SANHEDRIN WANTS TO BUILD 3RD TEMPLE

TODAY IS THE NATIONAL PRAYER DAY. PLEASE GOD HEAL THE WORLD, COME QUICKLY LORD JESUS WE PRAY.

The 56th annual National Day of Prayer will take place Thursday, May 3, throughout the U.S. (and many believers are joining from around the world). The theme for this year—America, Unite in Prayer—based on 2 Chronicles 7:14 which states: If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS.2-Deep tremors may hold key to predicting big quakes. 3-Bangkok faces flooded future, expert says. 4-The Nation's Weather 5-The Sanhedrin’s peace initiative - Rebuild 3RD TEMPLE. 6-Terror fear, climate change concerns make Aussies return to Church. 7-Rice meets with Syrian counterpart. 8-Olmert opponents plan mass rally. 9-Dealers plan alternative Canada stock trade system. 10-The European Union needs a new treaty: Finnish President Tarja Halonen. 11-Iran, Syria Hold Conferences on a Culture of Resistance. 12-Shimon Peres: It's A
Great Day for Kadima.

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.

WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS (USGS)

Update time = Thu May 3 11:35 AM EDT

MAY 3,07
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.6 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.1 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.9 SOUTHERN YUKON TERRITORY, CANADA
MAP 5.7 SOUTH OF THE KERMADEC ISLANDS
MAP 5.4 MOLUCCA SEA
MAP 3.0 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.2 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.1 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 2.7 OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

MAY 2,07
MAP 3.0 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 2.9 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.6 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.9 NEVADA
MAP 2.7 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 3.0 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.7 UTAH
MAP 2.7 UTAH
MAP 2.9 UTAH
MAP 4.7 CENTRAL PERU
MAP 3.5 HAWAII REGION, HAWAII
MAP 2.7 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.0 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.9 OFF THE EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA, RUSSIA
MAP 5.3 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 5.2 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 3.3 OREGON
MAP 2.5 PUERTO RICO
MAP 3.4 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.5 NEVADA
MAP 2.7 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 2.6 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.5 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.6 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.6 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.6 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA

Deep tremors may hold key to predicting big quakes Wed May 2, 1:06 PM ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Researchers have identified a link between a series of recently discovered earth movements that they believe may hold the key to better forecasting major earthquakes. Instances of deep tremors, low-frequency and silent earthquakes have only been observed in the past two decades, with the advent of equipment like the Global Positioning System (GPS), and researchers have been studying them as disparate events.But scientists in Japan and the United States say these events may be symptoms of what is known as a slow earthquake, if they occur in the same place and around the same time.They can be thought of as different manifestations of the same phenomena and they comprise a new earthquake category, they wrote in the latest issue of the journal Nature.Big earthquakes are a result of high-frequency seismic energy and can cause massive damage in a matter of seconds.But slow earthquakes, which can last for months, give off little or no seismic energy. The researchers said slow earthquakes occur in places where there are regular quakes.

Slow earthquakes occur very close to areas of regular earthquakes. Although slow earthquakes don't radiate seismic waves, they increase the stress in areas of regular earthquakes, Satoshi Ide at the University of Tokyo told Reuters.If we know more of these slow earthquakes, we can estimate how much stress is accumulated in regular earthquake zones. We can assess the probability of (damaging) earthquakes happening; we can tell how high the risk is.The researchers made their observations in the Nankai trough in western Japan. Similar phenomena were also detected elsewhere, such as the Cascadia subduction zone along the North American Pacific coast.The last slow earthquake observed in Japan was on Shikoku island in 2002, Ide said. The slow quake of 6.8 magnitude lasted three months and resulted in no visible damage.

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.

Bangkok faces flooded future, expert says By Gillian Griffith-Jones
Wed May 2, 10:38 AM ET

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's capital, Bangkok, will be under water in 20 years because of rising seas from global warming and subsidence, says a top Thai climate expert who warned of a tsunami years before the 2004 disaster. If nothing is done, Bangkok will be at least 50 centimeters to one meter under water, Smith Dharmasaroja, head of Thailand's National Disaster Warning Centre, said in an interview.Bangkok, a sprawling city of more than 10 million people and criss-crossed by more than 1,000 canals, is between 1 and 1.5 meters (3 to 5 feet) above sea level and is sinking into its soft, loamy soil at an alarming rate, he said this week.Smith, giving his scenario for Bangkok in 2025, is renowned in Thailand for controversial predictions.He was dismissed as a crackpot for his tsunami warnings years before the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster which killed 5,395 Thais and foreign tourists on its Andaman Sea coast.The problem, he says, is two-fold.

The city is subsiding at a rate of 10 cm (4 inches) per year, partly due to excessive pumping of underground water.Global warming is causing seas to rise and there is evidence of severe coastal erosion just downstream from Bangkok.His comments come as scientists and government officials from around the globe are meeting at a U.N. conference in Bangkok to work out ways to fight climate change and curb the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.To avert disaster, Smith said, the city
needed to construct a massive dyke to protect it from rising seas and increasingly violent storms.The system has to be started right now. Otherwise it will be too late to protect our capital city, he said.

FLOOD-FIGHTING NETWORK

As if to highlight the threat from flooding and bad weather, the capital has been hit by an unexpectedly early start to the rainy season. An intense storm has also caused widespread flooding in parts of southern and central Thailand.Asked what was being done to avert disaster, Smith said: The government does not pay any attention at all.However, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration says it has made flood control a top priority in recent years.The BMA has more than 60 pumping stations and a network of water gates to regulate river and canal flows. Sewers and drains are regularly cleaned, waterways cleared of debris, and basins temporarily trap floodwaters.Most Bangkok residents still remember the floods of 1995, among the worst in decades.

Large areas of the capital were inundated as high tides on the Chao Phraya river, which runs through the city, collided with floodwaters flowing down from central areas of the country. Rubbish-choked canals and drains were blamed for exacerbating the problem. Since then, the government has deployed prisoners to clear the canals and drains before the onset of the monsoon season. However, Smith insists only a massive seawall would prevent his prediction of a paralyzed city from coming true. You will need a motorboat instead of a car, he said.

The Nation's Weather By WEATHER UNDERGROUND, For The Associated Press
Thu May 3, 6:39 AM ET

Thunderstorms marched across the East from Texas early Thursday, while high pressure kept the Northeast warm and snow fell in the Rockies. Low pressure was to sweep through the West, pushing rain and high elevation snow into the Rockies and Great Basin. Snow advisories were are in effect for some areas.High winds were expected from western Utah through Southern California, where forecasters predicted sustained winds up to 35 mph in some spots.In the East, a slow-moving stationary front was to continue to drape itself from the mid-Atlantic to the Southern Plains.There was a slight chance of severe weather through much of Texas and some thunderstorms in the region may produce tornadoes. Showers also were likely from the mid-Atlantic through the mid- and upper-Mississippi Valley.

The Eastern half of the country should be quite warm Thursday as temperatures in the Southeast will rise into the 80s and 90s. The Northeast and Plains will see temperatures in the 50s, 60s and 70s.The Northwest and Northern Rockies should rise into the 40s and 50s as the Pacific trough of low pressure ushers cool temperatures into the region.Temperatures in the Lower 48 states on Wednesday ranged from a low of 28 degrees at Roseau, Minn., to a high of 93 degrees at Rockingham, N.C.

REBUILT 3RD TEMPLE

REVELATION 11:1-2
1 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.
2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

DANIEL 9:27
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one
week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

The Sanhedrin’s peace initiative - Rebuild 3RD TEMPLE MAY 3,07

Jewish group devoted to rebuilding Temple in Jerusalem to send letters to all world leaders, including Arab ones, inviting them to take part in project, attend conference on Temple Mount in Israel Kobi Nahshoni Published: 05.01.07, 20:48 / Israel Jewish Scene

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been gearing up for an Israeli offensive in recent months, is bound to be surprised by the peace feelers he is set to receive from Jerusalem soon.

Animal Sacrifice

Renew animal sacrifices on Mount says radical rabbi / Yaakov Lappin. Member of Sanhedrin says sacrifices were not possible when the people of Israel were in the
Diaspora, but now they are. Adds: Jerusalem Temple should be rebuilt, Israeli government standing in our way.Without Saudi mediation or diplomatic procedures, the president will get a Letter of Love and Peace, accompanied by a historic invitation to visit Jerusalem, from The Supreme Judicial Court of the Jewish People, better known as the Sanhedrin. After having tried their luck with the High Court of Justice and the government, the members of the Jewish group have set out on a new track in their struggle for the Temple Mount, aimed at rebuilding the Temple in the Jewish capital. In recent days, the group members have drafted a letter that will be translated into 70 languages and sent to all government institutions in the world, including the sons of Esau and Ishmael who do not hold diplomatic ties with Israel.

Jews responsible for world peace

In the letter, the rabbis of the self-proclaimed Sanhedrin warn that the world is nearing a catastrophe, and write that the only way to bring peace among nations, states, and religions is by building a house for God, where Jews will worship, pray and offer up sacrifice, according to the vision of the prophets. The rabbis also call on the non-Jews to help the people of Israel fulfill their destiny and build the Temple, in order to prevent bloodshed across the globe. The letter will initially be translated into English, Spanish, Arabic, French and Farsi, and later also into Russian, Chinese and Japanese, and will include an invitation to world leaders to attend a conference dedicated to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem five months from now, during Succot. Prof Hillel Weiss of the Sanhedrin explained that the Torah and the prophets have tasked the Jewish people with the responsibility for world peace. He stressed that the group’s project was to rebuild the Temple, not a church for all nations, but added, We have all descended from the same father, this is not another primitive and racist approach.

Terror fear, climate change concerns make Aussies return to Church
From our ANI Correspondent MAY 3,07

Sydney, Apr 6: Australians in recent years are attending Church services in large numbers, as fears of impending terror attack and the growing impact of global climatic change have prompted many to find solace in religion. According to the Daily Telegraph, recent reports of Islamic terrorists planning to carry out bombings in different Australian cities have led faithful to seek guidance from their religion, and people are giving a second thought to their absent or misplaced religious beliefs. The 2006 census of Australia, due out later this year, is expected to show an increase in church attendance, the paper said.In his Easter message, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney George Pell said that God often struggled for press coverage, adding, many Australians are uneasy about the climate including the continuing drought, irregular weather patterns and global warming.According to the most recent data, there are more than five million Catholics Down Under who constitute 26 per cent of country's population.Dailyindia.com/ANI

Rice meets with Syrian counterpart By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer MAY 3,07

SHARM El-SHEIK, Egypt - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said her meeting with the Syrian foreign minister, the first high-level talks in years between the United States and Syria, was professional and focused on how to improve security in Iraq. Rice met with Walid Moallem for a half-hour on the sidelines of a two-day conference about Iraq's future, taking the opportunity to air U.S. concerns about Syria's notoriously porous border with its neighbor.I didn't lecture him and he didn't lecture me, Rice said afterward. I would say it was professional. It was businesslike.Rice said she was not seeking a similar meeting with Iran's foreign minister.The Bush administration has shunned Syria, which it considers a state supporter of terrorism, and last month President Bush assailed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) for making a trip to Damascus, saying it sent mixed messages to the Syrian government. But the White House has been under pressure to talk with Syria and Iran, another U.S. opponent in the region.In Baghdad, U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Syria had tightened its borders to and reduced the number of foreign insurgents crossing into Iraq — a chief demand of the United States.

There has been some movement by the Syrians ... there has been a reduction in the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq for more than a month, Caldwell said.Rice and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem met on the sidelines of Thursday's conference. Earlier, a senior State Department official said they would discuss Iraqi security issues.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was still being arranged.Both the United States and Iran had also spoken favorably of a possible meeting, but the chances for that remained unclear.Rice and the Iranian foreign minister exchanged pleasantries over lunch, the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said. They said hello, that's about it, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.Iraq and the United States hope Thursday and Friday's conference of nearly 50 nations at this Egyptian Red Sea resort will rally international support — particularly from Arab nations — for an ambitious plan to stabilize Iraq.

