HAPPY JULY 1 CANADA DAY - CANNNADA
WHEN I USED TO LIVE IN NEWTON ONTARIO, EVERY TIME I WENT BY THE CENTENIAL SIGN 1867-1967, I WAS ALWAYS AMAZED. NOW I KNOW WHY ISRAEL RECAPTURED JERUSALEM THAT YEAR. LITTLE DID I KNOW THEN I WOULD BE AN ISRAEL SUPPORTER AND THAT 1967 WOULD BE THE START OF THE LAST 40-51 YEAR GENERATION TILL ALL THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE WOULD BE FULFILLED.
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.
INUNDATED FLOODS,PONDERED FUTURES
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BAKER HOPES TO RISE FROM FLOOD
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River cresting above flood stage at St. Louis By JIM SALTER, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 30, 12:47 PM ET
ST. LOUIS - The Mississippi River climbed toward its high-water mark Monday at St. Louis and was expected to crest over the next couple of days at points downriver, but the worst of the flood of 2008 appeared to be over. The National Weather Service said the river was leveling off at St. Louis at slightly less than 9 feet above flood stage and was expected to stay there into Tuesday before slowly falling, barring more torrential rain to the north.
The high water wasn't causing any major problems because low-lying areas are protected by a floodwall and the downtown area rises sharply from the river. Along the river, the President Casino remained closed, as did a couple of riverboat excursions and a bike rental business near the Gateway Arch. The arch is unaffected by flooding.The message is we are open for business, said Donna Andrews, a spokeswoman for the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission.The city's annual Independence Day festival will move away from the Arch grounds to another spot downtown. The Live on the Levee concert series normally held at the arch also has been relocated. With the Cubs in town for a weekend series with the Cardinals, Andrews expects big crowds for the holiday weekend, flooding or not.At Ste. Genevieve, a quaint village of 4,400 people 64 miles south of St. Louis, this year's flood fight is nothing like the one in 1993, when hundreds of volunteers barely managed to hold back the swollen river. This year's crest at Ste. Genevieve, while well above flood stage, will be about 12 feet short of the '93record, and a $41 million levee has been built to protect the French Colonial village, which dates to 1735.The only problems were relatively minor — water closed a highway in a couple of spots around nearby St. Mary, some agricultural land was flooded and seeping water created so-called sand boils at a farm levee.We're actually in pretty decent shape, said Ste. Genevieve County Commissioner Albert Fults.
The river at Cape Girardeau in southeast Missouri is expected to crest at 42.5 feet on Wednesday, 12.5 feet above flood stage. Thousands of acres of farmland are flooded, but a floodwall protects Cape Girardeau and most of its 36,000 residents. Few if any homes will be affected, Cape Girardeau County emergency management director Richard Knaup said.In hard-hit Lincoln County, upriver and northwest of St. Louis, water was slowly starting to recede in towns like Winfield and Foley. Hundreds of homes were flooded, but it likely will be weeks before a damage estimate is available.On the Net:St. Louis: http://www.explorestlouis.com
Gateway Arch: http://www.nps.gov/jeff/
Storms in South, East cause delays; 1 child killed Sun Jun 29, 10:40PM ET
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - A 5-year-old was killed when strong winds blew over a row of tents at an Alabama air show during storms that stretched across the South on Sunday while severe weather caused airport delays in the East, officials said. The winds that toppled the tents and canceled the air show in Huntsville came during an isolated strong thunderstorm that developed just west of the airport with gusts of 48 mph, said Tim Troutman of the National Weather Service.Witnesses told The Huntsville Times that a generator fell on the child Sunday. The death was confirmed by the Madison County coroner's office.Twelve others were treated for injuries, but only one, a different child, was admitted to the hospital. That child was in serious condition, said Pam Sparks, spokeswoman at Huntsville Hospital.In New York, severe thunderstorms on Sunday afternoon battered LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports, causing delays of as much as three hours at Kennedy airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Some LaGuardia flights were delayed up to 75 minutes.Weather also caused delays averaging more than an hour and a half in flights to Boston's Logan International Airport and delays of more than two hours at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, the FAA said.The National Weather Service in Omaha, Neb. said Sunday it estimated the winds that caused extensive damage in eastern Nebraska Friday reached 115 mph, but the storm did not spawn a tornado.Residents of Omaha and the surrounding area continued cleaning up debris and fallen tree limbs Sunday as utility crews worked to restore power.The weather agency said the winds were likely at their strongest when the storm was between Fremont and Omaha, where evidence of winds between 110-115 mph was found. The winds slowed before hitting Omaha but remained between 70-90 mph.Omaha Public Power District officials estimated that nearly 33,000 customers still lacked power Sunday. And some customers likely will not regain power until next Saturday.
Twin tropical storms weaken in Pacific Mon Jun 30, 12:28 PM ET
MEXICO CITY - Tropical Storm Boris is weakening far off Mexico's Pacific coast and isn't a threat to land. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says the storm's maximum sustained wind speeds have fallen to 65 mph (100 kph.) It is located hundreds of miles off Mexico's Pacific Coast and is expected to continue to move out to sea.Farther out in the Pacific, a second tropical storm, Cristina, weakened to a tropical depression on Monday. The storm has maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kpm) and isn't expected to threaten land.
FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS
REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
NO RELIEF FOR CAL FIRES
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A LONGER FIRE SEASON
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Forest fire threatens another Sask. community
Last Updated: Monday, June 30, 2008 | 5:26 PM CT CBC News
Fire could be seen from Stony Rapids on Sunday before the community was evacuated. (Submitted by Ken Sayies)Forest fires were forcing more people to leave their homes in northern Saskatchewan on Monday.
On Monday morning, evacuations began in Sandy Bay, close to the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border, due to smoke concerns, the Saskatchewan Environment Ministry said. About 210 residents described as high risk were being moved to Saskatoon.On Sunday, about 170 people were forced to leave their homes in Stony Rapids, close to the Northwest Territories-Saskatchewan boundary.They're staying in Prince Albert in dormitories at the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences.Ken Sayies, one of the last people to leave Stony Rapids on Sunday night, said the fire was only a few kilometres away when he left.You could see the flames in the distance, he said.Most of the evacuees in Prince Albert are comfortable, although some aren't happy with the accommodations, he said. People are confident fire crews will keep their homes safe, he said.They'll save that town, Sayies said.
At Sandy Bay, several hundred kilometres southeast of Stony Rapids, children, the elderly, and people with breathing difficulties were being encouraged to leave.Those who've left are being put up at the University of Saskatchewan and at Saskatoon hotels.The fires in northern Saskatchewan are disrupting the power supply for Sandy Bay and two other northern communities.SaskPower says some of its power poles have been burned.The government utility is asking people to conserve energy in the communities of Deschambault Lake, Pelican Narrows, and Sandy Bay.Until we can see the situation clearing up and the forest fires being controlled and reinstalling poles, we're asking customers to reduce their consumption so that everybody gets electricity, SaskPower spokesman Larry Christie said.People can still use power, but they should limit consumption to only what's necessary, Christie said.There are 54 forest fires burning in the province, the Saskatchewan Environment Ministry said. So far this year, there have been 433 fires, twice as many as the year before.
Wildfires force firefighters to pick their battles By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer JUNE 30,08
SAN FRANCISCO - With hundreds of wildfires raging across remote, rugged parts of California for a second week, fire officials have been forced to strategically choose which to fight and which to leave to burn for weeks or even months. The number of fires burning in central and Northern California — more than 1,000 according to state fire officials — means authorities can't send firefighters to battle every blaze, Jason Kirchner, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service, said Monday.It's like eating an elephant — you've got to eat it one bite at a time, he said.It's also impossible to attack wildfires in some rugged, remote areas because the risk to firefighters is too great, he said.We have to take a step back, figure out where the best place is to make a stand and sometimes wait for the fire to come to us in those situations, he said. We've got to pick the battles we can win.Long-running wildfires are not unusual in California. It was four months before firefighters controlled a blaze that blackened more than 240,000 acres of Santa Barbara County backcountry last year.
What is extraordinary this year is the number of fires burning at the same time, Kirchner said. The weekend of June 21, some 1,200 fires were burning — a figure Forest Service officials said appeared to be an all-time record in California.The Forest Service put the figure at about 600 on Monday. It attributed the gains to its tactic of attacking small fires first, and to significant assistance from other states and Canada.State officials, however, counted more than 1,000 ongoing blazes. The source of the discrepancy was apparently a different counting method.Also unusual, Kirchner said, was that there have been no significant injuries to civilians or firefighters even though some 570 square miles have burned in California this season. There were, however, a few minor injuries as harsh terrain hampered firefighters' efforts to battle a blaze in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.It is extremely steep, very rugged territory, and there are a lot of injuries, twisting ankles, slipping on hills, Kirchner said. Burning debris is rolling downhill right past your containment line. It's very complicated, difficult, dirty firefighting work.Even so, firefighters managed to increase their containment of that 30,000-acre fire from 15 to 23 percent.Two wildfires choked parts of the Sierra Nevada foothills, sending up plumes of smoke that darkened patches of the 100-mile stretch between Sacramento and Reno.The fires in the Tahoe National Forest blanketed portions of the Interstate 80 corridor linking the two cities and the foothill communities in between where tens of thousands of people live.Along the Pacific, fire officials said fog and humidity helped them gain ground against a blaze that was just 3 percent contained in the storied town of Big Sur. John Heil, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service, said it had blackened about 39,600 acres.
Firefighters poured personnel and equipment into the area to ensure the fire did not reach the town, said John Ahlman, a spokesman for the Los Padres National Forest.Heil said there was a possibility of rain in the far northern part of the state this week. But the changing weather pattern could also bring new lightning and high winds, which could touch off new blazes and fan the current ones, he said.Unless it rains, and we get some really good rainfall, you can pretty much expect it to be here right through October, he said. In Arizona, a wildfire that had burned more than 6 square miles of wilderness crept within 500 feet of the remote mountain community of Crown King north of Phoenix, officials said Monday. Three homes and four other structures had been destroyed, but it was unclear when, authorities said. About 120 residents voluntarily evacuated Sunday. Crews in central New Mexico's Manzano Mountains were doing mop-up operations Monday on an almost 9-square-mile fire that destroyed six homes and 10 outbuildings. Residents who left last week were allowed to return Sunday. The fire, started by lightning June 23, was 95 percent contained. In Guffey, Colo., about 40 miles west of Colorado Springs, most of the 100 residents who fled a 1,115-acre lightning-started wildfire were allowed back Sunday. Final evacuation orders were lifted Monday.
FAMINE
REVELATION 6:5-6
5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.(A DAYS WAGES FOR A LOAF OF BREAD)
Wheat prices expected to remain high: analysts
Last Updated: Monday, June 30, 2008 | 12:46 PM CT CBC News
After weeks of volatility on international wheat markets, prices of the grain appear to have settled down but remain relatively high.
While they are not at an all-time high — grain on the international commodities markets was selling for more than $12 US a bushel in February — prices are more than double compared to two years ago.
Wheat prices in Chicago were above $9 US a bushel last week. Two years ago, they were about $3.60 US.Canadian Wheat Board market analysts are predicting prices will remain high for at least another year.In some cases, even those who decided not to grow wheat this year have been able to cash in.Farmer Neal Hardy didn't plant any wheat on his farm near Hudson Bay after having poor luck with the crop in recent years.Fortunately, Hardy still had some feed wheat in his bins — although it was wheat that had suffered frost damage in 2004.He held onto it because prices were so low at the time, he wouldn't have been able to cover his costs. This spring, it was a completely different situation.I just sold it a little bit ago, Hardy said. I sold it to a feed mill and I got $7 a bushel.If wheat prices have softened since early spring, flooding in the U.S. Midwest could boost them again.
Economists say rising prices of one grain can cause the increase of the price of another grain. When people substitute a cheaper grain for a higher-priced one, the increase in demand starts to push up the price.David Boyes, a market analyst with the Canadian Wheat Board, notes that flooding in the Midwest has devastated the corn crop, with implications for wheat. As you have seen in the news, they have had anything but ideal conditions, he said. Prices are at record levels for U.S. corn and that is providing a lot of support for the wheat market right now.Even though a record amount of wheat has been planted this year, prices will remain high for another 12 months at least, Boyes said.
HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
OIL PEAKS AT $143.00 A BARREL
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Oil is making millionaires in North Dakota By JAMES MacPHERSON, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 30, 5:00 AM ET
BEULAH, N.D. - Oscar Stohler was raised in a sod house in western North Dakota and ranched there for nearly seven decades. He never gave much thought to what lay below the grass that fattened his cattle. When oilmen wanted to drill there last year, Stohler, 83, doubted oil would be found two miles underground on his property. He even joked about it.I told them if they hit oil, I was going to buy a Cadillac convertible and put those big horns on the front and wear a 10-gallon hat, Stohler recalled.He still drives his old pickup and wears a mesh farm cap — but it's by choice.
In less than a year, Stohler and his wife, Lorene, 82, have become millionaires from the production of one well on their land near Dunn Center, a mile or so from the sod home where Oscar grew up. A second well has begun producing on their property and another is being drilled — all aimed at the Bakken shale formation, a rich deposit that the U.S. Geological Survey calls the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.Landowners in western North Dakota have a much better chance of striking it rich from oil than they do playing the lottery, say the Stohlers. Some of their neighbors in the town of about 120, from bar tenders to Tupperware salespeople, have become overnight millionaires from oil royalty payments.It's the easiest money we've ever made, said Lorene Stohler, who worked for decades as a sales clerk at a small department store.State and industry officials say North Dakota is on pace to set a state oil-production record this year, surpassing the 52.6 million barrels produced in 1984. A record number of drill rigs are piercing the prairie and North Dakota has nearly 4,000 active oil wells.The drilling frenzy has led companies to search for oil using horizontal drilling beneath Parshall, a town of about 980 in Mountrail County, and under Lake Sakakawea, 180-mile-long reservoir on the Missouri River.I have heard, anecdotally, that there is a millionaire a day being created in North Dakota, said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.Kathy Strombeck, a state Tax Department analyst, said the number of income millionaires in North Dakota is rising.The number of taxpayers reporting adjusted gross income of more than $1 million in North Dakota rose from 266 in 2005 to 388 in 2006, Strombeck said. The 2007 numbers won't be known until October, she said.
Bruce Gjovig, director of the University of North Dakota's Center for Innovation, said his informal survey estimates the number of new millionaires in Mountrail County, one of the biggest drilling areas of the Bakken, may be as many as 2,000 — or nearly a third of the county's population — in the next three to five years.North Dakota's per capita income in 2007 was $36,846, ranking the state 30th in the nation and up from 42nd in 1997, said Richard Rathge, the state Data Center director and North Dakota demographer.The two main drivers are energy and agriculture income, Rathge said. The increasing wealth in the state from oil should push the average annual wage in North Dakota, he said.The oil boom has spurred several Jed Clampett-like tales of ordinary folks getting rich, said Tom Rolfstad, the economic development director for the city of Williston.Rolfstad said he hasn't spotted any Ferraris or Rolls Royces in town, though several people can afford them now.I'm seeing a lot more big, shiny gas-guzzling pickups, he said. Several homes that cost more than a million dollars also are being built in Williston, he said. The community of about 12,500 people is perhaps best known as the hometown of NBA coach Phil Jackson. Most people don't want people to know how much money they got and they don't want to be tagged with being wealthy — they want to be themselves, Rolfstad said. Oscar and Lorene Stohler said their newly found wealth hasn't changed them. We still know what tough times are, Oscar said. We grew up in the Dirty '30s.We put our kids through college without that oil money, Lorene said. The couple moved a few miles east to Beulah and paid cash for their new home, the first one they have owned. They have established trust accounts for their four children. Lorene said the only thriftless purchase was an automatic sprinkler system for her flowers that surround the couple's new home. And Oscar bought a $1,000 ring for his wife to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. We got enough now to buy new stuff, Lorene said, but we like our old stuff.
WERES OIL HEADED
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Oil prices end down after topping $143 a barrel By J.W. ELPHINSTONE, AP Business Writer Mon Jun 30, 3:56 PM ET
NEW YORK - The price of crude oil hit yet another record on the last day of a tumultuous first half, spurting past $143 a barrel before ending lower on demand fears and a resilient dollar. Crude has shot up nearly 50 percent since the start of the year, in large part on the dollar's troubles, and analysts expect that trend to remain intact as the second half of 2008 begins. A government report lowering oil and gasoline demand estimates and a dollar hanging tough nullified investor concerns over supply, a fragile global economy and continued tensions in the Middle East.What this shows is that demand destruction in the U.S. is a lot larger than previously thought, said Phil Flynn, an energy analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago. There are more signs that demand is deteriorating.Light, sweet crude for August delivery lost 21 cents to settle at $140.00 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In early electronic trading, the contract hit a record $143.67.
The Energy Information Administration reported that oil usage in April was lower than previously estimated, falling to 4.2 percent to 19.768 million barrels per day from 20.631 million. That was 3.9 percent lower than in April 2007 and the lowest level for the month in six years.The price of oil, which began 2008 at $96 a barrel, has risen in part on expectations of higher demand in China and other developing nations. But its almost relentless advance has also forced consumers and businesses to cut back the amount of gas and oil they use; it is also posing a threat to U.S. economic growth that could further slice into demand.A hardier dollar also sent oil prices lower on Monday. Often, oil futures are used as a hedge against a weaker dollar.A lot of the momentum from late last week was the expectation we would continue to see a weaker U.S. dollar. When that didn't materialize, we had some profit-taking, said James Cordier, president of Tampa, Fla.-based trading firms Liberty Trading Group and OptionSellers.com.The dollar rose against the 15-nation euro after the Chicago Purchasing Managers' index came in better than expected. The index for June rose to 49.6 from 49.1 in May, topping estimates of 49.1. The report is seen as a precursor for the national Institute for Supply Management report, to be released Tuesday.
