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.
Hurricane Dean races to Mexico's Gulf By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer AUG 21,07
FELIPE CARRILLO PUERTO, Mexico - Hurricane Dean slammed into the Caribbean coast of Mexico on Tuesday as a roaring Category 5 hurricane, the most intense Atlantic storm to make landfall in two decades. It lashed remote Mayan villages as it raced across the Yucatan Peninsula to the heart of Mexico's oil industry. Dean's path was a stroke of luck for Mexico: After killing 13 people in the Caribbean, it made landfall along a sparsely populated coastline, well to the south of the major resorts where 50,000 tourists had been evacuated.It weakened to a Category 1 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, but was expected to grow back into a powerful hurricane as it draws fuel from the warm waters of the lower Gulf of Mexico, where more than 100 offshore oil platforms were evacuated ahead of the storm.
We often see that when a storm weakens, people let down their guard completely. You shouldn't do that, said Jamie Rhome, a hurricane specialist. This storm probably won't become a Category 5 again, but it will still be powerful.When Dean first struck land near the cruise port of Majahual, it had sustained winds near 165 mph and gusts that reached 200 mph — faster than the takeoff speed of many passenger jets. It had an expected storm surge of 12 to 18 feet above normal tides and dumped huge amounts of rain on low-lying areas where thousands of Mayan Indians live in stick huts in isolated communities.With the storm still screaming, there were no immediate reports of deaths, injuries or major damage, Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez told Mexico's Televisa network, though officials had not been able to survey the area.Soldiers evacuated more than 250 small communities, but some turned away soldiers with machetes and refused to leave or hid when the army evacuated the area, said Jorge Acevedo, a spokesman for the state of Quintana Roo. Their fate was unknown.
The eye passed directly over the state capital of Chetumal, where residents were ordered to stay home until 10 a.m. Tuesday after a harrowing night with windows shattering and heavy water tanks flying off of rooftops. Sirens wailed constantly as the storm battered the city for hours, hurling billboards down streets. All electricity was down.Just across the border in Belize, trees fell and debris flew through the air. The government evacuated Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye — both popular with American tourists — and ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew from Belize City north to the Mexican border.In the largely Mayan town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, about 30 miles north of the eye's westward path, people stared from their porches at broken tree limbs and electrical cables crisscrossing streets flooded with ankle-deep water.Tin roofing ripped from houses clunked hollowly as it bounced in the wind whistling through town.
We began to feel the strong winds about 2 in the morning and you could hear that the trees were breaking and some tin roofs were coming off, said Miguel Colli, a 36-year-old store employee. Everyone holed up in their houses. Thank God that the worst is over.In the Belizean town of Corozal, about nine miles south of Chetumal, Dean flipped over a residential trailer, detached roofs from houses, ripped plywood off windows and spread floodwaters as high as 3 feet. No deaths or major injuries were reported there or in Belize City, where thousands evacuated to higher ground.By 1 p.m. EDT, Dean had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 85 mph. It was about 45 miles southeast of Campeche and was moving west at 18 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Dean's path takes it directly through the Cantarell oil field, Mexico's most productive, with dozens of oil rigs and three major ports. All were shut down just ahead of the storm, resulting in a production loss of 2.7 million barrels of oil and 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. The path also veers toward Mexico's only nuclear plant, where a state official said 2,000 buses were brought in to evacuate personnel if necessary.The Laguna Verde nuclear plant, which is more than 20 years old and has endured other severe weather with no problems, implemented emergency procedures and remains online, said Estefano Conde, spokesman for Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission. I can assure you that everything is well taken care of, he said.Dean was to expected slam into the central Mexican coast as a major hurricane Wednesday afternoon about 400 miles south of the Texas border. The United States was expected to see few effects from the storm.President Felipe Calderon was cutting short his trip in Canada where he met with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper so that he could travel Tuesday to the hardest-hit areas. Bush offered U.S. assistance and expressed his concern for the citizens of Mexico and elsewhere whose lives were effected.
We stand ready to help, Bush said with Calderon at his side. The American people care a lot about the human condition in our neighborhood and when we see human suffering we want to do what we can.The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour landed a day early Tuesday, its mission cut short by the initial possibility that Dean could pose a threat to Mission Control in Houston. The storm picked up strength after brushing Jamaica and the Cayman Islands and became a monstrous Category 5 hurricane Monday. Jamaica postponed Aug. 27 general elections in order to survey damage, which was extensive in the capital and the island's east. Dean is the first Category 5 to make landfall in the Atlantic region since Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida in 1992.
Insured losses from the storm are likely to range between $750 million and $1.5 billion, most of it Jamaica, according to latest estimates by Risk Management Solutions, which calculates hurricane damage for the insurance industry. Cancun's tourist strip is still marked with cranes used to repair the damage from 2005's Hurricane Wilma, which caused $3 billion in losses. Associated Press writers contributing to this report included John Pain and Jennifer Kay in Miami; Karla Heusner Vernon in Ladyville, Belize; Greg Bull in Campeche, Mexico; Lisa Adams in Mexico City.
Floods in US midwestern states kill 12: reports
Aug 20 08:22 AM US/Eastern
Flooding from torrential rain killed at least 12 people in two US states, washing away roads and homes and prompting dramatic rescues of those trapped on roofs and in cars, reports said Monday. Six died in the north midwestern state of Minnesota as a result of the flooding, the Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis said, updating an earlier toll of four. In Oklahoma, in the central midwest, local authorities said slow moving storms had left six dead, as the remnants of tropical storm Erin dumped heavy rain there and triggered flooding, The Oklahoman daily reported. US television showed dramatic pictures of people perched helplessly atop a sinking truck and hanging from a rescue helicopter after being hauled out of the vast brown flood waters. The dead in Oklahoma included a woman who drowned in her cellar which filled with water overnight, as well as a man who apparently drowned in his truck and three women who were in a van that was swept into fast-moving waters, the newspaper said.
In Minnesota Sunday more than one car plunged into a 30-feet (nine metres) deep pit after rain washed away a road overnight in the small town of Witoka, Bob Reinert, the administrator of southern Winona County, told AFP Sunday. Railroad bridges, houses and buildings were all swept away in the flooding with six to eight inches of rain falling in some areas. More rain was expected overnight Monday to Tuesday.
While the weakening storm drifted across Oklahoma, powerful Hurricane Dean battered Jamaica later on Sunday and could later strike the southern US coast in Texas.
WORLD TRAVEL AND KNOWLEDGE INCREASED
DANIEL 12:4
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS MICROCHIPS ETC)
Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years
Aug 19 11:52 PM US/Eastern - By SETH BORENSTEIN - AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of wet artificial life.
It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it, said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways—in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict.That first cell of synthetic life—made from the basic chemicals in DNA—may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.
Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe, Bedau said. This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role.And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste. Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:
—A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.
—A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.
—A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.
One of the leaders in the field, Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, predicts that within the next six months, scientists will report evidence that the first step—creating a cell membrane—is not a big problem. Scientists are using fatty acids in that effort. Szostak is also optimistic about the next step—getting nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, to form a working genetic system. His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over. We aren't smart enough to design things, we just let evolution do the hard work and then we figure out what happened, Szostak said. In Gainesville, Fla., Steve Benner, a biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is attacking that problem by going outside of natural genetics. Normal DNA consists of four bases—adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine (known as A,C,G,T)—molecules that spell out the genetic code in pairs. Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.
Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could run amok, but there are ways of addressing it, and it will be a very long time before that is a problem. When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab, he said. But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen.(This version CORRECTS Bedau quote to shed new light).
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Russia Supplies New Missile System to Syria
5 Elul 5767, August 19, '07
(IsraelNN.com) Russia has delivered 10 batteries of advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Syria as part of the $900 million arms deal between the two nations, with more on the way, according to Russian military sources quoted Friday by the Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Nonetheless, two unnamed moderate Arab nations have sent messages to Jerusalem claiming that Syria does not plan to attack Israel.
The missiles are part of the Pantsyr-S1 (code-named by NATO as SA-22) system purchased by Syria, which includes portable short-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), with launchers that can be mounted on vehicles and moved along the border.
Israel is concerned that the weapons may make their way to Hizbullah terrorists in southern Lebanon, to be used against the Jewish State. The terrorist group has completely replenished its supplies of rockets and other materiel since the end of the Second Lebanon War last summer, with the aid of smugglers crossing the border into Lebanon from Syria.
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.(TR BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
THE EU DICTATOR
REVELATION 6:1-2,13:1-3,7-9,16
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.(THIS IS THE EU DICTATOR)
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.(7 HEADS ARE THE 7TH WORLD EMPIRE IN HISTORY (THE EU) AS WELL AS THE VATICAN WHICH IS BUILT ON 7 HILLS. 10 HORNS ARE 10 KINGS THAT ARISE FROM THE EU, THEN #11 COMES ON THE SCENE BECOMES THE HEAD OF 3 OUNTRIES AND THEN THE EU DICTATOR, COMES FROM 1 OF THE 3 COUNTRIES THAT RULE FOR THIS TERM. I BELIEVE THE 3 COUNTRIES RULING AT THE TIME ARE SPAIN AND 2 OF THE ORIGINAL 6 THAT STARTED THE EU. FROM 1 OF THESE 3 COUNTRIES COME THE FUTURE EU DICTATOR PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION WHO GUARENTEES ISRAELS SECURITY FOR A LAND FOR PEACE 7 YEAR TREATY.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.(THE JEWISH EU DICTATOR GETS HIS POWER FROM SATAN,HE COMES FROM THE OCCULT).
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.(THE DICTATOR HAS A FALSE RESURRECTION. JUST LIKE JESUS HAD A LITERAL RESURRECTION THIS DICTATOR GETS MURDERED AT THE 3 1/2 YR MARK OF THR 7 YEAR TREATY AND COMES BACK TO LIFE. THIS IS HOW HE CAN CLAIM TO BE GOD AND GET AWAY WITH IT AND CONTROL THE WHOLE EARTH.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
DANIEL 11:36-40
36 And the king shall do according to his will;(EU PRESIDENT) and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS A EUROPEAN JEW) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(HES A MILITARY GINIUS) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds (CONTROL HEZBOLLAH,AL-QUAIDA MURDERERS ETC) with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south(EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR PROTECTING ISRAELS SECURITY) and the king of the north(RUSSIA) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
Brown under pressure over EU treaty
20.08.2007 - 09:22 CET | By Honor Mahony
UK prime minister Gordon Brown could lose up to a quarter of voters from his own labour party if he does not put the new EU treaty to a popular vote, a new survey has suggested.The ICM poll for the Daily Mail said that 24 percent of labour supporters may not support Mr Brown in general elections if he does not take the referendum path for the EU Reform Treaty, set to be finalised by the end of the year.
The poll also showed that 82 percent of voters as whole - and 80 percent of labour voters - want a referendum on whether to accept the treaty or not.The EU treaty issue has barely left the news pages in the UK since its outline was agreed by EU leaders in June.The outline maintains many of the features of the original EU constitution, rejected by the French and the Dutch in 2005.
The labour government under Tony Blair had promised to have a referendum on the old constitution but now argues that the revised treaty is sufficiently different and that Britain secured enough opt-outs - including in the justice areas and a human rights charter - to make this step unnecessary.But the opposition Conservatives have mounted a strong campaign to get a referendum arguing the new treaty is very similar to the rejected constitution.The ICM poll, which questioned 1,004 people in mid August, comes at crucial time for Mr Brown with British media speculating whether he will call early general elections to take advantage of his popularity ratings since taking over from Mr Blair in late June.The rest of the EU is also carefully watching the UK on this issue. So far, only Ireland has said it will hold a referendum on the new European treaty.But a British referendum – aside from the high chances of a No vote – would also put pressure on other countries to take a similar path.This is exactly what politicians in other member states were hoping to avoid.
Informal talks in Portugal
German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok, who is representing the European Parliament in the current negotiations to finalise the EU treaty, warned Britain against a referendum.Gordon Brown's government has said there is no justification for a referendum and the UK should stick to this commitment, said Mr Brok, according to the Daily Telegraph.It would be very unfair of the UK if, having more or less got what it wanted in the new treaty, it would then turn round and put this to a popular vote, he added, saying it would undermine the talks on the treaty.The talks, taking place at a technical level, will take off once again next week after the summer recess.The experts are expecting to have made the first legal sweep of the text by the first week of September.The treaty issue is set to move from the technical back to the political stage on 7 September when EU foreign ministers are expected to tackle the topic at informal talks in Portugal.
EU constitution timeline
By Martina Smit - 3:05pm BST 20/08/2007
Since its conception, the constitution of European Union has suffered much opposition - yet Britain's Government continues to refuse the public a chance to vote on the controversial document.
July 2003: The final draft of the first Constitution of the European Union is published.
April 2004: In one of the biggest about-turns of his career, Prime Minister Tony Blair tells the Commons that the public will have the final say on the EU Constitution.
June 2004: A summit of European Union member states, under the presidency of Bertie Ahern, agrees on the final wording of the document.
Oct 2004: The Constitution is signed in Rome, but can only come into force once it has been ratified by all 25 member states.
Feb 2005: In a Spanish referendum, 77% of voters come out in favour of the Constitution. Luxembourg also backs the document in a national vote in July that year.
Sixteen other states - starting with Lithuania - ratify or nearly ratify the document by a parliamentary or other high political process, which does not involve a public vote.
May 2005: The French vote non in a referendum. Three days later, the Dutch follow suit. In the light of this, the seven remaining member states cancel or postpone their ratifications.
June 2007: The European Council meeting negotiates on a Reform Treaty as a replacement.
Mr Blair claims he secured opt-outs to protect key British interests, but he surrendered Britain’s right to veto EU decisions in more than 40 other areas of policy.
The Opposition steps up calls for a referendum after it emerges the pledge is not legally binding.
Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, says the treaty is 90 per cent the same as the constitution.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, says the fundamentals of the constitution was retained in the treaty. Jose Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, says the treaty captured a great part of the constitution.
July 2007: Gordon Brown, Britain's new Prime Minister, rules out a British referendum on the treaty.
Senior EU officials say Britain's opt-out is worthless, as the charter would apply to the 75% or more of British law that is derived from EU legislation.
Aug 2007: A Tory analysis shows the treaty contains only 10 changes to the 250 proposals outlined in the original constitution.
More than 50,000 people sign a Daily Telegraph petition calling for a referendum on the treaty. A survey shows more than eight out of 10 Britons want to vote on the treaty.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
APPROACH TO JIHAD START YOUNG - ARABS
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.
Hurricane Dean threatens Mexico after battering Jamaica AUG 20,07
KINGSTON (AFP) - Hurricane Dean headed for Mexico on Monday, after battering Jamaica into a state of emergency by downing power lines, ripping off roofs and blocking roads with felled trees.Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller announced late Sunday that security forces would be granted wider powers after police reported several looting incidents across the island.The state of emergency will be reviewed at a meeting of the Jamaican cabinet later on Monday, but was envisaged for a period of 30 days, and Miller even indicated that national elections on August 27 may be delayed due to Dean.The category four hurricane, packing winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) an hour which have so far killed five people across the Caribbean basin, was whipping up giant surf as it headed south of the Cayman Islands for Belize and Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.Roads were blocked by fallen trees and flooded in the eastern parts of Jamaica, with power cuts affecting thousands of homes.The sea has dumped debris onto the roads, Portland parish Mayor Bobbie Montague said as the storm surged by Jamaica's southern coast, on course for the nearby Cayman Islands, Mexico and possibly Texas in coming days.
In Texas, Governor Rick Perry has ordered elderly people in the Rio Grande Valley region to be evacuated in case Dean's track takes it in a more northerly direction, which could put it over the southern tip of Texas by Thursday, CNN news reported.
At 0900 GMT, the center of Dean was located 115 miles (185 kilometers) south-southeast of Grand Cayman Island, moving west at about 21 miles (33 kilometers) an hour, said the US National Hurricane Center. Dean remained an extremely dangerous category four hurricane, the center pointed out, adding that the storm had the potential of becoming a deadly category five hurricane in the northwestern Caribbean Sea on Monday. Jamaica's airports were shut since Saturday, and more than 4,500 people have packed into hundreds of shelters opened up by the government around the island amid bitter memories of Hurricane Ivan which killed 14 people in 2004.Miller called on all off-duty police officers, firefighters and prison warders to report for work, while electricity was turned off on the national grid as a safety measure.
The Jamaica Public Service Company said more than 135,000 customers were without power.The prime minister called on all political parties to forget about national elections on August 27 and put all differences aside as a national emergency is on us.
Mexico was, meanwhile, evacuating some 90,000 tourists from Cancun and other islands of the Mayan Riviera, as well as some 13,000 workers on more than 140 of its oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.In Cuba, just to the north of Jamaica, authorities had evacuated some 150,000 people from six eastern provinces to save them from possible flooding.Hurricane Dean earlier brushed past Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries, lashing it with heavy rain and gale-force winds. Two people were killed in Haiti's southeastern town of Moron and southern Tiburon, Haitian officials said, and more than 1,000 people evacuated from low-lying areas.Two people were also killed in the French territory of Martinique, while authorities in the Dominican Republic, where a 16-year-old boy was killed when he was swept away by huge waves, warned of the danger of landslides.The National Emergency Committee there also said that 1,580 people had been evacuated and some 316 houses had been damaged, many of them severely.A leading risk modeling company, California-based Eqecat Inc., on Sunday estimated initial losses in the Lesser Antilles islands and Jamaica at between 1.5 billion and three billion dollars.
