From left; Christy Kennedy left Jimmy Doran, Sean Hogan, Michael Murphy and Martin Moylan from Simpson's Hospital casting their votes yesterday in the Lisbon Treaty, at St Attracta's School, Ballinteer, Co Dublin. Photo Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times.
LISBON TREATY VOTERS FRIDAY.
EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come (ROMANS IN AD 70) shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMANS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 And he( EU ROMAN, JEWISH DICTATOR) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:( 7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,( 3 1/2 YRS) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
CHANGES IF LISBON TREATY PASSES
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_european_commission.html
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_council_of_ministers.html
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_european_council.html
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_european_parliament.html
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_other_proposed_changes.html
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_developments.html
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_specific_issues.html
EU LISBON TREATY VOTING
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfsc_OAIkwI&feature=player_embedded
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/
MILIBAND AGAINST LEADER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9BxPzwoSpc&feature=player_embedded
LIVE LISBON UPDATE
http://www.rte.ie/news/features/lisbontreaty/tracker.html
ISRAEL VS IRAN-WRITTING ON THE WALL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SIPb8PuMnA&feature=player_embedded
WE WILL KNOW THE VOTE RESULT TOMORROW(OCT 3,09)MORNING-NOON IRELAND TIME ABOUT 8 OR 9 AM EASTERN TIME.
ITS 8:25AM OCT 3,09 IT LOOKS LIKE THE IRISH HAVE PASSED THE LISBON TREATY BY A BIG MARGION THIS TIME REPORTS SAY.THE CHECHS AND POLES WILL JUST SIGN THEIR SHEETS OFF AND THE LISBON TREATY WILL GIVE THE EU A PERMANANT PRESIDENT AND A POWERFUL ARMY.
WOW DID THAT LISBON PROPHECY FULFILLED COME TO PASS.NOW THE EU CAN HAVE WORLD DOMINANCE LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS AND A SINGLE PERMANANT PRESIDENT TO FULFILL DANIEL 9:27THAT SAYS THE EU WILL GUARENTEE ISRAEL SECURITY FOR A 7 YEAR PEACE TERM.67% YES VOTE.
Brown hails Irish EU Yes vote OCT 3,09
LONDON (AFP) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown hailed Saturday Ireland's Yes vote in a referendum on the EU's Lisbon Treaty, saying the bloc could now move forward on key areas like the economy.Ireland's vote came 16 months after a previous referendum when voters rejected the treaty, aimed at streamlining the EU's decision-making, in a shock move which plunged the 27-nation European Union into deadlock.I welcome the decision of the Irish people on the Lisbon Treaty,said Brown.The treaty is good for the UK and good for Europe. We can now work together to focus on the issues that matter most to Europeans -- a sustained economic recovery, security, tackling global poverty, and action on climate change.The Irish result is being closely watched in Britain, where opposition leader David Cameron, tipped to win elections due by next June, has pledged to hold a referendum if he takes power and Lisbon has not yet been ratified.There have been suggestions in the European parliament that British former prime minister Tony Blair could be given the job of EU president which would be created if the Lisbon Treaty comes into force across Europe.Poland and the Czech Republic are the only other EU nations yet to ratify it.
Irish give decisive yes to EU reform on 2nd try By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer – Sat Oct 3, 12:58 pm ET
DUBLIN – Ireland's recession-hit voters have overwhelmingly approved the European Union's ambitious and long-delayed reform plans, electoral chiefs announced Saturday in a referendum result greeted with wild cheers in Dublin — and nervous sighs of relief in Brussels.Ireland had been the primary obstacle to ratifying the EU Lisbon Treaty, a mammoth agreement designed to modernize and strengthen the 27-nation bloc's institutions and decision-making powers in line with its near-doubling in size since 2004. The treaty will make it easier to take decisions by majority rather than unanimous votes, and give a bigger say to national parliaments and the European Parliament in shaping EU policies.The Irish — the only EU citizens voting directly for a complex, impenetrably legal document that has been eight years in the making — stunned Brussels last year with a surprise rejection fueled by fears that an emboldened EU would force neutral Ireland to raise its business taxes, join a European army and legalize abortion.Ireland staged a second vote Friday after winning legal assurances from EU chiefs that Brussels would not interfere in any of those areas, nor take away Ireland's guaranteed ministerial seat on the European Commission.
We as a nation have taken a decisive step for a stronger, fairer and better Ireland, and a stronger, fairer and better Europe,Prime Minister Brian Cowen told reporters outside his central Dublin office.Cowen — whose government won despite suffering record-low popularity amid Ireland's worst economic crisis since the 1930s — thanked his European partners for addressing why most Irish voted no last time.He said EU chiefs listened to the people of Ireland and acted in the spirit of partnership and mutual respect that defines the European Union. That helped us to secure the vital guarantees that made today's victory possible.In the Dublin Castle referendum center, electoral chiefs announced the treaty's approval on a 67.1 percent yes vote on a relatively strong 58 percent turnout. Pro-treaty campaigners from the government and chief opposition parties alike hooted and hollered, waving placards saying We're Better Together and simply YES.Ireland in 2008 rejected the treaty with a 53.4 percent no vote on 51 percent turnout.The treaty still requires signatures from the Euro-skeptic heads of state of Poland and the Czech Republic, where national parliaments already have approved the treaty. But the EU expects soon to appoint a new 27-member commission — and new posts of president and foreign minister to project the EU's policies more forcefully on the world stage. New voting rules won't take effect until 2014 at the earliest.
The EU's senior diplomat in Washington, former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton, called the referendum victory a huge relief.Now the way is clear to get on with the real work of restoring the lost dynamism of the shared economy of Europe and Ireland,Bruton said.The fringe anti-EU groups that triumphed in 2008 attributed this week's stunning U-turn to the rapid unraveling of Ireland's long-booming economy.
Over the past year Ireland's debt has soared and unemployment doubled, and its overstretched banks could fail without a planned euro54 billion ($80 billion) bailout being underwritten by the European Central Bank.The yes campaign skillfully played to people's economic fears. They said no leads to ruin, and yes to recovery, said Patricia McKenna, leader of a left-wing pressure group called the People's Movement that opposes EU integration.Expressions of joy and relief flooded in from European capitals, particularly neighboring Britain, where Prime Minister Gordon Brown has resisted right-wing demands to subject the Lisbon Treaty to a referendum there, too.The treaty is good for the UK and good for Europe,Brown said in London. We can now work together to focus on the issues that matter most to Europeans: a sustained economic recovery, security, tackling global poverty, and action on climate change.European Commission leader Jose Manuel Barroso said in Brussels he was extremely happy about Ireland's overwhelming decision after such lengthy and careful deliberation.Ireland has recognized the role that the European Union has played in responding to the economic crisis,said Barroso, who visited Ireland during its treaty campaign to unveil nearly euro15 million ($25 million) in back-to-work aid for laid-off Dell Computer workers in Limerick.In Stockholm, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said the pro-treaty verdict has been a long journey.The ease of the yes victory — many districts reported vote swings of more than 20 percent away from the no camp — surprised most analysts, who had expected a much closer result.One of the most prominent treaty opponents, Irish businessman Declan Ganley, credited Cowen with leading a phenomenal campaign.
Ganley said most voters still opposed the EU's lack of democratic accountability and resented being forced to vote twice. But he said voters didn't feel they could afford to alienate European partners at a time when Ireland has become so economically vulnerable and dependent on Brussels' financial support. I'm surprised how big the yes vote is. It just shows how scared people are,said Ganley, whose anti-EU Libertas movement plastered Dublin with posters depicting a tearful girl beneath mottos questioning whether other Europeans even had functioning democracies. While virtually all Irish political parties backed the treaty, anti-EU campaigners from the left and right fringes sought to maximize anti-EU passions with a wide range of claims that the government branded blatant lies. They contended that an empowered Brussels would encourage immigration, slash its minimum wage, and legalize abortion and euthanasia.A second Irish rebuff would have killed the treaty and built pressure to chart another way forward that would not be subject to another Irish veto. One divisive alternative would have been a two-speed Europe in which a core of like-minded nations would move ahead of naysayers like Ireland.
Lisbon Treaty passed with decisive 67% in favour OCT 3,09 12:45PM
03/10/2009IRISH TIMES REPORTERS-Ireland has passed the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty with an overwhelming majority of 67 per cent in favour as just two of the 43 constituencies voted against it.Taoiseach Brian Cowen said credit for the result rested with the Irish people who had shown a determination to be at the centre of Europe.Speaking at a press conference at Government Buildings in Dublin this afternoon, Mr Cowen said: We will now work with all our partners in ensuring the reforms this treaty will bring are implemented.Mr Cowen also said he was confident the Green Party would stay in the Coalition and that its members would vote in favour of supporting Nama at a party conference next week. I am confident that my Government will continue and will take all necessary steps to affect economic recovery as quickly as possible.The referendum was carried with 67.1 per cent of the electorate voting in favour, reflecting a 20.5 per cent swing to the Yes side since the June 2008 referendum. In the first Lisbon poll, the No side secured 53.4 per cent of the vote.Yesterday's turnout was 58 per cent with 1,214,268 people voting for the treaty and 594,606 voting against. This was higher than the 53.13 per cent turnout for the first referendom on Lisbon.
Dublin South recorded the highest support for the treaty, with 82 per cent of ballots in favour. This was closely followed by Dún Laoghaire, which had an 81 per cent Yes vote, a 17.7 per cent swing compared to last year.Across all 12 Dublin consitutencies support for the treaty was 69 per cent, with a turnout of 59.3 per cent.European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he saw the Yes vote as indicative of the Irish electorate's confidence in the European Union and as a sign that Ireland recognises the role that the European Union has played in responding to the economic crisis.Tipperary South was first constituency to declare a result today, reporting resounding majority in favour of the treaty just before 1pm. It was quickly followed by Yes majorities across the State as almost all constituencies reported significant swings in favour of the treaty. The counting, which began at 9.00am, was completed by 4.30pm.The exceptions to the national trend were Donegal North East and Donegal South West, which rejected the treaty, the latter by a narrow margin of 50.3 per cent against. Donegal South West is the constituency of Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Mary Coughlan. Both Donegal constituencies rejected the treaty last year.No campaigners conceded defeat within hours of ballot boxes being opened this morning as the extent of their defeat quickly became apparent.Libertas leader Declan Ganley told reporters at the main Dublin counting centre in the RDS the result was a very convincing win.I'm surprised how big the Yes vote is and it shows how scared people are,he said.This is a very convincing win. It's a mandate of sorts. I wish him [Taoiseach Brian Cowen] the best of luck.I politically admire a masterful campaign from a masterful politician who has made absolute glove puppets out of the opposition,Mr Ganley said.Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said he was delighted and noted that the guarantees secured by the Government had played a crucial role, while Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said the result was an essential first step towards economic recovery.
Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said the decision was secured despite the anger and frustration people feel at a very unpopular Government. The biggest obstacle we had throughout this campaign was the unpopularity of the Government.At the central count centre in Dublin Castle, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the people of Ireland had exercised their power in an enlightened way.It was a victory clearly for the people who rose above the anger of politics and the cynicism of politics to put their country first,he said.Sinn Féin vice-president and anti-Lisbon campaigner Mary Lou McDonald said the vote should not be seen as an indication of support for the Government parties. This vote does not mean that the Government has a mandate for Nama or the upcoming budget and let them not think that or fall into that false sense of security. People still want change.Pat Cox, a former president of the European Parliament who headed the Ireland for Europe group, claimed the voters of Ireland had put their country first. This was a mature vote in which the Irish people rejected those voices telling them to make the referendum a verdict on the government and on national policies,he said.Minister for Commutations, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan said the result could be a turning point for the country after a difficult 18 months.In the first referendum on Lisbon on June 12th, 2008, the treaty was rejected by 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent.In the previous EU referendum on October 19th, 2002, the Nice Treaty was approved by 62.89 per cent to 37.11 per cent. In an earlier referendum on June 7th, 2001, Nice was rejected by 53.87 per cent to 46.13 per cent.
Lisbon Treaty - Q&A Published: 6:30AM BST 04 Sep 2009
WHAT IS THE LISBON TREATY? The Lisbon Treaty is the controversial successor to the European Union Constitution and is billed as necessary update to streamline Brussels institutions.Ireland gives convincing Yes vote to Lisbon EU leaders agreed the reforms in order to help the Union function more smoothly now its membership has grown from 15 to 27, and in order for Europe to play more of a role as a single bloc on the global stage.It is the latest in a series of treaties amending the original 1957 Treaty of Rome - from the Single European Act, through the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaties of Amsterdam and of Nice - to integrate institutions, as the policies and scope of the EU has expanded over the last 20 years.British diplomats have claimed that the Lisbon Treaty will be the last changes to EU institutions until 2020, or beyond.When the treaty comes into force, it will create two new and potentially powerful posts, a President and a foreign minister, and further streamline decision-making to make it harder for countries to block legislation that most members favour.In particular there will be more qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers, the Brussels body where ministers from each member state must thrash out many of the big policy decisions together. That will make it harder for individual countries like Britain to block laws that they do not like. There will also be greater involvement of the European Parliament, although MEPs will still not have the power to propose or table laws by themselves.
HOW IS IT RELATED TO THE PLAN FOR A CONSTITUTION?
A written Constitution Treaty for the EU was drafted and agreed by Europe's leaders in June 2004. Tony Blair, the prime minister of the day, promised Britons a referendum on the text, to be the first popular British vote on Europe since 1975. But the original text was dropped after voters in France and the Netherlands rejected it in two referendums. The British vote was cancelled.Two years later most of the Constitution's provisions were resurrected in the Lisbon Treaty, a document critics say is as much of a threat to national sovereignty as the old text would have been. In one of his first major decisions as prime minister, Gordon Brown broke Mr Blair's promise to hold a referendum on the new treaty.
WHEN DOES IT COME INTO EFFECT?
The treaty is intended to come into effect from the beginning of next year, but cannot do so unless all 27 member states have separately ratified it - making it binding by introducing its provisions into national law.Even after the Irish Yes vote, two countries have yet to complete the formalities. Parliaments in both Poland and the Czech Republic have already approved the necessary legislation, but neither country's president has yet signed it.In Poland, President Lech Kaczynski, an Tory-style Eurosceptic whose party is no longer in command of the parliament, is has been delaying his signing in the hope that Ireland would reject the treaty. He objects to the treaty because Poland will face a reduction in its votes on councils of ministers, while Germany gains.Even so, he is widely expected now to sign within days.Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president, who fears that the treaty tips the balance of sovereignty towards a European superstate, is more likely to continue to hold things up.Defying both chambers of the Czech parliament, Mr Klaus has been accused of gambling with his country's economic future to make a minority political point.
