EVENTS IN TIME (BIBLE PROPHECY LITERALLY FULFILLED)(BY GOD)

I WRITE NEWS ABOUT AND PUT NEWS ARTICLES ABOUT ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM PERTAINING TO BIBLE PROPHESY HAPPENINGS.JOEL 3:20 But Judah (ISRAEL) shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.(THATS ISRAEL-JERUSALEM WILL NEVER BE DESTROYED AGAIN)-WE CHRISTIANS ARE ALL WAITING PATIENTLY FOR THE PRE-TRIBULATION RAPTURE TO OCCUR.SO WE CAN GO TO JESUS AND GET OUR NEVER DYING BODIES.SO WE CAN RULE OVER CITIES OURSELVES.WHILE JESUS RULES FROM DAVIDS THRONE FOREVER IN JERUSALEM.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

WHO ARE THE PHILISTINES (PALESTINIANS)

ISRAEL WILL BECOME A NATION. LITERALLY IN THE SPRING.

GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram,(CHANGED TO ABRAHAM LATER) Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:(PALESTINE,ISRAEL)
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

EZEKIEL 36:24
24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.

EZEKIEL 37:9-28
9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds,(ALL THE WORLD) O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.(COME TO LIFE)
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.(ISRAEL WILL HAVE A POWERFUL ARMY)
11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.(BURNED BY HITLER)
12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.(THE DRY BONES COME TO LIFE IN ISRAEL)
13 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,
14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.
15 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.
18 And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?
19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
20 And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.
21 And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
22 And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:
23 Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
24 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.
25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.
26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.
27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

MATTHEW 24:32
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:(ISRAEL WAS LITERALLY REBORN JUST BEFORE SUMMER,MAY 14,1948).

MARK 13:28
28 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:

DANIEL 9:24
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

ISRAEL WILL BE IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM, THE SIGN OF THE START OF THE LAST GENERATION.

LUKE 21:24
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST

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

ISRAELS TROUBLE

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

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

ISRAELS INHERITED LAND IN THE FUTURE

And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.

ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.

12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE

EZEKIEL 47:13-23,48:1-35
13 Thus saith the Lord GOD; This shall be the border, whereby ye shall inherit the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel: Joseph shall have two portions.
14 And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another: concerning the which I lifted up mine hand to give it unto your fathers: and this land shall fall unto you for inheritance.
15 And this shall be the border of the land toward the north side, from the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad;
16 Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazarhatticon, which is by the coast of Hauran.
17 And the border from the sea shall be Hazarenan, the border of Damascus, and the north northward, and the border of Hamath. And this is the north side.
18 And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and from Damascus, and from Gilead, and from the land of Israel by Jordan, from the border unto the east sea. And this is the east side.
19 And the south side southward, from Tamar even to the waters of strife in Kadesh, the river to the great sea. And this is the south side southward.
20 The west side also shall be the great sea from the border, till a man come over against Hamath. This is the west side.
21 So shall ye divide this land unto you according to the tribes of Israel.
22 And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.
23 And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye give him his inheritance, saith the Lord GOD.
1 Now these are the names of the tribes. From the north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazarenan, the border of Damascus northward, to the coast of Hamath; for these are his sides east and west; a portion for Dan.
2 And by the border of Dan, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Asher.
3 And by the border of Asher, from the east side even unto the west side, a portion for Naphtali.
4 And by the border of Naphtali, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Manasseh.
5 And by the border of Manasseh, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Ephraim.
6 And by the border of Ephraim, from the east side even unto the west side, a portion for Reuben.
7 And by the border of Reuben, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Judah.
8 And by the border of Judah, from the east side unto the west side, shall be the offering which ye shall offer of five and twenty thousand reeds in breadth, and in length as one of the other parts, from the east side unto the west side: and the sanctuary shall be in the midst of it.
9 The oblation that ye shall offer unto the LORD shall be of five and twenty thousand in length, and of ten thousand in breadth.
10 And for them, even for the priests, shall be this holy oblation; toward the north five and twenty thousand in length, and toward the west ten thousand in breadth, and toward the east ten thousand in breadth, and toward the south five and twenty thousand in length: and the sanctuary of the LORD shall be in the midst thereof.
11 It shall be for the priests that are sanctified of the sons of Zadok; which have kept my charge, which went not astray when the children of Israel went astray, as the Levites went astray.
12 And this oblation of the land that is offered shall be unto them a thing most holy by the border of the Levites.
13 And over against the border of the priests the Levites shall have five and twenty thousand in length, and ten thousand in breadth: all the length shall be five and twenty thousand, and the breadth ten thousand.
14 And they shall not sell of it, neither exchange, nor alienate the firstfruits of the land: for it is holy unto the LORD.
15 And the five thousand, that are left in the breadth over against the five and twenty thousand, shall be a profane place for the city, for dwelling, and for suburbs: and the city shall be in the midst thereof.
16 And these shall be the measures thereof; the north side four thousand and five hundred, and the south side four thousand and five hundred, and on the east side four thousand and five hundred, and the west side four thousand and five hundred.
17 And the suburbs of the city shall be toward the north two hundred and fifty, and toward the south two hundred and fifty, and toward the east two hundred and fifty, and toward the west two hundred and fifty.
18 And the residue in length over against the oblation of the holy portion shall be ten thousand eastward, and ten thousand westward: and it shall be over against the oblation of the holy portion; and the increase thereof shall be for food unto them that serve the city.
19 And they that serve the city shall serve it out of all the tribes of Israel.
20 All the oblation shall be five and twenty thousand by five and twenty thousand: ye shall offer the holy oblation foursquare, with the possession of the city.
21 And the residue shall be for the prince, on the one side and on the other of the holy oblation, and of the possession of the city, over against the five and twenty thousand of the oblation toward the east border, and westward over against the five and twenty thousand toward the west border, over against the portions for the prince: and it shall be the holy oblation; and the sanctuary of the house shall be in the midst thereof.
22 Moreover from the possession of the Levites, and from the possession of the city, being in the midst of that which is the prince's, between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin, shall be for the prince.
23 As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side unto the west side, Benjamin shall have a portion.
24 And by the border of Benjamin, from the east side unto the west side, Simeon shall have a portion.
25 And by the border of Simeon, from the east side unto the west side, Issachar a portion.
26 And by the border of Issachar, from the east side unto the west side, Zebulun a portion.
27 And by the border of Zebulun, from the east side unto the west side, Gad a portion.
28 And by the border of Gad, at the south side southward, the border shall be even from Tamar unto the waters of strife in Kadesh, and to the river toward the great sea.
29 This is the land which ye shall divide by lot unto the tribes of Israel for inheritance, and these are their portions, saith the Lord GOD.
30 And these are the goings out of the city on the north side, four thousand and five hundred measures.
31 And the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel: three gates northward; one gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one gate of Levi.
32 And at the east side four thousand and five hundred: and three gates; and one gate of Joseph, one gate of Benjamin, one gate of Dan.
33 And at the south side four thousand and five hundred measures: and three gates; one gate of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, one gate of Zebulun.
34 At the west side four thousand and five hundred, with their three gates; one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher, one gate of Naphtali.
35 It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.

NORTHEAST INTELLIGENCE NETWORK
http://homelandsecurityus.com/?p=2672

ON JOHN LOEFFLER THIS WEEK

Global warming was back on the table this week as familiar faces testified before congress about proposed caps and credits legislation. The problem with C&C is that they didn't work in Europe but cause serious increases in energy costs. Richard Loomis from World Energy Source (www.worldenergysource.com) guests in the first hour.

Then we open a new thread on the subject of Christian Zionism. A new movement in evangelical churches seeks to turn opinions against Israel. Dr. Paul Merkley is professor emeritus of history at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and author of Christian Attitudes toward the State of Israel.John's boralogue focuses on the polarization in American politics today and what it means in the light of the onrushing crises we face, given that both parties seem ignorant of the strategic picture where America is.
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2009/04/john-loeffler-steel-on-steel-caps.html#links

Saturday, 25 April 2009 The Merkley Report. Who are the Palestinians?
Paul Charles MERKLEY

Paul Merkley is a retired Professor of History from Carleton University in Ottawa. His teaching specialties were in the History of the United States in the Twentieth Century and in the Religious Factor in American History. He has published scholarly books and articles on Christian theology of History and on aspects of the role of Christian faith in American politics.Paul’s interest in Israel goes back to 1981 when he spent six months with his family in residence as a visiting Professor at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, where he taught courses in History of Religion in the United States. He has made several subsequent research visits to Israel.

Who are the Palestinians? - by Paul Charles Merkley.

Consider this insight into the earliest history of the Arab-Israeli conflict:

The assassination of Arab brethren like Goliath, by Jewish sheep-herders like David, is the sort of shameful ignominy that we must yet set aright in the domain of the occupied Palestinian homeland.Lest anyone imagine that we could simply pass by this sort of imbecility, we have to note that this is an excerpt from a speech [1] by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, who declared himself the champion of the Palestinians at the time of the Camp David Accords (1978), and is today widely acclaimed in the West as a prescient statesman, one of the inaugurators of the effort to achieve peace through negotiation in the Middle East.Sadat’s right to pose as the champion of the Palestinians” was vehemently denied by all the other Arab leaders and indeed the whole Arab world -- and this not because his historical knowledge seemed to any of them to be defective, but, rather because it was not vivid enough. Chairman of the PLO Yassir Arafat, during a press conference, September 2, 1983, at a U.N. meeting in Geneva, Arafat stated:We [the Palestinian people] were under Roman imperialism. We sent a Palestinian fisherman, called St. Peter, to Rome; he not only occupied Rome, but also won the hearts of the people. We know how to resist imperialism and occupation. Jesus Christ was the first Palestinian fedayeen [freedom fighter] who carried his sword along the path on which the Palestinians today carry their cross. [2]Statements like these seem to bear out the thesis of the great archeologist, William Foxwell Albright: that a Moslem historian is a contradiction in terms. The Israeli archeologist, Benjamin Mazar, recalled that Albright liked the Arabs very much ... and knew Arabic. But he used to say that a Moslem is unable to become a historian. He believes in the Koran, and in the Koran, Maryam the sister of Moses, is the mother of Jesus Christ! Now if such a thing is determined as the basis of historical study, how can he be a historian? To become a historian is to escape from Islam.[3]

Prior to the question, Who are the Palestinians,is the question, What is Palestine?