Bush, Harper, Calderon to tackle economy, security AUG 20,07
By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush will review the credit crunch and global market turmoil with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon at a two-day summit that starts on Monday.Once ensconced away from protesters at a luxury hotel in Montebello, Quebec, down the Ottawa River from the Canadian capital, the leaders are expected to review the global economy and examine progress towards integrating North America.They are meeting as partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, to develop what they have called a Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP.That was drafted in 2005 following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States to try to ensure that North America is a safe place to live and to do business, seemingly innocuous but upsetting to activists on the left and the right who are concerned about a loss of national sovereignty.
Fences three meters (10 feet) high have been erected around the hotel grounds to keep at bay the thousands of anti-capitalist protesters expected to descend on Montebello.Bush and the other leaders might have to go part way by boat if protesters block the way.On the agenda are global competitiveness, the safety of food and products -- including Chinese-made toys -- energy, the environment and secure borders.Christopher Sands, an expert on Canada at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the meeting was unlikely to produce major strides, but would show that the United States was tending regional ties.The summit is a symbolic manifestation of the fact that Bush, the United States, is in fact paying attention to its neighbors and working on an agenda of mutual concern," he said.
AGENDA
Bush will have separate one-on-one meetings with Harper and Calderon on Monday.
Canadian officials said they were likely to discuss Russia's symbolic laying of claim to the North Pole, where it placed a flag on the seabed, as well as the war in Afghanistan, where Canada has committed 2,500 troops through February 2009.The head of Canada's opposition, Liberal leader Stephane Dion, says Harper should demand that NATO start finding a replacement for Canadian troops.Bush and Harper were also expected to discuss the Middle East, Iran, climate change, and the Doha trade negotiations.Opposition politicians regularly accuse Canada's Conservative prime minister of being a Bush protege, but Harper's spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, pointed out that Liberal Paul Martin was in power when the SPP was set up.For Bush and Calderon, it will be their first face-to-face meeting since U.S. immigration overhaul legislation collapsed in Congress and dealt a blow to a key issue for U.S.-Mexico relations.The Bush administration said this month it would increase scrutiny and impose heftier fines on U.S. businesses that employ illegal immigrants.The United States also will expand the visa term for professional workers from Mexico and Canada to three years from one year. I don't think either country was clamoring for this. It's a gesture, Sands said of the visa change.(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in Crawford, Texas)
Gazans battle blackouts as EU mulls resuming fuel aid by Sakher Abu El Oun
AUG 20,2007
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Blackouts plagued the Gaza Strip anew on Monday as the European Union was reviewing whether to renew its financing of fuel deliveries for the impoverished territory's sole power plant. Gaza City hummed with the sound of generators and candles disappeared off supermarket shelves as residents stocked up on supplies on the fourth day of intermittent power supplies in one of the world's most densely populated places.Our life is becoming more and more difficult, said Umm Jaber, a 40-year-old mother of six in Gaza City. They've closed the borders, they've cut jobs. Today they've cut the electricity, tomorrow they'll cut the air for us.
The power cuts were the latest blow to hit the territory that has been effectively sealed off by Israel since the Islamist movement Hamas seized control two months ago, sparking fears of a humanitarian crisis.They also marked the latest point of contention between the Western-shunned Islamists and the Western-backed Palestinian government in the occupied West Bank, as the two sides blamed each other for the cuts.The power outages began late Friday, when Gaza's only power plant -- which according to the EU provides between 25 and 30 percent of the territory's power -- shut down all but one of its generators because its diesel supplies dwindled after Israel shut the fuel border crossing on security concerns.Israel reopened the crossing on Sunday, but diesel for the plant was not delivered because the EU -- which finances the supplies -- suspended payments out of security concerns, forcing the plant to shut down completely.
We are still assessing the situation and hope to resume supplies either later on Monday or Tuesday, an EU spokeswoman in Jerusalem told AFP.The power cuts have become a new source of tension between Hamas and president Mahmud Abbas's government in Ramallah.We warned for weeks that Gaza would fall into darkness if Hamas does not stop occupying the electricity company and does not stop holding on to millions of shekels that they collected from the people of Gaza, information minister Riyad al-Malki told reporters in Ramallah.The people in Gaza, in every home and every house, must go into the street and say to Hamas 'you are responsible for this crime.In Gaza, Hamas's parliamentary bloc said Abbas's government headed by prime minister Salam Fayyad, which it refuses to recognise, was to blame.President Abbas and the Fayyad government are responsible for this criminal cut in electricity, it said in a statement. We call on people to protest against his act.We call on the European donors to reconsider their decision, which was made because of lies and political provocation by the government in Ramallah, it said. This decision is inhumane and could badly affect the Palestinian nation.
AND YOU WONDER WHY THE ARABS AND SO CALLED PEACEFUL RELIGION ISLAM HATES CHRISTIANS AND JEWS WITH THIS KIND OF NONSENCE GOING ON BY ISLAM.
Hamas's approach to jihad: Start em young By Dan Murphy AUG 20,07
Gaza City, Gaza - As a weapon in its struggle with Israel, Nahool the Bee doesn't look like a particularly threatening addition to the Hamas arsenal. He doesn't even have a stinger. But what the bright yellow star of Tomorrow's Pioneers on Hamas-owned Al Aqsa television lacks in muscle he makes up for in fervor. Speaking in a recent episode, Nahool vowed to help take back Jerusalem from the criminal Jews and expressed his hope that he and all of his listeners would grow up to become holy warriors.The show, along with paramilitary-style summer camps for Gazan boys, reveal a key element in Hamas's long-term strategy.Like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned Hamas, the group takes a patient approach to tapping religious conviction to build political support. It is the movement's youth focus, critics say, that sets it apart from Hamas's rival, Fatah, which controls the West Bank and enjoys US and Israeli support.
The basic unit of the Hamas organization isn't cells or political committees – it's families. The organization has shown that by introducing children early enough to Hamas's hard-line Islamic thinking, it can recruit lifelong supporters.It hurts us so much when the international community misunderstands us, says Samir Abu Mohsen, a senior director at Al Aqsa. Nahool isn't for teaching hate. It's for teaching children to think in the right way, to socialize them in our culture's way of life, and, of course, to remind them of their rights to the land that was taken from us.
Hamas's revolution will be televised
The Nahool puppet replaces a Mickey Mouse-like character named Farfur, who, in an episode several months ago, was shown being killed by an Israeli official after he refused to sell his land to Israelis. Director Mohsen says the show killed off Farfur because of complaints they were infringing on Disney's copyright.Nahool tells his young audience in a high-pitched voice that his anti-Zionist passion is fueled by the memory of his grandfather, who was murdered at the hands of Israeli settlers. Both life-sized puppets have stirred outrage among critics who say that Al Aqsa television teaches children to hate.Mohammed Ramadan, the young man who dons the Nahool costume and who also played Farfur before that character's televised martyrdom, says he's been shocked by international allegations that his characters teach children to hate.Look, Israeli aggression against us is a fact, they kicked these children's grandparents and parents from their homes, and we're not allowed to talk about this? he asks. They need to know.Nevertheless, Mr. Ramadan says that he won't cross certain red lines. A red line would be telling children to go kill Israelis. But talking about our right to our land, to one day return? That's not a red line. That's what they need to know.
Nahool exists for two things, says Mr. Mohsen. Teaching basic stuff like respect for adults, looking twice before crossing the road, and respecting the environment. But No. 2, we want to make sure they remember that we're exiles from our own land, land they have to be committed to regaining.What effect Nahool's antics have on young minds is hard to gauge.Ahmed, a 9-year-old who says he loves recently retired soccer star Zinedine Zidane, allows that he sometimes finds the bumbling bee amusing, but doesn't hesitate to name his favorite character on Palestinian TV – Captain Majid, whose eponymous show chronicles the adventures of a soccer-obsessed boy and his World Cup dreams.
Sun, surf, and paramilitary training
As part of its long-term recruitment policy, in addition to its children's show on Al Aqsa, Hamas is sending tens of thousands of poor Gazan children to camp this summer where they can enjoy sun, surf, and paramilitary training.Life is so tough here we say our children are born men, but they're still just kids, says Mohammed, who runs the Abu Musab Hamas camp in central Gaza and asked that his full name not be used. As he speaks, rows of painfully polite 10-year-olds in green Hamas hats file off the beach at the end of the day. They need entertainment and we give it to them, with a single goal: To get their attention so they develop good Islamic manners, bond their egos to the group, and integrate them into the right way of life.
The group sponsors additional education for top students, much of which is focused on memorizing the Koran. But Hamas isn't neglecting parents, either. The Islamic Group, Hamas's main charity in the territory, has built dozens of homes in recent months for Gazans whose houses were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. It recently held a mass wedding for about 50 policemen loyal to the movement, covering all costs and giving them a $500 head start on their new lives as married men.To be sure, Fatah runs camps of its own for kids, but not on the scale of Hamas's outreach effort or with the same unity of purpose. Though Mohammed mentions soccer, public safety lessons, and basic Muslim teaching, he fails to mention that many of the Gaza camps also include a paramilitary element. A Hamas official says that such training is reserved for boys over 16, but a photographer who recently visited a camp in central Gaza and others say much younger boys also take part in paramilitary exercises.
In one Gaza City camp, boys practiced field drills with wooden pistols and crawled under barbed wire while being harangued by an adult drill instructor. Teenage boys undergo a tougher regimen that includes hand-to-hand combat and exhausting exercise. Boys that break discipline are sometimes beaten with sticks, said the photographer.
Are the camps an important part of our strategy? Of course, says Museb Malik, who runs the First Educational Childhood camp where children are divided into groups named after cities – Haifa, Acre, and Japfa – that Israel now controls and Hamas would like to someday regain. But we're also filling an important social function. These children need something to take their minds off of the violence.Mehmet Gishrawi, a dimpled 9-year-old at the camp, stands beneath a poster of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas founder who was assassinated by Israel in 2004, and explains that he had trouble sleeping after he survived an airstrike two years ago that claimed his cousin and 20 other neighbors. I have had a lot of fun, I've learned a lot, he says. I'm not as afraid now.
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.
Hurricane Dean threatens Mexico after battering Jamaica AUG 20,07
KINGSTON (AFP) - Hurricane Dean headed for Mexico on Monday, after battering Jamaica into a state of emergency by downing power lines, ripping off roofs and blocking roads with felled trees.Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller announced late Sunday that security forces would be granted wider powers after police reported several looting incidents across the island.The state of emergency will be reviewed at a meeting of the Jamaican cabinet later on Monday, but was envisaged for a period of 30 days, and Miller even indicated that national elections on August 27 may be delayed due to Dean.The category four hurricane, packing winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) an hour which have so far killed five people across the Caribbean basin, was whipping up giant surf as it headed south of the Cayman Islands for Belize and Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.Roads were blocked by fallen trees and flooded in the eastern parts of Jamaica, with power cuts affecting thousands of homes.The sea has dumped debris onto the roads, Portland parish Mayor Bobbie Montague said as the storm surged by Jamaica's southern coast, on course for the nearby Cayman Islands, Mexico and possibly Texas in coming days.
In Texas, Governor Rick Perry has ordered elderly people in the Rio Grande Valley region to be evacuated in case Dean's track takes it in a more northerly direction, which could put it over the southern tip of Texas by Thursday, CNN news reported.
At 0900 GMT, the center of Dean was located 115 miles (185 kilometers) south-southeast of Grand Cayman Island, moving west at about 21 miles (33 kilometers) an hour, said the US National Hurricane Center. Dean remained an extremely dangerous category four hurricane, the center pointed out, adding that the storm had the potential of becoming a deadly category five hurricane in the northwestern Caribbean Sea on Monday. Jamaica's airports were shut since Saturday, and more than 4,500 people have packed into hundreds of shelters opened up by the government around the island amid bitter memories of Hurricane Ivan which killed 14 people in 2004.Miller called on all off-duty police officers, firefighters and prison warders to report for work, while electricity was turned off on the national grid as a safety measure.
The Jamaica Public Service Company said more than 135,000 customers were without power.The prime minister called on all political parties to forget about national elections on August 27 and put all differences aside as a national emergency is on us.
Mexico was, meanwhile, evacuating some 90,000 tourists from Cancun and other islands of the Mayan Riviera, as well as some 13,000 workers on more than 140 of its oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.In Cuba, just to the north of Jamaica, authorities had evacuated some 150,000 people from six eastern provinces to save them from possible flooding.Hurricane Dean earlier brushed past Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries, lashing it with heavy rain and gale-force winds. Two people were killed in Haiti's southeastern town of Moron and southern Tiburon, Haitian officials said, and more than 1,000 people evacuated from low-lying areas.Two people were also killed in the French territory of Martinique, while authorities in the Dominican Republic, where a 16-year-old boy was killed when he was swept away by huge waves, warned of the danger of landslides.The National Emergency Committee there also said that 1,580 people had been evacuated and some 316 houses had been damaged, many of them severely.A leading risk modeling company, California-based Eqecat Inc., on Sunday estimated initial losses in the Lesser Antilles islands and Jamaica at between 1.5 billion and three billion dollars.
Bush, Harper, Calderon to tackle economy, security AUG 20,07
By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush will review the credit crunch and global market turmoil with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon at a two-day summit that starts on Monday.Once ensconced away from protesters at a luxury hotel in Montebello, Quebec, down the Ottawa River from the Canadian capital, the leaders are expected to review the global economy and examine progress towards integrating North America.They are meeting as partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, to develop what they have called a Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP.That was drafted in 2005 following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States to try to ensure that North America is a safe place to live and to do business, seemingly innocuous but upsetting to activists on the left and the right who are concerned about a loss of national sovereignty.
Fences three meters (10 feet) high have been erected around the hotel grounds to keep at bay the thousands of anti-capitalist protesters expected to descend on Montebello.Bush and the other leaders might have to go part way by boat if protesters block the way.On the agenda are global competitiveness, the safety of food and products -- including Chinese-made toys -- energy, the environment and secure borders.Christopher Sands, an expert on Canada at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the meeting was unlikely to produce major strides, but would show that the United States was tending regional ties.The summit is a symbolic manifestation of the fact that Bush, the United States, is in fact paying attention to its neighbors and working on an agenda of mutual concern," he said.
AGENDA
Bush will have separate one-on-one meetings with Harper and Calderon on Monday.
Canadian officials said they were likely to discuss Russia's symbolic laying of claim to the North Pole, where it placed a flag on the seabed, as well as the war in Afghanistan, where Canada has committed 2,500 troops through February 2009.The head of Canada's opposition, Liberal leader Stephane Dion, says Harper should demand that NATO start finding a replacement for Canadian troops.Bush and Harper were also expected to discuss the Middle East, Iran, climate change, and the Doha trade negotiations.Opposition politicians regularly accuse Canada's Conservative prime minister of being a Bush protege, but Harper's spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, pointed out that Liberal Paul Martin was in power when the SPP was set up.For Bush and Calderon, it will be their first face-to-face meeting since U.S. immigration overhaul legislation collapsed in Congress and dealt a blow to a key issue for U.S.-Mexico relations.The Bush administration said this month it would increase scrutiny and impose heftier fines on U.S. businesses that employ illegal immigrants.The United States also will expand the visa term for professional workers from Mexico and Canada to three years from one year. I don't think either country was clamoring for this. It's a gesture, Sands said of the visa change.(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in Crawford, Texas)
Gazans battle blackouts as EU mulls resuming fuel aid by Sakher Abu El Oun
AUG 20,2007
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Blackouts plagued the Gaza Strip anew on Monday as the European Union was reviewing whether to renew its financing of fuel deliveries for the impoverished territory's sole power plant. Gaza City hummed with the sound of generators and candles disappeared off supermarket shelves as residents stocked up on supplies on the fourth day of intermittent power supplies in one of the world's most densely populated places.Our life is becoming more and more difficult, said Umm Jaber, a 40-year-old mother of six in Gaza City. They've closed the borders, they've cut jobs. Today they've cut the electricity, tomorrow they'll cut the air for us.
The power cuts were the latest blow to hit the territory that has been effectively sealed off by Israel since the Islamist movement Hamas seized control two months ago, sparking fears of a humanitarian crisis.They also marked the latest point of contention between the Western-shunned Islamists and the Western-backed Palestinian government in the occupied West Bank, as the two sides blamed each other for the cuts.The power outages began late Friday, when Gaza's only power plant -- which according to the EU provides between 25 and 30 percent of the territory's power -- shut down all but one of its generators because its diesel supplies dwindled after Israel shut the fuel border crossing on security concerns.Israel reopened the crossing on Sunday, but diesel for the plant was not delivered because the EU -- which finances the supplies -- suspended payments out of security concerns, forcing the plant to shut down completely.
We are still assessing the situation and hope to resume supplies either later on Monday or Tuesday, an EU spokeswoman in Jerusalem told AFP.The power cuts have become a new source of tension between Hamas and president Mahmud Abbas's government in Ramallah.We warned for weeks that Gaza would fall into darkness if Hamas does not stop occupying the electricity company and does not stop holding on to millions of shekels that they collected from the people of Gaza, information minister Riyad al-Malki told reporters in Ramallah.The people in Gaza, in every home and every house, must go into the street and say to Hamas 'you are responsible for this crime.In Gaza, Hamas's parliamentary bloc said Abbas's government headed by prime minister Salam Fayyad, which it refuses to recognise, was to blame.President Abbas and the Fayyad government are responsible for this criminal cut in electricity, it said in a statement. We call on people to protest against his act.We call on the European donors to reconsider their decision, which was made because of lies and political provocation by the government in Ramallah, it said. This decision is inhumane and could badly affect the Palestinian nation.
