headed towards Turkish territory.The United Nations says about 230,000 Syrians have been displaced from their homes, including 30,000 who have fled abroad, raising the prospect of a regional refugee crisis.
The government has blamed foreign powers and terrorist gangs for the chaos and say 2,000 soldiers have died in the uprising.Diplomats say the fighting is developing along sectarian lines, with the Sunni Muslim majority, who make up 75 percent of the population of 23 million, at odds with Assad's Alawite sect, which represents 10 percent but controls the levers of power.Despite growing international isolation and biting sanctions, Assad can still draw on significant support from within Syria and few expect a swift end to the violence. Deep divisions in opposition ranks have also helped his cause.Besides Damascus, pro-Assad rallies were staged in numerous cities, including Deraa, which was the epicenter of the original protest movement last year, but has been filled with security forces backed by tanks for the past 24 hours.
(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Merkel and Sarkozy: The end of the affair?
15.03.12 @ 09:50 By Honor Mahony
BRUSSELS - She needed him to soften the impression that Germany alone is leading Europe. He needed her to give the impression France is still, despite its economic difficulties, a political player.For months, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy were the eurzone's inseparable political duo. He was effusive and talked in a grand way about the historical importance of Franco-German relations. She, more pragmatic, concentrated on the here-and-now.From a frosty beginning their relationship evolved towards mutual respect. They met, bickered, compromised and then decided on eurozone policy.With France struggling to contain its budget deficit and French banks heavily exposed to Greece, Sarkozy embraced Merkel's economic view of the world - austerity measures until a balanced budget is achieved.He brought his admiration for the German model into his electoral campaign. She said she would support Sarkozy in his re-election bid no matter what he does and her Christian Democratic Party was equally warm. Plans were even afoot for the Chancellor to appear alongside the President in pre-election rallies.But with just weeks to go until the first round of the elections on 22 April, Merkozy - as their moniker goes - is no longer the talk of the eurozone.
Both sides have cooled. Sarkozy, after being mocked by opponents for being Germany's lapdog, no longer mentions Merkel or Germany in his campaign. His own party told him that it would do him no good to be seen alongside the German leader, who is associated with painful spending cuts in France.On Berlin's side, it is becoming clear that Merkel risked causing long-term damage to relations with Paris by refusing to meet with Sarkozy's main challenger, the socialist Francois Hollande - who, until very recently, had a firm lead in the polls.On Tuesday, Sarkozy publicly cemented the break, telling Europe 1 radio that at one moment or another he and Merkel would appear together to discuss Europe. But it would not be at a rally because an election campaign is the business of the French.His statement followed a major speech on Sunday which would not be viewed well in Germany, even allowing for normal pre-election hyperboles.Sarkozy threatened to pull his country out of the EU's passport-free Schengen zone unless more is done to stop irregular immigration and took a swipe at free trade, suggesting there should be a Buy European law.As his campaign takes on a more populist and right-wing tone, German newspapers have begun to ask if the Chancellor still wants to be seen as his running mate.Do you really want this guy, Frau Merkel? a headline by the Die Zeit newspaper said last week.
Meanwhile, for Sarkozy, the anti-immigrant stance seems to be paying better dividends than the Merkozy hook-up. Following Sunday's speech he pulled ahead of Hollande in polls for the first time since electioneering began in earnest.
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.
THE FIRST JUDGEMENT OF THE EARTH STARTED WITH WATER-IT ONLY MAKES SENSE THE LAST GENERATION WILL BE HAVING FLOODING
GENESIS 7:6-12
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
GOD PROMISED BY A RAINBOW-THE EARTH WOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED TOTALLY WITH A FLOOD AGAIN.BUT FLOODIING IS A SIGN OF JUDGEMENT.