Iraq is pressing for forgiveness of debt and for Arabs to take greater action to prevent foreign fighters from joining the Iraqi insurgency. Arab countries, in turn, demand his government ensure greater participation by Sunni Arabs in Iraq's political process, echoing the United States.Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opened the conference by urging all countries to forgive his country's enormous
foreign debts — estimated at about $50 billion. Another $100 billion has already been written off by the Paris Club of lender nations.But Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, told the conference only that his country has expressed its readiness to alleviate some of the debts on Iraq and was currently in discussions with Iraqi officials to deal with the issue in line with the regulations and bases of the Paris Club.Iraqi and U.S. officials had said Saudi Arabia privately had already committed to forgiving 80 percent of Iraq's $17 billion debt.Al-Faisal, addressing the conference, renewed a Saudi offer of $1 billion in loans to Iraq, on the condition that the money be distributed equally among Iraq's geographical sectors.Al-Maliki pledged to institute reforms to boost Sunni participation but said
forgiving Iraq's debts was the only way the country could rebuild.

Rice's meeting with Moallem marked the first such high-level talks since the February 2005

assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria denies it had anything to do with the killing, but U.S. and European officials have since shunned the Damascus government. Iraq and many Arab countries have been particularly eager, even desperate, for such talks between the United States and its Mideast opponents — saying they are only the way to stabilize Iraq and lessen Iran's growing influence in the region.

Rice has also said she was willing to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, after years of accusations and name-calling between the nations. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had also expressed interest in such a meeting. During Thursday's session, the two sat on far ends of the large conference hall where the ministers and top diplomats from nearly 50 nations gathered. They both attended a lunch along with the other foreign ministers.

All of us here today are bound to the future of Iraq. What happens in Iraq has profound consequences which will affect each and every one of us, Rice said in a speech to the conference. In his speech, Mottaki blamed Iraq's turmoil on the flawed policies of the occupying powers referring to the U.S. Iraq has offered to mediate between Iran and the U.S., an aide to al-Maliki told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions. Al-Maliki told Rice on Wednesday that a rapprochement must take place between you and the nations of the region to solve the issue of Iraq, particularly Syria and Iran, according to Iraqi Planning Minister Ali Baban, a Sunni. The U.S accuses Iran of fueling Iraq's violence by arming and backing militants there, a charge Iran denies. The two-day conference in this Red Sea resort town brings together officials from Iraq, the U.S., Iran, Russia, China, Europe and Arab nations.Associated Press writers Anne Gearan and Edith M. Lederer in Sharm el-Sheik and Salah Nasrawi in Cairo contributed to this report.

LUKE 21:25 NATIONS IN DISRESS (MASS COMFUSION) SOUNDS LIKE ISRAEL TO ME NOW.

A FEW STORIES BACK WE READ THE SANHEDRIN WANTS TO REBUILD THE 3RD TEMPLE AND NOW HERE WE SEE A MASS RALLY FOR OLMERT TO RESIGN.

ON THIS WORLD DAY OF PRAYER WE DEFINATELY NEED TO BE PRAYING FOR THE LEADERS OF ISRAEL AND THE WORLD LEADERS TO GIVE OUR COUNTRIES BACK TO GOD AND GO BY HIS COMMANDMENTS.

Olmert opponents plan mass rally By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer MAY 3,07

JERUSALEM - The campaign to oust Prime Minister Ehud Olmert shifted to the streets Thursday, with a mass rally in Tel Aviv expected to draw tens of thousands of people calling for the embattled Israeli leader to step down.

Olmert, under fire for his handling of last summer's war against Lebanese guerrillas, appeared to be quashing an incipient rebellion against him in the ranks of his Kadima Party at least for now.On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a party heavyweight, called on him to quit, and another top party figure,parliamentary coalition chief Avigdor Yitzhaki, resigned to protest Olmert's refusal to step down.But other Kadima officials rallied around their beleaguered chief, no doubt mindful that a widespread mutiny could lead to early elections that could land the party on the skids. Polls indicate hawkish former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud Party, would win an election.Olmert himself said he intended to stay on to remedy the severe flaws in decision-making and crisis management that a government war probe identified in a scathing report Monday. Olmert was singled out in the report for exceptional censure.

At an emergency Kadima meeting called after Livni's announcement Wednesday, Olmert said he would implement the war report's recommendations down to the last detail.I'm personally in an uncomfortable position, but I'm over 60, and have had a lot of experience. I've learned to take responsibility for my actions, spokesman Jacob Galanti quoted Olmert as saying.Israel's parliament planned to interrupt its spring recess Thursday for a special session to discuss the war probe.Ahead of that session, Netanyahu for the first time added his voice to the chorus of calls demanding Olmert's resignation. Later, at parliament, he appealed for new elections. We must redress the primary flaw the report identifies — the lack of a seasoned leadership, the lack of responsibility, the inability to make tough decisions and carry them out, he told a sparsely attended deliberation.

Olmert was in the chamber but was not scheduled to speak.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres of Kadima, speaking on behalf of the government, deflected the demands for Olmert's resignation through a barrage of opposition heckling.The probe commission instructed this government to immediately redress what needs to be redressed, and it's doing just that, and will do so without hesitation, Peres said.The hostilities between Israel and Lebanon erupted on July 12 when members of the guerrilla group crossed into Israel, killed three soldiers and captured two others.

In 34 days of fighting, Israel failed to achieve the two main goals Olmert set: to retrieve the soldiers and crush Hezbollah. Instead, Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets into northern Israel.Nearly 160 Israelis and more than 1,000 Lebanese died in the fighting, and Israeli soldiers returned from battle complaining of conflicting orders and shortages of food and ammunition.The White House said it
would not get involved in Israeli politics or address whether Olmert's resignation would hamper efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

I'm not going to play should have, would have, could have,White House press secretary Tony Snow said. As you know, the president has a good working relationship with the prime minister. He looks upon him as a man who is committed to a two-state solution and working constructively toward peace. But after that, you get into Israeli politics, and we're not going to do it.Opinion polls released Wednesday said two out of three Israelis want Olmert out now.

In defecting from Olmert's camp, Livni — a popular figure in Kadima — told the prime minister he had lost the public's support and said she considered herself the rightful successor to lead Kadima. I told him that resignation would be the right thing for him to do, Livni told reporters. I haven't worked and am not working to topple the prime minister. That's a decision he'll have to make.Livni — a relative political newcomer and a former officer in the Mossad spy agency — is Kadima's most popular politician. The daughter of an underground fighter who fought for Israel's independence, she has quickly risen through Israeli politics in recent years and appears to be Kadima's best hope of retaining power.

Under Israel's parliamentary system, Kadima could switch its leader without losing power. The Israeli prime minister is not directly elected and usually comes from parliament's largest bloc. But emerging from the Kadima meeting late Wednesday, said the party backed Olmert in his decision not to resign.

The prime minister received here unprecedented support, Peres told reporters. Only three Kadima officials have publicly broken with Olmert — Livni, Yitzhaki and a minor lawmaker, Marina Solodkin. Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said Livni's challenge would have been worse had she threatened to resign or bring down the government. We see a ball rolling, but a ball that could have taken on a lot of momentum today has slowed down, he said. Hazan said the turnout by Olmert's opponents at the rally in Tel Aviv could determine whether the momentum against Olmert grew or fizzled out. Lawmakers Effie Eitam, a hawk, and Yossi Beilin, a dove, set aside their deep political differences to team up in a joint newspaper column Thursday to demand a shake-up at the top. Both of us are convinced Olmert has to go home because of his great failure during the second Lebanon war, they wrote in the column that appeared in the Maariv daily. Alon Davidi and 34 other protesters started marching to Tel Aviv two days ago from the southern town of Sderot, 45 miles away. We want as many people as possible to come to the square and say, Ehud Olmert go home,(Defense Minister) Amir Peretz go home, Davidi told Army Radio. Sderot is Peretz's hometown, and the frequent target of Palestinian rocket attacks. Associated Press writer Laurie Copans contributed to this report.

Dealers plan alternative Canada stock trade system By Lynne Olver MAY 3,07

TORONTO (Reuters) - Seven of Canada's biggest investment dealers said on Thursday they plan to launch a new Alternative Trading System in 2008 to boost the efficiency of equity trading and make Canada more globally competitive. Named Alpha, the system will feature a continuous electronic order platform, which allows trading to occur on a price-time priority basis, the dealers said in a news release.Word of the deal hammered shares of TSX Group Inc., which runs the Toronto Stock Exchange as well as Canada's main small-cap stock market.On the Toronto exchange, shares of TSX Group fell 8.6 percent to C$43.35 a share on Thursday morning. They traded as low as C$40.00 a share early in the session.The new alternative trading system will be designed so that trades are made on the best market available, considering current exchanges and other alternate trading systems being launched in Canada, the dealers said.

Those taking part are BMO Capital Markets, Canaccord Capital Corp., CIBC World Markets, National Bank Financial, RBC Capital Markets, Scotia Capital, and TD Securities.Although created mainly by bank-owned investment dealers, the new trading system will be open to all dealer institutions that want to join as participating organizations.

We operate in a very competitive global market, TSX Group spokesman Steve Kee said, outlining steps that his company has taken to remain competitive.In the last few years, TSX has cut trading fees and spent about C$50 million a year on technology, Kee said. It has also brought in various initiatives, such as measures to optimize execution speeds for algorithmic traders.The exchange's largest trading participants get significant volume discounts.Our largest firms would also get our largest discounts, Kee said.

John Aiken, an analyst at Dundee Securities in Toronto, said the new ATS could be a formidable competitor to TSX Group because the seven dealers are the major suppliers of liquidity in the Canadian equities market.But the proposed system's business plan and structure is not known, so it is too early to estimate the possible financial impact on TSX Group, he said.It's raising concern in my mind but near term, it's business as usual, Aiken said.The chief executive of the proposed new entity, Jos Schmitt, said the trading system could be up and running in the second half of 2008.In an interview, Schmitt said his financial-services consulting firm Capco was approached by the dealers late in 2006, and that the past few months have been spent designing the platform.Schmitt, who has held executive and advisory roles with various Belgian stock and derivatives exchanges, declined to say how much the new Canadian ATS would cost to set up, but said a reported figure of C$100 million ($90 million) is incorrect.This is not a mechanism that supports internalization or internal trade-matching for the dealers, (this is a) straightforward, price-driven continuous order matching system, very comparable to the other platforms that are available or in the process of being established in the Canadian market, Schmitt said.

Funding is in place for the project, he said.

The system's technology will be able to handle close to 5,000 transactions per second, and would add additional capability in future, he added. That is what you need to support today's algorithmic trading and today's program trading, Schmitt said. What is driving us is really market demands, market needs, and that is what we (will) translate into the technology.He declined to quantify any expected cost savings for the dealers involved. (Additional reporting by Susan Taylor in Ottawa)
($1=$1.11 Canadian)

The European Union needs a new treaty: Finnish President Tarja Halonen
Thu, 03 May 2007 15:32:00GMT Author : DPA

Berlin- The European Union needs a new treaty to cope with its enlargement to include 27 members, Finnish President Tarja Halonen said Thursday on the first day of a three-day state visit to Germany.

We need a stronger house for our bigger family. The union needs a new treaty, Halonen said in reference to the accession of 10 countries in May 2004 and a further two at the beginning of this year. Speaking to diplomats and politicians at the German Council on Foreign Relations, Halonen said that integrating the new members, most of them from formerly communist Eastern Europe, appeared to be a longer and more difficult process than we were prepared to admit at the beginning.The desire to join the EU had tended to submerge historical differences, she said. Now we see some of these emerging again.The new member countries had also shown greater self-confidence than some older EU members had expected, along with sensitivity to instructions that seem to come from Brussels.

Halonen said Finland supported the plans and timetable for a new treaty drawn up by the current German EU presidency. At an EU summit in Berlin in March to mark 50 years since the bloc was formed, Chancellor Angela Merkel sketched out a timetable for the EU to be placed on a renewed common basis by the time of the European Parliament elections in 2009.

She said the German presidency would draw up a roadmap before the handover to Portugal in July and that the aim was to have a new version of the constitutional treaty in place by the end of the year to give member states time to ratify it. Earlier Thursday, Halonen held separate meetings with President Horst Koehler and Merkel. Koehler expressed praise for Finland's highly regarded educational system. Halonen said she had come not only to talk about Finland's success in this area, but also to learn from Germany.In her talks with Merkel, Halonen discussed the current crisis in relations between Estonia and Russia, along with general EU issues and relations between the EU and the United States, according to a German government spokesman. Halonen was schedule to walk through the Brandenburg Gate with Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit on Friday and to round off her visit in Munich on Saturday. dpa rpm sc

Iran, Syria Hold Conferences on a Culture of Resistance
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz (INN) MAY 3,07

As Iran was hosting an international conference this week under the banner The Muslim World: Victim of Terrorism, Syria was holding its own international conference on Arab and Islamic Media Support of the Palestinian People. In both countries, the theme was how the Islamic or Arab peoples are under assault and occupation by Israel and the United States. On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the audience at the first-ever Culture of Resistance Conference, held in Tehran, that the Islamic world has been victimized by terrorism perpetrated by the arrogant powers. It is those powers, Ahmadinejad said, that have created and promoted international terrorist organizations. Unfortunately, the Iranian leader said, Islam's enemies are trying to cover up their failures by wrongly portraying Islam as a religion of violence.Ahmadinejad called the United States a terrorist regime and claimed that Israel, with Western backing, is continually threatening other nations.

