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.
Power is out, schools closed, rivers rising - it's fall in B.C. Mon Dec 3, 2:39 PM
VANCOUVER (CBC) - The biggest storm of the season transformed the South Coast of B.C. from a winter wonderland into a slushy mess overnight Sunday.More than 40,000 BC Hydro customers lost power as high winds blasted Vancouver Island and the South Coast from Victoria to Hope, while heavy rain washed away the five to 50 centimetres of snow that fell Saturday and Sunday.With 40 to 140 millimetres of rain expected to come down by Monday night, the combination of heavy rain and melting snow promoted government officials to issue a flood watch for Greater Vancouver, South and Central Vancouver Island, Howe Sound and the Lower Fraser valley.
Environment Canada's Alyssa Charbonneau said Monday morning the rain that started Sunday night will continue through Monday night, as the weather system won't move beyond the South Coast until late Tuesday. But there is sunshine in the forecast beginning Thursday.
The largest power outages were in Courtenay, Comox, Campbell River, Cowichan Valley, the Southern Gulf Islands and across the Fraser Valley. According to the BC Hydro website, people should expect their power back later this afternoon.Schools were reporting closures in Campbell River, the Southern Gulf Islands, Cowichan Valley, Nanaimo-Ladysmith, Comox Valley and the Malaspina University College at its Nanaimo and Parksville campuses.West Vancouver police were asking drivers to avoid the Sea-to-Sky Highway because of deep puddles between Horseshoe Bay and Lion's Bay.Freezing rain and snowfall coats Interior highways.Even though winter is does not official begin until Dec. 22, the Eastern Fraser Valley and the Interior were getting a prolonged blast of the winter weather, with freezing rain and as much as 60 cm of snow at higher elevations predicted for the Southern Interior.
The colder temperatures in the Eastern Fraser made roads icy, and public schools from Agassiz to Boston Bar were reporting closures.
Travel east of Vancouver was treacherous, with the Trans-Canada Highway closed from Hope to Jackass Mountain and from Jackass Mountain to Spences Bridge because of a high avalanche hazard. Most other Interior routes were reporting compact snow.The Coquihalla Highway remained open, but there was compact snow and limited visibility, although temperatures were expected to climb later Monday.The Vancouver Island Avalanche Bulletin issued an extreme advisory for the Mount Cain Ski Area in the north to the Beaufort Ranges in the south, including Strathcona Regional Park and the ranges surrounding Mt. Washington.
Winter storm barrels through Northeast after pounding Midwest; wrecks deadly on slippery roads Mon Dec 3, 2:14 PMBy Valerie Bauman, The Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. - Drivers in much of the Northeast navigated a treacherous mix of rain, sleet and snow Monday as a storm blamed for at least 16 deaths slid through the region after pounding the Upper Midwest. Schools cancelled or delayed classes from New York to Maine as the region's first snowstorm of the season whipped up wind gusting to 65 km/h. At the same time, a new storm system was wreaking havoc on the West Coast and expected to give the Midwest a second blast of snow. States in the Northeast put hundreds of plows on the roads, including about 650 in New Hampshire alone. The speed limit on part of the Massachusetts Turnpike was cut to 60 km/h as police reported numerous traffic accidents around the state. Most courts in Maine closed for the day and Gov. John Baldacci considered sending state workers home early. Communities around the state imposed parking bans for Monday and Tuesday to make way for snowplows. It's snowing so hard you can hardly keep your eyes open, said Bill Swain, spokesman for Maine's Sugarloaf USA ski area in Carrabassett Valley. The National Weather Service said 30 centimetres of snow was possible in northern New England, with the potential for 50 centimetres in northern Maine. Winter storm warnings were in effect in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and northern and western New York. Nearly 26,000 customers were without power around noon Monday in Connecticut.
The tail end of the storm raked northeastern Ohio on Monday with wind gusting to 80 km/h, and up to 30 centimetres of snow was possible in the area along Lake Erie into Tuesday. Power outages in northeast Ohio northwest Pennsylvania had blacked out more than 20,000 customers, according to Duke Energy, FirstEnergy and American Electric Power. Air travel was disrupted Monday at the Portland International Jetport in Maine as flights were cancelled because of poor conditions at connecting airports. Hundreds of flights were cancelled or delayed by wind, ice and poor visibility during the weekend at the New York City area's three main airports and Chicago's O'Hare. Airliners slid off slippery pavement during the weekend at airports in Syracuse, N.Y.; Des Moines, Iowa, and Madison, Wis. No one was injured. On the opposite side of the country, a new storm system hammered the Northwest with wind gusting higher than 160 km/h in some spots and surf reported about 14 metres high.