Police: Lots of damage in Michigan town after suspected tornado ReutersReuters – MAR 16,12
(Reuters) - A suspected tornado touchdown in Michigan on Thursday may have caused lots of damage, including destroyed homes, near the town of Dexter, a county official said.A dispatcher with the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department said it was not immediately clear if anyone had been killed or injured.There are homes leveled at this point, he said.The National Weather Service had earlier issued a tornado warning for parts of the county and urged residents to take cover.(Reporting by James B. Kelleher; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
2ND WAVE CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL
REVELATION 16:12
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.(THIS IS THE ATATURK DAM IN TURKEY,THEY CROSS OVER).
DANIEL 11:44 (2ND WAVE OF WW3)
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
REVELATION 9:12-18
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.(IRAQ-SYRIA)
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(1/3 Earths Population die in WW 3 2ND WAVE)
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand:(200 MILLION MAN ARMY FROM CHINA AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST) and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
North Korea says it will launch long-range rocket
Associated PressAssociated Press – MAR 16,12
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea announced Friday it plans to launch a long-range rocket mounted with a satellite next month, a surprise move that comes weeks after it agreed to nuclear concessions including a moratorium on long-range missile tests.The launch is to take place exactly three years after a similar launch in April 2009 drew widespread condemnation from the U.S., South Korea and others as a cover for testing North Korea's long-range missile technology.Liftoff will take place between April 12 and 16 from a launch pad in North Phyongan province, a spokesman for the Korean Committee for Space Technology said in a statement carried by state media.The launch plan comes as North Korea prepares to celebrate the April 15 centenary of the birth of its founder, Kim Il Sung. Kim's grandson, Kim Jong Un, has led the nation of 24 million since his father, Kim Jong Il, died in December.
The announcement comes after North Korea agreed last month to suspend uranium enrichment, place a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, and to allow back U.N. weapons inspectors in exchange for much-needed food aid. Uranium enrichment is one way to make atomic bombs. In the past North Korea has also weaponized plutonium for nuclear devices.North Korea called the April 2009 launch a test of its satellite technology, but it was widely viewed in the West as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibiting North Korea from engaging in nuclear and ballistic missile activity.The statement from the North Korean space committee spokesman said a Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite designed to orbit the earth will be mounted on an Unha-3 rocket from the Sohae station in Cholsan County.He said North Korea would abide by international regulations governing the launch of satellites for peaceful scientific purposes.North Korea tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009 and is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for four to eight primitive atomic bombs, according to scientist Siegfried Hecker of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.In 2009, North Korea claimed it would begin enriching uranium, a second way to make atomic bombs, and revealed the facility to Hecker and North Korea expert Robert Carlin during a November 2010 visit.
Hecker says North Korea is not producing plutonium at the moment, but there's little information about whether they've made highly enriched uranium or tried to build a bomb using it.In Seoul, the Unification Ministry said it had no comment yet. South Korea is due to host the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul in two weeks, and North Korea's nuclear program was expected to be discussed on the sidelines of the gathering of world leaders.Associated Press writer Jean H. Lee contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea.
Israeli aircraft hit Gaza in response to rockets
Associated PressBy AMY TEIBEL | Associated Press – MAR 15,12
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli aircraft and Gaza rocket squads traded strikes across the border on Thursday as the Israeli prime minister blamed Iran for the violence from the Palestinian territory.Benjamin Netanyahu, going a step further in his warnings to Iran, hinted that Israel didn't need Washington's blessing to go ahead and attack Iran's suspect nuclear program.Thursday's cross-border violence tested a shaky truce Israel and Gaza militants reached earlier this week to halt a four-day flare in fighting. Since then, sporadic rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes have persisted.