Right-wing Czech senators, with links to the Tories, have lodged objections to the treaty with their country's constitutional court. The court may take between two and eight months to rule on them - giving Mr Klaus, egged on by his British and Czech supporters, the excuse to string things out.Even so, Czech ministers have briefed EU officials that Mr Klaus will cave in and sign before the end of this year, enabling the treaty to enter into legal force in January.
WHAT IS THE EU PRESIDENT?
The job of fronting and chairing the Council of the EU, an institution which brings together national leaders in summits and ministers in councils, will be the most powerful Brussels post ever created.Under the current system, countries' leaders take it in turns every six months to chair, including European Councils of heads of state and governments.If the Lisbon Treaty enters into force a single official, known formally as the President of the Council, will take over for a two-and-a-half year term, representing Europe on the world stage.The role will be further enhanced by the creation of a large supporting staff and an advisory cabinet of between 16 and 22 salaried political aides. The president will receive a salary expected to be at least £250,000, and negotiations are continuing on whether he should have a chic official residence, for entertaining fellow world leaders.The EU President could become even more powerful in future, if - as some suggest - he is permitted to serve simultaneously as the President of the European Commission, the powerful bureaucracy that enforces and exclusively proposes European legislation.But, for the time being, the current Commission president, Jose Manual Barroso, has just been reappointed for a further five year term.The EU's president will be chosen by a vote of European leaders of the member states, not by MEPs or by voters.
WILL TONY BLAIR BE FIRST PRESIDENT?
Tony Blair is the current frontrunner for the new job of President of the Council of the EU - among a small field thought to include Dutch, French and Luxembourgian prime ministers, and former leaders of Spain, Austria and Finland.Nobody is certain that publicly declared support for Mr Blair from France can be trusted, and there are still lingering German reservations to overcome.
FOREIGN MINISTER
One of the most controversial elements of the abandoned EU Constitution was a plan for a foreign minister, who it was feared could eclipse the power of member states to conduct their own, independent foreign policies.Instead, the Lisbon Treaty establishes a new post of High Representative, which most agree is the same post in all but name.The new High Rep will run a powerful EU diplomatic service, with up to 160 representations around the world.In certain circumstances, he will also be able to make foreign policy under his own initiative.Critics have argued that in situations such as the recent conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza, where there were differences of opinion between London and other EU capitals, the High Rep could make policies with which Britain disagreed - but which it could not veto and was bound to follow.Unlike Europe's current foreign policy representative Javier Solana, the new foreign minister will also be a Vice-President of the European Commission, making him a powerful official in Brussels and abroad. He will oversee a new EU diplomatic corps, the European External Action Service - full-time diplomats who will fan out around the world's capitals to represent the EU and push for its interests.He will chair monthly meetings of Europe's foreign ministers.
SO WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
European Union leaders will meet in Brussels on October 29 for an unprecedented share out of jobs - including those of the newly created President and Foreign Minister.At the same time, the posts of a further 26 commissioners will be filled, with stiff competition for economic jobs, especially those enforcing EU competition and single market rules.The EU's executive is expected to play a major role in Europe's recession hit economy and will be the authority that decides whether bank, or other industry, bailouts are acceptable under European law.Meanwhile, the EU's Permanent Representatives - ambassadors to Brussels from the 27 member states - will begin meeting three times a week, in confidential and rushed negotiations, to hammer out the details before the Lisbon Treaty enters into force next year.Talks began in late July, once a week, but the hard issues surrounding the setting up of new institutions and agreement on their precise powers have been left until last. Officials regard Lisbon Treaty implementation as highly sensitive and all the documentation is classified.
HOW COULD THE TORIES PREVENT THE TREATY?
David Cameron may have pledged not to let the matter rest but in practice his range of options are restricted.In a Union governed by the rule of pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be kept), Mr Cameron can only reopen the Treaty with the consent of a majority of the EU's other leaders.In 1985, during a Milan summit, Margaret Thatcher, even with the support of Greece and Denmark, was powerless to stop work beginning on the internal market reforms that eventually became the 1986 Single European Act - the first major revision of the EU's founding Treaty of Rome text.Mr Cameron would have a similar problem. He would be alone in trying to reopen what other governments would consider a can of worms - an EU treaty that had survived referendum rejections in France, the Netherlands and Ireland before it finally came into force.Calling a referendum on a ratified treaty, which is already in legal force, could be seen by other member states as tantamount to threatening unilateral withdrawal from the EU - with likely financial penalties and uncertain economic consequences.Britain would face two options. It could push for opt-outs from key areas of EU legislation - in areas such as social and employment policy, perhaps, where EU laws on working hours and maternity leave are seen as most intrusive.Any attempt to forge such a deal - which would amount to a lesser form of EU membership - would have to be acceptable to all 26 other member states. But, EU officials concede, if Britain voted No in a referendum, some kind of new relationship would have to be worked out.
Or, Britain could withdraw from the EU altogether. Ironically, the Lisbon Treaty creates for the first time a mechanism for countries to leave - though the terms of departure, including financial penalties for the country involved, would be dictated by the other EU members.None of Britain's mainstream parties - including the Conservatives - want to pull out of the EU, since even most Eurosceptics admit that there are benefits of membership.A senior Commission official said: Disentangling Britain would be pretty brutal. Almost every aspect of British life is touched by the EU, certainly in terms of the economy and trade. There would be huge costs. Would people really want to pay them?
Lisbon Treaty set to be passed by decisive majority OCT 3,09
IRISH TIMES REPORTERS Taoiseach Brian Cowen said the Lisbon Treaty will be carried decisively and described the result as a good day for Ireland and a good day for Europe.With counting complete in 31 constituencies, just two have rejected to the treaty. Based on results so far, the Yes side has 66.8 per cent of the vote reflecting a 20 per cent swing. This compares to 53 per cent for the No side in the 2008 referendum.
The turnout is estimated at around 58.8 per cent.
Speaking at a press conference at Leinster House in Dublin this afternoon Mr Cowen said credit for the result rested with the Irish people who had shown a determination to be at the centre of Europe.We will now work with all our partners in ensuring the reforms this treaty will bring are implemented. The Irish people have supported reforms so that the EU can become efficient and more effective in dealing with the global concerns we all face.European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he saw the Yes vote as a sign of confidence by the Irish electorate in the European Union and as a sign that Ireland recognises the role that the European Union has played in responding to the economic crisis.Tipperary South became the first constituency to declare a result just before 1pm with a resounding majority in favour of the treaty.This was quickly followed by Yes majorities in Kildare North, Sligo/North Leitrim, Sligo/Monaghan, Clare, Tipperary North and Waterford and in nine of the 12 Dublin constituencies.The only two to reject the treaty so far are Donegal North East and Donegal South West, the latter by a narrow margin of 50.3 per cent. Both Donegal constituencies rejected the treaty last year.
No campaigners conceded defeat within hours of ballot boxes being opened at 9am as the extent of the move in favour of the treaty became apparent.Libertas leader Declan Ganley told reporters at the main Dublin counting centre this morning the result was a very convincing win.Mr Ganley also accused the Yes campaign of playing on the fears of many voters, particular in connection with jobs and said he would come back next October with the Yes for Jobs posers and see how we are all doing.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin described today as a good day for Ireland.I am delighted for the country. It looks like a convincing win for the Yes side on this occasion.He said the guarantees secured by the Government had played a crucial role.We are in a very difficult economic position and this is an essential first step towards economic recovery,Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said.Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein vice-president and anti-Lisbon campaigner: This vote does not mean that the Government has a mandate for Nama or the upcoming budget and let them not think that or fall into that false sense of security. People still want change.Work must now continue on repairing the Irish banking system and bringing order to the public finances.Prominent Yes campaigner Pat Cox, a former president of the European Parliament, also claimed the voters of Ireland put their country first.
Mr Cox, who headed the Ireland for Europe campaign group, said: This was a mature vote in which the Irish people rejected those voices telling them to make the referendum a verdict on the government and on national policies.Dublin South has recorded the highest support for the treaty so far with 82 per cent of ballots in favour. This was closely followed by the result from Dun Laoghaire which was 81 per cent Yes. This represents a 17.7 per cent swing to the Yes side.Speaking at the count centre at the University of Limerick Sports Arena this afternoon Minister for Defence and Limerick East TD, Willie O'Dea TD, said the referendum would not have been carried without the support of Opposition parties.It was a big hurdle in the way of the Government and certainly it would have had devastating consequences for the Government had the referendum been turned down a second time,said Mr O’Dea. His constituency rejected the treaty in 2008 but passed it today with 67 per cent in favour.Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament said the vote was good news for Ireland and good news for Europe.But it is not the end of the story.Now we must start to work to overcome the difficulties.Our citizens are afraid of the energy issue, the unemployment rate, about immigration, demography and we can do that together, as it was before, also in the future, in solidarity.We should also think about those who were answering No because it is our habit and it is our custom to think about all Europeans. I can assure (you) I will work very hard and do feel that it is our common Europe. Let us write our common European history.
Irish voters back EU reform treaty: officials By Darren Ennis and Padraic Halpin, Reuters October 3, 2009 7:02 AM
DUBLIN -- Irish voters have approved the European Union's Lisbon reform treaty, Ireland's foreign minister and opposition groups said on Saturday, removing an obstacle to the EU's ambitions to increase its global influence.Irish approval, a year after rejecting the charter, will put pressure on Poland and the Czech Republic to follow other EU leaders in backing a treaty intended to make it easier for the EU to reach decisions now that it has 27 member states.I am delighted for the country. It looks like a convincing win for the Yes side on this occasion, Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told national radio.The leader of anti-Lisbon group Libertas said voters had approved the treaty.This is a very convincing win, Declan Ganley told reporters at the main Dublin counting centre. Of course I am disappointed, I think we have made a mistake.Monitors were still counting votes following Friday's referendum on a treaty that requires the approval of all member states to go into force, and official results were expected late on Saturday afternoon.ut state radio RTE said early tallies from counting centres showed constituencies such as Dublin Central and Dublin North East had voted 56 percent in favour while in Galway city early indications put the Yes vote at 63 percent.
It looks like a Yes vote. I want to sympathise and commiserate with all our people who put in a great effort for the love of their country,said Richard Greene, a spokesman for the Coir group which opposed the treaty.We are extremely disappointed that the voice of the people was not heard the first time around.The atmosphere was calm after fraught campaigning that pitched Ireland's main political parties against anti-abortion groups, pacifists and British eurosceptics.The Irish government called the second referendum under pressure from EU leaders and the executive European Commission in Brussels.
IMPACT OF RECESSION
The vote followed warnings from celebrities, politicians and business leaders that a second No would ruin Ireland's reputation as it battles recession.Many voters were thought more likely to back the treaty this time because of the economic crisis, during which EU aid has helped curb the impact on Ireland.The treaty creates two new posts - a long-term president of the European Council of EU leaders and foreign policy chief.This is intended to increase the influence of a bloc representing 495 million people as the balance of power shifts following the global financial crisis to give China and other emerging powers more say.EU leaders are now sure to put pressure on the eurosceptic leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic to ratify the treaty.Regarding the Polish and Czech presidents, it is a matter for them and it is a matter for their people. The ball is now firmly in their court,European Affairs Minister Dick Roche told Reuters at the main Dublin counting centre.All I can say is that Ireland has lived up to its responsibilities and it is now up to them to live up to theirs.Polish President Lech Kaczynski has said he will ratify the charter if Ireland votes Yes.Czech President Vaclav Klaus could delay approval to await a ruling on a constitutional complaint against the treaty by 17 senators.Irish approval would be a boon for the former Celtic Tiger economy, which was spared an Icelandic-style collapse because of its membership of the euro zone.The country is still reliant on goodwill from Brussels and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt for its future recovery.Many people in Ireland are struggling to come to terms with unemployment, higher taxes and the possibility of lower social welfare payments in the next austerity budget.Irish borrowing costs would be likely to drop and its banking stocks rise on Monday if the result is a Yes.
Eyes on Czechs after Irish EU vote, Poles to sign By Jan Lopatka, Reuters October 3, 2009 8:01 AM
A member of the European parliament, Ivo Strejcek (C), makes a speech as demonstrators hold banners during a protest rally Freedom for Ireland to support Ireland's and the Czech Republic's state sovereignty in front of the Irish Embassy in Prague September 24, 2009.Photograph by: Reuters,
Reuters-PRAGUE -- Poland's president Lech Kaczynski looked set to sign the EU's Lisbon treaty within days of Irish approval, and Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus was not expected to delay for more than a few weeks, politicians said on Saturday.
Irish voters backed the treaty in Friday's referendum, government and opposition officials said as vote counting continued on Saturday.Kaczynski is expected to add his signature to the pact, aimed at streamlining the 27-nation bloc and giving it more clout, soon after confirmation of a Yes vote in Ireland.The moment Mr. President knows the final and official results, he signs it immediately,said Pawel Wypych, a minister at Kaczynski's chancellery.It won't happen over this weekend, but it's a matter of days.Klaus, who sees the document as a step toward a European superstate where national states will lose sovereignty, has not revealed his strategy but he is likely to yield eventually, political observers say.Both houses of the Czech parliament have approved the treaty but a group of pro-Klaus lawmakers challenged the treaty at the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, halting the process for weeks at least. The court is widely expected to dismiss the challenge.Klaus cannot legally sign the treaty before the ruling and he is seen bending under pressure from home and abroad and sign, said Alexandr Vondra, former Czech deputy prime minister for Europe during the Czech EU presidency earlier this year.
In case the Constitutional Court does not uphold the complaint, he will respect the political and constitutional reality and sign,Vondra told Reuters.I believe (he will sign) soon after the court verdict.The Czechs will come under pressure form other EU countries to ratify the document fast to allow the EU to start operating under the new rules from the beginning of 2010.Britain's Conservative leader David Cameron, whose party leads opinion polls, has said he would hold a referendum on Lisbon if it is not ratified in all EU states before an election expected by May 2010, and Klaus could keep the door open.But Stefan Fuele, the current Czech minister for Europe, said Klaus would not hold out for that long.I am convinced that President Vaclav Klaus ... would not tie up the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in the Czech Republic with the wishes of any other member state,he said.
Lisbon tallies indicate massive Yes swing
Saturday, 3 October 2009 12:13
The Lisbon Treaty looks set to be passed by a decisive majority, as tallies from around the country indicate a massive swing to the Yes side.Live - Referendum Count Text Updates .Although there are no official results in yet, tallies everywhere are showing a big increase in support for the Treaty.As the ballot papers are being sorted, a clear picture is starting to emerge from tallies - showing a decisive swing to the Yes side.15 months ago, only 10 of the 43 constituencies voted in favour of Lisbon; this time - there will be a majority in nearly every constituency.