The name Palestine is not an invention of the Arabs. It is an invention of the Romans. The Romans chose the name Palestina precisely because it insulted the Jews and their History, memorializing, as it does, the already long-vanished Philistines. These were the people who had invaded this area from the sea about the same time as the Israelites began their conquest of it by land under Joshua, becoming their long-enduring enemies. The distinct life and culture of the Philistines had been swept away centuries before the Romans showed up. (In recent years, following several spectacular archeological expeditions, it has become possible at last to reconstruct some features of that life and culture.)In the Second Century BC, the name Palestina was applied by the Romans to what had been the homeland of the Jewish nation, as part of a deliberate policy of obliterating remembrance of the Jewish nation from this place where their sovereign Kingdom had once been, and where they had lived continuously as part of the subsequent empires of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ptolemies, Seleucids, and Romans -- this people whose resistance to Rome's tyranny had set such a dangerous example for their other subject peoples. This Roman insult is perpetuated and given yet another twist by the hijacking of the name Palestine by the Arab populations of that part of the world today and by their anti-Zionist supporters elsewhere in the world – and, of course, by the UN. These newly-minted Palestinians have, of course, no more historical connection to the Philistines than do the Jews.Prior to 1948, opposition to the project of the Zionists was carried out in the name of the Arab people -- or the Arab people of Palestine. This terminology reflected the fact that (as Bernard Lewis shows) from the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a large entity.[4] Nowadays, the term Palestinian nation serves to give color to a claim to aboriginal habitation and possession of the vicinity -- as the term “Arab”, of course, does not. Yet, there never was an Arab state of Palestine, or even an Arab nor an Ottoman Province of Palestine. Even the very name Palestine fell into disuse among the Arabs, only to be revived by the British. At that point it was (unwisely) appropriated by the Zionists. They believed that it would strengthen their proprietary claim to the land to employ the local term preferred by the British. All over the political landscape during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, there were organizations like the Palestine League, the Pro-Palestine Committee, the Christian Council on Palestine, the American Christian Palestine Committee, and so on -- and all of them were lobbies on behalf of the Jews, on behalf of Zionism! That's what Palestine and Palestinian meant. (Students who are new to the history of modern Israel usually experience something of a jolt when they first encounter this inversion of nomenclature in the documents.)

Secular Zionists had another motive as well for appropriating the title Palestinian: because the name affirmed contemporary geographical associations it served to distinguish their vision of the past and the future of the Jewish people from that of religiously-inclined Zionists, to whom the reality of past and present belonging of the Jews was better conveyed by the term Eretz Israel. (Incidentally: for a while during the 1920s and 1930s the more zealous secularists took to calling themselves Canaanites -- but that vogue eventually passed.)In any case: this usage (Palestinian for Jewish) was no more accurate from a historical point of view than the current usage (Palestinian for Arab.) But this matter does illustrate a hazard that seems to be peculiar to late Twentieth Century political rhetoric: namely, that, in the absence of general respect for historical knowledge, the key concepts in political discussion are handed down from journalists, who derive them from the slogans of contemporary politicians.Prior to 1967, Arab leaders never talked of a Palestinian nation. In the Arab Covenant of 1919, proposed by the Arab Congress in Jerusalem in 1919, we read: The Arab lands are a complete and indivisible whole, and the divisions of whatever nature to which they have been subjected are not approved or recognized by the Arab nation. In the same year, the General Syrian Congress expressed quite another view: We ask that there should be no separation of the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine. In 1937 the local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul Hadi, testifying before the British Royal (Peel) Commission that was to come up with a partition plan, said: There is no such country as Palestine. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. Palestine is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it.In 1946, another Arab spokesman, Princeton University History professor Philip K. Hitti, then widely regarded as the foremost historian of the Arab people, told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry: There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not. This view had been endorsed in 1939 by the Arab historian George Antonius, who identified Palestine as part of the whole of the country of that name [Syria] which is now split into mandated territories. And as late as 1956 a Saudi Arabian United Nations delegate said: It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria.This is still the real view of Syria’s President Assad, despite that state's window-dressing support of liberated Palestine: Palestine is not only a part of our Arab homeland,Hafez al-Assad used to say, but a basic part of southern Syria.[5]

Sometime after the Six Day War of 1967, Arab rhetoric took a 180 degree turn. Now the Arab-speaking people who were the rightful owners of the vicinity became the Palestinian people, the aboriginal inhabitants. The concept first appears with full clarity in the same Palestinian Covenant that rejects the legitimacy of the concept Jewish people/nation and calls for Israel's destruction. Henceforward, Arab politicians everywhere nodded agreement as Yassir Arafat explained that the Palestinian people were in place before the Jews arrived. They were, moreover, the carriers of a civilization higher than any that has ever been seen anywhere else. This he described before the Assembly of the United Nations 1983:[Before the Jewish invasion, which began in 1881,] Palestine was then a verdant land, inhabited by an Arab people in the course of building its life and enriching its indigenous culture.... It pains our people greatly to witness the propagation of the myth that its homeland was a desert until it was made to bloom by the toil of foreign settlers, that it was a land without a people, and that the settler entity caused no harm to any human being. No, such lies must be exposed from this rostrum for the world must know that Palestine was the cradle of the most ancient cultures and civilizations. Its Arab people were engaged in farming and building, spreading culture throughout the land for thousands of years, setting an example in the practice of religious tolerance and freedom of worship, actions as faithful guardians of the holy places of all religions.... Religious brotherhood was the hall-mark of our Holy City [Jerusalem] before it succumbed to catastrophe. Our people continued to pursue this enlightened policy until the establishment of the state of Israel and their dispersion. This did not deter our people from pursuing their humanitarian role on Palestinian soil. Nor will they permit their land to become a launching pad for aggression or a racist camp for the destruction of civilization, culture, progress and peace. Our people cannot but maintain the privileged task of defending their native land, their Arab nationhood, their culture and civilization, and in safeguarding the cradle of the monotheistic religions. [6]Travelers’ accounts of the land belonging to the period described by Arafat afford quite a different picture. Alphonse Lamartine described the scene in 1835:Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw indeed no living object, heard no living sound. We found the same void, the same silence as we should have found before the entombed gates of Pompeii or Hercalaneum ….A complete, eternal silence reigns in the town, in the highways, in the country … the tomb of a whole people.]

Mark Twain traveled to the Holy Land in 1867 and recorded this:

[It is] Desolate country, whose soil is rich enough, but given over wholly to weeds -- a silent mournful expanse…. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action…. We never saw a human being on the whole route.... There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. [7] These observations, recorded en passage by literary men, may not carry the day with all readers. If so, here is a description dating from 1913, appearing in the records of the Palestine Royal Commission:The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts ... [N]o orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached Yabna village ... Not in a single village in this area was water used for irrigation ... Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen ... sanitary conditions horrible ... schools do not exist ... Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.

And here is a report by the Director of Development, appointed by the British Government, 1933:

We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the prevalent malaria.... The individual plots ... changed hands annually. There was little public security, and the fellahin's lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbours, the Bedouin.Irrefutable testimony to the situation in Palestine at the time of the Mandate is found in the work of Walter Lowdermilk, Assistant Chief of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, and author of foundation scholarly studies on global natural resources. For over twenty years he conducted vast field research on all the inhabited continents to find the lines of causal connection between the use of land and the prosperity of nations. In his book, Palestine: Land of Promise (1944), he draws upon the huge body of field research which he and his associates had done in Palestine under the auspices of the U.S. Conservation Service to review the history of the area of the Mandate as he found it revealed in the archeological record and in the condition of the land in the late 1930s.An Arab legend tells us that once upon a time an angel, carrying a sack of stones, flew over Palestine; suddenly the sack burst and all the stones were strewn about upon the hills. The true story reads differently. Once upon a time the hills of Palestine were covered with rich red earth and protected by forests, smaller vegetation and terraces. Then the trees were cut down, the terraces were neglected, the fertile soil was washed away by rain and finally only the stones were left on the fields.... Two thousand years ago Palestine, with its neighbors, Egypt and Syria, represented one of the most advanced economic areas of the Roman Empire…. [T]he breakdown of agriculture ... took place between the seventh and twentieth centuries [under the early Muslim rulers.] In this period of decay, agriculture, which had previously achieved remarkable refinements in conservation, declined under exploitation by ignorant rulers and repeated invasions of nomads.... After the expulsion of the Crusaders and a new invasion by Arab nomads, the decline of Palestine proceeded at an accelerated pace .... Desert Arabs poured into the land and to the very gates of Jerusalem, stealing and plundering on the roads throughout the country….The country became a desert land with no one to till the soil .… During these years of decline, Palestine had been gradually depopulated; the lowest point was reached about 1850 when the total population was below 200,000. Visiting Mandate Palestine in 1938, Lowdermilk found Jewish colonies struggling to reverse the effects of all those centuries of neglect and abuse of the soil.

[There are] about 300 colonies defying great hardships and applying the principles of co-operation and soil conservation to the old Land of Israel.... Here in one corner of the Near East, thoroughgoing work is in progress to rebuild the fertility of the land instead of condemning it by neglect to further destruction and decay…. Mandate officials had little success in their attempts to get the Arabs to plant trees, even though the seedlings were free and assistance in planting was given…. Along with the need for improved techniques in the use of land and the development of industries, Palestine, like the rest of the Near East, must have a larger population if it is to be restored to full activity and prosperity. [8]A summary of the local history which appears in an official report of the British government in 1937 re-enforces Lowdermilk’s conclusions:In the twelve centuries or more that have passed since the Arab conquest, Palestine has virtually dropped out of history.…In economics as in politics Palestine lay outside the main stream of the world's life. In the realm of thought, in science or in letters, it made no contribution to modern civilization. Its last state was worse than its first. [9]Ignoring these abundantly-recorded realities, champions of Palestinian liberation developed in the 1960s and 1970s the narrative of the Palestinians as the autochthonous population of the region. They are the descendants of the Philistines, and of the Jebusites, its First Nation, present in the land from time immemorial.There are innumerable problems with this historical argument however -- although not markedly greater than those that arise to a thinking person who is asked to consider the claims of all the other tribes and nations of the world who ask us, with a straight face, to consider them autochthonous(which means, self-seeding – a ridiculous term.) The Philistines, according to all reliable historians, were not a Semitic people, but a people of Aegean origin who settled on the southern coast of Palestine in the 12th century BC, shortly before the arrival of the Israelites. The Jebusites, likewise non-Semitic, but also not nearly related to the Philistines, once possessed many of the cities of the highlands of what became Israel, and were finally dislodged from their most important stronghold, Jerusalem, by David, somewhere shortly before 1000 BC.There is an unavoidable logical problem facing anyone wishing to combine this claim to autochthonous standing in the region with the other claim, that of Arab ancestry -- given that none of the oldest pre-Israelite inhabitants seems to have been Semitic at all -- and certainly none were Arabs. Yet, when the polemical occasion requires it, the same Palestinians do double-service as Arabs. Our nation is the Arab nation, extending from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and Beyond, Arafat declaims (on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.) Zuheir Muhsim, member of the PLO Executive Council, March, 1977 let the cat out of the bag long ago:

Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel … In fact, there is no Palestinian people ... Only for political reasons do we speak of a Palestinian identity. [10]The Arabs entered the area with the Moslem conquests in the Seventh Century. During those early years of Arab empire, the vast majority of those subjects of that Empire who lived in the Hold Land were Christians and Jews. Jews and Christians still worked the land during the centuries of early Arab rule because the Arabs, being Bedouins, had only contempt for agricultural life. The probability is that few of the original Arab conquerors of Seventh century survived subsequent wars and disease. In documents deriving from the succeeding period, the word Arab reverts to its earlier meaning of Bedouin or nomad, becoming in effect a social rather than an ethnic term.[11]Arriving in the last decade of the Eleventh Century, the Crusaders (to the everlasting shame of our civilization) carried out a far-reaching slaughter of Muslims in Jerusalem; and thereafter the Latin Crusaders’ oppression of the Eastern Christians (mainly Greek Orthodox and Eastern, and mainly Arab-speaking) reduced the Arab component further. After the Latin Kingdoms had been closed down by Muslim re-conquest, the new rulers replenished the population by introducing Turks, Kurds, Africans, Berbers, Balkan Slavs, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Persians, Georgians, Circassians and many others. Travelers in the region today see the evidence of this abundant racial variety in the faces of the local people.Thus Arab rule (as distinct from rule by subsequent Moslem conquerors who eventually used the Arabic language) is extremely brief -- in fact, coinciding virtually with the years of the regime of the first Muslim conquerors, the Umayyads (660s to 750.)Felix Bovet, a Swiss scholar who visited in 1858, describes the visible impact of Arab conquest thereafter:They pitched their tents in its grazing fields or built their places of refuge in its ruined cities. They created nothing in it. Since they were strangers in the land, they never became its masters. The desert wind that brought them thither could one day carry them away without their leaving behind them any sign of their passage through it. [12]Another way to measure this matter of Arab belonging to the area is this: that, in the twelve centuries of the Arab presence in Palestine before the return of the Jews of modern times, the Arabs built only a single new town: Ramleh.[13]

All responsible debate about what is Palestine and who has rights and what they are in Palestine, begins with the Balfour Declaration of November, 1917:His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
What, then, was this Palestine, to which the Balfour Declaration casually alludes? The last edition we have of the Encyclopedia Britannica prior to the Balfour Declaration defines Palestine as follows:PALESTINE: ... conventionally used as a name for the territory which, in the Old Testament, is claimed as the inheritance of the pre-exilic Jews.... We may describe Palestine as the strip of land extending along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea .... Eastward there is no such definite border. The river Jordan, it is true, marks a delimitation between western and eastern Palestine; but it is practically impossible to say where the latter ends and the Arabian desert begins.In all of the record of all of the deliberations of the British and the French and the Americans leading to the Balfour Declaration it is always taken for granted that what is being proposed is a homeland for the Jews in some part of what (as this encyclopedic definition makes clear) has always been defined as that part of the world where the Jews once had their inheritance. There was simply no other way of defining this area.For over three thousand years, from the time of the conquest of these lands by the Israelites from the Canaanites and the Philistines (and others) until the twentieth century, Israelites have been present in this land. Jews greatly outnumbered Christians in the last centuries of Roman rule inPalestina. The estimated five million Jews who lived there before the Revolts of 66- 70 AD and 132-136 AD were probably reduced, by massacre or by flight, to perhaps three million by the beginning of the Third Century. Roman law forbade them to live in Jerusalem; but after a while the authorities pretended not to notice the remnant that continued to cling to the city during all this period. The centre of Jewish, culture, however, moved to Yavneh, and then to Tiberias and then to Safat in the Galilee.After the conversion of the Empire to Christianity, persecution of the Jews began again - just as the Roman authorities were showing signs of wearying of it. Then, having lived for three centuries in humiliation under Roman-Christian (that is, Byzantine) rule, the Jews made the mistake of showing support for the Persian invaders who overthrew the Byzantines in 611-614. This regime lasted only a little more than a decade, and the Jews paid the price of yet another massacre for their disloyalty when Byzantine rule was restored. When the first of the Moslem conquerors in turn overthrew the Byzantines forever (633), the Jews, much reduced in numbers and in substance, welcomed the restoration of Muslim rule as relatively temperate.

When the Crusaders came, they massacred thousands of the Jews, and forbade the survivors from entering Jerusalem again. This is believed to be the nadir in the story of Jewish presence in the Holy Land. Probably only a few thousand Jews remained in the Holy Land. Again, when Islamic rule returned -- this time under Saladin of Damascus, a Kurd -- the Jews had reason to rejoice in the relative improvement of their condition. Under the Ottomans, Jewish numbers increased again -- perhaps to about 30,000 by 1881. By the middle of the Nineteenth century, the total population of the whole region that became the British mandate of Palestine was about 400,000 -- less than 4% of today's population. By World War I, 600,000 lived in Western Palestine (i.e., present Israel). Of these, about 80,000 were Jews.Anyone who has any respect for the history of that region knows that by the time of the Balfour Declaration of November, 1917, Jews were a minority in Palestine as a whole -- only about 83,000 in 1922. And so one is not surprised to find that the Balfour Declaration clearly says that the work of making a Jewish state here is going to have to deal as justly as possible with the claims of those other populations. The other populations, however, are never identified as the Palestinians -- certainly never by themselves. Apart from small pockets of several other nationalities, the majority were mainly Arabs.Palestine had never been a Province of the Ottoman Empire, and had, indeed, never been governed as a distinct unity but for most of Ottoman history as a region of a large jurisdiction dominated by Syria/Lebanon. Throughout all of the tangled and noisy history of this area from 1917 until 1948 it never occurred to any responsible figure to use the term in any other than a regional-geographical sense.

In 1922, the League of Nations assigned to Great Britain a Mandate on its behalf over Palestine. As defined by that Act, Palestine included what is now Israel, as well as what is now generally (and inaccurately) called the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as everything on the other side of the Jordan all the way to desert portions of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Shortly after, the British government attempted to take into account the unwillingness of the Arab people of Palestine to live in a Jewish state by partitioning this historic region This they did, by severing everything East of the Jordan river, calling that the Kingdom of Transjordan, later Jordan. The portion of land assigned to this kingdom was about four-fifths of the whole of Mandate of Palestine: 35,000 sq. miles. Today, Jordan roughly the population of Israel and is publicly (and gleefully) declared to be free of Jews.Incidentally: most Western commentators and most governments of Western nations as well as the UN, refer to the predominantly Arab-speaking central portions of what was once Palestine as the West Bank, and treat with scorn the use of the terms Judea and Samaria. We are told that use of these terms marks one as a biblical literalist or fundamentalist, and/or as a tool (witting or unwitting) of religious zealots. In fact, Judea and Samaria were the terms used by the British during the Mandate period. These are the terms that appear on the maps. It is the term West Bank which is the politically-loaded newcomer to the debate. Until sometime after 1967, the term West Bank, had application only to a river; henceforth the term (in capital letters) was kept alive by Jordan to bolster its case that it had been deprived of half of its Kingdom – the other bank -- even though the Britain and the League of Nations had established the Jordan River as the western frontier of the Kingdom of Transjordan, and even though the UN had decided in 1947 that this territory would belong to the new Arab state which should be built within the confines of the Balfour mandate, as defined I947. Then, after the King of Jordan abandoned his claim to rule in this region, and designated the PLO as the natural leaders of the Palestinian People, the West Bank by a further twist of logic became the usual designation for everything extending westward from the actual west bank of the River Jordan, up to the tops of the mountain ranges, and then halfway down the other side towards the Mediterranean Sea.

Bernard Lewis demonstrates that very notion of an Arab national identity, in the sense now promulgated, is an invention of the early Twentieth Century and derives from Western habits of thought. Using European analogies, our politicians and our scholars speak of the Arabic-speaking people as a nation or group of sister nations in the European sense, united by a common territory, language and culture and a common aspiration to a political independence. No one denies that there were many centuries of Arab rule over the region which we call the Holy Land. These centuries were, however, by no means uninterrupted. There were also periods of Persian rule, Seljuk rule, Egyptian rule, and lastly there were four hundred years (exactly) of Ottoman rule. When the British were locked in their life-and-death struggle with the central Powers and Turkey, they made a dramatic bid to all the non-Turkish races of the region, promising them whatever they wanted to hear. In particular, they tapped into the movement of Arab nationalism (whose roots, in any case, were in the recent history of European nationalist movements.) Arab-speaking politicians who wished to participate in the overthrow of the Ottomans, abetted by Lawrence of Arabia and other nationalist romantics, championed Arab nationalism.In playing to these Arab-nationalist forces the British agreed to minimize the presence in the whole region of such non-Arab peoples as the Assyrians (who were Christians of ancient standing), the Kurds (whom were read about in today’s newspapers still) and many many others. Arab nationalists, for their own purposes, have always magnified the Arab part of the story.It is logically impossible to make the case that Palestine belongs to the local non-Jewish population because they belong to the Arab Nation and simultaneously to speak of the immemorial existence of the Palestinian nation. An argument based on either of these premises is in any case incompatible with the clear teaching of Islam which is that all Muslims belong to the nation of Islam, the dar al-Islam.While it is historically insupportable, therefore, to speak of many centuries of Arab rule, it is perfectly correct to speak of many centuries of Muslim rule.The majority [of the inhabitants of Mandate Palestine] belonged to ...the nation of Islam...[and] thought of themselves primarily as Muslims. When further clarification was necessary, it might be territorial -- Egyptians, Syrian, Iraqi -- or social -- townsman, peasant, nomad. It is to this last that the term Arab belongs. So little had it retained of its ethnic meaning that we even find it applied at times to non-Arab nomads of Kurdish or Turkoman extraction. [14]Many Christians who regard themselves as realists and also as people of goodwill ask: What does it matter if the case for the Palestinian people lacks historical substance? Would it not be better if we all simply nodded agreeably as the Palestinians recited their alternative narrative and then get on with the work of reconciliation ?