Islam is nowadays the victim of organized terrorism, he declared.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi told conference attendees, We strongly condemn all forms of terrorism because we have suffered most from it.The two-day Tehran conference, which had as its explicit goal the promotion of a culture of resistance, ended on Wednesday and was attended by guests from 46 states. At the same time as the Iranian event, a three-day conference in Syria drew 350 people from around the globe, as well. Like its sister gathering in Tehran, the Syrian conference expressed a commitment to deepen the culture of resistance.

Specifically, the conference offered support for the Hizbullah terrorist organization, referred to in Syrian media as the Lebanese national resistance. The final statement of the conference further praised the war Hizbullah launched against Israel in July 2006, which defeated the US-Israeli schemes, according to the Syrian government's news agency, SANA. In their closing statement, the Syrian conference organizers called on Arab and Islamic media to put the Arab-Israeli conflict at the top of their agenda, especially regarding the release of convicted Arab terrorists in Israeli jails. Presented as the centerpiece of the conference's final statements, however, was a declaration in favor of Syria's legitimate right to restore the occupied Syrian Golan. To emphasize this point, the last session of the gathering was held in Kuneitra, on the Syrian side of the Golan mountain range.

Shimon Peres: It's A Great Day for Kadima
by Hana Levi Julian (INN) MAY 3,07

The Kadima faction was in a polite uproar Wednesday night as it met in an emergency session at the Knesset, although Vice Premier Shimon Peres acted as though it was a victory bash. After one resignation, myriad recriminations, a few threats and exhortations to reunite, the elder statesman emerged from the party meeting and told reporters, Its a great day for Kadima, the government and Ehud Olmert.The faction meeting was held to discuss the fallout from the scathing criticism of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, published Monday in the interim Winograd Commission report. Faction Chairman Avigdor Yitzchaki resigned at the meeting after warning earlier in the day that if the Prime Minister refused to step down, he would leave instead. Yitzchaki told Israel Radio that a large majority of the Kadima party believed Olmert should resign. A leader can [only] govern the public when he has legitimacy with that public and the trust of the public, said Yitzchaki. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a private meeting Wednesday that he should step down from office.

Livni clarified that she would not resign from her position as Foreign Minister and would not act to bring down the government, regardless of what the Prime Minister did. Livni said bluntly at the faction meeting, There is a crisis of confidence in the public and we cannot ignore this. The Foreign Minister warned that party members could not ignore the report and give each other mutual compliments.

Only three Kadima members called publicly for Olmert's resignation, including Livni, Yitzchaki and MK Marina Solodkin, who was the first to recommend that the Prime Minister step down. Political analysts are saying that what was perceived as a party rebellion against Olmert has apparently lost its tailwind. Tal Zilberstein, Olmerts strategic adviser, commented that there is no choice but to fire [Livni] after what she did. Her behavior is unworthy.

Other advisers in the Prime Ministers bureau warned him not to hurry, saying that such a move would hurt him because the Foreign Minister is more popular than he is. Enough with the festival of firing people and of resignations, said MK Yoel Hasson at the faction meeting. Kadima needs to preserve its unity and moves like this will only create opposing camps in the party and cause it to crumble.According to a report by Ynet, Olmert is considering replacing Livni with Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz. Knesset Member Tzachi Hanegbi was tapped by the Prime Minister to replace Avigdor Yitzchaki as the new Kadima faction chairman. Hanegbi, who is chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Relations and Defense Committee, is considered to be one of Ehud Olmert's closest confidantes. Another possible casualty of the Winograd Commission may be Defense Minister Amir Peretz, whose performance just prior to the war and during its first days was also slammed in the Commission's report.

Peretz was severely censured for his lack of military experience and his unwillingness to consult with others who had more expertise. The report listed among the Defense Ministers failures the fact that he did not ask for the IDFs operational plans nor did he examine them.The Commission was blunt in its criticism of Peretz: the Minister of Defense failed in fulfilling his functions. Therefore, his serving as Minister of Defense during the war impaired Israels ability to respond well to its challenges.Yet Peretz's advisors say that they cannot find in the Winograd interim report any justification for the Defense Minister to resign. Peretz said earlier Wednesday that the word failure appears in the Winograd report relatively few times in relation to his name. The Defense Ministers attorney, Eitan Liraz, told reporters that the Winograd Report contained many compliments for his client. Meanwhile,

the Cabinet also met Wednesday in a special three and a half hour session to discuss the report. In a unanimous vote, the ministers decided to establish two new committees one to study the issue of how to carry out the recommendations listed in the report, and the second to make sure the recommendations are actually implemented. Baruch Gordon contributed to this report.

EUROPEAN UNIFICATION EQUALS WAR

1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS.2-The Nation's Weather 3-Israeli leader calls emergency meeting. 4-Livni to Join Other Kadima MKs in Calling for Olmert to Quit. 5-Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu Pressuredto Quit Gov't. 6-France's Sarkozy, Royal face off in election debate By James Mackenzie. 7-EU and US building trade links but split on climate. 8-Towards a Totalitarian Europe. 9-The Result of European Unification Will be War.

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.

WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS (USGS)

Update time = Wed May 2 2:00 AM EDT

MAP 2.6 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.6 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA

MAY 1,07
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.7 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.6 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.6 PAGAN REGION, NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
MAP 3.3 TAJIKISTAN
MAP 4.6 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.6 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 3.3 PUERTO RICO
MAP 2.6 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 5.0 RYUKYU ISLANDS, JAPAN
MAP 2.8 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.7 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.5 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
MAP 4.6 POTOSI, BOLIVIA
MAP 2.9 MONA PASSAGE, PUERTO RICO
MAP 2.6 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 5.5 ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE
MAP 3.9 MONA PASSAGE, PUERTO RICO
MAP 5.6 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 5.0 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 3.1 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 5.6 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 3.8 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA

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.

The Nation's Weather By WEATHER UNDERGROUND, For The Associated Press
Wed May 2, 5:34 AM ET

Dry weather and mild temperatures are expected across a wide swath of the northern part of the country on Wednesday extending from the Dakotas eastward through the upper Mississippi Valley, Great Lakes region and Northeast. Widespread showers and thunderstorms are expected in the Mid-Atlantic, southern and central Plains regions.There is a slight risk of severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and large hail in central and eastern Texas.

An unseasonably cold Pacific system is expected to bring cool and wet weather to parts of the West. Coastal rain and high elevation snow is expected from Northern California to the Pacific Northwest.Farther inland, a cold front is expected to push through the Great Basin and Rockies during the day, and to move to the northern and central Plains at night. It is expected to result in an expansive area of rain with scattered thunderstorms and mountain snow.Temperatures in the lower 48 states Tuesday ranged from a low of 24 degrees at Boulder, Wyo., to a high of 104 degrees at Death Valley, Calif.

Israeli leader calls emergency meeting By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer MAY 2,07

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, feverishly trying to hang on to power, told an emergency meeting of his Cabinet on Wednesday that rivals should slow down before trying to benefit from the scathing report on his handling of last year's war in Lebanon. This week's report has fueled calls for Olmert's resignation, including from members of his coalition government.

A top lawmaker in Olmert's Kadima Party became the highest-ranking official to urge Olmert to step down, and party officials said Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Kadima's most popular politician, would follow suit later in the day.The 34-day war against Hezbollah guerrillas has been widely perceived as a failure.

Monday's report said Olmert bore ultimate responsibility, accusing him of poor judgment, hasty decision-making and lack of vision. A defiant Olmert opened the special Cabinet session by hinting that reports of his political demise were premature. To those who are eager to take advantage of this report to reap certain political advantages, I suggest slow down, he said.

Two new polls published in Israeli newspapers Wednesday said some two-thirds of Israelis want Olmert to resign immediately. The surveys indicated that the hawkish former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu of the opposition Likud Party, would likely win handily if new elections were held.Since the report was issued, Olmert has been struggling to hold his coalition together. One minister from the Labor Party, Olmert's main coalition partner, already has quit, and there have been increasing signs of eroding support within Kadima.In a new blow, the chairman of Kadima's parliamentary faction, Avigdor Yitzhaki, called for the prime minister to step down: He has to take this responsibility and resign.

Yitzhaki said if Olmert failed to do so immediately he would resign as coalition chairman. On Tuesday, another Kadima lawmaker, Marina Solodkin, also urged Olmert to step down.Separately, confidants of Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who also came under criticism in the war probe, said he was considering quitting.

There was no confirmation from his spokesmen.Livni, the foreign minister, was emerging as the biggest threat to Olmert's survival. Livni, who has stayed silent since the report was released, may be the party's best hope of retaining power. Livni aides said she planned to meet with Olmert later Wednesday to urge him to step down.At the 3 1/2-hour Cabinet session, ministers agreed to carry out the report's recommendations for improved decision-making and crisis management, and to set up a committee to oversee the implementation, Cabinet Secretary Israel Maimon said.Olmert told ministers that his government would best remedy the mistakes it made.

We could make life easy and say Thank you, I was proud to serve the State of Israel, and go, Maimon quoted him as saying. But I know from past experience with such reports that no other government will implement this (report), only this government.

Demands for Olmert's resignation began shortly after the costly but inconclusive war, in which almost 4,000 Hezbollah rockets landed in Israel and 158 Israelis were killed. More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and combatants also died, according to Lebanese officials.The war broke out July 12 after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed into Israel, killed three soldiers and captured two others. Olmert's public support, high in the early days of the war, nose-dived after the fighting ended without Israel's achieving the two goals he declared — crushing Hezbollah and recovering the captured soldiers.On Thursday, Olmert's opponents from all sides planned a show of strength at a demonstration in Tel Aviv. Its size and composition could go a long way toward showing Olmert whether he can continue.

Livni to Join Other Kadima MKs in Calling for Olmert to Quit
by Hillel Fendel and Ezra HaLevi (INN) MAY 2,07

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who said on Tuesday, I am strong and will get through this, he faces a major blow this afternoon when he meets with his party colleague Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni - who is expected to tell him to resign. Reports say that Livni will threaten that if Olmert insists on remaining in power, she herself will resign and will work to depose him.

She will hold a press conference following the 4 PM meeting with Olmert.The Livni news follows a similar call and threat by coalition whip MK Avigdor Yitzchaki, who said that if Olmert does not resign by today (Wednesday), he himself will quit his position. Yitzchaki was a close aide to Ariel Sharon when the latter founded the Kadima party in late 2005, and feels no particular loyalty to Olmert. He claims that a majority of Kadima members share his sentiment.

The attacks on Olmert follow the damning Winograd Committee report assigning him chief responsibility for the early failures in the Second Lebanon War. A leader can govern a public only when he has legitimacy with that public, and their trust, MK Yitzchaki told Voice of Israel Radio this morning.

He joins MKs Marina Solodkin and Michael Nudelman in demanding the PM quit - though Olmert's bureau announced that Nudelman had retracted this call and now supports Olmert.Yitzchaki added that in order for Kadima to return to being a legitimate ruling party, the prime minister must resign. A large majority of Kadima believes that the prime minister should resign, Yitzchaki said. I don't know anyone who wouldn't be happy if he quit, including the people closest to him. The question is how to convince him to leave.Another leading Kadima member, Transportation Minister Sha'ul Mofaz, has called for a national unity government - including the Likud - in order to deal with the current crisis. Mofaz says Olmert should head the government. A Kadima faction meeting Yitzchaki planned for early Thursday has now
been pushed up to Wednesday night.

Prime Minister Olmerts staff gave anonymous quotes to nearly all of Israels media outlets Tuesday night, critical of efforts by Foreign Minister Livni to have Olmert replaced within the party presumably by her. The aides said Olmert would take the offensive, issuing a public warning that Livni should either stop undermining the prime minister or resign herself. Livnis staff denied that she is involved in Yitzchakis efforts to bring about Olmerts resignation.