So far, only Donegal North East looks like voting No - neighbouring Donegal South West - constituency of Tánaiste Mary Coughlan - is too close to call.Tallies from Dublin South West indicate a clear Yes vote with 60% of boxes open. The constituency had the highest No vote in 2008.All boxes are opened in Kerry North and tallies are indicating a 60:40 margin in favour of the Yes side. Turnout was 50%.Indications from other constituencies appear to be the same - the Yes vote is reported to be up everywhere.
EU eagerly awaits results
Leaders from the European Union's 27 nations are anxiously awaiting the result of the Irish referendum.Irish voters rejected the EU reform treaty last year, and a second No vote could derail the accords which have been painstakingly crafted through years of negotiation.Ireland is the only EU country constitutionally obliged to put the treaty to a referendum.Poland and the Czech Republic are the only other countries that have yet to ratify the Lisbon Treaty.There has been sustained interest in Europe in the result of the Irish referendum, with an awareness across capitals that the Lisbon Treaty will stand or fall on the Irish vote.In Brussels at the home of the European institutions, and the focus of the eight years of painstaking negotiations that led to Lisbon, officials have been in a state of some anxiety.If Lisbon comes into force the first step will be the appointment of the 27 member European Commission.The national capitals will then propose the first full time president of the European Council, the body representing member states, as well as it new foreign affairs representative.
The new double-majority voting system will not come into effect until 2014.
If Lisbon is rejected, than Europe will continue under the Nice Treaty, but after eight years of negotiations it will appear that Europe is simply incapable of reforming itself, and the EU will be in crisis.Some parts of Lisbon could technically be applied to upcoming accession treaties, or a core group of states may forge ahead in a two-tier Europe, but both these options are legally and politically fraught with problems.
Ireland to Begin Counting Votes in EU’s Lisbon Treaty (Update1)
By Ian Guider
Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Counting of votes in Ireland’s second referendum on the European Union’s proposed new governing treaty begins today, with an exit poll indicating a reversal of last year’s rejection. Boxes from the 43 districts will be opened at 9 a.m., with tallies likely to give an indication of the result by noon. The final result is due to be announced in Dublin later in the day. An exit poll by Fine Gael, Ireland’s second biggest political party, put the yes side ahead by 60 percent to 40 percent. The poll of 1,000 people was conducted at 33 polling stations during the vote yesterday. Prime Minister Brian Cowen agreed to another vote after securing guarantees from European leaders to safeguard Irish neutrality, power over taxes and the right to keep its EU commissioner. Opinion polls before the vote also showed people were preparing to back the treaty, seeking Europe’s shelter as the economy shrinks at the fastest pace in the euro region and banks struggle to cover bad debts. The importance of a successful referendum cannot be understated,Ciaran Callaghan, an analyst at NCB Stockbrokers in Dublin, wrote in a note yesterday.A rejection could prove to be the downfall of the current government coalition, placing any national economic recovery on hold and likely resulting in a widening of Irish bond spreads.Some three million people were eligible to vote on the Lisbon Treaty, which creates the posts of a full-time EU president and foreign minister and streamlines decision-making.
Economy Shrinking
Fifty-five percent of voters will back the treaty, a poll published by the Sunday Business Post on Sept. 27 signaled. Twenty-seven percent oppose it, according to the poll of 1,008 people for the Dublin-based newspaper. All EU states must ratify the treaty and a reversal of last year’s rejection would hand the final word to Vaclav Klaus, the anti-EU president of the Czech Republic. Klaus yesterday said he would be pleased if Ireland rejected it.The Czech Constitutional Court is dealing with a complaint against the treaty filed by a group of senators and Klaus has said he won’t sign it before the court issues its verdict.A victory for the yes side in Ireland wouldn’t mean that a minute later I’d sign the Lisbon Treaty,he said in an interview on CT24 television.
Fiscal Position
Opponents of the treaty won by 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent in Ireland’s June 2008 referendum. Just over a year later, what was once Europe’s most dynamic economy is shrinking by about 8 percent as a real- estate boom unravels. Unemployment has more than doubled to 12.6 percent as companies from Dell Inc., the world’s second-largest maker of personal computers, to Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc reduce their workforce.At the same time, a deteriorating fiscal position pushed the yield, or spread, between 10-year Irish debt and benchmark German notes to 284 basis points in March, the highest level in at least a decade. The spread has since narrowed to 164 basis points as the government began implementing a plan to control the widening budget deficit.Declan Ganley, leader of Libertas, which headed the campaign against the treaty last year, said endorsing the EU’s new rulebook won’t help Ireland’s economy.There’s not one single thing in this document that creates a single job in Ireland,Ganley said on Sept. 21.The only job the Lisbon Treaty will save is Brian Cowen’s job.To contact the reporter on this story: Ian Guider in Dublin at iguider@bloomberg.net
Irish looks set approve EU treaty-informal exit polls
Sat Oct 3, 2009 3:22am
DUBLIN, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Informal exit polls on Friday suggested voters in Ireland were leaning towards approving the Lisbon Treaty to reform the European Union.
On what we have seen at the exit polls, we would see a vote in favour of in or around 53 percent,said a governing party source, who declined to be named because manual counting of votes does not start until Saturday.
Major Irish parties united in hoping for a Yes vote to Lisbon-Soaring unemployment is causing voters to look more favourably at the treaty By David McKittrick, Ireland correspondent Saturday, 3 October 2009
Voting in Ireland on the EU's Lisbon Treaty seemed to start sluggishly yesterday, in spite of official pronouncements that the outcome of the referendum will determine the future direction of our country.Irish voters had the choice of opting for Ta (Yes) or Nil (No) on whether the treaty, which is intended to shape the EU's future, should be ratified.The major Irish parties, and the European establishment in general, are anxiously hoping that the opinion polls which indicate a Yes vote will prove to be accurate.That would give the go-ahead for a thorough overhaul of the way the EU does its business. A negative vote, by contrast, would be regarded in Europe as a major complication in reforming its institutions.Last year the No campaign won out, to the consternation of Brussels, and many months were spent on planning the current re-run. A series of reassurances was given in the hope of calming the fears of voters who worried about the treaty's implications for issues such as military conscription and abortion.This time round the entire context has been changed by the near-collapse of the economy of the Republic of Ireland, which has been particularly hard-hit by the global recession.Unemployment has soared, as was illustrated by the fact that the most striking example of queueing in Dublin was not outside polling stations but in O'Connell Street, where more than 1,000 job-seekers stood for hours.
Many of them newly unemployed, they were hoping to get part-time temporary posts over the Christmas period with Marks & Spencer, whose spokeswoman described the response as incredible.One thousand turned up on Thursday and several hundred more yesterday.Against this background, it may well be that a fair number of voters will be swayed by the argument that Europe has already been helpful to the Republic in its time of economic need, and that they should not take the risk of losing friends.
In last year's contest many voters felt they had the freedom to oppose the treaty without suffering any tangible penalty. This time the country is in such evident need of money and goodwill that the Yes side seems set to benefit.A No vote would certainly be greeted with dismay in Brussels. In Dublin, meanwhile, such an outcome could even bring down the Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, whose rating in opinion polls is perilously low. He has said he would not resign in such an event, but most voters have been unimpressed with his track record on the economy – he was finance minister before becoming Prime Minister – and his failure to deliver a Yes vote would leave him highly vulnerable.He has been to the fore in the Yes campaign, attempting to appeal to voters who are distinctly unenamoured of him. Opposition parties who support Lisbon have been placed in the counter-intuitive position of whole-heartedly agreeing with him.The opposition leader, Enda Kenny, said: I know people are very angry. I have stressed time and again – sometimes until I'm blue in the face – explaining that they should hold their fire on the government and not take out their vengeance on the Lisbon question.The only sizeable party campaigning against Lisbon has been Sinn Fein, which declared: This is a bad treaty negotiated by an incompetent government which will seriously undermine Ireland's position. If we hand power away, we won't get it back.Although a No vote would create much uncertainty, Mr Cowen has firmly ruled out having a third referendum.
Fine Gael exit poll puts Yes vote at 60 per cent 02/10/2009
IRISH TIMES REPORTERS Turnout Dublin and Munster in the Lisbon Treaty referendum is substantially up on last year, in contrast to many other parts of the country, where it was described as slow and low.The total turnout across the 43 consitutuencies was reported to be about 50 per cent by the time the polls closed at 10pm after being open for 15 hours.A premlinary national exit poll by Fine Gael suggests the Yes side, with about 60 per cent, have scored a victory over the No side, who are on 40 per cent.A spokeswoman for the Dublin city returning officer said voter turnout across the six constituencies averaged 44 per cent at 7pm. This contrasted sharply with other parts of the country, where turnout was as low as 10 per cent in several areas at lunchtime.The turnout was said to be particularly strong in Dún Laoghaire, which had the biggest vote in favour of the treaty in 2008. It was also high in Dublin South West, one of the constituencies with the biggest No vote last year.The turnout in commuter counties in Leinster, which have large populations of people working in Dublin, showed a sharp rise tonight and is as high as 60 per cent in some areas.Polling across all five Cork constituencies seemed to be broadly on a par with the 2008 referendum, with turnout averaging approximately 50 per cent.There was also a surge in turnout in many areas of Connacht. About half of all voters have cast their ballots in Galway. In Carlow and Kilkenny, turnout was estimated at just over 50 per cent in many areas tonight.Taoiseach Brian Cowen cast his vote with his wife Mary shortly before 11am this morning at Mucklagh National School, Co Offaly.
President Mary McAleese and her husband Martin cast their ballots at St Mary's Hospital in the Phoenix Park at 10.30am.Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny voted in his home town of Castlebar earlier at 9.15am while Libertas leader Declan Ganley voted at Briarfield National School near Moylough, Co Galway.Counting of votes will begin tomorrow at 9am and the official result is expected in the early evening.The Lisbon Treaty was rejected by a margin of 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent last year. Over three million people were entitled to vote in the referendum.
Last Updated: Friday, October 2, 2009, 18:00 Live Lisbon results service on irishtimes.com
An in-depth news and results service will be available on this site from early tomorrow morning.The site will carry up-to-the-minute results from all 41 counts on its interactive constituency map, along with comparative data from the 2008 vote. The site will also provide in-depth news, reaction and analysis from home and abroad. Irish Times political editor Stephen Collins will assess the voting trends as they emerge, while European correspondent Jamie Smyth will consider what the result means for Ireland’s position on the global stage.The main events of the day can also be followed through our LisbonWatch Twitter feed, SMS news alerts and blogs.
The media coverage surrounding this referendum is unprecedented, with some 560 TV, radio and print journalists in receipt of accreditation for the count at Dublin Castle tomorrow.Last year’s vote on Lisbon attracted 350 journalists. Less than 170 of this year’s 560-strong contingent are Irish, with the bulk of the remainder traveling from other EU member states.The German media have 33 people covering the count, with the ZDF station sending 15 journalists and ARD sending 18. The BBC is sending a 31-strong contingent of journalists.Several Japanese newspapers and broadcast media will also be in attendance, while Chinese state new agency Xinhua and China Radio International will relay news to Beijing.Al-Jazeera and Russian state TV are among the other international media outlets that have sent crews.
Lisbon Watch International interest in Irish vote unprecedented
October 2, 2009 @ 10:55 am | by Eoin
The media scrum surrounding this referendum is unprecedented, with some 560 TV, radio and print journalists in receipt of accreditation for the count at Dublin Castle tomorrow.Last year’s vote on Lisbon attracted 350 journalists. Less than 170 of this year’s 560-strong contingent are Irish, with the bulk of the remainder traveling from other EU member states.The German media have 33 people covering the count, with the ZDF station sending 15 journalists and ARD sending 18. The BBC is sending a 31-strong contingent of journalists.Several Japanese newspapers and broadcast media will also be in attendance, while Chinese state new agency Xinhua and China Radio International will relay news to Beijing.Al-Jazeera and Russian state TV are among the other international media outlets that have sent crews.An in-depth news and results service will be available on this site tomorrow.The site will carry up-to-the-minute results from all 41 constituencies as they emerge, along with comparative data from the 2008 vote.The site will also provide in-depth news, reaction and analysis from home and abroad. Irish Times political editor Stephen Collins will assess the voting trends as they emerge, while European correspondent Jamie Smyth will consider what the result means for Ireland’s position on the global stage.
Monday, September 28, 2009 EU will be more democratic and effective if Lisbon is ratified
IRELAND’S VOTE on Friday will determine for the foreseeable future whether the European Union is to operate under the provisions of the Nice Treaty or those of the Lisbon Treaty. There is no third option at this stage.I think I know the Nice Treaty reasonably well. I can honestly say that the Lisbon Treaty is much better.I represented Ireland on the working group of officials which drafted the Nice Treaty over nine months in 2000. The text was finally agreed by the heads of state and government at Nice in December after four days of difficult negotiations. It was the best that could be achieved at that time – essentially a series of compromises on issues left over from the Amsterdam negotiations in 1996-97.I had no role in relation to the Lisbon Treaty or indeed any negotiation subsequent to Nice. But I have read and re-read the consolidated text which shows what the EU treaties will look like if the Lisbon amendments come into force. I have no doubt it will be a great improvement on the two previous treaties – Nice and Amsterdam – which determine how the EU operates at present. Consider some examples.First, Lisbon is the ultimate outcome of a negotiation that was longer, broader and more democratic than that which led to any previous treaty. Much of what it contains was shaped initially through open debate in 2002-2003 in a 104-member convention by representatives of 27 governments and national parliaments (including Opposition members) and of the European Parliament and the European Commission. In contrast, Nice, like all previous EU treaties, began with a closed drafting group of officials of which I was one.Second, Lisbon will simplify the overall treaty structure. Many of the substantial provisions governing the operations and the policies of the EU will be carried forward unchanged. But they will now be set out clearly in just two basic treaties – the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Third, Lisbon sets out with a new and admirable clarity the aims and objectives of the union and the principles on which it is based. The most fundamental of these is the principle of conferral. Put simply, this means that the EU can act only where the member states, in the treaties, give it authority to do so. Lisbon states clearly for the first time that any competences not conferred on the union by the treaties remain with the member states.Fourth, the Lisbon formulation on human rights is much better than Nice. In preparing a first draft of the Amsterdam Treaty during Ireland’s 1996 presidency, my colleagues and I formulated what is now Article 6 of the EU Treaty. The union, it says is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.