AND YOU WONDER WHY THE ARABS AND SO CALLED PEACEFUL RELIGION ISLAM HATES CHRISTIANS AND JEWS WITH THIS KIND OF NONSENCE GOING ON BY ISLAM.
Hamas's approach to jihad: Start em young By Dan Murphy AUG 20,07
Gaza City, Gaza - As a weapon in its struggle with Israel, Nahool the Bee doesn't look like a particularly threatening addition to the Hamas arsenal. He doesn't even have a stinger. But what the bright yellow star of Tomorrow's Pioneers on Hamas-owned Al Aqsa television lacks in muscle he makes up for in fervor. Speaking in a recent episode, Nahool vowed to help take back Jerusalem from the criminal Jews and expressed his hope that he and all of his listeners would grow up to become holy warriors.The show, along with paramilitary-style summer camps for Gazan boys, reveal a key element in Hamas's long-term strategy.Like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned Hamas, the group takes a patient approach to tapping religious conviction to build political support. It is the movement's youth focus, critics say, that sets it apart from Hamas's rival, Fatah, which controls the West Bank and enjoys US and Israeli support.
The basic unit of the Hamas organization isn't cells or political committees – it's families. The organization has shown that by introducing children early enough to Hamas's hard-line Islamic thinking, it can recruit lifelong supporters.It hurts us so much when the international community misunderstands us, says Samir Abu Mohsen, a senior director at Al Aqsa. Nahool isn't for teaching hate. It's for teaching children to think in the right way, to socialize them in our culture's way of life, and, of course, to remind them of their rights to the land that was taken from us.
Hamas's revolution will be televised
The Nahool puppet replaces a Mickey Mouse-like character named Farfur, who, in an episode several months ago, was shown being killed by an Israeli official after he refused to sell his land to Israelis. Director Mohsen says the show killed off Farfur because of complaints they were infringing on Disney's copyright.Nahool tells his young audience in a high-pitched voice that his anti-Zionist passion is fueled by the memory of his grandfather, who was murdered at the hands of Israeli settlers. Both life-sized puppets have stirred outrage among critics who say that Al Aqsa television teaches children to hate.Mohammed Ramadan, the young man who dons the Nahool costume and who also played Farfur before that character's televised martyrdom, says he's been shocked by international allegations that his characters teach children to hate.Look, Israeli aggression against us is a fact, they kicked these children's grandparents and parents from their homes, and we're not allowed to talk about this? he asks. They need to know.Nevertheless, Mr. Ramadan says that he won't cross certain red lines. A red line would be telling children to go kill Israelis. But talking about our right to our land, to one day return? That's not a red line. That's what they need to know.
Nahool exists for two things, says Mr. Mohsen. Teaching basic stuff like respect for adults, looking twice before crossing the road, and respecting the environment. But No. 2, we want to make sure they remember that we're exiles from our own land, land they have to be committed to regaining.What effect Nahool's antics have on young minds is hard to gauge.Ahmed, a 9-year-old who says he loves recently retired soccer star Zinedine Zidane, allows that he sometimes finds the bumbling bee amusing, but doesn't hesitate to name his favorite character on Palestinian TV – Captain Majid, whose eponymous show chronicles the adventures of a soccer-obsessed boy and his World Cup dreams.
Sun, surf, and paramilitary training
As part of its long-term recruitment policy, in addition to its children's show on Al Aqsa, Hamas is sending tens of thousands of poor Gazan children to camp this summer where they can enjoy sun, surf, and paramilitary training.Life is so tough here we say our children are born men, but they're still just kids, says Mohammed, who runs the Abu Musab Hamas camp in central Gaza and asked that his full name not be used. As he speaks, rows of painfully polite 10-year-olds in green Hamas hats file off the beach at the end of the day. They need entertainment and we give it to them, with a single goal: To get their attention so they develop good Islamic manners, bond their egos to the group, and integrate them into the right way of life.
The group sponsors additional education for top students, much of which is focused on memorizing the Koran. But Hamas isn't neglecting parents, either. The Islamic Group, Hamas's main charity in the territory, has built dozens of homes in recent months for Gazans whose houses were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. It recently held a mass wedding for about 50 policemen loyal to the movement, covering all costs and giving them a $500 head start on their new lives as married men.To be sure, Fatah runs camps of its own for kids, but not on the scale of Hamas's outreach effort or with the same unity of purpose. Though Mohammed mentions soccer, public safety lessons, and basic Muslim teaching, he fails to mention that many of the Gaza camps also include a paramilitary element. A Hamas official says that such training is reserved for boys over 16, but a photographer who recently visited a camp in central Gaza and others say much younger boys also take part in paramilitary exercises.
In one Gaza City camp, boys practiced field drills with wooden pistols and crawled under barbed wire while being harangued by an adult drill instructor. Teenage boys undergo a tougher regimen that includes hand-to-hand combat and exhausting exercise. Boys that break discipline are sometimes beaten with sticks, said the photographer.
Are the camps an important part of our strategy? Of course, says Museb Malik, who runs the First Educational Childhood camp where children are divided into groups named after cities – Haifa, Acre, and Japfa – that Israel now controls and Hamas would like to someday regain. But we're also filling an important social function. These children need something to take their minds off of the violence.Mehmet Gishrawi, a dimpled 9-year-old at the camp, stands beneath a poster of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas founder who was assassinated by Israel in 2004, and explains that he had trouble sleeping after he survived an airstrike two years ago that claimed his cousin and 20 other neighbors. I have had a lot of fun, I've learned a lot, he says. I'm not as afraid now.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
DEAN ON WAY TO JAMAICA TODAY
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.
Hurricane Dean poised to hit Jamaica By HOWARD CAMPBELL, Associated Press Writer AUG 19,07
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaicans headed inland and tourists fled the country hours before a large and powerful Hurricane Dean appeared poised to make a direct hit on the island Sunday after a deadly and destructive march across the eastern Caribbean.
Jamaica converted schools, churches and the indoor national sports arena into shelters and authorities urged people to take cover from a storm that could rake the country with winds of 150 mph and dump up to 20 inches of rain.It's going to be very, very serious, said Lawrence Samuel as he shopped for emergency groceries while his wife and son went to the hardware store for plywood and other supplies.
The storm, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, rolled through the Caribbean to the south of Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where heavy rain and surging seas caused flooding Saturday in coastal areas.In Gonave, an island with no electricity west of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, thousands of people huddled in shelters as the storm brought heavy rain and fierce winds, said Samuel Menager, an employee of the international aid group World Vision who helped evacuate people from the coast.Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said late Saturday the country was confronting a national emergency and urged people in flood-prone areas to head for shelter.Do not wait for the last minute to make the decision to move from where you are, Simpson Miller said. Decide now and begin to make arrangements to leave now.Thousands of alarmed tourists were not waiting. They jammed Caribbean airports for flights out of Hurricane Dean's path as the fierce storm that has claimed at least six lives began sweeping past the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
The storm's wrath could be felt Saturday in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, where a boy was pulled into the ocean and drowned while watching waves strike an oceanfront boulevard, the Dominican emergency operations center reported.Rough surf churned by Dean destroyed five houses and damaged 15 others along the Dominican coast, emergency officials said.In Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, which was also in the path of the Category 4 storm, fear gripped many islanders and tourists alike.People jammed supermarkets and hardware stores in Kingston to stock up on canned food, bottled water, flashlights, batteries, lamps and plywood. In malls in the Jamaican capital, storeowners hammered plywood over windows.Elaine Russell recalled Hurricane Ivan's destruction in 2004.
I can't take it, she said. The storm is bad enough but it's what happens afterwards — there's no light, no water.Farther west, the low-lying Cayman Islands were expected to take a direct hit on Monday. Tourists there jammed Owens International Airport in snaking lines that stretched outside onto a lawn. A police officer with a bullhorn kept order.Cayman Airways added 15 flights to Florida from the wealthy British territory, and they were quickly sold out.The government ordered a mandatory evacuation by noon Sunday of Little Cayman, which is the smallest of the territory's three islands and has a population of about 150.Authorities in the eastern Caribbean were assessing the damage after Dean hit on Friday as a Category 2 storm with winds of near 100 mph. In the island of Martinique, an overseas department of France, authorities on Saturday confirmed two deaths, including a woman who apparently fell and drowned in her home. Officials there estimated that up to $270 million is needed to repair infrastructure. Agriculture Minister Louis Daniel Berthome said all banana crops were destroyed.
Dean was on course to clip Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and enter the Gulf of Mexico by Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Forecasters said it was too soon to say whether it will strike the United States. Playing it safe, NASA shortened the last spacewalk for astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour and ordered the spacecraft to return to Earth on Tuesday — a day early — fearing the storm might threaten the Houston home of Mission Control. At 5 a.m. EDT, Dean was centered about 245 east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 155 miles south-southwest of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. The storm was moving west-northwest at 18 mph and had maximum sustained winds near 145 mph. The Cuban government issued a tropical storm warning and said it was evacuating 50,000 people from three central and eastern provinces.
Associated Press writers Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Tammie Chisholm in George Town, Cayman Islands; Guy Ellis in Castries, St. Lucia; Ellsworth Carter in Roseau, Dominica; Howard Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica; and Herve Preval in Fort-de-France, Martinique, contributed to this report.
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.
Hurricane Dean poised to hit Jamaica By HOWARD CAMPBELL, Associated Press Writer AUG 19,07
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaicans headed inland and tourists fled the country hours before a large and powerful Hurricane Dean appeared poised to make a direct hit on the island Sunday after a deadly and destructive march across the eastern Caribbean.
Jamaica converted schools, churches and the indoor national sports arena into shelters and authorities urged people to take cover from a storm that could rake the country with winds of 150 mph and dump up to 20 inches of rain.It's going to be very, very serious, said Lawrence Samuel as he shopped for emergency groceries while his wife and son went to the hardware store for plywood and other supplies.
The storm, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, rolled through the Caribbean to the south of Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where heavy rain and surging seas caused flooding Saturday in coastal areas.In Gonave, an island with no electricity west of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, thousands of people huddled in shelters as the storm brought heavy rain and fierce winds, said Samuel Menager, an employee of the international aid group World Vision who helped evacuate people from the coast.Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said late Saturday the country was confronting a national emergency and urged people in flood-prone areas to head for shelter.Do not wait for the last minute to make the decision to move from where you are, Simpson Miller said. Decide now and begin to make arrangements to leave now.Thousands of alarmed tourists were not waiting. They jammed Caribbean airports for flights out of Hurricane Dean's path as the fierce storm that has claimed at least six lives began sweeping past the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
The storm's wrath could be felt Saturday in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, where a boy was pulled into the ocean and drowned while watching waves strike an oceanfront boulevard, the Dominican emergency operations center reported.Rough surf churned by Dean destroyed five houses and damaged 15 others along the Dominican coast, emergency officials said.In Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, which was also in the path of the Category 4 storm, fear gripped many islanders and tourists alike.People jammed supermarkets and hardware stores in Kingston to stock up on canned food, bottled water, flashlights, batteries, lamps and plywood. In malls in the Jamaican capital, storeowners hammered plywood over windows.Elaine Russell recalled Hurricane Ivan's destruction in 2004.
I can't take it, she said. The storm is bad enough but it's what happens afterwards — there's no light, no water.Farther west, the low-lying Cayman Islands were expected to take a direct hit on Monday. Tourists there jammed Owens International Airport in snaking lines that stretched outside onto a lawn. A police officer with a bullhorn kept order.Cayman Airways added 15 flights to Florida from the wealthy British territory, and they were quickly sold out.The government ordered a mandatory evacuation by noon Sunday of Little Cayman, which is the smallest of the territory's three islands and has a population of about 150.Authorities in the eastern Caribbean were assessing the damage after Dean hit on Friday as a Category 2 storm with winds of near 100 mph. In the island of Martinique, an overseas department of France, authorities on Saturday confirmed two deaths, including a woman who apparently fell and drowned in her home. Officials there estimated that up to $270 million is needed to repair infrastructure. Agriculture Minister Louis Daniel Berthome said all banana crops were destroyed.
Dean was on course to clip Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and enter the Gulf of Mexico by Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Forecasters said it was too soon to say whether it will strike the United States. Playing it safe, NASA shortened the last spacewalk for astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour and ordered the spacecraft to return to Earth on Tuesday — a day early — fearing the storm might threaten the Houston home of Mission Control. At 5 a.m. EDT, Dean was centered about 245 east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 155 miles south-southwest of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. The storm was moving west-northwest at 18 mph and had maximum sustained winds near 145 mph. The Cuban government issued a tropical storm warning and said it was evacuating 50,000 people from three central and eastern provinces.
Associated Press writers Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Tammie Chisholm in George Town, Cayman Islands; Guy Ellis in Castries, St. Lucia; Ellsworth Carter in Roseau, Dominica; Howard Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica; and Herve Preval in Fort-de-France, Martinique, contributed to this report.
Friday, August 17, 2007
500 DEAD IN PERU QUAKE
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Relatives search bodybags in Peru quake as death toll tops 500
Fri Aug 17, 5:23 AM - By Jeanneth Valdivieso
PISCO, Peru (AP) - Rescuers combed rubble for survivors and distraught relatives wept as they searched rows of bodybags for loved ones killed when a powerful earthquake devastated southern Peru. Officials said the death toll across the region hit by the magnitude-8 temblor topped 500 late Thursday night. In the gritty port city of Pisco, searchers at San Clemente church pulled at least 60 bodies out of the ruins and lined them up on the plaza. Doctors struggled to help more than 1,500 injured, including hundreds who waited on cots in the open air, fearing more aftershocks would send buildings crashing down. Peru's fire department said the death toll from the quake had risen to 510, and rescuers were still digging through ruins of collapsed adobe homes in cities and hamlets. Destruction from Wednesday's quake was centred in Peru's southern desert, near the oasis city of Ica and nearby Pisco, about 200 kilometres southeast of the capital of Lima. Hundreds had gathered in the pews of the San Clemente church on Wednesday - the day Roman Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary's rise into heaven - for a special mass marking one month since the death of a Pisco man.
With minutes left in the mass, the church's ceiling began to break apart. The shaking lasted for an agonizing two minutes, burying 200 people, according to the town's mayor. On Thursday, only two stone columns and the church's dome rose from a giant pile of stone, bricks, wood and dust. Rescuers laid out the dust-covered dead beneath bloodstained sheets in the city's plaza. Civil defence workers then arrived and zipped them into body bags. But relatives searching desperately for the missing unzipped the bags, crying hysterically each time they recognized a familiar face.
Few in the traumatized crowds would talk with journalists. One man shouted at the bodies of his wife and two small daughters as they were pulled from the rubble: Why did you go? Why?
Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza told Lima radio station CPN, sobbing: The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets. We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen. Churches, stores, hotels - everything is destroyed.As dusk fell, Health Minister Carlos Vallejos said finding survivors seemed increasingly unlikely. We keep losing hope of finding someone alive after 24 hours have passed since the quake struck, Vallejos told The Associated Press outside of the church.
Felipe Gutierrez, 82, sat in his pyjamas - his only clothing - in front of what was his Pisco home. The quake reduced it to rubble and he, his 74-year-old wife, their two children and three grandchildren sat staring at the ruins, a tangle of adobe, straw and all of their belongings. Yesterday we slept on a mattress, and now we'll have to set up a tent, because we have no where to live, he said. The deputy chief of Peru's fire department, Roberto Ognio, presented a report late Thursday saying the death toll from the quake had risen to 510. The previous total had been 450 and he did not say where the additional deaths had occurred. The earthquake's magnitude was raised from 7.9 to eight on Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey. At least 14 aftershocks of magnitude five or greater caused renewed anxiety, though there were no reports of additional damage or injuries. President Alan Garcia flew by helicopter to Ica, a city of 120,000 where a quarter of the buildings collapsed, and declared a state of emergency. Government doctors called off their national strike for higher pay to handle the emergency. There has been a good international response even without Peru asking for it, and they've been very generous, Garcia said during a stop in Pisco. The help includes cash from the United States, Canada United Nations, Red Cross and European Union as well as tents, water, medicine and other supplies. The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, equipped with a staff of 800 and 12 operating rooms, is in Ecuador and could quickly sail to Peru if asked, U.S. officials said. In Washington, President George W. Bush offered condolences and said his administration was studying how best to send help. One American died in the quake, according to the State Department. Canada pledged $2 million for relief and recovery efforts, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier and International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said in a statement Thursday. There are no reports of Canadian injuries.
Electricity, water and phone service were down in much of southern Peru. The government rushed police, soldiers and doctors to the area, but traffic was paralyzed by giant cracks and fallen power lines on the Panamerican Highway. In Chincha, a small town near Pisco only 40 kilometres from the quake's epicentre, an AP Television News cameraman counted 30 bodies on a hospital patio. The face of one victim was uncovered, her eyes open. The feet of another stuck out from under a blanket. Hundreds of injured lay side-by-side on cots on walkways and in gardens outside hospital buildings. Our services are saturated and half of the hospital has collapsed, Dr. Huber Malma said as he single-handedly attended to dozens of patients.