Labor Central Committee to Convene on Leaving

Minister Without Portfolio Eitan Cabel of Labor, who resigned Tuesday and called upon Olmert to follow suit, says he will convene the Labor Partys central committee in order to bring about a decision to leave the government. Cabel is Labor's Secretary-General.The session is to take place next week, ahead of the May 28th primaries. Of the two leading contenders for the party's leadership, Former GSS Head MK Ami Ayalon has already said that he would not remain in an Olmert-led coalition, and Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has not committed himself. Cabel supports Barak.

Likud Wants Elections

Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu is calling not for Olmert's resignation, but rather for the entire government to resign, a move which necessitates new Knesset elections. He knows that as leader of a party with only 12 MKs, he would not be able to lead the government for long. On the other hand, polls forecast that in new elections, the Likud would approximately triple its strength.

Olmert to Conduct Business as Usual

Prime Minister Olmert plans on bringing a proposal before his cabinet Wednesday to adopt the main recommendations of the Winograd report, which does not explicitly call for his resignation, and work toward implementing them.Olmert's plan involves appointing retired IDF Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shachak to come up within 30 days with proposals for implementing the recommendations.

The recommendations will then be approved or rejected by a committee staffed by Olmert himself, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Foreign Minister Livni, Vice Premier Shimon Peres, Transportation Minister Sha'ul Mofaz, Trade Minister Eli Yishai and Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Although the Knesset is scheduled to hold a special session Thursday to discuss the Winograd findings, PM Olmert has made it clear that he will not respond to the report or even take part in the discussion until the final draft is published.

Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu Pressuredto Quit Gov't
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz (INN) MAY 2,07

In the wake of the Winograd Commission's interim report, opposition politicians are putting public pressure on coalition member parties Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu to quit the government. Such a move by Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman and Shas party chairman Eli Yishai would likely lead to the collapse of the current administration and new Knesset elections. In a televised interview Monday night, Likud MK Gilad Erdan reminded the Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu representatives that their voters did not elect them to sit in a government of failed leadership such as that of Ehud Olmert. The government failed. It caused great political and military damage to the country, said MK Erdan, And what the people need Only the departure of those two parties will lead to the dissolution of Kadima....MK Tzvi Hendel now is an election campaign that will determine who will lead the state of Israel at this critical time.

MK Tzvi Hendel (National Union-NRP) also called on Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu to withdraw from the government. Only the departure of those two parties will lead to the dissolution of Kadima and the establishment of a national emergency government, Hendel said.

Both Minister Yishai and Minister Lieberman heard Judge Winograd explain that the committee had not planned to publish an extensive interim report, MK Hendel noted, until the committee members realized that the government had not learned a single lesson from the war's failures. The dramatic interim report was issued precisely because the committee wanted to shake up the system, according to Winograd's statement Monday evening. MK Hendel said that he has begun a round of discussions with the leadership of Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu in an effort to prompt the coalition's political demise. It appears, however, that Yisrael Beiteinu's Lieberman sees things quite differently. In an interview with Israel Radio on Tuesday morning, the Strategic Affairs Minister said that now is not the time for national elections. He said that the systemic reforms and lessons that need to be implemented according to the Winograd report cannot be successfully carried out if the nation is simultaneously plunged into an election campaign.

MK Zahava Gal'on (Meretz) called on all government ministers, across the board, to tender their resignations. Praising Labor MK Eitan Cabel's resignation from his post as Minister without Portfolio, Gal'on said, TMK Gal-On (Meretz) called on all government ministers to tender their resignations. The rest of his colleagues in the government who pushed for the war, who also have the burden of failure on their shoulders, should show integrity, take responsibility, and follow in his footsteps.

Regarding the Prime Minister's next political move, Ministers Yishai and Lieberman reportedly met Tuesday and agreed that Olmert need not resign at this point. In reaction to Minister Yishai's report to him about the Winograd Commission findings, Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said Tuesday that if the government had listened to him, things would have turned out differently.

If they had listened to us during the war, then everything would look better, Rabbi Yosef told Minister Yishai. The Shas chairman later clarified that his party had requested heavy bombardment from the air of more extensive Hizbullah-controlled areas during the Second Lebanon War.

France's Sarkozy, Royal face off in election debate By James Mackenzie Wed May 2,

PARIS (Reuters) - France's two presidential rivals, right-wing former interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal, hold a televised debate on Wednesday that could decide Sunday's election.

The two-hour encounter will be screened simultaneously by France's two biggest television channels from 9 p.m. (1900 GMT), and is expected to attract an audience of more than 20 million.Much of the months-long election campaign has been shaped by the contrasting personalities of the two candidates but voters have had few opportunities for a direct comparison.

Sarkozy, admired by supporters for his tough stance on crime and illegal immigration, is hated and feared by many on the left who call him a dangerous authoritarian. Royal, aiming to be France's first woman president with a combination of left-wing economic policies and traditional social values, has faced constant questions over her competence.For both, it will be a chance to win over voters who have followed the campaign with exceptional interest and who turned out in record numbers in the first round on April 22.Details of the debate, to be moderated by two of France's most prominent journalists, have been worked out in minute detail after intensive consultation with the campaign teams.The two will face each other in a modern-looking studio in front of a picture of the Elysee Palace, the official residence of the president.They will be able to interrupt each other but cameras will not show their reactions when the other candidate speaks.Sarkozy has held a clear lead in the opinion polls since the start of the year and the debate may be Royal's last chance to cut the gap before voting starts on Sunday.Television debate: Royal stakes everything against Sarkozy, business daily Les Echos headlined its front page on Wednesday.

She has declared that she is not worried about the encounter but she faces a formidable rival in Sarkozy, one of the most forceful debaters in parliament, whose main concern may be to avoid appearing too aggressive.Some of the one-liners from previous debates have entered French political lore and television stations have repeatedly run highlights from past clashes between former presidents Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Francois Mitterrand or outgoing President Jacques Chirac.Royal enjoyed a boost on the May Day holiday on Tuesday as tens of thousands of supporters packed into a Paris stadium for a combined concert and political rally intended as a major show of strength before the vote.But Sarkozy appeared unruffled on a campaign visit to the northwestern region of Brittany.

(It) will be a day like the others, with a debate that will have to be as much of a success as possible, he told reporters.I respect my opponent, I respect her personally and I will try to make sure that the debate is as dignified as possible.(Additional reporting by Emile Picy)

EU and US building trade links but split on climate
01.05.2007 By Honor Mahony

EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS The EU and US signed a new deal on a trans-Atlantic economic
partnership at their summit in Washington on Monday (30 April) but remained unable to agree steps for tackling climate change, despite an increase in positive rhetoric on the issue.

The economic deal is aimed at increasing trade and investment by harmonising business standards between the two blocs - with trade in goods and services across the Atlantic accounting for more than $2 billion every day.

As part of the agreement, a transatlantic economic council is to be set up - to be chaired by EU industry commissioner Guenter Verheugen and US National Economic Council director Al Hubbard - to overcome regulatory barriers in 40 areas, including intellectual property and financial services.

It is recognition that the closer that the United States and the EU become, the better off our people become, US president George W. Bush said, referring to the deal. German chancellor Angela Merkel, currently chairing the EU, called it a significant step forward.Mrs Merkel has made improved economic ties between the two sides a priority of the German EU presidency and has previously said she would like to see a trans-Atlantic free trade area by 2015.At the summit, both sides also inked an open skies agreement relaxing limitations on air services between the EU and US - set to take effect at the end of March next year.Under the deal, EU airlines will be able to fly anywhere in the US and vice versa, even though EU airlines will not be able to operate domestic US routes.With this agreement, the honeymoon in Paris, the business trip to Dublin and family reunion in Naples will be cheaper, easier, and within the reach of more Americans than ever before, said US transportation secretary Mary Peters.Agreed only after years of tough negotiations, the EU made it clear at yesterday's meeting that the current model is not good enough and that Europe is already looking ahead to a more expansive deal in future.The objective of the [next] negotiations will therefore be additional traffic rights and fewer restrictions on European ownership and control of US carriers, said German transport minister Wolfgang Tiefensee.

Climate change split

While there was no significant movement on how to jointly tackle the effects of climate change - the other big issue on the summit agenda - both Mrs Merkel and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso claimed better underlying agreement on the issue.

Looking back to a year ago, Mrs Merkel said I feel that we would have had a lot more difficulty actually bringing about language that describes this problem adequately than we have now. She later added that both sides still have different approaches on how to deal with the issue, however.Mr Barroso said We agree there is a threat, there is a very serious and global threat. We agree that there is a need to reduce emissions. We agree that we should work together.But both sides remain split along familiar lines on how quickly developing nations should react, with the EU arguing richer nations need to take the lead before asking poorer states to move and the US refusing to budge until emerging economies like China and India
come on board.

US won't budge without China

In order to make progress on greenhouse gases, we've got to make sure that the developing nations, which are significant emitters, are a part of the process, said the US president. [We] could shut down our economy and emit no greenhouse gases, and all it would take is for China in about 18 months to produce as much as we had been producing to make up the difference about what we reduced our greenhouse gases to.The continued differences means the German chancellor still has a long way to go if she is to clinch a meaningful deal on climate change at the G8 meeting of industrialised nations which she will be hosting next month.

THE EU DICTATOR

REVELATION 6:1-2,13:1-3,7-9,16
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.(THIS IS THE EU DICTATOR)
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.(7 HEADS ARE THE 7TH WORLD EMPIRE IN HISTORY (THE EU) AS WELL AS THE VATICAN WHICH IS BUILT ON 7 HILLS. 10 HORNS ARE 10 KINGS THAT ARISE FROM THE EU, THEN #11 COMES ON THE SCENE BECOMES THE HEAD OF 3 OUNTRIES AND THEN THE EU DICTATOR, COMES FROM 1 OF THE 3 COUNTRIES THAT RULE FOR THIS TERM. I BELIEVE THE 3 COUNTRIES RULING AT THE TIME ARE SPAIN AND 2 OF THE ORIGINAL 6 THAT STARTED THE EU. FROM 1 OF THESE 3 COUNTRIES COME THE FUTURE EU DICTATOR PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION WHO GUARENTEES ISRAELS SECURITY FOR A LAND FOR PEACE 7 YEAR TREATY.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.(THE JEWISH EU DICTATOR GETS HIS POWER FROM SATAN,HE COMES FROM THE OCCULT).
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.(THE DICTATOR HAS A FALSE RESURRECTION. JUST LIKE JESUS HAD A LITERAL RESURRECTION THIS DICTATOR GETS MURDERED AT THE 3 1/2 YR MARK OF THR 7 YEAR TREATY AND COMES BACK TO LIFE. THIS IS HOW HE CAN CLAIM TO BE GOD AND GET AWAY WITH IT AND CONTROL THE WHOLE EARTH.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

DANIEL 11:36-40
36 And the king shall do according to his will;(EU PRESIDENT) and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS A EUROPEAN JEW) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(HES A MILITARY GINIUS) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds (CONTROL HEZBOLLAH,AL-QUAIDA MURDERERS ETC) with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he
shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south(EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR PROTECTING ISRAELS SECURITY) and the king of the north(RUSSIA) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.

Towards a Totalitarian Europe
From the desk of Fjordman on Mon, 2007-APR 30

Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovksy has warned that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. When people who have worked on higher levels in the EU system note similarities as well, it is time people start taking this idea seriously.In 2002 Louis Michel, the then Belgian minister of foreign affairs and today a member of the European Commission, told the Belgian parliament that the EU will eventually encompass North Africa and the Middle East as well as Europe. The MEDA programme, the principal financial instrument for the implementation of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, between 2000-2006 spent €5,350 million on its various programs, according to the EU’s official website. During the period 1995-1999, some 86% of the resources allocated to MEDA were channelled to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority.From 2007, MEDA will be replaced by the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument, which over the period 2007 to 2013 is projected to spend €11 billion on, among other things, promoting cooperation between European and Arab countries in the sectors of energy and transport; in higher education and mobility of teachers, researchers and students; Multicultural dialogue through people-to-people contacts, including links with communities of immigrants living in EU countries as well as cooperation between civil societies, cultural institutions and exchanges of young people. The European Commission, the EU’s powerful government with extensive legislative powers, shall coordinate cooperation with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), universities, churches, religious associations and the media in matters related to this project, all according to documents available on the Internet.