The Lisbon text amplifies this: it speaks of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities and a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between men and women prevail. I wish we could have written that. And now the Charter of Rights will have the same legal value as the treaties.Fifth, Lisbon is clearer about democratic principles. It gives some role to national parliaments; it extends considerably the role of the European Parliament as co-legislator with the council and it makes it explicit that the EU functions on the basis of representative democracy. Citizens are directly represented in the European Parliament, and member states are represented in the council by governments democratically accountable to their parliaments or citizens.Sixth, a particular Lisbon formulation that differs from Nice allows the heads of state/government, by unanimity, to alter the number of EU commissioners. Last June, all 27 agreed that if Lisbon comes into force, they will avail of this new phrasing to change the Nice requirement for a reduced commission and revert instead to one commissioner per member state as Ireland wanted.Lisbon requires that any further change thereafter must be unanimous.
Seventh, Lisbon adds a provision on climate change.
Eighth, Lisbon, for the first time ever, allows a member state to withdraw from the union. We must hope that this will never happen but the existence of such a provision emphasises the nature of the EU – fundamentally a voluntary partnership of 27 sovereign states.These are just some of the improvements in Lisbon. Is there a downside? Well, no – but some points cause genuine concern to people who hesitate about the new treaty.One is that Lisbon gives the EU legal personality for the first time – essentially the power to make international agreements. Useful but hardly a reason to worry. After all, the European Communities we joined in 1973 each had legal personality. So too do the UN, the Council of Europe and many other international organisations.Another is that we will be citizens of the union. Again not very alarming. We are that already since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992; and Lisbon states clearly that it is additional to, and does not replace, national citizenship.Others say we will lose power – less scope for vetoes, more decisions by qualified majority vote and the weighted vote system of Nice in which Ireland counted for 2 per cent of the total will disappear.Well yes, but consider three points. First, the veto has two sides: where it exists we can block what we don’t like but equally any other state can block proposals we may favour. Second, Lisbon requires council decisions to be supported by 15 member states, representing 65 per cent of the EU population. We count as 0.8 per cent of the total population but our vote as one state out of 27 counts for 3.7 per cent. No loss there. Thirdly, small states influence matters more than voting weight.
The EU is a careful balance – a union of states and of peoples – but some call for more democracy. Easy to do: if we tip the balance away from national sovereignty towards federalism, we could vote by population alone or elect a European Council president by popular vote. But are we ready for that? I doubt it.Will Lisbon erode our neutrality? Since Maastricht a treaty provision safeguards the security/defence policy of certain member states. In their decision in June which will later be a protocol, 27 heads of government spell it out – Lisbon does not affect Ireland’s traditional policy of military neutrality. They also confirm our right to decide our military expenditure for ourselves and whether and how to help other member states under attack. Domestically we have our triple lock and our Constitution bars Ireland from taking part in a common European defence. How much more secure could our neutrality be? There is much more to say. But all in all, as someone who helped negotiate Nice, I feel reasonably assured that a vote for Lisbon on Friday will produce a better treaty and a more effective EU.Noel Dorr is a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs. He is member of The Irish Times Trust.
STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Typhoon Melor begins move from Northern Marianas OCT 3,09
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands – A typhoon churning across the western Pacific slowly was moving away from the Northern Mariana Islands as residents hunkered down and prepared for gusting winds and flooding.Only the island of Agrihan in the U.S. commonwealth remained under a typhoon warning early Sunday, the National Weather Service said. Similar warnings for two other islands — Saipan and Tinian — were canceled for Typhoon Melor.Most businesses had shut down by Saturday morning, and Saipan residents who don't live in concrete homes moved to typhoon shelters, said Charles Reyes, Northern Marianas Gov. Benigno Fitial's press secretary.
Most residents had stocked up on food and water supplies ahead of expected flooding.
The storm, with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, was moving west through the Northern Marianas by early Sunday, the weather service said. Melor was expected to intensify slightly over the next 24 hours, it said.As of early Sunday, Melor was located 145 miles northwest of Saipan and Tinian, moving west at 15 mph. Typhoon force winds of up to 70 mph extended up to 65 miles from the center of the storm.
Saipan, Tinian and Agrihan had been forecast to take the brunt of the storm, with the weather service saying damaging winds could knock down trees, triggering power outages.Rainfall of up to 6 inches and waves as high as 16-feet were possible, forecasters said.Some airlines canceled flights in the Northern Marianas, and most government and private sector employees were told to leave work Friday.On Guam, villagers living in tin-and-wood homes were urged to seek refuge in storm shelters.
Residents have been rescued from collapsing homes during previous typhoons, so they were asked to relocate to shelters ahead of this storm, Yigo Mayor Robert Lizama said. Hundreds have relocated to 12 public schools designated as storm shelters, he said.The U.S. Coast Guard advised mariners not to leave shore until the storm passed.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency prepared food, water and beds as Typhoon Melor closed in. The agency had more than 90,000 meals, 2,500 cots, 3,800 blankets and 85 power generators waiting in the Northern Mariana islands and Guam.An additional 110,000 meals and more supplies were ready to be shipped from Hawaii to wherever they're needed. Those supplies were also available to help the recovery from the tsunami that hit American Samoa earlier this week.The USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship, was east of the islands and prepared to offer assistance to residents if needed, the Hawaii National Guard said in a statement. Navy submarines and Air Force aircraft had left Guam.Adm. Timothy Keating, who is head of the U.S. Pacific Command, had said he was cautiously optimistic there will not be a significant blow but was monitoring the storm.Guam is located about 3,700 miles southwest of Hawaii, just south of the Northern Mariana islands.
Rescuers search for Siciliy mudslide survivors by Mario Laporta – OCT 3,09
SCALETTA ZANCLEA, Italy (AFP) – Anger grew on Saturday as the death toll rose to 21 after torrential rains in Sicily, with some 30 still missing.Another victim has been found at Scaletta Zanclea, bringing the number of deaths to 21, civil defence chief Guido Bertolaso said in nearby Messina.Meanwhile Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who had called off a visit to the disaster area on Saturday, would fly over in a helicopter on Sunday to see the scale of the damage, Bertalaso said.
Berlusconi had earlier decided not to go to the scene, saying he did not want to get in the way of the rescue efforts.Some 250 millimetres (10 inches) of rain fell on northeastern Sicily in the space of a few hours on Thursday, triggering mudslides that collapsed buildings, carried off cars and cut off roads throughout the region.
Rescue workers and firemen, backed by sniffer dogs and some 200 volunteers resumed searching for survivors in the rubble of buildings Saturday, while helicopters flew in food for local inhabitants, regional civil defence spokesman Giampiero Gliubizzi said.In Scaletta Zanclea, south of the port city of Messina on the northeastern tip of the island, mechanical diggers were clearing four or five metres (12-15 feet) of mud.Witnesses said that in some towns such as Molino, the mud was up to seven metres deep.Survivors were being kept away from the scene, and many seemed deprived of everything, including water supplies, although the rain still fell.Several hundred people suffered some form of injury, and those needing hospital treatment had to be ferried aboard dinghies because the roads were impassable, while the seriously hurt were evacuated by helicopter.Mudslides included one that stretched over 3.5 kilometres (two miles), cutting off communications and sweeping away dozens of cars between Messina and several coastal towns south of the city.The Sicilian capital Palermo in the northwest was also affected, with motorists stranded in their cars and hospital emergency services flooded.Some 400 people had to be evacuated and the government has declared a state of emergency in the region.Officials, including President Giorgio Napolitano, hit out at the inadequate measures taken against natural disasters and the flouting of regulations on building in danger zones, saying the tragedy was totally predictable.Napolitano called for investment in a serious security plan, instead of monumental works,in reference to the 6.1 billion euro (8.5 billion dollar) bridge across the Straits of Messina due to start building next year.
Massimo Veltri, head of the Italian hydraulic engineering society, said that in Italy people build anywhere, without regard for European standards.We must have a special plan for land protection and management, because rain, even intense, should not be causing dozens of victims in a short time,he added, quoted by the ANSA news agency.According to the civil and environmental protection agency, 70 percent of Italian communities are threatened by water damage, enhanced by abuses, deforestation and unplanned building. Once more Italians are paying a high price for negligence and abuses in the building industry which has covered large areas of the country with concrete in an uncontrolled manner, especially in the south,an official of the opposition Democratic Party said.The press also weighed in Saturday, with Corriere della Sera publishing a catalogue of environmental disasters caused by irresponsible actions.It rains in the autumn, sometimes a lot,La Stampa observed. If you build in a river bed, your house will very probably be swept away.La Repubblica recalled that the area had been hit by similar mudslides in October 2007, adding, Two years later, nothing has been done.The area is already very fragile, and we have seen total negligence, especially with the lack of drainage,Gian Vito Graziano, president of the regional association of geologists, said earlier.Environmentalist Giulia Maria Mozzoni Crespi said: Everything is down to negligence and a lack of concern for the environment.Sicilian politicians don't think about the landscape because they want to help their friends who want to build,said Mozzoni Crespi, head of the Italian Fund for the Environment.
Typhoon Parma tears into Philippines by Martin Abbugao – Sat Oct 3, 9:56 am ET
MANILA (AFP) – At least three people died Saturday as Typhoon Parma tore roofs of houses and dumped heavy rain across the Philippines, piling further misery on the Southeast Asian nation after floods claimed 293 lives.However the typhoon stayed away from Manila, sparing millions of people who were struggling to recover from more of the type of rains that submerged most of the capital a week earlier.Parma, packing winds of 175 kilometres (110 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 210 kilometres per hour, made landfall in the northern province of Cagayan and surrounding areas about midday (0400 GMT).The wind is very, very angry,Cagayan regional police chief Roberto Damian said in a radio interview from his headquarters, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the Philippine capital.I can see trees are being toppled inside our camp.... One sturdy Narra tree was uprooted and smashed a car and a house. We cannot go out,he said in a radio interview before his line went dead.Parma caused major damage in Tuguegarao, the capital of Cagayan with a population of 130,000, according to the city's mayor, Delfin Ting.There's massive destruction of rooftops, and trees have been toppled,Ting said, while residents reported massive rainfalls.The whole province is virtually under water,said Aimar Raras, a local resident.Other parts of the Philippines' main island of Luzon were hit with heavy wind and rain, and by early Saturday evening it was still pummelling the country before being forecast to make its way towards Taiwan.Authorities reported that at least three people were killed and one was missing on Luzon, with one man washed away in a swollen river, another falling off a roof and a two-year-old boy drowning.
In Botolan town, in Zambales province, just northwest of Manila, about 2,000 families sought refuge in evacuation centres as the typhoon caused rivers to overflow, covering the highway.Floodwater has expanded and is already near the city hall. Almost all areas are flooded,Botolan Mayor Roger Yap told AFP.Tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated from coastal and low-lying towns across northern Luzon in preparation for Parma.Parma had previously been forecast to strike further south and closer to Manila, which is still reeling from the massive floods brought on by tropical storm Ketsana last Saturday.Ketsana's floods, the worst in 40 years, left 293 people dead and, of the more than three million people affected, about 400,000 remain in poorly supplied evacuation centres in and around Manila.Vast parts of eastern Manila remain knee-deep in water, and residents were extremely nervous about the impact of any more rain.Heavy showers fell across the sprawling city of 12 million people overnight Friday and throughout Saturday, but there was apparently not enough rain to greatly exacerbate the floods here.After being accused of not preparing the nation properly for Ketsana, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Friday placed the Philippines under a state of calamity to expedite relief efforts and get ready for Parma.In Taiwan, people were also evacuated from their homes on Saturday as the island prepared for the typhoon.
Residents of six villages in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung county, which was hit hardest by Typhoon Morakot in August, began evacuating from their mountain homes on Saturday, Taiwanese television reported.Taiwan's government, which was criticised for its slow and inefficient response to Morakot, which claimed more than 600 lives, this week issued mandatory evacuation orders for dangerous areas.
At least 172 dead in India floods by Naseeb Chand – Sat Oct 3, 9:03 am ET
BANGALORE, India (AFP) – The death toll from the worst flash floods and heavy rains seen in southern India in decades rose to at least 172 Saturday, officials said, as authorities stepped up rescue efforts.At least 145 people died in the state of Karnataka and 26 were killed in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, authorities said. One more person was killed in the southern seaside resort state of Goa as heavy rains resulted in the collapse of 250 houses, police said.Fifty of the victims drowned when a rescue boat capsized.However army troops and air force helicopters were managing to rescue marooned villagers.Officials said the total toll had jumped from 76 to 172 in 24 hours and warned it could rise further as dams and rivers were overflowing.The toll may go up as we try to reach those areas and villages that remain cut off,H.V. Parashwanath, secretary of Karnataka's disaster monitoring agency, told AFP in Bangalore.We are seeing some of the worst flooding since 1972 in the northern part of the state,Parashwanath said, referring to an area where the swollen Krishna River had burst its banks.Four days of intense rain have submerged villages, destroyed crops and disrupted transport and communication links in parts of the states, making it difficult to get aid to remote areas.A main highway linking the high-tech city of Bangalore and the Andhra Pradesh capital Hyderabad, another software centre, was also flooded and vehicles were trapped by rapid flowing water.
Air force helicopters evacuated some 415,000 people in southern Andhra Pradesh as residents waded through knee-deep waters.At least 25 villages are inundated and standing crops are completely destroyed,Andhra Pradesh disaster management officer Y.R.V. Sharma said.More than 300 relief camps had been set up in Karnataka to which the air force was lifting stranded residents. It was also distributing food and blankets to around 350,000 displaced people whose homes were washed away.Karnataka's chief minister, B.S. Yeddyurappa, said the northern part of the state was reeling from the heavy rainfall.Authorities in all three states were rushing to shift people living in low-lying areas to schools and other buildings on higher ground.We are concentrating on relief operations and evacuation to a safer place,Andhra Pradesh state revenue minister D. Prasad Rao told reporters in Hyderabad.The Karnataka government has announced compensation of 100,000 rupees (2,000 dollars) to families of the dead.Deaths are common during the monsoon season, which began in June and normally withdraws from the Indian subcontinent by the end of September.But weather officials say a deep depression in the Bay of Bengal and heavy cloud in the Arabian Sea on the west coast has caused the unusually intense rains across the state since Wednesday.The flood is of an unprecedented magnitude,S.A.M. Rizvi, a local administrator in Andhra Pradesh, told the Press Trust of India.