In Lima, 153 kilometres from the epicentre, only one death was recorded. But the furious two minutes of shaking prompted thousands to flee into the streets and sleep in public parks. Scientists said the quake was a megathrust - a type of earthquake similar to the catastrophic Indian Ocean temblor in 2004 that generated deadly tsunami waves. Megathrusts produce the largest earthquakes on the planet, USGS geophysicist Paul Earle said. In general, magnitude eight quakes are capable of causing tremendous damage. Quakes of magnitude 2.5 to three are the smallest generally felt, and every increase of one number on the magnitude scale means that the quake's magnitude is 10 times as great. The temblor occurred in one of the most seismically active regions in the world at the boundary where the Nazca and South American tectonic plates meet. The plates are moving together at a rate of more than seven and a half centimetres a year, Earle said.
HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER
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.
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.
Sarkozy calls for more market monitoring after recent turmoil
17.08.2007 - 09:27 CET | By Honor Mahony
Nicolas Sarkozy has called on G7 governments to work with the International Monetary Fund and central banks on financial transparency following a week of turbulence on world markets over US mortgage sector problems.The French president said he thought it essential that as heads of state we should draw the consequences and lessons of the events that are affecting the markets.It seems essential to me that we monitor the transparency of the markets' operations and their ability to finance the world economy in a stable and effective way, he said according to AP news agency.The comments were made in a letter to German chancellor Angela Merkel, current head of the G8 group of industrialised nations which also includes the G7.The letter calls on G7 finance ministers to draw up a set of proposals on greater transparency to be discussed at their next meeting in October.The proposal is likely to be a boost to Germany's aims - it is currently G8 president - to get greater transparency over hedge funds by getting a code of conduct established for them - a push that failed during the last G8 meeting in June.
The scrutiny is set to increase elsewhere too. The European Commission on Thursday (16 August) said it was looking into whether rating agencies had done enough to alert investors about the possible dangers of the US sub-prime mortgage sector.
Subprime loans are loans given to people with a poor credit history. It was the recent sharp increase in defaults on repayments on these loans that prompted the market panic and credit crunch over the last week.The European Central Bank over the past days pumped over €200 billion into the markets to fend off a credit crunch. Other central banks around the world also made cash injections.Brussels' investigation, to be headed by internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy, is to look into how ratings agencies are financed and whether there is any possible conflict of interest.At the moment, ratings agencies are paid by the concerns that they are rating, a system that Mr McCreevy and his officials are taking a close look at.
The commission is to examine concerns we have to their slowness with regard to market deterioration since mid-2006, said a spokeswoman on Thursday, with reference to the fact that it has been known since last year that there were problems with the US mortgage sector.However, the commission is unlikely to take any action before April next year, said the spokeswoman, when the Committee of European Securities Regulators is due to produce a separate report looking at how the ratings agencies are run.
How will it feel ...the moment you die?
This question could lead
YOUR unsaved loved one to Christ! AUG 17,07
Dear Friend,
Among the many thousands of people to whom I have ministered down through these past 50+ years, the single most important question of life has been death: What will happen when I die? Answers to questions of death and eternity can become your most valuable witnessing tools, as you pray for and witness to your unsaved loved ones!
The answers are available, praise God! His Word clearly reveals what happens the moment one dies. And our friend GRANT JEFFREY, the bestselling author, has compiled the answers into a brilliantly written, fast-paced book entitled:
JOURNEY INTO ETERNITY: Search for Immortality
This amazing volume explores the scientific, medical, philosophical, and scriptural evidence for life after death -- its fascinating reading for Christians and non-Christians alike. It is user-friendly, understandable, and practical ... answering such intriguing questions as:
Will we be aware of those left on earth?
What does it feel like to die?
What does one experience in the moments immediately following death?
Is one conscious of the soul leaving the body after death?
What happens to the soul between physical death and final resurrection?
What will one’s spiritual body be like after death?
What happens to babies at death?
Will we retain our memories?
How do new medical experiments prove that one survives after death?
These intriguing questions and many more are clearly and masterfully answered by JOURNEY INTO ETERNITY! This incredible book also introduces people who have had deathbed visions, often recorded by medical personnel. You will learn what these visions mean and what they can teach us! Please request JOURNEY INTO ETERNITY as you give a ministry gift of $15 (U.S.), $20 (Canada). Please help us even more generously if you can. We need you today!
Praise the Lord!
I ask you to be as generous as you can, because we need your support in order to finish the difficult summer season -- keeping our program on the air for your sake, and for millions of others who don’t yet know Christ!
Thanks for being our friend. I hope to hear from you soon!
Yours in world evangelism,
Dr. Jack Van Impe - P.S. JOURNEY INTO ETERNITY features a clear-cut call to salvation, making it a wonderful witnessing tool. Share it with a friend or relative who needs the Lord!
THERE WILL BE A ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT HEADED BY THE EUROPEAN UNION.
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
DANIEL 12:4,1
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
REVELATION 13:1-3,7,8,12,16-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
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.
REVELATION 17:3,7,9-10,12,18
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
East Africa: EAC States Beat Deadline On Key Trade Pact With EU
Business Daily (Nairobi) -15 August 2007 - Allan Odhiambo
East African states have agreed on key aspects of a regional Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) to be signed with the European Union, removing the threat of a looming fallout over failure to beat the December 31 deadline.Member states have decided to formally endorse part of the text that had been agreed upon instead of starting the process afresh under the East African Community (EAC) platform. EAC member states have agreed on more than 75 per cent of the text.The agreement reached in Arusha means the five member states can sign a new trade deals as a single Customs Union and beat the December 31 deadline and save members, especially Kenya, the consequences of paying duty for its exports to Europe.In the absence of a new trade pact, commercial relations between Kenya and the EU would have reverted to a General System of Preferences (GSP) platform that would have made its exports eligible for a duty of between 8.5 per cent and 15.7 per cent.
EU regulations demand that all developing countries that fail to land new EPAs on time automatically revert to the GSP scheme unless waivers are granted.It is true we have reached a consensus to sign a deal under the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) platform that has made significant progress with the EU, said Mr Nalo.We have agreed on a pact dubbed EAC-EPA Plus which gives us room to enter into a pact with the EU even if non EAC countries choose to stay out.People familiar with international trade agreements said this open arrangement could favour other ESA member nations who are not linked to any customs union. The move is expected to restore calm among EAC member states who have been fighting over the choice of a platform on which to negotiate with the EU.
Though some member states had wanted EAC to start their own negotiations with the EU, a group led by Kenya opposed the move, citing time limitations.All EAC member states - save for Tanzania which has been negotiating under the Southern Africa Development Community - have been negotiating a new trade pact with the EU under ESA.
These differences in negotiating platforms are linked to the fact that ESA is backed by Comesa from which Tanzania pulled out in 2000.Since April this year, frosty relations with SADC saw Tanzania fall back to its EAC partners seeking a new deal under the regional bloc.In June the EAC heads of state acceded to the Tanzanian demands and allowed its officials to negotiate with the EU as a regional bloc.
In an official report on entering fresh talks under the EAC/EPA option, Kenya warned that more that Sh100 billion in trade and investment would be at stake should the parties fail to reach an agreement by end of year.With only four months to the December deadline, starting afresh EPA configuration is rather ambitious. Experience in all configurations that are currently negotiating EPAs shows that a minimum of three to six months is required to agree on negotiation mandate, structure and procedure, the Ministry of Trade report said.The report says Kenya stands to lose more than Sh69 billion in trade with the EU. Analysts further warned that should the country opt for EAC/EPA talks and fail to reach a deal on time, it would not be possible for the country to ask for a waiver from the World Trade Organization (WTO) within the remaining four months.
Sources close to the talks said Kenya was also keen on sticking to the ESA platform because Tanzania and EAC which are classified as a Least Developed Country (LCD) have a privilege position to opt to negotiate for an Everything But Arms (EBA) with the EU.In trade circles, EPAs are preferred because they contain provisions for special gestures such as technical assistance schemes for developing nations.
The Independence of the European Central Bank
Wednesday 15 August 2007 - Pietro De Matteis
One of the results of the Treaty of Maastricht was the creation of the European Monetary Institute (EMI) chaired by Wim Duisenberg. In 1998 when the third stage of the Economic and Monetary Union began, the EMI was replaced by the European Central Bank (ECB) whose primary objective, according to the treaties, is to maintain price stability.In order to do so, 2% target inflation has been settled (i.e. below but close to 2%). Several issues have been raised regarding both the 2% target itself and, on a wider perspective, whether inflation should be the main ECB target.
ECB’s competences
Until now the ECB has exclusive competence for Monetary Policy and work in concert with the European System of Central Banks ( composed by the 27 EU National Central Banks) and with the Eurosystem (composed by the National Central Banks of the countries that adopted the Euro) to achieve its price stability objective.Without prejudice to this first objective the ECB defines its policy in order to boost employment and growth. The main reasoning is that since the European Union does not have a federal budget and has within its borders economies under both different economical cycles and stages of development, the main result that can be achieved is to promote price stability. This is a necessary condition for both job growth and job creation (although not sufficient on its own) and allows a higher degree of certainty for the economic operators as well as lower interest rates.
These days the ECB is in the spotlight for two reasons: its important role in order to avoid a financial crisis in the EU following the lack of liquidity in the bank system and the development linked to the draft Reform Treaty.
ECB’s independence undermined
As for the latter issue the Portuguese presidency has rephrased the articles regarding the ECB with respect to what was proposed during the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference. In particular the ECB has been listed together with other EU institutions and the sentence “The European Central Bank is an institution” has been removed. President J.C. Trichet is clearly concerned about these developments and especially sees that this could lead to a lower degree of independence of the ECB from other European institutions and especially from national governments.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has already shown on several occasions his wish to have an ECB taking more into account the European economic situation while setting its monetary policy objectives, and in particular would like to have a bigger say on the setting of the exchange rate with the US dollar and on the inflation target.
Conclusion
Of course lowering the degree of independence of the ECB is a serious risk as it could lead to a less credible monetary policy. Moreover, if political pressure was to be allowed, smaller countries might end up with an EU monetary policy more synchronized with the cycle of the biggest EU economies instead of a neutral pro-EU development one. In the worst scenario the ECB could be even pushed to follow the political or electoral cycles of the biggest EU countries.
New EU treaty may force UK or France to give up UN seat: Think tank
London, Aug.16 : The fine print of a new European Union treaty may force the exit of Britain from the UN Security Council, a leading European think-tank has warned.
According to the Skeptika Group, there is a paragraph in the treaty, signed by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, which provides for the exit of either Britain or France.The excerpt quoted by Skeptika says that the EU would take the place of Britain and France - the only two European states who are permanent members of the Security Council - in cases where it had set out a common position.
The Daily Mail quoted Lee Rotherham of Skeptika as saying, The new treaty makes clear that Britain will have to give up its seat on the Security Council on issues where the EU has taken a common position. This is an extraordinary surrender of national sovereignty.The Foreign Office insisted the UK would not lose its seat. It has listed on its website that this is one of 10 myths about the constitution. A spokesman said: The UN Charter does not allow international organisations like the EU to hold a seat on the Security Council. Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague has described the moves as clearly the thin end of the wedge for an EU takeover of our only seat. --- ANI
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.
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.
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.
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-40
36 And the king shall do according to his will;(EU PRESIDENT) and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS A EUROPEAN JEW) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(HES A MILITARY GINIUS) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds (CONTROL HEZBOLLAH,AL-QUAIDA MURDERERS ETC) with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south(EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR PROTECTING ISRAELS SECURITY) and the king of the north(RUSSIA) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
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.
We're ready to compromise with Palestine: Israel
Friday, August 17, 2007 at 1656 hours IST
Jerusalem, August 17: Concerned over continued violence in the Middle East, Israel has urged international community, including India, to help strengthen moderate forces in the region and said it was ready to compromise with Palestinians. We understand the need of compromise. The dialogue is important not only to Israel but also for the Palestinian people and their leadership, Israel's Vice Prime Minister Tzipi Livni said during an interaction with a delegation of Indian Muslim leaders on Thursday evening. While stating the general perception that those who compromise are perceived as weak, Livni sought support of the Arab and Muslim world for the Palestinian moderates and also for Israel, saying that it will legitimise talks between the two sides.
Total reconciliation is based on understanding of mutual cooperation, she said, adding any implementation of peace needs to be accorded the guarantee of Israel's security. The idea of two-state solution was adopted not only by the Israel government but also by the people, she noted. Livni, also the Foreign Minister, described the relationship between India and Israel as very good and said that it can also be effective in sending a right political message to strengthen the moderate forces in Palestine by telling them that they are doing the right thing.
Expressing fears over the rise of extremist forces in the region, she said there is a gap between understanding of leaders and the public opinion. This gap or misunderstanding is being used by the extremists, she added.
WW3 THE 3 WAVES THAT MARCH TO ISRAEL
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.
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.
Russia, China, Iran warn U.S. at summit By LEILA SARALAYEVA, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 16, 2:56 PM ET
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - The leaders of Russia, China and Iran said Thursday that Central Asia should be left alone to manage its stability and security — an apparent warning to the United States to avoid interfering in the strategic, resource-rich region. The veiled warning came at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and on the eve of major war games between Russia and China.The SCO was created 11 years ago to address religious extremism and border security in Central Asia, but in recent years, with countries such as Iran signing on as observers, it has grown into a bloc aimed at defying U.S. interests in the region.Stability and security in Central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region on the basis of the existing regional associations, the leaders said in a statement at the end of the organization's summit in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attending the summit for the second consecutive year, criticized U.S. plans to put parts of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe as a threat to the entire region.These intentions go beyond just one country. They are of concern for much of the continent, Asia and SCO members, he said.Washington has said the system would help protect against potential Iranian missiles.Russian President Vladimir Putin didn't mention the United States in his speech, but he said that any attempts to solve global and regional problems unilaterally are hopeless.He also called for strengthening a multi-polar international system that would ensure equal security and opportunities for all countries comments echoing Russia's frequent complaints that the United States dominates world affairs.Moscow has also bristled at Washington's plans to deploy the anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying the system would threaten Russian security.
Putin and Hu Jintao of China were set to attend Friday's military exercises in the Chelyabinsk region in Russia's Ural Mountains. Some 6,000 Russian and Chinese troops, dozens of aircraft and hundreds of armored vehicles and other heavy weapons will participate — the first such joint drills on Russia's territory.China hosted the first-ever joint maneuvers in August 2005, which included a mock assault on the beaches of northern China and featured Russia's long-range bombers.Moscow and Beijing have developed what they dubbed a strategic partnership after the Soviet collapse, cemented by their perceptions that the United States dominates global affairs.In 2005, the SCO called for a timetable to be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from two member countries, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan evicted American forces later that year, but Kyrgyzstan still hosts a U.S. base, which supports operations in nearby Afghanistan.
Russia also maintains a military base in Kyrgyzstan.
The SCO, whose members are some of the world's biggest energy producers and consumers, also discussed ways to enhance energy cooperation. Washington has supported plans for new pipelines that would carry the region's oil and gas to the West and bypass Russia, while Moscow has pushed strongly to control the export flows.
A further sign of the group's intention to influence energy markets was the participation in the Bishkek summit of Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, whose country is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the former Soviet Union after Russia. Turkmenistan is not an SCO member; the president was attending as a guest.Associated Press writer Bagila Bukharbayeva in Moscow contributed to this report.
Nonpartisan Group Calls for Three-State Split in Iraq
Think Tank Report Says Country Is Near Total Collapse
By Robin Wright - Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 17, 2007; 11:16 AM
In a report to be released next week, the Fund for Peace calls for the managed break-up of Iraq into three separate states with their own governments and representatives to the United Nations, but continued economic cooperation in a larger entity modeled on the European Union.Prospects of Iraqi leaders being able to establish a multiethnic democracy are now fanciful, the nonpartisan Washington think tank says in its report titled A Way Out: The Union of Iraqi States. Based on data tracked monthly since before the U.S. invasion in 2001, the report authored by Fund president Pauline Baker concludes that Iraq is now near total collapse.
While there may be pockets of improvement from the surge, these are transitory and limited achievements that are about four years too late . . . Rather than fight fragmentation, it would be better to manage the trend with a view toward establishing an entirely new political order, the report concludes.The report is one of several official and unofficial Iraq assessments coming over the next month, culminating with the Bush administration's own much-awaited evaluation of Iraq's security and political progress due on Sept. 15.The military campaign underway with Gen. David H. Petraeus might have worked after the 2003 invasion, during a security vacuum and before militias emerged, but the Iraqi government's lack of political will and inability to broker reconciliation have divided the country in irretrievable ways, the report concludes.
The Fund has monitored twelve indicators -- ranging from the economy to political factionalization and the rule of law -- and concludes that all have deteriorated significantly since before the war. Working out a transition that divides political power while continuing to allow Iraq's three major communities -- Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- to share economic wealth may be the only way to bring U.S. troops home in the near future, the report concludes.This is the best, and possibly the last, chance to end the war, limit spillover and reduce U.S. troop presence, while leaving something constructive behind, Baker writes.The idea of an economic union would bypass the problem of dividing up current and future oil resources. There are a number of alternatives for Baghdad, the multiethnic capital, including making it the Brussels of Iraq as the headquarters for the new Union of Iraqi Sates, the report says
Guest Comment: These are our Leaders? - Gary Cooperberg AUG 17,07
Ever since the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel began in 1948, the Arab nations have done all in their power to destroy it. It is a principle of Islam to maintain its sovereignty over all lands in the Middle East, and its eventual aim is for complete world dominance. Given the fact that most Arab leaders are religious Moslems, it is an act of futility to assume that they will willingly alter their religious beliefs even for peace. One would hope that Israel would have leaders that would never make negotiations that would compromise Jewish principles. Unfortunately our leaders appear to have no principles and are prepared to rewrite the Torah [Hebrew Scriptures] to please our enemies. This is the crux of our problems and the reason why we will never see peace result from holding human ideology above that of our Creator.
