AMERICA (POLITICAL BABYLON)
EZEKIEL 39:21
21 And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.
ISAIAH 18:1-2
1 Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:
2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!
JEREMIAH 50:11,37,12
11 Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage, because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass, and bellow as bulls;(BACKSLIDERS)
37 A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures; and they shall be robbed.(A NATION OF MINGLED PEOPLE)
12 Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed:(MOTHER ENGLAND) behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.
JEREMIAH 51:13,7,53
13 O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness.
7 Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.
53 Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the LORD.
REVELATION 18:3,5,7
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
JEREMIAH 50:3,24
3 For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.
24 I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD. (RUSSIA A SNEAK ATTACK ON AMERICA)
REVELATION 18:9-11,15-21
9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,(NUKE ATTACK I BELIEVE)
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.
11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
15 The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
16 And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
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,
18 And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!
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.
20 Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
WHO SHOT OFF THE MYSTEROUS CALIFORNIA MISSLE.WAS IT RUSSIA.REMEMBER AMERICA GOD I BELIEVE HAS TAKIN HIS HEDGE OF PROTECTION OFF AMERICA DUE TO SIN AND GODLESSNESS SO THIS WOULD NOT SURPRISE ME IF THIS WAS A TEST FOR RUSSIA FOR THE FUTURE SNEAK NUKE ATTACK TO SEE IF A SNEAK ATTACK WILL WORK.
Pentagon can't explain missile off California By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press 1:10PM NOV 9,10
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon Tuesday said it was trying to determine if a missile was launched Monday off the coast of Southern California and who might have launched it.
Spokesmen for the Navy, Air Force, Defense Department and North American Aerospace Defense Command said they were looking into a video posted on the CBS News website that appears to show a rocket or some other object shooting up into the sky and leaving a large contrail over the Pacific Ocean.The video was shot by a KCBS helicopter, the station said Tuesday.Nobody within the Department of Defense that we've reached out to has been able to explain what this contrail is, where it came from, Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said. So far, we've come up empty with any explanation.Lapan said officials are talking to the Air Force, Navy and NORAD as well as civilian authorities who control and monitor air space.Right now, all indications are that there was not (Department of Defense) involvement in this, Lapan said, adding that some object might have been launched by a private company.
Officials had no information to make them suspect that the action was taken by any U.S. adversary.At this point, until we know more information about what it may have been, there is not alarm,Lapan said.But that could change depending on what we find out.Associated Press writer Jeff Wilson contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
BODY SCANNING IN AIRLINES GROPING CALLS ON JONES YESTERDAY MON NOV 8,10,SUN NOV 7,10
ALEX JONES WEEKLY SHOWS AFTER 3PM
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101107_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101108_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101109_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101110_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101111_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101112_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101114_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101115_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101116_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101117_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101118_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101119_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101121_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101122_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101123_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101124_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101125_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101126_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101128_Sun_Alex.mp3
ALEX JONES SPEECH AT COCONUT GROVE OCT 24,10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60K-wgVtlbE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLwWi4OCKmw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSYUHQhOvzs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pQkiBXb0jw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9QK4bgSygE&feature=related
ZOLLICK WANTS GOLD STANDARD
http://ffog.net/robert-zoellick-of-world-bank-wants-gold-in-exchange-20105715.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eda8f512-eaae-11df-b28d-00144feab49a.html#axzz14jNa6BdG
World Bank chief surprises with gold proposal
NOV 8,10
LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The world's largest economies should consider gold as an indicator to help set foreign exchange rates, the head of the World Bank said on Monday in a proposal that threw open the acrimonious currency debate days before a summit of G20 nations.Writing in the Financial Times, World Bank President Robert Zoellick called for a new monetary system to replace the floating rates adopted in 1971 known as Bretton Woods II.In typical Zoellick style, the proposal before the G20 leaders' summit in Seoul is aimed at fueling a broader debate on currencies that goes beyond competitive devaluation wars.The price of gold powered to an all-time high above $1,400 an ounce on Monday, despite a bounce in the U.S. dollar, on concern about a weakening trend in the dollar, after the U.S. Federal Reserve last week resumed buying Treasury bonds to inflate its money supply.The former U.S. trade representative, who served in several Republican administrations including Treasury, said the new system is likely to need to involve the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and (a Chinese yuan) that moves toward internationalization and then an open capital account.The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values, he added.Zoellick did not spell out in detail how this system might work, but said it would help to rebuild the confidence of financial markets and the general public in the global monetary system after the financial crisis.However, policymakers appeared cool to the idea, while many analysts said they doubted it would be implemented given practical difficulties.European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said central bankers from around the world did not discuss returning to a gold standard at a meeting of the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland on Monday.
In my memory such an idea was mentioned a long time ago by Jim Baker when he was a (U.S.) Secretary of Treasury in the 1980s. I have no particular comment, Trichet told a news conference.A German government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Zoellick was correct in worrying that currency values were becoming too vulnerable to the whims of governments.The diagnosis that Zoellick is making is correct: that monetary policy is becoming overly politicized, the official said. The system, as it is, is not functioning well.But he added that it would not be practical to use modern monetary policy tools in a system that was based on a commodity whose availability is dictated by natural conditions.
SUMMIT ACRIMONY?
That Fed's policy of quantitative easing, or EQ2, has fed acrimony among leading economies in the Group of 20 in the run-up to their summit in Seoul on Thursday and Friday.China and Germany, major exporting nations, have both criticized the Fed's strategy -- effectively printing money -- which is weakening the dollar.Investors are pumping dollars into emerging markets in search of higher yields, and the potentially destabilizing impact of this, along with big current account deficits and surpluses as well as China's reluctance to let the yuan appreciate faster, are set to dominate the G20 debate.France, which takes over the G20 chair after this week's summit, says it plans to work on a new international monetary system to bring greater currency stability. French officials said Zoellick's ideas mirrored initiatives that President Nicolas Sarkozy aimed to promote during France's 12 months in the G20 fron next week.Beijing's central bank chief has suggested an alternative monetary system based on using the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights, a notional unit of value based on a basket of major currencies, instead of the dollar as the sole global reserve currency.Zoellick was a senior official in the U.S. Treasury at the time of the 1985 Plaza and 1987 Louvre Accords on rebalancing currencies among major industrialized nations. He noted that that phase of currency coordination helped launch the Uruguay Round of world trade liberalization negotiations. While his opinion article in the Financial Times did not represent either U.S. or World Bank policy, it may reflect a greater openness in Washington than in the last two decades to some form of international currency cooperation.The dollar is losing its relevance especially with the emergence of Asia economies, so a more neutral benchmark may be required. Gold, amid all the recent uncertainty, is proving its worth, said ANZ's senior commodity analyst Mark Pervan.
Zoellick said a new monetary system would take time to develop and should be part of a package approach including possible changes in IMF rules to review capital as well as current account policies, and linking IMF monetary assessments to World Trade Organization obligations.(Reporting by Lewa Pardomuan, Nick Trevethan, Paul Taylor and Paul Carrel; Writing by Paul Taylor and Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Ruth Pitchford, Andrew Torchia, Andrew Hay)
World Bank Chief Calls For A New Global Gold Standard
Joe Weisenthal | Nov. 7, 2010, 6:22 PM
On the even of the G20 Summit, World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick has what will be a much-talked-about op-ed in the FT regarding the topic du jour: the currency war.In it he lays out multiple ideas including a specific plan for yuan appreciation, an end to unilateral currency interventions, a focus on growth via supply-side-bottlenecks (i.e. structural adjustment), and perhaps most surprisingly: gold.
He writes:The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values. Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today.He doesn't go much further down the road on this idea, and it doesn't sound like a truly hard gold standard, but rather that the world would respect gold as the ultimate arbiter of a currency's value, as a measure of who is failing to keep their currency stable.Should be an exciting G20.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/robert-zoellick-gold-standard-2010-11#ixzz14jOrhvpW
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all,(WORLD SOCIALISM) both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
CNBC VIDEOS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839263/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false
HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS TUE NOV 09,2010
09:30 AM -2.25
10:00 AM -0.85
10:30 AM +5.94
11:00 AM -9.16
11:30 AM -5.40
12:00 PM -38.63
12:30 PM -28.12
01:00 PM -43.18
01:30 PM -44.31
02:00 PM -50.93
02:30 PM -37.54
03:00 PM -32.96
03:30 PM -55.10
04:00 PM -60.09 11,346.75
S&P 500 1213.40 -9.86
NASDAQ 2562.98 -17.07
GOLD 1,388.30 -14.90
OIL 85.86 -1.20
TSE 300 12,916.60 -135.90
CDNX 2005.03 -36.81
S&P/TSX/60 740.32 -6.64
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -19 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -45 points at low today.
Dow +18 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,419.90.OIL opens at $87.32 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -103 points at low today so far.
Dow +18 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -103 points at low today.
Dow +18 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,423.20 (NOT AT CLOSE)(ALLTIME HIGH TODAY)
Gold smashes through 1,400-dollar mark for first time
NOV 8,10
LONDON (AFP) – Gold soared past the 1,400-dollar per ounce mark for the first time on Monday in a buoyant market boosted by speculative investors.The spot price of gold rose to 1,403.88 dollars at 1720 GMT before reaching a new all-time high of 1,407.20 dollars at 1730 GMT.Gold was driven up by the Federal Reserve's decision last week to carry out a 600-billion-dollar monetary stimulus measure aimed at reviving the US economy, a move seen in some circles as liable to aggravate inflation.The resurfacing of inflationary concerns in the medium term has boosted interest in the precious metals and the strength in the dollar was sidelined, said Suki Cooper, an analyst at Barclays Capital.
Gold is seen as a safe haven in times of inflation.
Bullion normally moves inversely to the dollar, which fell to a nine-month low versus the euro last week.Silver was also boosted, reaching a new 30-year high of 27.64 dollars an ounce.Earlier Monday, World Bank president Robert Zoellick called on bickering G20 nations to bring gold back into the global monetary system as an anchor to guide currency movements.Ahead of a Group of 20 summit this week in Seoul, Zoellick said an updated gold standard could help retool the world economy at a time of serious tensions over currencies and US monetary policy.He said the world needed a new regime to succeed the Bretton Woods II system of floating currencies, which has been in place since the fixed-rate currency system linked to gold broke down in 1971.The (new) system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values, Zoellick said in a commentary piece in the Financial Times.
Major UK bank threatens to flee EU bonus rules
Today NOV 8,10 @ 10:21 CET
HSBC bank's new CEO Stuart Gulliver has indicated that the financial powerhouse might move its official seat out of London because of new EU-level restrictions on bonuses. He said the firm has already lost 15 senior staff to firms in Hong Kong, Brazil and India due to the new rules.
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).
Poland rejects Italy's invitation to join EU vanguard group
ANDREW RETTMAN Today NOV 8,10 @ 09:28 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Italy and Poland have conducted a piquant conversation in the pages of the Financial Times about the merits of creating an EU steering group made up of the Union's biggest countries.Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini told the international daily on Thursday (4 November) that France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK should set up a vanguard or consultative group which could also involve smaller countries on a case-by-case basis.He noted that interior ministers from the group of six already meet regularly.He presented the idea as an antidote to bilateral deal-making, such as last week's Franco-German pact to push through an amendment to the EU Treaty on the subject of financial discipline: Pre-cooked decisions put on the table to be taken or left by others is not acceptable for other countries like Italy and other big players ... We can have consultations but not pre-cooked decisions taken by Paris or Berlin.The idea was rejected by Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski in an interview with the same paper on Sunday.
I would be wary of any formal division of countries into categories. We have enough such distinctions already and they make life difficult. Those members that would not participate would feel excluded and resentful, Mr Sikorski said.The Frattini gambit comes in the context of Italy's weakening position in the EU.The verbal gaffes and alleged sexual antics of Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi have made Rome into a bit of a laughing stock in EU capitals. The Italian leader is also facing sovereign debt problems and has attracted European Commission criticism over his handling of a rubbish-collection crisis. In a sign of Rome's ineffective diplomacy, the recent intake of top personnel for the European External Action Service did not include any Italians. Mr Berlusconi suffered another blow over the weekend when one of his oldest allies, the ex-neo-fascist politician Gianfranco Fini, called on him to step down. For its part, Poland is keen to look like a team player ahead of its EU presidency in late 2011. But Warsaw is cultivating its own alliances despite Mr Sikorski's words on Sunday.The new Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski, in September met separately with French and German leaders and called for a summit in Warsaw of the three Weimar Triangle countries. It is basically the entrance of the Polish president into the decision-making circles of Europe, Mr Sikorski said at the time. Warsaw's support for the Franco-German treaty-change pact may be a quid-pro-quo for its bid to change EU accounting rules so that post-Communist countries can offset the cost of pension reforms against budget deficits.Poland is also increasingly conducting EU policy in concert with the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. The Visegrad Group meets at ambassador level each month in Brussels and at leader level ahead of EU summits. Its combined voting power in the EU Council is until 2014 the same as that of France and Germany put together.The presidents of the four countries meeting in the Czech town of Karlovy Vary on Saturday urged the EU to develop a joint policy on the wandering Roma minority.Further north, Swedish historian Gunnar Wetterberg at a Nordic Council summit in Reykjavik last week proposed setting up a new Nordic Federation involving Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden under the symbolic rule of the Danish royal family. It is unclear how such a federation would cohabit with the EU. But a poll by the Nordic Council, an inter-governmental club launched in 1953, said that 42 percent of Nordic people like the idea.
Member states dishonest in EU budget talks, MEP says
VALENTINA POP Today NOV 8,10 @ 15:19 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Parliament is ready to back down on its 2011 EU budget increase demands, but governments are being dishonest by simply delaying payments to which they have already committed for next year, a key MEP has warned.
With less than one week left for the European Parliament and member states to agree on the 2011 EU budget, euro-deputies' demand for a 6.19 percent increase compared to last year is unlikely to materialise, Polish centre-right MEP Sidonia Jedrzejewska told journalists on Monday (8 November) in Brussels.A group of 12 member states led by Britain 10 days ago published a joint letter saying they would not agree to an increase above 2.9 percent compared to 2010, at a time when most governments are being forced to pass painful budget cuts at home.But Ms Jedrzejewska, who is responsible for drafting the Parliament's position on this matter, says that if the Parliament agreed to the 2.9 percent figure, more money would have to be added in ammended budgets throughout the course of next year.It's not an honest proposal and people who wrote the letter know it will be more in the end. They are just postponing payments, she said.This tactic – already seen this year with no less than 10 amending budgets – increases the lack of transparency of EU accounts, which only leads to more lack of understanding from EU citizens, she argued.On one hand member states are asking us to cut payments for 2011, but on the other they are demanding supplements for 2010, Ms Jedrzejewska said.
Listing the extra expenditures already agreed for next year, she mentioned: compensations for banana producers agreed by EU member states and the World Trade Organisation, which would be worth €80 million; the France-based nuclear fusion project (ITER) project, for which international funding to the tune of €1.5 billion still has to be found; and the new EU diplomatic service which will need at least €34million extra funds in 2011. Not included in the draft budget is the humanitarian aid to Pakistan, for which the European Commission has not tabled a figure yet, or extra aid for the Palestinian territories, amounting to some €100 million.Ms Jedrzejewska also said that the European Commission had underestimated the needs within the cohesion policy for this year, with an extra €1.2 billion having to be added from other budget lines. Implementation speeded up in second half of 2010 and it's very probable that this trend continues, as it is the normal half-way through the multi-annual budget cycle. Obviously, in the first years you have hardly any invoices, but then they start coming and they have to be paid for, she explained.
One trick to come to a reasonable agreement with member states, in the Polish politician's view, is to agree on the basis of the highest figure available for the 2010 budget. They won't move on the 2.9 percent. But the question is, 2.9 percent of what? she said, in reference to the successive amendments which increased the total 2010 budget.According to the latest figures published by the EU Parliament, the total 2010 budget was of €122.9 billion in actual payments and €141.4 billion in future payments (commitments). The Parliament requested an actual budget of €130.5 billion and €143 billion in virtual money for 2011, while the EU Council wants to approve only €126.5 billion in payments and €141.77 in commitments.Most of the money comes from national coffers, with only a quarter coming from own resources such as VAT and import duties levied on products coming from countries outside the EU.
Leading MEPs such as Parliament chief Jerzy Buzek have pressed for a linkage between their accord on the 2011 budget and assurances that the future multi-annual EU budget from 2013 on will be increased. But Ms Jedrzejewska was sceptical that the tactic of all or nothing will work. If we reject the budget the situation will be worse than if we accept the council proposal, she said. In case the EU institutions don't agree on the next year's budget, a temporary one will be adopted based on the amounts of 2010.The 35-year old politician criticised the generals of this House who think that every opportunity should be used to strengthen the EU institutions.We should not risk the 2011 budget. If we forget pragmatism and only think of the ambitions, programs will be damaged and several-year contracts put at risk. I find the ambitions of the Parliament in relation to the multi-annual budget fully justified, but when you take a hostage, you have to make sure the hostage survives, she said.