Storm toll in Laos rises to 24: Red Cross by Ian Timberlake – Sat Oct 3, 8:20 am ET
HANOI (AFP) – The death toll left by Tropical Storm Ketsana in Laos has risen to 24, the country's Red Cross said on Saturday as a UN agency said the first emergency food aid had reached the worst-hit province.Seven people who refused to leave their homes in southernmost Attapeu province accounted for most of the additional deaths, said Bountheung Menvilay, head of the disaster preparedness division of the country's Red Cross.Their houses were swept into a river, he said.The storm hit Laos, one of Asia's poorest nations, on Wednesday.State media in Vietnam reported that many of the dead were Vietnamese workers at the construction site of a hydro-power project.Ketsana has brought devastation across Southeast Asia, first killing at least 293 people in the Philippines last weekend before striking Vietnam, where at least 107 died, and Cambodia where it claimed 17 lives.Attapeu province borders Cambodia and, with adjacent Sekong province, has been the hardest hit in Laos, aid workers said.Attapeu had been inaccessible. But on Saturday the waters subsided enough for government helicopters to begin delivering rice and canned fish from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), said Cornelia Paetz, a spokeswoman for the agency.
It's very significant because Attapeu is the worst-hit province,Paetz said, adding that two districts of Attapeu were now accessible by road.It's looking a little bit better.Devastation also became apparent in Savannakhet, further north, which a WFP worker visited on Saturday.He said the situation there is awful,Paetz said.My colleague has been to three villages that have lost everything.Detailed information from the rugged region -- hard to reach even in normal times -- has been difficult to obtain, aid workers said.Now I cannot contact Sekong branch,the Red Cross official said, referring to his unit in the province.
He said 103 people were missing from the storm.
Paetz said there were still no definite numbers on how many villages or how many people needed help, but the government said 14,000 people in Sekong province were in urgent need of assistance.There seems to be quite a shortage of water,said Sally Sakulku, of British-based Health Unlimited, which has staff in Attapeu and will help coordinate aid distribution there.She said it would take two or three days to receive water purification tablets but distribution of medical supplies had started.
Retreating waters have left Attapeu knee-deep in mud, she said.
Olaf weakens to tropical depression Sat Oct 3, 6:14 am ET
MIAMI – Olaf is weakening in the Pacific off the coast of Mexico and is now a tropical depression.Olaf's maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 35 mph (55 kph). The storm is expected to produce rain in Mexico's Baja California peninsula over the weekend.It was expected to turn northeast Saturday with an increase in forward speed. The center of the storm was about 310 miles (500 km) west of Cabo San Lazaro early Saturday.Rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches were possible across the central Baja peninsula.
Latest typhoon kills 4 in Philippines By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer – OCT 3,09
MANILA, Philippines – Typhoon Parma cut a path across the Philippines' northern edge on Saturday, killing four people but sparing the capital from a second flood disaster as the storm churned toward Taiwan.Tens of thousands of Filipinos had evacuated their homes as the storm bore down on the main island of Luzon just eight days after an earlier tempest left Manila awash in floods that killed almost 300 people.Also helping to reduce the damage, Parma weakened slightly and changed course overnight Friday so that it missed central Luzon and clipped the more sparsely populated and mountainous north.Still, winds of 108 mph (175 kph) battered towns in at least two provinces and pelted the northeast of the country with downpours that swelled rivers to bursting, toppled power pylons and trees, and cut communication lines to outlying towns, officials said.Parma was heading northwest toward Taiwan, which declared a storm warning Saturday and began evacuating villages in southern Kaohsiung county, where 700 people were killed in a typhoon in August.The typhoon could bring torrential rain and trigger flash flooding, so government agencies should be prepared,Vice Premier Eric Chu was quoted as saying by the government-owned Central News Agency.In the Philippines' hard-hit Isabela province, one man drowned and another died from exposure to the cold and wet weather, said Lt. Col. Loreto Magundayao of an army division based there.The National Disaster Coordinating Council said another two people died from the storm in the eastern province of Camarines Sur — one man fell from a roof and a two-year-old boy drowned.Parma hit the coast mid-afternoon Saturday, and local officials said the true extent of damage would not be known until communications were restored with outlying areas on Sunday or later.
The damage is quite heavy,Roberto Damian, the police chief of Cagayan province, told ABS-CBN television. We are clearing highways and roads to reach people calling for rescue.In Ilagan, Isabela's capital, the swollen Cagayan River rose enough to swamp two bridges, officials said. In the Cagayan city of Tuguegarao, telephone landlines were down and mobile services were intermittent, said Chito Castro, regional director for the Office of Civil Defense.Ahead of the storm, weather bureau chief Prisco Nilo warned that heavy rain could trigger landslides and flooding, and strong winds could create tidal surges along the eastern coast. None of those conditions were reported by Saturday night.Manila escaped the worst of the storm. On Sept. 26, Tropical Storm Ketsana caused the worst flooding in four decades, killing at least 288 people and damaging the homes of 3 million.Rain fell in the city most of Saturday, and stiff gusts of winds blew, but no new flooding or damage was immediately reported.Even before the storm hit, officials in eastern provinces judged they were no longer in danger and began moving back people who had been evacuated from coastal areas that might have been in the path of the storm.After devastating parts of Manila, Ketsana went on to hit other Southeast Asian countries, killing 99 in Vietnam, 14 in Cambodia and 16 in Laos.Parma was part of more than a week of destruction in the Asia-Pacific region that has claimed more than 1,500 lives so far: an earthquake Wednesday in Indonesia; a tsunami Tuesday in the Samoan islands, and Ketsana.Another typhoon, Melor, was churning in the Philippine Sea, 1,600 miles (2,575 kilometers) to the east, threatening the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands.Most businesses there were shut Saturday morning, and residents of the island of Saipan who don't live in concrete homes moved to typhoon shelters, said Charles Reyes, Northern Marianas Gov. Benigno Fitial's press secretary.Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila and Debby Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.
EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH
GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS 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 (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Quake strikes area of Taiwan 03 Oct 2009 17:52:17 GMT
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - A 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck on Saturday near eastern Taiwan, the U.S. Geological Survey said.The quake was centered 22 miles (29 km) south of Hua-Lien, Taiwan at a depth of 22.4 miles (36 km).There were no immediate reports of damage. (Writing by Alan Elsner)
Village deaths to lift Indonesian quake death toll By IRWAN FIRDAUS and ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writers - OCT 3,09
PADANG, Indonesia – The death toll from Indonesia's massive earthquake will likely double as officials on Saturday reached rural communities wiped out by landslides that buried more than 600 people under mountains of mud, most of them guests at a wedding celebration.Virtually nothing remained of four villages that had dotted the hillside of the Padang Pariman district in Indonesia's West Sumatra just three days ago, said officials and an Associated Press photographer who flew over the devastated area.Hundreds of doctors, nurses, search and rescue experts and cleanup crews arrived at the regional airport from around the globe with tons of food, tents, medicine, clean water, generators and a field hospital.But with no electricity, fuel shortages and telecommunication outages the massive operation was chaotic.Roughly 400 people were at a communal wedding in Pulau Aiya village when Wednesday's 7.6 magnitude quake unleashed a torrent of mud, rock and felled palm trees, said Rustam Pakaya, the head of Indonesia's Health Ministry crisis center.
They were sucked 30 meters (100 feet) deep into the earth,he said. Even the mosque's minaret, taller than 20 meters (65 feet), disappeared.Twenty-six bodies were pulled from the rubble-strewn brown earth in nearby Lubuk Lawe and Jumena, but 618 bodies remained far beyond the reach of residents who worked without outside help because roads had been severed, he said.The number of fatalities in the disaster will jump to more than 1,300 if all those people are confirmed dead. The government's death toll on Saturday held steady at 715, most reported in the region's badly hit capital of 900,000, Padang, where aid efforts are concentrated.As many as 3,000 people had been declared missing before news about the obliterated villages emerged, while 2,400were hospitalized and tens of thousands of people are believed to have been displaced.More than 1.1 million residents live in the 10 quake-hit districts, the United Nations estimated in a situation assessment, while the government said more than 30,000 homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and government offices had been flattened or severely damaged — 17 percent of all local infrastructure.An AP photographer who flew over Padang Pariaman district in a helicopter saw several landslides in the area.At Limo Koto Timur village, a giant section of a hillside was swept away and the remains of destroyed houses protruded from the mud. The ruins of other tin-roofed homes hung precariously over the edge of a huge crevice that was torn through rice fields and forest. Roads were gone and palm trees had been uprooted and swept downhill, leaving patches of brown earth where villages once stood.
El-Mostafa Benlamlih, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Indonesia, told the AP that 200 houses were swept away in Pulau Aiya. Aid efforts are still concentrated in Padang area,with outlying areas still short of aid, Benlamlih said, adding that aid agencies would focus on restoring water, electricity, sanitation and preventing disease.Deliveries came on C-130 cargo planes from the United States, Russia and Australia. Japanese, Swiss, South Korean and Malaysian search and rescue teams scoured the debris. Tens of millions of dollars in donations came from more than a dozen countries to supplement $400 million the Indonesian government said it would spend over the next two months.On Friday, survivors buried under a collapsed hotel in Padang sent a cell-phone text message to a relative saying he and some others were alive. But, disappointed rescue workers were unable to locate anyone at the Ambacang hotel where as many as 200 people were staying.After several hours of digging through blocks of concrete, steel and bricks, rescue workers gave up. Padang police chief Col. Boy Rafli Amar told reporters, So far rescuers have found nothing.
Hidehiro Murase, head of a Japanese search dog team, said its search had been fruitless.We did an extensive search this morning, but there were no signs of life. Our dogs are trained to smell for living people, not the dead, and they didn't sense anything,he told the AP.The U.N. said there are sufficient fuel stocks in the area for four days, but with the road to a major depot cut off by landslides gasoline prices had jumped six-fold.Areas with huge levels of damage to infrastructure were in need of basic food and tents for temporary shelter,it said.Wednesday's quake originated on the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.Associated Press photographer Dita Alangkara in Padang and writers Ali Kotarumalos, Anthony Deutsch, Niniek Karmini and Vijay Joshi in Jakarta contributed to this report.
Samoa's tourism industry fears second tsunami By AUDREY McAVOY and ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press Writers – Sat Oct 3, 6:07 am ET
APIA, Samoa – Samoa's tourism industry said it fears a second tsunami of vacation cancellations after deadly earthquake-triggered waves wiped out some of the South Pacific country's most idyllic white-sand beaches and resorts.Tourism is Samoa's largest industry, and travel industry representatives visiting the main island's wrecked southeast coast said Friday about one-quarter of the tourist accommodations had been destroyed.Nynette Sass, chief executive of the Samoa Hotel Association, said the industry was alarmed by anecdotal reports of mass vacation cancellations since Tuesday's disaster.If substantial numbers of tourists start canceling, that will be like having a second tsunami on us,Sass said. The industry accounts for 25 percent of the country's gross domestic product, she said.The death toll rose to 170, including 129 in Samoa, 32 in the nearby U.S. territory of American Samoa and nine in Tonga.Electricity and water services were restored in about half of the affected villages in Samoa and American Samoa, and residents tried to return to what was left of their lives.Samoan tourist industry representatives said the damage on the southeast coastline of the main island of Upolu included four resorts and more than 20 family operations that rented simple traditional huts, known as fale.Sass said many travelers did not realize the tsunami devastated a relatively small part of the coast, though the worst-hit beach area, between the villages of Saleapaga and Lalomanu, was widely regarded by tourists as the most beautiful.It's sad that we've had to try to convince people that it's not the whole country that's flooded, infrastructure is still in place and the cleanup is going really fast,she said.Sass said government assistance would be vital to rebuilding a tourism industry that is worth 300 million Samoan tala ($130 million) a year.
More pressing, however, was residents' survival.
American Samoa Gov. Togiola Tulafono said the Federal Emergency Management Agency would establish an office where displaced residents can get housing assistance.
Officials said the focus is shifting from rescuing lives to providing survivors with food, water and power.Ken Tingman, FEMA's federal coordinating officer, said that doesn't mean the missing are being given up for dead.You never lose hope,he said.
Tingman expected almost all of the territory to have power from generators within three to five days.Taule'alea Laavasa, chairman of the Samoan government's National Disaster Advisory Committee, said relief work was going well with the help of neighbors including New Zealand and Australia.But many survivors refused to return to their villages. They're scared; a lot of them have been psychologically affected by seeing their relations die in huge numbers,Laavasa said. Some Samoans have been forced to forgo burial rituals because their villages are gone. Other families have had to speed up the burial process because loved ones' bodies were found in such decomposed states.In Samoa, the government has proposed a mass funeral and burial next week.The village of Leone, the center of Christianity on the island, was a bleak landscape of rubble. The beach meeting houses that had been the center of cultural rituals and family meetings were destroyed. An overturned van was jammed into the roof of one beach house.Leone residents estimate the tsunami destroyed about one-third of the village, which has a population of 3,000. The victims were mostly elderly or toddlers. Four villagers were killed while making crafts on the shore.About two dozen soldiers and airmen from the Hawaii National Guard had the heart-wrenching task Friday of searching through the village's muddy debris for a missing 6-year-old boy named Columbus Sulivai.Bill Hopkinson, a village chief, said the boy had been on the way to school with his sisters.When the earthquake hit, instead of seeking higher ground, they came running back home,Hopkinson said. Both girls died.McGuirk reported from Lalomanu, Samoa. Also contributing were Associated Press writers Fili Sagapolutele in Pago Pago, Tanalee Smith in Adelaide, Australia, and Jaymes Song and Greg Small in Honolulu.
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).
DRUG PUSHERS AND ADDICTS
REVELATION 18:23
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries (DRUGS) were all nations deceived.