Mr. Olmert may think that he is advancing the cause of peace by suggesting a willingness to give away Jewish Land to our enemies. He may think that he is taking bold new initiatives. The fact is that Israel has been trying to give away the miracle of 1967 ever since 1967. For forty years our leaders have been dreaming of making peace by undoing miracles. Yet every attempt to make peace by giving away parts of our homeland has resulted in further bloodshed and terror. The most successful attempt yet to part from our obligatory birthright, the evacuation of Gaza and turning it over to the PLO as a gesture to encourage our enemies to make peace with us only resulted in increasing the danger to the Jewish State by allowing the Arabs to build a powerful terror network there. To this day missiles are launched upon the Jewish State from this folly. And to this day not only are no plans being considered to undo the mistake, rather further mistakes are being planned for the future. It is like a gambler who has lost a fortune, borrowing money to go back to the roulette wheel in order to get rich.
It is uncanny how the one man who has most influenced all of our peace blunders is now occupying the seat of President of Israel [i.e. Shimon Peres] and again engineering proposals to emasculate our country in a futile search for a peace that clearly will never result from such stupidity.Jewish tradition tells us that the Messiah will come only when most people have given up hope for our survival. Looking at our situation from a political stance we clearly have reached a stage of hopelessness. Simple logic tells us that the days of Israel's existence are extremely limited. It is just a matter of time until either our enemies destroy us, or we do it for them.
Fortunately for us, this is the only country in the world where logic has no place. Bush and Olmert and Peres may have plans for us, but the Creator of the Universe has His own plans which were drawn up even before the world was created. Can one imagine that those plans can be altered... even by the President of the United States? [Many Americans do not realize the intense political pressure the US is putting upon Israel to give up their land.] When given the choice to decide between trusting our own eyes and ears or to accept the words of our Torah and prophets, most people seem to prefer their own eyes and ears. This is logical. But it is a mistake. Were logic to have ruled here, the State of Israel never would have come into existence, much less to have continued to exist and thrive over the last nearly sixty years.
For all these years our leaders have been promulgating the nonsense, Give Peace a Chance, which they interpreted as giving away our homeland to our enemies in the hope that peace would result. Time and time again experience proved that this concept was ridiculous. Yet they continue to follow the path of death and destruction. Olmert once said that he is tired of winning wars… Can one imagine anyone being so stupid? Yet these are the leaders we have been blessed with.
The Lord bless you as you bless Israel by standing in defense of her right to exist on the land given to the Jewish people by the God of Israel . Lets pray that Israel will turn back to their God. Do not be silent, but share this with your fellow Christians, share it with your pastors, and with anyone you have a chance to speak to. Lets also pray for that breakthrough to the Muslims, and please remember to pray for our son Jordan, and all of his fellow soldiers in the IDF.
Shabbat Shalom ... David & Josie
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Relatives search bodybags in Peru quake as death toll tops 500
Fri Aug 17, 5:23 AM - By Jeanneth Valdivieso
PISCO, Peru (AP) - Rescuers combed rubble for survivors and distraught relatives wept as they searched rows of bodybags for loved ones killed when a powerful earthquake devastated southern Peru. Officials said the death toll across the region hit by the magnitude-8 temblor topped 500 late Thursday night. In the gritty port city of Pisco, searchers at San Clemente church pulled at least 60 bodies out of the ruins and lined them up on the plaza. Doctors struggled to help more than 1,500 injured, including hundreds who waited on cots in the open air, fearing more aftershocks would send buildings crashing down. Peru's fire department said the death toll from the quake had risen to 510, and rescuers were still digging through ruins of collapsed adobe homes in cities and hamlets. Destruction from Wednesday's quake was centred in Peru's southern desert, near the oasis city of Ica and nearby Pisco, about 200 kilometres southeast of the capital of Lima. Hundreds had gathered in the pews of the San Clemente church on Wednesday - the day Roman Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary's rise into heaven - for a special mass marking one month since the death of a Pisco man.
With minutes left in the mass, the church's ceiling began to break apart. The shaking lasted for an agonizing two minutes, burying 200 people, according to the town's mayor. On Thursday, only two stone columns and the church's dome rose from a giant pile of stone, bricks, wood and dust. Rescuers laid out the dust-covered dead beneath bloodstained sheets in the city's plaza. Civil defence workers then arrived and zipped them into body bags. But relatives searching desperately for the missing unzipped the bags, crying hysterically each time they recognized a familiar face.
Few in the traumatized crowds would talk with journalists. One man shouted at the bodies of his wife and two small daughters as they were pulled from the rubble: Why did you go? Why?
Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza told Lima radio station CPN, sobbing: The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets. We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen. Churches, stores, hotels - everything is destroyed.As dusk fell, Health Minister Carlos Vallejos said finding survivors seemed increasingly unlikely. We keep losing hope of finding someone alive after 24 hours have passed since the quake struck, Vallejos told The Associated Press outside of the church.
Felipe Gutierrez, 82, sat in his pyjamas - his only clothing - in front of what was his Pisco home. The quake reduced it to rubble and he, his 74-year-old wife, their two children and three grandchildren sat staring at the ruins, a tangle of adobe, straw and all of their belongings. Yesterday we slept on a mattress, and now we'll have to set up a tent, because we have no where to live, he said. The deputy chief of Peru's fire department, Roberto Ognio, presented a report late Thursday saying the death toll from the quake had risen to 510. The previous total had been 450 and he did not say where the additional deaths had occurred. The earthquake's magnitude was raised from 7.9 to eight on Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey. At least 14 aftershocks of magnitude five or greater caused renewed anxiety, though there were no reports of additional damage or injuries. President Alan Garcia flew by helicopter to Ica, a city of 120,000 where a quarter of the buildings collapsed, and declared a state of emergency. Government doctors called off their national strike for higher pay to handle the emergency. There has been a good international response even without Peru asking for it, and they've been very generous, Garcia said during a stop in Pisco. The help includes cash from the United States, Canada United Nations, Red Cross and European Union as well as tents, water, medicine and other supplies. The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, equipped with a staff of 800 and 12 operating rooms, is in Ecuador and could quickly sail to Peru if asked, U.S. officials said. In Washington, President George W. Bush offered condolences and said his administration was studying how best to send help. One American died in the quake, according to the State Department. Canada pledged $2 million for relief and recovery efforts, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier and International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said in a statement Thursday. There are no reports of Canadian injuries.
Electricity, water and phone service were down in much of southern Peru. The government rushed police, soldiers and doctors to the area, but traffic was paralyzed by giant cracks and fallen power lines on the Panamerican Highway. In Chincha, a small town near Pisco only 40 kilometres from the quake's epicentre, an AP Television News cameraman counted 30 bodies on a hospital patio. The face of one victim was uncovered, her eyes open. The feet of another stuck out from under a blanket. Hundreds of injured lay side-by-side on cots on walkways and in gardens outside hospital buildings. Our services are saturated and half of the hospital has collapsed, Dr. Huber Malma said as he single-handedly attended to dozens of patients.
In Lima, 153 kilometres from the epicentre, only one death was recorded. But the furious two minutes of shaking prompted thousands to flee into the streets and sleep in public parks. Scientists said the quake was a megathrust - a type of earthquake similar to the catastrophic Indian Ocean temblor in 2004 that generated deadly tsunami waves. Megathrusts produce the largest earthquakes on the planet, USGS geophysicist Paul Earle said. In general, magnitude eight quakes are capable of causing tremendous damage. Quakes of magnitude 2.5 to three are the smallest generally felt, and every increase of one number on the magnitude scale means that the quake's magnitude is 10 times as great. The temblor occurred in one of the most seismically active regions in the world at the boundary where the Nazca and South American tectonic plates meet. The plates are moving together at a rate of more than seven and a half centimetres a year, Earle said.
HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER
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.
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.
Sarkozy calls for more market monitoring after recent turmoil
17.08.2007 - 09:27 CET | By Honor Mahony
Nicolas Sarkozy has called on G7 governments to work with the International Monetary Fund and central banks on financial transparency following a week of turbulence on world markets over US mortgage sector problems.The French president said he thought it essential that as heads of state we should draw the consequences and lessons of the events that are affecting the markets.It seems essential to me that we monitor the transparency of the markets' operations and their ability to finance the world economy in a stable and effective way, he said according to AP news agency.The comments were made in a letter to German chancellor Angela Merkel, current head of the G8 group of industrialised nations which also includes the G7.The letter calls on G7 finance ministers to draw up a set of proposals on greater transparency to be discussed at their next meeting in October.The proposal is likely to be a boost to Germany's aims - it is currently G8 president - to get greater transparency over hedge funds by getting a code of conduct established for them - a push that failed during the last G8 meeting in June.
The scrutiny is set to increase elsewhere too. The European Commission on Thursday (16 August) said it was looking into whether rating agencies had done enough to alert investors about the possible dangers of the US sub-prime mortgage sector.
Subprime loans are loans given to people with a poor credit history. It was the recent sharp increase in defaults on repayments on these loans that prompted the market panic and credit crunch over the last week.The European Central Bank over the past days pumped over €200 billion into the markets to fend off a credit crunch. Other central banks around the world also made cash injections.Brussels' investigation, to be headed by internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy, is to look into how ratings agencies are financed and whether there is any possible conflict of interest.At the moment, ratings agencies are paid by the concerns that they are rating, a system that Mr McCreevy and his officials are taking a close look at.
The commission is to examine concerns we have to their slowness with regard to market deterioration since mid-2006, said a spokeswoman on Thursday, with reference to the fact that it has been known since last year that there were problems with the US mortgage sector.However, the commission is unlikely to take any action before April next year, said the spokeswoman, when the Committee of European Securities Regulators is due to produce a separate report looking at how the ratings agencies are run.
How will it feel ...the moment you die?
This question could lead
YOUR unsaved loved one to Christ! AUG 17,07
Dear Friend,
Among the many thousands of people to whom I have ministered down through these past 50+ years, the single most important question of life has been death: What will happen when I die? Answers to questions of death and eternity can become your most valuable witnessing tools, as you pray for and witness to your unsaved loved ones!
The answers are available, praise God! His Word clearly reveals what happens the moment one dies. And our friend GRANT JEFFREY, the bestselling author, has compiled the answers into a brilliantly written, fast-paced book entitled:
JOURNEY INTO ETERNITY: Search for Immortality
This amazing volume explores the scientific, medical, philosophical, and scriptural evidence for life after death -- its fascinating reading for Christians and non-Christians alike. It is user-friendly, understandable, and practical ... answering such intriguing questions as:
Will we be aware of those left on earth?
What does it feel like to die?
What does one experience in the moments immediately following death?
Is one conscious of the soul leaving the body after death?
What happens to the soul between physical death and final resurrection?
What will one’s spiritual body be like after death?
What happens to babies at death?
Will we retain our memories?
How do new medical experiments prove that one survives after death?
These intriguing questions and many more are clearly and masterfully answered by JOURNEY INTO ETERNITY! This incredible book also introduces people who have had deathbed visions, often recorded by medical personnel. You will learn what these visions mean and what they can teach us! Please request JOURNEY INTO ETERNITY as you give a ministry gift of $15 (U.S.), $20 (Canada). Please help us even more generously if you can. We need you today!
Praise the Lord!
I ask you to be as generous as you can, because we need your support in order to finish the difficult summer season -- keeping our program on the air for your sake, and for millions of others who don’t yet know Christ!
Thanks for being our friend. I hope to hear from you soon!
Yours in world evangelism,
Dr. Jack Van Impe - P.S. JOURNEY INTO ETERNITY features a clear-cut call to salvation, making it a wonderful witnessing tool. Share it with a friend or relative who needs the Lord!
THERE WILL BE A ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT HEADED BY THE EUROPEAN UNION.
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
DANIEL 12:4,1
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
REVELATION 13:1-3,7,8,12,16-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
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.
REVELATION 17:3,7,9-10,12,18
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
East Africa: EAC States Beat Deadline On Key Trade Pact With EU
Business Daily (Nairobi) -15 August 2007 - Allan Odhiambo
East African states have agreed on key aspects of a regional Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) to be signed with the European Union, removing the threat of a looming fallout over failure to beat the December 31 deadline.Member states have decided to formally endorse part of the text that had been agreed upon instead of starting the process afresh under the East African Community (EAC) platform. EAC member states have agreed on more than 75 per cent of the text.The agreement reached in Arusha means the five member states can sign a new trade deals as a single Customs Union and beat the December 31 deadline and save members, especially Kenya, the consequences of paying duty for its exports to Europe.In the absence of a new trade pact, commercial relations between Kenya and the EU would have reverted to a General System of Preferences (GSP) platform that would have made its exports eligible for a duty of between 8.5 per cent and 15.7 per cent.
EU regulations demand that all developing countries that fail to land new EPAs on time automatically revert to the GSP scheme unless waivers are granted.It is true we have reached a consensus to sign a deal under the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) platform that has made significant progress with the EU, said Mr Nalo.We have agreed on a pact dubbed EAC-EPA Plus which gives us room to enter into a pact with the EU even if non EAC countries choose to stay out.People familiar with international trade agreements said this open arrangement could favour other ESA member nations who are not linked to any customs union. The move is expected to restore calm among EAC member states who have been fighting over the choice of a platform on which to negotiate with the EU.
Though some member states had wanted EAC to start their own negotiations with the EU, a group led by Kenya opposed the move, citing time limitations.All EAC member states - save for Tanzania which has been negotiating under the Southern Africa Development Community - have been negotiating a new trade pact with the EU under ESA.
These differences in negotiating platforms are linked to the fact that ESA is backed by Comesa from which Tanzania pulled out in 2000.Since April this year, frosty relations with SADC saw Tanzania fall back to its EAC partners seeking a new deal under the regional bloc.In June the EAC heads of state acceded to the Tanzanian demands and allowed its officials to negotiate with the EU as a regional bloc.
In an official report on entering fresh talks under the EAC/EPA option, Kenya warned that more that Sh100 billion in trade and investment would be at stake should the parties fail to reach an agreement by end of year.With only four months to the December deadline, starting afresh EPA configuration is rather ambitious. Experience in all configurations that are currently negotiating EPAs shows that a minimum of three to six months is required to agree on negotiation mandate, structure and procedure, the Ministry of Trade report said.The report says Kenya stands to lose more than Sh69 billion in trade with the EU. Analysts further warned that should the country opt for EAC/EPA talks and fail to reach a deal on time, it would not be possible for the country to ask for a waiver from the World Trade Organization (WTO) within the remaining four months.
Sources close to the talks said Kenya was also keen on sticking to the ESA platform because Tanzania and EAC which are classified as a Least Developed Country (LCD) have a privilege position to opt to negotiate for an Everything But Arms (EBA) with the EU.In trade circles, EPAs are preferred because they contain provisions for special gestures such as technical assistance schemes for developing nations.
The Independence of the European Central Bank
Wednesday 15 August 2007 - Pietro De Matteis
One of the results of the Treaty of Maastricht was the creation of the European Monetary Institute (EMI) chaired by Wim Duisenberg. In 1998 when the third stage of the Economic and Monetary Union began, the EMI was replaced by the European Central Bank (ECB) whose primary objective, according to the treaties, is to maintain price stability.In order to do so, 2% target inflation has been settled (i.e. below but close to 2%). Several issues have been raised regarding both the 2% target itself and, on a wider perspective, whether inflation should be the main ECB target.
ECB’s competences
Until now the ECB has exclusive competence for Monetary Policy and work in concert with the European System of Central Banks ( composed by the 27 EU National Central Banks) and with the Eurosystem (composed by the National Central Banks of the countries that adopted the Euro) to achieve its price stability objective.Without prejudice to this first objective the ECB defines its policy in order to boost employment and growth. The main reasoning is that since the European Union does not have a federal budget and has within its borders economies under both different economical cycles and stages of development, the main result that can be achieved is to promote price stability. This is a necessary condition for both job growth and job creation (although not sufficient on its own) and allows a higher degree of certainty for the economic operators as well as lower interest rates.
These days the ECB is in the spotlight for two reasons: its important role in order to avoid a financial crisis in the EU following the lack of liquidity in the bank system and the development linked to the draft Reform Treaty.
ECB’s independence undermined
As for the latter issue the Portuguese presidency has rephrased the articles regarding the ECB with respect to what was proposed during the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference. In particular the ECB has been listed together with other EU institutions and the sentence “The European Central Bank is an institution” has been removed. President J.C. Trichet is clearly concerned about these developments and especially sees that this could lead to a lower degree of independence of the ECB from other European institutions and especially from national governments.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has already shown on several occasions his wish to have an ECB taking more into account the European economic situation while setting its monetary policy objectives, and in particular would like to have a bigger say on the setting of the exchange rate with the US dollar and on the inflation target.