But there was little expectation in the market that Monday's trading was the start of a turnaround in the dollar that would send oil falling much further. The dollar has weakened on expectations the Federal Reserve Board won't soon raise interest rates as the U.S. economy struggles with low growth. The Fed left its benchmark rate unchanged last week.European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet's hawkish stance (on) inflation could mean the dollar may be headed for further weakness against the euro and that's not bearish for oil, said The Schork Report edited by U.S. analyst and trader Stephen Schork. When other countries raise their interest rates, they are more competitive with U.S. rates, and that weakens the dollar.If the Federal Reserve is powerless to raise interest rates because the economy continues to be soft, then we'll see low interest rates push oil higher, Flynn said.Meanwhile, retail gasoline, which has been tracking oil higher, reached a new national average of $4.086 a gallon, according to a survey of stations by AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. The previous record of $4.08 was reached June 16; since then, oil has moved past $140 and been setting new records of its own.Gasoline's surge higher has clearly affected consumer spending in the U.S. The concern is that the inflationary effects of higher oil and gas will force consumers to cut back their spending on non-essentials further in the months ahead.Geopolitical tensions, particularly surrounding Iran, also continue to boost oil prices. Traders were digesting reported comments from the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, who warned that if his country is attacked, Tehran would strike back by barraging Israel with missiles. In a report published Saturday in the conservative Jam-e-Jam newspaper, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said that if Iran were provoked, it would also move to control a key oil passageway in the Gulf.Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil exporter and about 60 percent of the world's oil passes through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Global supply also remains a concern. The Iraqi government opened six oil fields to international bidding Monday as the nation attempts to boost daily production by 60 percent.The potential participation of big Western companies like BP PLC, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Total SA in Iraq's oil industry has been criticized in recent weeks following published reports that several were close to signing no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government. Those contracts were expected to be announced Monday, but Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani instead named 35 companies that would be qualified to bid on service contracts for the oil fields of Rumeila, Zubair, Qurna West, Maysan, Kirkuk and Bay Hassan. In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures slipped less than a cent to settle at $3.9029 a gallon while gasoline prices rose less than a penny to $3.5015 a gallon. Natural gas futures increased 15.5 cents to end at $13.353 per 1,000 cubic feet. In London, Brent crude futures lost 48 cents to settle at $139.83 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. Earlier Monday, the price for Brent had peaked at $143.91. AP Business Writer Malcolm Foster in Bangkok, Thailand, and Associated Press Writer Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to this report.
EU DICTATOR (WORLD LEADER)
REVELATION 17:12-13
12 And the ten horns (NATIONS) which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
REVELATION 6:1-2
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse:(PEACE) and he that sat on him had a bow;(EU DICTATOR) and a crown was given unto him:(PRESIDENT OF THE EU) and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.(MILITARY GENIUS)
REVELATION 13:1-10
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.(THE EU AND ITS DICTATOR IS GODLESS)
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.(DICTATOR COMES FROM NEW AGE OR OCCULT)
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death;(MURDERERD) and his deadly wound was healed:(COMES BACK TO LIFE) and all the world wondered after the beast.(THE WORLD THINKS ITS GOD IN THE FLESH, MESSIAH TO ISRAEL)
4 And they worshipped the dragon (SATAN) which gave power unto the beast:(JEWISH EU DICTATOR) and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?(FALSE RESURRECTION,SATAN BRINGS HIM TO LIFE)
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.(GIVEN WORLD CONTROL FOR 3 1/2YRS)
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God,(HES A GOD HATER) to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.(HES A LIBERAL OR DEMOCRAT,WILL PUT ANYTHING ABOUT GOD DOWN)
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints,(BEHEAD THEM) and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.(WORLD DOMINATION)
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.(WORLD DICTATOR)
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.(SAVED CHRISTIANS AND JEWS DIE FOR THEIR FAITH AT THIS TIME,NOW WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE BUT DURING THE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH, PEOPLE WILL BE PUT TO DEATH (BEHEADINGS) FOR THEIR BELIEF IN GOD (JESUS) OR THE BIBLE.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come (ROMANS IN AD 70) shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMANS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 And he( EU ROMAN, JEWISH DICTATOR) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:( 7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,( 3 1/2 YRS) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
ITS FRANCES TURN
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FRANCE TAKES OVER THE PRESIDENCY OF THE EU FOR THE NEXT 6 MONTHS, WATCH THINGS COME TOGETHER NOW SARKO WILL GET THINGS DONE, INCLUDING THE MEDITERREAN UNION ON JULY 13,08
Sarkozy combative as France assumes EU presidency By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 30, 5:36 PM ET
PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy was in combative mood Monday as France assumed leadership of the European Union, criticizing the bloc's trade chief and warning Europe's central bank against raising interest rates. Some analysts have questioned whether Sarkozy's sometimes brash and often direct style will be suited to the task of building consensus among the EU's 27 member nations as France holds the rotating presidency for the next six months.The EU is facing formidable problems in high oil prices, the threat to overseas sales from the euro's strength against the U.S. dollar and uncertainty about the bloc's future after Ireland's voters rejected a reform treaty this month.In a TV interview, Sarkozy reiterated France's priorities during its half-year at the helm would be stemming the influx of illegal immigrants, combatting global warming and softening the blow of oil prices. He said Europeans also want the EU to deal with threats posed by globalization.
The European idea will be in danger if we don't protect Europeans, Sarkozy said.One of Sarkozy's long-standing complaints is that the EU's euro currency is overvalued, hurting European economic competitiveness in global trade.The European Central Bank is widely expected to raise its interest rates this week amid high inflation in the euro zone — a move that could send the currency even higher against the dollar.Sarkozy said raising interest rates would prevent people and companies from borrowing and investing. He blamed inflation on rising prices for commodities like oil and said doubling or even tripling interest rates would not bring oil prices down.Don't tell me that to fight inflation, we must raise interest rates, he said.Sarkozy indicated that he, like his predecessor as French president, Jacques Chirac, would be a strong defender of European farmers.He accused the EU's trade chief, Peter Mandelson, and the head of the World Trade Organization of pushing trade proposals that Sarkozy said would lead to a 20 percent drop in European agricultural production and a 10 percent cut in its agricultural exports.That is 100,000 jobs lost. I will not let that happen, Sarkozy said.Irish voters' rejection of the EU reform treaty June 13 has cast a pall over France's EU presidency. The treaty can only take effect in 2009 only if ratified by all 27 EU states.The treaty, which took years to draft, aims to streamline the way the bloc makes decisions and bolster its powers in such areas as immigration and fighting crime. It also seeks to make the EU's foreign policy more effective with the creation of an EU president and single envoy to represent the bloc abroad.
Big personality and big problems to mark French EU presidency Not quite the presidency agenda Paris wanted (Photo: EUobserver.com) HONOR MAHONY 30.06.2008 @ 07:40 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – On Tuesday 1 July, France takes over the EU presidency armed with a big country's sense of the natural order of things, a hyperactive president and a lengthy list of priorities.
But its six month term will operate under the twin black clouds of Ireland's rejection of the EU Lisbon Treaty as well as rising discontent among European citizens about the recent hikes in food and fuel prices.The Irish question will simmer throughout Paris' reign of the EU as member states try and pull off the public relations feat of making it look like the Irish vote counts but putting pressure on Dublin to put the document to referendum for a second time. Whether they achieve this will depend as much on the way Paris conducts the talks as on the actions of Irish prime minister Brian Cowen. However, France's hopes of brokering deals on who would occupy new posts created by the Lisbon treaty – such as the EU president – have been scuppered.French presidency Nicolas Sarkozy is set to visit the Irish capital on 11 July. The issue will come up at the October meeting of EU leaders and once again at the December summit where member states will be hoping that Dublin will set out a concrete plan of action.
Meanwhile, the worsening global economic situation is set to bring the country - as both the EU presidency as well as member state with a firm protectionist streak - into conflict with other EU partners.During its presidency, the bloc is supposed to have serious discussions on reforming its Common Agricultural Policy but rising food prices may undermine any sense of approaching the talks with a real view for change. Mr Sarkozy has already riled other capitals by suggesting that VAT on fuel be reduced - something the European Commission has now reluctantly agreed to look into.
Climate change
A concrete issue where progress could be made is on a climate change deal. The EU in March last year agreed a series of ambitious goals, including reducing CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020. In January, the European Commission suggested how each country should contribute to these goals. Virtually every member state would like something changed in their environment package meaning it will need both good negotiating skills plus France's clout as a large member state to secure a deal. An agreement should be in sight at the end of the year if it is to be approved by the European Parliament before it goes into election recess in Spring next year. Only with a deal under its belt will Europe will be able to go into the 2009 global talks in Copenhagen on a successor to the Kyoto agreement with any moral authority.
Defence and Mediterranean Union
In the run up to its presidency, France has made no secret of its desire to boost defence policy in the bloc. In a major speech on 17 June, Mr Sarkozy spoke of a making the first step towards a genuine revival of European defence.However, it is unclear how much Paris can achieve without real cooperation from Britain – the other military heavyweight in the Union. London remains opposed to plans for a European military headquarters, something Paris is particularly keen on. In addition, neutral Ireland's No to the treaty is likely to mean that France has to tone down its rhetoric on defence – particularly if Irish citizens are once more to go to the polls on the treaty.The uncertainty created by the Lisbon Treaty means that even more focus will be put on France's idea of a Mediterranean Union as another of its major plans.Already watered down by other EU member states for being too divisive, the Mediterranean Union will be launched at a special summit on 13 July in Brussels but it is unclear how many leaders will attend - both from EU country and non-EU Mediterranean states - as well as what exactly the new set-up will achieve.
The Sarkozy factor
But despite the lowering of general expectations for the French presidency, Mr Sarkozy alone is set to generate high levels of interest.Brussels has operated under a pall since the beginning of the year. It maintained a low-key approach in anticipation of the Irish referendum, this was coupled with the traditional quiet-before-the-storm feeling that precedes any big-country presidency.
This is likely to mean that Mr Sarkozy's more unconventional way of operating and his sheer unpredictability is set to keep the country in the headlines - even if Paris has its hands tied by outside events.
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
Czech government blesses EU treaty
PHILIPPA RUNNER 30.06.2008 @ 09:20 CET
The Czech government has advised the country's Constitutional Court that the EU's Lisbon treaty does not violate the Czech Republic's own constitution, improving the climate for ratification in the most problematic EU state after the Irish No vote.Due to its [Lisbon's] ratification, no substantial change in the arrangement of the democratic legal order will occur, the text of a legal opinion submitted by the government to the court late last week states, Czech daily Lidove noviny reported.The government says in its position that...on the basis of legal expert reports the Lisbon treaty complies with the Czech Republic's constitutional order, Europe minister Alexandr Vondra told the CTK news agency on Saturday (28 June).The court is set to make its ruling on the question in September or October, allowing the Czech parliament to complete the ratification process before Prague takes over the rotating EU presidency on 1 January 2009.Analysts expect the EU treaty to get through the 200-seat lower house. But the eurosceptic ODS party, many of whose members say Lisbon is dead after the Irish referendum, holds a 41-strong majority in the 81-seat upper house.
The Czech president, Vaclav Klaus - an outspoken enemy of Lisbon - must also sign the text to make it law. The largely honorary office of the Czech president would find it hard to block a parliamentary decision in practice, however.With Ireland planning to present its first thoughts on how to deal with the No vote at the EU summit only in October, the new EU treaty is unlikely to enter into force before the June 2009 elections, even if it passes through the Czech system smoothly.The situation is set to see Prague enjoy the full perks of its EU presidency, with prime minister Topolanek chairing EU and international summits instead of having to stand aside for the new permanent EU president as envisaged by the Lisbon text.Now we will get our presidencies, a senior Czech diplomat in Brussels wrote in an SMS to a Swedish counterpart the day the Irish referendum result came out on 13 June. Stockholm is to take over the EU chair after Prague in mid-2009.
Ratification map
France, Germany and the European Commission have called for ratification to continue despite the Irish No, pointing to a scenario in which Ireland stands isolated against 26 EU states and faces pressure for a re-vote, as occured with the 2001 Nice treaty referendum.Sixteen EU countries have so far definitively ratified Lisbon. The Finnish, Polish and German parliaments have approved the text, but are awaiting their presidents' signatures. The Swedish, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, Spanish, and Cypriot legislatures will finish voting between July and the autumn.The Czech Republic is not the only problem country left, with the Polish president's office questioning whether the treaty still legally exists and the German constitutional court considering a legal challenge. Austrian leader Alfred Gusenbauer last week said he would also call a referendum if Lisbon is tweaked for a second Irish vote.
EU and US near deal on confidential data sharing
RENATA GOLDIROVA 30.06.2008 @ 09:21 CET
The European Union and the US are near to agreeing a binding international agreement which would make it easier for law enforcement authorities on both sides of the Atlantic to inspect personal data such as credit card transactions, travel histories and internet browsing habits. The New York Times cited on Saturday (28 June) an internal report by the US Homeland Security, Justice and State Departments as well as European negotiators. The report says that it will be lawful for governments and companies to mutually exchange personal information as part of the global fight against terrorism. The deal would let governments and companies exchange personal information as part of the global fight against terrorism (Photo: wikipedia)Information on race, religion, political opinion, health or sexual life should not be used, however unless domestic law provides appropriate safeguards. But the document stops short of specifying what appropriate safeguards are.According to the New York Times, negotiators continue to wrangle over issues linked to privacy protection. For example, they need to agree whether European citizens could file a lawsuit against the US government if they think their personal data have been mishandled.
The EU is sticking to the position that all Europeans require the ability to bring suit in US courts specifically under the Privacy Act for an agreement to be reached on redress, the New York Times reports.The 1974 Privacy Act allows American citizens and permanent residents to challenge the state, but this right does not apply to foreigners.The EU and the US are trying to find a common ground on privacy and to agree non-conflicting obligations on private companies, Stewart A. Baker from the Department of Homeland Security was cited as saying by the American newspaper.
The 9-11 trigger
The EU-US talks were triggered by 2001 terrorist attacks on US soil. Back then, Washington found it difficult to freely obtain data on European air passengers flying to the US as well as information on European financial transactions operated by Belgian-based consortium SWIFT.During the last EU-US summit under the Slovene EU presidency (9-10 June), the two sides agreed that the fight against transnational crime and terrorism requires the ability to share personal data for law enforcement.They reiterated the need for having a binding international agreement, which would lower barriers for data exchange, while guaranteeing that the right to privacy is fully protected.However, criticism is likely to come from the European Parliament, a strong advocate of citizens' rights. I am very worried that once this will be adopted, it will serve as a pretext to freely share our personal data with anyone, so I want it to be very clear about exactly what it means and how it will work, Dutch liberal Sophia in't Veld told the New York Times.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
SAUDI 9 YRS OLD ENOUGH FOR SEX
WOW THIS IS JUST TO MUCH TO BELIEVE, THIS SAUDI SAYS U CAN MARRY A 9YR OLD AND HAVE SEX, WHAT IS ISLAM THINKING.
Sex OK at 9, says Saudi cleric Muhammad is model we follow. He took Aisha to be his wife when she was 6 June 27, 2008
12:15 am Eastern 2008 WorldNetDaily
Age, or lack thereof, is no hindrance to marriage under Islam, according to Ahmad Al-Mu'bi, an officiant for marriages from Saudi Arabia who says sex at 9 is fine.According to a video of the Saudi official recorded and translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al-Mu'bi has confirmed that marriage contracts are appropriate for girls as young as age 1.And he said the model for marriage continues to be Muhammad, who married one of his wives when she was but 6.The video comes from a broadcast on LBC Television on June 19, according to the MEMRI report.Al-Mu'bi said, Marriage is actually two things: First we are talking about the marriage contract itself. This is one thing, while consummating the marriage – having sex with the wife for the first time – is another thing.There is no minimal age for entering marriage. You can have a marriage contract even with a 1-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of 9, 7, or 8. This is merely a contract [indicating] consent. The guardian in such a case must be the father, because the father's opinion is obligatory. Thus, the girl becomes a wife, he said.
But is the girl ready for sex or not? What is the appropriate age for having sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and traditions. In Yemen, girls are married off at 9, 10, 11, 8, or 13, while in other countries, they are married off at 16. Some countries have legislated laws forbidding having sex before the girl is 18, he said.He confirmed, The Prophet Muhammad is the model we follow. He took Aisha to be his wife when she was 6, but he had sex with her only when she was 9.An interviewer asked: My question to you is whether the marriage of a 12-year-old boy to an 11-year-old girl is a logical marriage permitted by Islamic law.
If the guardian is the father... There are two different types of guardianship. If the guardian is the father, and he marries his daughter off to a man of appropriate standing, the marriage is obviously valid, said Al-Mu'bi.People find themselves in all kinds of circumstances. Take, for example, a man who has two, three, or four daughters. He does not have any wives, but he needs to go on a trip. Isn't it better to marry his daughter to a man who will protect and sustain her, and when she reaches the proper age, he will have sex with her? Who says all men are ferocious wolves?" Al-Mu'bi said.MEMRI also recently reported that Hamas Minister of Culture Atallah Abu Al-Subh made a statement on Al-Aqsa Television that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has worked diligently to help establish a Palestinian state, should be condemned as a murderer.Every proud Palestinian views you as a murderer, and sees the blood of the children of Palestine between your lips and on your fangs. I pray to Allah that you will soon slither away, Al-Subh in a statement aired by Al-Aqsa.A year ago, WND reported an online forum tied to the website of Hamas posted a photo of a little girl in a combat vest and the head band of the terrorist Al-Qassam Brigades.The message accompanying the photo said the girl is part of the Muslim generation which will go down in history [as a generation] … that refused to [accept] humiliation and defeat.MEMRI is an independent nonprofit that monitors and reports on media broadcasts and publications in the Middle East.