REVELATION 9:21
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries (DRUGS), nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
NWO KILLER VACCINES
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2009/08/nwo-death-control-swine-flu-vaccines.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBeKB7aKzOs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2gteHfCa_k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwFNMtx2-8g&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_OcxtakWEc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxROe3ESwes&feature=related
MILITARY TO WORK WITH FEMA WHEN PANDEMIC HITS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtGofsHaj3M&feature=player_embedded
SAY NO TO THE VACCINES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGyCeCiG9Kk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqMK_yu8APg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASibLqwVbsk&feature=related
LAB MADE FLU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYrlFMFoaDE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fbritanniaradio%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj0gs1C83Ec&feature=channel
Squalene: The Swine Flu Vaccine’s Dirty Little Secret Exposed
http://www.prisonplanet.com/squalene-the-swine-flu-vaccine%E2%80%99s-dirty-little-secret-exposed.html
Canada is Rushing Approval For Untested H1N1 Vaccines
Prevent Disease October 2, 2009
http://www.infowars.com/canada-is-rushing-approval-for-untested-h1n1-vaccines/
Ontario Health Minister David Caplan urged Ottawa yesterday to speed up approval of untested H1N1 vaccines amid fear-hyped concerns that a second wave of the swine flu may have already arrived in the province.Ontario is equipped to deploy the vaccine quickly, but the province can’t get it until Health Canada issues a licence to the manufacturer, Caplan said.Production of the vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline in Ste-Foy, Que., is largely complete, he said.The federal government wants to make sure the flu shots are safe and effective and, as a result, Caplan said it could take three weeks just to get the necessary approvals in place.This news comes despite a plethora of evidence suggesting trials, that were just initiated a few months ago, have no conclusive evidence of safety and efficacy.According to infectious disease experts, due to delayed and potentially serious side effects, such as paralysis and neurological disorders, the timelines for effective safety testing on adjuvanted vaccines should span years from initial clinical trials.Just over a month ago, a Canadian health expert called for compensation for flu-vaccine injuries. This and other initiatives by health protection advocates prompted the government of Canada to enact protection measures for vaccine maker GlaxoSmithKline and shield them from all lawsuits. Health practitioners including all Physicians will not be included in this measure.I’m urging the federal government to show some leadership and, as we’re seeing in the United States, expedite the approval process so that we can get (the vaccine) deployed as quickly as we possibly can,he said.But unfortunately, that’s beyond the control of provincial governments.It may already be too late to prevent the spread of the virus in the general population, said one expert.Ideally, the vaccine would have been available in September,said Kumanan Wilson, Canada research chair in public health policy at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
Accelerating the approval process may actually deter people from rolling up their sleeves for a swine-flu shot over fears that it isn’t safe, he said.Just having the vaccine available isn’t going to be enough if nobody’s going to take it,he said.
PreventDisease.com recently reported that Ontario is distributing H1N1 flu propaganda kits in attempt to control opinion and convince the public of vaccine and drug safety.Surveys have shown that people are leery of the vaccine, a perception that may have been reinforced by an unpublished study which suggested that people who got a seasonal flu shot last year had double the risk of catching swine flu compared with unvaccinated people.Despite this study gaining international recognition from reputable scientists, the Public Health Agency of Canada has said a preliminary analysis of that study suggests there is no link between having a seasonal flu shot and developing a severe case of pandemic flu.There is a great deal of confusion about the vaccine and how bad an H1N1 pandemic could be, Wilson said.
Rushing the vaccine to market – even if it’s completely legitimate and appropriate – there will be segments of the population that perceive that in a very negative light,he said.That perception could change, however, if there is a sudden spike of serious cases and H1N1-related deaths, he added.A resurgence of the swine flu is expected this fall, but Ontario officials don’t yet know for sure whether it has already arrived.Other parts of the world have seen several waves of the swine flu, so provincial officials are closely monitoring the situation here, Caplan said.Of course we won’t know until actual testing, or there is evidence of it,he said.
Caplan’s comments come after a published report quoted a senior Ontario health official as saying the second wave may be here.Dr. Donald Low, head of the public health laboratories with the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, said a number of flu cases have come to emergency departments over the last few days.
The flu activity is concentrated primarily in Toronto, Hamilton and London, said Low, who is also chief microbiologist at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital.He said there have been few cases of H1N1 in Ontario over the last few weeks, but on Monday, six new cases were confirmed.Provincial labs have seen a sharp increase in influenza A cases and further testing is expected to determine that they are the H1N1 strain, Low said.Public health officials in British Columbia were already caught advising doctors to assume that all flu symptoms are the results of the H1N1 virus, a malicious attempt to manipulate the data.David Jensen, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, wouldn’t confirm Low’s figures. An updated list of flu activity in the province will be available Friday, he said.Neither Low nor Dr. Arlene King, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, were available for comment.Dr. Barbara Yaffe, director of communicable disease control and associate medical officer of health for Toronto Public Health, told CTV News that Toronto had three confirmed cases this week, without specifying what laboratory analysis were used to verify whether the cases are H1N1 at all.
Big Pharma Covering Up Deaths? Karen De Coster LRC Blog
October 2, 2009
A precious, innocent child’s life came to a cruel, sudden end. The Wall Street Journal reports that Natalie Morton, who died in England shortly following a Cervarix injection, did not die from the vaccination.The WSJ, in fact, almost appears to be swaggering behind its words. So you see, says the WSJ, no need to fear or stop the H1N1 vaccination program. There are pathology reports that absolve the vaccination and its maker. The HPV vaccinations are perfectly safe, as are the swine flu jabs. Thank goodness—I feel better already.The pathology report states that she had an undiagnosed condition that was so severe that death could have arisen at any point.What was that condition? A tumour in her chest involving her heart and her lungs.A tumor (don’t like the Brit spelling) that just suddenly lashed out at her and attacked and killed, after producing no symptoms of a cancer tumor whatsoever? Is there a single person who is dumb enough to swallow this very inadequate version of her death?
I mentioned the other day that GlaxoSmithKline is working to get approval to sell Cervarix in the U.S. to compete against Merck’s Gardasil. Of course they wouldn’t allow a truthful report of this death, caused by the vaccination, to be revealed and thus deny its approval in the U.S., causing the loss of billions of dollars in revenue streams. As Mike Adams says,This explanation is obviously a cover story to protect the vaccine industry; and it’s not even a convincing cover story at that. Remember, this is a global vaccination program, with mandates growing and billions at stake. This is from the Wall Street Journal piece:That sad case is a reminder to be wary of confusing proximity in time with cause and effect — a concept public-health officials have been citing in advance of the imminent roll out of the swine (H1N1) flu vaccine.Ahh yes, coincidence! People, you see, may now fear the massive swine flu forced vaccination program the government is trying to shove down our throats. Can’t have that—declaring a worldwide pandemic and triggering hysteria means the growth of government control and a healthy, wealthy pharmaceutical industry.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
SHOE THROWN AT IMF CHIEF
http://www.infowars.com/shoe-thrown-at-imf-chief/
Thursday, October 01, 2009 Wireless Network Modded to See Through Walls
The way signal strength varies in a wireless network can reveal what's going on behind closed doors.
It's every schoolboy's dream: an easy way of looking through walls to spy on neighbors, monitor siblings, and keep tabs on the sweet jar. And now a dream no longer...Researchers at the University of Utah say that the way radio signals vary in a wireless network can reveal the movement of people behind closed doors. Joey Wilson and Neal Patwari have developed a technique called variance-based radio tomographic imaging that processes the signals to reveal signs of movement. They've even tested the idea with a 34-node wireless network using the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless protocol, the protocol for personal area networks employed by home automation services such as ZigBee.The basic idea is straightforward. The signal strength at any point in a network is the sum of all the paths the radio waves can take to get to the receiver. Any change in the volume of space through which the signals pass, for example caused by the movement of a person, makes the signal strength vary. So by interrogating this volume of space with many signals, picked up by multiple receivers, it is possible to build up a picture of the movement within it.
In tests with a 34-node network set up outside a standard living room, Wilson and Patwari say they were able to locate moving objects in the room to within a meter or so. That's not bad, and the team says there is ample potential for improvement by increasing accuracy while reducing the number of nodes.The advantage of this technique over others is, first, its cost. The nodes in such a network are off-the-shelf and therefore cheap. Other through-wall viewing systems cost in excess of $100,000. The second advantage is the ease with which it can be set up. Wilson and Patwari say that adding a GPS receiver to each node allows it to work out its own location, which should dramatically speed up the imaging process. Other systems have to be trained to recognize the environment.
Wilson and Patwari have even worked out how their system might be used:We envision a building imaging scenario similar to the following. Emergency responders, military forces, or police arrive at a scene where entry into a building is potentially dangerous. They deploy radio sensors around (and potentially on top of) the building area, either by throwing or launching them, or dropping them while moving around the building. The nodes immediately form a network and self-localize, perhaps using information about the size and shape of the building from a database (eg Google maps) and some known-location coordinates (eg using GPS). Then, nodes begin to transmit, making signal strength measurements on links which cross the building or area of interest. The received signal strength measurements of each link are transmitted back to a base station and used to estimate the positions of moving people and objects within the building.That's ambitious, but if they do get their system to the point where it can be used like this, it raises another problem: privacy.How might such cheap and easy-to-configure monitoring networks be used if they become widely available? What's to stop next door's teenage brats from monitoring your every move, or house thieves choosing their targets on the basis that nobody is inside? Of course, in the cat-and-mouse game of surveillance, it shouldn't be too hard to build a device that disables such a monitoring network. But only if you know it's there in the first place.There are fun and games galore to be had with this idea.Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0909.5417: Through-Wall Motion Tracking Using Variance-Based Radio Tomography Networks.
G-7 Finance Chiefs Campaign for Strong Dollar (Update2)
By Simon Kennedy and Mark Deen
Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Finance chiefs headed for Group of Seven talks in Istanbul pushing for a strong dollar amid concern its slide will impede their recoveries from the worst global recession since World War II. Everyone needs a strong dollar, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told reporters in Gothenburg, Sweden, today as she met European Union counterparts.We’ll have a chance to discuss this in the coming days.Her comments came four days after similar remarks from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner yesterday also pledged support for a strong currency. G-7 officials meet tomorrow and will then brief reporters. A French official said they will release a statement after members earlier debated the need for one. The dollar’s 13 percent fall this year against a basket of seven currencies threatens foreign economies by making their exports more expensive. At the same time, Geithner is being forced to defend its status as the world’s sole reserve currency.Market-moving announcements could be forthcoming,said Geoffrey Yu, a foreign-exchange strategist at UBS AG in London.We expect to hear renewed commitments to the U.S. strong dollar policy and the European delegation may be tempted to communicate their worries on further rises in the euro.
G-7 Statement
The dollar has dropped almost 17 percent against the euro since Feb. 18 and slipped as much as 0.7 percent today as employers eliminated more jobs last month than economists forecast. Against the euro, it traded at $1.4601 at 7:37 p.m.G-7 members have debated whether to break with tradition and not release a communiqué given the G-20’s leaders did so just a week ago after meeting in Pittsburgh. The G-7 is gathering in Istanbul before next week’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.Limiting the G-7’s scope to reverse the decline in the dollar is the absence of China in its ranks and the G-20’s push for a narrowing of global imbalances such as the U.S. current account deficit.Other policy makers have also expressed concern about the dollar this week. Japanese Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said Sept. 29 that the government may act to stabilize the foreign- exchange market and denied he supported a stronger yen. He won’t discuss the yen’s gains at the G-7, Kyodo News reported today.
Yen Strength
Canon Inc., Japan’s biggest maker of office equipment, says every 1 yen increase against the dollar will lower its second- half operating profit by 4.2 billion yen ($47 million). The company based its profit forecast of 110 billion yen on the assumption the yen would average 95 to the dollar in the last six months of the business year. The yen traded at 89.65 to the dollar today.Still, John Lipsky, the IMF’s first deputy managing director, told Bloomberg Television today that at present there is not a problem in broad terms of valuation of the principle currencies.Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty yesterday pushed China to let its yuan appreciate more quickly after keeping it little changed against the dollar for more than a year.That view was echoed today by IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss Kahn, who said he still views the yuan as undervalued.The IMF was last week tasked by the G-20 with monitoring its members’ efforts to even out the world economy.
Inflexible China
China has frequently ignored campaigns by the G-7 for a more flexible exchange rate. It took almost two years to heed a request to loosen a currency peg with the dollar, only doing so in July 2005. The inflexibility helps Chinese exporters and means other currencies shoulder the burden of the weaker dollar.While the dollar’s slide may buoy the U.S. economy by boosting demand for its goods, World Bank President Robert Zoellick repeated today that it may lose its rank as the only reserve currency if budget deficits aren’t curbed. For now, it should still attract investors as a safe haven, he said.The American public and the American political leaders take for granted the unique standards of having the reserve currency, Zoellick said. You could lose what is an incredible thing to have.To contact the reporters on this story: Simon Kennedy in Istanbul at skennedy4@bloomberg.net; Matthew Brown in London at mbrown42@bloomberg.net Last Updated: October 2, 2009 12:48EDT
Brazil would support central bank role for IMF
Fri Oct 2, 2009 1:21pm EDT
Oil falls over 1 percent, U.S. job data weighs Dollar drops as jobs data bolsters low rates view More Business & Investing News... ISTANBUL, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Brazil would support the International Monetary Fund acting as a kind of global central bank, offering liquidity and currency swaps, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said on Friday.Such a role for the IMF would be part of increasing coordination in global policy and efforts to fix economic imbalances between countries, Mantega told reporters at the semiannual meeting of the IMF in Istanbul.
He said giving the IMF such a role could eliminate one big global imbalance -- the need to build up large foreign exchange reserves, as many large developing countries such as China and Brazil have done in recent years.Brazil and other countries that have large reserves are ready to do this,Mantega said.For us to start to work with lower reserves, it's necessary that the IMF transforms itself into an institution more like a global central bank that can offer foreign currency support. Today it does not have the instruments for that.In such a system, which would build on increasing coordination between the Group of 20 major economies since the global economic crisis erupted, the IMF would stand ready with considerably larger resources than today to help countries that faced problems.The IMF's current system of evaluating countries' economic performance means the fund already has expertise to carry out such a role, Mantega said.He added that the IMF would also need to be ready to offer currency swaps. During the global crisis, the U.S. Federal Reserve offered currency swaps to countries including Brazil.
Since the crisis erupted last year, Brazil has championed greater clout for developing countries and for increased international cooperation to prevent future crises.The idea of the IMF effectively becoming a global central bank is one of many ideas for radical reform informally discussed by officials and academics around the world over the past year.Mantega will meet with his counterparts from the other BRIC countries -- Russia, India and China -- during the meetings in Istanbul. (Reporting by Axel Bugge; Editing by Andrew Torchia).