In recent years, Christian liberals have found support for this thinking in an unlikely place: in the thinking and the writing of those Israel politicians of the left who were the authors of the policy of seeking peace through negotiation with the Palestine Liberation Organization -- the process which brought about the ruinous 1993 Oslo Accords. Shimon Peres, the Israeli politician who invested more than any other in this process, suggested in a book written in 1993 what might be called a Gordian knot approach to the embarrassment of dealing with the Palestinians arguments about their history. After reviewing the story more-or-less along the lines which we have just followed he concludes: Until the 1948 War of Independence, the Palestinian people did not exist as a separate entity, either in their own consciousness or in the minds of other people, including the Arab nations .... During the British Mandate, Palestinian nationalist consciousness was defined as being part of the greater Arab nation, giving Palestinians a different, separate identity from that of the Jews living in the region ...[Their slogan was:] PALESTINE IS ARAB. Rather than claim ownership of the land in the name of a particular nationality, they did so in the name of pan-Arabism. They also asked for and received Arab solidarity before the 1948, on ideological grounds of unification, not a particular national identity.An attempt to combine these general and particular nationalist trends is found in the PLO's Palestinian Covenant, which asserts that Palestine is the national homeland of the Palestinian Arab people; it is an integral part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation. In other words, even the founding document of the Palestinian national movement does not lay claim to the land on behalf of Palestinians alone ... Only during the ideological struggle against the State of Israel and the Zionist movement did the ideologues of the Palestinian camp begin to speak about a specific historical Palestinian connection to this controversial land, a connection that is independent of any pan-Arab context. At that time, the Palestinians began to be described as the descendents of the ancient Jebusites, and some even suggested that the Palestinian people existed from time immemorial.

But then he sweeps away all these merely historical considerations:

These facts [my emphasis] do not question the legitimacy of Palestinian national consciousness. The modern democratic outlook recognizes the validity of forming a new national association, termed people building in the professional literature, based on the consciousness of independence by any group that establishes such a national association.In short: facts, schmacts. Anybody can invent a nation any time that it serves a purpose!The Palestinians became a people when they decided to do so and when they began to act as a national collective. Questions of how they began to act as a national collective and what factors led to this awakening are of interest to historians and sociologists, but the speculations make no difference in determining strategy. Strategy depends upon present reality. . . . Just as we Jewish people did not ask the Palestinians for permission to become a state, neither do they need our permission to become a people. [15]Thus Peres dismisses the integrity of three millennia of historiography, leveling all recitals of the past to the moral and intellectual standing of myth. Perhaps such contempt for historical fact makes sense to a man who could say (1n May of 1994): Today we have ended the Arab-Israeli conflict. Utopia is coming.[16] People who dismiss mere historical facts for the sake of realism will eventually learn that there is nothing more real than historical fact. Historians, and others who take history seriously, have reason for concern regarding the recent habit of such Christian organizations as the Middle East Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches of patronizing the fantasy-histories of self-declared aboriginal people and others who claim to be victims of Eurocentrism,linear thinking and other alleged vices of the Western mind. It used to be better understood than it is today that Christian faith depends upon the historical validity of certain entirely specific events, which appear in historical documents and which have been subject to critical examination for over nineteen hundred years, and which are alleged to recapitulate the largest meanings in human history. This realization is at the heart of the entirely unique preoccupation with the determination of historical fact which has always characterized Western civilization. But respect for historical fact is not widespread in an age when historical thinking is generally despised and historical content has been almost entirely driven from the curriculum of schools. The point of historical research is not to move us along the path of peace and reconciliation. It is to find truth. It is simple fantasy to talk of a well-developed Arab civilization in the region and equally fantastic to ground the claim of its present Arab-speaking residents in a calim to aboriginal title.I have found for my sins that Christian pro-Palestinian zealots will scream at you that all your historical generalizations come out an evil heart, that you are deaf to the need of love and understanding. They claim to know that your generalizations are all the opposite of truth, but they do not step forward with historical documentation.Parties who will not listen to arguments about truth are never going to be moved down the path of reconciliation. We must not let fear of appearing to be an enemy of peace and reconciliation make us enemies of historical truth.Paul C. Merkley.

[1] Quoted in Ramon Bennett, Philistine: The Great Deception (Jerusalem: Arm of Salvation, 1995), 137.
[2] Quoted in Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmim: The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam (London: Associated University Presses, 1985), 145.
[3] Leona Glidden Running and David Noel Freedman, William Foxwell Albright: A Twentieth -Century Genius ( New York: Two Continents/Morgan, 1975.), 384.
[4] See Bernard Lewis, The Palestinians and the PLO: A Historical Approach, Commentary, January, 1975.
[5] All the quotations in this paragraph derive from Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (London: Michael Joseph, 1985), 139-140.
[6] Speech to United Nations General Assembly, New York, November 13, 1974.
[7] Quoted in Binyamin Netanyahu, A Place Among the Nations Bantam Books, 1993), pp. 38-40.
[8] The specific portions which I have quoted come from Walter Lowdermilk Palestine: Land of Promise (New York: Harper, 1944), pp. 133, 59, 28, 5-6, 80-83. Lowdermilk’s research materials are in the file, Walter Lowdermilk,in Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.]
[9] Palestine Royal Commission Report of 1937, cited in Peters, 140.
[10] Quoted from Dutch daily, Trouw, March, 1977, by Peters, 137.
[11] Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History, cited in Peters, 152.
[12] Quoted by Netanyahu, 43.
[13] Netanyahu, 43-44.
[14] Lewis, The Arabs, 15, cited in Peters, 152-154.
[15] Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (New York: Henry Holt, 1993), 165-166.
[16] Quoted in Jerusalem Post, June 4, 1994.

JESUS RETURNS TO EARTH BODILY LIKE HE LEFT

ACTS 1:10-11
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

Whose Promised Land? Psalm 78:54-55 (ISRAELS)
54 And He brought them to His holy border, This mountain which His right hand had acquired.
55 He also drove out the nations before them,Allotted them an inheritance by survey, And made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.

JESUS RETURNS TO EARTH BODILY TO RULE AND REIGN FROM DAVIDS THRONE FOREVER AND WE COME BACK WITH HIM ON WHITE HORSES.

ACTS 1:10-11
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

ZECHARIAH 14:4
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

REVELATION 19:11-16
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

JUDE 14-16
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.

JERUSALEM DIVIDED

ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.

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.

ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.

JUDGEMENT SIGNS IN DAYS OF LOT. NO BODY LISTENED TO WARNING SIGNS

LUKE 17:28-32
28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
32 Remember Lot's wife.

JUDGEMENT SIGNS IN DAYS OF NOAH. WORLDWIDE FLOODING,CURRUPTION,VIOLENCE (TERRORISM).

MATTHEW 24:37-39
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

LUKE 17:25-27
25 But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.
26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

THE JUDGEMENT OF THE NATIONS

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 12:8-13
8 And I (DANIEL) heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?
9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.
10 Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, (at the 3 1/2 yr mark of the 7 yr treaty) and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.
13 But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.

MATTHEW 25:31-46
31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

NORTH KOREA AND PLUTONIUM

GOOD NEWS!WorldNetDaily You made a difference: ChristianU2uber
Concerned readers help police find boy persecuted on YouTube April 25, 2009
12:50 am Eastern By Drew Zahn 2009 WorldNetDaily

ChristianU2uber

A 12-year-old boy who had been mercilessly ridiculed and even told to kill himself by members of the YouTube.com community has removed himself and his videos from the website, thanks in part to people reporting the cruel treatment to the authorities. As WND reported, the boy, known for certain only by his screen name ChristianU2uber, made a series of videos about himself and about his faith for a popular video-sharing website, YouTube, which generated over a million views and tens of thousands of comments. His video Gay Marriage – Is It Right or Wrong?, however, started a fierce backlash from the online community, as harsh and often profane comments poured in ridiculing the boy, calling him names and even calling for the boy's death. Kill Christianity, and then kill yourself, responded a YouTube community member identified as greenacidfusion. A commenter calling himself WizzyBoy 520 added, How do you know the Bible isn't full of lies? You, just like everyone who is against gay marriage, is a mentally retarded bigot. No exceptions. Now go to h---.The response was so brutal, many WND readers, bloggers and concerned YouTubers began seeking protection for the boy, including intervention by the police. Upon hearing the outcry, WND has learned, Internet crime specialists in Texas were able to locate the boy and his family and persuade ChristianU2uber to remove the videos and receive counseling.

I wanted to update you that we have located this 12-year-old, and we spoke to him and his parents,said Sgt. Chris Meehan of the Collin County Sheriff's Office's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, in an email.The minor has decided to remove his videos from his site and delete his YouTube account. Further, we will be providing him with counseling to get through this matter.Meehan explained that the attention generated by WND and concerned bloggers resulted in "numerous cybertips reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding ChristianU2uber.How many times have we heard about – after the fact – the warning signs were there on websites, Facebook, MySpace, where if people had taken the time, perhaps tragedy could have been prevented,wrote Lyndon Evans on his FOCUS blog, when he learned of the treatment ChristianU2uber was getting on YouTube. Please, contact whoever you feel can help this young man.Evans, who publishes news links, blogs and other information of interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender readers, was joined by several voices in the LGBT community in issuing a call to help, not condemn, ChristianU2uber. In the world of Internet blogs and commentary, there's a wide field upon which the left, right and center can mix it up, argue and point up and hammer out their differences – sometimes with the use of fairly harsh language, writes Kilian Melloy, a contributor to Boston's EDGE. But recently, both left and right seem to have come to an agreement in the case of a 12-year-old boy identified as ChristianU2uber.The consensus, Melloy continues, ChristianU2uber, also known as Scott, needed some form of intervention on his behalf, given the tone and tenor of his postings and other Internet communications, as well as the often rough-and-tumble comments that his postings have drawn from anonymous users.According to Sgt. Meehan, many people heeded that call for intervention, and Scott – if that's ChristianU2uber's real name –has stepped out of YouTube's harsh spotlight for now, with others around to help him.

I know that you and numerous others have expressed concern over his well-being and safety,Meehan wrote to WND. I can tell you that he is doing well, and he will receive any help he needs to deal with any issues he is having.