Bat Ye’or, author of the book Eurabia, has warned against the post-Western culture of Palestinianism that has been promoted through these networks for decades: Through a coordinated campaign monitored by the networks of the European Union bodies, a system linking politics to markets, culture, universities, media and opinion makers, has spread its totalitarian grip over the member-states in order to impose a despicable culture of lies and denial that support Europe's pro-Palestinian foreign policy.The EU Commission and senior officials, frequently diffused through innocent sounding and semi-official organizations, create agreements with Arabs and then quietly implement them later as federal EU policy. This is accomplished because billions of Euros are floating around in a system with very little control. Europeans are thus financing their continent’s merger with, in reality colonization by, the Muslim world without their knowledge and without their consent. It must be the first time in human history where an entire continent is being culturally eradicated with bureaucratic precision. This represents perhaps the greatest betrayal in the history of Western civilization, yet it is largely ignored by Western media.Joschka Fischer, ex-German foreign minister, warned that Europe risks becoming a playground for upcoming superpowers in the 21st century. He wanted more EU cooperation to remedy this. But we already are a playground for foreign powers, for Muslim nations in particular, who can dump their unsustainable population growth in our countries and harass the native population with near-impunity, and this is actively caused by the EU. It is going to be interesting for future historians to unveil how many senior EU leaders or bureaucrats have been bought and paid by Saudi Arabian oil money.

The idea that the EU is going to become a superpower is laughable. Europe at the dawn of the 21st century is a global joke, a decadent, weak and pathetic continent, despised by its enemies and viewed with pity by its friends. Outsiders don’t expect Europe to generate anything new, quite a few will be surprised if it even survives. This image will not be improved by leaders who have not only abandoned, but are attacking their own people, selling out their historical legacy to their worst enemies, and muzzling those who object to this.You cannot artificially create a dynamic power through bureaucratic decisions, you do it through the rule of law – laws passed with the consent of the people, with their best interest in mind and therefore respected by them – respect for private property rights and by getting the state out of the way as much as possible. There are no short-cuts. It is ridiculous to believe that this ramshackle, top-heavy Frankenstein monster is going to make Europe more competitive.I am not against cooperation between European countries in whatever form, but definitely in the shape of a pan-European dictatorship with massive amounts of bureaucracy. I understand the argument that individual nation states, save perhaps Germany, are too small to compete with China and the likes. Perhaps. But we need to get our priorities straight: Survival comes first; creating a dynamic economy comes second. The simple truth is that the EU constitutes a mortal threat to the former, and does absolutely nothing to advance the latter.

Paul Belien, the editor of the Brussels Journal, has argued in his book A Throne in Brussels that Belgium is used as a blueprint for the wider European Union. In 2000, Belgian authorities passed a so-called Quick Citizenship Act. In 1960, 7.3% of the population in the city of Brussels was foreign. Today the figure has risen to 56.5%. According to Jan Hertogen, a Marxist sociologist, this population replacement “is an impressive and unique development from a European, or even a world perspective.Yes, it is probably unprecedented in human history that a country has handed over its main city to others without firing a single shot, although this feat is now being repeated in many other European cities. Is there no opposition to this in Belgium? Yes there is, but they get silenced or even banned. The Flemish nationalist Vlaams Blok was outlawed for racism, and changed its name. The racism consisted of citing government statistics on overrepresentation in crime by immigrants. The judge concluded that truth is no defense.Père Samuel, a Turkish-born Catholic priest and one of the few speaking the language of Jesus, Aramaic, has been prosecuted for incitement to racist hatred by the Belgian Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR), because of a remark he made in 2002 when he said: Every thoroughly islamized Muslim child that is born in Europe is a time bomb for Western children in the future. The latter will be persecuted when they have become a minority. He claims Muslims are invading Europe and warns for an impending civil war.

Belgium is an artificial state dominated by a French-speaking bureaucratic elite, and could be viewed as a laboratory for what the EUrabians want to do to the rest of the continent, such as population replacement, largely by Muslims, and silencing opposition to this by legal harassment and through various mechanisms de facto disenfranchise the native population.Article ten in the European Convention on Human Rights supposedly ensures freedom of speech, yet spends more text on defining what is not included within the limits of free speech than on what is. Criminalizing ideas is dangerous. As John Stuart Mill explained in his book On Liberty, freedom of speech is the foundation of true liberty. Swedish writer John Järvenpää argues that one of the virtues of free speech is that politically incorrect viewpoints force others to rationally argue against them.In 2007, the EU agreed to make incitement to racism and xenophobia a crime across the 27-nation bloc. Under the new law, offenders will face up to three years in jail for public incitement to violence or hatred, directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin. The term inciting hatred against religion will no doubt be used by Muslims to silence critics of Islam, especially since the Council of Europe has earlier decided to view Islamophobia as equal to anti-Semitism.

The EU’s classified handbook, also released in 2007, bars governments from speaking of “jihad” or linking Islam and terrorism. But since we now have pan-European anti-racism laws and pan-European guidelines banning mentioning any connection between Islam and violence, does that mean that it will be impossible to talk about the Jihad Europeans are subject to? The purpose of this legislation can be none other than to muzzle critics of mass immigration.As Robert Spencer commented, Soon Eurabia will resemble the old Soviet Union, in which dissidents furtively distributed samizdat literature and faced stiff penalties if the authorities discovered what they were doing. Europeans who care about what is happening to them will have to travel West, buy books that tell the truth about Islamic jihad, and distribute them at home away from the watchful eye of EU bureaucrats.The European Union is basically an attempt – a rather successful one so far – by the elites in European nation states to cooperate on usurping power, bypassing and eventually abolishing the democratic system, a slow-motion coup d’état. It works because the national parliaments are still there, and most people don’t see how much has changed. Seeing is believing. If a small group of people decided to openly sideline the democratic process and start imposing laws which the public didn’t approve, there would be a rebellion. But this is what the EU has done. They have just been smart enough to hide this fact under multiple layers of impenetrable bureaucratic Newspeak, to make sure average citizens don’t fully appreciate the magnitude of what’s going on. Ideas such as promoting peace are used as a pretext for this, a bone thrown to fool the gullible masses and veil what is essentially a naked power grab.

The EU can bribe the national elites by appealing to their vanity and sense of importance, elevate them from a national level to an international level, give them nice cars, fancy sounding jobs with power unrestrained by silly prosaic things such as the will of the people.Through promoting Multiculturalism and mass immigration, the EUrocrats hope to create a new, larger political entity by smashing the older nation states. And besides, it's easier to control people who have no distinct cultural or national identity. These self-serving elites are betraying the trust of the people they are supposed to serve, using them as guinea pigs in a disastrous social experiment by dismantling their culture and importing Muslims who attack them. They probably despise their own people, who meekly accept this and believe their ridiculous excuses.Native Europeans, who are no longer safe in their own cities, have been robbed of their history and have accepted more immigration in a shorter period of time than probably any other people in human history, yet are met with intimidation and repression if they refuse to accept more. This constitutes evil, there is no other way to put it.

According to journalist John O’Sullivan, Some defenders of the EU claim that this admittedly undemocratic provision is offset by the increased powers of the European parliament. But this greatly exaggerates the representative nature of the Euro-parliament. Though formally democratic by virtue of being elected, it has no continent-wide European public opinion to which it might be accountable. He adds that It was local nationalisms in Britain and occupied Europe that provided most of the morale to resist fascist ideologies.This last point, that Nazi Germany was defeated by proud nations states such as the United States and Britain (a long time ago), is totally lost on the EU elites. Commissioner Margot Wallstrom argued that those who resisted pooling national sovereignty risked a return to Nazi horrors of the 1930s and 1940s. Her fellow Commissioners issued a joint declaration, stating that EU citizens should pay tribute to the dead of the Second World War by voting Yes to the EU Constitution.The Constitution will move even more power into the hands of the already powerful and unaccountable elites. The EUrocrats are basically saying that since somebody may conceivably threaten our democratic system at some point in the future, we might as well dismantle it now, in an orderly fashion. Moreover, whereas constitutions have traditionally outlined the basic workings of the state, the proposed European Constitution, running into hundreds of pages, betrays an almost sharia-like desire to regulate all aspects of life. It is an instrument of control, a blueprint for an authoritarian state.

Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state, but such societies can also be transnational, as was the Soviet Union, which the EU resembles more than just superficially: An artificial superstate run by an authoritarian bureaucracy that overrides the will of the people and imposes its ideology on the populace. Are we back in the E.U.S.S.R? Although the EU, due to its transnational nature, most closely resembles the Soviet Union, there are also similarities with Nazi Germany. The EU was created by perfecting the Big Lie technique that was championed by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels: Serve people massive lies, so big that they cannot believe that anybody would lie about it, and they will believe them, at least for a while.It should also be mentioned that Adolf Hitler stated his admiration for the warlike nature of Islam. The admiration was mutual. Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was an Arab nationalist and passionate anti-Semite who cooperated closely with Nazi Germany during World War II. Later, leadership of Palestinian Arabs was transferred to Husayni’s nephew Yasser Arafat, a very dear friend of the EU, who in 2002 gave an interview in which he referred to our hero al-Husayni.If the EU is supposed to protect us from the horrors of Nazi Germany, it is remarkable how many of its traits it is copying, such as flirting with Arab strongmen and admiration for Islam. The Muslim immigration the EU is promoting to Europe has triggered the largest wave of anti-Semitism since the rise of, well, Nazi Germany, and may yet force the remaining Jews to leave. That Europeans should support this organization to prevent a new totalitarian regime is a sick joke. The EU is a lot closer to totalitarian states than the supposedly evil nation states it is going to replace.

Since there is no European demos, no pre-political loyalty or shared public community, and since legislate power has been transferred to the unelected EU Commission, there is no way the EU can function as a democracy in any meaningful sense of the term. The EU can only become one giant Yugoslavia, either ruled by an authoritarian oligarchy in the fashion of Tito, or fall apart into civil wars.
The slow, but steady stifling of free speech through legislation and Muslim Jihad violence indicates an ominous trend: Europe is moving in a totalitarian direction. This cannot be stopped or reversed before we stop Muslim immigration, which again cannot happen unless we dismantle the European Union. Getting rid of the EU is the key to Europe’s survival, which is now very much in question.

WW3 THE 3 WAVES THAT MARCH TO ISRAEL

DANIEL 11:40-45
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA 2ND WAVE OF WW3) and out of the north(RUSSIA,
MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
45 And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.

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

The Result of European Unification Will be War
From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Tue, 2007-May 1
A comment from Archonix (an Englishman) at Gates of Vienna, 30 April 2007

[T]he EU economies are not substantially better than they were in the 90s. Many are at the same level, others are worse. Ask any Italian what he thinks of the economy at the moment and if you're lucky he’ll just shout at you for a few hours. The only reason your dollars don’t seem to go far any more is because the dollar has fallen significantly, not because the euro has risen. The euro is placing a massive inflationary burden on the EU economies, which no longer have the mechanism of altering interest rates in order to control inflation.Further, there is no mechanism for national debt transfer, as exists in the US, which places further inflationary pressure on individual member states. This pressure is compounded by inflation in members states that are net recipients of EU funding (Spain and Ireland as examples) who are able to cut taxes to miniscule amounts because they’re getting funded by the other EU member states. All of this is combining to produce an inflationary economy with no control mechanism. Unemployment has risen constantly within the euro zone since the euro was introduced, and productivity has fallen just as constantly. National debts are going up, taxes are rising, GDP is falling.

[…] Individual nations are slowly losing their national customs as laws and regulations are ‘unified’ across the continent. National institutions might appear unchanged, which might then present an image that the nations in question are unchanged, but this is simply a signature of how the EU functions. Those national institutions have been hollowed out from the inside and replaced with EU functionaries and apparatchiks. The EU bypasses national legislatures and operates through the implementation of an ever more powerful unelected bureaucracy of civil servants and managers. Thus normality appears to remain. However, in my country, the traditional and ancient freedoms of common law are being slowly abrogated by the implementation of bureaucratic systems. Habeas corpus is being erased, the right to travel within the borders of this country are being erased, the freedom of the individual is being erased. In fact, this country no longer officially exists. Look at any EU-approved map and you’ll notice that, while the UK is marked clearly, its constituent parts are not England, Ireland Scotland and Wales, but Scotland, Wales, northern Ireland, The North West, The North East, The Midlands, the south east, the south west and greater London. My country is gone.Your [American] revolutionary war was started with the cry of no taxation without representation. Well, I am definitely no longer represented in the government that runs my country. In all but a few areas, the laws that are implemented through Parliament are defined by the EU. The elected government of this country now only has the freedom to legislate in a few areas; foreign policy, health and education being the main. Agriculture and environmental policy, transport, internal affairs of various sorts, prisons policy, immigration, these are all legislated by the EU, with barely a nod to the national legislature. MPs will get perhaps 12 hours to examine a draft law in these areas before putting it to vote — which will generally be ignored anyway — and these drafts will often run to 30 pages. An MP will get several of these drafts every single day, dozens in a week. And this is just the legislation that is passed through Parliament. The EU can simply define legislation as an administrative or technical regulation and bypass the elected legislature entirely.