Conclusion
Of course lowering the degree of independence of the ECB is a serious risk as it could lead to a less credible monetary policy. Moreover, if political pressure was to be allowed, smaller countries might end up with an EU monetary policy more synchronized with the cycle of the biggest EU economies instead of a neutral pro-EU development one. In the worst scenario the ECB could be even pushed to follow the political or electoral cycles of the biggest EU countries.
New EU treaty may force UK or France to give up UN seat: Think tank
London, Aug.16 : The fine print of a new European Union treaty may force the exit of Britain from the UN Security Council, a leading European think-tank has warned.
According to the Skeptika Group, there is a paragraph in the treaty, signed by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, which provides for the exit of either Britain or France.The excerpt quoted by Skeptika says that the EU would take the place of Britain and France - the only two European states who are permanent members of the Security Council - in cases where it had set out a common position.
The Daily Mail quoted Lee Rotherham of Skeptika as saying, The new treaty makes clear that Britain will have to give up its seat on the Security Council on issues where the EU has taken a common position. This is an extraordinary surrender of national sovereignty.The Foreign Office insisted the UK would not lose its seat. It has listed on its website that this is one of 10 myths about the constitution. A spokesman said: The UN Charter does not allow international organisations like the EU to hold a seat on the Security Council. Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague has described the moves as clearly the thin end of the wedge for an EU takeover of our only seat. --- ANI
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.
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.
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.
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-40
36 And the king shall do according to his will;(EU PRESIDENT) and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS A EUROPEAN JEW) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(HES A MILITARY GINIUS) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds (CONTROL HEZBOLLAH,AL-QUAIDA MURDERERS ETC) with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south(EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR PROTECTING ISRAELS SECURITY) and the king of the north(RUSSIA) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
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.
We're ready to compromise with Palestine: Israel
Friday, August 17, 2007 at 1656 hours IST
Jerusalem, August 17: Concerned over continued violence in the Middle East, Israel has urged international community, including India, to help strengthen moderate forces in the region and said it was ready to compromise with Palestinians. We understand the need of compromise. The dialogue is important not only to Israel but also for the Palestinian people and their leadership, Israel's Vice Prime Minister Tzipi Livni said during an interaction with a delegation of Indian Muslim leaders on Thursday evening. While stating the general perception that those who compromise are perceived as weak, Livni sought support of the Arab and Muslim world for the Palestinian moderates and also for Israel, saying that it will legitimise talks between the two sides.
Total reconciliation is based on understanding of mutual cooperation, she said, adding any implementation of peace needs to be accorded the guarantee of Israel's security. The idea of two-state solution was adopted not only by the Israel government but also by the people, she noted. Livni, also the Foreign Minister, described the relationship between India and Israel as very good and said that it can also be effective in sending a right political message to strengthen the moderate forces in Palestine by telling them that they are doing the right thing.
Expressing fears over the rise of extremist forces in the region, she said there is a gap between understanding of leaders and the public opinion. This gap or misunderstanding is being used by the extremists, she added.
WW3 THE 3 WAVES THAT MARCH TO ISRAEL
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.
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.
Russia, China, Iran warn U.S. at summit By LEILA SARALAYEVA, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 16, 2:56 PM ET
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - The leaders of Russia, China and Iran said Thursday that Central Asia should be left alone to manage its stability and security — an apparent warning to the United States to avoid interfering in the strategic, resource-rich region. The veiled warning came at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and on the eve of major war games between Russia and China.The SCO was created 11 years ago to address religious extremism and border security in Central Asia, but in recent years, with countries such as Iran signing on as observers, it has grown into a bloc aimed at defying U.S. interests in the region.Stability and security in Central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region on the basis of the existing regional associations, the leaders said in a statement at the end of the organization's summit in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attending the summit for the second consecutive year, criticized U.S. plans to put parts of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe as a threat to the entire region.These intentions go beyond just one country. They are of concern for much of the continent, Asia and SCO members, he said.Washington has said the system would help protect against potential Iranian missiles.Russian President Vladimir Putin didn't mention the United States in his speech, but he said that any attempts to solve global and regional problems unilaterally are hopeless.He also called for strengthening a multi-polar international system that would ensure equal security and opportunities for all countries comments echoing Russia's frequent complaints that the United States dominates world affairs.Moscow has also bristled at Washington's plans to deploy the anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying the system would threaten Russian security.
Putin and Hu Jintao of China were set to attend Friday's military exercises in the Chelyabinsk region in Russia's Ural Mountains. Some 6,000 Russian and Chinese troops, dozens of aircraft and hundreds of armored vehicles and other heavy weapons will participate — the first such joint drills on Russia's territory.China hosted the first-ever joint maneuvers in August 2005, which included a mock assault on the beaches of northern China and featured Russia's long-range bombers.Moscow and Beijing have developed what they dubbed a strategic partnership after the Soviet collapse, cemented by their perceptions that the United States dominates global affairs.In 2005, the SCO called for a timetable to be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from two member countries, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan evicted American forces later that year, but Kyrgyzstan still hosts a U.S. base, which supports operations in nearby Afghanistan.
Russia also maintains a military base in Kyrgyzstan.
The SCO, whose members are some of the world's biggest energy producers and consumers, also discussed ways to enhance energy cooperation. Washington has supported plans for new pipelines that would carry the region's oil and gas to the West and bypass Russia, while Moscow has pushed strongly to control the export flows.
A further sign of the group's intention to influence energy markets was the participation in the Bishkek summit of Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, whose country is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the former Soviet Union after Russia. Turkmenistan is not an SCO member; the president was attending as a guest.Associated Press writer Bagila Bukharbayeva in Moscow contributed to this report.
Nonpartisan Group Calls for Three-State Split in Iraq
Think Tank Report Says Country Is Near Total Collapse
By Robin Wright - Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 17, 2007; 11:16 AM
In a report to be released next week, the Fund for Peace calls for the managed break-up of Iraq into three separate states with their own governments and representatives to the United Nations, but continued economic cooperation in a larger entity modeled on the European Union.Prospects of Iraqi leaders being able to establish a multiethnic democracy are now fanciful, the nonpartisan Washington think tank says in its report titled A Way Out: The Union of Iraqi States. Based on data tracked monthly since before the U.S. invasion in 2001, the report authored by Fund president Pauline Baker concludes that Iraq is now near total collapse.
While there may be pockets of improvement from the surge, these are transitory and limited achievements that are about four years too late . . . Rather than fight fragmentation, it would be better to manage the trend with a view toward establishing an entirely new political order, the report concludes.The report is one of several official and unofficial Iraq assessments coming over the next month, culminating with the Bush administration's own much-awaited evaluation of Iraq's security and political progress due on Sept. 15.The military campaign underway with Gen. David H. Petraeus might have worked after the 2003 invasion, during a security vacuum and before militias emerged, but the Iraqi government's lack of political will and inability to broker reconciliation have divided the country in irretrievable ways, the report concludes.
The Fund has monitored twelve indicators -- ranging from the economy to political factionalization and the rule of law -- and concludes that all have deteriorated significantly since before the war. Working out a transition that divides political power while continuing to allow Iraq's three major communities -- Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- to share economic wealth may be the only way to bring U.S. troops home in the near future, the report concludes.This is the best, and possibly the last, chance to end the war, limit spillover and reduce U.S. troop presence, while leaving something constructive behind, Baker writes.The idea of an economic union would bypass the problem of dividing up current and future oil resources. There are a number of alternatives for Baghdad, the multiethnic capital, including making it the Brussels of Iraq as the headquarters for the new Union of Iraqi Sates, the report says
Guest Comment: These are our Leaders? - Gary Cooperberg AUG 17,07
Ever since the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel began in 1948, the Arab nations have done all in their power to destroy it. It is a principle of Islam to maintain its sovereignty over all lands in the Middle East, and its eventual aim is for complete world dominance. Given the fact that most Arab leaders are religious Moslems, it is an act of futility to assume that they will willingly alter their religious beliefs even for peace. One would hope that Israel would have leaders that would never make negotiations that would compromise Jewish principles. Unfortunately our leaders appear to have no principles and are prepared to rewrite the Torah [Hebrew Scriptures] to please our enemies. This is the crux of our problems and the reason why we will never see peace result from holding human ideology above that of our Creator.
Mr. Olmert may think that he is advancing the cause of peace by suggesting a willingness to give away Jewish Land to our enemies. He may think that he is taking bold new initiatives. The fact is that Israel has been trying to give away the miracle of 1967 ever since 1967. For forty years our leaders have been dreaming of making peace by undoing miracles. Yet every attempt to make peace by giving away parts of our homeland has resulted in further bloodshed and terror. The most successful attempt yet to part from our obligatory birthright, the evacuation of Gaza and turning it over to the PLO as a gesture to encourage our enemies to make peace with us only resulted in increasing the danger to the Jewish State by allowing the Arabs to build a powerful terror network there. To this day missiles are launched upon the Jewish State from this folly. And to this day not only are no plans being considered to undo the mistake, rather further mistakes are being planned for the future. It is like a gambler who has lost a fortune, borrowing money to go back to the roulette wheel in order to get rich.
It is uncanny how the one man who has most influenced all of our peace blunders is now occupying the seat of President of Israel [i.e. Shimon Peres] and again engineering proposals to emasculate our country in a futile search for a peace that clearly will never result from such stupidity.Jewish tradition tells us that the Messiah will come only when most people have given up hope for our survival. Looking at our situation from a political stance we clearly have reached a stage of hopelessness. Simple logic tells us that the days of Israel's existence are extremely limited. It is just a matter of time until either our enemies destroy us, or we do it for them.
Fortunately for us, this is the only country in the world where logic has no place. Bush and Olmert and Peres may have plans for us, but the Creator of the Universe has His own plans which were drawn up even before the world was created. Can one imagine that those plans can be altered... even by the President of the United States? [Many Americans do not realize the intense political pressure the US is putting upon Israel to give up their land.] When given the choice to decide between trusting our own eyes and ears or to accept the words of our Torah and prophets, most people seem to prefer their own eyes and ears. This is logical. But it is a mistake. Were logic to have ruled here, the State of Israel never would have come into existence, much less to have continued to exist and thrive over the last nearly sixty years.
For all these years our leaders have been promulgating the nonsense, Give Peace a Chance, which they interpreted as giving away our homeland to our enemies in the hope that peace would result. Time and time again experience proved that this concept was ridiculous. Yet they continue to follow the path of death and destruction. Olmert once said that he is tired of winning wars… Can one imagine anyone being so stupid? Yet these are the leaders we have been blessed with.
The Lord bless you as you bless Israel by standing in defense of her right to exist on the land given to the Jewish people by the God of Israel . Lets pray that Israel will turn back to their God. Do not be silent, but share this with your fellow Christians, share it with your pastors, and with anyone you have a chance to speak to. Lets also pray for that breakthrough to the Muslims, and please remember to pray for our son Jordan, and all of his fellow soldiers in the IDF.
Shabbat Shalom ... David & Josie
Thursday, August 16, 2007
7.9 QUAKE IN PERU
WELL WE HAVE GOT AN ACTIVE MORNING IN PROPHECY AROUND THE WORLD. 300 DEAD IN THE PERU QUAKE, WILDFIRES RAGE IN SOUTHERN TURKEY, STORM READY TO DESTROY LAND IN TEXAS AND THE STOCK MARKETS ARE REALLY FALLING AROUND THE WORLD.
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Peru earthquake kills more than 300 AUG 16,07
LIMA (AFP) - A powerful earthquake devastated several Peruvian cities killing at least 337 people in toppled buildings and forcing the government to declare a state of emergency on Thursday.As many as 1,000 people were injured and tens of thousands of panicked residents flocked onto the streets fearing aftershocks, after the 7.9-magnitude quake rattled the country for two terrifying minutes late Wednesday.The towns of Pisco, Chincha, and other localities in Peru's southern coastal region were said to be in ruins after the biggest earthquake to hit the South American nation in decades.Buildings left standing had their windows smashed and trees were toppled.
In the coastal city of Ica, 300 kilometers (190 miles) south of Lima, the Senor de Luren church collapsed during a service, killing at least four worshippers and injuring dozens.The nearby city of Pisco was also hit hard with many people killed in their homes as roofs caved in.The government sent a convoy of trucks to the region carrying medical supplies, doctors and nurses.The quake and aftershocks sparked panic in the capital, Lima, where people camped on the streets for hours after the first big tremor and most buildings were evacuated as a precaution.Cut telephone lines were slowly reconnected in the capital but power and water services continued.The quake struck just offshore at 6:41pm (2341 GMT) and prompted evacuations along the Pacific coast because of fears of a tsunami. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later lifted its warnings.
The government declared its highest state of emergency as authorities grappled with collapsed buildings and cut power and telephone lines.Hospitals around the country were put on high alert amid predictions the death toll would rise and the health ministry made an emergency appeal for blood donations.A strike launched Wednesday by some health workers was called off so all doctors and nurses could help with the emergency and the authorities closed schools to avoid the risk of new casualties in the quake ruins.President Alan Garcia went on national television to appeal for calm.
Fortunately, the number of dead is not high for a quake of this power, he said. Thanks to God almighty, it has not been as serious as in the past.Peru has long lived in fear of a repeat of a 1970 earthquake killed 70,000 people, many of whom perished in the mountain city of Huaraz which was buried by a mudslide.A 2001 earthquake in the southern Peruvian state of Arequipa killed 75 people and destroyed 25,000 homes.The quake measured 7.9 on the moment magnitude scale, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Peruvian authorities said it measured 7.7 on the open-ended Richter scale. The epicentre was offshore about 148 kilometers (92 miles) southwest of Lima at a depth of 40 kilometers (25 miles), according to USGS.
A second 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck about an hour and 20 minutes later near the same location and at a depth of 10 kilometers (0.6 miles).Late Wednesday, the country was rattled by a 5.6 magnitude aftershock near the coast of central Peru.
Nearly 40 minutes after the first quake, tsunami warnings were issued for the 11 countries on the Pacific south of the United States, especially Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.The Colombian government evacuated buildings in the port cities of Tumaco, Buenaventura and Bahia Solano. Peruvian authorities told residents of La Punta district, in the port of Callao which serves Lima, to leave their homes.
Although a subsequent advisory from the center stated that sea level and subsurface instruments indicated a tsunami had been generated by the quake, the warning was cancelled at 0209 GMT.
EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH
GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
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.
Texas braces for Tropical Storm Erin; hurricane Dean forms in open Atlantic
By Elizabeth White AUG 16,07
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) - Some vacationers packed up while others vowed to wait out Tropical Storm Erin and its torrential rainfall as it headed for flood-weary Texas early Thursday. Meanwhile, hurricane Dean formed in the open Atlantic and headed toward the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, forecasters said. Erin was not expected to gain hurricane strength before making landfall Thursday morning, which was why some said they wouldn't abandon long-planned trips to Texas' coast. It's not a hurricane. I ain't worried. If they say don't evacuate, I'm not going to worry about it, said Matt Sandlin of Amarillo, who was on a beach near Corpus Christi with his family on Wednesday as the wind whipped up and the horizon darkened with clouds. Unless I see a shark or whale go flying by, I'm good.Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency vehicles and personnel, including National Guard troops, to the Harlingen and Corpus Christi areas. Because storms have saturated much of our state this summer, many communities in this storm's projected path are at high risk of dangerous flash flooding,Perry said in a statement.
Early Thursday, the National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for six counties along the Texas coast near the anticipated landfall of the storm. Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, the top elected official for the state's southernmost county, urged residents to evacuate trailers and mobile homes on South Padre Island.
Corpus Christi hadn't asked for any evacuations, said Ted Nelson, a city spokesman, and was keeping only a handful of people at the emergency operations centre overnight. We're just advising folks to review their own personal emergency plans and look around your yard and remove any loose items, he said. Nelson said that with 3½ months left in the Atlantic hurricane season, the incoming storm was a nice little wake-up call for people to make sure they are prepared for more severe weather.
Some weren't taking any chances.
We came out to get as much beach time in as possible, said John Cullison of the Dallas area, who was vacationing with his family and planned to leave southern Texas Thursday instead of Friday. After the hurricanes from a few years ago, you have to take it kind of serious.Erin formed late Tuesday as the fifth depression of the Atlantic hurricane season and was upgraded to a tropical storm Wednesday when its maximum sustained speed hit 64 km/h. The threshold for tropical storm status is 62 km/h. At 5 a.m., the storm was centred about 4 southeast of Corpus Christi and about 1 southwest of Galveston, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Its top wind speed remained at 64 km/h. Erin was moving toward the west-northwest at around 19 km/h and was expected to continue following that track for at least 24 hours. Erin was likely too close to land to gain enough wind speed to become a hurricane, which would require sustained winds of at least 119 km/h, said National Weather Service forecaster Tony Abbott in Brownsville. But the centre said late Wednesday it could strengthen slightly before landfall.
Isolated tornadoes were possible along the middle Texas Gulf Coast on Thursday, the centre said. In the Caribbean, hurricane warnings were issued for the islands of Dominica and St. Lucia by their local governments as Hurricane Dean approached. Hurricane watches were in effect for the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and its dependencies, Saba and St. Eustaties. At 5 a.m., Dean was centred about 780 kilometres east of Barbados and about 950 kilometres east of Martinique, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was moving west near 39 km/h, and was expected to continue the same path for the next 24 hours. Maximum sustained winds were near 120 km/h, above the threshold for a hurricane. Dean is a Category 1 hurricane and is expected to strengthen during the next 24 hours, forecasters said. Out in the Gulf, Shell Oil Co. evacuated 188 people from offshore facilities in the path of Tropical Storm Erin. A tropical storm warning was posted for the Texas coast from San Luis Pass, about 80 kilometres southwest of Houston, southward to the border. A tropical storm warning means that tropical storm conditions are expected within 24 hours. A tropical storm watch for northern Mexico was cancelled.