The organization previously has featured messages to children about Nahoul, the bee, weeping over his martyred family as well as the martyrdom of Farfour, the Mickey Mouse-lookalike.Hamas, which won a majority in parliament in January 2006 elections, officially is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. As WND reported, a prominent Hamas leader recently was captured on video boasting of using children, women and the elderly as human shields in its firefights with Israeli soldiers.
Sex OK at 9, says Saudi cleric Muhammad is model we follow. He took Aisha to be his wife when she was 6 June 27, 2008
12:15 am Eastern 2008 WorldNetDaily
Age, or lack thereof, is no hindrance to marriage under Islam, according to Ahmad Al-Mu'bi, an officiant for marriages from Saudi Arabia who says sex at 9 is fine.According to a video of the Saudi official recorded and translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al-Mu'bi has confirmed that marriage contracts are appropriate for girls as young as age 1.And he said the model for marriage continues to be Muhammad, who married one of his wives when she was but 6.The video comes from a broadcast on LBC Television on June 19, according to the MEMRI report.Al-Mu'bi said, Marriage is actually two things: First we are talking about the marriage contract itself. This is one thing, while consummating the marriage – having sex with the wife for the first time – is another thing.There is no minimal age for entering marriage. You can have a marriage contract even with a 1-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of 9, 7, or 8. This is merely a contract [indicating] consent. The guardian in such a case must be the father, because the father's opinion is obligatory. Thus, the girl becomes a wife, he said.
But is the girl ready for sex or not? What is the appropriate age for having sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and traditions. In Yemen, girls are married off at 9, 10, 11, 8, or 13, while in other countries, they are married off at 16. Some countries have legislated laws forbidding having sex before the girl is 18, he said.He confirmed, The Prophet Muhammad is the model we follow. He took Aisha to be his wife when she was 6, but he had sex with her only when she was 9.An interviewer asked: My question to you is whether the marriage of a 12-year-old boy to an 11-year-old girl is a logical marriage permitted by Islamic law.
If the guardian is the father... There are two different types of guardianship. If the guardian is the father, and he marries his daughter off to a man of appropriate standing, the marriage is obviously valid, said Al-Mu'bi.People find themselves in all kinds of circumstances. Take, for example, a man who has two, three, or four daughters. He does not have any wives, but he needs to go on a trip. Isn't it better to marry his daughter to a man who will protect and sustain her, and when she reaches the proper age, he will have sex with her? Who says all men are ferocious wolves?" Al-Mu'bi said.MEMRI also recently reported that Hamas Minister of Culture Atallah Abu Al-Subh made a statement on Al-Aqsa Television that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has worked diligently to help establish a Palestinian state, should be condemned as a murderer.Every proud Palestinian views you as a murderer, and sees the blood of the children of Palestine between your lips and on your fangs. I pray to Allah that you will soon slither away, Al-Subh in a statement aired by Al-Aqsa.A year ago, WND reported an online forum tied to the website of Hamas posted a photo of a little girl in a combat vest and the head band of the terrorist Al-Qassam Brigades.The message accompanying the photo said the girl is part of the Muslim generation which will go down in history [as a generation] … that refused to [accept] humiliation and defeat.MEMRI is an independent nonprofit that monitors and reports on media broadcasts and publications in the Middle East.
The organization previously has featured messages to children about Nahoul, the bee, weeping over his martyred family as well as the martyrdom of Farfour, the Mickey Mouse-lookalike.Hamas, which won a majority in parliament in January 2006 elections, officially is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. As WND reported, a prominent Hamas leader recently was captured on video boasting of using children, women and the elderly as human shields in its firefights with Israeli soldiers.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
STORMS - EU - GAY PARADE
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.
Tropical storm Fengshen kills 9 in China Sat Jun 28, 2:21 AM ET
BEIJING - The Chinese government says Tropical Storm Fengshen has killed at least nine people in southern China. The storm hit China this week after killing at least 540 people in the Philippines.
Chinese authorities say the storm destroyed more than 1,200 houses and damaged roads, crops and power lines in Guangdong province, which abuts Hong Kong, the government's Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.Xinhua says nine people were killed but gave no details. It said economic losses totaled 1.2 billion yuan ($175 million).The report said the storm also dumped rain on the inland province of Jiangxi as it moved north before weakening.
Tropical Storm Boris forms in Pacific Sat Jun 28, 12:39 AM ET
MEXICO CITY - Tropical Storm Boris has formed off Mexico's Pacific coast, but is not threatening land. Miami's National Hurricane Center says the storm has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph on Friday. The storm was located on Friday night 645 miles south of the southern tip of Baja California.Forecasters say the storm is moving northwest out to sea at 10 mph.
Midwest levee breaks, corn price at new high By Carey Gillam Fri Jun 27, 6:30 PM ET
WINFIELD, Missouri (Reuters) - The Mississippi River on Friday burst through an earthen levee that may have been weakened by burrowing muskrats, swamping a Missouri town and adding to billion-dollar losses in U.S. Midwest flooding that has fueled fears of soaring world food prices. The levee break, the 36th in the last two weeks, sent a torrent of muddy water into Winfield, a town of about 800 people north of St. Louis, where officials said about 3,000 acres of crop land was submerged.In all about 40,000 acres of land has now been flooded in Missouri.Fears that as many as 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been lost to flooding in the world's largest grain and food exporter have pushed corn and livestock prices to record highs in the last week.The Midwest storms and torrential rains have killed at least 24 people since late May. More than 38,000 people have been driven from their homes, mostly in Iowa where 83 of 99 counties have been declared disaster areas.Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt said up to 150 homes may be flooded in Winfield, where volunteers had labored for a week fortifying levees and piling sandbags. They began again at a fall-back position on Friday to prevent more widespread damage.They really are involved in a race against that water, Blunt told reporters. It's really just a reminder of how powerful a force the Mississippi River is.
ANIMAL BURROWS
Officials said the levee break began in an area where muskrats, semi-aquatic rodents common in U.S. lakes and streams, had been digging.We believe the original breach was attributed to animal burrows created sometime in the past and even though the holes were plugged, the area remained problematic, the Lincoln County Emergency Operations Command said in a statement.Scattered heavy rains again were reported in the region on Friday and forecasters warned more flooding was a threat because the sodden ground can absorb little more.But the National Weather Service forecasts for Saturday and Sunday called for rains to ease off in the worst-hit areas.Heavy rains this month have caused more than $6 billion in crop damage in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska, a key growing region of the world's biggest grain and feed exporter, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.It's a tragic, devastating disaster, Russ Kremer, a grain and livestock farmer who is president of the Missouri Farmers Union, said of the worst Midwest floods in 15 years.He said towns like Winfield and hundreds of thousands of acres of prime crop land submerged in the region represent a complete loss for a lot of people. It will have a significant effect on the market.Corn prices hit a record at the Chicago Board of Trade in overnight screen trading on Friday at $8.25 per bushel in the July 2009 contract, more than double the 40-year average.Corn is the main feed for livestock, is used for ethanol fuel and contributes to hundreds of other food and industrial products throughout the economy.Before the floods, stockpiles of corn in the United States -- which ships 54 percent of all world corn exports -- had already been projected to fall to 13-year lows next year. So the effect on global food prices as U.S. prices rise has alarmed everyone from central bankers to food aid groups.
FARMERS LOSING HOPE
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said on Friday that 45,000 square miles of the state had been hit by tornadoes or flooding, including 340 towns, with extensive damage to road and rail lines at a cost reaching into the tens of billions of dollars.We are beginning a (recovery) effort which could take years, Culver said told reporters.
Iowa officials said this week at least 2.5 million acres
of corn and soybeans, well above 10 percent of planted acreage in the top U.S. producing state for those crops, needs to be replanted. But it is too late in the season for good yields on replanted fields. Jason Roose, an Iowa corn and soybean farmer who is an analyst for U.S. Commodities in Des Moines, said he had planned to replant his acreage this week. But it didn't happen. I'm not able to do anything, and everyone else around here is in the same boat, he said. The Des Moines Register reported that the first half of 2008 was the wettest in Iowa since record-keeping began in the 19th century, with nearly 2 feet (0.7 meter) of rain. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where 4,000 homes were flooded two weeks ago, the city's broken sewage treatment plant was reported allowing 25 million gallons of raw sewage to drain into the Cedar River daily.
Chemicals from farm fields and other toxic substances left behind as waters recede have created a potential health threat. But drinking water supplies remain unpolluted in most areas. (Additional reporting by Lisa Shumaker and Sam Nelson in Chicago. Writing by Michael Conlon in Chicago; Editing by Peter Bohan and Xavier Briand)
Omaha residents face up to a week without power By JOSH FUNK and ANNA JO BRATTON, Associated Press Writers JUNE 28,08
OMAHA, Neb. - Nebraska's largest city struggled Saturday to restore power to thousands of residents a day after a severe storm damaged homes, uprooted trees and killed two people in a neighboring community. It could take a week to fully restore electricity after high winds from Friday's storm, officials said. The storm is one of the worst the Omaha Public Power District has dealt with, said CEO Gary Gates.Nearly 50,000 customers remained without power Saturday afternoon, utility spokesman Jeff Hanson said. At the peak of the failures, 126,000 customers lacked electricity.We've made very good progress so far with our restoration efforts, but as the work proceeds we're going to see fewer repairs that restore power to large numbers of customers, Gates said.Some customers might not have power restored until next Saturday, Gates said.The storm ripped off some roofs and damaged others, shattered windows, and toppled trees. Several homes will be declared unlivable, but city and county officials did not know how many.High winds predicted for Saturday never materialized, alleviating fears of further damage and disrupted recovery. A dry weekend forecast was expected to help the cleanup effort.The city released untreated sewage into the Missouri River for several hours until a generator restored operations early Saturday, public works director Bob Stubbe said. People were warned not to wade or swim in the river at Omaha or for miles downstream.Friday's storm killed two people in Council Bluffs, Iowa, across the river from Omaha. A tree fell on the car they were in, also injuring a woman.Those were the only deaths or serious injuries reported from the storm, which also interrupted practice for the U.S. Olympic swimming trials at Omaha's Qwest Center.Swimmers returned early Saturday for the first of two practice sessions. The eight-day meet to decide the U.S. Olympic team begins Sunday, with 1,250 swimmers competing.Much of the debris outside the arena had been cleaned up Saturday, but the building's electrical system was still being assessed, officials said. Damaged ceiling panels were being replaced.To the east, windy storms on Saturday knocked down a tent at an art fair in suburban Chicago. Witnesses told WBBM-AM radio that paramedics treated about six people at the scene.The storms left more than 30,000 people without electricity in the state.
1/3RD OF SHIPS DESTROYED
REVELATION 8:8-9
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
Pesticides in sunken Philippine ferry halt search By OLIVER TEVES, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 27, 9:02 AM ET
MANILA, Philippines - Philippine officials suspended attempts to retrieve bodies from a sunken ferry on Friday due to fears of toxic chemicals in the hold. Tests revealed no contamination but officials said the search would not resume until the dangerous cargo was removed.Vice President Noli de Castro told reporters that 22,000 pounds of the pesticide endosulfan intended for pineapple plantations of Del Monte Philippines went down with the ferry when it capsized in a typhoon Saturday in the central Philippines.
Transportation Undersecretary Maria Elena Bautista, head of the task force overseeing the retrieval operations, said divers will not be allowed to resume the search for bodies until the toxic cargo is safely removed. Norlito Gicana, executive director of the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority, said tests of four water samples from the ship indicated no contamination.The area has been found uncontaminated at this point, so while it's uncontaminated, we have to take the cargo out, Bautista said. A team of foreign divers with special chemical-resistant suits will examine the cargo and recommend how to haul it out of the ship, she said.More than 100divers, including eight U.S. servicemen, have joined the search.It remained unclear how many of the 850-plus passengers and crew were trapped when the 23,824-ton Princess of the Stars went belly up during the powerful typhoon, leaving just the tip of the bow jutting from the water.Only 56 survivors have been found, while 146 bodies have washed ashore or been recovered at sea, coast guard Commander Danilo Avila said.Typhoon Fengshen also left 540 people dead and 277 missing elsewhere in the country, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.Bautista said ferry owner Sulpicio Lines violated maritime rules that prohibit carrying toxic or hazardous substances in passenger ships.De Castro said the government is considering filing charges against Sulpicio.
FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS
REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
BIG FIRE IN BIG SUR
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=8543503&ch=4226713&src=news
SMOKE FROM 100"S OF FIRES LINGER
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=4226712&cl=8551189&src=news
Smoky skies threaten health in fiery California By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer JUNE 28,08
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Hundreds of lightning-sparked wildfires have turned the air of Northern California into an unhealthy stew of smoke and ash, forcing the cancellation of athletic events and other outdoor activities. Air pollution readings in the region are two to 10 times the federal standard for clean air, Dimitri Stanich, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, said Saturday.Some areas are experiencing the worst air quality on record, with the smoke hanging down to the ground like a fog.Air quality agencies are especially concerned about high readings of small-particle pollution. The tiniest particles can penetrate past the body's immune defenses, traveling deep into the lungs and the bloodstream.When you have it on the scale we are seeing now, it is very dangerous to the general public health, Stanich said. This is a very serious problem.Changing weather brought smoke-clearing breezes and brief relief to some areas Saturday, but it could also bring lightning storms similar to the ones that ignited fires across Northern California a week ago.Thunderstorms could strike anywhere in the northern Sierra Nevada or the northern Central Valley on Saturday night, said National Weather Service forecaster Johnnie Powell in Sacramento.The thunderstorms could also bring a small amount of much-needed rain, he said. The front was expected to pass by Sunday, setting up a second week of abysmal air quality.The renewed threat of dry lightning and stiffer breezes that could stir the wildfires led fire officials to declare a "red flag warning" — meaning the most extreme fire danger — until 5 a.m. Monday for Northern California.
On Saturday, President Bush issued an emergency declaration for California and ordered federal agencies to assist in firefighting efforts in many areas. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had made the request on Friday.More than 15,000 firefighters, 1,000 fire engines and more than 80 helicopters and aircraft were fighting more than 1,000 fires Saturday, said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.The summer has just begun, and fire conditions will only get tougher, Grijalva warned in a weekly radio address on behalf of the governor.Areas hardest hit include Butte County, where 31 fires have burned 19 square miles and threatened 1,200 homes; Mendocino County, where 121fires have burned 45 square miles and threatened 900 homes; and Shasta and Trinity counties, where about 160 fires have burned 58 square miles and threatened 230 homes.South of the tourist town of Big Sur in the Los Padres National Forest, a wildfire that started three weeks ago had burned 92 square miles and destroyed 16 structures including two homes. It was 80 percent contained Saturday.Stanich, of the Air Resources Board, advised people to stay inside and keep activity to a minimum. Children, the elderly and people with heart and lung problems are particularly vulnerable, but pollution levels are high enough to affect healthy adults.Health officials have reported an increase in people complaining of eye and throat irritation and coughing. The poor air can also trigger asthma attacks and bronchitis.They said surgical masks, wet cloths and bandanas are not enough to filter the smoke. Only N95- and P100-rated masks filter out the smallest and most dangerous particles.Some veterinary offices said pet owners were bringing in dogs and cats with symptoms ranging from weepy eyes and irritated skin to difficulty breathing or unusual lethargy. Vets were advising that pets remain inside until the smoke clears. Smoky air canceled this weekend's 100-mile Western States Endurance Run for the first time in its 31-year history. The decision disappointed 370 runners who had traveled from as far away as Africa for the annual race from Squaw Valley at Lake Tahoe to Auburn in the Sierra foothills. In Sonoma County, the limited visibility kept the Energizer Bunny and dozens of other colorful hot air balloons from lifting off during Saturday's Hot Air Balloon Classic in Windsor. Cities also closed public pools, canceled softball games and called off July Fourth fireworks displays. Schwarzenegger urged residents not to buy fireworks this year and said local governments should consider an outright ban, though he would not impose one statewide. In central New Mexico, a blaze caused by lightning that forced the evacuation of 400 people was 35 percent contained. Thunderstorms were forecast, and firefighters welcomed the possibility of rain but feared that winds could change the fire's direction. Associated Press writers Terence Chea and Amanda Fehd contributed to this report.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
BEARS PROWLING ON WALL STREET
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FAST MONEY WEB EXTRA
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Oil the wild card in predicting stock rebound By JOE BEL BRUNO, AP Business Writer Sat Jun 28, 4:22 AM ET
NEW YORK - Investors who remember the stock market's steep and prolonged decline earlier this decade may be wondering if the recovery from Wall Street's current morass will also take several years to accomplish. The dot-com bust, terrorist attacks, recession and corporate wrongdoing combined to send stocks plunging in 2002. Today's market has some similar problems, in particular the troubled economy and a devastated industry — this time, it's the financial sector. But there's one variable that may be impossible to resolve: oil prices that have more than doubled in a year and show no signs of abating.The economic gloom is far greater today then it was in 2002 because we have concern about worldwide inflation and what oil is going to do to the economy, said Alfred E. Goldman, chief market strategist at Wachovia Securities. "The problem for investors is when all of this is going to end, and the bottom line is nobody knows. Nostradamus wouldn't have known, neither would Albert Einstein.Crude oil has risen nearly 44 percent in the past five months, and OPEC's president said this week he believes oil could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer; it closed at a record high past $142 a barrel on Friday. That's still lower then the $200 peak recently forecast by economists at investment bank Goldman Sachs.The uncertainty about where energy prices are going makes it harder for economists to make forecasts. Many believe the high price of energy will eventually reverse after oil goes so high that demand shrivels and supplies increase — but calculating a timeline is difficult.