All of this from an organisation that was sold to us on a lie. The EEC was put across as a free trade zone. I never voted for the creation of a supranational, unaccountable government that does not submit to the will of the people via an election. In fact, I did not vote at all. I have never had a say on whether I want my country — which no longer exists — to be a part of this. The EU has no mandate and never has.Now, Germany is a more apt comparison than you might realise. Bismarck conceived the unification of Germany as a means to prevent the German kingdoms from fighting each other. He began to implement it when those same kingdoms were on the verge of signing an unprecedented peace treaty; his manipulations caused a war that gave him the pretext to simply conquer those other kingdoms, or trick them in to treaties that irrevocably tied them to his Imperial Germany.

He began with a customs union.

The EU has not resorted to wars to implement itself, but it began in the same way, and with the same aims. The EU was conceived as a means to prevent another war like the Great War, but it was interrupted by the Second World War. By the close of that war the political landscape had so changed that the concept of the EU was obsolete before the first treaties were even signed. It is consequently an institution looking for a role, and it has since found that role by re-positioning itself as a counter to American ‘hegemony, a second pole against the US’s presence in the world as a super-power. This is in itself a foolish proposition; historically it is more foolish still, because history demonstrates that it will cause more trouble than it is worth.Bismarck’s united Germany did become peaceful for a while, but that peace didn’t last long. The internal fractures of the new Imperial Germany soon started to cause strife and resentment amongst the people of that country. A solution was found in the redirection of the national angst toward external enemies. The eventual result was the great war. The result of that was World War 2.The unification of the nations of Europe is the same thing on a much larger scale. It is perhaps no coincidence that incidents of anti-Americanism have risen sharply since the signing of Maastricht.

The EU has placed itself in opposition to the United States. It has inveigled itself so deeply in to the lives of its citizens, so deeply embedded itself in to every aspect of life, that everything a person does is regulated in some way by the EU. As examples; In order to install an electrical socket in my kitchen I must comply with at least eleven separate regulations. Some are sensible, governing the type of wire to use and the general direction that wire should go in. Others are nonsense; in order to comply I have to place my sockets a certain distance from the floor no matter what their purpose. EU regulations now mandate by law the kind of taps I’m allowed to use in my bathroom. They mandate the height of my door, the height of the gap between the door and the ceiling and the angle of my stairs, to millimetre precisions.Every day I break about 30 laws whilst engaged in what were previously lawful activities. Most of these laws are EU-inspired regulations prescribing the details of how activities are to be carried out. My computer does not comply with regulations on lead content, electrical output or anything else, despite being perfectly safe. The lights in my house will soon be made illegal.

None of this was done with the consent of Parliament. None was done with the consent of the people of this nation. These are just little things, little examples of how the EU interferes in every-day life. They are a tiny fraction of the laws and regulations that are implemented by the EU; thousands each year, each one limiting the freedom of people just that little bit more. Sooner or later the sheer volume of regulations will start to affect people culturally. Our culture is slowly being eroded and destroyed by this vile institution, our national identities removed, our freedoms erased, and the end result? Inevitably, it will be war, but before that will be a morass of dull, lifeless existence for millions of people shorn of everything that once made their nations great.What price the ability to spend the same coin in 20 countries?

ISRAELI GOVERNMENT IN DISTRESS

1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS.2-The Nation's Weather. 3-Israeli premier defies calls to resign. 4-Ancient sect marks Passover sacrifice. 5-Venezuela pulling out of IMF, World Bank. 6-Colombia nets record cocaine seizure. 7-Canada March factory prices jump 1.3 pct. 8-Israel: Obstacle or Key to Jewish Identity? 9-JERUSALEM PRAYER TEAM NEEDS DONATIONS. 10-Olmert Tells Peretz to Expel Migron Within 2 Months. 11-Beleaguered Olmert Seeks Refuge, Plans to Uproot Yesha Outposts. 12-First Post-Winograd Resignation: Minister Eitan Cabel of Labor. 13-Gaydamak Announces Candidacy for Mayor of Jerusalem. 14-Lawmakers Want US to Honor 12-Year-Old Jerusalem Embassy Law.

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.

WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS (USGS)

Update time = Tue May 1 1:41 PM EDT

MAY 1,07
MAP 2.6 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 3.3 PUERTO RICO
MAP 2.6 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 5.0 RYUKYU ISLANDS, JAPAN
MAP 2.8 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.7 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.5 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
MAP 4.6 POTOSI, BOLIVIA
MAP 2.6 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 5.5 ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE
MAP 3.9 MONA PASSAGE, PUERTO RICO
MAP 5.6 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 5.0 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 5.6 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 3.8 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA

APR 30,07
MAP 5.0 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
MAP 3.5 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.4 EAST OF THE KURIL ISLANDS
MAP 2.6 GREATER LOS ANGELES AREA, CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.6 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 2.7 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.7 FIJI REGION
MAP 3.0 KODIAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 4.5 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
MAP 3.1 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.6 BOUVET ISLAND REGION
MAP 2.8 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.3 NORTHERN QINGHAI, CHINA
MAP 2.9 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.0 SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.0 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.5 OFF THE COAST OF HOKKAIDO, JAPAN
MAP 4.5 FIJI REGION
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 4.8 VANUATU

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.

The Nation's Weather By WEATHER UNDERGROUND, For The Associated Press
Tue May 1, 6:14 AM ET

Rain was expected across much of the nation on Tuesday, and forecasters said tornadoes and hail with damaging winds were possible in the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic. A low-pressure system in the upper Mississippi Valley was expected to move eastward through the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes, southern New England and northern Mid-Atlantic, bringing widespread rain.Scattered showers and thunderstorms were forecast for the Southern Plains and the lower Mississippi Valley, where large hail and tornadoes were possible. Storms were also likely over the Four Corners and the High Plains.

A storm system approaching the West Coast was expected to spread rain across the Pacific Northwest. Snow showers could develop in higher elevations.Temperatures in the Lower 48 states Monday ranged from a low of 25 degrees at Embarrass, Minn., to a high of 107 degrees at Death Valley, Calif.

WE ALL HAVE TO PRAY FOR OLMERT AND THE ISRAELI LEADERS NOW, THEY ARE GOING THROUGH TRIBULATION. ON TV I HEARD HIS PERCENTAGE IS 0% RIGHT NOW TO BE ELECTED. ALSO PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM AND THAT ALL ISRAELIS COME TO THE TRUTH OF THE TRUE MESSIAH JESUS.

Israeli premier defies calls to resign By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer MAY 1,07

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced an onslaught of calls for his resignation and the first cracks in his coalition Tuesday following a government commission's harsh criticism of his handling of Israel's war last summer in Lebanon. Olmert defiantly declared he would not quit after the panel's report was released Monday, despite the inquiry's conclusion he showed flawed judgment in ordering and directing the attack on Hezbollah guerrillas.

His job appears secure at least for the moment. Despite the public uproar, he remains at the head of a broad coalition government whose members appear reluctant to risk their own jobs by holding new elections.Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said Tuesday that the prime minister was confident he could recover his eroded authority.

He has complete awareness of the lack of public confidence, but he feels that rather than go into a period of turmoil, he must be the one to fix the problems, Eisin said. He thinks that through his actions, (public) support will come.But newspaper editorials and commentators demanded that he step down, saying he had lost the confidence of the Israeli people.

The report contains not even one lenient word to which the prime minister could cling in order to prolong his term, the Haaretz newspaper said in an editorial. On the Way Out, said the lead headline in the Maariv daily.Opinion polls predict the opposition Likud Party led by hawkish former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would sweep to victory if a vote were held.Olmert confidants have said only mass protests could force him to quit. He also might face an uprising within his Kadima Party that might force him out of office.Should he resign, he could either dissolve parliament and call early elections, or keep parliament intact and let the country's ceremonial president tap another candidate to put together a new coalition.

Olmert's popular foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, is considered a top possibility.

The only way to get Olmert out of office now is for his Kadima Party to show him the door or for the public to mount such public protests that Kadima will be forced to show him the door, said Reuven Hazan, a political science professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.Olmert called an emergency Cabinet meeting for Wednesday to discuss the war probe. The Knesset, or parliament, also scheduled a special session for Thursday.In recent weeks, Olmert has been working hard to shore up support within his government.In a first crack in that backing, Cabinet minister Eitan Cabel of the Labor Party resigned from the Cabinet on Tuesday and called on the prime minister to follow suit.He must bear responsibility, Cabel said at a news conference. I can no longer sit in a government led by Ehud Olmert.Later Tuesday, Kadima lawmaker Marina Solodkin also urged Olmert to resign — the first member of his party to publicly do so. Solodkin is not a major force in the party, however, and it was not clear whether others would follow. Kadima and Labor are the coalition's two biggest factions.

Olmert aides said the prime minister stayed up all night reading the results of the investigation. At an official event Tuesday, Olmert looked haggard, appearing to nod off several times while waiting to address the audience. On the dais, he was jocular and composed, but pointedly made no reference to the war probe.Olmert was only months in the job when the war broke out after Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon killed three soldiers and captured two others in a July 12 cross-border raid. Olmert laid out two main objectives: to retrieve the soldiers and crush Hezbollah. Neither goal was reached during 34 days of fighting, and Israel was traumatized by nearly 4,000 rockets that bombarded northern communities. Between 1,035 and 1,191 Lebanese civilians and combatants were killed in the fighting, as were 119 Israeli soldiers and 39 civilians, according to official figures from the two sides.

A U.N.-brokered cease-fire pushed Hezbollah away from Israel's border. But Israeli intelligence officials say the group is rearming with the help of its Iranian and Syrian backers. The inconclusive outcome of the war cracked apart the solid support that Olmert initially enjoyed. The criticism was stoked by reports from returning troops of confused orders, and shortages in food and supplies.

Olmert's opponents have scheduled a mass rally in Tel Aviv on Thursday. Small groups of demonstrators across the country began marches to Tel Aviv on Tuesday ahead of the rally. A poll commissioned by Israel Radio shortly after the war probe was released showed that 69 percent of those questioned thought Olmert should quit. Nearly nine months after the war ended, it's not clear how far the public uproar will go. The report's findings restated widespread criticisms of the wartime
leadership's performance. What was more surprising was the harsh language. The prime minister made up his mind hastily, despite the fact that no detailed military plan was submitted to him and without asking for one, the commission found. All of these add up to a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence.

The inquiry analyzed the first six days of the war, as well as the six years leading up to the fighting, beginning with Israel's 2000 pullout from Lebanon. A full report on the entire war is scheduled for release this summer. The report also criticized Defense Minister Amir Peretz, a former union chief, for his inexperience and said wartime military chief Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz acted impulsively, misrepresented the army's readiness and suppressed dissenting opinions. Halutz resigned in January, while Peretz is expected to leave office after his party holds primaries on May 28. Polls indicate Peretz will not be re-elected as Labor leader, and he has said if he wins, he will demand a different Cabinet post.

Ancient sect marks Passover sacrifice MAY 1,07

MT. GERIZIM, West Bank - Dressed in white and spattered in blood, members of the tiny Samaritan sect gathered until the early hours of Tuesday for one of the Holy Land's most colorful religious ceremonies — the nighttime Passover sacrifice. The entire Samaritan community, which totals just over 700 people, was present for the sacrifice at the sect's holiest place, the West Bank hilltop of Mt. Gerizim, near the city of Nablus.Like the Jewish holiday of Passover, which was celebrated in early April, the Samaritan holiday marks the Israelite exodus from Egypt as recounted in the Old Testament. The Samaritans practice a religion closely linked to Judaism and venerate a version of the Old Testament, but are not Jews, and have a different religious calendar.The sect's high priest opened the ceremony with a prayer in the Samaritan tongue, a dialect of ancient Hebrew. Then ritual
slaughterers killed sheep, skinned them, and roasted them in large ovens. According to tradition, the meat must be ready in the middle of the night the time that the Angel of Death killed the Egyptian firstborn in the biblical story and the Samaritans eat it in haste along with unleavened bread, emulating the ancient Israelites.

Named for Samaria, a region in the northern West Bank, the Samaritans believe themselves to be the remnants of Israelites exiled from the Holy Land by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. They are probably best known for the parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament's Book of Luke.In the fourth and fifth centuries, the Samaritan population is thought to have topped 1.5 million, but religious persecution and economic hardship nearly erased it by the early 20th century. Half live in the West Bank, and the other half live in the Israeli city of Holon, near Tel Aviv.