Mudslides halted north-south Amtrak passenger train service between Eugene, Ore., and Vancouver. Fallen trees and flooding blocked all highways into Tillamook, Ore., and at one point early Monday almost every road into Aberdeen, Wash., was closed, authorities said. Utilities said some 70,000 homes and businesses were blocked out in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. In 30 years of law enforcement, it's as bad as I've ever seen, said Grays Harbor County Sheriff Michael J. Whelan, whose own truck was smashed in his driveway by a falling tree. A second blast expected on the coast later Monday could be the strongest storm coming ashore since 1999, weather service meteorologists said, issuing issued the region's first warning for hurricane-force wind. The Northwest's severe weather was expected to reach the Upper Midwest with snow on Tuesday, the weather service in Minneapolis said. That would be just three days after that region was battered by the storm that was affecting the Northeast on Monday. Minnesota's Grand Marais, on Lake Superior's North Shore, got 50 centimetres of snow Saturday, according to the weather service. Earlier, that same system dumped about 90 centimetres of snow in one mountain area in western Colorado. Icy or wet pavement was blamed for four deaths in Michigan, three in Wisconsin, two each in New Jersey and Ohio, and one each in Illinois, Indiana, New York, North Dakota and Colorado. One of the New Jersey deaths occurred during the night in a 15-car pileup that also injured 28 people, police said.
Winter storms plague many Canadian regions Mon Dec 3, 12:33PM
EDMONTON (CBC) - Atlantic Canada is bracing Monday for heavy snowfalls by the same massive weather system that has hammered Ontario and Quebec.The official start to winter may be still three weeks away, but wintry weather is already blasting much of Canada.
It's going to be a very messy day across a good part of the country, the CBC's Colleen Jones said early Monday.Many Canadians were still digging themselves out after three weather systems brought snow to much of the country over the weekend, with systems moving up along the Atlantic and Pacific shorelines as well as through Central Canada.Environment Canada's senior climatologist, David Phillips, remarked Sunday that if Monday were Dec. 25, we'd have a white Christmas from coast to coast to coast. By Monday's end, Phillips said, snow could be everywhere.
Rain brings new woes to B.C.
Many residents in southern B.C. didn't get the chance to shovel away the five to 50 centimetres of snow that fell over the weekend before rain washed it away.Flooding is now a concern as river levels rise. A flood watch was issued for Greater Vancouver, south and central Vancouver Island, Howe Sound and the Lower Fraser Valley, with 40 to 260 millimetres of rain expected by the end of Monday.But other parts of the province were still feeling the chill of winter, with freezing rain and snowfall forecast for parts of the southern Interior and southeastern B.C.At the other end of the country, thousands of residents in eastern Newfoundland awoke to darkness after heavy snow and strong winds brought down power lines. Crews inspecting the electrical lines said it was some of the worst damage they've seen in a decade.More than 45 centimetres of snow fell in Gander and more than 20 centimetres in St. John's.That same storm struck Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, dumping more than 20 centimetres of snow over the weekend.
The storm that was tracking through Ontario and Quebec on Monday was expected to move into Atlantic Canada by Tuesday. Up to 50 centimetres are forecast for New Brunswick and up to 40 centimetres for Nova Scotia. In anticipation of the heavy snowfalls, school officials in southwestern Nova Scotia closed some schools earlier than usual.
Storm slams Ontario, Quebec
Large sections of Ontario and Quebec were under weather warnings as a storm system moved in from Colorado.Up to 20 centimetres of fresh snow promised to bury much of eastern Ontario and western Quebec. Ten more centimetres were also in the forecast for Montreal, which had about 15 centimetres over the weekend.A number of flights at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport were cancelled or delayed, while the Ottawa International Airport faced some delays.In the Prairies, meanwhile, many parts were shivering through a temperature of -25 C with wind chill.