Wishful thinking
The British government, which is spearheading demands to cap the EU budget increase to 2.9 percent, has meanwhile strongly rejected the suggestion that it would agree to supplement spending in 2011.It is untrue to suggest we're acting dishonestly, a spokesperson for the UK government told this website. This is not about postponing payments and we're not privately planning to agree to further increases to the 2011 budget through amending budgets next year. That's wishful thinking on behalf of MEPs. Any future amending budgets should be about re-prioritising expenditure within these limits, not increasing them,he added.
LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
DANIEL 11:21-23
21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
JEREMIAH 6:14
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
JEREMIAH 8:11
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:3
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
Israel moves ahead with new east Jerusalem housing
By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press – Mon Nov 8, 10:28 am ET
JERUSALEM – The Israeli government is moving ahead with plans to build nearly 1,300 new apartments in disputed east Jerusalem, an official said Monday, a step that could complicate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meetings with American officials in the United States.Israel's Interior Ministry said the decision to seek public comment on the building plans was merely a procedural step, and that actual construction was likely years away. Nonetheless, it cast a shadow over Netanyahu's visit — in which he is speaking to American officials on how to revive peace talks that have stalled over Israeli settlement policies.With the announcement, Israel risked setting off another run-in with Vice President Joe Biden, who met with Netanyahu in New Orleans on Sunday. Israel infuriated Biden early this year by announcing construction plans in east Jerusalem while the vice president was visiting. There was no immediate U.S. reaction to Monday's announcement.The U.S., along with the rest of the international community, opposes Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — captured territories claimed by the Palestinians.Washington is already frustrated over Netanyahu's refusal to renew curbs on settlement construction in the West Bank that expired in September. The Palestinians say they will walk away from peace talks, relaunched just two months ago, if the building restrictions aren't renewed.
Netanyahu's talks with Biden, and later this week with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, are aimed at finding a compromise to restart peace talks.News of the new building plans came from Israel's Interior Ministry, which is controlled by the ultra-Orthodox religious party Shas, and it was not known whether Netanyahu was told about it ahead of time. His office had no immediate comment.Interior Ministry official Efrat Orbach said the plans to build 978 apartments in the Har Homa neighborhood and 320 in the neighborhood of Ramot were approved six months ago but that for unspecified technical reasons the ministry only recently published the plans to give the public an opportunity to appeal.She denied the timing of the move had anything to do with Netanyahu's U.S. trip and said it would take years before actual construction would begin.Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said regardless of when the building actually takes place, the latest Israeli move was a sign of bad faith.He said the Palestinians had hoped Netanyahu had gone to the U.S. to make a choice for peace and not settlements.Unfortunately, once again, when given the choice, he chooses settlements, Erekat said. We hold him fully responsible for the collapse of these negotiations.The Palestinians hope to make east Jerusalem the capital of a future independent state that would also include the neighboring West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip.Israel annexed east Jerusalem — home to sensitive Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites — after capturing it in the 1967 Mideast war and says the entire city is its eternal capital. The annexation is not internationally recognized.Nearly 200,000 Israelis live in Jewish neighborhoods built throughout east Jerusalem to solidify Israel's control of the area. The Palestinians and the international community consider these neighborhoods illegal settlements, along with dozens of Jewish settlements that dot the West Bank.
The Interior Ministry badly embarrassed Netanyahu in March by approving the construction of 1,600 apartments in another east Jerusalem neighborhood while Biden was in town. That decision caused a major rift with Washington and ultimately led Israel to suspend the project.Netanyahu met with Biden in New Orleans on Sunday and is to meet with Clinton in New York on Thursday. President Barack Obama will be traveling in Asia during Netanyahu's trip.The original construction at Har Homa, during Netanyahu's first tenure in the late 1990s, also caused a major conflict with the U.S., which opposed it. The neighborhood is the last Jewish enclave to have been built in east Jerusalem.
Jordanian Politicians Fear PA State at Home
by Chana Ya'ar NOV 8,10
Anger at Israel expressed this week during Jordan's parliamentary election campaign stems from the fear that the Hashemite Kingdom may be forced to accept back the Palestinian Arabs that came under Israel's sovereignty following the 1967 Six Day War.The candidates are expressing fears that if talks collapse between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Jordan may instead become the de facto Palestinian state. They use the fear to fuel arguments supporting cancellation of the country's 1994 peace treaty with Israel.The unstated concern that Jordan may be forced to accept as new citizens hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Authority residents stems partly from the fact that the country's population is already more than 50 percent Palestinian. Those Jordanians who are not Palestinian are Bedouin, and support King Abdullah II and the royal family.The possibility, raised by nationalist Israelis as the Jordanian option, has exacerbated growing concerns among Jordanians that Israel may prefer this plan above all.It would mean Jordan's demise and the obliteration of our national identity, said independent candidate Salameh Ghoweiry in a campaign speech in Zarqa, hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, assassinated leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.Pro-government Bedouin politicians with ties to the king are expected to sweep the election, especially since the fundamentalist Islamic Action Front – the largest opposition group – is boycotting the polls.As a result, any criticism from the next Jordanian parliament over King Abdullah's policies is likely to be desultory at best.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they (MUSLIMS) have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,(JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, PALESTINIANS,JORDAN) and the Hagarenes;(EGYPT)
7 Gebal,(HEZZBALLOH,LEBANON) and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA,ARABS,SINAI) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
DANIEL 11:40-43
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
IAF Strike Halted Twice So as not to Hurt Civilians
by Gil Ronen NOV 8,10
Two F-16A jets from the First Jet squadron that operates from IAF Base Ramat David attacked two terrorist tunnels in Gaza Friday, but the mission was put on hold twice out of concern for civilian lives.The tunnels were in Rafiah and Khan Younes and are believed to have served terrorists. Both tunnels were situated in the midst of residential areas. The two pilots – both reservists – identified accurate hits on target and secondary explosions. The IAF jets returned safely to base.The attack was mounted in retaliation for terrorists' firing of a short range Kassam rocket Saturday morning at an area within the Sdot Negev local authority's jurisdiction. That rocket was fired by a terror group named the Salah a-Din Brigades, which said it was a retaliation for the IDF's killing of a member of the group earlier in the week.Lt.-Col. A., the squadron's commander, told the IAF website: In the course of the attack we identified uninvolved passersby. We had to stop everything twice. We simply stop [in such situations], wait until the passersby move on, and go back into action. But in the end everything went smoothly and that was the aim.Since we had gone on a well organized and planned mission, there was no problem hitting the target in an accurate way,Lt.-Col. A. explained. The mission itself is not complicated, but the challenge is not to make a mistake in the delicate area in which we operated, close to an inhabited area and on the seam line between Israel and Egypt.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
US-ISRAEL RELATIONS AFTER ELECTION
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140507
Poll: Jerusalem 7th Top Tourist City in the World
Reported: 18:54 PM - Nov/08/10
Jerusalem was voted the seventh leading tourist destination in the world by readers of the Trip Advisor website. Israel's capital placed ahead of London, Istanbul and Venice among the top ten. The leading city was Florence, Italy, followed by Washington, Rome and Paris. Jerusalem was cited for its historical importance and culture.Chilik Bar, who holds the tourism portfolio in the Jerusalem municipality, called the ranking an important honor, as well as acknowledgement of the effort invested by the city in the last two years.
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.
Officials: Hurricane killed at least 20 in Haiti
NOV 8,10
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – At least 20 people died when Hurricane Tomas brushed past Haiti, more than double the number initially reported, Haiti's civil protection department said Monday.Seven others remain missing and dozens were injured. More than 30,000 people remain in shelters and Tomas left nearly 6,000 families homeless. Others, already homeless from the Jan. 12 earthquake, lost their tents.The hurricane struck Haiti's southern peninsula on Friday and traveled up the coast, triggering floods and landslides. But its strongest winds and rain stayed far to the west of the capital, sparing most of the encampments where an estimated 1.3 million people have been living for nearly 10 months.Officials are now turning their attention back to a worsening cholera epidemic that has killed more than 500 people and hospitalized more than 7,300. Flooding is expected to spread the disease while damage to roads and buildings could make it harder for those sickened to get medical care.Authorities were monitoring the cholera-laden Artibonite River on Monday after engineers let through extra water to alleviate pressure on a dam on Haiti's central plateau. Initial reports from the area indicated that flooding was minimal.
Storm deaths, cholera heap more misery on Haiti
by Clarens Renois - NOV 8,10
PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – Struggling to rebuild in the grips of a cholera epidemic, quake-hit Haiti suffered further misery at the weekend as Hurricane Tomas claimed at least 20 lives, officials said Monday.The storm, which had already killed 14 people as it ravaged towns on the Caribbean resort island of Saint Lucia, barreled north into Haiti on Friday packing winds up to 85 miles (135 kilometers) per hour.There were chaotic scenes as the storm approached and thousands of displaced people living in flimsy tents and under tarpaulin sheets in cramped refugee camps around Port-au-Prince scrambled onto buses to evacuate.In the end the capital was spared the brunt of the storm, but Tomas submerged coastal towns like Leogane in floodwaters and triggered dangerous mudslides inland.Worst hit was the southwestern department of Grand'Anse. Nearly 900 Haitian homes were destroyed and another 5,000 damaged as the huge storm skirted past and headed north to Cuba and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
As a massive clean-up was launched, civil defense officials counted the cost of Haiti's latest disaster, saying at least 20 people had been killed and 6,000 families made homeless.Much of Haiti's population of just under 10 million people live in precarious conditions, vulnerable to natural disasters. Mountainsides have been stripped of trees to be used as fuel, increasing the risk of landslides.We are going to have more victims because of the floods and mudslides, but we cannot yet reach the communities most affected, civil defense official Philippe Joseph told AFP on Sunday.Tomas was the first hurricane to batter the country since the January earthquake that killed 250,000 people and left more than a million homeless -- many of them forced to live since in squalid tent cities.Haiti's post-quake misery had already been compounded on October 21 when health authorities announced the nation's first cholera outbreak in decades.Although easily treated, the water-borne bacterial disease has a short incubation period, sometimes just a few hours, and causes acute diarrhea that can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death.Haiti's health ministry raised the cholera toll to 544 on Monday -- a rise of more than 40 in just 48 hours -- and said almost 8,000 people were now being treated for the disease in hospital.Authorities fear the epidemic could be exacerbated by the effects of Hurricane Tomas. The believed source of the outbreak, the Artibonite River, flooded over the weekend.Dangerous landslides and heavy flooding could still worsen the cholera epidemic. Stay vigilant, President Rene Preval urged before the storm struck.
The big fear is that the disease could infiltrate the Port-au-Prince camps where people bathe, wash and cook right next to each other, spreading like wildfire in the cramped and unsanitary conditions.Aid groups are also worried about the more remote areas where people cannot reach clinics or hospitals. Some rural areas were completely cut off by Tomas as the heavy rains washed away roads.Outside of the larger population centers, it is critical that smaller, dispersed communities are able to access treatment, said Kate Alberti, an epidemiologist working for Doctors Without Borders (MSF).We are very concerned about the spread of the epidemic in rural areas, where transport to existing health structures is difficult. Treatment centers need to be established and existing ones further supported in order to ensure rapid access to treatment.The source of the cholera outbreak is still unclear, although MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping force is probing claims its septic tanks leaked into the Artibonite and contaminated it with fecal bacteria. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned the outbreak is far from over and Haiti should prepare for the disease to hit its capital and the teeming tent cities.All this comes against the backdrop of extreme political uncertainty in post-quake Haiti with the country's 4.5 million eligible voters set to go to the polls on November 28 to choose a successor to Preval.Anger is growing at the slow pace of recovery. Rubble is still piled up on the streets of Port-au-Prince and an estimated 1.3 million remain displaced despite billions of dollars of aid promised by the international community.
Many flee Indonesia volcano amid fears of eruption By SARAH DiLORENZO, Associated Press - NOV 8,10
MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia – Trains, buses and rented autos were crammed with Indonesians leaving a bustling, ash-choked city of 400,000 at the foot of Mount Merapi, which roared again Monday with explosions of volcanic gas and debris.
Authorities put Yogyakarta on high alert but haven't ordered evacuations of the university town some 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the peak. Many residents are leaving on their own, and neighborhoods on the edge of the city looked like ghost towns, houses shuttered, some with laundry still hanging outside.What choice do we have? asked Sukirno, 37, as he sped away with his wife and their 8-year-old daughter on a motorbike, saying they would join relatives far away over fears the ash would harm their health.The city's airport was closed yet again Monday, adding to the crowds at train and bus stations, and ash hung so thickly in the air that breathing was painful and clothes stunk of smoke after any time outdoors.My parents have been calling ... saying You have to get out of there! You have to come home! said Linda Ervana, a 21-year-old history student who was waiting with friends at a train station in Yogyakarta.After days of failing to get tickets — long lines stretch all the way through the main hall, some people sleeping on their luggage — they decided to rent a minibus with other classmates.It feels like that movie 2012,said her 22-year-old friend, Paulina Setin. Like a disaster in a movie.One of the world's most active volcanoes, Merapi has erupted many times in the last century, killing more than 1,400. It revived two weeks ago and a significant eruption Friday launched hot ash and pyroclastic flows down the mountain slopes that claimed nearly 100 lives, its deadliest blast in 80 years.
Concerns about airborne ash after Friday's eruption prompted many international airlines to cancel flights to the capital, Jakarta, but all were flying again Monday. White House officials said President Barack Obama still was scheduled to arrive Tuesday in Indonesia — his second stop in a 10-day Asian tour.On Monday, Merapi shot clouds of gas and debris up to 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) in the air as ash and pyroclastic flows poured down its slopes. Scientists worry the series of eruptions hasn't eased pressure inside the volcano and instead proves Merapi is unpredictable.Based on what we're seeing now, it could erupt again any time, said Surono, a state volcanologist.The overall toll since the eruptions started Oct. 26 climbed from 138 to 141 after more bodies were found on the mountain, the National Disaster Management Agency said.Authorities have cleared people from a danger zone that is now 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the peak and are preventing them from returning. Nearly 280,000 people have jammed into emergency shelters they say lack enough toilets or clean drinking water.Experts say the biggest threat to Yogyakarta isn't from the sky but rather the Code River, which flows into the city's heart from the 9,700-foot (3,000-meter) mountain. The river could act as a conduit for deadly volcanic mudflows that form in heavy rains, racing at speeds of up to 60 mph (100 kph).Black volcanic sludge has already inundated one city neighborhood that slopes up a hill just above the river. In Romomangun, the mud burst the riverbanks and poured into buildings.Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanoes because it sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific Ocean.Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini in Jakarta contributed to this report.
Where's the Gulf oil? In the food web, study says By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer - Mon Nov 8, 9:47 am ET
WASHINGTON – Scientists say they have for the first time tracked how certain nontoxic elements of oil from the BP spill quickly became dinner for plankton, entering the food web in the Gulf of Mexico.The new study sheds light on two key questions about the aftermath of the 172 million-gallon spill in April: What happened to the oil that once covered the water's surface and will it work its way into the diets of Gulf marine life? Everybody is making a huge deal of where did the oil go, said chief study author William Monty Graham, a plankton expert at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. It just became food.The study didn't specifically track the toxic components of the oil that has people worried. It focused on the way the basic element carbon moved through the beginnings of the all-important food web. Graham said the eye-opening speed of how the oil components moved through the ecosystem may affect the overall health of the Gulf.Michael Crosby of the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida didn't take part in the study but said what fascinated him was that the carbon zipped through the food web faster than scientists expected. That in itself isn't alarming, but if the nontoxic part of the oil is moving so rapidly through the food web, Crosby asks: What has happened to the toxic compounds of the released oil? Graham said it was too hard to study the toxins in tiny plankton, which are plant and animal life, usually microscopic. So he had to go with an indicator that's easier to track: the ratio of different types of carbon in microbes and plankton around and even under the BP oil slick. That important ratio jumped 20 percent, showing oil in the food web.
By late September the carbon ratios in microscopic life had returned to normal, Graham said.Graham emphasized that the results of his research don't mean the plankton, the fish that feed on it or the people who eat Gulf seafood are at any risk. What he found, he said, is merely a biomarker that shows the movement of spill-related carbon through the food chain. Much of the plankton he studied was swimming around and doing great and in equal or higher numbers than before the spill, he said.
Graham's study, released Monday, is published in Environmental Research Letters. It was mostly funded by the National Science Foundation, with additional money from the state of Alabama and BP's Gulf Research Initiative, which distributed money through the Northern Gulf Institute in Mississippi.For Graham it's noteworthy how voracious the oil-munching bacteria were: The microbes came to the rescue. After they snacked on the surface oil, other microscopic sea life ate the microbes and were, in turn, chomped on by zooplankton, tiny animals.Larry McKinney, director of a Gulf research institute at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, said the study confirms what scientists had expected. The big question is will it affect eggs and larvae and next year's production of shrimp, crabs and fish, McKinney said.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.
PSALMS 97:3
3 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.
REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200 MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)
ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
ISAIAH 26:21
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die).
ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth before them; 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.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
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.
REVELATION 9:18
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
LUKE 17:34-37
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).
MATTHEW 24:37-51
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Netanyahu says Iran must fear military strike
By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press – Mon Nov 8, 2:38 am ET
JERUSALEM – Israel's prime minister told U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Iran must be made to fear a military strike against its nuclear program, Israeli media reported Monday — a departure from the Israeli leader's previous emphasis on using diplomacy to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meeting with Biden in New Orleans on Sunday, said that although sanctions have hurt Iran, Tehran will be determined to produce nuclear weapons unless it thinks a military strike is a real option, the media reported, citing unidentified Israeli officials.Netanyahu's call for a credible military threat drew a swift response from the U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said international sanctions were biting more deeply than the Iranians anticipated.I disagree that only a credible military threat can get Iran to take the actions that it needs to, Gates said in Australia on Monday. At this point we continue to believe that the political and economic approach that we are taking is in fact having an impact on Iran.Israel, like the West, disputes Iran's claims that its nuclear program is designed to produce energy, not bombs. In the past, it has said it prefers to block the Iranian threat through diplomacy, though it has not ruled out a military strike.Israel sees Iran as its fiercest threat because of its nuclear program, its ballistic missiles capable of hitting the Jewish state and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated references to Israel's destruction.
Last week, Israel's military intelligence chief said Iran possesses enough enriched uranium to build one nuclear bomb and soon will have enough to produce a second. The CIA and the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog have offered similar assessments, but any Israeli commentary on Tehran's nuclear program is closely watched because Israel is considered the most likely nation to launch a military strike to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.In 1981, Israeli aircraft destroyed an unfinished nuclear reactor in Iraq. Experts judge that the Iranian nuclear program would be harder to cripple because facilities are scattered across the vast country and some are located underground.AP National Security Writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report from Melbourne, Australia.
UN can't say Iran's nuke program is peaceful
NOV 8,10
UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. nuclear chief says he still can't confirm that all aspects of Iran's nuclear program are peaceful, and he is expressing serious concern about North Korea's refusal to allow the return of nuclear inspectors.Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, called on Iran to fully implement all resolutions of the IAEA board of governors and the U.N. Security Council.The resolutions include demands for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and start negotiations on its nuclear program to ease global concerns that it is seeking to make atomic weapons.In his first annual report to the General Assembly on Monday, Amano also called for concerted efforts to resume six-party talks on dismantling North Korea's nuclear program.
Vt. nuke plant closes after radioactive water leak
By DAVE GRAM, Associated Press – Mon Nov 8, 8:58 am ET
MONTPELIER, Vt. – Technicians at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant began work Monday morning to fix a pipe that leaked radioactive water and forced the plant to shut down.The technicians had to wait 13 hours for the plant to cool down before they could get into the area where the leak was spotted on Sunday by routine surveillance.
Now that they're inside the technicians are checking to see what the repair options are and how long the plant will be offline, plant spokesman Larry Smith. said Monday.
The nuclear reactor was taken out of service at 7 p.m. Sunday.Smith said the leak of about 60 drops a minute was spotted earlier Sunday during routine surveillance. It was coming from a 2-foot-wide pipe that was part of the circulation system involving the reactor, he said. The water was being collected by a sump pump and cycled back through the system, he said.The cause of the leak was not immediately known. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the public was not in any danger.It was the second shutdown within an hour at a plant owned by New Orleans-based Entergy Corp.A transformer exploded at a nuclear power plant north of New York City, forcing an emergency shutdown of one of its reactors. No one was injured and no radioactive materials leaked.Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said the affected reactor, Indian Point 2, would remain offline until investigators could determine the cause of the explosion.NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan called the two shutdowns complete coincidence.
Sheehan said agency inspectors were overseeing the shutdown at the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon. He said the water would have low levels of radioactivity, such as tritium and other isotopes, as part of the usual plant operation.The levels are so low, they really wouldn't be harmful to anybody, Sheehan said Sunday. There is no immediate health or safety concern as far as this leakage. Any leakage would be captured by the plant system so there's no exposure to the public.The outage at the 38-year-old Vermont plant was not expected to cause any shortage of power in New England, which has a surplus of electricity. The plant provides electricity to the region's power grid.It was the first unplanned shutdown at the plant since May, when a problem developed in the electrical switchyard where the plant connects to the grid. The leak also came three days after Entergy announced it hopes to sell Vermont Yankee, which it bought from a group of New England utilities in 2002.Vermont Yankee has been hampered by problems this year.In January, officials announced that tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that has been linked to cancer when ingested in large amounts, had turned up in a test well on Vermont Yankee's property on the banks of the Connecticut River in Vernon. Later, other radioactive substances were found to have leaked into groundwater and soil surrounding the plant.Also in January, legislators learned that Vermont Yankee personnel had misled them and state regulators by saying Vermont Yankee did not have the type of underground piping that would leak tritium.In February, the state Senate voted to kill a bill to allow regulators to issue a new state license for Vermont Yankee to operate after 2012, when the plant's current state and federal licenses expire. Lawmakers could revisit the issue in their session next year. Even with last week's announced plan to sell the plant, Democrat Sen. Peter Shumlin, who appears likely to be named by the Legislature as the state's new governor, said he would continue to oppose a license extension for Vermont Yankee.
Wall Street asks patience on U.S. rules, crisis recovery
By Joseph A. Giannone - NOV 8,10
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The captains of Wall Street on Monday pleaded for patience and moderation as the U.S. government implements the most sweeping reforms of the financial system since the 1930s.Two years after a financial crisis of their own making that tipped the U.S. economy into a deep recession, the nation's top financiers met at a conference of Wall Street's lead lobbying group where they vowed to help shape parts of the reforms still being hammered out.Morgan Stanley Chief Executive James Gorman expressed concern at the annual meeting of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) about anti-Wall Street rhetoric of the past year, which he said polarized lawmakers and diminished public confidence in the markets.Days after an election that handed Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Gorman appealed to the public, angry about Wall Street's role in the crisis, to give markets more time to recover.The financial system nearly shut down. It's only two years on. You need a little bit of patience to rebuild, to accumulate the capital you need, he said.SIFMA President Tim Ryan said the group wants to help flesh out the Volcker rule on risky bank trading, among many other provisions, of the reforms approved in July.SIFMA represents hundreds of securities firms, banks and asset managers, including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.
SIFMA will continue to work with the (Obama) administration, regulators and Congress to continue to restore faith and confidence in our financial markets, including effectively implementing the Dodd-Frank Act, Ryan said.The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed into law in July by President Barack Obama, touches every corner of the U.S. financial system, while leaving many details to be worked out in months ahead by regulatory agencies.Congress laid down some parameters for regulators on defining proprietary trading -- trading by banks for their own accounts unrelated to customer needs -- but left room for banks to retain some in-house trading operations in an area where drawing clear lines may be difficult.
SEC'S SCHAPIRO ON ALGO TRADES
In remarks at the SIFMA conference, the head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said her agency was working to make markets more stable after May's flash crash, when stocks plunged sharply, wiping out $1 trillion in market capital, and then recovered in mere minutes, shaking investors.SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said the agency was close to unveiling new rule proposals and said it must also deal with algorithms, the computer trading codes used to rapidly create and execute trades, that go crazy and disrupt the marketplace.Recent concerns about the high-frequency trading powered by lightning-fast algorithms were not addressed in the Dodd-Frank bill, but promise to be a subject of debate on Capitol Hill in 2011-2012 with a new Congress coming in divided along partisan lines.Republicans who won control of the U.S. House of Representatives in last week's elections have vowed to try to roll back parts of Dodd-Frank, but face an uphill climb against continued Democratic Senate dominance and Obama's veto pen.SIFMA's Ryan last month had said that his group was not seeking to roll back key provisions of Dodd-Frank, though inevitably there would be areas of law that industry will want changed.The Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and other agencies are racing to complete hundreds of rules and studies mandated under Dodd-Frank, with lobbyists for banks and brokerages pushing to soften some provisions.Among these is the three-part Volcker rule, which curbs proprietary trading by banks; limits their involvement with hedge funds and private equity firms; and sets a new cap on domestic expansion capacity by the largest banks.The important aspect of this set of rulemaking will be how regulators define what activities are deemed proprietary and thus prohibited, while ensuring that markets remain liquid and deep, Ryan said in his opening remarks. Our focus here is to help Treasury determine what qualifies as proprietary trading, and thus subject to the ban, and what is outside of the prohibition,Ryan said.
(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai and Jonathan Spicer. Writing by Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Fed's Bullard says asset purchases have normal effect
By Kristina Cooke and Edward Krudy - NOV 8,10
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A top U.S. Federal Reserve official on Monday hit back at critics who argue that the central bank's asset purchase program won't work, saying it should be as effective as traditional monetary policy.James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, said the likely benefits of the Fed's decision last week to buy an additional $600 billion of Treasury bonds by mid-2011 outweighed the costs.Bullard said that the U.S. recovery has slowed, putting it in a disinflationary trend that must be addressed to avoid following the same path as Japan, which has been battling deflation for years.While asset purchases are sometimes viewed as unconventional, the financial market effects have been entirely conventional, said Bullard, who has a vote on Fed policy this year.Real interest rates declined, inflation expectations rose, the dollar fell and equity prices rose as a result of the Fed's action, he said, according to slides from a presentation prepared for delivery in New York.He said while it is more difficult to weed out the impact on the broader economy, this is a typical problem for monetary policy.Most likely, the real effects will be just as conventional as the financial market effects, he said.It takes 6 to 12 months for an easing of monetary policy to affect output, consumption and investment, he said.Bullard said it was important that the Fed defend its implicit inflation target from the low side as we would from the high side.The Fed's implicit inflation target is around 1.7 percent to 2 percent.
Bullard said worries that the Fed's policy could create high inflation down the road were legitimate and important, but the disinflationary trend is worrisome right now.
With interest rates already near zero, further disinflation would mean higher real interest rates -- or a tightening of monetary policy even as the recovery slows.
Bullard said concerns that the Fed is monetizing, or inflating away the U.S. deficit were misplaced, as the Fed has often said it will return its balance sheet to normal over time.He said it was absolutely imperative that Congress and the administration tackle U.S. budget problems in the long run.Europe has given the U.S. an important wake-up call on how devastating it can be to leave long-run structural deficit problems unaddressed, he said.(Editing by Padraic Cassidy)
Obama returns fire after China slams Fed's move By Patricia Zengerle and Krittivas Mukherjee – Mon Nov 8, 8:59 am ET
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – President Barack Obama defended the Federal Reserve's policy of printing dollars on Monday after China and Russia stepped up criticism ahead of this week's Group of 20 meeting.The G20 summit has been pitched as a chance for leaders of the countries that account for 85 percent of world output to prevent a currency row escalating into a rush to protectionism that could imperil the global recovery.But there is little sign of consensus.The summit has been overshadowed by disagreements over the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative easing (QE) policy under which it will print money to buy $600 billion of government bonds, a move that could depress the dollar and cause a potentially destabilizing flow of money into emerging economies.I will say that the Fed's mandate, my mandate, is to grow our economy. And that's not just good for the United States, that's good for the world as a whole, Obama said during a trip to India.And the worst thing that could happen to the world economy, not just ours, is if we end up being stuck with no growth or very limited growth, he said.European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said all participants at a meeting of the world's central bankers in Basel, Switzerland had insisted they were not pursuing weak currency policies.We're attached to avoiding excessive volatility. It's very counterproductive for global growth and global stability, he told a news conference.
CHINA, RUSSIA ATTACK FED MOVE
Washington has frequently criticized China, saying it deliberately undervalues its currency to boost exports.China says the United States, via the Fed, is engaged in the same thing that it stands accused of, and some emerging nations have already acted to curb their currencies' rise.Resentment abroad stems from worry that Fed pump-priming will hasten the U.S. dollar's slide and cause their currencies to shoot up in value, setting the stage for asset bubbles and making a future burst of inflation more likely.As a major reserve currency issuer, for the United States to launch a second round of quantitative easing at this time, we feel that it did not recognize its responsibility to stabilize global markets and did not think about the impact of excessive liquidity on emerging markets, Chinese Finance Vice Minister Zhu Guangyao said on Monday.The Fed's quantitative easing policy was unveiled last week to jeers from emerging market powerhouses from Latin America to Asia. Russia renewed its assault on Monday.Russia's president will insist .... that such actions are taken with preliminary consultations with other members of the global economy, said Arkady Dvorkovich, a Russian official who is preparing the country's position in Seoul.Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Hirohide Yamaguchi said on Monday that it too was ready to boost its asset-buying scheme if it saw clear signs of a downturn. Worth 5 trillion yen ($62 billion), it is so far just a tenth the size of the Fed's.
U.S. DROPS KEY DEMAND
India is Obama's first stop in a 10-day trip to Asia that will include Indonesia and Japan. He will arrive in Seoul for the November 11-12 summit weakened by a crushing congressional election defeat for his Democratic Party and under fire from all sides. Germany described U.S. economic policy as clueless last week. The U.S. has already all but dropped its centerpiece proposal for the G20 -- a measure that would cap current account balances at 4 percent of gross domestic product, something economists said was clearly aimed at China.At the weekend, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner backed away from the numerical target that had been rejected by China, Germany, Japan and others in a sign that global financial power had slipped from U.S. hands.On Monday, he was putting on a brave face, saying China was supportive of the G20's framework for rebalancing the global economy, and that he expected broad consensus on it at the summit.The risk of a negative outcome in Seoul appears to be increasing, or at the very least, an agreement that merely papers over the huge gaps and allows countries to pursue their own economic policies whether it be intervening in currency markets like South Korea and Japan or printing dollars.
Judging by the critical response of emerging market governments to QE, the likelihood of a ceasefire in the currency war is slim, RBC Capital markets said in a report published on Monday.(Writing by David Chance and Mike Peacock; editing by Stephen Nisbet)
Irish banks sink as EU eyes nation's survival plan By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press – Mon Nov 8, 8:13 am ET
DUBLIN – Shares in Ireland's banks fell to record lows Monday and borrowing costs were near euro-era highs as the government prepared to discuss its fiscal survival plans with top European Union officials.Although Ireland is not at immediate risk of bankruptcy, investors are shunning government and bank debt out of fear that the country is at growing risk of requiring a bailout by the EU and International Monetary Fund, like Greece received in May.The battered shares of Allied Irish Banks, Bank of Ireland and Irish Life & Permanent all have been dropping on the Irish Stock Exchange since Finance Minister Brian Lenihan last week announced plans to slash euro6 billion ($8.35 billion) from its 2011 deficit, double his previous target. His goal is to reduce the 2011 deficit to 9.5 percent of GDP from its projected 2010 rate of 32 percent, a modern European record.Allied Irish was down 3 percent to euro0.26, Bank of Ireland 13 percent to euro0.37, and Irish Life & Permanent 16 percent to euro0.88. The first two banks have received billions in state aid because of their dud loans to bankrupt construction tycoons, while Irish Life & Permanent has received no bailout help but is most exposed to Ireland's depressed market for residential property.Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for financial affairs, is meeting Lenihan in Dublin on Monday night and will then meet opposition politicians and business and labor union leaders Tuesday.
Many analysts are questioning whether Ireland's deepening austerity efforts will be sufficient to persuade foreign banks to buy Irish government and bank bonds again at reasonable rates. If not, Ireland will face a growing risk of default in 2011 that can be relieved only by taking emergency aid from Europe's Financial Stability Fund.
The government in September withdrew temporarily from the bond market, arguing that investors were demanding punitive interest rates. Lenihan expressed hopes that investors' confidence in Ireland would grow before the government needs to re-enter the market in early 2011. The country says it has sufficient funds to pay its bills through April and also could tap its pension reserve fund.So far the approach has failed as the interest rates, or yields, on Irish 10-year treasuries has reached a series of highs in recent weeks reflecting investors' growing belief that Ireland is running out of time to avoid a default or bailout.As the traditional owners of Irish treasuries — chiefly banks in Britain, Germany, the United States and France — seek to dump them because of their falling value and increased perceived risk, new sellers can be attracted only by offering higher yields.Irish 10-year bonds were trading Monday at average yields of 7.75 percent — just off the euro-era high of 7.82 percent reached last week — and at a 5.3 percent spread versus equivalent German bonds.
WW3 THE 3 WAVES THAT MARCH TO ISRAEL
AMOS 9:10
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
DANIEL 11:40-45
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA 2ND WAVE OF WW3) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
45 And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200 MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)
The Third and Final Wave of WW3 is when all Nations march to Jerusalem, but JESUS bodily returns to earth and destroys them,sets up his KINGDOM OF RULE FOR 1000 YEARS THEN FOREVER.
2ND WAVE CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL
REVELATION 16:12
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.(THIS IS THE ATATURK DAM IN TURKEY,THEY CROSS OVER).