WND ON THE AIR Shut Up author on Glenn Beck today Brad O'Leary says Obama has plot to silence talk radio April 25, 2009 12:00 am Eastern 2009 WorldNetDaily

Brad O'Leary, author of the latest WND Books release, Shut Up, America! The End of Free Speech, will be a guest on Glenn Beck's Fox News TV show tomorrow.The segment will air at about 5:45 p.m. Eastern Time. Beck's show repeats at 9 p.m. and also Sunday at 3 p.m.O'Leary contends that as popular opposition to reinstitution of the so-called Fairness Doctrine mounts, Obama and the Democrat-dominated Congress will end-run critics with legislation to curb dissent on talk radio through localism rules and community watchdog boards. In Shut Up, America! The End of Free Speech, O'Leary says the plan amounts to the development of party-approved commissar committees to censor the kind of lively and free-wheeling debate America has known since the scrapping of the Fairness Doctrine by President Reagan's Federal Communications Commission in 1987. By demanding radio stations answer to local community watchdog boards to ensure programming is balanced,fair,diverse,tolerant and serving the public interest locally, O'Leary says the planned rules and legislation will once again make talk radio accountable to politicians, political activists and bureaucrats at the FCC. Tell your government to stay away from censoring talk radio and manipulating news coverage: Sign WND's Petition to Block Congressional Attacks on Freedom of Speech and Press now!The ultimate threat over the heads of radio stations is license renewal, O'Leary explains.

Far-left groups such as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) stand at the ready to pressure these boards into silencing conservative talk radio programs, either through intimidation or the loss of broadcast licenses, says O'Leary, who, during the presidential campaign, wrote the best-selling book, The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values.The book points out there were only 75 radio talk shows in the U.S. during the last year of the Fairness Doctrine rules. Today, there are more than 3,000. The liberals' once-dominant media forum is fading fast, in part because Americans have discovered real diversity of ideas elsewhere, O'Leary writes. The enemies of free speech know this. They also know that, if they are to accomplish their goal of stifling all debate, they will have to control all media outlets.If you are a member of the media and would like to interview Brad O'Leary, please e-mail Tricia Erickson.

DISEASES

REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).

MISSING VIRUS IN MD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKcHmA5KnD0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Einfowars%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw

Swine Flu Is Deadly Mix Of Never-Before-Seen Viruses
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars April 25, 2009
http://www.infowars.com/swine-flu-is-deadly-mix-of-never-before-seen-viruses/

Swine flu panic is spreading in Mexico and soldiers are patrolling the streets after it was confirmed that human to human transmission is occurring and that the virus is a brand new strain which is seemingly affecting young, healthy people the worst, and that the bug is a never-before-seen intercontinental mixture of human, avian and pig viruses from America, Europe and Asia.Clues that the virus may be a synthetic creation are already manifesting.According to reports, the virus is a never-before-seen form of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses which consists of an intercontinental mix of viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.CDC officials detected a virus with a unique combination of gene segments that have not been seen in people or pigs before, according to an Associated Press report.This strain of swine influenza that’s beencultured in a laboratoryis something that’s not been seen anywhere actually in the United States and the world, so this is actually a new strain of influenza that’s been identified,said Dr. John Carlo, Dallas Co. Medical Director (video clip here).Alarming reports are now filtering in about people catching the illness who have had no contact with pigs whatsoever. These include a man and his daughter in San Diego County, a 41-year-old woman in Imperial County and two teenagers in San Antonio, Texas. In fact, in all U.S. cases, the victims had no contact with any pigs.

Dr. Wilma Wooten, San Diego County’s public health officer, told KPBS We have had person-to-person spread with the father and the daughter, says Wooten, And also with the two teenagers in Texas, they were in the same school. So that also indicates person-to-person transfer.Dr. Wooten says it’s unclear how people were exposed to swine flu. She says none of the patients have had any contact with pigs, according to the report.Although the situation in the U.S. looks under control, panic is spreading in Mexico, where 800 cases of pneumonia in the capital alone are suspected to be related to the swine flu and the virus has hit young and healthy people, which is very rare with an flu outbreak. Despite the danger of a pandemic, the U.S. border with Mexico remains open.Mexico has shut schools and museums and canceled hundreds of public events in its sprawling, overcrowded capital of 20 million people to try to prevent further infections,reports Reuters.My level of concern is significant, said Dr. Martin Fenstersheib, the health officer for Santa Clara County. We have a novel virus, a brand-new strain that’s spreading human to human, and we are also seeing a virulent strain in Mexico that seems to be related. We certainly have concerns for this escalating.The WHO insists that the outbreak has pandemic potential and has been stockpiling supplies of Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, a pill that can both treat flu and prevent infection, according to officials.As we previously highlighted, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Indeed, Rumsfeld himself played a key role in hyping an outbreak of swine flu back in the 1976 when he urged the entire country to get vaccinated. Many batches of the vaccine were contaminated, resulting in hundreds of sick people and 52 fatalities.The fact that the properties of the strain are completely new, that the virus is spreading from people to people, and that the young and healthy are being hit worst, has disturbing parallels to the deadly 1918 pandemic that killed millions.It is unclear as to why, if the virus is a brand new strain, that public health officials are so confident programs of mass vaccination, which are already being prepared, would necessarily be effective.It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that deadly flu viruses have been concocted in labs and then dispatched with the intention of creating a pandemic.When the story first broke last month, Czech newspapers questioned if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.Since the probability of mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible, this leaves no other explanation than that the contamination was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.However, this is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.In the UK, a 2007 outbreak of foot and mouth disease that put Britain on high alert has been originated from a government laboratory which is shared with an American pharmaceutical company, mirroring the deadly outbreak of 2001, which was also deliberately released.As we reported yesterday, last time there was a significant outbreak of a new form of swine flu in the U.S. it originated at the army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

Mexico City cancels all public events to fight flu By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer APR 25,09

MEXICO CITY – A deadly new swine flu strain that has killed at least 20 people in Mexico City and sickened more than 1,000 has pandemic potential, the World Health Organization chief said Saturday — but some fear it may be too late to contain the outbreak.With 24 new suspected cases of the swine flu reported Saturday, Mexico City said schools would remain closed and all public events suspended until further notice — including more than 500 concerts, sporting events and other gatherings including the popular weekly bicycle rides on streets closed to traffic.A hotline set up the previous day fielded 2,366 calls from frightened city residents who suspected they might have the disease. City Health Secretary Armando Ahued said 10 new possible cases of infection have been discovered in the metropolis of 20 million people.

Officials say more than 1,000 people have been infected nationwide. Tests show 20 people have died of the swine flu, and 48 other deaths were probably due to the same strain.This virus is a mix of human, pig and bird strains that has epidemiologists around the world deeply concerned. The World Health Organization convened in Geneva Saturday to consider whether to declare an international public health emergency — a step that could lead to travel advisories, trade restrictions and border closures.The agency's director-general, Margaret Chan, said the outbreak involves an animal strain of the H1N1 virus, and it has pandemic potential — but it is too early to say whether a pandemic will actually occur.The CDC and Canadian health officials were studying samples sent from Mexico, and some governments in Asia and Latin America began monitoring passengers arriving on flights from Mexico.But it may be too late to contain the outbreak, given how widespread the known cases are. If the confirmed deaths are the first signs of a pandemic, then cases are probably incubating around the world by now, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a pandemic flu expert at the University of Minnesota.The same virus also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths north of the border, puzzling experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.No vaccine specifically protects against swine flu, and it is unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer.

MUSLIM NATIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israel's FM: Iran is obstacle to Mideast peace Fri Apr 24, 8:09 am ET

JERUSALEM – Iran is the main obstacle to peace in the Mideast, Israel's new foreign minister said in an interview published Friday.Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post that it will be impossible to resolve any problem in our region without dealing with Iran's nuclear program and its support for militant groups opposed to Israel, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.His comments come as differences have appeared between the hard-line government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration over the peace process. President Barack Obama has said the U.S. seeks a two-state solution, with the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel, while Netanyahu has not publicly embraced the principle.Israelis have also expressed concern over Obama's calls for outreach to Iran, which Israel considers its top nemesis.Lieberman said the obstacle to a peace deal is not Israel. It is not the Palestinians. It's the Iranians.He dismissed the two-state solution formula as a slogan. Lieberman did not rule out peace talks or a Palestinian state in the interview, saying only that the right conditions had to be created. He did not elaborate.

His comments came a day after his deputy Danny Ayalon said Iran must be reined in for any realistic hope of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. However, Ayalon said action on Iran was not a pre-condition for pursuing peace.Lieberman told the Post that the government was currently preparing its policy platform and that Netanyahu will present it when he meets Obama at the White House in mid-May.One of Israel's most divisive politicians, Lieberman led his party to gains in the recent election with a campaign questioning the loyalty of Israel's one-fifth Arab minority.Since becoming Israel's foreign minister, the blunt-talking Lieberman has sparked controversy by dismissing recent peace efforts led by the U.S. Before becoming foreign minister, he riled Israel's key Egyptian allies by suggesting Egypt's president should go to hell.

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.

REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200 MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)

The Third and Final Wave of WW3 is when all Nations march to Jerusalem, but JESUS bodily returns to earth and destroys them,sets up his KINGDOM OF RULE FOR 1000 YEARS THEN FOREVER.

2ND WAVE CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL

REVELATION 16:12
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.(THIS IS THE ATATURK DAM IN TURKEY,THEY CROSS OVER).

DANIEL 11:44 (2ND WAVE OF WW3)
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)

REVELATION 9:12-18
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.(IRAQ-SYRIA)
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(1/3 Earths Population die in WW 3 2ND WAVE)
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand:(200 MILLION MAN ARMY FROM CHINA AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST) and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)

WARS AND RUMURS OF WARS.

MATTHEW 24:6
6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

MARK 13:7
7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.

North Korea begins extracting plutonium By Miyoung Kim and Jon Herskovitz - Sat Apr 25, 6:53 am ET

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has started to extract plutonium from spent fuel rods at its nuclear arms plant, its foreign ministry said on Saturday, further raising regional tensions already stoked by its defiant rocket launch this month.The announcement came hours after a U.N. Security Council committee on Friday placed three North Korean companies on a U.N. blacklist for aiding Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs, eliciting a sharp rebuke from a North Korean envoy.Reclusive North Korea has lashed out at being punished for the April 5 launch, widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test that violated U.N. resolutions, saying it would boycott six-way nuclear talks and bolster its nuclear deterrent.The reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the pilot atomic power plant began as declared in the Foreign Ministry statement dated April 14, North Korea's official news agency KCNA quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.This will contribute to bolstering the nuclear deterrence for self-defense in every way to cope with the increasing military threats from the hostile forces,it said.South Korea's foreign ministry said it had no immediate comment on the North's announcement and Japan said it would urge Pyongyang to resume international nuclear talks.The UN Security Council... is telling North Korea to respond to the calls for resuming the six-party talks at an early stage. Japan will also try to persuade (North Korea),Kazuo Kodama, a spokesman at the Japanese foreign ministry, told Reuters.