DOLLAR SUPREMICY ENDING
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbKpi8wToK8&feature=player_embedded
OCTOBER 2, 2009, 7:44 A.M. ET.World Bank Pres:Dlr Should Remain Key Reserve Currency
PARIS (Dow Jones)--The U.S. dollar should remain the world's key reserve currency, but much depends on how the U.S. authorities deal with the exit from the economic and financial crisis, the president of the World Bank said Friday. I believe the dollar is likely to remain the key reserve currency,Robert Zoellick said in an interview on French TV channel France 24.When you saw the crisis hit, people turned to the dollar,he noted.But I think the euro performed very well; the ECB in a sense added to its credibility,he added.Zoellick went on to say, however, that the real question for the dollar is whether the U.S. authorities will recognize the challenges five, 10 or 15 years ahead.Coming out of this crisis, will they deal with the budget deficits? Will they be able to come out of the crisis with a non-inflationary monetary policy? Zoellick is currently in Istanbul for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.-By David Pearson, Dow Jones Newswires; +33140171740, david.pearson@dowjones.com
IMF urges banks to put cash aside SEPT 30,09 Last updated on Wednesday, Sep. 30, 2009 07:40AM EDT
The head of capital markets at the International Monetary Fund urged banks to resist the temptation to use higher profits to buy back shares, and instead set aside the money as reserve capital.You need to have some muscle as a bank, José Vinals, director of the IMF's monetary and capital markets department, said at a press conference Wednesday.That means sufficient capital.Mr. Vinals, a former deputy governor at the Bank of Spain, made the remark during a one-hour briefing held in conjunction with the release of the his biannual review of the global financial system.The report said financial institutions around the world will lose $3.4-trillion (U.S.) as a result of the crisis, a figure that is about $600-billion lower than the IMF's previous estimate in April. The revision reflects increasing confidence in global financial markets, which has resulted in higher values for assets and stronger earnings.But Mr. Vinals said he worries that the lessons of the financial crisis will be too quickly forgotten.Many of the world's larger banks, such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., recovered sooner than many analysts predicted, aided by trading revenue from a surging stock market.That presents a question for chief executives: what to do with the money?
According to Mr. Vinals, past behaviour suggests executives could be tempted to buy back their companies' shares to gain stronger control, or perhaps consider acquisitions. On the whole, Mr. Vinals hopes they set aside a good portion of those profits for a rainy day.That's the last line of defence,he said.While banks have been raising capital, more is needed to weather elevated default rates that will result from the recession, Mr. Vinals said.Also, policy makers in the Group of 20 are working on new regulations that will force financial institutions to keep more money in reserve. Therefore, it makes sense to put aside the money now, Mr. Vinals said.The IMF's Global Financial Stability Report concludes that stability has returned to the world's financial system, although risks remain elevated.One challenge facing banks in the United States and Europe is a looming funding crunch.
An unprecedented $1.5-trillion (US) in bank debt is set to mature in 2012, according to the IMF. In the heady days before the crisis, banks sold bonds at a frenzied pace. But the financial crisis made selling debt nearly impossible, complicating debt managers' efforts to spread out their banks' obligations. The amount of bank debt maturing in 2012 suggests there will be a scramble by financial institutions to sell new bonds, competition that could force them to pay higher yields.We are on the road to recovery, but that doesn't mean risks have disappeared,Mr. Vinals said.
Let currency rise, IMF tells China - Global economic recovery can only be sustained by fundamental shift in demand, chief economist says ISTANBUL — Globe and Mail Update Thursday, Oct. 01, 2009 07:00AM EDT
China and other Asian nations must allow their currencies to appreciate if the global recovery is to be sustained, said Olivier Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund's chief economist.Speaking to about 100 reporters about the fund's latest economic outlook, Mr. Blanchard said fundamental shifts in world demand are necessary if the rebound from the financial crisis is to survive once the $2-trillion (US) governments have pledged to spend on stimulus measures runs out.U.S. consumers, who fuelled the boom years ahead of the financial crisis, are tapped out, saving instead of buying all of the world's excess production.Asian countries, which are leading the world economy out of recession, are the logical candidates to boost consumption.But for that to happen, governments in the region will have to adopt more flexible exchange rates, something many have been loath to do in the past because their exporters benefit from currencies that are weak compared with the U.S. dollar and the euro.A higher exchange rate would boost domestic demand by making imports cheaper and remove an incentive for companies to gear their business models toward exports instead of their home market.Referring to the rebalancing that's needed in the world economy, Mr. Blanchard said it is hard to see how this could happen with current exchange rates.He took his point a step further, adding that that it is hard to see how this could happen without appreciation of Asian exchange rates.
When officials such as Mr. Blanchard talk about Asian exchange rates,they are primarily talking about China's yuan, which sets the tone for the region because other countries must follow suit in order to stay competitive with the world's fastest growing major economy.Exchange rates tend to be sensitive subjects. China's policy, which aims to keep the yuan valued below the currencies of its major trading partners, is subject of complaint in the United States and Europe, where politicians accuse the Chinese government of giving the country's exporters an unfair advantage in international markets.Asia is central to Mr. Blanchard's updated outlook.Thanks in large part to an economic stimulus package valued at about 5 per cent of its economy, China is leading a recovery that the IMF says is more sustainable than rebounds in the U.S. and Europe.Asia's emerging economies will expand 6.8 per cent in 2010, compared with 3.1 per cent for the world economy as a whole, according to the IMF's latest World Economic Outlook, which was released Thursday as officials from the 186 member countries begin to gather in Turkey's biggest city for the fund's annual meeting early next week.China's GDP will grow 9 per cent in 2010 and India's will expand 6.4 per cent. By comparison, Canada will lead the Group of Seven industrial countries with growth of 2.1 per cent next year.This is clearly good news,” Mr. Blanchard said of his latest forecast, which was revised from a July prediction for global growth next year of 2.5 per cent.
Nevertheless, Mr. Blanchard's enthusiasm was measured.
The recovery in the world economy is strongly accounted for by public spending and the restocking of inventories, which were allowed to dwindle after the financial crisis caused demand to evaporate last year, Mr. Blanchard said.That's fine for now, but eventually both those drivers of growth will peter out. Companies will eventually rebuild inventories and governments can only spend so much.Inventory restocking will come to an end and public spending can't go on forever, Mr. Blanchard said.In the short term, private demand will have to strengthen, something that will be a challenge in richer economies such as the U.S., where credit is tight, consumers are saving instead of spending, industrial companies are using record-low levels of their production capacity and the housing market remains weak.
Those conditions should improve, but not enough to return the global economy to the 5per cent rate of growth it reached before the crisis.That's why Asia is so fundamental to the global economy's prospects, Mr. Blanchard said.While it happened the hard way, a U.S. economy that's less dependent on debt-fuelled consumer spending is good for the longer term sustainability of the global economy.Mr. Blanchard noted that the IMF was advising before the crisis that U.S. consumers needed to save more. He also pointed out that the fund was pushing Asian countries to boost domestic demand in order to become a destination for more of the world's goods.That part of the IMF's recommendation still needs to happen.Half of the adjustment has taken place,Mr. Blanchard said. We are in the middle of the river and we have to cross it.
Talk on economic 'exit strategies' dominates IMF meetings Istanbul — Globe and Mail Update Saturday, Oct. 03, 2009 02:12PM EDT
It’s the issue the world’s leading economic policy makers and thinkers are talking about. Why are they so obsessed? Well, they’re not quite sure. Exit strategies, or how to go about paying off the massive debts run up fighting the financial crisis, are part of almost every discussion here in Turkey’s financial capital, where officials from 186 countries converged for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Thing is, almost no one thinks it’s time to exit.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made clear during a panel discussion on fiscal policy Saturday that he has no intention of backing away from his economic stimulus program.At another presentation, Mr. Flaherty’s French counterpart, Christine Lagarde, said we are not out of the crisis yet,even though economic indicators generally show that the worst is over and the IMF said earlier this week that the global economy is growing again.The concern is that the growth is fragile, fed only by government spending. Mr. Flaherty called private demand modest and Ms. Lagarde said she still is waiting for business and investors to kick in and replace what the governments of the Group of 20 nations have been doing. The whole focus on exit strategies doesn’t make sense,said Jim O’Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., who predicts the global economy will expand about 4 per cent next year, which is a relatively optimistic assessment.Said Niall Ferguson, a professor of history and business at Harvard University and an authority on the Great Depression: Withdrawal of stimulus could be fatal.Despite the near universal assessment that taking the global economy off life support would be a mistake, there remains pressure to do something about the massive debts that countries have run up rescuing financial institutions, bailing out automotive companies and paying for job-generating infrastructure programs.
Some investors fear all the spending will lead to run away inflation, and have demanded higher yields on government bonds to guard against the risk. Mr. Flaherty and the Obama administration face heavy criticism from their political opponents for running up deficits that were previously under control.What is emerging through all the talk of exit strategies is a clearer indication of what policy makers want to see to feel comfortable enough to unwind stimulus measures.IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said earlier this week that the proper time to reduce government spending and raise interest rates is a few months before unemployment peaks.Ms. Lagarde said she too is riveted to the French unemployment rate.For his part, Mr. Flaherty is looking for signs of sustained economic growth.We need evidence of sustained growth over a couple of quarters before we start implementing exit strategies,Mr. Flaherty said.When that moment arrives, Mr. Flaherty said he is hopeful that economic growth will end the deficit within five or six years. If growth doesn't work on its own, Mr. Flaherty said he will trim program spending.But he stressed that this is the wrong time to implement exit strategies. So far, Canada’s economy hasn’t demonstrated evidence of one quarter of sustained economic growth, although the Bank of Canada predicts the economy resumed expanding in the third quarter.The evidence of private demand is modest,Mr. Flaherty said.
Regulators close banks in Colorado, Mich., Minn.By TIM PARADIS and MARCY GORDON, AP Business Writers – Sat Oct 3, 9:34 am ET
NEW YORK – Regulators have shut Warren Bank in Warren, Mich., and two small banks in Colorado and Minnesota, boosting the number of failed U.S. banks this year to 98 as loan defaults rise in the worst financial climate in decades.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Warren Bank, with about $538 million in assets and $501 million in deposits as of July 31. The Huntington National Bank, based in Columbus, Ohio, agreed to assume the deposits and about $83 million of the assets of the failed bank. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition.Warren Bank's six branches will reopen Saturday as offices of Huntington National Bank.The failure of Warren Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $275 million.Regulators also shut the much smaller Jennings State Bank, in Spring Grove, Minn. Central Bank of Stillwater, Minn., agreed to assume the bank's $52.4 million in deposits and essentially all the bank's assets, which totaled $56.3 million on July 31.In addition, the FDIC and Central Bank agreed to share losses on about $37.7 million of Jennings State Bank's assets.
The FDIC estimates the closing of Jennings State Bank will cost the deposit insurance fund about $11.7 million.Regulators shut a third bank, the Southern Colorado National Bank in Pueblo, Colo. Legacy Bank of Wiley, Colo., agreed to assume the deposits and essentially all the assets of Southern Colorado National Bank. As of Sept. 4, deposits stood at $31.9 million and assets totaled $39.5 million.The two branches of Southern Colorado National Bank will reopen Saturday as Legacy Bank offices.The FDIC and Legacy Bank agreed to share losses on about $25.5 million of Southern Colorado National Bank's assets.
The FDIC said the closing will cost the deposit insurance fund about $6.6 million.
Ninety-eight banks have failed so far this year as losses have mounted on commercial real estate and other soured loans in the wake of the financial crisis and the recession that has gripped the economy. The failures have cost the fund that insures bank deposits about $25 billion, the FDIC said Tuesday.The fund has been so sapped by the wave of collapsing banks that it now has fallen into the red. The FDIC now expects the cost of bank failures to grow to about $100 billion over the next four years — up from an estimate of $70 billion made in the spring. Most of the $100 billion in costs are expected to come from failures this year and next.Faced with that sobering prospect, the FDIC board took the unprecedented step Tuesday of proposing to have U.S. banks prepay $45 billion, or three years' worth, of insurance premiums.The plan won't provide a long-term remedy for the depleted fund but would spare ailing banks the immediate cost of an alternative idea: paying an emergency fee for the second time this year. And most banks likely would be able to prepay their premiums without having to reduce lending to businesses and consumers.The FDIC is fully backed by the government. That means depositors' money is guaranteed up to $250,000 per account. And the agency still has billions in loss reserves — including about $22 billion in cash — apart from the insurance fund.The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential problem list jumped to 416 at the end of June from 305 in the first quarter. That's the highest number since June 1994, during the savings-and-loan crisis.On Aug. 21, Guaranty Bank became the second-largest U.S. bank to fail this year after the big Texas lender was shut down and most of its operations sold at a loss of billions of dollars for the government to a major Spanish bank. The failure, the 10th-largest in U.S. history, is expected to cost the insurance fund an estimated $3 billion.The sale of most of Austin-based Guaranty's operations to the U.S. division of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, Spain's No. 2 bank, marked the first time a foreign bank has bought a failed American bank during the current financial crisis.And on Aug. 14, Colonial Bank, a big lender in real estate development, was shuttered and became the biggest U.S. bank to fail this year and the sixth-largest in U.S. history, with about $25 billion in assets. The government approved the sale of Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial's $20 billion in deposits and about $22 billion of its assets to BB&T Corp. Colonial was a major lender to developers in Florida and Nevada and was hit hard by the collapse of the real estate market in those states.Gordon reported from Washington.
G-7 finance ministers warn recovery fragile By Pan Pylas, Ap Business Writer – OCT 3,09
ISTANBUL – Finance ministers from the Group of Seven rich countries warned the recovery remains fragile and tried to talk up the U.S. dollar amid fears it could fall farther and disrupt the global economy.The officials said in their closing statement after meeting Saturday in Istanbul that decisive moves by governments had improved conditions for the world economy and financial markets.But they warned against complacency since growth prospects remained fragile and unemployment continues to rise. Figures on Friday showed the U.S. economy shedding more jobs than expected in September, with unemployment at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent.They agreed it was too soon to withdraw the stimulus measures such as government deficit spending and rock-bottom interest rates that have helped re-start growth.U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the United States will unwind the extraordinary policy measures it has taken only when conditions stabilize and growth strengthens.Planning for an eventual exit is the responsible and necessary thing to do, but we are not yet in the position where it would be prudent to withdraw fiscal and monetary policy support,Geithner said.
Exit will not be like flipping a switch,he added.The Federal Reserve has slashed its key interest rate to near zero percent and pumped over a trillion dollars into the markets to sustain liquidity and free up lending, while the Obama administration enacted a near $800 billion package of spending increases and tax cuts to prop up the economy.Much of the rest of the world has done likewise and the result has been the faster than expected rebound in growth. Earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for 2010 global growth to 3.1 percent from 2.5 percent just three months ago, largely because of these stimulus measures.Though they refrained from mentioning the dollar's recent slide in their joint statement, the ministers sought to talk up the U.S. currency, which has been falling fast over recent weeks. The dollar hit an eight-month low against the yen earlier this week, while the euro clambered up toward year highs.A weaker dollar boosts U.S. exports but could undermine recoveries in countries that sell to the United States. Policymakers have warned that a dollar crisis is the last thing the world economy needs right now as it looks to recover from its deepest recession since World War II.
Geithner and France's Christine Lagarde stressed the need for a strong dollar.