DANIEL 11:44 (2ND WAVE OF WW3)
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
REVELATION 9:12-18
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.(IRAQ-SYRIA)
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(1/3 Earths Population die in WW 3 2ND WAVE)
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand:(200 MILLION MAN ARMY FROM CHINA AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST) and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
North Korea's heir apparently rises again
– Mon Nov 8, 1:42 am ET
SEOUL (Reuters) – The death of a North Korean military official and the naming of leader-in-waiting Kim Jong-un to the funeral preparation committee was jumped on by South Korean media on Monday as showing he had risen to second-in-command.In the opaque world of North Korea, experts are forced to dissect and analyze every snippet of information -- sometimes reading between the lines, or words -- in search of the truth.South Korean media concluded that by being named immediately after leader Kim Jong-il to the funeral committee by the North's state-run news agency KCNA, the leader's third son had been elevated to the second highest position in the secretive state.The young Kim, known only to be in his mid to late 20s, was identified as heir apparent in September when appointed to senior political and military posts in the isolated state.Then, he was named sixth after his father and other officials in a list of dignitaries participating at the ruling Workers' Party conference.The latest sequence -- placing Kim ahead of the cabinet premier, the chief of general staff and the defense minister -- is the clearest signal yet that he is officially in line to take over from his ailing 68-year-old father, the South's Yonhap news agency reported.The Chosun Ilbo daily quoted a North Korean source as saying the heir apparent had probably already been promoted to the posts left vacant by the late Jo Myong-rok, or will assume them as soon as the mourning period ends.KCNA reported that Jo, the first vice-chairman of the North's National Defence Commission and a close Kim confidant, died on Saturday of chronic heart disease at the age of 82.Jo, whose health has been in decline since 2006, is best remembered for his visit to the United States in 2000 when he met then President Bill Clinton. (Reporting by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Israeli scholar completes translation of Talmud
NOV 8,10
JERUSALEM – After 45 years of 16-hour work days, an Israeli scholar has finally completed his life's work — a translation of the entire Talmud, one of Judaism's most important texts, to an extent that has never been done before.Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz began his translation and commentary on the Talmud in 1965. This week he is publishing the last book of his 46-volume series.Steinsaltz has written some 60 books on subjects such as zoology to theology, but his translation of the Talmud from Aramaic to Hebrew is his crowning achievement.It gives modern Jews a glimpse into the often obscure texts of the detailed rabbinical commentaries on biblical laws that obligate observant Jews.In a radio interview Monday, Steinsaltz said his motto is: Let my people know.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Monday, November 08, 2010
ARABS WANT THEIR STATE BY NEXT AUGUST
ALEX JONES WEEKLY SHOWS AFTER 3PM
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101016_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101018_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101019_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101020_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101021_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101022_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101024_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101025_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101026_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101027_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101028_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101029_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101031_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101101_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101102_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101103_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101104_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101105_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101107_Sun_Alex.mp3
ALEX JONES SPEECH AT COCONUT GROVE OCT 24,10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60K-wgVtlbE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLwWi4OCKmw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSYUHQhOvzs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pQkiBXb0jw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9QK4bgSygE&feature=related
FALSE FLAGS (SET UP OR STAGED BY SOMEONE)
http://www.god.tv/video/play?video=1219
http://www.god.tv/video/play?video=1227
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)
FAMINE
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
A loaf of wheat bread may soon cost $23 due to skyrocketing food price inflation Mike Adams NaturalNews November 6, 2010
Within a decade, a loaf of wheat bread may cost $23 in a grocery store in the United States, and a 32-oz package of sugar might run $62. A 64-oz container of Minute Maid Orange Juice, meanwhile, could set you back $45.71. This is all according to a new report released Friday by the National Inflation Association which warns consumers about the coming wave of food price inflation that’s about to strike the western world.Will a loaf of bread cost $23 by 2020? Authored by Gerard Adams (no relation to myself, Mike Adams), this report makes the connection between the Fed’s runaway money creation policy (quantitative easing) and food price inflation. (http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojec…)For every economic problem the U.S. government tries to solve, it always creates two or three much larger catastrophes in the process, said Adams. Just like we predicted this past December, the U.S. dollar index bounced in early 2010 and has been in free-fall ever since. Bernanke’s QE2 will likely accelerate this free-fall into a complete U.S. dollar rout.The upshot of a falling dollar will mean rampant price inflation on the basic goods and services that Americans depend on to survive. Food in particular is likely to be hit hard by price inflation within the decade.The National Inflation Association has released its food price projections in a free downloadable PDF file here: http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojec…It offers statements like this: NIA is confident that the upcoming monetization of our debt will send nearly all agricultural commodities soaring to new all time inflation adjusted highs.The Federal Reserve, of course, is currently engaged in the most massive money counterfeiting operation the world has ever witnessed. And it seems determined to keep printing money until all the dollars the rest of us hold are near-worthless.
Even the UN sees rising food prices
It’s not just the NIA that sees a future with much higher food prices, by the way: Both the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development as well as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization also predict rising food prices (although not to the same prices as the NIA).This is based on the trend of rising energy prices which directly translate into higher costs for farming, harvesting, transporting and processing foods. Catch the details on that story at http://www.naturalnews.com/029999_f…The UK Guardian newspaper is also reporting on soaring food prices due to fast-rising commodity costs: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/…I also predicted food disruptions in my list of predictions published earlier this year at http://www.naturalnews.com/028167_p…(Many of those predictions have already come true, by the way!)Make no mistake: Food prices are on the rise. And with the Fed watering down the dollar thanks to its insane money counterfeiting policies, the U.S. is headed into a price inflation / dollar deflation scenario that mean you will have to spent a lot more dollars to buy the same food in 2015 as you did in 2010. (If the dollar even exists in 2015, that is…)What does this all mean to you and me? As the spring comes back in a few months, it might be a good time to start thinking about growing a little garden for yourself. We’ll be covering this story in much more detail in the spring, including details on where to get heirloom seeds, how to practice preparedness gardening (or gardening when it counts) and other similar topics.In the mean time, stay tuned to NaturalNews for tips and strategies on how to do more with less in uncertain times.
QE2: Last Rites for the World’s Reserve Currency Mike Whitney
Infowars.com November 8, 2010
Millions of Americans have no idea what Quantitative Easing is or how it will effect them personally. That’s why Wednesday’s announcement that the Fed will purchase another $600 billion in US Treasuries merely reinforced feelings of helplessness and a sense that government spending is out-of-control. Unfortunately, Ben Bernanke’s rambling explanation of QE2 in a Washington Post op-ed on Thursday only added to the confusion. The article is loaded with half-truths and omissions that are meant to mislead the public about how the program works and what the Fed’s real objectives are. It’s another missed opportunity by Bernanke to come clean with the people and let them know what policies are being enacted in their name. Here’s an excerpt from the article:The reason is that the Fed is locked in a violent exchange-rate war to push down the value of the dollar.The Federal Reserve’s objectives — are to promote a high level of employment and low, stable inflation. Unfortunately, the job market remains quite weak; the national unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent, a large number of people can find only part-time work, and a substantial fraction of the unemployed have been out of work six months or longer. The heavy costs of unemployment include intense strains on family finances, more foreclosures and the loss of job skills…..Low and falling inflation indicate that the economy has considerable spare capacity, implying that there is scope for monetary policy to support further gains in employment without risking economic overheating. The FOMC decided this week that, with unemployment high and inflation very low, further support to the economy is needed…..the Federal Reserve has a particular obligation to help promote increased employment and sustain price stability. Steps taken this week should help us fulfill that obligation.
Bernanke mentions employment/unemployment 5 times in the first 3 paragraphs to give the impression that QE is about creating new jobs. But everyone knows that’s baloney. If Bernanke was really worried about jobs, he would have appealed to Congress for a second round of fiscal stimulus in his speech, which he didn’t, because he remains hawkish on deficits like his colleagues in the GOP-led congress.
Also, if QE2 is mainly about jobs, than why not settle on benchmarks to determine whether the program is successful or not? In other words, if unemployment is still hovering at 8 or 9% in June 2011, when the program ends, then we can assume that Bernanke was either wrong in his calculations or deliberately misled the public about what the program really does.The truth is, Quantitative Easing will not reduce unemployment, narrow the output gap, or increase aggregate demand. At best, it will lower long-term interest rates (slightly) and buoy asset prices. That may be good for the stock market, but it won’t lay the groundwork for a strong recovery. In fact, it might not even be enough to keep the economy from slipping back into recession. As last Friday’s report from he Bureau of Economic Analysis indicates, most of 3rd Quarter GDP was from rebuilding inventories. Remove inventory restocking, and final demand was a sickly 0.6%. So, how will Bernanke’s bond purchasing program increase final demand?
It won’t. If the Fed buys Treasuries, Treasury yields go down which pushes investors into riskier assets (like stocks). That pushes stocks higher, investors feel richer, spending takes off, businesses hire more workers, and the economy grows. It’s a great theory, but it doesn’t work. Yields are already at record lows and businesses are still not hiring because there’s no demand for their products. The problem cannot be fixed from the supply side, which is to say, that it doesn’t matter how cheap money is, if no one is borrowing. And no one is borrowing because they are either broke or out-of-work. Bernanke’s grand plan doesn’t get money to the people who need it, so the economy will continue to sputter.Also, Yields on the 10-year and 30-year Treasuries have already dipped in anticipation of QE2, but is there any sign that businesses are planning to start hiring again? Of course not, because low interest rates don’t matter in this environment. Case in point; record-low interest rates haven’t increased home sales at all. Cheap money doesn’t generate demand when personal balance sheets are underwater. Bernanke knows this because he’s studied Japan’s Lost Decade and understands what happened. They initiated two massive QE programs and got zippo—bank loans and credit continued to go sideways. So, Bernanke is being disingenuous. But why? The reason is that the Fed is locked in a violent exchange-rate war to push down the value of the dollar. Bernanke wants to trim the current account deficit to boost exports. But he’d rather not tell the American people that he’s using their currency as a bludgeon to beat trading partners into submission. It’s easier just to scribble some gibberish about “generating jobs” and send it off to the Washington Post.
The Fed is at war; that’s the truth of the matter. Economist Michael Hudson calls Quantitative Easing (QE) a form of financial aggression. But Hudson probably understates the case; monetary terrorism (moneterrorism?) is probably closer to the truth. QE is flooding emerging markets with cheap capital that’s forcing their leaders to take defensive action to protect their economies. EM’s have already seen the first wave of liquidity surge into their markets raising havoc with prices and forcing central banks to raise rates. But emerging markets aren’t taking it laying down. They’re throwing up protectionist barriers and monitoring capital flows. If Bernanke’s going to print more money, they’ll print, too. Mass competitive devaluation will ignite a full-blown currency war that leaves the present trade regime in tatters and the dollar in the dustbin.This is from Richard Portes in an article titled Currency wars and the emerging-market countries:If the large developed market countries do more QE, however, then the flow of liquidity to the emerging markets may force the latter to respond. They may try to resist exchange-rate appreciation by intervening in the foreign exchange markets. Here we do have competitive devaluation – the currency wars….This is why we see statements like The US will win this war: it will either inflate the rest of the world or force their exchange rates up against the dollar (Wolf 2010). But there is a potential downside for the US. Substantial dollar depreciation will weaken the global position of the dollar, as it did in the late 1970s. (Chinn and Frankel 2007)The Fed will proceed with QE. It will not accept foreign constraints on its monetary policy, nor will it run an internationally coordinated or cooperative monetary policy. (Currency wars and the emerging-market countries, Richard Portes, VOX)See? This isn’t about jobs at all. It’s about power. It’s about who is going to dictate policy to the rest of the world. Bernanke wants emerging markets to bear the costs of a financial crisis that originated on Wall Street and was nurtured every step of the way by the easy money policies of the Federal Reserve. Rather than accept responsibility for his actions–by restructuring the banking system and forcing them to write down their debts– Bernanke has decided to create inflation by opening the sluice-gates and releasing a wall of liquidity that will (inevitably) produce asset bubbles and turmoil in foreign markets. The plan will put the dollar under severe pressure and could trigger a flight from dollar-backed assets, particularly US Treasuries. That would spark the Doomsday Scenario; a disorderly unwinding of the dollar and a swift plunge into crisis. That possibility is not as remote as many think. Here’s a clip from the UK Telegraph’s Ambrose-Evans Pritchard: The Fed’s QE2 risks accelerating the demise of the dollar-based currency system… a chorus of Chinese officials and advisers is demanding that China switch reserves into gold or forms of oil. As this anti-dollar revolt gathers momentum worldwide, the US risks losing its exorbitant privilege of currency hegemony.(QE risks currency wars and the end of dollar hegemony, Ambrose-Evans Pritchard, Telegraph)
Or, this from Nobel prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz: The world is on the verge of moving to another regime of managed exchange rates and fragmented capital markets….A new global reserve system or an expansion of IMF money (called special drawing rights, or SDRs) will be central to this co-operative approach. With such a system, poor countries would no longer need to put aside hundreds of billions of dollars to protect themselves from global volatility, and these would add to global aggregate demand…. with such a system, the US would no longer enjoy the extraordinarily cheap borrowing that comes with being the minter of the most important global reserve currency. But the current arrangement is an anomaly. The world is at a critical juncture.(A currency war has no winners, Joseph Stiglitz, The Guardian)Or this from economist Michael Hudson who believes that the rising powers Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) will challenge the current dollar-dominated regime leading the way to a new multi-polar world order. Here’s what he says:The most decisive counter-strategy to U.S. QE II policy is to create a full-fledged BRIC-centered currency bloc that would minimize use of the dollar….A BRIC-centered system would reverse the policy of open and unprotected capital markets put in place after World War II. … In September, China supported a Russian proposal to start direct trading using the yuan and the ruble rather than pricing their trade or taking payment in U.S. dollars or other foreign currencies. China then negotiated a similar deal with Brazil. And on the eve of the IMF meetings in Washington on Friday, Premier Wen stopped off in Istanbul to reach agreement with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to use their own currencies in a planned tripling Turkish-Chinese trade to $50 billion over the next five years, effectively excluding the dollar.It won’t happen overnight, but the transition away from the dollar has already begun. The financial crisis has greatly eroded US moral authority and the trust that’s needed to preserve America’s role as the steward of the world’s reserve currency. Bernanke’s misguided hyper-monetarism is merely hastening the dollar’s decline. QE2 could very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
ATMs Crash Across The Country After Bank Holiday Warning
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com November 8, 2010
Image: Betsy Fletcher-Following rumors of a bank holiday that could limit or prevent altogether cash withdrawals later this week, Twitter and other Internet forums were raging yesterday about numerous ATMs across the country that crashed in the early hours of Sunday morning, preventing customers from performing basic transactions.It’s unknown whether the crashes were partly a result of a surge of people trying to withdraw their money in preparation for any feared bank shutdown, or if mere technical glitches were to blame. The fact that the problem affected numerous different banks in different parts of the U.S. would seem to indicate the former.The Orange County Register reported that the problems were part of a national outage which prevented people from performing simple transactions such as cashing checks and withdrawing money.Computer issues were blamed for similar issues in Phoenix Arizona, while in Birmingham Alabama, Wells Fargo customers’ online banking accounts and ATMs displayed incorrect balances.The banks primarily affected were Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America, but according to blogger Phil Brennan, who studied Twitter feeds and other Internet message boards that were alight with the story, numerous other financial institutions were also affected, including US Bank, Compass, USAA, Suntrust, Fairwinds Credit Union, American Express, BB&T on the East Coast and PNC.Twitter is going crazy with reports of ATMs and online accounts going down as of 01:00 hours EST of the 7th of November 2010, writes Brennan. This is happening to many banks all across America. Some are trying to say that it is a computer glitch to do with the change in Daylight Savings Time, but I will call BS on this as we manage to put our clocks back over here in the UK without knocking out ATMs and online accounts nationally.