That leaves investors just along for the ride, Wachovia's Goldman said.Wall Street saw a return this past week of the volatility that had pummeled stocks since last summer but disappeared for a while during the spring. Investors were rattled not only by the uncertainty about oil's impact, but discouraging outlooks for the financial, high-tech and automotive industries.This past week, the Dow Jones industrials plunged 4.2 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500shed 3 percent and the Nasdaq composite index fell 3.8 percent.The market is worried about the direct correlation between the cost of energy, especially gasoline, and consumers' spending habits. Higher pump prices mean Americans might think twice about discretionary items like going out to dinner, buying new clothes, or paying for a new big screen television. Or buying a new car.Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic growth. Though there are no signs that spending has dried up entirely, many market observers fear it could happen — especially as gasoline hovers near a national average of $4.08 per gallon.
Wall Street's low point in 2002 was attributed to a host of problems such as the accounting fraud at corporate names like Enron, Adelphia Communications and WorldCom. Global tensions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks also hung over the market. There was still fallout from the near-collapse of the high-tech industry, and the country's collective problems had also sent the economy into recession.But, with oil at about $30 a barrel, inflation was under control. The market's troubles were not seen as a systemic risk, as they are today.I knew we'd get through all the problems in 2002 because it was your plain vanilla, fairly shallow recession," said Stephen Leeb, president of New York-based Leeb Capital Management and author of The Oil Factor.Right now, I think we're in one of the most threatening crisis of our history, and it is going to take a Manhattan Project to figure out what to do and it will take billions of dollars to implement it, he said, referring to the program during World War II to build the atomic bomb. It can't immediately be cured because we need long-term answers.The Federal Reserve, which kept interest rates on hold this past week, is well aware of the problem of expensive oil. The Fed statement released after its rate decision said the rise in energy prices are likely to weigh on economic growth over the next few quarters.But, Leeb and others believe this isn't something the Fed can solve on its own. The central bank's weapon against inflation is raising interest rates, which runs the risk of slowing down an already fragile economy.The higher oil goes, the more important of an issue it will become during the election cycle: Washington needs to actively take charge if we want to turn this situation around, he said. People are recognizing that the Fed is now in a total box.
EVIL INVENTIONS ARE PREDICTED IN THE BIBLE.
ROMANS 1:29-32
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
REVELATION 9:7-8
7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
Scientists: Nothing to fear from atom-smasher By DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 28, 3:08 PM ET
MEYRIN, Switzerland - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August. But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump? Ridiculous, say scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN — some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC.Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on, said project leader Lyn Evans.David Francis, a physicist on the collider's huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here, he said.The collider basically consists of a ring of supercooled magnets 17 miles in circumference attached to huge barrel-shaped detectors. The ring, which straddles the French and Swiss border, is buried 330 feet underground.The machine, which has been called the largest scientific experiment in history, isn't expected to begin test runs until August, and ramping up to full power could take months. But once it is working, it is expected to produce some startling findings.Scientists plan to hunt for signs of the invisible dark matter and dark energy that make up more than 96 percent of the universe, and hope to glimpse the elusive Higgs boson, a so-far undiscovered particle thought to give matter its mass.
The collider could find evidence of extra dimensions, a boon for superstring theory, which holds that quarks, the particles that make up atoms, are infinitesimal vibrating strings.The theory could resolve many of physics' unanswered questions, but requires about 10dimensions — far more than the three spatial dimensions our senses experience.The safety of the collider, which will generate energies seven times higher than its most powerful rival, at Fermilab near Chicago, has been debated for years. The physicist Martin Rees has estimated the chance of an accelerator producing a global catastrophe at one in 50 million — long odds, to be sure, but about the same as winning some lotteries.By contrast, a CERN team this month issued a report concluding that there is no conceivable danger of a cataclysmic event. The report essentially confirmed the findings of a 2003 CERN safety report, and a panel of five prominent scientists not affiliated with CERN, including one Nobel laureate, endorsed its conclusions.Critics of the LHC filed a lawsuit in a Hawaiian court in March seeking to block its startup, alleging that there was a significant risk that ... operation of the Collider may have unintended consequences which could ultimately result in the destruction of our planet.One of the plaintiffs, Walter L. Wagner, a physicist and lawyer, said Wednesday CERN's safety report, released June 20, has several major flaws, and his views on the risks of using the particle accelerator had not changed.On Tuesday, U.S. Justice Department lawyers representing the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation filed a motion to dismiss the case.The two agencies have contributed $531 million to building the collider, and the NSF has agreed to pay $87 million of its annual operating costs. Hundreds of American scientists will participate in the research.The lawyers called the plaintiffs' allegations extraordinarily speculative, and said there is no basis for any conceivable threat from black holes or other objects the LHC might produce. A hearing on the motion is expected in late July or August. In rebutting doomsday scenarios, CERN scientists point out that cosmic rays have been bombarding the earth, and triggering collisions similar to those planned for the collider, since the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.
And so far, Earth has survived.
The LHC is only going to reproduce what nature does every second, what it has been doing for billions of years, said John Ellis, a British theoretical physicist at CERN. Critics like Wagner have said the collisions caused by accelerators could be more hazardous than those of cosmic rays. Both may produce micro black holes, subatomic versions of cosmic black holes — collapsed stars whose gravity fields are so powerful that they can suck in planets and other stars. But micro black holes produced by cosmic ray collisions would likely be traveling so fast they would pass harmlessly through the earth. Micro black holes produced by a collider, the skeptics theorize, would move more slowly and might be trapped inside the earth's gravitational field — and eventually threaten the planet. Ellis said doomsayers assume that the collider will create micro black holes in the first place, which he called unlikely. And even if they appeared, he said, they would instantly evaporate, as predicted by the British physicist Stephen Hawking.
As for strangelets, CERN scientists point out that they have never been proven to exist. They said that even if these particles formed inside the Collider they would quickly break down. When the LHC is finally at full power, two beams of protons will race around the huge ring 11,000 times a second in opposite directions. They will travel in two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space. Their trajectory will be curved by supercooled magnets — to guide the beams around the rings and prevent the packets of protons from cutting through the surrounding magnets like a blowtorch. The paths of these beams will cross, and a few of the protons in them will collide, at a series of cylindrical detectors along the ring. The two largest detectors are essentially huge digital cameras, each weighing thousands of tons, capable of taking millions of snapshots a second. Each year the detectors will generate 15 petabytes of data, the equivalent of a stack of CDs 12 miles tall. The data will require a high speed global network of computers for analysis.
Wagner and others filed a lawsuit to halt operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state in 1999. The courts dismissed the suit. The leafy campus of CERN, a short drive from the shores of Lake Geneva, hardly seems like ground zero for doomsday. And locals don't seem overly concerned. Thousands attended an open house here this spring. There is a huge army of scientists who know what they are talking about and are sleeping quite soundly as far as concerns the LHC, said project leader Evans.
U.S. proposes new Mideast talks: Palestinian official By Wafa Amr Sat Jun 28, 12:36 PM ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The United States has proposed new talks in a push to reach a deal on Palestinian statehood before President George W. Bush leaves office in January, the chief Palestinian negotiator said on Saturday. Ahmed Qurie said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had invited the Israelis and Palestinians to a series of trilateral discussions in New York and Washington.He added that if Israel changed some of its positions on key issues, we can reach a deal by the end of this year.Earlier this month Qurie said it would take a miracle to reach agreement in 2008. It was unclear what had changed since.Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said some progress had been made and a deal was doable, but none of the issues have been agreed yet.Qurie said negotiations were at a similar point to the one they reached in 2000when statehood talks in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba ended without agreement.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched the first round of peace talks in seven years in Annapolis, Maryland, last November.
Bitter disputes over Jewish settlements in the West Bank have undercut U.S. efforts to reach a peace agreement this year.Olmert is involved in a corruption scandal that could force him from office and further disrupt peace talks.His spokesman Mark Regev said: Israel remains committed to the Annapolis framework of trying to reach a historic joint document by the end of this year. Important progress has happened but much work remains ahead.
Negotiators from both sides said progress has been made on some issues and they had started drafting a position paper to try to narrow the gaps between them.Israeli officials say headway has been made on the key question of borders.Among the most difficult stumbling blocks in talks have been the fate of Jerusalem and of Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements, borders, security, and water.Palestinian negotiators said they had rejected an Israeli proposal to set aside the issues of refugees and Jerusalem for three years.
RICE INTENSIFIES PEACE EFFORT
Qurie said the Palestinians were seeking a state in the West Bank and Gaza, lands Israel occupied during the 1967 Middle East war, and were ready for a swap of equal areas of territory with Israel.
He said the Palestinians had rejected Israeli proposals to annex large settlement blocs in the West Bank and negotiate about the rest of the land.The Israelis began with one position and then changed it, based on accepting facts created on the ground ... We have rejected this Israeli approach, Qurie said. He said the Palestinians would reject any suggestion of an Israeli military presence in a future Palestinian state but would not object to the deployment of foreign or United Nations troops to oversee the implementation of a final deal. In a bid to push the two sides to reach a deal this year, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met negotiators from both sides in Berlin last week on the margins of an international donors' conference. Qurie said Rice had suggested holding more trilateral meetings in July in Washington, in September in New York on the margins of a United Nations General Assembly meeting, and again on November 15 in Washington. (Editing by Andrew Roche)
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
Austrian leader calls for referendum if EU treaty changed
HONOR MAHONY 27.06.2008 @ 09:27 CET
Austria's chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer, has said that if any changes are made to the Lisbon Treaty following its rejection by Irish voters earlier this month, then it should be put to a referendum in his country.We think any future changes to the treaty that affect Austrian interests must be decided in Austria by a referendum, Mr Gusenbauer said in an open letter published in tabloid daily Kronen Zeitung.A lot of people are under the impression that the EU is not concerned with their real problems but that it is interested above all in looking after itself.The letter was also signed by the president of the Social Democrats, Werner Faymann.The social democrats are part of the ruling coalition, along with the centre-right Austrian People's Party, in Austria.The letter says that if a new-look treaty has to be ratified again in Austria, then the social democrats want to convince their coalition partner to take the referendum route.
There is also in Austria widespread scepticism about the EU at the moment. After the vast majority of Austrians voted in favour of EU membership in 1994, today we see a mood of uncertainty and sometimes also rejection.Austria's parliament has already ratified the treaty, making it one of the 20 national assemblies to have done so.But Ireland's rejection of the treaty on 12 June has brought the EU's institutional woes once more to the fore as all 27 member states have to ratify it for it to come into force.
Plassnik: Big mistake
Since the vote, EU leaders have been wracking their brains over how to get the Lisbon Treaty into place anyway but without giving the impression that Irish vote does not matter.The most likely course is set to be a second referendum on the document including some special provisos for Ireland, possibly on neutrality and tax issues.
So far there has been little political appetite to re-open negotiations on the document, which is already a result of bitter discussions after the rejection of the EU constitution in 2005. The move by the leading Social Democrats has already caused strong divisions among the ruling parties.Foreign minister Ursula Plassnik, from the centre-right, said that the call for a popular vote is just a disguise for an anti-European stance and called it a big mistake.Othmar Karas, the head of Austria's centre-right in the European Parliament, said that the Social Democrats have removed themselves from the role of constructive partner in the EU.But Hannes Swoboda, vice-president of the Socialists in the EU assembly, told Der Standard newspaper: It is not possible any other way - it cannot go on like this.He suggested that revising the treaty and putting it for parliamentary ratification again would not get through as the mood among the population is too negative.
According to Mr Swoboda, similar discussions are being had in Greece and the Netherlands and the Social Democrats' move would put other member states under pressure to make a such a promise.Until now, among Austria's political parties, only the far-right FPOe and BZOe had called for a referendum.
UK millionaire's Lisbon Treaty challenge defeated
LEIGH PHILLIPS 26.06.2008 @ 09:27 CET
UK millionaire Stuart Wheeler's attempt to force a referendum in Britain on the Lisbon Treaty via a High Court order have been defeated.Two judges, Lord Justice Richards and Mr Justice Mackay, rejected on Wednesday (25 June) Mr Wheeler's claim that there was a legitimate expectation of a referendum on the text.We have found nothing in the claimant's case to cast doubt on the lawfulness of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum, said the judges in their decision, with the treaty now set to become UK law after its parliamentary and royal approval earlier this month.The court also refused Mr Wheeler, who made his fortune from spread-betting, permission to appeal, due to the serious legal, constitutional and public interest issues arising in the case.His lawyers had argued that as the Labour Party had promised a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty in their 2005 election manifesto, the British electorate could legitimately expect a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, which features many similarities with its predecessor.
Despite the judges' decision on the possibility of an appeal, Mr Wheeler has instructed his lawyers to mount a fresh legal challenge.
Treaty 'cannot come into force' says Czech president
Separately, while the Lisbon Treaty may have received good news from the UK court, Czech president Vaclav Klaus has said the treaty cannot come into force.In an interview with Spanish daily El Pais, the eurosceptic Mr Klaus said: The EU cannot ignore its own rules. The Lisbon Treaty has been roundly and democratically rejected by Ireland, and it therefore cannot come into force.Any attempt to ignore this fact and make recourse to pressure and political manipulation to move the treaty forward would have disastrous consequences for Europe, he added.Asked whether the country will ratify the treaty, the president said Since the treaty must unanimously be ratified of all the member states of the EU and one of them has already rejected it, the final result of the ratification will be the same. With or without the Czech vote, the Treaty of Lisbon will not be ratified, he concluded.
Czech prime minister has different ideas
However, the Czech president was contradicted by the country's head of government. Prime minister Mirek Topolanek said he was optimistic that ratification of the Treaty would move ahead.Mr Topolanek, spoke on Wednesday following a Berlin meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel and Slovak prime minister Roberto Fico ahead of commemorations of the 40th anniversary of the Prague Spring - a short-lived period in 1968 of political liberalisation under Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek, a communist reformist.
Mr Topolanek said that parliamentary ratification would proceed as soon as the Czech constitutional court had vetted the EU document.I am in any case an optimist on this question, he said.Ms Merkel added: If my Czech colleague is an optimist, then I am an optimist too.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
Italian plans to fingerprint Roma criticised as ethnic cataloguing RENATA GOLDIROVA 27.06.2008 @ 17:35 CET
Italy has found itself under heavy criticism for a proposed crack-down on clandestine migration by fingerprinting Roma individuals, including children, with the European Commission admitting such a move would violate EU anti-discrimination rules and respect for fundamental rights. According to Italian media reports, interior minister Roberto Maroni has announced plans to conduct a census under which all the Roma will be fingerprinted. The last census showed that there are around 80,000 Roma children in Italy (Photo: Amnesty International)
It is a proper census to guarantee that those who have the right to stay can live in decent conditions and to let us send home those who don't have the right to stay in Italy, Mr Maroni said. The minister - a member of the anti-immigration Northern League, which entered the Silvio Berlusconi's government following elections in April - has rejected accusations of ethnic cataloguing.The European Commission, tasked to oversee whether EU legislation is properly applied in member states, was at first reluctant to react to statements by a politician. Only when journalists insisted, the commission spokesperson said: If you what to know an answer to whether it is possible, the answer is implicitly clear, the answer is no.The spokesperson underlined that Brussels is as attached to fundamental rights and the fight against discrimination as any other European institution. The question will be put to the Italians at the very moment when a member state decides to use a legal tool to fulfil its declarations, he added. Earlier this week, the plans to fingerprint Italy's Roma community drew comparisons to the policies of Benito Mussolini, the country fascist leader during the second world war. I remember when I could not go to school with the others, Amos Luzzatto from Italy's Union of Jewish Communities said, according to the Daily Telegraph. There is a latent racism in Italian culture and it manifests itself cyclically, Mr Luzzatto added, stressing that taking the fingerprints of youngsters from one ethnic group implies that you consider them to be congenital thieves.UNICEF, the UN organization advocating children rights, has expressed shock and deep concern and called the proposal provocative. But despite sharp criticism, Mr Maroni has defended the plan, saying this is the right path. The people like UNICEF, who complain, should visit the camps and see the conditions in which children live, he said, the Daily Telegraph reports. Some 160,000 Roma are estimated to live in Italy. Many live there without official permission and have set up temporary camps. The most recent census recorded 80,000 of them as being minors.Amid claims of rising crime that the right blames on immigrants, the Italian government has kicked off a legislative process aimed at tightening up the country's immigration policy. For example, it is to be a crime punishable by up to four years in jail to enter the country illegally. The UN High Commission for Refugees has previously urged Italy to drop its intention to make illegal immigration a criminal offence. It said one in three people who arrive in Italy seek asylum.
Firestorm in Swedish media over EU blogger registry.The report calls on the European Commission and EU member states to apply competition law to the media to ensure media pluralism (Photo: European Commission)TERESA KUCHLER AND LEIGH PHILLIPS 27.06.2008 @ 09:34 CET
Swedish media have erroneously reported that the EU plans to register and bill all bloggers, setting off a firestorm of reaction in the country.Politicians of all political stripes and most major media outlets have since furiously attacked the idea as another example of Big Brother snooping into people's daily lives, while the MEP at the heart of the controversy has been compared to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.The papers later specified that the proposal had originated in a month-old report on media pluralism from the parliament – a document that has little legal weight – and intended to clarify the legal situation of bloggers, but by then the debate in the press had already reached a fevered pitch.Exchange the EU for China, and you would have a real media outcry, wrote Sören Karlsson, publisher of the daily Helsingborgs Dagblad and himself an eager blogger, who damned the 'blogger registry' as a threat to freedom of speech.
We would have found it insane.