PRESSURING WASHINGTON

North Korea, which was hit with U.N. sanctions after missile tests in July 2006 and its only nuclear test a few months later, has used its military threat for years to gain global attention and squeeze concessions out of regional powers.By making these moves early in the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, it has more cards to play during his presidency and forces him to make crucial decisions about how it will manage its relations with Pyongyang, analysts said.North Korea wants to continue provoking new crises, to demand the attention of the U.S. and others, said Zhu Feng, professor at Peking University.The biggest issue is still North Korea provoking a crisis, and the U.S. ignoring them. That makes getting the six-party talks restarted again a difficult diplomatic issue.North Korea struck a deal with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States to disable its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant in exchange for massive aid and ending its international ostracism.It has expelled U.N. and U.S. nuclear inspectors at Yongbyon, located about 100 km (60 miles) north of Pyongyang, who had been overseeing steps to put the entire plant out of operation for at least a year.Rebuilding parts of Yongbyon could increase the regional security threat because Pyongyang could add to its meager stockpile of fissile material, increasing the likelihood that it could conduct another nuclear weapons test.Experts said it could take North Korea, which conducted its only nuclear test in October 2006, as little as three months to have the reprocessing facility up and running again.Experts said North Korea, which has enough fissile material for six to eight nuclear bombs, wants to separate plutonium from spent fuel rods cooling at the plant that could yield it enough material for at least one more nuclear bomb.

North Korea has told foreign nuclear experts that it can produce domestically all the material it needs to run the reprocessing facility, such as non-corrosive metals and various chemicals. But other parts of the plant may be beyond repair, because international trade sanctions make it difficult for it to obtain components needed for its reactor and nuclear fuel fabrication facility. The North would also need to rebuild the cooling tower in order to resume the reactor's operations. North Korea blew up the tower almost a year ago in what it said was a demonstration of its commitment to the nuclear deal. North Korea will stay away from international nuclear disarmament talks, Russia's foreign minister said on Friday after visiting Pyongyang and pressing North Korea to return to the sputtering discussions. (Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota in Tokyo, and Lucy Hornby in Beijing) (Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Tentative signs of eurozone recovery
ANDREW WILLIS 24.04.2009 @ 09:14 CET

Although the 16-member euro area is still very much in the throws of its worst recession since World War II, some positive data suggest the end may be in sight. The purchasing managers' index – an indication of future activity in the areas of services and manufacturing – jumped from 38.3 to 40.5 points in March, giving rise to hope that the green shoots of recovery seen elsewhere in the world may be spreading to Europe. The new figures, compiled by research group Markit and released on Thursday (23 April), are still well below the 50-point threshold that marks an increase in economic activity. But the new data for March show the rate of economic decline has slowed to the lowest level seen in the last six months and exceed economists' prior predictions of a rise to 39 points.

Analysts responded positively to the news.

The first signs of improvement in eurozone business cycle are starting to emerge, said economist Marco Valli at Italian bank Unicredit reports AFP.The welcome news comes after gloomy predictions from the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday that the euro area is fairing worse than the US and is set to contract by 4.2 percent this year and 0.4 percent in 2010.

Industrial orders

The EU's statistics office, Eurostat, released new figures on Thursday showing a fall in industrial orders for the euro area in February of 0.6 percent compared to January levels. The modest decrease compared to January's drop of two percent has added to feelings that the eurozone's recession may be bottoming out. However, the fall in industrial orders of 34.5 percent when February 2009 is compared to February 2008 highlights the huge decrease in economic activity experienced in the zone over the last year.Also on Thursday, good news in France, where the Insee statistics office reported a rise in business confidence, was mixed with caution from Germany where leading economists said the euro area's largest economy would continue to contract until a least the middle of next year. The report by four leading economic institutes said Germany's reliance on exports would delay its recovery compared to other euro area countries and that rises in unemployment this year would create added pressure on domestic consumption, which so far has held out.

Bickering at IMF over new money for lending agency By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer APR 25,09

WASHINGTON – World finance officials are bickering over the best way to get the International Monetary Fund more money for its revitalized role in helping shore up capital-starved countries.While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and fellow finance ministers held talks Saturday at the IMF's headquarters near the White House, protesters clashed with police outside. Several activists were pushed to the ground by police after they tried to march onto a blocked street. Police used pepper spray on the protesters. One protester had blood on his hands, and an officer had blood on the back of his shirt.The demonstrators, angered by world leaders' handling of the economic crisis, held signs that read Capitalism do not resuscitate and chanted, Pump up the people power.On the agenda at the IMF meeting is how to supply a portion of the $1.1 trillion increase in resources for international lending institutions. That was a goal that President Barack Obama and other leaders set at the Group of 20 nations summit in London on April 2.Geithner said major progress toward increasing the IMF's resources must be an important outcome of these meetings. The international community should act quickly. He said the U.S. has committed to seeking congressional approval for up to $100 billion, matching commitments for the same amount made by Japan and the European Union, respectively.There seems to be a growing divide within the 185-nation IMF. Emerging economic powers such as China, Russia, Brazil and India are insisting that the United States, France, Britain and other old-line powers listen to their ideas on different funding approaches.The rich nations had hoped to get China and the other nations to commit to billions of dollars of support for their effort at these meetings.But those countries are insisting the IMF consider issuing bonds as a way to raise the support. The countries would buy the IMF bonds rather than extending the support in loans. The IMF has never issued bonds before, although the idea was explored in the 1980s. Both the bonds and loans would require the IMF to pay interest.The debate, however, is also tied up in arguments the emerging economies are making about a greater say at the IMF — at the expense of the current power structure that favors the U.S. and Europe.The IMF session also was expected to deal with a proposal to increase the agency's oversight abilities to monitor global activity. The goal is to prevent a repeat of the current banking crisis.The World Bank also is holding its spring meeting over the weekend.Associated Press writers Harry Dunphy and Nafeesa Syeed contributed to this report.On the Net:
IMF: http://www.imf.org World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org

APRIL 25, 2009 Geithner Sounds Darker Tone Than G-7 Article By DEBORAH SOLOMON,WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the world's economies are beginning to stabilize but cautioned that it is too early to say risks have receded and that more action needs to be taken to counteract the worst financial crisis in generations.Financial conditions in some markets have shown modest improvement, Mr. Geithner said, adding that it would be wrong to conclude that we are close to emerging from the darkness that descended on the global economy early last fall.The secretary struck a more somber tone than a statement released by the Group of Seven finance ministers who gathered in Washington before weekend-long meetings at the International Monetary Fund.In their statement, the finance ministers said the pace of decline in our economies has slowed and some signs of stabilization are emerging. Economic activity should begin to recover later this year amid a continued weak outlook, and downside risks persist.The finance chiefs pledged to continue efforts to shore up financial institutions across the globe, including providing liquidity support,injecting capital into banks and taking all necessary actions to ensure the soundness of systemically important institutions. The group also promised to deliver the scale of sustained fiscal effort necessary to restore growth.Mr. Geithner said the ability of other countries to shore up their economies is critical to the U.S. recovery.Recovery in the U.S. depends significantly ... on recovery in those large and previously rapidly growing markets, he said. Some economists worry about growth in Europe.The meeting took place the same day the U.S. released the methodology behind stress tests it is conducting on the nation's 19 largest banks. The tests are part of the U.S. response to the financial crisis.Mr. Geithner said he did not discuss the preliminary results of the stress tests with his counterparts but said they all agreed to make sure there's enough capital in the financial system. Mr. Geithner has pledged to make enough capital available so banks can resume making loans.Write to Deborah Solomon at deborah.solomon@wsj.com

TEXT - G7 communique, Washington, April 24
Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:10am

(Reuters) - Following is the text of the communique issued by finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialised nations on Friday in Washington:

We met today amid the deepest and most widespread economic downturn and financial stress witnessed in decades. The global landscape has changed from a period of robust growth, rapidly increasing capital flows to emerging markets and significant trade expansion until only a few years ago to one now characterized by recession, de-leveraging and a contraction in trade. We have acted resolutely to support growth and restore confidence in the financial system and the flow of credit. Recent data suggest that the pace of decline in our economies has slowed and some signs of stabilization are emerging. Economic activity should begin t o recover later this year amid a continued weak outlook, and downside risks persist. As our Leaders underscored in London, we are committed to act together to restore jobs and growth and to prevent a crisis of this magnitude from occurring again. Against this background:

-We are swiftly implementing macroeconomic support and we reaffirm our commitment to deliver the scale of sustained fiscal effort necessary to restore growth. We will take whatever actions are necessary to accelerate the return to trend growth, while preserving long term fiscal sustainability. We call on the IMF to monitor actions taken and report regularly to us and the G20.

-We will continue to act, as needed, to restore lending, provide liquidity support, inject capital into financial institutions, protect savings and deposits and address impaired assets. We reaffirm our commitment to take all necessary actions to ensure the soundness of systemically important institutions.

-We have pledged resources for the IMF and are working with the G20 and others to provide the resources it needs to help restore global financial stability. We support a substantial increase in MDB lending and full and exceptional use of MDB balance sheets in order to mitigate the effects of the global recession on emerging markets and developing countries.

-In particular, we welcome the progress being made in mobilizing temporary bilateral financing for the IMF; this financing will be rolled over into the IMF's New Arrangements to Borrow, which in turn will be increased by up to $500 billion and see its membership expanded. We are working to implement the $250 billion general SDR allocation, as well as to use additional resources from the IMF's agreed gold sales to support the poorest, consistent with the IMF's new income model. We are implementing the initiative to provide at least $250 billion in trade finance.

-We welcome the IMF's introduction of new facilities, such as the Flexible Credit Line, to help countries with strong fundamentals respond to the crisis, and support its use by Mexico, Poland, and Colombia. In the context of the current crisis, consistent with the IMF's mandate, we back the case-by-case use of IMF resources to support the fiscal needs of countries with solid medium-term fiscal prospects. We also support the IMF and World Bank and regional development banks working closely together to carefully analyse the special situations countries face - such as the need to recapitalize banks or facilitate debt rollovers - and to take these into account in their programs.

-We will refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade organisation (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports. The WTO will monitor and report publicly on this commitment.

Many countries are now playing a major role in the global economy and we welcome their contribution to the collective international effort to promote recovery. We welcome China's continued commitment to move to a more flexible exchange rate, which should lead to continued appreciation of the Renminbi in effective terms and help promote more balanced growth in China and in the world economy. We will work with our international partners to modernize the governance of the international financial institutions in order to enhance their relevance, effectiveness, and legitimacy.