Brennan questions whether the outages were the first warning shots in a move to devalue the dollar, just days after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke sparked an international currency war by announcing that the Fed will buy $600 billion of U.S. government bonds over the next eight months.Any perceived inability of banks to deal with a sudden demand for cash would undoubtedly place in peril the United States’ triple A credit rating and spark a fresh dollar crisis.In the light of what is going on geopolitically, I am still very suspicious about the reasons for this mass downtime of ATMs and Online Accounts, adds Brennan. There is still a very distinct possibility that November the 11th will turn into an extended Bank Holiday so I would advise all those who can get their money out of their banks to do so, even if you have to pay your upcoming bills manually.As we reported last week, the bank holiday rumor has reared its ugly head once again, after a story emerged that a pastor was told by one of the managers of a prominent east coast bank that banks would close for an undetermined amount of time, and that when they reopened, all withdrawals by checks would be limited to $500 per week – no matter what the balance in the account is.Though the story is still an unconfirmed rumor, banks have been preparing for limiting withdrawals. As we reported back in February, Citigroup sent an advisory to its customers at the start of the year which stated that the bank reserved the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. The advisory stoked fears that financial institutions were preparing for bank runs.While we still think this new bank holiday rumor will subside as the previous two did earlier this year and last, in the current economic climate it would be foolish not to keep at least a small amount of your savings in physical cash. The current financial turmoil has been likened with the post 1929 period, during which newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a bank holiday that lasted four days, therefore such a scenario is not without historical precedent.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
ROBIN SHEPHERD ON NEXT AUG PALESTINIAN STATE
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/2631
Will UK join push for ultimate solution of MidEast peace through the United Nations? NOV 5,10
Will UK join push for ultimate solution of MidEast peace through the United Nations?Amid all the brouhaha over British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s visit to Israel this week, the key question of the moment has yet to be asked: If peace talks fail, will Britain join France and others in openly declaring that a Middle East peace might have to be imposed through the United Nations? I have not seen a clear and unambiguous quotation from the Foreign Secretary or any of his senior officials to that effect. But if you put together everything that is being said and everything that is not being said, and you set that against the international mood music my instincts tell me that we are ineluctably heading towards the UN route. For example, as the BBC’s MidEast headline today roars: Mid-East peace talks: UK says window closing. But what does that mean in practice? That Britain would be prepared simply to let matters rest should that window ultimately close? That the UK would say: a plague on both your houses and retreat back to the island and wash its hands of the whole business? If only the British outlook were characterised by such indifference. Here is how the BBC characterises the British position in its article today:
Mr Hague said that both sides had obligations, but that it was largely up to Israel to break the impasse.We do want Israel to announce a new moratorium on settlements [said Hague]… That is what the whole of Europe wants, that is what the United States wants,he said.In other words, Israel is going to get the blame if and when the talks collapse.It is not that there is anything new in all this. It is just that the Arab/Palestinian side has been remarkably successful in portraying Israel as the intransigent party in a current round of peace talks representing history’s last chance for a solution. Either there is an agreement on the way or something radical will have to be considered. And that something would be an imposed settlement authorised by the UN Security Council sometime in the middle of 2011.Look. I have no proof, and this is little more than speculation. But given that British foreign policy in the Middle East has long been driven by a foreign office that is almost as slavishly deferential to the Arabs as it is to the United Nations, given that the new British government is almost entirely opportunistic in the management of its foreign policy, given (see last posting but one) our new strategic ally France has mooted the UN route, and given that the Palestinians and the UN are already preparing the way for such a move, the notion that Britain is going to jump on the bandwagon has a certain inevitability about it. The Palestinian/Arab side can hardly be under any illusions as to how weak Britain has become under the new government and how prone it is merely to go with the flow of global events.At the very least, it would be good if the journalists would start posing the question. Because if Britain and France do join forces diplomatically (as they have recently agreed to do militarily) on this issue, this would constitute a powerful combination to help legitimise and energise a movement that already has the support of dozens of nations in the Arab and Musim world.The UN route would be a disaster for Israel’s security. But it is the looming issue of the moment, and we urgently need clarity on precisely where Britain stands on the matter.
Before the storm: Palestinian ability to go through UN for unilateral declaration of statehood not to be underestimated OCT 30,10
Before the storm: Palestinian ability to go through UN for unilateral declaration of statehood not to be underestimated Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz has written an extensive analysis of the prospects of the Palestinian leadership opting for a unilateral declaration of statehood, probably sometime in 2011, as an alternative to working for a negotiated end to the conflict. It is crucial to understand the issue since it could add an entirely new dynamic into the situation, give new momentum to the Palestinian cause, and simultaneously put Israel in a perilous situation.There are many reasons to be concerned about a move towards a unilateral declaration of statehood, not least because the Palestinians would undoubtedly want to go beyond the demilitarised state being offered by the Israeli government and also because they would then seek to argue that Israel is not merely an occupying power but also an invading power. This they could use as a justification for renewed resistance, for which read terrorism.Horovitz has produced an excellent analysis and I recommend reading it in full. But since, at nearly 3,000 words, some readers may not have the time to go through it from beginning to end, I offer here a bullet point rendition of what I take to be the most important points, along with some comments of my own. Points taken from Horowitz’s piece (which are my words, not his) are in bold italics while my own comments follow in normal script:
** Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has himself declared a summer 2011 deadline for Palestinian statehood. Stop the press right here: summer 2011 is effectively tomorrow. In other words, the threat should be treated as imminent.
** Last Tuesday, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry said to Fayyad: We are in the home stretch of your agenda to reach [statehood] by August next year, and you have our full support.The day before, PA President Mahmoud Abbas repeated what is an increasingly common theme from PA officials in threatening a resort to the United Nations in the context of a possible unilateral declaration of statehood. In other words, the potential move to a unilateral declaration of statehood with recognition at the UN should not only be treated as imminent, senior UN officials are sounding increasingly positive about such a possible move.
** Important and influential governments are also sounding more receptive to the idea. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner recently said that if the negotiations became deadlocked France cannot rule out in principle the Security Council option. These are dangerous and irresponsible words which could encourage the Palestinian side to deliberately deadlock peace talks so as to get a better deal at the UN.
** It is true that the Americans have said they would veto any such deal. But this may not be enough to kill it. Consider the example of Kosovo whose own unilateral declaration of independence was opposed by Russia, another of the permanent security council members with veto powers. This has not stopped some 70 countries from recognising Kosovan independence which is now basically a fait accompli. The Palestinians are well aware of the Kosovo example and frequently talk about it as a precedent. As Horovitz notes, the point here is not that there is a direct analogy between Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia on the one hand and Israel and the Middle East on other. Rather, the point is that unilateral declarations of independence can build unstoppable momentum if a critical mass of nations support it and there is some sort of embryonic government (in this case the PA) to recognise.
** The Kosovo precedent is not the only one. Consider Lithuania which declared independence unilaterally in 1990 despite the fact that the Soviet Union still existed and had its armies on Lithuanian soil. This is another strong example of how a determined national movement with international support and with a governmental apparatus can build new dynamics to its own advantage.
** While fully aware of the potential dangers of any unilateral declaration of independence, too many Israeli officials underestimate the prospects of it actually happening. The Palestinians have made a unilateral declaration of independence before, in 1988 when more than 90 countries recognised it. It came to nothing, many Israelis point out. But the situation now is very different since, among other things, there is a recognised PA government. Indeed so, and in 1988 we were still in the Cold War, we hadn’t had the Oslo process or the Clinton peace efforts in 2000 and 2001, or the second Intifada, or 9/11. Nor was the demonisation of the Jewish state quite so deeply rooted in western countries as it now is.
** The Palestinians are serious about this. As Salam Fayyad said to an Italian newspaper last week: [In 2011] the United Nations will celebrate the birth of our nation… The deadline is next summer, when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank must end.That’s straight from the horse’s mouth.Once again, Horovitz has written a great analysis of a crucial issue and I recommend reading his piece in full.
Editor's Notes: Unilateralism is no mirage
By DAVID HOROVITZ 10/29/2010 16:23 JERUSALEMPOST.COM
Netanyahu's right: Palestinians won’t achieve peace with Israel by unilaterally declaring establishment of Palestine. But they're not talking about peace. They're talking about statehood.The months go by, and while Israel keeps its head buried in the sand, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s declared summer 2011 deadline for Palestinian statehood draws nearer.Photogenically picking olives with Fayyad on Tuesday, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry offered his stamp of approval for the purportedly soon-to-be-established Palestine.All international players are now in agreement that the Palestinians are ready for statehood at any point in the near future, Serry said to Fayyad. We are in the home stretch of your agenda to reach that point by August next year, and you have our full support.A day earlier, the PA President Mahmoud Abbas had spoken about the possibility of seeking statehood unilaterally, via what he termed a resort to the United Nations.Other PA officials have frequently invoked this option of late, bemoaning Israel’s ostensible torpedoing of peace hopes and looking to the international community for unilateral recognition.A couple of weeks ago, the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner made plain that even some countries that consider themselves to be firm friends of Israel might not prove deaf to Palestinian efforts toward unilateral recognition, saying that France cannot rule out in principle the Security Council option if the negotiating process is beset by prolonged deadlock.And officials within the US administration, while indicating to their Israeli counterparts that the US would veto any effort by the Palestinians to seek binding UN Security Council backing for the unilaterally declared establishment of Palestine within the pre-1967 lines, have also been stressing the limits of their veto power. Look at the case of Kosovo, for instance, they suggest. This is a nation that has not been recognized by the Security Council, where permanent member Russia is implacably opposed, but whose statehood – declared by its parliament in February 2008 and recognized by some 70 countries, including the US – is nonetheless something of a fait accompli.
The Kosovo precedent is certainly not lost on the Palestinians. Earlier this month, Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti urged that an independent Palestine be declared now on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, including east Jerusalem and that the world community be pressed to recognize it and its borders, as it did in the case of Kosovo.Serene in the face of such ostensible pressures, the Israeli government continues to insist that there is no credible, viable path to statehood for the Palestinians via the unilateral route.Opening Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared that We expect the Palestinians to honor their commitment to hold direct negotiations. I think any attempt to bypass them by appealing to international bodies is unrealistic...
But is it?
THE KOSOVO precedent is plainly quite different from the Palestinian context. (Indeed, Israelis who have spent time in Kosovo say that people there often compare their emergence to that of Israel.) But there are numerous critical parallels and themes that Israel would be extremely foolish to ignore.Independent Kosovo was born out of the fragmentation two decades ago of Yugoslavia, and what proved to be the impossibility of peacefully resolving the conflicting demands of one of the former Yugoslavia’s six constituent republics, Serbia, with those of the Albanian majority in what had been the autonomous area of Kosovo. The unilateral declaration of statehood followed years of violence, international intervention, the designation by the Security Council in 1999 of Kosovo as a UN protectorate, and the terminal failure of a succession of efforts to foster substantive negotiations between Kosovo’s Albanian leadership and Belgrade.A fragmenting federation, war, NATO involvement on the ground and the absence of anything remotely close to an agreed framework for resolving the crisis – in all these aspects Kosovo differs utterly from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict arena. Just to be on the safe side, furthermore, the US made explicit, when recognizing Kosovo, that this process represented no legal precedent whatsoever.Where the potent similarities begin, however, is that in Kosovo, as with the Palestinians, the international community was galvanized by a group that sought independence from another party whose rule it did not accept; and where that group was impatient and felt that it had sufficient strength to advance its cause.Kosovo’s road to independence featured an earlier declaration of a separate republic, in 1992, which went nowhere because, as Nikolas Gvosdev pointed out in an article in World Politics Review a few days ago, it had no formal governing presence in any part of the territories it claimed as its state and no real institutions of state. But by 2008, Kosovo did have a functional governmental apparatus in at least part of the territory it claimed, and it has subsequently gained a certain critical mass of international recognition.
As a result, Gvosdev notes with what ought to be dramatic resonance for Israeli ears,any future talks with Serbia will be aimed not at getting Kosovo to give up its independence, but rather at determining the conditions and arrangements under which Belgrade will accept an independent government in Pristina.Try re-reading that sentence with certain substitutions after a unilateral assertion of Palestinian statehood: Any future talks with Israel will be aimed not at getting Palestine to give up its independence, but rather at determining the conditions and arrangements under which Jerusalem will accept an independent government in east Jerusalem.The echoes from Kosovo of that shift to international acceptance over the past couple of decades drastically undermine official Israel’s insistently sanguine response to the Palestinians’ unilateralist threats. Fayyad’s entire state-building exercise has been designed to demonstrate, Kosovo-style, the attainment of a formal governing presence in at least part of the territories being claimed and the establishment of a functional governmental apparatus.And much of the international community has long-since been won over. So Israel’s blithe, dismissive reminder that the Palestinians have little to show from their last attempt at the unilateralist route – the 1988 declaration of statehood that won recognition from some 90 nations – is simply outdated. We are not in 1988 anymore.Kosovo is not the only cautionary tale. Gvosdev cites the case of Lithuania to demonstrate that a potential state need not be in full control of the territory it claims in order to gain international recognition:
When Lithuania redeclared its independence in 1990, he writes, numerous states... recognized its status as a sovereign member of the international community, even though the Soviet Union rejected such a claim and refused to withdraw its forces from Lithuanian soil. By the time the USSR accepted the reality of Lithuanian independence on September 6, 1991, a separate Lithuanian government had already been functioning for more than a year. Even the United States, which was one of the last states in the world to extend de jure recognition, had already begun to deal with a government in Vilnius on a de facto basis.THE PALESTINIANS themselves, it is asserted in the prime minister’s circle, don’t believe they have a serious unilateral option. Even Fayyad, it is stated, knows that borders, for instance, have to be demarcated by agreement.Everyone understands that a solution must be negotiated, sources close to Netanyahu have repeatedly stated. Everything else is a mirage. They know that. We know that.Every now and again, it is noted in Jerusalem, the Palestinians come out with statements threatening variously that Abbas will resign, they’ll dismantle the PA, they’ll shift to seeking a one-state solution or they’ll go the unilateral route. This rhetoric is viewed as a case of the Palestinians essentially saying, Hold us back. Our commitment to reconciliation is not real. We have other options. In fact, though, runs the Jerusalem mantra: There are no other options.Essential aspects of statehood, it is pointed out, include a defined territory, a defined population, effective government and the recognition of other states. Official Israel, as far as I can understand, believes the Palestinians to be deficient in at least two of those areas.One might acknowledge that they represent a defined population and they could certainly count on widespread international support. But in the official Israeli assessment, they lack a defined territory – negotiations having thus far failed to define borders – and they lack effective government – which is less a critique of Fayyad’s institution-building efforts and more a factual description of the practical limitations of PA authority, over such basic areas as controlling what goes in and out of its would-be Palestine. Official Israel, largely unmoved by evidence to the contrary in cases such as Kosovo and Lithuania, evidently wants to believe that these deficiencies doom the notion of unilateral statehood.
In conversation with some in Israeli officialdom this week, I ventured the suggestion that the resort to unilateralism, at the very least, would surely ratchet up the pressure on Israel. The international community is less sympathetic to Israel, and more impressed by the Palestinian leadership’s credentials and ostensible capacity to maintain stability, than it was when Yasser Arafat tried the unilateral declaration route 22 years ago, I noted. And so, if Palestine is being stymied because of the failure to negotiate core issues like agreed borders with Israel, then a Palestinian unilateralist effort would surely provoke intensified calls on Israel to negotiate those borders, and other core issues, in a spirit of greater compromise.The frustrated response was that Israel is ready to negotiate. In rather anguished terms, it was noted that the Palestinians claim they need other solutions because the talks are going nowhere, but that the talks are only going nowhere because the Palestinians are refusing to negotiate. And as for the Palestinian claim that settlements are the problem, the official line from Jerusalem was that the settlement enterprise does not preempt a negotiated solution, that no planned construction will affect the contours of peace, that the overwhelming majority of proposed construction is within the settlement blocs, and that the minority of building that is outside the blocs – an extra house or two here and there in an isolated settlement – won’t make a difference, because it would either be dismantled under a peace agreement or would be on the Palestinian side of the border.These may all be eminently reasonable arguments, but none of them, I repeated, is likely to forestall international pressure if the Palestinians do opt for the unilateral route.The point was acknowledged. Of course there’d be pressure, one source finally allowed. And then he added, ruefully: You don’t think we’re under pressure already? TRADE MINISTER Benjamin Ben-Eliezer this week spoke for some in the government who are internalizing the growing perceived international legitimacy of Palestine. Time isn’t merely working against us, observed Ben- Eliezer, who just got back from talks in Washington. It’s racing against. Racing.Many in the Israeli diplomatic hierarchy, moreover, understand that the world has changed in the past couple of decades – and specifically that the US no longer calls the shots globally in the way that it once could. American economic dominance, American military dominance and American diplomatic dominance have receded. There are more global power centers. The US itself, recognizing these changes, works more readily with international forums.For Israel, for whom the alliance with the US remains paramount, these shifts have nonetheless required a shift in diplomacy, a diversified investment of effort and energy.In terms of the conflict with the Palestinians, these shifts have also required a gradual internalization that the Middle East peace Quartet – that constellation of would-be mediators comprising the US, UN, EU and Russia – potentially carries real weight, and is no longer just a diplomatic construct designed to give the international community a superficial sense of involvement, while only the US really matters.