Venezuela pulling out of IMF, World Bank By JORGE RUEDA, Associated Press Writer MAY 01,07

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions. We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone, said the leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lending institutions.

Venezuela, one of the world's top oil exporters, recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule, saving $8 million. It paid off all its debts to the IMF shortly after Chavez first took office in 1999. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year.Chavez, who says he wants to steer Venezuela toward socialism, made the announcement a day after telling a meeting of allied leaders that Latin America would be better off without the U.S.-backed World Bank or IMF. He has often blamed their lending policies for perpetuating poverty.

Chavez wants to set up a new lender run by Latin American nations and has pledged to support it with Venezuela's booming oil revenues. The regional lender, which he has called Bank of the South, would dole out financing for state projects across Latin America.Chavez has criticized past Venezuelan governments for signing agreements with the IMF to restructure the economy plans blamed for contributing to racing inflation.Under former President Carlos Andres Perez in 1989, violent protests broke out in Caracas in response to IMF austerity measures that brought a hike in subsidized gasoline prices and public transport fares.

Enraged people took the streets in violence that killed at least 300 people and possibly many more. The riots came to be known as the Caracazo, and Chavez often refers to it as a rebellion against the status quo.During Sunday's talks with leaders from Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti, Chavez predicted that sooner or later, those institutions will fall due to their own weight.They will wear away the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and all those institutions, Chavez said.

Bolivian President Evo Morales raised complaints about a World Bank body that mediates disputes between governments and foreign investors. He said governments never seem to win their disputes against transnational companies at the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

Chavez suggested that Latin countries could instead create their own arbitration body for disputes with big companies.Venezuela is not the only country in the region distancing itself from international lenders.Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Sunday that he hopes to get out of that prison of IMF debt and that we are negotiating with the Fund to leave the Fund.Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa, recently asked the World Bank's representative there to leave and said the country paid off its debt to the IMF. Argentina also has paid back billions of dollars to the IMF.

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.

Colombia nets record cocaine seizure By CARLOS GONZALEZ, Associated Press Writer MAY 01,07

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's navy made the largest drug seizure in the nation's history when it uncovered up to 27 tons of cocaine buried along the Pacific coast, the defense minister said Monday.

The cocaine, with a wholesale value of more than $500 million, was found Sunday buried in 1,000 packages of 55 pounds each near the coastal town of Pizarro, 250 miles west of Bogota, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told a news conference. Later, Navy Adm. Guillermo Barrera told The Associated Press by telephone that 919 packages of cocaine had been found. The different numbers could not be immediately explained. The figures put the cocaine seizure between 24 tons to 27 tons.

Santos said the seizure was the result of eight months of undercover police work and he called it the biggest in the history of Colombia.The cocaine was buried near an estuary accessible only by sea, he said.There were no arrests in the operation, but the drugs were believed to belong to Colombia's biggest drug trafficking organization, the Norte del Valle cartel, which operates near the area.

The seizure came as President Alvaro Uribe travels to Washington on Tuesday to shore up support on Capitol Hill and the White House for the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia, an anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency program that has cost American taxpayers more than $5 billion since 2000.

Colombia is the world's leading cocaine producer, producing annually more than 500 tons of cocaine that represents 90 percent of the drug consumed in the United States.Most of the cocaine leaves the country by sea, on go-fast boats that transport the drugs up along the Central American coast for their eventual smuggling into the United States overland through Mexico.Although drug seizures are an everyday affair, they rarely reach such large numbers. Last October, Colombia's navy made headlines when it found 9.3 tons of cocaine on three go-fast boats near the Pacific coastal port city of Buenaventura its biggest seizure of the year.

Canada March factory prices jump 1.3 pct Tue May 1, 8:40 AM ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Higher prices for petroleum, coal and primary metals boosted Canadian producer prices for the fifth straight month in March, beating forecasts by a wide margin with a 1.3 percent gain from February, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday. The jump in prices matched that of December 2006, which was the biggest since May 2004. However, excluding petroleum and coal, the price of goods at the factory gate crept up just 0.4 percent on the month. Raw materials prices increased 1.3 percent, thanks to gains in non-ferrous metals.Analysts in a Reuters poll had expected, on average, a 0.8-percent monthly rise in the producer price index and a 1.2 percent increase in raw materials prices.Compared with a year earlier, producer prices climbed 4.8 percent, the sharpest advance since October 2004, and raw materials prices jumped 9.7 percent.Prices for petroleum and coal rose 8.9 percent in March, the biggest leap in 11 months, while primary metal products increased
3.8 percent, Statscan said.

Israel: Obstacle or Key to Jewish Identity?
by Moshe Feiglin

On the morning of the recent Holocaust Memorial Day, Israel announced that it would allow the transfer of fifty million dollars worth of weapons to the personal security force of PA President Abu Mazen. Does anyone doubt that these weapons will ultimately be used against us? Reality has proven time and again that Jews are murdered as a result of these weapons transfers.

So why do we allow them to continue? How did the Jews of the Holocaust era allow the Germans to do what they did? the brave Israelis arrogantly proclaimed. After all, those Jews knew where they were being led. And what about us? We clearly understand that Jews will be killed with these weapons. What are we doing about it? It seems that as we mark the 59th year of Israel 's independence, the blood of the Jewish People is still cheap. The prevailing thought is that It is only natural that the Arabs of Gaza must be supplied with weapons and that in half a year or so those weapons will kill Jews. Then we will supply them with more weapons to protect us from the weapons that we gave them today, that were supposed to protect us from the weapons that we gave them yesterday. That's just the way it is; we have no control over it. We must come to terms with this Russian roulette and absolve ourselves of any responsibility and hope that we or our loved ones will not pay the price.

Luckily, we can still demonstrate. And there actually were demonstrations just before Holocaust Memorial Day. They were even stormy. However, these demonstrations were only about the rise in university tuition. Were there demonstrations against the weapons being transferred to Gaza ? About the Jews that will die? No. Why demonstrate? It is a fact of life that a certain percentage of Jews will be killed in terrorist attacks.

It is like the sun that rises in the east. Have you ever seen a demonstration against the rising of the sun? After Israel 's news announced the weapons transfer, Holocaust survivor and former Knesset Speaker Dov Shilanski was interviewed. For me, he said, the State of Israel is the guarantee that the Holocaust will never happen again. I deeply respect Dov Shilanski, but I can not understand the basis of his opinion: Israel 's military strength? That has turned out to be disappointing, at the very least. Anyone who can't figure out why should drive over to Sderot and watch the Arab rockets falling like rain every day. And what about the exile mentality that has supposedly ended? It has only gotten worse. We have recently encountered a new Iranian mass-murderer who unabashedly announces his intentions to destroy Israel : Why do the Arabs have to pay the price of your Holocaust? And the brave, new Israelis have no answer. They are helpless.

According to all logic, Shilanski is wrong. The State of Israel that denies its own heritage is leading us toward another Holocaust. If I did not believe in G-d, I would get my family out of Israel post haste. But I believe in the G-d of Israel and His Nation. I believe that G-d's will is that we remain in Israel . I believe in the Torah and in the prophecies that reassure us that the final redemption will be eternal.

The question is not if we will survive, but what will be the price. And that depends on us. When we flee our Jewish identity and destiny, our enemies flourish. I believe that when we connect to our national identity, new, fresh forces of life awaken within our Nation. It is then that we will understand the importance and power of our State. We will understand that although the State of Israel has been used to deny our Jewish destiny, it is actually the tool that will express it. When we connect to our destiny, we will do much more than merely exist or survive. We will thrive. And no one will dare dream of destroying Israel .To learn more about Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) and to read their plan for Israel 's future, visit www.jewishisrael.org . Manhigut Yehudit is the largest faction inside the Likud Party in Israel. It strives to turn Israel from The State of the Jews into The Jewish State.

JERUSALEM PRAYER TEAM NEEDS DONATIONS. MAY 1,07

When I sent the last email asking for 9 more Jerusalem Prayer Team members to give $91 to help the Corrie ten Boom Holocaust Center in Holland, I was not going to ask for anything else. However, the burden of this pure work is so heavy on my heart. No one associated with the Center has ever been paid a dime. It is as pure as was Corrie and her family.This is the greatest witness of God’s love to the nation of Israel. If God speaks to your heart, I will buy a full-page ad in the Jerusalem Post to tell the story worldwide and ask Christians to pray. It will cost quite a bit, but what a great witness of Christian giving – their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust and get them to the Bible land.

In 1844, the ten Boom family began a prayer meeting that ended in 1944, when they were arrested and taken to the concentration camps for saving the lives of 800 Jews. With your financial help, I will ask Christians worldwide to join in an Esther Prayer Appeal.I am going to fast and pray for 24 hours and ask God for 300 to give $91 to help us with this open door.

To make your donation to the Corrie ten Boom Holocaust Center.
https://www.donation-net.net/donate/gift1.cfm?dn=1032&source=8&id=256310&commid=59632342&CFID=3160688&CFTOKEN=60741998

Millions of praying saints (Daniels and Esthers) can reverse the curse:

If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. What's more, who can say but that you have been elevated to the palace for just such a time as this? (Esther 4:14) Iran’s leadership is set on obtaining nuclear weapons and advancing its missile technology so that it has the power to destroy Israel and cripple the United States and Europe. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be within one strike of doing what he has claimed for years ought to be done: wiping Israel off the map as the first step toward the world he envisions as ideal—a world without Zionism and America. Most leaders do not believe he could ever really succeed, but they know that a dirty bomb the size of a refrigerator planted in Tel Aviv or New York could kill as many as a million Jews and/or Americans.

Thank you,
Mike Evans The Jerusalem Prayer Team.

Olmert Tells Peretz to Expel Migron Within 2 Months
13 Iyar 5767, May 1, '07

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told Defense Minister Amir Peretz to move ahead with his plan to expel residents from the Samaria community of Migron within the next two months. A brief filed by the state prosecutor’s office in the High Court of Justice described the petition by the Prime Minister which includes a request to the Defense Minister to proceed with expulsion of illegal outposts in Judea and Samaria.

Beleaguered Olmert Seeks Refuge, Plans to Uproot Yesha Outposts
by Hillel Fendel 13 Iyar 5767, May 1, '07 (1NN)

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has asked Defense Minister Amir Peretz - both of whom are under heavy pressure to resign - to prepare an organized plan to destroy small Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. News of Olmert's request was included in a State response submitted to the Supreme Court today (Tuesday). The suit in question, submitted last year by Peace Now and a group of Arabs, charges that the community of Migron is illegal and must be destroyed. Olmert has asked that the plan be ready within two months. He has thus apparently changed his policy regarding the destruction of unauthorized outposts. In the past, he has frozen plans to do so, explaining that the timing was not right in light of the diplomatic situation with the Palestinian Authority.

Migron: Strategically Situated

Situated atop a strategic hill, north of Jerusalem, between Beit El, Psagot, and Michmash, Migron is included in Olmert's request for destruction plans. Peace Now, the radical left-wing organization working tirelessly to destroy the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria [Yesha], claims that most of land on which Migron was built belongs to Arabs. Migron residents, however, say Peace Now worked hard to find the Arabs in question and convinced them to file the suit against the Jewish town.

Peace Now and Israel's Enemies

Binyamin Regional Council head Pinchas Wallerstein said that Peace Now worked together with Defense Minister Amir Peretz for their common political goals: The government's position, as explained by Defense Minister Peretz, is that there is no longer any need for time to find a compromise [with the residents]. Peretz apparently feels that the main thing is his bid to win his party's primaries [later this month] - even if it means that several dozen more families will be thrown out of their homes.... He was advised to call off talks with us, because it would not look good for his primaries campaign if he comes to an agreement with us. It's very sad to see a man who puts his own personal interests ahead of those of the nation.Wallerstein explained Migron's critical strategic importance, in that it overlooks the highway leading to many Jewish communities in the Shomron: A few years ago, former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer [of Labor] agreed that this place must remain [settled by Jews]. Very sadly, Peace Now reminds me of other dark times in Jewish history when Jews would join up with their enemies against their own people...

Even ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that Migron was strategically vital, Wallerstein said: He told us, the members of the Yesha Council, that he had informed the Americans that he insists that this place and three other outposts must remain, despite other previous commitments that might have been.In this spirit, Wallerstein continued, the Defense Minister agreed that Migron would not be removed, and all Central Commanders since then have also demanded that this location remain as is.