Israeli aircraft struck two militant sites in Gaza before dawn Thursday in response to rocket fire a day earlier. Gaza gunmen retaliated by launching two rockets at Israel by midday, police said. No injuries were reported on either side.In a speech to parliament on Wednesday, Netanyahu accused Iran of arming, financing and training Gaza militants, and giving them their marching orders.Gaza is Iran, Netanyahu declared.Israel considers Iran to be its most fearsome enemy, in large part because it is convinced Tehran is developing atomic weapons technology, despite its claims its nuclear program is peaceful.In the U.S. last week, where he met with President Barack Obama, Netanyahu was markedly more vocal about Israel's willingness to attack Iran's program, alone if necessary, though he said no decision had been made on whether to strike.On Wednesday, he ratcheted up the tough talk, suggesting Israel would be ready to attack Iran's nuclear facilities even if the U.S. objected.Israel has never left its fate to others, not even the best of its friends, he said, citing Israel's 1981 attack on an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor, which at the time was condemned by the U.S.Also Thursday, an Israeli soldier was stabbed on Jerusalem's light rail, and police apprehended a Palestinian suspect at a Jerusalem crossing into the West Bank, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. He had no further details on the suspect or a possible motive for the attack on the train, which went into service in August.
A hospital official said the soldier was in serious condition with stab wounds near her heart.Train service was halted while a preliminary investigation at the scene of the attack was carried out, Rosenfeld said.Also Thursday, rights activists said the health of a Palestinian detainee who has been on a hunger strike for a month is deteriorating. Hana Shalabi, 30, has refused food since her arrest by Israel on Feb. 16. She is being held without formal charges in so-called administrative detention and is demanding to be released immediately.A doctor from Israel's branch of Physicians for Human Rights examined her earlier this week and reported advanced muscle atrophy and wasting, along with severe dizziness and muscle pain, especially in her chest and back.Israel Prisons Authority spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said Shalabi's condition is relatively okay. An independent ethics committee discussed her case this week and decided against force-feeding her, Weizman said. Shalabi remains in her cell, she added.Palestinian officials said four more administrative detainees have launched hunger strikes since the beginning of March. The oldest in the group, 72-year-old Ahmed Haj Ali, a lawmaker from the Islamic militant Hamas, joined Wednesday, said Issa Karakeh, the Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs.
Karakeh said it's the first time hunger strikers are targeting a specific Israeli detention policy, adding that more prisoners plan to launch hunger strikes next month. More than 300 Palestinians are currently held without formal charges. In all, more than 6,000 Palestinians are being held by Israel for security-related offenses.
Israel has defended administrative detentions as a necessary tool to stop militant activity.Rights activists say international law allows this practice only in exceptional cases and that Israel blatantly violates these restrictions.Associated Press writer Dalia Nammari in Ramallah, West Bank contributed reporting.
Worries over Iranian Jews if Israel attacks
Associated PressBy AMY TEIBEL | Associated Press – MAR 15,12
JERUSALEM (AP) — All but lost amid the heated talk about a possible Israeli attack on Iran's suspect nuclear program are the thousands of Jews who live in the Islamic Republic and could be caught in the middle.Although Iran has a history of treating its Jewish minority fairly well, some Iranian Jews who have emigrated to Israel worry that an Israeli attack could expose family and friends still in Iran to retaliation.Iran's government is unstable and unpredictable. If there is a war, you can't tell what the response to the community will be, said Kamal Penhasi, who runs Israel's only Persian newspaper, Shahyad, and its companion website.The level of worry among Jews in Iran themselves is harder to measure. At a tomb in southern Iran said to be the grave of the biblical prophet Daniel — a popular pilgrimage site for Iranian Jews — those visiting on a recent day were reluctant to talk about politics or the rising tensions between Iran and Israel, preferring to talk about their visit.
I prayed for peace in the world. I asked for health and blessing for all people, I prayed for all, said Erieh Dina, after she recited prayers in Hebrew next to her husband in front of the grave.The rising crisis illustrates the uneasy situation of Iran's Jews, the largest community in the Middle East outside of Israel and Turkey. They are believed to number around 25,000, after two major waves of emigration following Israel's founding in 1948 and the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Before the revolution they numbered around 100,000.Many in the community, centered in Tehran and the southern city of Shiraz, are affluent merchants. Publicly, they are supportive of a system that offers them protected minority status — though not equal access to certain government and military jobs — and assures them a seat in the Iranian parliament.No matter who dares to attack our country, we will stand against the threats like other Iranian people, the current Jewish lawmaker in the Iranian parliament, Siamak Merehsedq, told The Associated Press in Tehran. The Iranian Jewish community will stand by their compatriots under any circumstance, forever.In general, the community tries to lie low. Tensions between Iran and Israel have been high for years, and the leadership of hard-line Muslim clerics has not tried to retaliate against Iranian Jews, in part because it likes to tout their presence as proof of the government's tolerance. The biggest exception to that was the trial in 2000 of 13 Iranian Jews on charges of spying for Israel, which raised heavy international criticism.