We reaffirm our shared interest in a strong and stable international financial system. Excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates have adverse implications for economic and financial stability. We continue to monitor exchange markets closely, and cooperate as appropriate.

We also discussed regulatory reform in our countries and at the international level and will implement swiftly the commitments made in London. We underscored the imperative of: strengthening our national efforts to address systemic risks; extending the perimeter of regulation to include all systemically important institutions, markets, and instruments; ensuring sound regulation, adequate capitalisation of financial institutions, and strengthened risk management practices; enhancing transparency; reinforcing international collaboration; improving accounting standards on valuation and provisioning; and bolstering market integrity. In this latter regard, we urge the OECD, FSB, and FATF to intensify their work in conducting objective peer reviews of countries' efforts to strengthen international standards in taxation, prudential supervision, and AML/CFT, respectively, and to identify non-cooperative jurisdictions and develop a toolbox of effective countermeasures. We look forward to regular reports on progress on these issues. We welcomed the IMF and FSB's joint pilot early warning exercise. We also welcomed the expansion in the membership of the FSB and committed to strengthen its institutional underpinnings so that the FSB can play a more prominent role in promoting international financial stability.
Thomson Reuters 2009

G7 signals worst of world recession may be over By Gernot Heller and Louise Egan – Fri Apr 24, 10:19 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Finance chiefs from the G7 powers said on Friday the global economy may be past the worst phase of a recession although recovery was not yet assured, and they pledged to make sure that big financial firms are sound.Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers said after a meeting that economic activity should begin to recover later this year. However, they said the outlook remained weak and there was a risk that the global economy may still worsen.We are right to be somewhat encouraged, but we would be wrong to conclude that we are close to emerging from the darkness that descended on the global economy early last fall, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement.It was a less dire assessment than the G7 finance officials delivered at their last gathering in February, when they warned that the severe downturn would persist through most of 2009and made no mention of promising signs of stability.Recent data suggest that the pace of decline in our economies has slowed and some signs of stabilization are emerging, the G7 said in a closing communique.We will continue to act, as needed, to restore lending, provide liquidity support, inject capital into financial institutions, protect savings and deposits and address impaired assets. We reaffirm our commitment to take all necessary actions to ensure the soundness of systemically important institutions,the statement said.Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said signs of stabilization was an expression with a question mark.But we understand that the G7 statement has indirectly expressed the view that the worst may be possibly over for the world economy,he added.The G7, which comprises the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, met a day before the International Monetary Fund and World Bank begin their twice-yearly meetings. The larger G20 group, which includes emerging economies such as China and India, held a meeting after the G7 but issued no official statement.

Geithner said both groups had the same agenda.

The agenda will be: What are we doing? Are we doing enough to help attenuate the risks in this recession, lay the foundation for an earlier recovery, lay the foundation for a more balanced, more sustainable recovery? he said.

FIX THE BANKS

The G7 has been under growing pressure to speed up efforts to rid banks of bad assets that have constrained lending and plunged the global economy into its deepest recession since World War Two.The International Monetary Fund, which has estimated that losses at financial institutions around the globe could exceed $4 trillion, urged rich nations to prioritize repairing the financial sector because the world economy cannot fully recover unless credit is flowing.The IMF is absolutely right when it asks countries to deal with toxic assets because transparency is crucial for recovery, said Mario Draghi, head of the Financial Stability Board, a newly fortified group designed to coordinate global regulatory reform.But some European officials questioned how the IMF calculated the magnitude of bank losses. The Fund estimated that European banks may need to write down $750 billion in bad assets, while U.S. firms had $550 billion more to go.We are looking at it very carefully and we think there are methodological issues we have to clarify with the IMF, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet told a news conference after the G20 meeting.I am not criticizing the IMF (but) we have to look at it very carefully.U.S. regulators have put 19 of the largest U.S. banks through stress tests to assess whether the government will have to pump more money into them. Geithner said the results of the stress tests were not discussed at the G7 meeting. The Federal Reserve released a paper on Friday outlining the methodology of the tests, and said banks needed to hold substantially more capital than is usually required to weather a potential worsening of the recession. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who has expressed frustration over the slow pace of progress in fixing the banks, said after the G7 meeting that he was pleased with U.S. and British efforts to implement their bank repair plans.We're going in the right direction,he said. With attention firmly focused on the banking sector, the G7 made no changes to its closely watched statement on currency markets, repeating its February caution that excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates were unwelcome.(Reporting by G7 team; Writing by Emily Kaiser and Glenn Somerville; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Personal fortunes riding on the fate of GM's debt By KIMBERLY S. JOHNSON, AP Auto Writer Kimberly S. Johnson, APR 25,09

GROSSE ILE, Mich. – Retired Chrysler LLC project manager Clifford St. Pierre and his wife Patricia bought $200,000 in General Motors Corp. notes three years ago, thinking it was a sound way to finance their retirement.The 10-year securities carry a 7.2 percent interest rate and what they viewed as an almost bulletproof yearly payout of more than $14,000. We made a decision to buy bonds in the largest manufacturer in the world, he said from his home on Grosse Ile, an island in the Detroit River about 25 miles south of GM's headquarters.Their next semiannual payment is due in July, but St. Pierre, 70, now spends his free time scouring news reports, trying to figure out whether that check will ever be in the mail.His biggest fear is that he'll lose most —if not all — of his original investment if a debt-for-equity swap for GM shares that's being talked about happens.A group of institutional investors that includes Fidelity and John Hancock formed a committee to negotiate terms of such an exchange with GM, which is seeking to slash its debt and make other cuts to stave off bankruptcy and receive more federal aid.The parties haven't held formal talks since late March, and in the meantime the value of the unsecured notes similar to those bought by the St. Pierres continue to slide. They now trade on the secondary market for about 9 cents on the dollar, down from close to 90 cents a year ago.Although large investors hold the bulk of GM's $28 billion of unsecured debt, about $5 billion to $6 billion of that debt is held by individuals like the St. Pierres who are finding that they have little say in, or knowledge of, the negotiations.I have to believe the committee is doing what they can to get the best possible deal, St. Pierre said. But he worries that the larger investors will eventually agree to accept a big haircut and move on, leaving he and his wife facing the prospect of getting only pennies on the dollar — or just equity in a new GM, as the government's auto task force has suggested. That would wipe out 80 percent of their total retirement savings.GM has been surviving on $15.4 billion in loans from the Treasury Department and would get more if it can satisfy the government with its restructuring efforts. Although GM also needs concessions from the United Auto Workers union to qualify for the money, President Barack Obama has said further government support depends on GM substantially cutting its debt load.If bondholders reject demands from GM and the government, the Detroit automaker will likely seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that would leave it up to a bankruptcy judge to determine the terms of extinguishing GM's debt. St. Pierre and other individual bondholders would be forced to go along with whatever the court deems appropriate to keep GM afloat.It's very possible they would wind up with just a fraction of the face amount, said Richard Hilgert, president of Automotive Financial Research LLC.The court might be willing to throw a bone to those lower on the recovery waterfall, just to make the process move a bit more quickly.The government is demanding GM cut more than two-thirds of its unsecured debt, and it's reportedly pressuring GM to offer bondholders only equity in the revamped company. In that case, their recovery would depend on the automaker's stock performance.There's no carrot, no real attractive carrot to get individual bondholders, or even institutional ones to take it, said Kip Penniman, managing director for KDP Investment Advisers. There's going to be a substantial number of holdouts that say no without a meaningful incentive.

GM has said it is preparing a public exchange offer that will finally tell every bondholder — large and small — what the company is offering. The details will have to be released soon if GM wants to retire its debt before the government's June 1 restructuring deadline.If St. Pierre participates in such an exchange, he likely would get at least a small part of his investment back. If he rejects the offer, and if a bankruptcy court doesn't force him to exchange his bonds, he could hold them until they mature in 2011 in the hopes of getting some or all of his principle back. Such an outcome, however, is unlikely.St. Pierre said he doesn't know what the better option would be right now, as neither option would be enough money to cover a medical emergency or leave to his three adult daughters and grandson.Overall he wants the task force to lighten up on squeezing concessions out of bondholders, and he's called the offices of U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. and Carl Levin, D-Mich., to urge them to pressure the auto task force to consider the plight of small investors.

Stabenow, at a recent event in Detroit, said she's addressed the issue with chairman Steven Rattner and others on the auto task force.I am constantly reminding them about families and retirees in Michigan, and how this affects people differently than it does the bondholders on Wall Street,she said.

Friday, April 24, 2009

SWINE FLU OUTBREAK

DISEASES

REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).

500 MILLION COULD DIE DURING 7 YR TRIBULATION FROM DISEASES
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2009/04/12-of-population-3-billion-die-in.html

Swine flu: FAQ Last Updated: Friday, April 24, 2009 | 4:57 PM ET CBC News

Human infection with swine flu viruses are most likely to occur when people are in close proximity to infected pigs, such as in pig barns and livestock exhibits at fairs. (Kiichiro Sato/Associated Press)A flu outbreak affecting more than 900 people in Mexico, including at least 16 who died, was caused by a new strain of swine influenza that can attack anyone,Mexico's health minister said Friday.It is a virus that mutated from pigs and then at some point was transmitted to humans, Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said.The outbreak, which Mexican authorities began reporting April 18, is being investigated by public health officials throughout North America. In the United States, officials say they're studying eight cases, including the initial two children in California and Texas who had no contact with pigs or each other, suggesting that human-to-human transmission of this new swine flu virus occurred. All have since recovered.No cases of this new strain have yet been found in Canada. But the country's national laboratory in Winnipeg is analyzing 51 samples from Mexico. Results are expected within days.

In the meantime, the following is a summary of frequently asked questions about swine influenza prepared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Swine flu is caused by type A influenza virus and gives pigs the flu. Swine flu viruses cause regular outbreaks of flu in pigs but death is infrequent. Right now, there are four main influenza type A swine flu viruses that have been isolated in pigs: H1N1, H1N2, H3N2, and H3N1. Most of the recently isolated influenza viruses from pigs have been H1N1 viruses. Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans. However, sporadic human infections have occurred. Most commonly, these cases occur in persons with direct exposure to pigs, such as children near pigs at a fair or workers in the swine industry. In addition, there have been documented cases of one person spreading swine flu to others .The symptoms of swine flu in people are expected to be similar to the symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza and include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some people with swine flu also have reported runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. (Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

What is swine influenza?
Swine influenza (swine flu) is caused by type A influenza virus and gives pigs the flu. Swine flu viruses cause regular outbreaks of flu in pigs but death is infrequent. The viruses may circulate among pigs throughout the year, but most outbreaks occur during the late fall and winter months similar to outbreaks in humans. The classical swine flu virus (an influenza type A H1N1 virus) was first isolated from a pig in 1930.