This changing climate again renders some of the public Israeli comments on unilateralism – the blasé dismissal of a unilateral Palestine as a mirage and a pipe dream – unconscionably complacent. And Netanyahu’s own assertion on Sunday that attempts at unilateralism will not give any impetus to a genuine diplomatic process completely misses the point.By definition, a resort to unilateralism will not give any impetus to a genuine diplomatic process. The whole thrust of unilateralism is an escape from a genuine diplomatic process – an attempt to achieve, without agreement, ambitions and gains that could not be won at the peace table, and to achieve them without the concessions that a genuine diplomatic process would require.OTHER ISRAELI arguments against unilateralism also seem unlikely to give the Palestinians much pause. It is suggested that a unilateral declaration of statehood, though endorsed by long sympathetic nations, might be strongly resented by other, fairer-minded countries that oppose the abandonment of the diplomatic process. But one wonders how many such nations there might turn out to be, and how grave a concern that would be for the Palestinians, given the international hostility to Israel right now, and Israel’s perceived responsibility for the failure of the direct talks to date.It is asserted that unilateral statehood might cause problems of legality for the Palestinians in countries where their independence was not recognized. Would a President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas be accorded a White House welcome in a US that had not formally recognized his country, or a Downing Street hearing in a Britain that was similarly withholding recognition? Here, too, it is unlikely that the Palestinians would be too fearful of a diplomatic cold shoulder; American or British mandarins would presumably prove capable of finding a legaldiplomatic finesse to solve such problems.It is argued that a resort to unilateralism would breach the Oslo Accords and that various signatories and witnesses to these and other interim agreements, including the US, EU, Egypt and Jordan, might resent the breach and withhold recognition. They might. They might not. A concern for the Palestinians? Possibly. But enough to deter them? Unlikely.Officials have issued vague threats about Israel’s capacity to take unilateral actions of its own should the Palestinians pursue the unilateral route. Risibly, anonymous officials were quoted in some newspapers here last week warning that Israel might respond by dismantling isolated settlements or reviving Ehud Olmert’s convergence plan for the removal of tens of thousands of settlers from areas outside the settlement blocs. As threats and warnings go, these are absurd. Don’t declare statehood because, if you do, we’ll take steps that would ease the process for you?! The Palestinians are hardly going to be quaking at the prospect.
Perhaps Israel might seek to unilaterally annex the major settlement blocs. But Israel would want to annex them anyway in the context of a negotiated accord; this way, the Palestinians might reason, Israel would simply be annexing with less legitimacy and less support, and without the Palestinian leadership having compromised and condoned it.Another purported bulwark against Palestinian unilateralism is the notion that the subsequent legal vacuum of voided accords and conflicting assertions of authority could cause chaos and violence on the ground, to the detriment, among others, of the Palestinian Authority. This seems a more credible consideration for the PA to bear in mind. Then again, Abbas and Fayyad may have an elevated sense of their capacity to maintain relative stability. Or they may be prepared to risk chaos and violence.And, finally, it is noted that a unilateral declaration of statehood – with many of Palestine’s key parameters and fundamental aspects still unresolved – is no substitute for the benefits of finding a binding, detailed, stable agreement with an enemy turned full peace partner. As Netanyahu said on Sunday, peace will only be achieved through direct negotiations.That argument, of course, is undeniable...if your goal is peace. The thing is, however, that the Palestinians are talking about something else. About statehood. About a process that would give international weight to their demands no matter what the immediate practical implications, and no matter how many problems – all the core issues, plus the question of the fate of Gaza – remain unresolved. International support for statehood, without the necessity to come to terms with Israel, to legitimize Israel.AT TUESDAY’S olive-picking event, timed to coincide with the 65th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Fayyad expressed the hope that when we celebrate the 66th UN Day next year, we will be celebrating also the emergence of a Palestinian state.A day later, he told an Italian newspaper that he would give Israel one more year of grace. These colonies, he said of the settlements, can no longer be there. They are illegal everywhere; here and in Jerusalem.In 2011, he said more bluntly this time, the United Nations will celebrate the birth of our nation... The deadline is next summer, when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank must end.Israel can talk dismissively about pipe dreams and mirages. But Fayyad isn’t being light-headed. He’s a perfectly clear thinker. And he knows exactly where Palestine is heading. Israel doesn’t.
Clintonite: Obama Needs OKC Bombing to Reconnect with the American People
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com November 6, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjO6NFLLE04&feature=player_embedded
Former Clintonite and Democrat operative Mark Penn says Obama needs an OKC bombing to regain his popularity.Remember, President Clinton reconnected through Oklahoma, right? said Penn on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show on Thursday. And the president right now seems removed. It wasn’t until that speech [after the bombing] that [Clinton] really clicked with the American public. Obama needs a similar defining moment, according to Penn.Clinton realized a boost in his popularity ratings after the attack. On the day of the attack, April 19, 1995, Clinton had a 46 percent approval rating. A few days later, after delivering a speech on the attack, a Time/CNN poll revealed his approval had jumped to 60 percent. It subsequently slipped to 42 percent the following month.Penn is the president of the polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates. He served as pollster to the president for Bill Clinton and became one of the Clinton’s most prominent and influential advisers. Penn has worked on the election campaigns of Tony Blair, Ed Koch, Menachem Begin, and a number of Latin American political candidates. His consulting firm works for large multinational corporations, including Texaco, AT&T, Ford Motor Company, Merck & Co., Verizon, BP, and McDonald’s. Penn has served as a key strategic adviser to Bill Gates and Microsoft since the mid-1990s.In July, another former Clintonite, Robert Shapiro, said the only thing can preserve Obama’s increasingly tenuous grip on power is a terror attack on the scale of Oklahoma City or 9/11.
The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership, said Shapiro, writing for the Financial Times. He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.Shapiro is clearly communicating the necessity for a terror attack to be launched in order to give Obama the opportunity to unite the country around his agenda in the name of fighting terrorists, just as President Bush did in the aftermath of 9/11 when his approval ratings shot up from around 50% to well above 80%, writes Paul Joseph Watson.No terrorist event occurred prior to the election and establishment Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives and increased their influence in the Senate.Earlier this year, Obama claimed America can absorb a terror attack. We can absorb a terrorist attack. We’ll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever… we absorbed it and we are stronger, Obama told intelligence operative and prized Operation Mockingbird asset Bob Woodward in July.Penn’s claim is sure to stir up right-leaning conspiracy mills that insist federal agents helped Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on behalf of the Clinton administration, writes Stephen C. Webster for Raw Story. This is especially likely in the wake of President Clinton’s analogy in April, comparing irrational tea party rage to the right-wing militia movement many credit with fostering McVeigh’s thought process.In April, Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer he was worried that anti-government rhetoric would lead to violence and another Oklahoma City. He said he was concerned about people opposed to the government using the internet.In 2006, several FBI documents provided dramatic evidence that the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by a conspiracy involving more people than Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.Since the bombing, a number of witnesses have come forward to refute the official version, including Jane Graham, a ninth floor survivor. Several witnesses connected to the OK City bombing have mysteriously died, including Oklahoma City police officers Terrance Yeakey, Gordon Martin and Ken Griffin, a number of Oklahoma City firefighters, Dr. H. Don Chumley, GSA employee Mike Loudenslager and others.
Noam Chomsky: No Evidence that Al-Qaeda Carried Out the 9/11 Attacks
Washington’s Blog November 6, 2010
Leading liberal intellectual Noam Chomsky just told Press TV:The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist acts. The Taliban…they requested evidence…and the Bush administration refused to provide any, the 81-year-old senior academic made the remarks on Press TV’s program a Simple Question.We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence: they did not have any.The political analyst also said that nonexistence of such evidence was confirmed by FBI eight months later.
The head of FBI, after the most intense international investigation in history, informed the press that the FBI believed that the plot may have been hatched in Afghanistan, but was probably implemented in the United Arab Emirates and Germany.
Chomsky added that three weeks into the war, a British officer announced that the US and Britain would continue bombing, until the people of Afghanistan overthrew the Taliban… That was later turned into the official justification for the war.All of this was totally illegal. It was more, criminal, Chomsky said.As Wired wrote on September 27, 2001:President Bush has said he has evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, so it would seem obvious that the FBI would include him and other suspects on its 10 most wanted fugitives Web page.
Think again.
Bin Laden is listed, but only for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. There is no mention of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the attacks on the USS Cole in October 2000, both of which he is widely believed to have orchestrated. And forget about Sept. 11.The reason? Fugitives on the list must be formally charged with a crime, and bin Laden is still only a suspect in the recent attacks in New York City and Washington.There’s going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged, said Rex Tomb, who is head of the FBI’s chief fugitive publicity unit and helps decide which fugitives appear on the list. To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court.Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer who was deputy director of the U.S. State Department Office of Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993, said in a Sept. 12 interview conducted by Frontline that there is no concrete proof that bin Laden is responsible for the USS Cole and the 1993 WTC attacks, but bin Laden celebrates those attacks and associates himself with people who are responsible for it.
President Bush promises to reveal evidence linking bin Laden to the suicide hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bin Laden has applauded the attacks but denies direct involvement.The Bush administration never provided such evidence.As I wrote last December:President Obama said Tuesday night as justification for the surge in troops in Afghanistan:We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people.Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban”, who refused to turn over Osama bin Laden.
Is that true?
On October 14, 2001, the Taliban offered to hand over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted bombing if the Taliban were given evidence of Bin Laden’s involvement in 9/11.
Specifically, as the Guardian writes:
Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop, unless the ruling Taliban turn [bin Laden] over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over. He added, There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he’s guilty …Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved and the bombing campaign stopped, we would be ready to hand him over to a third country, Mr Kabir added.However, as the Guardian subsequently points out:A senior Taliban minister has offered a last-minute deal to hand over Osama bin Laden during a secret visit to Islamabad, senior sources in Pakistan told the Guardian last night.For the first time, the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden for trial in a country other than the US without asking to see evidence first in return for a halt to the bombing, a source close to Pakistan’s military leadership said.And yet … the U.S. turned down the offer and instead prosecuted war.And in 2006, FBI agent Rex Tomb told reporter Ed Haas that the FBI still did not have enough evidence:The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.In fact, many leading liberals have expressed doubts about 9/11, including Daniel Ellsberg, Ray McGovern, William Blum, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Lewis Lapham, Dan Hamburg, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Amy Goodman, Thom Hartmann, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Marc Crispin Miller, Howard Zinn, Robert McChesney, Gore Vidal, Chris Floyd, Robert Fisk, Medea Benjamin, Doris Granny D Haddock, Paul Hawken, David Cobb, Randy Hayes, Ernest Callenbach, Dennis Bernstein, Paul H. Ray, Michael Franti, Janeane Garafalo and Ed Asner.As have many prominent old-fashioned conservatives. And the 9/11 Commissioners themselves.
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101016_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101018_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101019_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101020_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101021_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101022_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101024_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101025_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101026_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101027_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101028_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101029_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101031_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101101_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101102_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101103_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101104_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101105_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101107_Sun_Alex.mp3
ALEX JONES SPEECH AT COCONUT GROVE OCT 24,10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60K-wgVtlbE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLwWi4OCKmw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSYUHQhOvzs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pQkiBXb0jw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9QK4bgSygE&feature=related
FALSE FLAGS (SET UP OR STAGED BY SOMEONE)
http://www.god.tv/video/play?video=1219
http://www.god.tv/video/play?video=1227
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)
FAMINE
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
A loaf of wheat bread may soon cost $23 due to skyrocketing food price inflation Mike Adams NaturalNews November 6, 2010
Within a decade, a loaf of wheat bread may cost $23 in a grocery store in the United States, and a 32-oz package of sugar might run $62. A 64-oz container of Minute Maid Orange Juice, meanwhile, could set you back $45.71. This is all according to a new report released Friday by the National Inflation Association which warns consumers about the coming wave of food price inflation that’s about to strike the western world.Will a loaf of bread cost $23 by 2020? Authored by Gerard Adams (no relation to myself, Mike Adams), this report makes the connection between the Fed’s runaway money creation policy (quantitative easing) and food price inflation. (http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojec…)For every economic problem the U.S. government tries to solve, it always creates two or three much larger catastrophes in the process, said Adams. Just like we predicted this past December, the U.S. dollar index bounced in early 2010 and has been in free-fall ever since. Bernanke’s QE2 will likely accelerate this free-fall into a complete U.S. dollar rout.The upshot of a falling dollar will mean rampant price inflation on the basic goods and services that Americans depend on to survive. Food in particular is likely to be hit hard by price inflation within the decade.The National Inflation Association has released its food price projections in a free downloadable PDF file here: http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojec…It offers statements like this: NIA is confident that the upcoming monetization of our debt will send nearly all agricultural commodities soaring to new all time inflation adjusted highs.The Federal Reserve, of course, is currently engaged in the most massive money counterfeiting operation the world has ever witnessed. And it seems determined to keep printing money until all the dollars the rest of us hold are near-worthless.
Even the UN sees rising food prices
It’s not just the NIA that sees a future with much higher food prices, by the way: Both the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development as well as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization also predict rising food prices (although not to the same prices as the NIA).This is based on the trend of rising energy prices which directly translate into higher costs for farming, harvesting, transporting and processing foods. Catch the details on that story at http://www.naturalnews.com/029999_f…The UK Guardian newspaper is also reporting on soaring food prices due to fast-rising commodity costs: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/…I also predicted food disruptions in my list of predictions published earlier this year at http://www.naturalnews.com/028167_p…(Many of those predictions have already come true, by the way!)Make no mistake: Food prices are on the rise. And with the Fed watering down the dollar thanks to its insane money counterfeiting policies, the U.S. is headed into a price inflation / dollar deflation scenario that mean you will have to spent a lot more dollars to buy the same food in 2015 as you did in 2010. (If the dollar even exists in 2015, that is…)What does this all mean to you and me? As the spring comes back in a few months, it might be a good time to start thinking about growing a little garden for yourself. We’ll be covering this story in much more detail in the spring, including details on where to get heirloom seeds, how to practice preparedness gardening (or gardening when it counts) and other similar topics.In the mean time, stay tuned to NaturalNews for tips and strategies on how to do more with less in uncertain times.
QE2: Last Rites for the World’s Reserve Currency Mike Whitney
Infowars.com November 8, 2010
Millions of Americans have no idea what Quantitative Easing is or how it will effect them personally. That’s why Wednesday’s announcement that the Fed will purchase another $600 billion in US Treasuries merely reinforced feelings of helplessness and a sense that government spending is out-of-control. Unfortunately, Ben Bernanke’s rambling explanation of QE2 in a Washington Post op-ed on Thursday only added to the confusion. The article is loaded with half-truths and omissions that are meant to mislead the public about how the program works and what the Fed’s real objectives are. It’s another missed opportunity by Bernanke to come clean with the people and let them know what policies are being enacted in their name. Here’s an excerpt from the article:The reason is that the Fed is locked in a violent exchange-rate war to push down the value of the dollar.The Federal Reserve’s objectives — are to promote a high level of employment and low, stable inflation. Unfortunately, the job market remains quite weak; the national unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent, a large number of people can find only part-time work, and a substantial fraction of the unemployed have been out of work six months or longer. The heavy costs of unemployment include intense strains on family finances, more foreclosures and the loss of job skills…..Low and falling inflation indicate that the economy has considerable spare capacity, implying that there is scope for monetary policy to support further gains in employment without risking economic overheating. The FOMC decided this week that, with unemployment high and inflation very low, further support to the economy is needed…..the Federal Reserve has a particular obligation to help promote increased employment and sustain price stability. Steps taken this week should help us fulfill that obligation.
Bernanke mentions employment/unemployment 5 times in the first 3 paragraphs to give the impression that QE is about creating new jobs. But everyone knows that’s baloney. If Bernanke was really worried about jobs, he would have appealed to Congress for a second round of fiscal stimulus in his speech, which he didn’t, because he remains hawkish on deficits like his colleagues in the GOP-led congress.
Also, if QE2 is mainly about jobs, than why not settle on benchmarks to determine whether the program is successful or not? In other words, if unemployment is still hovering at 8 or 9% in June 2011, when the program ends, then we can assume that Bernanke was either wrong in his calculations or deliberately misled the public about what the program really does.The truth is, Quantitative Easing will not reduce unemployment, narrow the output gap, or increase aggregate demand. At best, it will lower long-term interest rates (slightly) and buoy asset prices. That may be good for the stock market, but it won’t lay the groundwork for a strong recovery. In fact, it might not even be enough to keep the economy from slipping back into recession. As last Friday’s report from he Bureau of Economic Analysis indicates, most of 3rd Quarter GDP was from rebuilding inventories. Remove inventory restocking, and final demand was a sickly 0.6%. So, how will Bernanke’s bond purchasing program increase final demand?
It won’t. If the Fed buys Treasuries, Treasury yields go down which pushes investors into riskier assets (like stocks). That pushes stocks higher, investors feel richer, spending takes off, businesses hire more workers, and the economy grows. It’s a great theory, but it doesn’t work. Yields are already at record lows and businesses are still not hiring because there’s no demand for their products. The problem cannot be fixed from the supply side, which is to say, that it doesn’t matter how cheap money is, if no one is borrowing. And no one is borrowing because they are either broke or out-of-work. Bernanke’s grand plan doesn’t get money to the people who need it, so the economy will continue to sputter.Also, Yields on the 10-year and 30-year Treasuries have already dipped in anticipation of QE2, but is there any sign that businesses are planning to start hiring again? Of course not, because low interest rates don’t matter in this environment. Case in point; record-low interest rates haven’t increased home sales at all. Cheap money doesn’t generate demand when personal balance sheets are underwater. Bernanke knows this because he’s studied Japan’s Lost Decade and understands what happened. They initiated two massive QE programs and got zippo—bank loans and credit continued to go sideways. So, Bernanke is being disingenuous. But why? The reason is that the Fed is locked in a violent exchange-rate war to push down the value of the dollar. Bernanke wants to trim the current account deficit to boost exports. But he’d rather not tell the American people that he’s using their currency as a bludgeon to beat trading partners into submission. It’s easier just to scribble some gibberish about “generating jobs” and send it off to the Washington Post.