Furthermore, many different government offices have helped Migron with infrastructures, and it was even decided in the Defense Ministry to begin with planning the permanent community.Wallerstein said that Peace Now has other court suits coming up against the community of Haresha and against a neighborhood in Eli.

Modern-Day Zionism

One resident of Migron, Aviva W., told Arutz-7, When we arrived here, it was clear that the land had no claimants and no one working on it... We are a continuation of the Zionist enterprise and the Zionist dream - just like all the pioneers who came to the Land of Israel over the centuries, starting with the students of the Gaon of Vilna [early 19th century], and later the First Aliyah [1882-1903], and the Second Aliyah [1904 - 1914], etc. - there is no difference. If anything, we are more in the heart of the Land of Israel than Tel Aviv is.

The only difference is political - an arbitrary difference made based on what is convenient for different politicians at different times - but we are doing the same thing that Land of Israel pioneers have done for generations.Founded in March 2002, Migron (mentioned in Samuel I 14,2 and Isaiah 10, 28) grew quickly, reaching 42 families after only a year and a half - at which point the government abruptly clamped down on further growth. Over 200 people, including well over 100 children, now live there. The synagogue and two homes are in permanent structures, while most of the residents live in caravans (mobile homes without wheels). Six government ministries, the Civil Administration, the Electric Company, Mekorot Water Company and other official bodies have all taken part in establishing infrastructures for the community.

Olmert now proposes a series of criteria to decide which outposts will be destroyed and when. The

criteria include:
* the level of expected resistance to the destruction
* the legal status of the outpost and whether it can be evacuated immediately or not
* the amount of families living in the outpost
* the legal status of the land on which it was built.

Olmert's top aides can be faxed at 02-6546717, 6705475 and 6513955.

First Post-Winograd Resignation: Minister Eitan Cabel of Labor
by Hillel Fendel MAY 1,07

Minister Without Portfolio Eitan Cabel of Labor, who has been saying for weeks that he is considering leaving politics, announced his resignation from the Cabinet this morning (Tuesday). He said that the Winograd Commission had found Ehud Olmert personally responsible for the failures of the Second Lebanon War, and I can no longer sit in a government headed by Ehud Olmert.The Winograd Commission's interim conclusions, released yesterday (Monday), chiefly blamed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and ex-Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen.(ret.) Dan Halutz - but also apportioned blame to the entire government. Cabel did not deny that the Winograd Commission apportioned blame to the entire government, including himself - but did not note this as his reason for resigning. He said he hopes his resignation will lead to a chain reaction of resignations by other ministers in the government. This does not appear to be the case, however. Shas head Eli Yishai and Yisrael Beiteinu head Avigdor Lieberman met today and agreed that Olmert need not resign at this point. Cabel, the Secretary-General of the Labor Party, has been re-considering his political path over the past weeks and months. He has told press interviewers that he is tired of the fact that everything in politics is personal.

Cabel Against Arutz-7 and Har-Shefi

In the past, Cabel led the campaign against the Knesset's legalization of Arutz-7, and filed a petition in the Supreme Court against President Moshe Katzav's pardon for Margalit Har-Shefi.His resignation from the government does not necessarily mean he will quit the Knesset, however, or his position in the Labor Party. Labor is facing internal primaries for party leader four weeks from now - a campaign that has brought internal rivalries to the fore. Cabel said today he hopes that the new leader - he personally supports Ehud Barak - will remove the party from an Olmert-led coalition.Olmert and Peretz have announced that they do not intend to quit. It would not be right to quit, Olmert said last night, and it is not my intention to do so. He said he would convene a special Cabinet session on Wednesday, at which he will propose a team to decide on the implementation of the Winograd findings and recommendations.

Protests and Demands for Olmert's Resignation

The Security for Sderot Task Force plans to begin a march from Sderot to Tel Aviv, beginning this afternoon (Tuesday). The march is timed to end on Thursday afternoon, just as the large anti-Olmert protest, called by a large group of Lebanon War reservists and others, will be starting at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.We are the proof that Olmert and Peretz have failed and continue to fail every day in the way they deal with the threat from Gaza, says Alon Davidi of Sderot. We wish to add our voices to the demand for their immediate resignations.Reservists organizing the Thursday protest say that the findings released yesterday are merely the tip of the iceberg. Every day that Olmert and Peretz continue in their jobs, they endanger the citizens of Israel.

Supreme Court Petition

The Supreme Court has already received one petition demanding Olmert's resignation. Atty. Yosef Fuchs, of the Land of Israel Legal Forum, filed the suit. Fuchs explained that the Kahn Commission investigating the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982 found that one who is found to bear ministerial responsibility for a grave security or political fiasco, must resign or be fired. It will be recalled that then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was found to be responsible for the fact that the defense establishment did not succeed in preventing the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and ended his job on the spot. The Chabad-affiliated Rabbinical Council for the Nation and Land said that the Winograd Commission failed in not noting that Israel's war failure stemmed from the Disengagement from Gush Katif and northern Shomron. The Disengagement brought the army's functioning and readiness to an unprecedented low, the group's statement said. An army that deals with expelling Jews and building a
terror state in Gaza cannot defeat its enemies.

Gaydamak Announces Candidacy for Mayor of Jerusalem
by Hana Levi Julian MAY 1,07 (INN)

Russian Israeli business tycoon Arkadi Gaydamak has announced his candidacy for the mayoralty of Jerusalem in next years elections. Using the platform of the recently-formed Social Justice movement, Gaydamak claimed he would focus his leadership of the capital on strengthening the city not only from the economic point of view, but to also turn it into a symbol of the Jewish spirit.

Sources close to Gaydamak said he made the decision to join the race some ten days ago. The billionaire was reportedly outraged when Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski criticized the annual march of Russian veterans of World War II through the capital. Mayor Lupolianski said the march, which was funded by Gaydamak disturbed city workers. Gaydamak fumed, The Jewish vets, old men in their eighties, who fought the Nazis were denied by Jerusalem City Hall the right to brandish their medals and ribbons once a year on the streets of Jerusalem they defended and saved.. The billionaire, also the owner of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team, pointed out that the city had no problem supporting the right of homosexuals to parade through the streets of the capital last year, despite the furor caused by the decision.

Gaydamak and Netanyahu Working on a Winning Combination

Gaydamaks party will also reportedly act as an ally to the well-established Likud party -- and more specifically to its Chairman and Knesset opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. Initial media reports repeatedly quoted Gaydamak as claiming that he did not plan to become a candidate himself, but wanted simply to raise the issues of social and economic justice in Israeli society. The partys platform would appear to be a counterpoint to MK Netanyahus financial policies during his term as Finance Minister, thus garnering support that would otherwise be denied to the Likud faction. Gaydamak has been a consistent supporter of the former Prime Ministers bid to regain the top job, appearing together with him for interviews in the Russian-language media. The close association and mutual compliments in public appearances have paid off: polls in February showed that Netanyahus popularity rose by 17% among Russian immigrants after the interviews.

Social Justice or Politics on the Heels of Goodwill Funding?

Gaydamak spent millions of dollars last year on goodwill projects throughout the country that politicians complained were designed more to raise his popularity with the general public than relieve the stress on traumatized Israelis.

The business tycoon has paid for vacations for northern refugees fleeing the Second Lebanon War, a free weekend in Eilat for children traumatized by life in rocket-battered Sderot, and a whopping public party in Tel Aviv this year on Independence Day. These projects did indeed raise his popularity level with a public that has seen one government official after another fall under the shadow of various suspicions of embezzlement, corruption, bribery, fraud, rape, sexual misconduct and breach of trust.

Shadows of Doubt May Darken Political Prospects

Gaydamak is not free of suspicion either. One week after he announced, on February 21, that he was forming his new party, a storm of allegations of money laundering, fraud and bribery began to swirl around him. French courts asked Israel less than a week later to extradite the international business mogul to face charges of tax evasion and involvement in illegal arms deals with the Angolan government.

Israel has refused the request. A week after the extradition request, the Israel Police anti-fraud unit in Bat Yam began questioning Gaydamak in a separate investigation on allegations he falsified documents issued by the Justice Ministry. A spokesman for Gaydamak's office informed Arutz-7 that Gaydamak in fact came on his own volition to the anti-fraud unit in Bat Yam and produced evidence that the documents in question were genuine.He was also questioned on suspicion of having gifted Tax Authority officials with tickets to a soccer game played by his Beitar Jerusalem team. Gaydamak's spokesman told Arutz-7 that police have since closed the case.In March, a Tel Aviv judge ruled that the state could continue its freeze on $4.9 million owned by Gaydamak because there was reason to believe he might be indicted on charges of money laundering. Gaydamak and his growing cadre of supporters have accused the police and other officials of persecuting him in order to sideline his new political party.

Optimistic Despite Obstacles

Asked in February on his way to the anti-fraud unit if he thought the government was afraid of him, Gaydamak said, It is too late. They are afraid of the opinions of the public, but the majority of the public is already with me.At the time, Gaydamak assured reporters that he had no intention of being prime minister or of taking any other [political] position -- a stance he changed two months later. Now he says he expects to ride into the Jerusalem Mayors seat in a landslide victory at the polls a year from now. I have not doubt that the entire city will vote for me, he claimed in his announcement, adding that he wants to turn the city of Jerusalem into a symbol of peace and Judaism.

Lawmakers Want US to Honor 12-Year-Old Jerusalem Embassy Law
Julie Stahl Jerusalem Bureau Chief MAY 1,07

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Two U.S. lawmakers have submitted a resolution in honor of the upcoming 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem under Israeli rule, challenging the Bush administration to uphold U.S. law and move the American Embassy to Jerusalem.The resolution introduced by Reps. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.) says Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected as they have been by Israel during the past 40 years.Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) is understood to be sponsoring a similar resolution in the Senate.

The 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act requires the U.S. to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel's disputed capital by 1999, but former President Clinton and President Bush have signed successive six-month security waivers to avoid the controversial move.The new resolution calls on the president and secretary of state to repeatedly affirm publicly, as a matter of United States policy, that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel.

It also strongly urges President Bush to discontinue the waiver contained in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 and begin the process of moving the mission to Jerusalem.Every sovereign country has the right under international law and custom to designate its own capital, the congressmen argue.In 1947, the U.N. approved a partition plan to divide the then-British mandated area into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem to be an international city under U.N. administration.

The Arabs rejected the U.N. plan and attacked the nascent state of Israel in 1948. The war ended with Jerusalem divided between an Israeli-controlled western sector and an eastern sector - including the historic Old City and Temple Mount - under Jordanian control.

The city was divided by barbed wire and concrete walls, and Jordan denied Israelis access to holy sites including the most revered location in Judaism, the Temple Mount.As a result of the 1967 Six-Day war, Jerusalem was reunited under Israeli control. Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, located on the Temple Mount, is the third holiest site in Islam, and the Palestinians want the city for the capital of a future Palestinian state.In 1980, Israel passed a law designating Jerusalem its united, eternal capital. In response most countries, including the U.S., withdrew their embassies from the city in protest.The Bush administration is backing the
creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Embassy move

Near the end of Clinton's term in office, amid speculation that the embassy move might happen, Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah threatened to turn the embassy into rubble and return your diplomats in coffins.A Palestinian Islamic cleric made similar threats two years ago.

But Yoram Ettinger, a former Israeli diplomatic liaison to Congress at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said the assumption that relocating the U.S. Embassy to West Jerusalem would agitate the Middle East and prompt anti-American terrorism is incorrect.Not moving the embassy sends the message that pressure and threats from radicals in the Arab world pay off, he argued.Ettinger told Cybercast News Service that relocating the embassy, on the other hand, would send the message that pressure will not prevent the U.S. from complying with American law and American values.It would relay the message that Americans do not see Jerusalem as part of the bargaining process and that the Arab world should focus on obtaining what is attainable, he added.

Freedom of access

Wilson and Pence in their resolution observe that Jerusalem has been the focus of Jewish religious devotion for 3,000 years (since the Biblical King David declared the city his capital) and that there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the city since then.Since 1967, Israel has guaranteed freedom of access to adherents of all religions to their holy places, they said. Israel turned over day-to-day
administration of the Temple Mount to the Palestinian Authority 12 years ago, and Jews are generally not permitted to visit the area.The congressmen also note that the 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act directs the secretary of state that the birth of any U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem should be recorded as Jerusalem, Israel upon the request of the citizen or his or her guardian.That requirement has never been implemented. Birth records for U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem record the city only, without a country designation.