Environment Canada warned of a potentially severe winter weather system moving in from Alberta that could bring 10 to 20 centimetres of snow to southwestern Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan.With files from the Canadian Press
Troubled waters adds tension in West Bank
By MEL FRYKBERG (Middle East Times)Published: December 03, 2007
Amid peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians over how to divide land, there is another conflict bubbling just beneath the surface; this one is over water, a precious resource in the Middle East. The sleepy Palestinian village of Qattaneh just north-west of Jerusalem and with approximately 10,000 inhabitants, many of them refugees, has had its piped water reduced to only one day per week, according to a recent Humanitarian Monitor report released by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Just exactly who is to blame for this depends on whom you talk to, with accusations and counter accusations being traded between the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) and the Israeli Water Authority (IWA). During the rest of the week the villagers have to rely on rainwater collected in their cisterns from last winter's rains, and this has almost run out due to a recent drought. Or if they can afford it, they pay for tanked water which costs four times that of piped water.
However, many people in the village are unemployed and there is a high level of poverty as many of them lost work in Israel because they were not given security permits to cross the separation wall which was partially built on land expropriated from their village.
The villagers living on top of the steep hill have even less water due to a decrepit piping network with the weak water pressure unable to reach the higher homes. Sometimes we don't have water even to flush the toilets. We have to purchase tanked water which UNWRA doesn't pay for and this eats into our limited budget, a teacher from the UNRWA elementary school, situated at the higher end of the village, said. Wissam Mali, an engineer from the Qatteneh municipality told the Middle East Times the village loses about 40 percent of its water through leakage. Fadel Kaawash, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, accused the Israelis of deliberately cutting off and decreasing water supply to both Qatteneh and many other villages and towns in the West Bank. However, Israeli Water Authority spokesman Uri Schor denied that the Israeli water company Mekorot, which supplies water to the PWA, was either cutting off or decreasing water supply to the Palestinians. Schor told the Middle East Times, Israel is actually supplying the PWA with more water than was agreed to in the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement signed in Washington in 1995 and how the PWA chooses to distribute the water is up to them.
At present the Palestinians get approximately 40 million cubic meters from Israel and the same amount annually from wells and springs in the West Bank, according to Kaawash. The consumption rate in the West Bank is less than 50 liters per capita per day in 90 percent of communities connected to networks, said Kaawash. The situation in Gaza is even more dire.According to the World Health Organization the minimum requirement for domestic consumption is 100 liters per capita per day. Kaawash said the daily consumption of Israelis is between 300-400 liters, a figure backed by Israeli geography professor, Moshe Inbal. The average in London and other Western capitals is about 200 liters. The Palestinians are obviously not getting their fair share, said Rima Abu Middan, the Natural Capital team leader from the U.N. Development Program in Jerusalem. The amount being supplied is inadequate and the Israelis should be obliged to supply more.Approximately 85 percent of the West Bank's water resources are appropriated by the Israelis, the Palestinians get the remaining 15 percent and much of this they have to purchase from Mekorot. Under international law and according to various U.N. Security Council resolutions the West Bank and its resources belong to the Palestinians so they should not have to be either sharing the water with or purchasing it from Israel. Kaawash added, The shortages are also due to the age and state of disrepair of the water networks in the West Bank, some of which are over 25 years old, and an inadequate amount of water being supplied from wells and springs also in urgent need of upgrading.
Schor said the IWA would supply Qatteneh villagers with more water but the network had to first be repaired. Kaawash said that repairing the networks in the West Bank would cost about $800 million and would take up to 10 years. Money which he says the PWA doesn't have. During the decades of Israeli occupation, the Israeli authorities did little to upgrade the Palestinians' water network but neither did the PLO when it took over certain parts of the West Bank following the Oslo Accords. Schor acknowledged the disproportionate rationing of the West Bank's water resources but said that would be dealt with in a final political settlement between Palestine and Israel. The scarcity of water is one of the key areas of conflict in the region and one of the issues that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wanted to discuss at Annapolis. But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his negotiating team refused to address any of the core issues, preferring to leave them for a later date.
Israel frees Palestinian prisoners to help Abbas By Wafa Amr Mon Dec 3, 8:25 AM ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israel released 429 Palestinian prisoners on Monday to bolster President Mahmoud Abbas after a U.S.-sponsored conference last week on Palestinian statehood, Israeli officials said. The inmates, most of whom belong to Abbas's secular Fatah movement and were serving sentences ranging from seven months to 15 years, were bussed from the desert prison of Kitsiyot to Israel's borders with the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.There are nearly 11,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. The Jewish state says most are there for involvement in militant groups behind a Palestinian revolt that erupted in 2000.Israel's Prisons Service said 20 prisoners were sent to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and 409 to a crossing near the West Bank city of Ramallah, where a formal homecoming reception took place attended by Palestinian Authority officials and families.