The Fed is at war; that’s the truth of the matter. Economist Michael Hudson calls Quantitative Easing (QE) a form of financial aggression. But Hudson probably understates the case; monetary terrorism (moneterrorism?) is probably closer to the truth. QE is flooding emerging markets with cheap capital that’s forcing their leaders to take defensive action to protect their economies. EM’s have already seen the first wave of liquidity surge into their markets raising havoc with prices and forcing central banks to raise rates. But emerging markets aren’t taking it laying down. They’re throwing up protectionist barriers and monitoring capital flows. If Bernanke’s going to print more money, they’ll print, too. Mass competitive devaluation will ignite a full-blown currency war that leaves the present trade regime in tatters and the dollar in the dustbin.This is from Richard Portes in an article titled Currency wars and the emerging-market countries:If the large developed market countries do more QE, however, then the flow of liquidity to the emerging markets may force the latter to respond. They may try to resist exchange-rate appreciation by intervening in the foreign exchange markets. Here we do have competitive devaluation – the currency wars….This is why we see statements like The US will win this war: it will either inflate the rest of the world or force their exchange rates up against the dollar (Wolf 2010). But there is a potential downside for the US. Substantial dollar depreciation will weaken the global position of the dollar, as it did in the late 1970s. (Chinn and Frankel 2007)The Fed will proceed with QE. It will not accept foreign constraints on its monetary policy, nor will it run an internationally coordinated or cooperative monetary policy. (Currency wars and the emerging-market countries, Richard Portes, VOX)See? This isn’t about jobs at all. It’s about power. It’s about who is going to dictate policy to the rest of the world. Bernanke wants emerging markets to bear the costs of a financial crisis that originated on Wall Street and was nurtured every step of the way by the easy money policies of the Federal Reserve. Rather than accept responsibility for his actions–by restructuring the banking system and forcing them to write down their debts– Bernanke has decided to create inflation by opening the sluice-gates and releasing a wall of liquidity that will (inevitably) produce asset bubbles and turmoil in foreign markets. The plan will put the dollar under severe pressure and could trigger a flight from dollar-backed assets, particularly US Treasuries. That would spark the Doomsday Scenario; a disorderly unwinding of the dollar and a swift plunge into crisis. That possibility is not as remote as many think. Here’s a clip from the UK Telegraph’s Ambrose-Evans Pritchard: The Fed’s QE2 risks accelerating the demise of the dollar-based currency system… a chorus of Chinese officials and advisers is demanding that China switch reserves into gold or forms of oil. As this anti-dollar revolt gathers momentum worldwide, the US risks losing its exorbitant privilege of currency hegemony.(QE risks currency wars and the end of dollar hegemony, Ambrose-Evans Pritchard, Telegraph)
Or, this from Nobel prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz: The world is on the verge of moving to another regime of managed exchange rates and fragmented capital markets….A new global reserve system or an expansion of IMF money (called special drawing rights, or SDRs) will be central to this co-operative approach. With such a system, poor countries would no longer need to put aside hundreds of billions of dollars to protect themselves from global volatility, and these would add to global aggregate demand…. with such a system, the US would no longer enjoy the extraordinarily cheap borrowing that comes with being the minter of the most important global reserve currency. But the current arrangement is an anomaly. The world is at a critical juncture.(A currency war has no winners, Joseph Stiglitz, The Guardian)Or this from economist Michael Hudson who believes that the rising powers Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) will challenge the current dollar-dominated regime leading the way to a new multi-polar world order. Here’s what he says:The most decisive counter-strategy to U.S. QE II policy is to create a full-fledged BRIC-centered currency bloc that would minimize use of the dollar….A BRIC-centered system would reverse the policy of open and unprotected capital markets put in place after World War II. … In September, China supported a Russian proposal to start direct trading using the yuan and the ruble rather than pricing their trade or taking payment in U.S. dollars or other foreign currencies. China then negotiated a similar deal with Brazil. And on the eve of the IMF meetings in Washington on Friday, Premier Wen stopped off in Istanbul to reach agreement with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to use their own currencies in a planned tripling Turkish-Chinese trade to $50 billion over the next five years, effectively excluding the dollar.It won’t happen overnight, but the transition away from the dollar has already begun. The financial crisis has greatly eroded US moral authority and the trust that’s needed to preserve America’s role as the steward of the world’s reserve currency. Bernanke’s misguided hyper-monetarism is merely hastening the dollar’s decline. QE2 could very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
ATMs Crash Across The Country After Bank Holiday Warning
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com November 8, 2010
Image: Betsy Fletcher-Following rumors of a bank holiday that could limit or prevent altogether cash withdrawals later this week, Twitter and other Internet forums were raging yesterday about numerous ATMs across the country that crashed in the early hours of Sunday morning, preventing customers from performing basic transactions.It’s unknown whether the crashes were partly a result of a surge of people trying to withdraw their money in preparation for any feared bank shutdown, or if mere technical glitches were to blame. The fact that the problem affected numerous different banks in different parts of the U.S. would seem to indicate the former.The Orange County Register reported that the problems were part of a national outage which prevented people from performing simple transactions such as cashing checks and withdrawing money.Computer issues were blamed for similar issues in Phoenix Arizona, while in Birmingham Alabama, Wells Fargo customers’ online banking accounts and ATMs displayed incorrect balances.The banks primarily affected were Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America, but according to blogger Phil Brennan, who studied Twitter feeds and other Internet message boards that were alight with the story, numerous other financial institutions were also affected, including US Bank, Compass, USAA, Suntrust, Fairwinds Credit Union, American Express, BB&T on the East Coast and PNC.Twitter is going crazy with reports of ATMs and online accounts going down as of 01:00 hours EST of the 7th of November 2010, writes Brennan. This is happening to many banks all across America. Some are trying to say that it is a computer glitch to do with the change in Daylight Savings Time, but I will call BS on this as we manage to put our clocks back over here in the UK without knocking out ATMs and online accounts nationally.
Brennan questions whether the outages were the first warning shots in a move to devalue the dollar, just days after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke sparked an international currency war by announcing that the Fed will buy $600 billion of U.S. government bonds over the next eight months.Any perceived inability of banks to deal with a sudden demand for cash would undoubtedly place in peril the United States’ triple A credit rating and spark a fresh dollar crisis.In the light of what is going on geopolitically, I am still very suspicious about the reasons for this mass downtime of ATMs and Online Accounts, adds Brennan. There is still a very distinct possibility that November the 11th will turn into an extended Bank Holiday so I would advise all those who can get their money out of their banks to do so, even if you have to pay your upcoming bills manually.As we reported last week, the bank holiday rumor has reared its ugly head once again, after a story emerged that a pastor was told by one of the managers of a prominent east coast bank that banks would close for an undetermined amount of time, and that when they reopened, all withdrawals by checks would be limited to $500 per week – no matter what the balance in the account is.Though the story is still an unconfirmed rumor, banks have been preparing for limiting withdrawals. As we reported back in February, Citigroup sent an advisory to its customers at the start of the year which stated that the bank reserved the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. The advisory stoked fears that financial institutions were preparing for bank runs.While we still think this new bank holiday rumor will subside as the previous two did earlier this year and last, in the current economic climate it would be foolish not to keep at least a small amount of your savings in physical cash. The current financial turmoil has been likened with the post 1929 period, during which newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a bank holiday that lasted four days, therefore such a scenario is not without historical precedent.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
ROBIN SHEPHERD ON NEXT AUG PALESTINIAN STATE
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/2631
Will UK join push for ultimate solution of MidEast peace through the United Nations? NOV 5,10
Will UK join push for ultimate solution of MidEast peace through the United Nations?Amid all the brouhaha over British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s visit to Israel this week, the key question of the moment has yet to be asked: If peace talks fail, will Britain join France and others in openly declaring that a Middle East peace might have to be imposed through the United Nations? I have not seen a clear and unambiguous quotation from the Foreign Secretary or any of his senior officials to that effect. But if you put together everything that is being said and everything that is not being said, and you set that against the international mood music my instincts tell me that we are ineluctably heading towards the UN route. For example, as the BBC’s MidEast headline today roars: Mid-East peace talks: UK says window closing. But what does that mean in practice? That Britain would be prepared simply to let matters rest should that window ultimately close? That the UK would say: a plague on both your houses and retreat back to the island and wash its hands of the whole business? If only the British outlook were characterised by such indifference. Here is how the BBC characterises the British position in its article today:
Mr Hague said that both sides had obligations, but that it was largely up to Israel to break the impasse.We do want Israel to announce a new moratorium on settlements [said Hague]… That is what the whole of Europe wants, that is what the United States wants,he said.In other words, Israel is going to get the blame if and when the talks collapse.It is not that there is anything new in all this. It is just that the Arab/Palestinian side has been remarkably successful in portraying Israel as the intransigent party in a current round of peace talks representing history’s last chance for a solution. Either there is an agreement on the way or something radical will have to be considered. And that something would be an imposed settlement authorised by the UN Security Council sometime in the middle of 2011.Look. I have no proof, and this is little more than speculation. But given that British foreign policy in the Middle East has long been driven by a foreign office that is almost as slavishly deferential to the Arabs as it is to the United Nations, given that the new British government is almost entirely opportunistic in the management of its foreign policy, given (see last posting but one) our new strategic ally France has mooted the UN route, and given that the Palestinians and the UN are already preparing the way for such a move, the notion that Britain is going to jump on the bandwagon has a certain inevitability about it. The Palestinian/Arab side can hardly be under any illusions as to how weak Britain has become under the new government and how prone it is merely to go with the flow of global events.At the very least, it would be good if the journalists would start posing the question. Because if Britain and France do join forces diplomatically (as they have recently agreed to do militarily) on this issue, this would constitute a powerful combination to help legitimise and energise a movement that already has the support of dozens of nations in the Arab and Musim world.The UN route would be a disaster for Israel’s security. But it is the looming issue of the moment, and we urgently need clarity on precisely where Britain stands on the matter.
Before the storm: Palestinian ability to go through UN for unilateral declaration of statehood not to be underestimated OCT 30,10
Before the storm: Palestinian ability to go through UN for unilateral declaration of statehood not to be underestimated Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz has written an extensive analysis of the prospects of the Palestinian leadership opting for a unilateral declaration of statehood, probably sometime in 2011, as an alternative to working for a negotiated end to the conflict. It is crucial to understand the issue since it could add an entirely new dynamic into the situation, give new momentum to the Palestinian cause, and simultaneously put Israel in a perilous situation.There are many reasons to be concerned about a move towards a unilateral declaration of statehood, not least because the Palestinians would undoubtedly want to go beyond the demilitarised state being offered by the Israeli government and also because they would then seek to argue that Israel is not merely an occupying power but also an invading power. This they could use as a justification for renewed resistance, for which read terrorism.Horovitz has produced an excellent analysis and I recommend reading it in full. But since, at nearly 3,000 words, some readers may not have the time to go through it from beginning to end, I offer here a bullet point rendition of what I take to be the most important points, along with some comments of my own. Points taken from Horowitz’s piece (which are my words, not his) are in bold italics while my own comments follow in normal script:
** Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has himself declared a summer 2011 deadline for Palestinian statehood. Stop the press right here: summer 2011 is effectively tomorrow. In other words, the threat should be treated as imminent.
** Last Tuesday, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry said to Fayyad: We are in the home stretch of your agenda to reach [statehood] by August next year, and you have our full support.The day before, PA President Mahmoud Abbas repeated what is an increasingly common theme from PA officials in threatening a resort to the United Nations in the context of a possible unilateral declaration of statehood. In other words, the potential move to a unilateral declaration of statehood with recognition at the UN should not only be treated as imminent, senior UN officials are sounding increasingly positive about such a possible move.
** Important and influential governments are also sounding more receptive to the idea. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner recently said that if the negotiations became deadlocked France cannot rule out in principle the Security Council option. These are dangerous and irresponsible words which could encourage the Palestinian side to deliberately deadlock peace talks so as to get a better deal at the UN.
** It is true that the Americans have said they would veto any such deal. But this may not be enough to kill it. Consider the example of Kosovo whose own unilateral declaration of independence was opposed by Russia, another of the permanent security council members with veto powers. This has not stopped some 70 countries from recognising Kosovan independence which is now basically a fait accompli. The Palestinians are well aware of the Kosovo example and frequently talk about it as a precedent. As Horovitz notes, the point here is not that there is a direct analogy between Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia on the one hand and Israel and the Middle East on other. Rather, the point is that unilateral declarations of independence can build unstoppable momentum if a critical mass of nations support it and there is some sort of embryonic government (in this case the PA) to recognise.
** The Kosovo precedent is not the only one. Consider Lithuania which declared independence unilaterally in 1990 despite the fact that the Soviet Union still existed and had its armies on Lithuanian soil. This is another strong example of how a determined national movement with international support and with a governmental apparatus can build new dynamics to its own advantage.
** While fully aware of the potential dangers of any unilateral declaration of independence, too many Israeli officials underestimate the prospects of it actually happening. The Palestinians have made a unilateral declaration of independence before, in 1988 when more than 90 countries recognised it. It came to nothing, many Israelis point out. But the situation now is very different since, among other things, there is a recognised PA government. Indeed so, and in 1988 we were still in the Cold War, we hadn’t had the Oslo process or the Clinton peace efforts in 2000 and 2001, or the second Intifada, or 9/11. Nor was the demonisation of the Jewish state quite so deeply rooted in western countries as it now is.
** The Palestinians are serious about this. As Salam Fayyad said to an Italian newspaper last week: [In 2011] the United Nations will celebrate the birth of our nation… The deadline is next summer, when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank must end.That’s straight from the horse’s mouth.Once again, Horovitz has written a great analysis of a crucial issue and I recommend reading his piece in full.
Editor's Notes: Unilateralism is no mirage
By DAVID HOROVITZ 10/29/2010 16:23 JERUSALEMPOST.COM
Netanyahu's right: Palestinians won’t achieve peace with Israel by unilaterally declaring establishment of Palestine. But they're not talking about peace. They're talking about statehood.The months go by, and while Israel keeps its head buried in the sand, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s declared summer 2011 deadline for Palestinian statehood draws nearer.Photogenically picking olives with Fayyad on Tuesday, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry offered his stamp of approval for the purportedly soon-to-be-established Palestine.All international players are now in agreement that the Palestinians are ready for statehood at any point in the near future, Serry said to Fayyad. We are in the home stretch of your agenda to reach that point by August next year, and you have our full support.A day earlier, the PA President Mahmoud Abbas had spoken about the possibility of seeking statehood unilaterally, via what he termed a resort to the United Nations.Other PA officials have frequently invoked this option of late, bemoaning Israel’s ostensible torpedoing of peace hopes and looking to the international community for unilateral recognition.A couple of weeks ago, the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner made plain that even some countries that consider themselves to be firm friends of Israel might not prove deaf to Palestinian efforts toward unilateral recognition, saying that France cannot rule out in principle the Security Council option if the negotiating process is beset by prolonged deadlock.And officials within the US administration, while indicating to their Israeli counterparts that the US would veto any effort by the Palestinians to seek binding UN Security Council backing for the unilaterally declared establishment of Palestine within the pre-1967 lines, have also been stressing the limits of their veto power. Look at the case of Kosovo, for instance, they suggest. This is a nation that has not been recognized by the Security Council, where permanent member Russia is implacably opposed, but whose statehood – declared by its parliament in February 2008 and recognized by some 70 countries, including the US – is nonetheless something of a fait accompli.
The Kosovo precedent is certainly not lost on the Palestinians. Earlier this month, Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti urged that an independent Palestine be declared now on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, including east Jerusalem and that the world community be pressed to recognize it and its borders, as it did in the case of Kosovo.Serene in the face of such ostensible pressures, the Israeli government continues to insist that there is no credible, viable path to statehood for the Palestinians via the unilateral route.Opening Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared that We expect the Palestinians to honor their commitment to hold direct negotiations. I think any attempt to bypass them by appealing to international bodies is unrealistic...
But is it?
THE KOSOVO precedent is plainly quite different from the Palestinian context. (Indeed, Israelis who have spent time in Kosovo say that people there often compare their emergence to that of Israel.) But there are numerous critical parallels and themes that Israel would be extremely foolish to ignore.Independent Kosovo was born out of the fragmentation two decades ago of Yugoslavia, and what proved to be the impossibility of peacefully resolving the conflicting demands of one of the former Yugoslavia’s six constituent republics, Serbia, with those of the Albanian majority in what had been the autonomous area of Kosovo. The unilateral declaration of statehood followed years of violence, international intervention, the designation by the Security Council in 1999 of Kosovo as a UN protectorate, and the terminal failure of a succession of efforts to foster substantive negotiations between Kosovo’s Albanian leadership and Belgrade.A fragmenting federation, war, NATO involvement on the ground and the absence of anything remotely close to an agreed framework for resolving the crisis – in all these aspects Kosovo differs utterly from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict arena. Just to be on the safe side, furthermore, the US made explicit, when recognizing Kosovo, that this process represented no legal precedent whatsoever.Where the potent similarities begin, however, is that in Kosovo, as with the Palestinians, the international community was galvanized by a group that sought independence from another party whose rule it did not accept; and where that group was impatient and felt that it had sufficient strength to advance its cause.Kosovo’s road to independence featured an earlier declaration of a separate republic, in 1992, which went nowhere because, as Nikolas Gvosdev pointed out in an article in World Politics Review a few days ago, it had no formal governing presence in any part of the territories it claimed as its state and no real institutions of state. But by 2008, Kosovo did have a functional governmental apparatus in at least part of the territory it claimed, and it has subsequently gained a certain critical mass of international recognition.