Sven-Åke Olofsson, political editor of daily Helsingborgs Dagblad, and also a blogger, wrote in his paper: Here they try to introduce laws and regulations in an area that is not possible to regulate. It seems useless and proves an authoritarian attitude towards freedom of speech.The Estonian MEP who drafted the media pluralism report, socialist deputy Marianne Mikko, has been the target of much of the criticism.In Ceausescu's Romania, everybody who owned a type writer had to hand in a paper with typing samples, so that the authorities more easily could fight enemies of the state and ordinary criminals, recalled Peter Swedenmark, an editorial writer for daily Västerbottens Folkblad. Unfortunately, in the naive proposal from Mikko, there seem to be some kinship with the Romanian line, he continued.A conservative MEP also used the opportunity to attack the registry. Christopher Fjellner, from the centre-righ EPP-ED grouping in the parliament said to the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet: The report shows proof of immense ignorance among our decision makers. It is such an incredibly stupid proposal, he said, adding that Ms Mikko's education as a journalist under the former Soviet Union must have given her an old-fashioned perspective on the media landscape.
She has a hole in her head, he concluded.
The media storm reached such a frenzy that the European parliament's Swedish press sector on Thursday afternoon was forced to send out a press release to all Swedish media, explaining that MEPs' own-initiative reports such as that of Ms Mikko had next to no legal weight.The bureau also underlined that the parliament does not have the right to initiate legislation, something that can only be proposed by the European Commission.The main recommendations in the report call on the European Commission and EU member states to apply competition law to the media to ensure media pluralism.Its other major recommendations include the creation of media pluralism ombudspersons in the member states; the development of European core curriculum for media literacy; and for the commission to ensure that regulations governing state aid not be used to undermine public service media.The report does however also call for a clarification of the legal status of webblog authors and wants to see a disclosure of interests, and the voluntary labelling of webblogs. The MEPs that approved the report were concerned that the legal situation of bloggers regarding source protection was unclear and that laws in Europe did not cover where liability was assigned in the event of lawsuits.Speaking to the EUobserver, Ms Mikko clarified her intentions: We do not need to know the exact identity of bloggers. We need some credentials, a quality mark, a certain disclosure of who is writing and why. We need this to be able to trust and rely on the source.The Economist is a valuable brand, its articles are trusted by readers without contributors having to reveal their names, she said. If there is a way to validate the best bloggers the same way that publishing in the Economist validates its writers, it should be done.
It is clear that a Harvard professor of international relations is likely to treat, for instance, the Middle East peace process or European integration in an educated and balanced manner, she added. The same trust cannot be put in a radical high school student from Gaza or a Eurosceptic who has never been out of his village.The reader should know why this or that blogger should be trusted on a particular issue.The outrage has been exacerbated by the timing of the debate. The country is currently involved in heated discussion about surveillance in society after a controversial law on tapping e-mails was recently passed by the Swedish parliament.Last week, the government narrowly passed legislation that gives officials the power to open all emails and listen to any telephone conversation in the country.US-based search engine firm Google's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer said of the bill: By introducing these new measures, the Swedish government is following the examples set by governments ranging from China and Saudi Arabia to the US government's widely criticised eavesdropping programme.The bill provoked widespread opposition, with protesters handing out copies of George Orwell's 1984. Much of the reaction against the Mikko report in Sweden has compared her proposals to the government surveillance legislation.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE 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 have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
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.
Turkey criticised for rise of torture cases
ELITSA VUCHEVA 26.06.2008 @ 09:26 CET
Both the EU and human rights groups on Wednesday (26 June) criticised EU candidate country Turkey for the rising number of reports of torture and maltreatment. Meanwhile, a survey has found that Turks are one of the four nations in the world that judge torture to be acceptable in some circumstances.Amnesty International is concerned over the continued use and justification of torture...in the context of counter terrorism (Photo: Amnesty International)Cases of torture and ill-treatment are still being reported [in Turkey], especially during arrests outside detention centres and also in the context of demonstrations, said Ulrike Hauer, the deputy head of the EU's office in Ankara, speaking at a press conference in the Turkish capital on Wednesday, according to a report from AFP.This trend was further exacerbated by the passing in June 2007 of a new police law granting wide-ranging powers of stop and search, she added.Leading Turkish human rights organisations backed the criticism and expressed similar concerns.
There is no serious will on the ground, Emel Kurma from the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, a European peace and human rights group, was reported as saying. There is a state reflex to protect the country's image and a lack of courage to face the realities, the campaigner continued.The number of applicants claiming to have suffered from torture and maltreatment in Turkey is estimated to have increased to 310 last year - up from 222 in 2006, according to the Human Rights Foundation, which runs EU-backed rehabilitation centres for victims.In the first five months of 2008, 112 people claimed abuse at the hands of security forces.Turkey has been an EU candidate country since 1999, and launched accession talks with the bloc in October 2005.Improvement of its human rights record has been one of the conditions that would allow Ankara closer to its goal of EU membership.
Support for torture against terrorists
Meanwhile, a report released by World Public Opinion – a consortium of research centers studying public opinion on international issues – showed that Turkey is one of the four countries in the world, together with India, Nigeria and South Korea, where a majority of people judge torture to be acceptable in some cases.
Some 34 percent of Turks declared they accepted the use of torture on terrorists to save innocent lives, while 18 percent said torture should be generally allowed.The support for using torture in some cases has more than doubled in the country compared to 2006 (when it stood at 24 percent), while the number of those clearly opposing the practice has dropped from 62 to 36 percent, according to the survey.Substantial increases in support for torture, in particular against terrorists, also occurred in the United States (up from 36 to 44%) and in Egypt (up from 25 to 46%).By contrast, support for the prohibition of all kinds of torture was highest in Spain (82 %), Great Britain (82%) and France (82%), followed by Mexico (73%), China (66%), the Palestinian territories (66%), Poland (62%), Indonesia (61%), and Ukraine (59%).The publication of the survey came just days ahead of today's International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.On this occasion, leading human rights NGO Amnesty International will organise events worldwide and lead attempts to roll back the assault on the prohibition of torture, in particular the arguments that it is justified or necessary to counter the threat of terrorism, it said in a press release.
EU countries obstructing investigations into CIA renditions, report says LEIGH PHILLIPS 25.06.2008 @ 09:44 CET
The most important of the CIA's secret detention prisons, or black sites, in the years immediately following the 11 September attacks was situated in Szymany, some 160km north of Warsaw, according to officers with the US intelligence service.In a weekend article in the New York Times newspaper, unnamed CIA officers tell of one of the presumed dozens of sites, hitherto vehemently denied by the Polish government as having been located within the country.One officer quoted in the article says James L. Parvitt, a former director of the agency's clandestine service, as saying: Poland is the 51st state.Poland was picked because there were no local cultural and religious ties to Al Qaeda, making infiltration or attack by sympathisers unlikely, the paper quotes another anonymous agent as saying.But above all, claims the paper's account of CIA officer recollections, the country was picked because Polish officials were eager to co-operate.The article highlights how Al Qaeda operative Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was rendered by a capture team from Rawalpindi, Pakistan, to a secret base near Szymany Airport in March, 2003.The paper describes the site as the location where the most important of the CIA's black sites had been established, citing interviews from 24 current and former US and foreign intelligence officials.Poland has consistently denied accusations that its territory was host to such compounds since the first allegations of European participation in abductions and rendition flights first came to light.The country's defence minister, Bogdan Klich, was quick to deny the CIA officials' accounts and attacked Mr Parvitt's alleged description of Poland as America's 51st state.That is unacceptable. The sheer fact that we are in tough negotiations with the Americans regarding the anti-missile defence shield suggests that we are indeed an independent state, he told Polish Radio ZET on Monday (23 June).
EU accused of obstruction in investigations
The account comes as human rights campaign group Amnesty International has accused European governments and Brussels institutions of at best dragging their heels and at worst actively obstructing investigations into European participation in US-led rendition and secret detention programmes.The NGO is damning of EU governments in a new report that catalogues their reactions over the past two years to allegations that state agents colluded with their American counterparts.Seven EU presidencies have passed since European involvement in renditions was first exposed and there has been no action whatsoever – not even an acknowledgement of Europe's complicity, said Nicolas Beger, director of Amnesty International's Europe office.The report says European countries have engaged in a range of obstructive behaviour: they have refused to forward prosecutors' extradition requests onto the US government; not conducted independent investigations; and failed to provide investigators with files where there were probes.The NGO gives examples of how Sweden, Denmark, the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Romania, Germany, Italy and EU candidate country Macedonia have neglected to live up to their legal obligations, with the latter five singled out for particular criticism.Even where prosecutors in Italy and Germany have carried out investigations leading to efforts to hold CIA operatives to account for abductions ... their initiatives have been undermined by their own governments, the report says.The findings and recommendations of investigations have been met with almost total silence and denial of responsibility.
No air traffic control measures
The group also laments that no measures regarding air traffic control have been implemented.The NGO says that Europe's airports and airspace very likely continue to be made available to the CIA, noting that suspicious aeroplanes flew uncontrolled through Portuguese airspace until as recently as December 2007.Member state actions have been compounded, the group says, by a reluctance on the part of the highest decision-making bodies of the European Union to condemn rendition and secret detention and to take concrete measures to prevent such human rights violations in the future.Natasha Kazatchkine, a campaigner with the group, told the EUobserver the commission has performed only the bare minimum in its role of guardian of the EU treaties.The commission has no powers to perform any investigations itself, but once proof has been established by a national court, then the EU's executive body can act on that basis, however, the commission as well must reflect on EU measures to prevent this from happening, she said.The commission, for its part, denied it had been inactive. Justice spokesperson Michele Cercone said: The commission has stressed in multiple occasions the need for the member states to carry out in-depth, independent and impartial investigations to establish the truth, whatever that truth is.The commission sent a letter to the Romanian and Polish authorities in July last year in order to remind them of the obligation to conduct effective investigations into the allegations of human rights violations. It deemed the response it got from the two member states insufficient and sent an additional letter requesting further details to Romania in January 2008 and to Poland in May – Brussels is still waiting for a response. An official at the council, representing member states said: The Council has taken a strong line in defence of human rights since the issue first emerged, but this is not an EU competence: it is a national competence.Ms Kazatchkine, however, said: They always say it's not the business of the Council, but if it's not their business, who else? They can engage in a peer review to push each other to conduct independent investigations and implement safeguards to prevent repetition of these violations.
Al-Qaida in Iraq says it was behind Anbar attack By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 28, 2:33 PM ET
BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida front organization claimed responsibility Saturday for a suicide bombing that killed more than 20 people — including three Marines — as the U.S. military stepped up pressure on extremists in northern Iraq. The Islamic State of Iraq posted the claim on a militant Web site, saying the bomber blew himself up among a gathering of the heads of apostasy — a reference to U.S.-backed Sunni tribal leaders who were attending a meeting Thursday in Karmah, 20 miles west of Baghdad.They sold their souls to the American devil for a cheap price, the statement said. Therefore, the soldiers of the Islamic State of Iraq have launched an open war against them.The dead included the commander of Marines in the area, Lt. Col. Max A. Galeai of Pago Pago, American Samoa, as well as the mayor of Karmah, several key tribal figures and two interpreters, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.It could not be determined if the statement was actually issued by the Islamic State, which is an al-Qaida-controlled coalition of Sunni extremist groups.However, U.S. officials suspected al-Qaida was behind the attack as part of a campaign of revenge against Sunni community leaders who turned against the terror movement and cooperated with U.S. and Iraqi authorities.The Sunni revolt against al-Qaida, which gained steam two years ago, cost the terror movement much of its base in vast Anbar province, the heartland of Iraqi's Sunni Arab community and former center-stage of the Sunni insurgency against U.S.-led coalition forces.
The Karmah attack happened two days before U.S. officials planned to formally hand over security responsibility for Anbar to the Iraqis — a sign of the security transformation in the largest of Iraq's 18 provinces.U.S. authorities postponed the ceremony Friday because of forecast sandstorms, which struck Anbar and areas of western Baghdad as predicted Saturday.Also Saturday, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry announced that a 20-year-old serviceman from the former Soviet republic had been killed near the Anbar city of Haditha, where that country's troops guard a hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates River.A ministry statement said the service member died Friday but did not give a cause of death. Azerbaijan had about 150 troops in Iraq and the soldier was the first to have died in Iraq.Elsewhere, the U.S. command said American and Iraqi soldiers stepped up pressure this weekend on al-Qaida and other Sunni militants across northern Iraq.Two militants were killed in a gunfight in Sharqat, about 170 miles north of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. One of the dead was identified as a wanted member of a network that carries out bombings, the military said.
Eight others were apprehended in the raids.
A third suspected militant was killed Saturday in nearby Kirkuk during a raid on a cell believed to have carried out kidnappings.
A U.S. military statement said troops opened fire after an armed man refused to surrender and began to move quickly with his weapon into a confrontational position.Three others were detained Friday in the northern city of Mosul, including an alleged leader of an illegal terrorist court that meted out punishment and supervised suicide bombers, the U.S. military said.A suspect believed to have ties to senior al-Qaida in Iraq figures was picked up Saturday in Bulayj, about 60 miles southwest of Mosul, the U.S. said. In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi police reported finding an estimated 30 human remains in an area west of the city near Lake Tharthar where al-Qaida had been active. Police Lt. Muthana Shakir said the remains included six women and most of the bodies were handcuffed.
TALIBAN POWER PUSH
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=8560554&ch=4226714&src=news
Iran opposition group: US terror listing unjust By JENNY BARCHFIELD, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 28, 5:56 PM ET
PARIS - Thousands of supporters of an Iranian opposition group called on the European Union and the United States to remove the organization from terror blacklists at a massive rally Saturday outside Paris. The Paris-based National Council Resistance of Iran — an umbrella group that includes the blacklisted People's Mujahedeen of Iran, or PMOI — held the rally at an exhibition center in the northern Villepinte suburb just days after Britain removed PMOI from its list of banned terror groups.But National Council leader Maryam Rajavi said the group's status in the U.S. and EU was hindering its ability to fight for regime change in Iran.
In a speech at the Paris rally, she called the terrorist labels unjust.Do not deprive the world from the most effective means to combat the religious fascism and terrorism, Rajavi, dressed in a blue suit and headscarf, told the boisterous crowd. Instead, side with those who can bring the Iranian people freedom.Although the PMOI participated in Iran's Islamic Revolution, it later became opposed to the clerical government. Members of the group moved to Iraq in the early 1980s and fought Iran's Islamic rulers from there until the United States invaded in 2003.American troops have since disarmed thousands of PMOI members, and the group said it renounced violence several years ago.The National Council said more than 70,000 people attended Saturday's rally, including many people bused in from neighboring countries in Europe. Some participants arrived from the U.S., Canada and countries in the Middle East and northern Africa, it said. There was no independent confirmation of the organization's crowd estimate.British lawmakers removed the People's Mujahedeen of Iran from the country's terror list on Monday, after a seven-year campaign by the group. The move gives the group more freedom to organize and raise money in Britain.
Fifteen British lawmakers were in Paris for Saturday's rally, including former Home Secretary David Waddington, organizers said.
Waddington said in a speech to the rally that the British decision was an important step, and that he had attended the Paris gathering to celebrate.Now the PMOI can get on with its work, he said later in a telephone interview.
HOMOSEXUALS.
GENESIS 19:5
5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
ROMANS 1:18-32
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:(HOMOSEXUALITY,AND ALL SEX SINS)
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:(LESBIENS)
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly,(SODOMITES) and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.(AIDS ETC)
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
LOOK WHAT WE GOT IN STORE FOR US CHRISTIANS, IF THIER GETTING ARRESTED IN EUROPE.
Gay pride marches in Europe marred by homophobia JUNE 28,08
PRAGUE (AFP) - Tens of thousands joined gay pride marches across Europe on Saturday but homophobics spoiled the party in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria where scores were arrested for disrupting events. Czech security forces were forced to intervene after right-wing extremists moved in on a parade in the country's second city Brno, leading to 15 arrests as tear gas was thrown, police said.
Several dozen black-clad extremists tried to break up a planned two-hour march through the city centre by gays and lesbians. The right-wingers threw eggs and fireworks into the midst of the marchers as they gathered in a central city square, local media reported.
Fifteen people were detained by police and two charged with breaching the peace, police spokeswoman Andrea Prochazkova old AFP.
Around 200 police in riot gear gathered at the start of the march to protect some 500 participants. Following the initial clash, organisers decided to press on with the parade but over a shorter route than initially planned.The march came to an end when tear gas was thrown at the participants and some of the hundreds of onlookers.At least 20 people were affected with two people needing medical treatment and one city policeman taken to hospital, police said, adding that it was not clear who threw the tear gas.In Sofia, Bulgaria's first gay pride march was also marred by several attempts by extremists to disrupt it, resulting in scores of arrests.According to the interior ministry, some 60 extremists were detained by police after trying to storm the small group of participant which was escorted by a similar number of police as it passed along a central Sofia boulevard.Security concerns had already forced organisers and municipal authorities to change the route of the march twice and deploy a large number of police to prevent clashes.Nationalist Union leader Boyan Rasate, who urged people to stage an open resistance to the gay parade, was also detained, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.Marchers blew whistles along the way and wore t-shirts reading I am not gay but my best friend is and It is not necessary to be gay to be here.
Bulgaria is in the EU now. People have to accept us like normal human beings. We are not criminals, 51-year-old German engineer Peter Moews, who lives in Sofia, told AFP.Hostility comes from misunderstanding. Most people think that we are all feminine and wear women's dresses but this is not true, he added.In Germany, tens of thousands took part in the day including 95-year-old Rudolf Brazda, thought to be the last surviving person persecuted by the Nazis for his homosexuality.Brazda was condemned to six months in prison in 1934 in accordance with a law forbidding sex between men. He was arrested again in 1938 and finally deported to Buchenwald in 1941.After the war I had a very happy life. We were no longer forced to hide as before when we were considered abnormal, he said.
But thank God, today we are free, he added.
Meanwhile, in Paris tens of thousands more turned out for the annual event which took discrimination at school as its theme in France this year. At school people used to throw stones at me and insult me, said Jasen, a 15-year-old school pupil, who took part in the march. Life at one time had been very difficult for him, he said, adding however that attitudes towards him had changed as his fellow students matured.