Geithner said it's very important for the U.S. that we continue to have a strong dollar,while Lagarde said we need to have a strong dollar ... volatility is not welcome.The finance ministers' statement did not mention the dollar's role specifically but said that excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates have adverse implications for economic and financial stability.The ministers from the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Italy met amid questions about the role of the G-7. It has been overshadowed recently by the Group of 20, which includes developing economic powerhouses such as China, India and Brazil.Last week the leaders of the G-20 agreed that the bigger body would become the world's premier economic decision-making forum.There was no reference to the future of the G-7 in the communique Saturday, but France's Lagarde dismissed talk of its death.The G-7's existence is fully justified,she said, though she confirmed future meetings may not yield a communique at their conclusion.It's still important for us to talk on issues of economy and finance,Lagarde said.
The only currency that was mentioned in the communique, as has become de rigeur in these statements, was the Chinese yuan, which is artificially set to the dollar by the Chinese authorities to keep exports cheap in U.S. markets. Though the Chinese authorities have taken steps to allow their currency to rise against the dollar, it has not been far or fast enough for many. The IMF has argued that it will be necessary for the yuan to rise as China will have to take up more of the slack left by the U.S., which has been living beyond its means for many years.A higher yuan against the dollar is one way to make the Chinese consume more U.S. goods and for the U.S. to raise its exports, thereby bringing its massive current account deficit back toward balance.We reaffirmed the necessity for the Chinese currency to be appreciating,said Lagarde.Associated Press Writers Christopher Torchia and Suzan Fraser contributed to this report.
World Bank sees oil at $63 a barrel in 2010 OCT 3,09
ISTANBUL (AFP) – Oil prices are expected to average 63 dollars in 2010, after 55.5 dollars in 2009, the World Bank said in a report on the Middle East and North Africa released in Istanbul on Saturday.Those prices are sufficient to avoid a major crisis in oil-producing countries, but much lower than the boom of 2008,said the Economic Development and Prospects report.The World Bank said that oil prices in 2009 were unlikely to be significantly affected by the factors that had contributed to high prices before mid-2008.Global demand is likely to remain low,said the report, released in the run-up to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings in the Turkish financial capital.The IMF did not provide oil price projections for 2010 in its semi-annual World Economic Outlook report, published Thursday.According to its WEO report, global oil demand is expected to rise to 85.7 million barrels per day in 2010 from 84.4 mbpd in 2009, but still be below the 2008 level of 86.3 mbpd.Oil prices dropped below 70 dollars a barrel Friday after the US government reported worse than expected unemployment data that hammered economic recovery hopes for the world's largest energy-consuming nation.
Consumer bankruptcies soar in September Fri Oct 2, 2:54 pm ET
WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – Consumer bankruptcies soared 41 percent in September from a year before and climbed from August, as high unemployment and the housing market crash took their toll, the American Bankruptcy Institute said on Friday.September filings totaled 124,790, the fourth-highest month since the bankruptcy law changed in 2005.Filings also rose 4 percent from August, even as recent reports have indicated that the U.S. housing market might be stabilizing and consumer confidence appears to be recovering.September's filings pushed 2009 consumer bankruptcies to about 1.05 million, the highest for the first nine months of a year since 1.35 million in 2005.The American Bankruptcy Institute said it expects consumer bankruptcies to climb to more than 1.4 million this year.The U.S. unemployment rate rose to a 26-year high in September at 9.8 percent, according to government statistics released on Friday.Although recent reports show that the erosion in the U.S. housing market might be easing, after dramatic declines in sales and prices, credit bureau Equifax Inc said recently that mortgage delinquencies accelerated in August to a record level.Equifax said that indicated personal bankruptcies are likely to continue to rise.Many Americans with troubled finances rushed to file for bankruptcy in 2005 before a law change, leading to a spike that year.(Reporting by Tom Hals, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
Iran's leader chides Obama over nuclear accusation By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer - OCT 3,09
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's president hit back Saturday at President Barack Obama's accusation that his country had sought to hide its construction of a new nuclear site, arguing that Tehran reported the facility to the U.N. even earlier than required.The Iranian president defended his government's actions as the head of the U.N.'s nuclear monitoring agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, arrived Saturday to arrange an inspection of the uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom.The revelation that Iran has been building a new nuclear plant has heightened the concern of the U.S. and many of its allies, which suspect Tehran is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for developing a weapons-making capability. Iran denies such an aim, saying it only wants to generate energy.Obama and the leaders of France and Britain accused Iran of keeping the construction hidden from the world for years. The U.S. president said last month that Iran's actions raised grave doubts about its promise to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only.ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has also said Tehran was on the wrong side of the law over the new plant and should have revealed its plans as soon as it decided to build the facility.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged that view in a speech Saturday, saying that Iran voluntarily revealed the facility to the IAEA in a letter on Sept. 21. He said that was one year earlier than necessary under the agency's rules.The U.S. president made a big and historic mistake,Iranian state TV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.Later it became clear that (his) information was wrong and that we had no secrecy.Iran agreed to allow U.N. inspectors into the facility at a landmark meeting with six world powers near Geneva on Thursday that put nuclear talks back on track and included the highest-level bilateral contact with the U.S. in three decades.Iranian officials argue that under IAEA safeguard rules, a member nation is required to inform the U.N. agency about the existence of a nuclear facility six months before introducing nuclear material into the machines. Iran says the new facility won't be operational for 18 months, and so it has not violated any IAEA requirements.
The IAEA has said that Iran is obliged under the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to notify the organization when it begins to design a new nuclear facility.Iran says it voluntarily implemented the Additional Protocol for 2 1/2 years as a confidence-building gesture, but its parliament passed legislation in 2007 forcing the government to end such cooperation after the country was referred to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.The IAEA has countered by saying that a government cannot unilaterally abandon such an agreement.Suspicion that Iran's newly revealed nuclear site was meant for military purposes was heightened by its location, at least partly inside a mountain and next to a military base.Iran has said it built the facility in such a way only to ensure continuity of its nuclear activities in case of an attack.Some are allowing themselves to threaten our legal facilities with military attack, and so we are going to come up with security measures for our nuclear facilities, Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said Friday after returning from the talks in Switzerland.One of them is that we need to have a facility for uranium enrichment with a higher level of security and that's why we decided to establish the new facility that is under construction.An IAEA spokesman said that in addition to the new nuclear facility, ElBaradei will also discuss a plan to allow Russia to take some of Iran's processed uranium and enrich it to higher levels to fuel a research reactor in Tehran.Western officials said Iran agreed to the plan at Thursday's meeting, a potentially significant move that would show greater flexibility by both sides.Obama noted the deal in comments on the meeting. But Mehdi Saffare, Iran's ambassador to Britain and a member of the Iranian delegation at the talks, said Iran had not yet agreed to such a plan.The Obama administration, together with the U.S. Congress, is drawing up plans for tough new sanctions if the talks with Iran show signs of faltering. Obama said the new penalties could target Iran's energy, financial and telecommunications sectors.A congressional committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on the possibility of expanding sanctions to cover a wider range of financial transactions, including a new ban on exporting refined petroleum to Iran.
Negligence factor in Russian power plant accident By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer – OCT 3,09
MOSCOW – Russia's top industrial safety oversight official said Saturday that negligence was a major factor in a devastating accident at the country's biggest hydroelectric power plant, and hinted that high-level officials could face trial over the disaster that killed 75 workers.Outlining a report on the causes of the Aug. 17 accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in southern Siberia, Rostekhnadzor director Nikolai Kutin described it in chilling detail. Part of an overstrained turbine unit weighing 1,500 tons snapped off its restraining bolts and sailed 14 meters (45 feet) into the air, he said, unleashing flooding, short circuits and wreckage that crippled the plant and doomed dozens of workers in seconds.While the direct causes were essentially technical, he said, bad decisions, misuse and neglect stretching years back set the stage for a catastrophe that could probably have been avoided.The purpose of the 140-page report is not to establish guilt, Kutin stressed, but it lists six people it says were conducive to the accident. They include former state-controlled utility chief Anatoly Chubais, an influential figure the Kremlin has used as a lighting rod for public anger since he led a post-Soviet privatization campaign many Russians saw as criminally unfair.Ours is a democratic state, so the courts determine who is to blame,Kutin told a news conference.The accident drowned helpless workers trapped in frigid water and sent some panicked residents downstream from the dam fleeing for high ground. It underlined worries about the crumbling infrastructure and careless management that hampers Russia's recovery from decades of communism and cuts short the life expectancy of its citizens.
The report and Kutin's account are likely to compound those concerns.
The chain of events that led to the accident began hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in Bratsk, where a fire at another hydropower facility caused damage that prompted authorities to increase the burden on the Sayano-Shushenskaya, Kutin said. One of its 10 turbine-generator units, which had been idle, was switched on to compensate and soon strained past its limit.After the unit blew apart, water flooded swiftly through the area, and two other units continued to operate under water for more than minute, causing massive short circuits,he said. The plant was soon almost entirely without power, crippling safety systems.The bolts that failed to hold the turbine-generator unit in place were badly worn before the accident, and it had been vibrating more than it should have been weeks earlier — and then shuddered even more dangerously in the hours before the accident, Kutin said.He said Chubais — who headed the utility monopoly RAO UES for a decade and engineered its breakup into regional power companies — approved an order formally putting the station in service in 2000, despite documented problems and what the report called the lack of an adequate evaluation of its current safety conditions.It was unclear why the order came years after the plant actually began operating in the 1970s.
Chubais defended his approval of the order, saying late Saturday that it was safer to operate the station with it officially in service, state news agency RIA-Novosti reported. He said he answers for everything that happened under his watch at the large utility, but added that money was tight and suggested shutting down the station to await funds to replace crucial parts would have been a catastrophe for the economy of Siberia and millions of citizens.The report is likely to add to public animus against Chubais, who has been in and out of influential posts since the 1990s and now heads Russia's drive to develop nanotechnology. Chubais survived an apparent assassination attempt in 2005, and his well-established role as a scapegoat has led to the saying that Chubais is to blame for everything.The report also lists 18 people it says were responsible for ensuring the plant's safe operation, including the chief of its state-owned operator RusHydro, Valery Zubakin.
The fallout is unlikely to damage President Dmitry Medvedev or the powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who critics say coasted on Russia's income from high-priced oil exports during is eight-year presidency and did too little to modernize its economy.
Israeli army strikes Gaza weapons workshop Sat Oct 3, 1:08 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – The Israeli army says it carried out airstrikes on a weapons workshop east of Gaza City and two weapons smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.Palestinian health officials reported no injuries.The army says Saturday's strikes were in response to a mortar shell and a rocket fired at Israel from Gaza the day before.A small extremist group, Ansar al-Sunna, said on Friday it fired two rockets at Israel.Exchanges of fire between Israel and Gaza militants have increased in recent months after a period of relative quiet following Israel's Gaza offensive, which ended Jan. 18.The Israeli army said about 60 rockets and mortar rounds have been fired at Israel in the last three months. Airstrikes followed some of those attacks.
THE 4 WORLD POWERS OF THE LAST DAYS ARE NORTH-RUSSIA,SOUTH-EGYPT,EAST-CHINA,WEST-EUROPEAN UNION
Egypt UNESCO loss stirs debate on ties with Israel By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press Writer – Sat Oct 3, 11:28 am ET
CAIRO – Since he lost a high-profile bid to become the head of the United Nation's cultural agency, UNESCO, Egypt's culture minister and his supporters have been beating the nationalist drums, proclaiming him a victim of a Jewish conspiracy aiming to undermine their country.The message has been embraced and amplified by many in the Egyptian media who, like a large number of their fellow citizens, have a deep distrust of Israel and reject normal relations with the Jewish state even though the two countries made peace over 30 years ago.But not everyone in Egypt is taking the bait. Critics here have even cheered Farouk Hosni's failed UNESCO bid as a rejection of this country's authoritarian government on the world stage.
Outspoken author Alaa al-Aswany reminded Egyptians that Hosni is an unelected cultural minister who is largely ignored by intellectual and artistic circles in Egypt.Farouk Hosni remains a real example of a figure in an authoritarian government,wrote al-Aswany in El-Shorouk newspaper.All he cares about is pleasing the president and remaining in government, and he is willing to do this at any cost.
Al-Aswany believes there are 10,000 more qualified Egyptian candidates to run UNESCO, he told The Associated Press.Hosni, a painter who has been Egypt's culture minister for more than two decades, was initially seen as the front-runner for the UNESCO job, which would have made him the first Arab to hold the position. But his campaign faltered over controversy about a comment he made in parliament in 2008 promising to burn any Israeli books in Egyptian libraries.Hosni made the comment in an attempt to defend himself against charges by Egyptian lawmakers of being soft on Israel. Trying to save his UNESCO campaign, Hosni wrote in the French newspaper Le Monde that the comment was made without intention or premeditation and should be viewed in the context of his indignation at the suffering of the Palestinian people.
He eventually lost to Bulgaria's Irina Bokova, who gained ground at the last minute as other candidates dropped out, partly amid attempts to consolidate support for Hosni. She was chosen in a vote at the organization's Paris headquarters on Sept. 22.
The culture minister sought to portray his defeat as a global reaction to his stance against normalization of relations between Egypt and Israel.They should look for normalization with anyone else,Hosni told the independent newspaper El-Youm El-Sabeh.I am clear. No normalization before a just peace.Normalization is a dirty word in many circles in Egypt. Journalists in particular feel they must shoulder the responsibility of reminding Egyptians that peace with Israel was forced on them and remains a bitter reality.Israel's goal remains to poison Egypt's relations with the other African nations, Palestinians, Arabs and Americans,prominent writer and editorialist Makram Mohammad Ahmed wrote in the state-owned daily El-Ahram.It's because they know that the Egyptian peace with Israel remains tough to swallow for the majority of Egyptians because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians,he wrote.
Even journalists who normally criticize the Egyptian regime have rallied behind Hosni, making him a symbol of anti-normalization and a champion of the Palestinian cause.Magdy el-Galad of El-Masry El-Youm newspaper went as far as suggesting that Israel's famed intelligence agency, Mossad, penetrated UNESCO to influence its decision, even though Israel promised not to stand in the way of Hosni's bid.Why do we always delude ourselves that Israel has a hand that will reach out with peace at any time? el-Galad wrote.Only a handful of writers, most of them at the independent El-Shorouk newspaper, have dared to discuss what they call the real reasons for Hosni's loss — namely the bankrupt nature of the Egyptian regime itself.Mohammed Esmat at El-Shorouk called Hosni the son of a cultural institution that doesn't believe in pluralism or freedom in their true sense.