As a result, Gvosdev notes with what ought to be dramatic resonance for Israeli ears,any future talks with Serbia will be aimed not at getting Kosovo to give up its independence, but rather at determining the conditions and arrangements under which Belgrade will accept an independent government in Pristina.Try re-reading that sentence with certain substitutions after a unilateral assertion of Palestinian statehood: Any future talks with Israel will be aimed not at getting Palestine to give up its independence, but rather at determining the conditions and arrangements under which Jerusalem will accept an independent government in east Jerusalem.The echoes from Kosovo of that shift to international acceptance over the past couple of decades drastically undermine official Israel’s insistently sanguine response to the Palestinians’ unilateralist threats. Fayyad’s entire state-building exercise has been designed to demonstrate, Kosovo-style, the attainment of a formal governing presence in at least part of the territories being claimed and the establishment of a functional governmental apparatus.And much of the international community has long-since been won over. So Israel’s blithe, dismissive reminder that the Palestinians have little to show from their last attempt at the unilateralist route – the 1988 declaration of statehood that won recognition from some 90 nations – is simply outdated. We are not in 1988 anymore.Kosovo is not the only cautionary tale. Gvosdev cites the case of Lithuania to demonstrate that a potential state need not be in full control of the territory it claims in order to gain international recognition:
When Lithuania redeclared its independence in 1990, he writes, numerous states... recognized its status as a sovereign member of the international community, even though the Soviet Union rejected such a claim and refused to withdraw its forces from Lithuanian soil. By the time the USSR accepted the reality of Lithuanian independence on September 6, 1991, a separate Lithuanian government had already been functioning for more than a year. Even the United States, which was one of the last states in the world to extend de jure recognition, had already begun to deal with a government in Vilnius on a de facto basis.THE PALESTINIANS themselves, it is asserted in the prime minister’s circle, don’t believe they have a serious unilateral option. Even Fayyad, it is stated, knows that borders, for instance, have to be demarcated by agreement.Everyone understands that a solution must be negotiated, sources close to Netanyahu have repeatedly stated. Everything else is a mirage. They know that. We know that.Every now and again, it is noted in Jerusalem, the Palestinians come out with statements threatening variously that Abbas will resign, they’ll dismantle the PA, they’ll shift to seeking a one-state solution or they’ll go the unilateral route. This rhetoric is viewed as a case of the Palestinians essentially saying, Hold us back. Our commitment to reconciliation is not real. We have other options. In fact, though, runs the Jerusalem mantra: There are no other options.Essential aspects of statehood, it is pointed out, include a defined territory, a defined population, effective government and the recognition of other states. Official Israel, as far as I can understand, believes the Palestinians to be deficient in at least two of those areas.One might acknowledge that they represent a defined population and they could certainly count on widespread international support. But in the official Israeli assessment, they lack a defined territory – negotiations having thus far failed to define borders – and they lack effective government – which is less a critique of Fayyad’s institution-building efforts and more a factual description of the practical limitations of PA authority, over such basic areas as controlling what goes in and out of its would-be Palestine. Official Israel, largely unmoved by evidence to the contrary in cases such as Kosovo and Lithuania, evidently wants to believe that these deficiencies doom the notion of unilateral statehood.
In conversation with some in Israeli officialdom this week, I ventured the suggestion that the resort to unilateralism, at the very least, would surely ratchet up the pressure on Israel. The international community is less sympathetic to Israel, and more impressed by the Palestinian leadership’s credentials and ostensible capacity to maintain stability, than it was when Yasser Arafat tried the unilateral declaration route 22 years ago, I noted. And so, if Palestine is being stymied because of the failure to negotiate core issues like agreed borders with Israel, then a Palestinian unilateralist effort would surely provoke intensified calls on Israel to negotiate those borders, and other core issues, in a spirit of greater compromise.The frustrated response was that Israel is ready to negotiate. In rather anguished terms, it was noted that the Palestinians claim they need other solutions because the talks are going nowhere, but that the talks are only going nowhere because the Palestinians are refusing to negotiate. And as for the Palestinian claim that settlements are the problem, the official line from Jerusalem was that the settlement enterprise does not preempt a negotiated solution, that no planned construction will affect the contours of peace, that the overwhelming majority of proposed construction is within the settlement blocs, and that the minority of building that is outside the blocs – an extra house or two here and there in an isolated settlement – won’t make a difference, because it would either be dismantled under a peace agreement or would be on the Palestinian side of the border.These may all be eminently reasonable arguments, but none of them, I repeated, is likely to forestall international pressure if the Palestinians do opt for the unilateral route.The point was acknowledged. Of course there’d be pressure, one source finally allowed. And then he added, ruefully: You don’t think we’re under pressure already? TRADE MINISTER Benjamin Ben-Eliezer this week spoke for some in the government who are internalizing the growing perceived international legitimacy of Palestine. Time isn’t merely working against us, observed Ben- Eliezer, who just got back from talks in Washington. It’s racing against. Racing.Many in the Israeli diplomatic hierarchy, moreover, understand that the world has changed in the past couple of decades – and specifically that the US no longer calls the shots globally in the way that it once could. American economic dominance, American military dominance and American diplomatic dominance have receded. There are more global power centers. The US itself, recognizing these changes, works more readily with international forums.For Israel, for whom the alliance with the US remains paramount, these shifts have nonetheless required a shift in diplomacy, a diversified investment of effort and energy.In terms of the conflict with the Palestinians, these shifts have also required a gradual internalization that the Middle East peace Quartet – that constellation of would-be mediators comprising the US, UN, EU and Russia – potentially carries real weight, and is no longer just a diplomatic construct designed to give the international community a superficial sense of involvement, while only the US really matters.
This changing climate again renders some of the public Israeli comments on unilateralism – the blasé dismissal of a unilateral Palestine as a mirage and a pipe dream – unconscionably complacent. And Netanyahu’s own assertion on Sunday that attempts at unilateralism will not give any impetus to a genuine diplomatic process completely misses the point.By definition, a resort to unilateralism will not give any impetus to a genuine diplomatic process. The whole thrust of unilateralism is an escape from a genuine diplomatic process – an attempt to achieve, without agreement, ambitions and gains that could not be won at the peace table, and to achieve them without the concessions that a genuine diplomatic process would require.OTHER ISRAELI arguments against unilateralism also seem unlikely to give the Palestinians much pause. It is suggested that a unilateral declaration of statehood, though endorsed by long sympathetic nations, might be strongly resented by other, fairer-minded countries that oppose the abandonment of the diplomatic process. But one wonders how many such nations there might turn out to be, and how grave a concern that would be for the Palestinians, given the international hostility to Israel right now, and Israel’s perceived responsibility for the failure of the direct talks to date.It is asserted that unilateral statehood might cause problems of legality for the Palestinians in countries where their independence was not recognized. Would a President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas be accorded a White House welcome in a US that had not formally recognized his country, or a Downing Street hearing in a Britain that was similarly withholding recognition? Here, too, it is unlikely that the Palestinians would be too fearful of a diplomatic cold shoulder; American or British mandarins would presumably prove capable of finding a legaldiplomatic finesse to solve such problems.It is argued that a resort to unilateralism would breach the Oslo Accords and that various signatories and witnesses to these and other interim agreements, including the US, EU, Egypt and Jordan, might resent the breach and withhold recognition. They might. They might not. A concern for the Palestinians? Possibly. But enough to deter them? Unlikely.Officials have issued vague threats about Israel’s capacity to take unilateral actions of its own should the Palestinians pursue the unilateral route. Risibly, anonymous officials were quoted in some newspapers here last week warning that Israel might respond by dismantling isolated settlements or reviving Ehud Olmert’s convergence plan for the removal of tens of thousands of settlers from areas outside the settlement blocs. As threats and warnings go, these are absurd. Don’t declare statehood because, if you do, we’ll take steps that would ease the process for you?! The Palestinians are hardly going to be quaking at the prospect.
Perhaps Israel might seek to unilaterally annex the major settlement blocs. But Israel would want to annex them anyway in the context of a negotiated accord; this way, the Palestinians might reason, Israel would simply be annexing with less legitimacy and less support, and without the Palestinian leadership having compromised and condoned it.Another purported bulwark against Palestinian unilateralism is the notion that the subsequent legal vacuum of voided accords and conflicting assertions of authority could cause chaos and violence on the ground, to the detriment, among others, of the Palestinian Authority. This seems a more credible consideration for the PA to bear in mind. Then again, Abbas and Fayyad may have an elevated sense of their capacity to maintain relative stability. Or they may be prepared to risk chaos and violence.And, finally, it is noted that a unilateral declaration of statehood – with many of Palestine’s key parameters and fundamental aspects still unresolved – is no substitute for the benefits of finding a binding, detailed, stable agreement with an enemy turned full peace partner. As Netanyahu said on Sunday, peace will only be achieved through direct negotiations.That argument, of course, is undeniable...if your goal is peace. The thing is, however, that the Palestinians are talking about something else. About statehood. About a process that would give international weight to their demands no matter what the immediate practical implications, and no matter how many problems – all the core issues, plus the question of the fate of Gaza – remain unresolved. International support for statehood, without the necessity to come to terms with Israel, to legitimize Israel.AT TUESDAY’S olive-picking event, timed to coincide with the 65th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Fayyad expressed the hope that when we celebrate the 66th UN Day next year, we will be celebrating also the emergence of a Palestinian state.A day later, he told an Italian newspaper that he would give Israel one more year of grace. These colonies, he said of the settlements, can no longer be there. They are illegal everywhere; here and in Jerusalem.In 2011, he said more bluntly this time, the United Nations will celebrate the birth of our nation... The deadline is next summer, when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank must end.Israel can talk dismissively about pipe dreams and mirages. But Fayyad isn’t being light-headed. He’s a perfectly clear thinker. And he knows exactly where Palestine is heading. Israel doesn’t.
Clintonite: Obama Needs OKC Bombing to Reconnect with the American People
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com November 6, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjO6NFLLE04&feature=player_embedded
Former Clintonite and Democrat operative Mark Penn says Obama needs an OKC bombing to regain his popularity.Remember, President Clinton reconnected through Oklahoma, right? said Penn on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show on Thursday. And the president right now seems removed. It wasn’t until that speech [after the bombing] that [Clinton] really clicked with the American public. Obama needs a similar defining moment, according to Penn.Clinton realized a boost in his popularity ratings after the attack. On the day of the attack, April 19, 1995, Clinton had a 46 percent approval rating. A few days later, after delivering a speech on the attack, a Time/CNN poll revealed his approval had jumped to 60 percent. It subsequently slipped to 42 percent the following month.Penn is the president of the polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates. He served as pollster to the president for Bill Clinton and became one of the Clinton’s most prominent and influential advisers. Penn has worked on the election campaigns of Tony Blair, Ed Koch, Menachem Begin, and a number of Latin American political candidates. His consulting firm works for large multinational corporations, including Texaco, AT&T, Ford Motor Company, Merck & Co., Verizon, BP, and McDonald’s. Penn has served as a key strategic adviser to Bill Gates and Microsoft since the mid-1990s.In July, another former Clintonite, Robert Shapiro, said the only thing can preserve Obama’s increasingly tenuous grip on power is a terror attack on the scale of Oklahoma City or 9/11.
The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership, said Shapiro, writing for the Financial Times. He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.Shapiro is clearly communicating the necessity for a terror attack to be launched in order to give Obama the opportunity to unite the country around his agenda in the name of fighting terrorists, just as President Bush did in the aftermath of 9/11 when his approval ratings shot up from around 50% to well above 80%, writes Paul Joseph Watson.No terrorist event occurred prior to the election and establishment Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives and increased their influence in the Senate.Earlier this year, Obama claimed America can absorb a terror attack. We can absorb a terrorist attack. We’ll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever… we absorbed it and we are stronger, Obama told intelligence operative and prized Operation Mockingbird asset Bob Woodward in July.Penn’s claim is sure to stir up right-leaning conspiracy mills that insist federal agents helped Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on behalf of the Clinton administration, writes Stephen C. Webster for Raw Story. This is especially likely in the wake of President Clinton’s analogy in April, comparing irrational tea party rage to the right-wing militia movement many credit with fostering McVeigh’s thought process.In April, Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer he was worried that anti-government rhetoric would lead to violence and another Oklahoma City. He said he was concerned about people opposed to the government using the internet.In 2006, several FBI documents provided dramatic evidence that the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by a conspiracy involving more people than Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.Since the bombing, a number of witnesses have come forward to refute the official version, including Jane Graham, a ninth floor survivor. Several witnesses connected to the OK City bombing have mysteriously died, including Oklahoma City police officers Terrance Yeakey, Gordon Martin and Ken Griffin, a number of Oklahoma City firefighters, Dr. H. Don Chumley, GSA employee Mike Loudenslager and others.
Noam Chomsky: No Evidence that Al-Qaeda Carried Out the 9/11 Attacks
Washington’s Blog November 6, 2010
Leading liberal intellectual Noam Chomsky just told Press TV:The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist acts. The Taliban…they requested evidence…and the Bush administration refused to provide any, the 81-year-old senior academic made the remarks on Press TV’s program a Simple Question.We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence: they did not have any.The political analyst also said that nonexistence of such evidence was confirmed by FBI eight months later.
The head of FBI, after the most intense international investigation in history, informed the press that the FBI believed that the plot may have been hatched in Afghanistan, but was probably implemented in the United Arab Emirates and Germany.
Chomsky added that three weeks into the war, a British officer announced that the US and Britain would continue bombing, until the people of Afghanistan overthrew the Taliban… That was later turned into the official justification for the war.All of this was totally illegal. It was more, criminal, Chomsky said.As Wired wrote on September 27, 2001:President Bush has said he has evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, so it would seem obvious that the FBI would include him and other suspects on its 10 most wanted fugitives Web page.
Think again.
Bin Laden is listed, but only for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. There is no mention of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the attacks on the USS Cole in October 2000, both of which he is widely believed to have orchestrated. And forget about Sept. 11.The reason? Fugitives on the list must be formally charged with a crime, and bin Laden is still only a suspect in the recent attacks in New York City and Washington.There’s going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged, said Rex Tomb, who is head of the FBI’s chief fugitive publicity unit and helps decide which fugitives appear on the list. To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court.Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer who was deputy director of the U.S. State Department Office of Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993, said in a Sept. 12 interview conducted by Frontline that there is no concrete proof that bin Laden is responsible for the USS Cole and the 1993 WTC attacks, but bin Laden celebrates those attacks and associates himself with people who are responsible for it.
President Bush promises to reveal evidence linking bin Laden to the suicide hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bin Laden has applauded the attacks but denies direct involvement.The Bush administration never provided such evidence.As I wrote last December:President Obama said Tuesday night as justification for the surge in troops in Afghanistan:We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people.Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban”, who refused to turn over Osama bin Laden.
Is that true?
On October 14, 2001, the Taliban offered to hand over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted bombing if the Taliban were given evidence of Bin Laden’s involvement in 9/11.
Specifically, as the Guardian writes:
Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop, unless the ruling Taliban turn [bin Laden] over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over. He added, There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he’s guilty …Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved and the bombing campaign stopped, we would be ready to hand him over to a third country, Mr Kabir added.However, as the Guardian subsequently points out:A senior Taliban minister has offered a last-minute deal to hand over Osama bin Laden during a secret visit to Islamabad, senior sources in Pakistan told the Guardian last night.For the first time, the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden for trial in a country other than the US without asking to see evidence first in return for a halt to the bombing, a source close to Pakistan’s military leadership said.And yet … the U.S. turned down the offer and instead prosecuted war.And in 2006, FBI agent Rex Tomb told reporter Ed Haas that the FBI still did not have enough evidence:The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.In fact, many leading liberals have expressed doubts about 9/11, including Daniel Ellsberg, Ray McGovern, William Blum, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Lewis Lapham, Dan Hamburg, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Amy Goodman, Thom Hartmann, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Marc Crispin Miller, Howard Zinn, Robert McChesney, Gore Vidal, Chris Floyd, Robert Fisk, Medea Benjamin, Doris Granny D Haddock, Paul Hawken, David Cobb, Randy Hayes, Ernest Callenbach, Dennis Bernstein, Paul H. Ray, Michael Franti, Janeane Garafalo and Ed Asner.As have many prominent old-fashioned conservatives. And the 9/11 Commissioners themselves.
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