DRUG PUSHERS AND ADDICTS
REVELATION 18:23
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries (DRUGS) were all nations deceived.
REVELATION 9:21
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries (DRUGS), nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
Danes lead EU cannabis league
PHILIPPA RUNNER 26.06.2008 @ 09:25 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Young adults in Denmark smoke the most marijuana in the EU, but the drug is cheapest in Spain and the most potent in the Netherlands, according to an encyclopaedic new study by the Lisbon-based EMCDDA.Some 50 percent of Danes aged 15 to 34 have tried the drug at some point in their lives, compared to the European average of 30 percent, the report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction says.Levels also stand high at around 40 percent in France, Spain, the UK and the Czech Republic but bottom out at under 10 percent in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Malta and Romania (3%). Canada is the global leader on 58.6 percent with the US on 49 percent.A gram of herbal cannabis costs around €1.40 in Spain but €21.50 in Norway, with most countries retailing the illegal drug in the €5-to-€11 range, and with prices having stabilised or fallen across Europe since 1996.
The highest concentration of of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the active ingredient in cannabis - tends to be in the Netherlands at over 20 percent content while Portugal and Italy scrape the bottom of the THC table at less than three percent.The 700-page survey explores the use of cannabis in Europe from the early 19th century, when medical treatises such as the 1839 Irish text On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp or Gunjah first popularised the drug.It notes that while THC can be used to treat convulsive disorders such as spasticity, it can also lead to infant disorders when smoked by pregnant women and aggravate the onset on schizophrenia in teenagers.The EMCDDA paints a picture of a divergent regulatory landscape in the EU, with decriminalisation trends in Portugal and Luxembourg but toughening measures in Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands.Over 13 million Europeans have consumed it in the past month. Globally, nearly 50,000 tonnes of cannabis herb or resin are produced for consumption every year, the survey says. Little wonder, then, that cannabis has become a controversial cultural phenomenon.
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.
Tropical storm Fengshen kills 9 in China Sat Jun 28, 2:21 AM ET
BEIJING - The Chinese government says Tropical Storm Fengshen has killed at least nine people in southern China. The storm hit China this week after killing at least 540 people in the Philippines.
Chinese authorities say the storm destroyed more than 1,200 houses and damaged roads, crops and power lines in Guangdong province, which abuts Hong Kong, the government's Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.Xinhua says nine people were killed but gave no details. It said economic losses totaled 1.2 billion yuan ($175 million).The report said the storm also dumped rain on the inland province of Jiangxi as it moved north before weakening.
Tropical Storm Boris forms in Pacific Sat Jun 28, 12:39 AM ET
MEXICO CITY - Tropical Storm Boris has formed off Mexico's Pacific coast, but is not threatening land. Miami's National Hurricane Center says the storm has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph on Friday. The storm was located on Friday night 645 miles south of the southern tip of Baja California.Forecasters say the storm is moving northwest out to sea at 10 mph.
Midwest levee breaks, corn price at new high By Carey Gillam Fri Jun 27, 6:30 PM ET
WINFIELD, Missouri (Reuters) - The Mississippi River on Friday burst through an earthen levee that may have been weakened by burrowing muskrats, swamping a Missouri town and adding to billion-dollar losses in U.S. Midwest flooding that has fueled fears of soaring world food prices. The levee break, the 36th in the last two weeks, sent a torrent of muddy water into Winfield, a town of about 800 people north of St. Louis, where officials said about 3,000 acres of crop land was submerged.In all about 40,000 acres of land has now been flooded in Missouri.Fears that as many as 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been lost to flooding in the world's largest grain and food exporter have pushed corn and livestock prices to record highs in the last week.The Midwest storms and torrential rains have killed at least 24 people since late May. More than 38,000 people have been driven from their homes, mostly in Iowa where 83 of 99 counties have been declared disaster areas.Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt said up to 150 homes may be flooded in Winfield, where volunteers had labored for a week fortifying levees and piling sandbags. They began again at a fall-back position on Friday to prevent more widespread damage.They really are involved in a race against that water, Blunt told reporters. It's really just a reminder of how powerful a force the Mississippi River is.
ANIMAL BURROWS
Officials said the levee break began in an area where muskrats, semi-aquatic rodents common in U.S. lakes and streams, had been digging.We believe the original breach was attributed to animal burrows created sometime in the past and even though the holes were plugged, the area remained problematic, the Lincoln County Emergency Operations Command said in a statement.Scattered heavy rains again were reported in the region on Friday and forecasters warned more flooding was a threat because the sodden ground can absorb little more.But the National Weather Service forecasts for Saturday and Sunday called for rains to ease off in the worst-hit areas.Heavy rains this month have caused more than $6 billion in crop damage in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska, a key growing region of the world's biggest grain and feed exporter, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.It's a tragic, devastating disaster, Russ Kremer, a grain and livestock farmer who is president of the Missouri Farmers Union, said of the worst Midwest floods in 15 years.He said towns like Winfield and hundreds of thousands of acres of prime crop land submerged in the region represent a complete loss for a lot of people. It will have a significant effect on the market.Corn prices hit a record at the Chicago Board of Trade in overnight screen trading on Friday at $8.25 per bushel in the July 2009 contract, more than double the 40-year average.Corn is the main feed for livestock, is used for ethanol fuel and contributes to hundreds of other food and industrial products throughout the economy.Before the floods, stockpiles of corn in the United States -- which ships 54 percent of all world corn exports -- had already been projected to fall to 13-year lows next year. So the effect on global food prices as U.S. prices rise has alarmed everyone from central bankers to food aid groups.
FARMERS LOSING HOPE
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said on Friday that 45,000 square miles of the state had been hit by tornadoes or flooding, including 340 towns, with extensive damage to road and rail lines at a cost reaching into the tens of billions of dollars.We are beginning a (recovery) effort which could take years, Culver said told reporters.
Iowa officials said this week at least 2.5 million acres
of corn and soybeans, well above 10 percent of planted acreage in the top U.S. producing state for those crops, needs to be replanted. But it is too late in the season for good yields on replanted fields. Jason Roose, an Iowa corn and soybean farmer who is an analyst for U.S. Commodities in Des Moines, said he had planned to replant his acreage this week. But it didn't happen. I'm not able to do anything, and everyone else around here is in the same boat, he said. The Des Moines Register reported that the first half of 2008 was the wettest in Iowa since record-keeping began in the 19th century, with nearly 2 feet (0.7 meter) of rain. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where 4,000 homes were flooded two weeks ago, the city's broken sewage treatment plant was reported allowing 25 million gallons of raw sewage to drain into the Cedar River daily.
Chemicals from farm fields and other toxic substances left behind as waters recede have created a potential health threat. But drinking water supplies remain unpolluted in most areas. (Additional reporting by Lisa Shumaker and Sam Nelson in Chicago. Writing by Michael Conlon in Chicago; Editing by Peter Bohan and Xavier Briand)
Omaha residents face up to a week without power By JOSH FUNK and ANNA JO BRATTON, Associated Press Writers JUNE 28,08
OMAHA, Neb. - Nebraska's largest city struggled Saturday to restore power to thousands of residents a day after a severe storm damaged homes, uprooted trees and killed two people in a neighboring community. It could take a week to fully restore electricity after high winds from Friday's storm, officials said. The storm is one of the worst the Omaha Public Power District has dealt with, said CEO Gary Gates.Nearly 50,000 customers remained without power Saturday afternoon, utility spokesman Jeff Hanson said. At the peak of the failures, 126,000 customers lacked electricity.We've made very good progress so far with our restoration efforts, but as the work proceeds we're going to see fewer repairs that restore power to large numbers of customers, Gates said.Some customers might not have power restored until next Saturday, Gates said.The storm ripped off some roofs and damaged others, shattered windows, and toppled trees. Several homes will be declared unlivable, but city and county officials did not know how many.High winds predicted for Saturday never materialized, alleviating fears of further damage and disrupted recovery. A dry weekend forecast was expected to help the cleanup effort.The city released untreated sewage into the Missouri River for several hours until a generator restored operations early Saturday, public works director Bob Stubbe said. People were warned not to wade or swim in the river at Omaha or for miles downstream.Friday's storm killed two people in Council Bluffs, Iowa, across the river from Omaha. A tree fell on the car they were in, also injuring a woman.Those were the only deaths or serious injuries reported from the storm, which also interrupted practice for the U.S. Olympic swimming trials at Omaha's Qwest Center.Swimmers returned early Saturday for the first of two practice sessions. The eight-day meet to decide the U.S. Olympic team begins Sunday, with 1,250 swimmers competing.Much of the debris outside the arena had been cleaned up Saturday, but the building's electrical system was still being assessed, officials said. Damaged ceiling panels were being replaced.To the east, windy storms on Saturday knocked down a tent at an art fair in suburban Chicago. Witnesses told WBBM-AM radio that paramedics treated about six people at the scene.The storms left more than 30,000 people without electricity in the state.
1/3RD OF SHIPS DESTROYED
REVELATION 8:8-9
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
Pesticides in sunken Philippine ferry halt search By OLIVER TEVES, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 27, 9:02 AM ET
MANILA, Philippines - Philippine officials suspended attempts to retrieve bodies from a sunken ferry on Friday due to fears of toxic chemicals in the hold. Tests revealed no contamination but officials said the search would not resume until the dangerous cargo was removed.Vice President Noli de Castro told reporters that 22,000 pounds of the pesticide endosulfan intended for pineapple plantations of Del Monte Philippines went down with the ferry when it capsized in a typhoon Saturday in the central Philippines.
Transportation Undersecretary Maria Elena Bautista, head of the task force overseeing the retrieval operations, said divers will not be allowed to resume the search for bodies until the toxic cargo is safely removed. Norlito Gicana, executive director of the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority, said tests of four water samples from the ship indicated no contamination.The area has been found uncontaminated at this point, so while it's uncontaminated, we have to take the cargo out, Bautista said. A team of foreign divers with special chemical-resistant suits will examine the cargo and recommend how to haul it out of the ship, she said.More than 100divers, including eight U.S. servicemen, have joined the search.It remained unclear how many of the 850-plus passengers and crew were trapped when the 23,824-ton Princess of the Stars went belly up during the powerful typhoon, leaving just the tip of the bow jutting from the water.Only 56 survivors have been found, while 146 bodies have washed ashore or been recovered at sea, coast guard Commander Danilo Avila said.Typhoon Fengshen also left 540 people dead and 277 missing elsewhere in the country, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.Bautista said ferry owner Sulpicio Lines violated maritime rules that prohibit carrying toxic or hazardous substances in passenger ships.De Castro said the government is considering filing charges against Sulpicio.
FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS
REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
BIG FIRE IN BIG SUR
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SMOKE FROM 100"S OF FIRES LINGER
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Smoky skies threaten health in fiery California By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer JUNE 28,08
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Hundreds of lightning-sparked wildfires have turned the air of Northern California into an unhealthy stew of smoke and ash, forcing the cancellation of athletic events and other outdoor activities. Air pollution readings in the region are two to 10 times the federal standard for clean air, Dimitri Stanich, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, said Saturday.Some areas are experiencing the worst air quality on record, with the smoke hanging down to the ground like a fog.Air quality agencies are especially concerned about high readings of small-particle pollution. The tiniest particles can penetrate past the body's immune defenses, traveling deep into the lungs and the bloodstream.When you have it on the scale we are seeing now, it is very dangerous to the general public health, Stanich said. This is a very serious problem.Changing weather brought smoke-clearing breezes and brief relief to some areas Saturday, but it could also bring lightning storms similar to the ones that ignited fires across Northern California a week ago.Thunderstorms could strike anywhere in the northern Sierra Nevada or the northern Central Valley on Saturday night, said National Weather Service forecaster Johnnie Powell in Sacramento.The thunderstorms could also bring a small amount of much-needed rain, he said. The front was expected to pass by Sunday, setting up a second week of abysmal air quality.The renewed threat of dry lightning and stiffer breezes that could stir the wildfires led fire officials to declare a "red flag warning" — meaning the most extreme fire danger — until 5 a.m. Monday for Northern California.
On Saturday, President Bush issued an emergency declaration for California and ordered federal agencies to assist in firefighting efforts in many areas. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had made the request on Friday.More than 15,000 firefighters, 1,000 fire engines and more than 80 helicopters and aircraft were fighting more than 1,000 fires Saturday, said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.The summer has just begun, and fire conditions will only get tougher, Grijalva warned in a weekly radio address on behalf of the governor.Areas hardest hit include Butte County, where 31 fires have burned 19 square miles and threatened 1,200 homes; Mendocino County, where 121fires have burned 45 square miles and threatened 900 homes; and Shasta and Trinity counties, where about 160 fires have burned 58 square miles and threatened 230 homes.South of the tourist town of Big Sur in the Los Padres National Forest, a wildfire that started three weeks ago had burned 92 square miles and destroyed 16 structures including two homes. It was 80 percent contained Saturday.Stanich, of the Air Resources Board, advised people to stay inside and keep activity to a minimum. Children, the elderly and people with heart and lung problems are particularly vulnerable, but pollution levels are high enough to affect healthy adults.Health officials have reported an increase in people complaining of eye and throat irritation and coughing. The poor air can also trigger asthma attacks and bronchitis.They said surgical masks, wet cloths and bandanas are not enough to filter the smoke. Only N95- and P100-rated masks filter out the smallest and most dangerous particles.Some veterinary offices said pet owners were bringing in dogs and cats with symptoms ranging from weepy eyes and irritated skin to difficulty breathing or unusual lethargy. Vets were advising that pets remain inside until the smoke clears. Smoky air canceled this weekend's 100-mile Western States Endurance Run for the first time in its 31-year history. The decision disappointed 370 runners who had traveled from as far away as Africa for the annual race from Squaw Valley at Lake Tahoe to Auburn in the Sierra foothills. In Sonoma County, the limited visibility kept the Energizer Bunny and dozens of other colorful hot air balloons from lifting off during Saturday's Hot Air Balloon Classic in Windsor. Cities also closed public pools, canceled softball games and called off July Fourth fireworks displays. Schwarzenegger urged residents not to buy fireworks this year and said local governments should consider an outright ban, though he would not impose one statewide. In central New Mexico, a blaze caused by lightning that forced the evacuation of 400 people was 35 percent contained. Thunderstorms were forecast, and firefighters welcomed the possibility of rain but feared that winds could change the fire's direction. Associated Press writers Terence Chea and Amanda Fehd contributed to this report.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
BEARS PROWLING ON WALL STREET
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FAST MONEY WEB EXTRA
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Oil the wild card in predicting stock rebound By JOE BEL BRUNO, AP Business Writer Sat Jun 28, 4:22 AM ET
NEW YORK - Investors who remember the stock market's steep and prolonged decline earlier this decade may be wondering if the recovery from Wall Street's current morass will also take several years to accomplish. The dot-com bust, terrorist attacks, recession and corporate wrongdoing combined to send stocks plunging in 2002. Today's market has some similar problems, in particular the troubled economy and a devastated industry — this time, it's the financial sector. But there's one variable that may be impossible to resolve: oil prices that have more than doubled in a year and show no signs of abating.The economic gloom is far greater today then it was in 2002 because we have concern about worldwide inflation and what oil is going to do to the economy, said Alfred E. Goldman, chief market strategist at Wachovia Securities. "The problem for investors is when all of this is going to end, and the bottom line is nobody knows. Nostradamus wouldn't have known, neither would Albert Einstein.Crude oil has risen nearly 44 percent in the past five months, and OPEC's president said this week he believes oil could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer; it closed at a record high past $142 a barrel on Friday. That's still lower then the $200 peak recently forecast by economists at investment bank Goldman Sachs.The uncertainty about where energy prices are going makes it harder for economists to make forecasts. Many believe the high price of energy will eventually reverse after oil goes so high that demand shrivels and supplies increase — but calculating a timeline is difficult.
That leaves investors just along for the ride, Wachovia's Goldman said.Wall Street saw a return this past week of the volatility that had pummeled stocks since last summer but disappeared for a while during the spring. Investors were rattled not only by the uncertainty about oil's impact, but discouraging outlooks for the financial, high-tech and automotive industries.This past week, the Dow Jones industrials plunged 4.2 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500shed 3 percent and the Nasdaq composite index fell 3.8 percent.The market is worried about the direct correlation between the cost of energy, especially gasoline, and consumers' spending habits. Higher pump prices mean Americans might think twice about discretionary items like going out to dinner, buying new clothes, or paying for a new big screen television. Or buying a new car.Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic growth. Though there are no signs that spending has dried up entirely, many market observers fear it could happen — especially as gasoline hovers near a national average of $4.08 per gallon.
Wall Street's low point in 2002 was attributed to a host of problems such as the accounting fraud at corporate names like Enron, Adelphia Communications and WorldCom. Global tensions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks also hung over the market. There was still fallout from the near-collapse of the high-tech industry, and the country's collective problems had also sent the economy into recession.But, with oil at about $30 a barrel, inflation was under control. The market's troubles were not seen as a systemic risk, as they are today.I knew we'd get through all the problems in 2002 because it was your plain vanilla, fairly shallow recession," said Stephen Leeb, president of New York-based Leeb Capital Management and author of The Oil Factor.Right now, I think we're in one of the most threatening crisis of our history, and it is going to take a Manhattan Project to figure out what to do and it will take billions of dollars to implement it, he said, referring to the program during World War II to build the atomic bomb. It can't immediately be cured because we need long-term answers.The Federal Reserve, which kept interest rates on hold this past week, is well aware of the problem of expensive oil. The Fed statement released after its rate decision said the rise in energy prices are likely to weigh on economic growth over the next few quarters.But, Leeb and others believe this isn't something the Fed can solve on its own. The central bank's weapon against inflation is raising interest rates, which runs the risk of slowing down an already fragile economy.The higher oil goes, the more important of an issue it will become during the election cycle: Washington needs to actively take charge if we want to turn this situation around, he said. People are recognizing that the Fed is now in a total box.