As much as 200 millimetres of rain was possible along the middle Texas coast, the hurricane centre said, with a storm surge of just under a metre above normal tide levels north of where the centre makes landfall. The U.S. Census Bureau said Wednesday that four million people could feel the storm's effects. A series of storms this summer poured record rainfall across Texas and parts of Oklahoma and Kansas, with one July storm dropping more than 430 millimetres of rain in 24 hours. Flooding was widespread across all three states. It brought Texas out of drought status for the first time in more than a decade. At least 16 deaths have been blamed on flooding since mid-June. In the Pacific, Flossie was downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical depression, a day after sideswiping Hawaii's Big Island with only intermittent rain and moderate winds.
It was a close call: Flossie approached the biggest and southernmost of the Hawaiian Islands with winds as high as 225 kilometres per hour earlier in the week, making it a Category 4 storm. If it had made landfall, the powerful hurricane would have been the first to hit the isles since Iniki slammed Kauai in 1992, killing six people.
The storm that never was, said Karin Funai as she chatted with friends over coffee at the Pahala Town Cafe. This was nothing.Hurricane specialists expect this year's Atlantic hurricane season - June 1 to Nov. 30 -to be busier than average, with as many as 16 tropical storms, nine of them strengthening into hurricanes. Ten tropical storms developed in the Atlantic last year, but only two made landfall in the United States.
Almost 300 dead or missing in N Korea floods AUG 16,07
SEOUL (AFP) - Almost 300 people are dead or missing in floods in North Korea, an aid agency said Thursday, as the communist state painted a grim picture of inundated crops and homes, flooded mines and washed-out roads.The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said 214 were killed and 80 are missing in what it has called the worst floods to hit the impoverished country in a decade.
The acting head of the IFRC delegation in Pyongyang, Terje Lysholm, told AFP by phone that the figures -- the first detailed casualty count -- came from the government.Some 300,000 people are homeless, according to official data, and 11 percent of the grain harvest -- equivalent to some 450,000 tons -- was lost in a country which already needs foreign aid to feed its people.
In the latest unusually detailed report from the reclusive state, an official broadcasting station said main roads, including one linking the capital Pyongyang to the eastern city of Wonsan, were badly damaged.Korean People's Army soldiers are also out in force to stage hectic struggles to restore roads, it said, as quoted by Seoul's Yonhap news agency.Parts of the showpiece capital lost power, and bus and subway services were hit, Kim Sung-Gwan of the electric power ministry told Pyongyang radio.Power equipment in the western provinces of North Hwanghae and South Pyongan was inundated or damaged.Some 46,580 homes of 88,400 families were destroyed or damaged, 400 commercial plants and 20 mines were flooded and landslides cut railways in 43 places, official media said.The IFRC has said at least 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of farmland were inundated but it reported improved weather Thursday.
The situation is better, there is no rain today and the Taedong river level has decreased a lot, Lysholm said, referring to the river which flows through the capital.North Korea faced a food shortfall this year of one million tonnes, or 20 percent of its needs, even before the floods hit. It suffered a famine in the mid- to late 1990s which killed hundreds of thousands.The World Food Programme said it has proposed an emergency programme to feed 500,000 people for a month and is awaiting Pyongyang's response.If the North approves this, the WFP will immediately launch an international appeal for funds to avoid having to cut back on its existing programme, said its regional spokesman Paul Risley.The UN agency currently feeds 750,000 people, mainly children and pregnant or nursing women, and plans to expand this to 1.9 million by next month.Risley told AFP the speed with which Pyongyang publicised damage could indicate the severity of the situation.Political developments may also have increased the government's willingness to work more closely with international organisations, he said, citing the North's commitment to denuclearise and the upcoming inter-Korean summit.But some analysts say the North may have exaggerated damage to secure aid.
North Korea in recent years has tended to exaggerate losses from natural disasters to obtain as much outside aid as possible, Professor Nam Sung-Wook of Korea University told AFP.Lee Young-Hoon, an expert on North Korea at the central bank, could not say if damage had been exaggerated but added that flooding was largely man-made.Since the North reached out to the outside for help following the disasters in the mid-1990s, it has been pretty open about any damage from natural disasters, apparently being conscious of outside aid, he said.Much of the blame for the damage should be put on the disastrous failure in policies, especially in agriculture, Lee said.Because of the silt from deforested mountains and terraced rice paddies, riverbeds are rising every year.Trees are cut both to clear land for agriculture and for fuel in the energy-starved country
COUNTRIES WITH ISRAEL
EZEKIEL 38:10-19
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 (Russia) 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.
13 Sheba, and Dedan,(SAUDIA ARABIA) and the merchants of Tarshish,(ENGLAND) with all the young lions thereof,(USA,CANADA,AUSTRALIA,NEW ZEALAND,EU,ENGLISH SPEAKING shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?
14 Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
15 And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army:
16 And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
17 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?
18 And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face.
19 For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;
Israel and United States sign record-high military aid deal
By Aron Heller AUG 16,07
JERUSALEM (AP) - The United States offered Israel on Thursday an unprecedented $30-billion military aid package, bolstering its closest Mideast ally. The aid deal signed in a ceremony in Jerusalem represents a 25 per cent rise in U.S. military aid to Israel, from a current $2.4 billion each year to $3 billion a year over 10 years.
Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Israeli Foreign Minister Director-General Aharon Abramovitz signed the memorandum of understanding on the assistance at a ceremony in Jerusalem. The package was meant in part to offset U.S. plans to offer Saudi Arabia advanced weapons and air systems that would greatly improve the Arab country's air force. Israel has said it has no opposition to the U.S. aid to Saudi Arabia, which comes as the United States strengthens moderate Arabs in facing the growing influence of Iran.
The U.S. administration sees the regional threats to Israel - namely Iran, and the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups - as threats to the United States as well, Burns said. We look at this region and we see that a secure and strong Israel is in the interest of the United States, Burns said. The chief of Israel's central bank, Stanley Fischer, said the U.S. aid is of critical importance to Israel, whose defence budget constitutes about 10 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product. The aid package to Israel was finalized in June in Washington between U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert has said the increase in military aid to Israel would guarantee its strategic superiority, despite upgrades to Arab countries in the region.
The U.S. has long-standing commitments to Israel and to Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel. Egypt currently gets $1.3 billion a year in military assistance. At the same time, the U.S. is seeking to strengthen other moderate Mideast allies, largely as a counterweight to Iran's growing influence. The United States and Israel accuse Iran of developing nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran denies. Iran, whose leader has repeatedly called for Israel to be to wiped off the map, is viewed by Israel as its main enemy. Shiite Muslim Iran also concerns the Saudis and other Sunni-led Arab allies of the United States. The Bush administration must still receive Congressional approval for the aide deals, but Burns said he believed there would be little opposition in the Senate and House to the Israeli package.
HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER
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.
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.
Stocks fall despite Fed’s $7 billion repo
Dow closes below 13,000 amid bad housing news, surge in price of oil
Updated: 4:46 p.m. ET Aug 15, 2007
NEW YORK - Wall Street tumbled again Wednesday after the Federal Reserve added more cash to the banking system but failed to quash investors’ jitters about problems in lending.The market traded nervously, jerking the Dow Jones industrial average above and below the 13,000 mark throughout the day as investors wrestled with reports about potential trouble at Countrywide Financial Corp. and KKR Financial Holdings LLC.By late in the day, investors saw little reason to buy beyond the fact that stocks are at bargain prices right now; but that wasn’t enough for the market to hold any gains, and so the Dow dropped about 170 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index also dropped sharply, and is now down for the year.
Central banks worldwide have supplied billions of funds to banks over the past week to make cash available for lending and keep interest rates stable amid signs that credit was drying up. On Wednesday, the Fed said it would accept a repo of $7 billion, in which it buys that amount in securities from dealers, who then deposit the money into commercial banks.Still, the Fed has not indicated that it will free up more cash by making an interest rate cut at its Sept. 18 meeting, a move that many on Wall Street believe could stoke a stock recovery. Inflation has been keeping the central bank from lowering rates; the Labor Department said Wednesday its Consumer Price Index rose a mild 0.1 percent in July, as expected, but energy prices remain high.
Yes, the market would probably move dramatically higher if they made a cut, said Linda Duessel, market strategist at Federated Investors in Pittsburgh. “But I think it’s more prudent to allow this correction to continue to unfold. After all, we’re in the month of August and coming into September — historically, the weakest months of the year. The market has been in need of a correction.According to preliminary calculations, the Dow fell 167.45, or 1.29 percent, to 12,861.47, closing below 13,000 for the first time since April 24 and continuing a weeks-long pattern of triple-digit moves. The blue chip index is more than 8 percent below its record close above 14,000 reached in mid-July.Broader stock indicators also fell. The S&P 500 index dropped 19.84, or 1.39 percent, to 1,406.70, and the Nasdaq composite index lost 40.29, or 1.61 percent, to 2,458.83.
Bonds rose, moving in the opposite direction as stocks. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.71 percent from 4.73 percent late Tuesday.The Dow rose as many as 90 points Wednesday, as investors searched for bargains among hard-hit stocks.The most savvy investors are seeing an opportunity with the increase in volatility. Individuals not as used to this are having trouble navigating through it, said James Smothermon, Charles Schwab’s active trading and investing strategist. He said clients have been changing their strategies through tactics like buying insurance on their portfolios and buying put options, or contracts that let an investor sell part of an asset at a set price within a certain time period.But ultimately, investors sold off, focusing on the possibility of problems at lenders like Countrywide Financial. Merrill Lynch issued a sell rating on the stock, kindling worries about the biggest U.S. home lender’s ability to raise cash to secure short-term funds.
Countrywide sank $3.17, or 13 percent, to $21.19.
In another sign that the market’s lending woes are far from over, KKR Financial said it sold about $5.1 billion in residential mortgage loans in a move that will result in a $40 million loss for the specialty finance firm. KKR fell $4.76, or 31 percent, to $10.52.Meanwhile, the housing market outlook remains grim. National Association of Home Builders said its housing market index, which tracks builders’ perceptions of current market conditions and expectations for home sales over the next six months, dropped this month to the lowest reading since January 1991. It was the sixth straight monthly decline.Crude futures rose 95 cents to $73.33 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after momentarily surpassing $74. The National Hurricane Center said Tropical Storm Dean, strengthening in the Caribbean and heading west, could be a major hurricane by Thursday, while Tropical Storm Erin entered the Gulf of Mexico. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 11.33, or 1.49 percent, to 751.54.Declining issues outnumbered advancers by 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where trading volume came to 1.99 billion shares, up from 1.6 billion Tuesday.Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average slid 2.19 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.56 percent, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.28 percent, and France’s CAC-40 dropped 0.66 percent.
World stocks plummet yet again AUG 16,07
LONDON (AFP) - Global share prices tumbled again on Thursday, with a brutal round of losses in Asia and Europe as investors took flight on fears of fallout from the US housing market crisis.Traders are worried about a global credit squeeze as more banks and investment funds around the world reveal their exposure to the slumping US subprime or high-risk home loan sector, analysts said.From London to Tokyo, Shanghai to Mumbai and Hong Kong to Sydney, weary traders' screens were awash with red again on Thursday as fears over US housing continued to buffet stock markets.Across Europe, markets nursed more heavy losses after further dramatic falls in Asia that were sparked by yet another overnight slump in New York.All eyes remained on Wall Street where credit market anxiety gripped investors again Wednesday as the fear of the unknown prompted a flight to safe haven assets such as government bonds. US markets reopen at 1330 GMT.
The mood changed again on Wall Street ahead of last night's close, with another sustained run of selling as traders remain somewhat unsure of the extent of the credit squeeze and sub-prime fallout, said CMC Markets trader Adam Neal in London on Thursday.French President Nicolas Sarkozy, meanwhile, called for the Group of Seven most industrialised nations to take steps to improve transparency in world markets in the wake of the US home loan crisis.Markets have buckled under a fresh wave of selling as the growing fallout from turmoil in US credit markets prompted investors to flee to safe havens such as bonds.Australian home loan group RAMS sparked fresh jitters after it failed to roll over five billion US dollars in debt due to worries over the US credit crunch.In early deals on Thursday, London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares slumped as much as 2.3 percent to 5,968.80 points -- the lowest level since October 5, 2006.That was the first time the FTSE has fallen beneath 6,000 points since March 5 earlier this year. The index later stood at 5,984.60 points.
In Frankfurt, the DAX 30 index dived 1.91 percent to 7,303.77 points, and the Paris CAC 40 tumbled 2.27 percent to 5,319.15 points.Markets in Amsterdam, Madrid, Milan and Stockholm all registered steep losses of around 2.0 percent in early trade.There has been no let up in the financial market turmoil with equity markets in the US last night and Asia today all lower underlining the fact that fears and uncertainty remain to the fore, said economist Derek Halpenny at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
In a nerve-wracking day for investors, Seoul reeled from its biggest ever one-day plunge in terms of points, ending down 6.93 percent.And South Korean shares tumbled almost 7.0 percent, posting their biggest ever one-day point decline.Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei-225 index fell below the key 16,000-point level for the first time since November before clawing back to end down 1.99 percent.
Hong Kong shares tumbled 3.3 percent, the Chinese market dived by 2.14 percent and Singapore shed 3.86 percent.A fresh 400-billion-yen (3.4 billion dollars) injection of funds into the banking system by the Bank of Japan failed to calm frayed nerves.
New York stocks had fallen sharply on Wednesday on fresh anxiety about the credit market, despite the US Federal Reserve's seven-billion-dollar cash infusion to support the financial system.The US Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1.29 percent to end at 12,859.19 points -- the fifth straight closing loss and the first time since late April it closed below 13,000.Market watchers said that confidence had drained out of the markets, so even though many stocks look cheap there is no obvious trigger on the horizon for a rebound.Meanwhile, crude oil prices fell heavily as traders fretted that the turmoil on global markets could crimp economic growth and demand for energy.
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Peru earthquake kills more than 300 AUG 16,07
LIMA (AFP) - A powerful earthquake devastated several Peruvian cities killing at least 337 people in toppled buildings and forcing the government to declare a state of emergency on Thursday.As many as 1,000 people were injured and tens of thousands of panicked residents flocked onto the streets fearing aftershocks, after the 7.9-magnitude quake rattled the country for two terrifying minutes late Wednesday.The towns of Pisco, Chincha, and other localities in Peru's southern coastal region were said to be in ruins after the biggest earthquake to hit the South American nation in decades.Buildings left standing had their windows smashed and trees were toppled.
In the coastal city of Ica, 300 kilometers (190 miles) south of Lima, the Senor de Luren church collapsed during a service, killing at least four worshippers and injuring dozens.The nearby city of Pisco was also hit hard with many people killed in their homes as roofs caved in.The government sent a convoy of trucks to the region carrying medical supplies, doctors and nurses.The quake and aftershocks sparked panic in the capital, Lima, where people camped on the streets for hours after the first big tremor and most buildings were evacuated as a precaution.Cut telephone lines were slowly reconnected in the capital but power and water services continued.The quake struck just offshore at 6:41pm (2341 GMT) and prompted evacuations along the Pacific coast because of fears of a tsunami. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later lifted its warnings.
The government declared its highest state of emergency as authorities grappled with collapsed buildings and cut power and telephone lines.Hospitals around the country were put on high alert amid predictions the death toll would rise and the health ministry made an emergency appeal for blood donations.A strike launched Wednesday by some health workers was called off so all doctors and nurses could help with the emergency and the authorities closed schools to avoid the risk of new casualties in the quake ruins.President Alan Garcia went on national television to appeal for calm.
Fortunately, the number of dead is not high for a quake of this power, he said. Thanks to God almighty, it has not been as serious as in the past.Peru has long lived in fear of a repeat of a 1970 earthquake killed 70,000 people, many of whom perished in the mountain city of Huaraz which was buried by a mudslide.A 2001 earthquake in the southern Peruvian state of Arequipa killed 75 people and destroyed 25,000 homes.The quake measured 7.9 on the moment magnitude scale, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Peruvian authorities said it measured 7.7 on the open-ended Richter scale. The epicentre was offshore about 148 kilometers (92 miles) southwest of Lima at a depth of 40 kilometers (25 miles), according to USGS.
A second 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck about an hour and 20 minutes later near the same location and at a depth of 10 kilometers (0.6 miles).Late Wednesday, the country was rattled by a 5.6 magnitude aftershock near the coast of central Peru.
Nearly 40 minutes after the first quake, tsunami warnings were issued for the 11 countries on the Pacific south of the United States, especially Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.The Colombian government evacuated buildings in the port cities of Tumaco, Buenaventura and Bahia Solano. Peruvian authorities told residents of La Punta district, in the port of Callao which serves Lima, to leave their homes.
Although a subsequent advisory from the center stated that sea level and subsurface instruments indicated a tsunami had been generated by the quake, the warning was cancelled at 0209 GMT.
EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH
GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
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.