The ornate tomb of Daniel in Susa, 450 miles (750 kilometers) southwest of the capital Tehran, is cited by Iranians as an example of the historic bonds of Jews and Muslims in the country. The site is popular among both Muslims and Jews, and some of the pious credit their prayers at the site for healing sick relatives or bringing rain for crops. Hundreds visit ever day, including high school students on field trips from around the country.The grave is in an underground crypt that is usually open only to Jews, while both they and Muslims can visit an above-ground shrine over it, dazzling with mirrored tiles. In a sign of respect to the Jewish community, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an inscription put on the grave reading, This is the shining tomb of the sagacious prophet Daniel, who directed believers while tolerating difficulties for the sake of God.But an outright Israeli attack against Iran would be unprecedented and could put a heavy test on the government's policy toward the community.Like the West, Israel is convinced Iran's nuclear program is being developed to build bombs, and not to generate energy and medical isotopes as Tehran claims.It sees a nuclear-armed Iran as threatening the Jewish state's survival, and sparking a nuclear arms race in a region hostile to Israel's existence. In the U.S. last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vigorously asserted Israel's right to defend itself militarily against the Iranian nuclear threat.Israeli officials say the presence of Jews in Iran won't influence Israel's decision on whether to strike.Iran's Jewish community is one of the world's oldest centers of Judaism, its historical roots reaching back 2,700 years. One of Judaism's most revered figures is Esther, the Jewish queen of Persia — and heroine of the Purim holiday — who foiled a vizier's plan to annihilate the empire's Jews.
Many observers think Iran would retaliate against an Israeli military strike by firing its large arsenal of missiles capable of striking Israel, or have its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza hit the Jewish state with short-range rockets and missiles. It could also strike Jewish or Israeli targets in other countries.But Meir Litwak, an Iran expert at Tel Aviv University, said it is doubtful the government would lash out at Jews in Iran.The regime has to treat Jews well to show that Jews can live under a Muslim regime as a protected minority, so there is no legal or moral reason for the existence of a Jewish state, he said.If they start killing their own Jews, international pressure would be far more than before.Iranian Jews living in Israel are not so sure. There are an estimated 250,000 Jews of Iranian descent in Israel, including the jailed former President Moshe Katsav, the former military chief and current opposition lawmaker Shaul Mofaz and one of the country's most popular singers, Rita, who recently put out a Farsi-language album.Penhasi is afraid that even if the Iranian government doesn't directly attack Jews, its police might stand aside if angry Iranian citizens decide to do so in the event of an Israeli attack.The government could say, The people did it and police forces couldn't stop them,he said.So far, there has been no reported cases of such attacks.Shahram Shahrooz, an emigre who moderates Farsi-language community radio and TV shows here, said Jews visiting Israel from Iran are fearful of attacks on Jews.They are afraid there will be chaos in the Middle East,said Shahrooz, who moved here with his family in 1989 at the age of 11. They know it won't end with a few booms. It will be a disaster for the region.The visiting Iranian Jews refused a request, passed through Shahrooz and Penhasi, to be interviewed by The Associated Press.Iranian emigres here maintain ties with the Jewish community in Iran over the Internet and by phone. Some Iranian Jews even visit, traveling through third countries, though the visits have diminished sharply since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel's destruction, became president in 2005.At the Daniel shrine in Iran, a 10-year-old Jewish boy Daniel Morim — named after the prophet — played in the courtyard. A Muslim visitor to the site, Khalaf Dahani, watched the yarmulke-wearing boy and said, Our God is the same. Let's appeal for peace.Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi contributed to this report from Susa, Iran.
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