EVIL INVENTIONS ARE PREDICTED IN THE BIBLE.
ROMANS 1:29-32
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
REVELATION 9:7-8
7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
Scientists: Nothing to fear from atom-smasher By DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 28, 3:08 PM ET
MEYRIN, Switzerland - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August. But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump? Ridiculous, say scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN — some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC.Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on, said project leader Lyn Evans.David Francis, a physicist on the collider's huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here, he said.The collider basically consists of a ring of supercooled magnets 17 miles in circumference attached to huge barrel-shaped detectors. The ring, which straddles the French and Swiss border, is buried 330 feet underground.The machine, which has been called the largest scientific experiment in history, isn't expected to begin test runs until August, and ramping up to full power could take months. But once it is working, it is expected to produce some startling findings.Scientists plan to hunt for signs of the invisible dark matter and dark energy that make up more than 96 percent of the universe, and hope to glimpse the elusive Higgs boson, a so-far undiscovered particle thought to give matter its mass.
The collider could find evidence of extra dimensions, a boon for superstring theory, which holds that quarks, the particles that make up atoms, are infinitesimal vibrating strings.The theory could resolve many of physics' unanswered questions, but requires about 10dimensions — far more than the three spatial dimensions our senses experience.The safety of the collider, which will generate energies seven times higher than its most powerful rival, at Fermilab near Chicago, has been debated for years. The physicist Martin Rees has estimated the chance of an accelerator producing a global catastrophe at one in 50 million — long odds, to be sure, but about the same as winning some lotteries.By contrast, a CERN team this month issued a report concluding that there is no conceivable danger of a cataclysmic event. The report essentially confirmed the findings of a 2003 CERN safety report, and a panel of five prominent scientists not affiliated with CERN, including one Nobel laureate, endorsed its conclusions.Critics of the LHC filed a lawsuit in a Hawaiian court in March seeking to block its startup, alleging that there was a significant risk that ... operation of the Collider may have unintended consequences which could ultimately result in the destruction of our planet.One of the plaintiffs, Walter L. Wagner, a physicist and lawyer, said Wednesday CERN's safety report, released June 20, has several major flaws, and his views on the risks of using the particle accelerator had not changed.On Tuesday, U.S. Justice Department lawyers representing the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation filed a motion to dismiss the case.The two agencies have contributed $531 million to building the collider, and the NSF has agreed to pay $87 million of its annual operating costs. Hundreds of American scientists will participate in the research.The lawyers called the plaintiffs' allegations extraordinarily speculative, and said there is no basis for any conceivable threat from black holes or other objects the LHC might produce. A hearing on the motion is expected in late July or August. In rebutting doomsday scenarios, CERN scientists point out that cosmic rays have been bombarding the earth, and triggering collisions similar to those planned for the collider, since the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.
And so far, Earth has survived.
The LHC is only going to reproduce what nature does every second, what it has been doing for billions of years, said John Ellis, a British theoretical physicist at CERN. Critics like Wagner have said the collisions caused by accelerators could be more hazardous than those of cosmic rays. Both may produce micro black holes, subatomic versions of cosmic black holes — collapsed stars whose gravity fields are so powerful that they can suck in planets and other stars. But micro black holes produced by cosmic ray collisions would likely be traveling so fast they would pass harmlessly through the earth. Micro black holes produced by a collider, the skeptics theorize, would move more slowly and might be trapped inside the earth's gravitational field — and eventually threaten the planet. Ellis said doomsayers assume that the collider will create micro black holes in the first place, which he called unlikely. And even if they appeared, he said, they would instantly evaporate, as predicted by the British physicist Stephen Hawking.
As for strangelets, CERN scientists point out that they have never been proven to exist. They said that even if these particles formed inside the Collider they would quickly break down. When the LHC is finally at full power, two beams of protons will race around the huge ring 11,000 times a second in opposite directions. They will travel in two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space. Their trajectory will be curved by supercooled magnets — to guide the beams around the rings and prevent the packets of protons from cutting through the surrounding magnets like a blowtorch. The paths of these beams will cross, and a few of the protons in them will collide, at a series of cylindrical detectors along the ring. The two largest detectors are essentially huge digital cameras, each weighing thousands of tons, capable of taking millions of snapshots a second. Each year the detectors will generate 15 petabytes of data, the equivalent of a stack of CDs 12 miles tall. The data will require a high speed global network of computers for analysis.
Wagner and others filed a lawsuit to halt operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state in 1999. The courts dismissed the suit. The leafy campus of CERN, a short drive from the shores of Lake Geneva, hardly seems like ground zero for doomsday. And locals don't seem overly concerned. Thousands attended an open house here this spring. There is a huge army of scientists who know what they are talking about and are sleeping quite soundly as far as concerns the LHC, said project leader Evans.
U.S. proposes new Mideast talks: Palestinian official By Wafa Amr Sat Jun 28, 12:36 PM ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The United States has proposed new talks in a push to reach a deal on Palestinian statehood before President George W. Bush leaves office in January, the chief Palestinian negotiator said on Saturday. Ahmed Qurie said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had invited the Israelis and Palestinians to a series of trilateral discussions in New York and Washington.He added that if Israel changed some of its positions on key issues, we can reach a deal by the end of this year.Earlier this month Qurie said it would take a miracle to reach agreement in 2008. It was unclear what had changed since.Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said some progress had been made and a deal was doable, but none of the issues have been agreed yet.Qurie said negotiations were at a similar point to the one they reached in 2000when statehood talks in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba ended without agreement.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched the first round of peace talks in seven years in Annapolis, Maryland, last November.
Bitter disputes over Jewish settlements in the West Bank have undercut U.S. efforts to reach a peace agreement this year.Olmert is involved in a corruption scandal that could force him from office and further disrupt peace talks.His spokesman Mark Regev said: Israel remains committed to the Annapolis framework of trying to reach a historic joint document by the end of this year. Important progress has happened but much work remains ahead.
Negotiators from both sides said progress has been made on some issues and they had started drafting a position paper to try to narrow the gaps between them.Israeli officials say headway has been made on the key question of borders.Among the most difficult stumbling blocks in talks have been the fate of Jerusalem and of Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements, borders, security, and water.Palestinian negotiators said they had rejected an Israeli proposal to set aside the issues of refugees and Jerusalem for three years.
RICE INTENSIFIES PEACE EFFORT
Qurie said the Palestinians were seeking a state in the West Bank and Gaza, lands Israel occupied during the 1967 Middle East war, and were ready for a swap of equal areas of territory with Israel.
He said the Palestinians had rejected Israeli proposals to annex large settlement blocs in the West Bank and negotiate about the rest of the land.The Israelis began with one position and then changed it, based on accepting facts created on the ground ... We have rejected this Israeli approach, Qurie said. He said the Palestinians would reject any suggestion of an Israeli military presence in a future Palestinian state but would not object to the deployment of foreign or United Nations troops to oversee the implementation of a final deal. In a bid to push the two sides to reach a deal this year, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met negotiators from both sides in Berlin last week on the margins of an international donors' conference. Qurie said Rice had suggested holding more trilateral meetings in July in Washington, in September in New York on the margins of a United Nations General Assembly meeting, and again on November 15 in Washington. (Editing by Andrew Roche)
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
Austrian leader calls for referendum if EU treaty changed
HONOR MAHONY 27.06.2008 @ 09:27 CET
Austria's chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer, has said that if any changes are made to the Lisbon Treaty following its rejection by Irish voters earlier this month, then it should be put to a referendum in his country.We think any future changes to the treaty that affect Austrian interests must be decided in Austria by a referendum, Mr Gusenbauer said in an open letter published in tabloid daily Kronen Zeitung.A lot of people are under the impression that the EU is not concerned with their real problems but that it is interested above all in looking after itself.The letter was also signed by the president of the Social Democrats, Werner Faymann.The social democrats are part of the ruling coalition, along with the centre-right Austrian People's Party, in Austria.The letter says that if a new-look treaty has to be ratified again in Austria, then the social democrats want to convince their coalition partner to take the referendum route.
There is also in Austria widespread scepticism about the EU at the moment. After the vast majority of Austrians voted in favour of EU membership in 1994, today we see a mood of uncertainty and sometimes also rejection.Austria's parliament has already ratified the treaty, making it one of the 20 national assemblies to have done so.But Ireland's rejection of the treaty on 12 June has brought the EU's institutional woes once more to the fore as all 27 member states have to ratify it for it to come into force.
Plassnik: Big mistake
Since the vote, EU leaders have been wracking their brains over how to get the Lisbon Treaty into place anyway but without giving the impression that Irish vote does not matter.The most likely course is set to be a second referendum on the document including some special provisos for Ireland, possibly on neutrality and tax issues.
So far there has been little political appetite to re-open negotiations on the document, which is already a result of bitter discussions after the rejection of the EU constitution in 2005. The move by the leading Social Democrats has already caused strong divisions among the ruling parties.Foreign minister Ursula Plassnik, from the centre-right, said that the call for a popular vote is just a disguise for an anti-European stance and called it a big mistake.Othmar Karas, the head of Austria's centre-right in the European Parliament, said that the Social Democrats have removed themselves from the role of constructive partner in the EU.But Hannes Swoboda, vice-president of the Socialists in the EU assembly, told Der Standard newspaper: It is not possible any other way - it cannot go on like this.He suggested that revising the treaty and putting it for parliamentary ratification again would not get through as the mood among the population is too negative.
According to Mr Swoboda, similar discussions are being had in Greece and the Netherlands and the Social Democrats' move would put other member states under pressure to make a such a promise.Until now, among Austria's political parties, only the far-right FPOe and BZOe had called for a referendum.
UK millionaire's Lisbon Treaty challenge defeated
LEIGH PHILLIPS 26.06.2008 @ 09:27 CET
UK millionaire Stuart Wheeler's attempt to force a referendum in Britain on the Lisbon Treaty via a High Court order have been defeated.Two judges, Lord Justice Richards and Mr Justice Mackay, rejected on Wednesday (25 June) Mr Wheeler's claim that there was a legitimate expectation of a referendum on the text.We have found nothing in the claimant's case to cast doubt on the lawfulness of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum, said the judges in their decision, with the treaty now set to become UK law after its parliamentary and royal approval earlier this month.The court also refused Mr Wheeler, who made his fortune from spread-betting, permission to appeal, due to the serious legal, constitutional and public interest issues arising in the case.His lawyers had argued that as the Labour Party had promised a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty in their 2005 election manifesto, the British electorate could legitimately expect a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, which features many similarities with its predecessor.
Despite the judges' decision on the possibility of an appeal, Mr Wheeler has instructed his lawyers to mount a fresh legal challenge.
Treaty 'cannot come into force' says Czech president
Separately, while the Lisbon Treaty may have received good news from the UK court, Czech president Vaclav Klaus has said the treaty cannot come into force.In an interview with Spanish daily El Pais, the eurosceptic Mr Klaus said: The EU cannot ignore its own rules. The Lisbon Treaty has been roundly and democratically rejected by Ireland, and it therefore cannot come into force.Any attempt to ignore this fact and make recourse to pressure and political manipulation to move the treaty forward would have disastrous consequences for Europe, he added.Asked whether the country will ratify the treaty, the president said Since the treaty must unanimously be ratified of all the member states of the EU and one of them has already rejected it, the final result of the ratification will be the same. With or without the Czech vote, the Treaty of Lisbon will not be ratified, he concluded.
Czech prime minister has different ideas
However, the Czech president was contradicted by the country's head of government. Prime minister Mirek Topolanek said he was optimistic that ratification of the Treaty would move ahead.Mr Topolanek, spoke on Wednesday following a Berlin meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel and Slovak prime minister Roberto Fico ahead of commemorations of the 40th anniversary of the Prague Spring - a short-lived period in 1968 of political liberalisation under Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek, a communist reformist.
Mr Topolanek said that parliamentary ratification would proceed as soon as the Czech constitutional court had vetted the EU document.I am in any case an optimist on this question, he said.Ms Merkel added: If my Czech colleague is an optimist, then I am an optimist too.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
Italian plans to fingerprint Roma criticised as ethnic cataloguing RENATA GOLDIROVA 27.06.2008 @ 17:35 CET
Italy has found itself under heavy criticism for a proposed crack-down on clandestine migration by fingerprinting Roma individuals, including children, with the European Commission admitting such a move would violate EU anti-discrimination rules and respect for fundamental rights. According to Italian media reports, interior minister Roberto Maroni has announced plans to conduct a census under which all the Roma will be fingerprinted. The last census showed that there are around 80,000 Roma children in Italy (Photo: Amnesty International)
It is a proper census to guarantee that those who have the right to stay can live in decent conditions and to let us send home those who don't have the right to stay in Italy, Mr Maroni said. The minister - a member of the anti-immigration Northern League, which entered the Silvio Berlusconi's government following elections in April - has rejected accusations of ethnic cataloguing.The European Commission, tasked to oversee whether EU legislation is properly applied in member states, was at first reluctant to react to statements by a politician. Only when journalists insisted, the commission spokesperson said: If you what to know an answer to whether it is possible, the answer is implicitly clear, the answer is no.The spokesperson underlined that Brussels is as attached to fundamental rights and the fight against discrimination as any other European institution. The question will be put to the Italians at the very moment when a member state decides to use a legal tool to fulfil its declarations, he added. Earlier this week, the plans to fingerprint Italy's Roma community drew comparisons to the policies of Benito Mussolini, the country fascist leader during the second world war. I remember when I could not go to school with the others, Amos Luzzatto from Italy's Union of Jewish Communities said, according to the Daily Telegraph. There is a latent racism in Italian culture and it manifests itself cyclically, Mr Luzzatto added, stressing that taking the fingerprints of youngsters from one ethnic group implies that you consider them to be congenital thieves.UNICEF, the UN organization advocating children rights, has expressed shock and deep concern and called the proposal provocative. But despite sharp criticism, Mr Maroni has defended the plan, saying this is the right path. The people like UNICEF, who complain, should visit the camps and see the conditions in which children live, he said, the Daily Telegraph reports. Some 160,000 Roma are estimated to live in Italy. Many live there without official permission and have set up temporary camps. The most recent census recorded 80,000 of them as being minors.Amid claims of rising crime that the right blames on immigrants, the Italian government has kicked off a legislative process aimed at tightening up the country's immigration policy. For example, it is to be a crime punishable by up to four years in jail to enter the country illegally. The UN High Commission for Refugees has previously urged Italy to drop its intention to make illegal immigration a criminal offence. It said one in three people who arrive in Italy seek asylum.
Firestorm in Swedish media over EU blogger registry.The report calls on the European Commission and EU member states to apply competition law to the media to ensure media pluralism (Photo: European Commission)TERESA KUCHLER AND LEIGH PHILLIPS 27.06.2008 @ 09:34 CET
Swedish media have erroneously reported that the EU plans to register and bill all bloggers, setting off a firestorm of reaction in the country.Politicians of all political stripes and most major media outlets have since furiously attacked the idea as another example of Big Brother snooping into people's daily lives, while the MEP at the heart of the controversy has been compared to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.The papers later specified that the proposal had originated in a month-old report on media pluralism from the parliament – a document that has little legal weight – and intended to clarify the legal situation of bloggers, but by then the debate in the press had already reached a fevered pitch.Exchange the EU for China, and you would have a real media outcry, wrote Sören Karlsson, publisher of the daily Helsingborgs Dagblad and himself an eager blogger, who damned the 'blogger registry' as a threat to freedom of speech.
We would have found it insane.
Sven-Åke Olofsson, political editor of daily Helsingborgs Dagblad, and also a blogger, wrote in his paper: Here they try to introduce laws and regulations in an area that is not possible to regulate. It seems useless and proves an authoritarian attitude towards freedom of speech.The Estonian MEP who drafted the media pluralism report, socialist deputy Marianne Mikko, has been the target of much of the criticism.In Ceausescu's Romania, everybody who owned a type writer had to hand in a paper with typing samples, so that the authorities more easily could fight enemies of the state and ordinary criminals, recalled Peter Swedenmark, an editorial writer for daily Västerbottens Folkblad. Unfortunately, in the naive proposal from Mikko, there seem to be some kinship with the Romanian line, he continued.A conservative MEP also used the opportunity to attack the registry. Christopher Fjellner, from the centre-righ EPP-ED grouping in the parliament said to the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet: The report shows proof of immense ignorance among our decision makers. It is such an incredibly stupid proposal, he said, adding that Ms Mikko's education as a journalist under the former Soviet Union must have given her an old-fashioned perspective on the media landscape.
She has a hole in her head, he concluded.
The media storm reached such a frenzy that the European parliament's Swedish press sector on Thursday afternoon was forced to send out a press release to all Swedish media, explaining that MEPs' own-initiative reports such as that of Ms Mikko had next to no legal weight.The bureau also underlined that the parliament does not have the right to initiate legislation, something that can only be proposed by the European Commission.The main recommendations in the report call on the European Commission and EU member states to apply competition law to the media to ensure media pluralism.Its other major recommendations include the creation of media pluralism ombudspersons in the member states; the development of European core curriculum for media literacy; and for the commission to ensure that regulations governing state aid not be used to undermine public service media.The report does however also call for a clarification of the legal status of webblog authors and wants to see a disclosure of interests, and the voluntary labelling of webblogs. The MEPs that approved the report were concerned that the legal situation of bloggers regarding source protection was unclear and that laws in Europe did not cover where liability was assigned in the event of lawsuits.Speaking to the EUobserver, Ms Mikko clarified her intentions: We do not need to know the exact identity of bloggers. We need some credentials, a quality mark, a certain disclosure of who is writing and why. We need this to be able to trust and rely on the source.The Economist is a valuable brand, its articles are trusted by readers without contributors having to reveal their names, she said. If there is a way to validate the best bloggers the same way that publishing in the Economist validates its writers, it should be done.