Texas braces for Tropical Storm Erin; hurricane Dean forms in open Atlantic
By Elizabeth White AUG 16,07
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) - Some vacationers packed up while others vowed to wait out Tropical Storm Erin and its torrential rainfall as it headed for flood-weary Texas early Thursday. Meanwhile, hurricane Dean formed in the open Atlantic and headed toward the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, forecasters said. Erin was not expected to gain hurricane strength before making landfall Thursday morning, which was why some said they wouldn't abandon long-planned trips to Texas' coast. It's not a hurricane. I ain't worried. If they say don't evacuate, I'm not going to worry about it, said Matt Sandlin of Amarillo, who was on a beach near Corpus Christi with his family on Wednesday as the wind whipped up and the horizon darkened with clouds. Unless I see a shark or whale go flying by, I'm good.Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency vehicles and personnel, including National Guard troops, to the Harlingen and Corpus Christi areas. Because storms have saturated much of our state this summer, many communities in this storm's projected path are at high risk of dangerous flash flooding,Perry said in a statement.
Early Thursday, the National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for six counties along the Texas coast near the anticipated landfall of the storm. Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, the top elected official for the state's southernmost county, urged residents to evacuate trailers and mobile homes on South Padre Island.
Corpus Christi hadn't asked for any evacuations, said Ted Nelson, a city spokesman, and was keeping only a handful of people at the emergency operations centre overnight. We're just advising folks to review their own personal emergency plans and look around your yard and remove any loose items, he said. Nelson said that with 3½ months left in the Atlantic hurricane season, the incoming storm was a nice little wake-up call for people to make sure they are prepared for more severe weather.
Some weren't taking any chances.
We came out to get as much beach time in as possible, said John Cullison of the Dallas area, who was vacationing with his family and planned to leave southern Texas Thursday instead of Friday. After the hurricanes from a few years ago, you have to take it kind of serious.Erin formed late Tuesday as the fifth depression of the Atlantic hurricane season and was upgraded to a tropical storm Wednesday when its maximum sustained speed hit 64 km/h. The threshold for tropical storm status is 62 km/h. At 5 a.m., the storm was centred about 4 southeast of Corpus Christi and about 1 southwest of Galveston, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Its top wind speed remained at 64 km/h. Erin was moving toward the west-northwest at around 19 km/h and was expected to continue following that track for at least 24 hours. Erin was likely too close to land to gain enough wind speed to become a hurricane, which would require sustained winds of at least 119 km/h, said National Weather Service forecaster Tony Abbott in Brownsville. But the centre said late Wednesday it could strengthen slightly before landfall.
Isolated tornadoes were possible along the middle Texas Gulf Coast on Thursday, the centre said. In the Caribbean, hurricane warnings were issued for the islands of Dominica and St. Lucia by their local governments as Hurricane Dean approached. Hurricane watches were in effect for the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and its dependencies, Saba and St. Eustaties. At 5 a.m., Dean was centred about 780 kilometres east of Barbados and about 950 kilometres east of Martinique, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was moving west near 39 km/h, and was expected to continue the same path for the next 24 hours. Maximum sustained winds were near 120 km/h, above the threshold for a hurricane. Dean is a Category 1 hurricane and is expected to strengthen during the next 24 hours, forecasters said. Out in the Gulf, Shell Oil Co. evacuated 188 people from offshore facilities in the path of Tropical Storm Erin. A tropical storm warning was posted for the Texas coast from San Luis Pass, about 80 kilometres southwest of Houston, southward to the border. A tropical storm warning means that tropical storm conditions are expected within 24 hours. A tropical storm watch for northern Mexico was cancelled.
As much as 200 millimetres of rain was possible along the middle Texas coast, the hurricane centre said, with a storm surge of just under a metre above normal tide levels north of where the centre makes landfall. The U.S. Census Bureau said Wednesday that four million people could feel the storm's effects. A series of storms this summer poured record rainfall across Texas and parts of Oklahoma and Kansas, with one July storm dropping more than 430 millimetres of rain in 24 hours. Flooding was widespread across all three states. It brought Texas out of drought status for the first time in more than a decade. At least 16 deaths have been blamed on flooding since mid-June. In the Pacific, Flossie was downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical depression, a day after sideswiping Hawaii's Big Island with only intermittent rain and moderate winds.
It was a close call: Flossie approached the biggest and southernmost of the Hawaiian Islands with winds as high as 225 kilometres per hour earlier in the week, making it a Category 4 storm. If it had made landfall, the powerful hurricane would have been the first to hit the isles since Iniki slammed Kauai in 1992, killing six people.
The storm that never was, said Karin Funai as she chatted with friends over coffee at the Pahala Town Cafe. This was nothing.Hurricane specialists expect this year's Atlantic hurricane season - June 1 to Nov. 30 -to be busier than average, with as many as 16 tropical storms, nine of them strengthening into hurricanes. Ten tropical storms developed in the Atlantic last year, but only two made landfall in the United States.
Almost 300 dead or missing in N Korea floods AUG 16,07
SEOUL (AFP) - Almost 300 people are dead or missing in floods in North Korea, an aid agency said Thursday, as the communist state painted a grim picture of inundated crops and homes, flooded mines and washed-out roads.The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said 214 were killed and 80 are missing in what it has called the worst floods to hit the impoverished country in a decade.
The acting head of the IFRC delegation in Pyongyang, Terje Lysholm, told AFP by phone that the figures -- the first detailed casualty count -- came from the government.Some 300,000 people are homeless, according to official data, and 11 percent of the grain harvest -- equivalent to some 450,000 tons -- was lost in a country which already needs foreign aid to feed its people.
In the latest unusually detailed report from the reclusive state, an official broadcasting station said main roads, including one linking the capital Pyongyang to the eastern city of Wonsan, were badly damaged.Korean People's Army soldiers are also out in force to stage hectic struggles to restore roads, it said, as quoted by Seoul's Yonhap news agency.Parts of the showpiece capital lost power, and bus and subway services were hit, Kim Sung-Gwan of the electric power ministry told Pyongyang radio.Power equipment in the western provinces of North Hwanghae and South Pyongan was inundated or damaged.Some 46,580 homes of 88,400 families were destroyed or damaged, 400 commercial plants and 20 mines were flooded and landslides cut railways in 43 places, official media said.The IFRC has said at least 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of farmland were inundated but it reported improved weather Thursday.
The situation is better, there is no rain today and the Taedong river level has decreased a lot, Lysholm said, referring to the river which flows through the capital.North Korea faced a food shortfall this year of one million tonnes, or 20 percent of its needs, even before the floods hit. It suffered a famine in the mid- to late 1990s which killed hundreds of thousands.The World Food Programme said it has proposed an emergency programme to feed 500,000 people for a month and is awaiting Pyongyang's response.If the North approves this, the WFP will immediately launch an international appeal for funds to avoid having to cut back on its existing programme, said its regional spokesman Paul Risley.The UN agency currently feeds 750,000 people, mainly children and pregnant or nursing women, and plans to expand this to 1.9 million by next month.Risley told AFP the speed with which Pyongyang publicised damage could indicate the severity of the situation.Political developments may also have increased the government's willingness to work more closely with international organisations, he said, citing the North's commitment to denuclearise and the upcoming inter-Korean summit.But some analysts say the North may have exaggerated damage to secure aid.
North Korea in recent years has tended to exaggerate losses from natural disasters to obtain as much outside aid as possible, Professor Nam Sung-Wook of Korea University told AFP.Lee Young-Hoon, an expert on North Korea at the central bank, could not say if damage had been exaggerated but added that flooding was largely man-made.Since the North reached out to the outside for help following the disasters in the mid-1990s, it has been pretty open about any damage from natural disasters, apparently being conscious of outside aid, he said.Much of the blame for the damage should be put on the disastrous failure in policies, especially in agriculture, Lee said.Because of the silt from deforested mountains and terraced rice paddies, riverbeds are rising every year.Trees are cut both to clear land for agriculture and for fuel in the energy-starved country
COUNTRIES WITH ISRAEL
EZEKIEL 38:10-19
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 (Russia) 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.
13 Sheba, and Dedan,(SAUDIA ARABIA) and the merchants of Tarshish,(ENGLAND) with all the young lions thereof,(USA,CANADA,AUSTRALIA,NEW ZEALAND,EU,ENGLISH SPEAKING shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?
14 Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
15 And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army:
16 And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
17 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?
18 And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face.
19 For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;
Israel and United States sign record-high military aid deal
By Aron Heller AUG 16,07
JERUSALEM (AP) - The United States offered Israel on Thursday an unprecedented $30-billion military aid package, bolstering its closest Mideast ally. The aid deal signed in a ceremony in Jerusalem represents a 25 per cent rise in U.S. military aid to Israel, from a current $2.4 billion each year to $3 billion a year over 10 years.
Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Israeli Foreign Minister Director-General Aharon Abramovitz signed the memorandum of understanding on the assistance at a ceremony in Jerusalem. The package was meant in part to offset U.S. plans to offer Saudi Arabia advanced weapons and air systems that would greatly improve the Arab country's air force. Israel has said it has no opposition to the U.S. aid to Saudi Arabia, which comes as the United States strengthens moderate Arabs in facing the growing influence of Iran.
The U.S. administration sees the regional threats to Israel - namely Iran, and the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups - as threats to the United States as well, Burns said. We look at this region and we see that a secure and strong Israel is in the interest of the United States, Burns said. The chief of Israel's central bank, Stanley Fischer, said the U.S. aid is of critical importance to Israel, whose defence budget constitutes about 10 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product. The aid package to Israel was finalized in June in Washington between U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert has said the increase in military aid to Israel would guarantee its strategic superiority, despite upgrades to Arab countries in the region.
The U.S. has long-standing commitments to Israel and to Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel. Egypt currently gets $1.3 billion a year in military assistance. At the same time, the U.S. is seeking to strengthen other moderate Mideast allies, largely as a counterweight to Iran's growing influence. The United States and Israel accuse Iran of developing nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran denies. Iran, whose leader has repeatedly called for Israel to be to wiped off the map, is viewed by Israel as its main enemy. Shiite Muslim Iran also concerns the Saudis and other Sunni-led Arab allies of the United States. The Bush administration must still receive Congressional approval for the aide deals, but Burns said he believed there would be little opposition in the Senate and House to the Israeli package.
HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER
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.
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.
Stocks fall despite Fed’s $7 billion repo
Dow closes below 13,000 amid bad housing news, surge in price of oil
Updated: 4:46 p.m. ET Aug 15, 2007
NEW YORK - Wall Street tumbled again Wednesday after the Federal Reserve added more cash to the banking system but failed to quash investors’ jitters about problems in lending.The market traded nervously, jerking the Dow Jones industrial average above and below the 13,000 mark throughout the day as investors wrestled with reports about potential trouble at Countrywide Financial Corp. and KKR Financial Holdings LLC.By late in the day, investors saw little reason to buy beyond the fact that stocks are at bargain prices right now; but that wasn’t enough for the market to hold any gains, and so the Dow dropped about 170 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index also dropped sharply, and is now down for the year.
Central banks worldwide have supplied billions of funds to banks over the past week to make cash available for lending and keep interest rates stable amid signs that credit was drying up. On Wednesday, the Fed said it would accept a repo of $7 billion, in which it buys that amount in securities from dealers, who then deposit the money into commercial banks.Still, the Fed has not indicated that it will free up more cash by making an interest rate cut at its Sept. 18 meeting, a move that many on Wall Street believe could stoke a stock recovery. Inflation has been keeping the central bank from lowering rates; the Labor Department said Wednesday its Consumer Price Index rose a mild 0.1 percent in July, as expected, but energy prices remain high.
Yes, the market would probably move dramatically higher if they made a cut, said Linda Duessel, market strategist at Federated Investors in Pittsburgh. “But I think it’s more prudent to allow this correction to continue to unfold. After all, we’re in the month of August and coming into September — historically, the weakest months of the year. The market has been in need of a correction.According to preliminary calculations, the Dow fell 167.45, or 1.29 percent, to 12,861.47, closing below 13,000 for the first time since April 24 and continuing a weeks-long pattern of triple-digit moves. The blue chip index is more than 8 percent below its record close above 14,000 reached in mid-July.Broader stock indicators also fell. The S&P 500 index dropped 19.84, or 1.39 percent, to 1,406.70, and the Nasdaq composite index lost 40.29, or 1.61 percent, to 2,458.83.
Bonds rose, moving in the opposite direction as stocks. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.71 percent from 4.73 percent late Tuesday.The Dow rose as many as 90 points Wednesday, as investors searched for bargains among hard-hit stocks.The most savvy investors are seeing an opportunity with the increase in volatility. Individuals not as used to this are having trouble navigating through it, said James Smothermon, Charles Schwab’s active trading and investing strategist. He said clients have been changing their strategies through tactics like buying insurance on their portfolios and buying put options, or contracts that let an investor sell part of an asset at a set price within a certain time period.But ultimately, investors sold off, focusing on the possibility of problems at lenders like Countrywide Financial. Merrill Lynch issued a sell rating on the stock, kindling worries about the biggest U.S. home lender’s ability to raise cash to secure short-term funds.
Countrywide sank $3.17, or 13 percent, to $21.19.
In another sign that the market’s lending woes are far from over, KKR Financial said it sold about $5.1 billion in residential mortgage loans in a move that will result in a $40 million loss for the specialty finance firm. KKR fell $4.76, or 31 percent, to $10.52.Meanwhile, the housing market outlook remains grim. National Association of Home Builders said its housing market index, which tracks builders’ perceptions of current market conditions and expectations for home sales over the next six months, dropped this month to the lowest reading since January 1991. It was the sixth straight monthly decline.Crude futures rose 95 cents to $73.33 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after momentarily surpassing $74. The National Hurricane Center said Tropical Storm Dean, strengthening in the Caribbean and heading west, could be a major hurricane by Thursday, while Tropical Storm Erin entered the Gulf of Mexico. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 11.33, or 1.49 percent, to 751.54.Declining issues outnumbered advancers by 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where trading volume came to 1.99 billion shares, up from 1.6 billion Tuesday.Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average slid 2.19 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.56 percent, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.28 percent, and France’s CAC-40 dropped 0.66 percent.
World stocks plummet yet again AUG 16,07
LONDON (AFP) - Global share prices tumbled again on Thursday, with a brutal round of losses in Asia and Europe as investors took flight on fears of fallout from the US housing market crisis.Traders are worried about a global credit squeeze as more banks and investment funds around the world reveal their exposure to the slumping US subprime or high-risk home loan sector, analysts said.From London to Tokyo, Shanghai to Mumbai and Hong Kong to Sydney, weary traders' screens were awash with red again on Thursday as fears over US housing continued to buffet stock markets.Across Europe, markets nursed more heavy losses after further dramatic falls in Asia that were sparked by yet another overnight slump in New York.All eyes remained on Wall Street where credit market anxiety gripped investors again Wednesday as the fear of the unknown prompted a flight to safe haven assets such as government bonds. US markets reopen at 1330 GMT.
The mood changed again on Wall Street ahead of last night's close, with another sustained run of selling as traders remain somewhat unsure of the extent of the credit squeeze and sub-prime fallout, said CMC Markets trader Adam Neal in London on Thursday.French President Nicolas Sarkozy, meanwhile, called for the Group of Seven most industrialised nations to take steps to improve transparency in world markets in the wake of the US home loan crisis.Markets have buckled under a fresh wave of selling as the growing fallout from turmoil in US credit markets prompted investors to flee to safe havens such as bonds.Australian home loan group RAMS sparked fresh jitters after it failed to roll over five billion US dollars in debt due to worries over the US credit crunch.In early deals on Thursday, London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares slumped as much as 2.3 percent to 5,968.80 points -- the lowest level since October 5, 2006.That was the first time the FTSE has fallen beneath 6,000 points since March 5 earlier this year. The index later stood at 5,984.60 points.
In Frankfurt, the DAX 30 index dived 1.91 percent to 7,303.77 points, and the Paris CAC 40 tumbled 2.27 percent to 5,319.15 points.Markets in Amsterdam, Madrid, Milan and Stockholm all registered steep losses of around 2.0 percent in early trade.There has been no let up in the financial market turmoil with equity markets in the US last night and Asia today all lower underlining the fact that fears and uncertainty remain to the fore, said economist Derek Halpenny at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
In a nerve-wracking day for investors, Seoul reeled from its biggest ever one-day plunge in terms of points, ending down 6.93 percent.And South Korean shares tumbled almost 7.0 percent, posting their biggest ever one-day point decline.Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei-225 index fell below the key 16,000-point level for the first time since November before clawing back to end down 1.99 percent.
Hong Kong shares tumbled 3.3 percent, the Chinese market dived by 2.14 percent and Singapore shed 3.86 percent.A fresh 400-billion-yen (3.4 billion dollars) injection of funds into the banking system by the Bank of Japan failed to calm frayed nerves.
New York stocks had fallen sharply on Wednesday on fresh anxiety about the credit market, despite the US Federal Reserve's seven-billion-dollar cash infusion to support the financial system.The US Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1.29 percent to end at 12,859.19 points -- the fifth straight closing loss and the first time since late April it closed below 13,000.Market watchers said that confidence had drained out of the markets, so even though many stocks look cheap there is no obvious trigger on the horizon for a rebound.Meanwhile, crude oil prices fell heavily as traders fretted that the turmoil on global markets could crimp economic growth and demand for energy.
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