How many swine flu viruses are there?
Like all flu viruses, swine flu viruses change constantly. Pigs can be infected by avian, human and swine influenza viruses. When influenza viruses from different species infect pigs, the viruses can reassort and new ones emerge that are a mix of swine, human and/or avian influenza viruses. Over the years, different variations of swine flu viruses have emerged. Right now, there are four main influenza type A virus subtypes that have been isolated in pigs: H1N1, H1N2, H3N2, and H3N1. However, most of the recently isolated influenza viruses from pigs have been H1N1 viruses.

Can humans catch swine flu?
Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans. However, sporadic human infections with swine flu have occurred. Most commonly, these cases occur in persons with direct exposure to pigs, such as children near pigs at a fair or workers in the swine industry.There have been documented cases of one person spreading swine flu to others. In 1988, an outbreak of apparent swine flu infection in pigs in Wisconsin resulted in multiple human infections, and although no community outbreak resulted, there was antibody evidence of virus transmission from the patient to health care workers who had close contact with the patient.

How common is swine flu infection in humans?
In the past, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received reports of about one human swine flu virus infection every one to two years in the U.S., but from December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine flu have been reported. Five of the 12 cases occurred in patients who had direct exposure to pigs, six in patients reported being near pigs, and the exposure in one case was unknown.

What are the symptoms of swine flu in humans?
The symptoms of swine flu in people are expected to be similar to the symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza and include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some people with swine flu also have reported runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Can people catch swine flu from eating pork?
No. Swine flu viruses are not transmitted by food. You cannot get swine flu from eating pork or pork products.

How does swine flu spread?
Influenza viruses can be directly transmitted from pigs to people and from people to pigs. Human infection with swine flu viruses are most likely to occur when people are in close proximity to infected pigs, such as in pig barns and livestock exhibits at fairs.Human-to-human transmission of swine flu can also occur. This is thought to occur in the same way as seasonal flu occurs in people, which is mainly person-to-person transmission through coughing or sneezing of people infected with the flu virus. People may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.

What is known about human-to-human spread of swine flu?
In September 1988, a healthy 32-year-old pregnant woman was hospitalized for pneumonia and died eight days later. A swine H1N1 flu virus was detected. Four days before getting sick, she had visited a county fair swine exhibition where there was widespread flu-like illness among the pigs.In follow-up studies, 76 per cent of swine exhibitors tested had antibody evidence of swine flu infection but no serious illnesses were detected among this group. Additional studies suggest that one to three health care personnel who had contact with the patient developed mild influenza-like illnesses with antibody evidence of swine flu infection.

How are human infections with swine flu diagnosed?
To diagnose swine influenza A infection, a respiratory specimen is ideally collected within the first four to five days of illness and sent to the CDC for testing.

What medications are available to treat humans with swine flu?
Four antiviral drugs are licensed for use in the United States: amantadine, rimantadine, oseltamivir and zanamivir. While most swine flu viruses have been susceptible to all four drugs, the most recent seven swine flu viruses isolated from humans are resistant to amantadine and rimantadine. Right now, the CDC recommends oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with swine flu viruses.

What other examples of swine flu outbreaks are there?
The most well known outbreak of swine flu was 1976 one among soldiers in Fort Dix, N.J. The virus caused illnesses in at least four soldiers and one death; all were previously healthy. The virus was transmitted in close contact at a basic training camp. It was thought to have circulated for a month and disappeared. The source of the virus, the exact time of its introduction into Fort Dix and factors limiting its spread and duration are unknown. The outbreak may have been caused by introduction of an animal virus into a stressed human population in close contact during the winter.
Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mexico Swine Flu Epidemic Worries World,Swine Flu Deaths in Healthy Young People Raise Fears of Pandemic By Daniel J. DeNoon WebMD Health NewsReviewed by Louise Chang, MDApril 24, 2009

Mexico's deadly swine flu outbreak is caused by the same virus identified in the U.S., says CDC Acting Director Richard Besser, MD.The CDC is analyzing 14 virus samples sent from Mexico. Seven of them, the CDC learned today, are very similar to the unusual swine flu strain isolated from U.S. patients.People are concerned about this situation, Besser said at a news conference. We are worried as well. Our concern has grown since yesterday.Sixty people in Mexico have died of the flu -- and so far, 16 of the deaths are confirmed cases of swine flu, news sources quote Mexican officials as saying.World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl told the Canadian news agency CBC that there have been some 800 cases in Mexico City, where schools are closed due to the outbreak.Alarmingly, the flu outbreak in Mexico is striking healthy young people -- a pattern that would be expected if a flu virus new to humans emerged.

Because these cases are not happening in the very old or the very young, which happens with seasonal influenza, this is an unusual event and a cause for heightened concern,Hartl said in a CBC interview.That's not the only eyebrow-raising feature of the swine flu outbreaks. Infections have occurred in Mexico, California, and Texas -- where warm weather should mean the end of the normal flu season, says William Schaffner, MD, president-elect of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and chair of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University.Will we see this flu virus transmitted in the warm months? That would give us heartburn, Schaffner tells WebMD. And is this a harbinger of things to come during our next flu season? Another disconcerting feature of the outbreak is that it's probably too late to contain it to limited geographical areas.We are seeing cases in Texas and California with no connection between them. This makes us think there has been transmission from person to person through many cycles, Besser said.For containment we need limitation to a confined geographical area, and we have not seen that here.

The World Health Organization is convening an expert panel to determine whether to raise its pandemic flu alert level. Because of bird flu, we're at level 3. If the panel finds evidence of increased human-to-human transmission it goes to level 4. If there's evidence of significant human-to-human transmission,it goes to level 5.A pandemic will be declared only if there is "efficient and sustained human-to-human transmission of a new flu virus. That clearly has not happened yet.Whether or not this [swine flu] strain causes a widespread pandemic will depend on its transmissibility among humans. That has not yet been fully elucidated, but should be shortly,Pascal James Imperato, MD, MPH, professor and dean of public health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, N.Y., tells WebMD.Should there be a pandemic -- something that is far from certain -- the CDC has already begun work on a vaccine. Would it be ready by next flu season? It would be an Olympic sprint -- a mammoth feat -- to produce a flu vaccine by October,Schaffner says.

What You Should Do Now
Infectious disease experts agree with the CDC that now is a good time to think about what you'd do if there were a widespread flu outbreak.Here's what you can do right now: Wash your hands often and well.The CDC has not yet warned travelers to avoid the San Diego or San Antonio areas, and it is not restricting travel to or from Mexico. However, travelers to or from those areas should be sure to use all normal precautions to avoid catching or spreading a cold or flu.People who live in or visit those areas and who get flu-like symptoms should see a doctor to get tested for the swine flu virus.

Eight swine flu cases identified in U.S.LOS ANGELES TIMES
By Thomas H. Maugh II 2:49 PM PDT, April 24, 2009

As Mexico City closed schools and began taking other measures to contain the spread of a swine flu outbreak that may have infected hundreds of people and killed as many as 60, U.S. officials said Friday they had found one new case in San Diego, bringing the total number in the United States cases to eight.The most recent victim, a child, has recovered, as did the other seven victims, Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday in a telephone news conference. Six of the eight U.S. cases were in San Diego and Imperial counties and two in Guadeloupe County, Texas.The cases were identified during routine screening of virus samples, and federal authorities have called for intensified screening of samples from flu victims in the area and in flu victims who have recently traveled to Mexico.The outbreak has caused concern because the virus appears to be spread from human to human, which is the crucial requirement for a new virus to precipitate a large-scale outbreak.CDC researchers have so far found no links among the U.S. victims or any common behaviors, Besser said, suggesting that there has been transmission through several cycles -- that is, there were several intermediaries who passed it among themselves before the virus reached the identified victims.If that is the case, he added, many people have already been exposed to the virus and it is too late to contain a potential outbreak in the United States. But the good news is that none of the intermediaries appear to have developed serious illness, suggesting that the disease is not especially virulent.None of the American victims has had any contact with pigs and only one of them has traveled to Mexico recently, he said.

The Pan American Health Organization said Friday that there have so far been 854 cases of influenza-like illness in Mexico City, with 59 deaths. Another 24 cases with three deaths have occurred in San Luis Potosi, in central Mexico, and 24 cases with no deaths in Mexicali, near the U.S. border.Friday afternoon, Mexico's Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova held a news conference at which he said the rate of deaths is slowing. He also said that there are no plans to close the borders because of the outbreak.U.S. health experts noted, meanwhile, that deaths from influenza are common. In an average year in the United States, about 35,000 people die from the flu, and in bad years nearly twice that number. Such deaths are most often among the very young and the elderly. Most of the cases in Mexico, however, have been among people who were apparently young and healthy.That is potentially alarming, experts said, because the 1918 influenza epidemic also struck the young and healthy.Besser said CDC researchers had so far analyzed 14 samples from seriously ill Mexican patients, but only eight of them tested positive for swine flu. I think we are safe in saying it is the same virus in Mexico and California, he said. The six cases that did not test positive might have been caused by other strains of flu, but we can't say what they were,he said.

Canadian laboratories have confirmed 18 of the Mexican cases as swine flu and have found that 12 are genetically identical to the swine flu virus found in California, according to the Pan American Health Organization .It is really critically important that we learn more about what is going on in Mexico, Besser said. Sorting out which of the cases are caused by swine flu is an important public health question. . . . There is much uncertainty, more than anyone would like.The agency has not yet sent investigators into Mexico, but I anticipate we will have folks there very soon, he said.The World Health Organization said it is monitoring the situation closely and will probably send a research team to Mexico as well.Besser said the agency was not calling for any travel restrictions to Mexico or to the affected areas in the U.S. We're reminding travelers of our standard recommendations, such as washing your hands frequently and covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze. If you are sick and have the flu, you should stay home and not get on a bus or airplane.The new swine virus is unlike any that researchers have seen before. It appears to be a combination of segments from four different viruses from three continents, including a human segment, an avian segment and pig segments.Epidemiologists are typically concerned about swine flu because the animals often play a crucial role in the creation of new flu strains. While viruses from birds are rarely transmitted among humans, bird and human viruses can mix in pigs, creating hybrids that retain the virulence of bird flus while gaining the ability to pass from human to human.The U.S. suffered outbreaks of swine flu in 1976 and 1988, but both were limited in scope and spontaneously disappeared.thomas.maugh@latimes.com