It is clear that a Harvard professor of international relations is likely to treat, for instance, the Middle East peace process or European integration in an educated and balanced manner, she added. The same trust cannot be put in a radical high school student from Gaza or a Eurosceptic who has never been out of his village.The reader should know why this or that blogger should be trusted on a particular issue.The outrage has been exacerbated by the timing of the debate. The country is currently involved in heated discussion about surveillance in society after a controversial law on tapping e-mails was recently passed by the Swedish parliament.Last week, the government narrowly passed legislation that gives officials the power to open all emails and listen to any telephone conversation in the country.US-based search engine firm Google's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer said of the bill: By introducing these new measures, the Swedish government is following the examples set by governments ranging from China and Saudi Arabia to the US government's widely criticised eavesdropping programme.The bill provoked widespread opposition, with protesters handing out copies of George Orwell's 1984. Much of the reaction against the Mikko report in Sweden has compared her proposals to the government surveillance legislation.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE 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 have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
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.
Turkey criticised for rise of torture cases
ELITSA VUCHEVA 26.06.2008 @ 09:26 CET
Both the EU and human rights groups on Wednesday (26 June) criticised EU candidate country Turkey for the rising number of reports of torture and maltreatment. Meanwhile, a survey has found that Turks are one of the four nations in the world that judge torture to be acceptable in some circumstances.Amnesty International is concerned over the continued use and justification of torture...in the context of counter terrorism (Photo: Amnesty International)Cases of torture and ill-treatment are still being reported [in Turkey], especially during arrests outside detention centres and also in the context of demonstrations, said Ulrike Hauer, the deputy head of the EU's office in Ankara, speaking at a press conference in the Turkish capital on Wednesday, according to a report from AFP.This trend was further exacerbated by the passing in June 2007 of a new police law granting wide-ranging powers of stop and search, she added.Leading Turkish human rights organisations backed the criticism and expressed similar concerns.
There is no serious will on the ground, Emel Kurma from the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, a European peace and human rights group, was reported as saying. There is a state reflex to protect the country's image and a lack of courage to face the realities, the campaigner continued.The number of applicants claiming to have suffered from torture and maltreatment in Turkey is estimated to have increased to 310 last year - up from 222 in 2006, according to the Human Rights Foundation, which runs EU-backed rehabilitation centres for victims.In the first five months of 2008, 112 people claimed abuse at the hands of security forces.Turkey has been an EU candidate country since 1999, and launched accession talks with the bloc in October 2005.Improvement of its human rights record has been one of the conditions that would allow Ankara closer to its goal of EU membership.
Support for torture against terrorists
Meanwhile, a report released by World Public Opinion – a consortium of research centers studying public opinion on international issues – showed that Turkey is one of the four countries in the world, together with India, Nigeria and South Korea, where a majority of people judge torture to be acceptable in some cases.
Some 34 percent of Turks declared they accepted the use of torture on terrorists to save innocent lives, while 18 percent said torture should be generally allowed.The support for using torture in some cases has more than doubled in the country compared to 2006 (when it stood at 24 percent), while the number of those clearly opposing the practice has dropped from 62 to 36 percent, according to the survey.Substantial increases in support for torture, in particular against terrorists, also occurred in the United States (up from 36 to 44%) and in Egypt (up from 25 to 46%).By contrast, support for the prohibition of all kinds of torture was highest in Spain (82 %), Great Britain (82%) and France (82%), followed by Mexico (73%), China (66%), the Palestinian territories (66%), Poland (62%), Indonesia (61%), and Ukraine (59%).The publication of the survey came just days ahead of today's International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.On this occasion, leading human rights NGO Amnesty International will organise events worldwide and lead attempts to roll back the assault on the prohibition of torture, in particular the arguments that it is justified or necessary to counter the threat of terrorism, it said in a press release.
EU countries obstructing investigations into CIA renditions, report says LEIGH PHILLIPS 25.06.2008 @ 09:44 CET
The most important of the CIA's secret detention prisons, or black sites, in the years immediately following the 11 September attacks was situated in Szymany, some 160km north of Warsaw, according to officers with the US intelligence service.In a weekend article in the New York Times newspaper, unnamed CIA officers tell of one of the presumed dozens of sites, hitherto vehemently denied by the Polish government as having been located within the country.One officer quoted in the article says James L. Parvitt, a former director of the agency's clandestine service, as saying: Poland is the 51st state.Poland was picked because there were no local cultural and religious ties to Al Qaeda, making infiltration or attack by sympathisers unlikely, the paper quotes another anonymous agent as saying.But above all, claims the paper's account of CIA officer recollections, the country was picked because Polish officials were eager to co-operate.The article highlights how Al Qaeda operative Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was rendered by a capture team from Rawalpindi, Pakistan, to a secret base near Szymany Airport in March, 2003.The paper describes the site as the location where the most important of the CIA's black sites had been established, citing interviews from 24 current and former US and foreign intelligence officials.Poland has consistently denied accusations that its territory was host to such compounds since the first allegations of European participation in abductions and rendition flights first came to light.The country's defence minister, Bogdan Klich, was quick to deny the CIA officials' accounts and attacked Mr Parvitt's alleged description of Poland as America's 51st state.That is unacceptable. The sheer fact that we are in tough negotiations with the Americans regarding the anti-missile defence shield suggests that we are indeed an independent state, he told Polish Radio ZET on Monday (23 June).
EU accused of obstruction in investigations
The account comes as human rights campaign group Amnesty International has accused European governments and Brussels institutions of at best dragging their heels and at worst actively obstructing investigations into European participation in US-led rendition and secret detention programmes.The NGO is damning of EU governments in a new report that catalogues their reactions over the past two years to allegations that state agents colluded with their American counterparts.Seven EU presidencies have passed since European involvement in renditions was first exposed and there has been no action whatsoever – not even an acknowledgement of Europe's complicity, said Nicolas Beger, director of Amnesty International's Europe office.The report says European countries have engaged in a range of obstructive behaviour: they have refused to forward prosecutors' extradition requests onto the US government; not conducted independent investigations; and failed to provide investigators with files where there were probes.The NGO gives examples of how Sweden, Denmark, the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Romania, Germany, Italy and EU candidate country Macedonia have neglected to live up to their legal obligations, with the latter five singled out for particular criticism.Even where prosecutors in Italy and Germany have carried out investigations leading to efforts to hold CIA operatives to account for abductions ... their initiatives have been undermined by their own governments, the report says.The findings and recommendations of investigations have been met with almost total silence and denial of responsibility.
No air traffic control measures
The group also laments that no measures regarding air traffic control have been implemented.The NGO says that Europe's airports and airspace very likely continue to be made available to the CIA, noting that suspicious aeroplanes flew uncontrolled through Portuguese airspace until as recently as December 2007.Member state actions have been compounded, the group says, by a reluctance on the part of the highest decision-making bodies of the European Union to condemn rendition and secret detention and to take concrete measures to prevent such human rights violations in the future.Natasha Kazatchkine, a campaigner with the group, told the EUobserver the commission has performed only the bare minimum in its role of guardian of the EU treaties.The commission has no powers to perform any investigations itself, but once proof has been established by a national court, then the EU's executive body can act on that basis, however, the commission as well must reflect on EU measures to prevent this from happening, she said.The commission, for its part, denied it had been inactive. Justice spokesperson Michele Cercone said: The commission has stressed in multiple occasions the need for the member states to carry out in-depth, independent and impartial investigations to establish the truth, whatever that truth is.The commission sent a letter to the Romanian and Polish authorities in July last year in order to remind them of the obligation to conduct effective investigations into the allegations of human rights violations. It deemed the response it got from the two member states insufficient and sent an additional letter requesting further details to Romania in January 2008 and to Poland in May – Brussels is still waiting for a response. An official at the council, representing member states said: The Council has taken a strong line in defence of human rights since the issue first emerged, but this is not an EU competence: it is a national competence.Ms Kazatchkine, however, said: They always say it's not the business of the Council, but if it's not their business, who else? They can engage in a peer review to push each other to conduct independent investigations and implement safeguards to prevent repetition of these violations.
Al-Qaida in Iraq says it was behind Anbar attack By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 28, 2:33 PM ET
BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida front organization claimed responsibility Saturday for a suicide bombing that killed more than 20 people — including three Marines — as the U.S. military stepped up pressure on extremists in northern Iraq. The Islamic State of Iraq posted the claim on a militant Web site, saying the bomber blew himself up among a gathering of the heads of apostasy — a reference to U.S.-backed Sunni tribal leaders who were attending a meeting Thursday in Karmah, 20 miles west of Baghdad.They sold their souls to the American devil for a cheap price, the statement said. Therefore, the soldiers of the Islamic State of Iraq have launched an open war against them.The dead included the commander of Marines in the area, Lt. Col. Max A. Galeai of Pago Pago, American Samoa, as well as the mayor of Karmah, several key tribal figures and two interpreters, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.It could not be determined if the statement was actually issued by the Islamic State, which is an al-Qaida-controlled coalition of Sunni extremist groups.However, U.S. officials suspected al-Qaida was behind the attack as part of a campaign of revenge against Sunni community leaders who turned against the terror movement and cooperated with U.S. and Iraqi authorities.The Sunni revolt against al-Qaida, which gained steam two years ago, cost the terror movement much of its base in vast Anbar province, the heartland of Iraqi's Sunni Arab community and former center-stage of the Sunni insurgency against U.S.-led coalition forces.
The Karmah attack happened two days before U.S. officials planned to formally hand over security responsibility for Anbar to the Iraqis — a sign of the security transformation in the largest of Iraq's 18 provinces.U.S. authorities postponed the ceremony Friday because of forecast sandstorms, which struck Anbar and areas of western Baghdad as predicted Saturday.Also Saturday, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry announced that a 20-year-old serviceman from the former Soviet republic had been killed near the Anbar city of Haditha, where that country's troops guard a hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates River.A ministry statement said the service member died Friday but did not give a cause of death. Azerbaijan had about 150 troops in Iraq and the soldier was the first to have died in Iraq.Elsewhere, the U.S. command said American and Iraqi soldiers stepped up pressure this weekend on al-Qaida and other Sunni militants across northern Iraq.Two militants were killed in a gunfight in Sharqat, about 170 miles north of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. One of the dead was identified as a wanted member of a network that carries out bombings, the military said.
Eight others were apprehended in the raids.
A third suspected militant was killed Saturday in nearby Kirkuk during a raid on a cell believed to have carried out kidnappings.
A U.S. military statement said troops opened fire after an armed man refused to surrender and began to move quickly with his weapon into a confrontational position.Three others were detained Friday in the northern city of Mosul, including an alleged leader of an illegal terrorist court that meted out punishment and supervised suicide bombers, the U.S. military said.A suspect believed to have ties to senior al-Qaida in Iraq figures was picked up Saturday in Bulayj, about 60 miles southwest of Mosul, the U.S. said. In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi police reported finding an estimated 30 human remains in an area west of the city near Lake Tharthar where al-Qaida had been active. Police Lt. Muthana Shakir said the remains included six women and most of the bodies were handcuffed.
TALIBAN POWER PUSH
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=8560554&ch=4226714&src=news
Iran opposition group: US terror listing unjust By JENNY BARCHFIELD, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 28, 5:56 PM ET
PARIS - Thousands of supporters of an Iranian opposition group called on the European Union and the United States to remove the organization from terror blacklists at a massive rally Saturday outside Paris. The Paris-based National Council Resistance of Iran — an umbrella group that includes the blacklisted People's Mujahedeen of Iran, or PMOI — held the rally at an exhibition center in the northern Villepinte suburb just days after Britain removed PMOI from its list of banned terror groups.But National Council leader Maryam Rajavi said the group's status in the U.S. and EU was hindering its ability to fight for regime change in Iran.
In a speech at the Paris rally, she called the terrorist labels unjust.Do not deprive the world from the most effective means to combat the religious fascism and terrorism, Rajavi, dressed in a blue suit and headscarf, told the boisterous crowd. Instead, side with those who can bring the Iranian people freedom.Although the PMOI participated in Iran's Islamic Revolution, it later became opposed to the clerical government. Members of the group moved to Iraq in the early 1980s and fought Iran's Islamic rulers from there until the United States invaded in 2003.American troops have since disarmed thousands of PMOI members, and the group said it renounced violence several years ago.The National Council said more than 70,000 people attended Saturday's rally, including many people bused in from neighboring countries in Europe. Some participants arrived from the U.S., Canada and countries in the Middle East and northern Africa, it said. There was no independent confirmation of the organization's crowd estimate.British lawmakers removed the People's Mujahedeen of Iran from the country's terror list on Monday, after a seven-year campaign by the group. The move gives the group more freedom to organize and raise money in Britain.
Fifteen British lawmakers were in Paris for Saturday's rally, including former Home Secretary David Waddington, organizers said.
Waddington said in a speech to the rally that the British decision was an important step, and that he had attended the Paris gathering to celebrate.Now the PMOI can get on with its work, he said later in a telephone interview.
HOMOSEXUALS.
GENESIS 19:5
5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
ROMANS 1:18-32
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:(HOMOSEXUALITY,AND ALL SEX SINS)
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:(LESBIENS)
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly,(SODOMITES) and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.(AIDS ETC)
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
LOOK WHAT WE GOT IN STORE FOR US CHRISTIANS, IF THIER GETTING ARRESTED IN EUROPE.
Gay pride marches in Europe marred by homophobia JUNE 28,08
PRAGUE (AFP) - Tens of thousands joined gay pride marches across Europe on Saturday but homophobics spoiled the party in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria where scores were arrested for disrupting events. Czech security forces were forced to intervene after right-wing extremists moved in on a parade in the country's second city Brno, leading to 15 arrests as tear gas was thrown, police said.
Several dozen black-clad extremists tried to break up a planned two-hour march through the city centre by gays and lesbians. The right-wingers threw eggs and fireworks into the midst of the marchers as they gathered in a central city square, local media reported.
Fifteen people were detained by police and two charged with breaching the peace, police spokeswoman Andrea Prochazkova old AFP.
Around 200 police in riot gear gathered at the start of the march to protect some 500 participants. Following the initial clash, organisers decided to press on with the parade but over a shorter route than initially planned.The march came to an end when tear gas was thrown at the participants and some of the hundreds of onlookers.At least 20 people were affected with two people needing medical treatment and one city policeman taken to hospital, police said, adding that it was not clear who threw the tear gas.In Sofia, Bulgaria's first gay pride march was also marred by several attempts by extremists to disrupt it, resulting in scores of arrests.According to the interior ministry, some 60 extremists were detained by police after trying to storm the small group of participant which was escorted by a similar number of police as it passed along a central Sofia boulevard.Security concerns had already forced organisers and municipal authorities to change the route of the march twice and deploy a large number of police to prevent clashes.Nationalist Union leader Boyan Rasate, who urged people to stage an open resistance to the gay parade, was also detained, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.Marchers blew whistles along the way and wore t-shirts reading I am not gay but my best friend is and It is not necessary to be gay to be here.
Bulgaria is in the EU now. People have to accept us like normal human beings. We are not criminals, 51-year-old German engineer Peter Moews, who lives in Sofia, told AFP.Hostility comes from misunderstanding. Most people think that we are all feminine and wear women's dresses but this is not true, he added.In Germany, tens of thousands took part in the day including 95-year-old Rudolf Brazda, thought to be the last surviving person persecuted by the Nazis for his homosexuality.Brazda was condemned to six months in prison in 1934 in accordance with a law forbidding sex between men. He was arrested again in 1938 and finally deported to Buchenwald in 1941.After the war I had a very happy life. We were no longer forced to hide as before when we were considered abnormal, he said.
But thank God, today we are free, he added.
Meanwhile, in Paris tens of thousands more turned out for the annual event which took discrimination at school as its theme in France this year. At school people used to throw stones at me and insult me, said Jasen, a 15-year-old school pupil, who took part in the march. Life at one time had been very difficult for him, he said, adding however that attitudes towards him had changed as his fellow students matured.
DRUG PUSHERS AND ADDICTS
REVELATION 18:23
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries (DRUGS) were all nations deceived.
REVELATION 9:21
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries (DRUGS), nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
Danes lead EU cannabis league
PHILIPPA RUNNER 26.06.2008 @ 09:25 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Young adults in Denmark smoke the most marijuana in the EU, but the drug is cheapest in Spain and the most potent in the Netherlands, according to an encyclopaedic new study by the Lisbon-based EMCDDA.Some 50 percent of Danes aged 15 to 34 have tried the drug at some point in their lives, compared to the European average of 30 percent, the report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction says.Levels also stand high at around 40 percent in France, Spain, the UK and the Czech Republic but bottom out at under 10 percent in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Malta and Romania (3%). Canada is the global leader on 58.6 percent with the US on 49 percent.A gram of herbal cannabis costs around €1.40 in Spain but €21.50 in Norway, with most countries retailing the illegal drug in the €5-to-€11 range, and with prices having stabilised or fallen across Europe since 1996.
The highest concentration of of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the active ingredient in cannabis - tends to be in the Netherlands at over 20 percent content while Portugal and Italy scrape the bottom of the THC table at less than three percent.The 700-page survey explores the use of cannabis in Europe from the early 19th century, when medical treatises such as the 1839 Irish text On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp or Gunjah first popularised the drug.It notes that while THC can be used to treat convulsive disorders such as spasticity, it can also lead to infant disorders when smoked by pregnant women and aggravate the onset on schizophrenia in teenagers.The EMCDDA paints a picture of a divergent regulatory landscape in the EU, with decriminalisation trends in Portugal and Luxembourg but toughening measures in Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands.Over 13 million Europeans have consumed it in the past month. Globally, nearly 50,000 tonnes of cannabis herb or resin are produced for consumption every year, the survey says. Little wonder, then, that cannabis has become a controversial cultural phenomenon.
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