The Israelis need to release those with long sentences to show they are serious about the peace process, said Abbas aide Tayeb Abdel-Rahim. President Abbas has exerted maximum effort to keep the prisoner issue on top of the world's agenda.Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert launched formal peace talks at the conference in Annapolis, Maryland. The plan is to reach a peace agreement by the end of 2008 as U.S. President George W. Bush winds up his term in office.But Olmert has balked at declaring a deadline for the talks given past accords which collapsed amid mutual non-compliance.We refused to set a deadline for concluding the talks for obvious reasons, but we need to finish these negotiations as quickly as possible, Olmert told his parliamentary faction.
PEACE MOMENTUM
Israel has refused to commute sentences of Palestinians jailed over lethal militant attacks but Monday's release is meant to strengthen Abbas against Hamas Islamists who seized Gaza in June.Israel understands it is crucial to reinforce the political dialogue by concrete actions on the ground, said Israel government spokesman Mark Regev. We are hopeful that today's release will help to contribute to the growing momentum in the political dialogue between us and the Palestinians.Hamas rejects peace moves with Israel.The Jewish state's forces have been rounding up Palestinians in almost nightly raids on the West Bank and Gaza. Forty-two were detained on Monday, the Israeli army said.One of those seized was Khaled Barbari. His family said he was taken by Israeli troops as he traveled to the homecoming celebration for his brother, Ahmad, who was freed on Monday.They simply made an exchange. They released Ahmad and arrested Khaled, said Mahmoud Barbari, another brother. Khaled Bardari's relative said he had no known militant affiliations.
The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the case.
Families of prisoners who gathered at the Beitunia checkpoint outside Ramallah said they were happy to see their loved ones return, but noted most of the freed inmates had only a few months left to serve behind bars.My happiness is not complete because I want to see all prisoners released and see all mothers happy like I am today,said Bahiyeh Alayan, whose son Hamdallah was released after serving a 5-year term. The issue of prisoners is highly emotive for Palestinians, who see their brethren held in Israeli jails as fighters against foreign occupation. Many Israelis fear that such amnesties encourage Palestinian militants to strike again. (Additional reporting by Avida Landau in Jerusalem, and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Dan Williams and Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Vladimir Putin keeps Russia guessing on future
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow 7:50pm GMT 03/12/2007
Russians are anxiously awaiting word on their leader's future as Vladimir Putin prepares to use his overwhelming victory in a flawed parliamentary election to retain power beyond his official retirement date next year. But after years of waiting, the Russian people could discover within a fortnight what his official job description will be after next March's presidential elections - a contest in which Mr Putin is currently constitutionally forbidden from participating. On December 17, the ruling United Russia party meets to choose its presidential candidate. With its crushing victory in Sunday's parliamentary election now confirmed, the party could argue that it has the popular mandate to select Mr Putin - a move that would require either a referendum or the discovery of a constitutional loophole to be put into effect. If it chooses a pliant alternative candidate, Mr Putin is instead likely to emerge as prime minister or leader of the party, positions that could be imbued with new powers now that United Russia has a constitutional majority in a parliament that lacks even a single genuine opposition deputy. Whatever option is put into place, Mr Putin's international credibility has suffered a serious buffeting, after the small number of foreign observers that were allowed to monitor the parliamentary election condemned it as seriously flawed. United Russia won over 70 per cent of the seats in the State Duma but observers said the election was characterised by intimidation and numerous violations and the West united to condemn the conduct of the poll. The Foreign Office called on the Kremlin to investigate electoral regularities while the German government took the unprecedented step of declaring that Russia was not a democracy. These were not free and fair elections, they were not democratic elections, government spokesman Thomas Steg told reporters.
Russia was no democracy and is no democracy.
Despite the international storm that it is likely to cause, analysts say that there are growing signs Mr Putin could defy the West - who he recently told to keep its snotty noses out of Russian affairs - by running for a third term. As the parliamentary campaign reached its crescendo last month, apparently spontaneous demonstrations erupted across the country calling for Mr Putin to stay on as president. By mid-November it was revealed that the demonstrations were being spearheaded by a movement that simply called itself Za Putina or For Putin. Its leaders insisted that the organisation was nothing more than a grassroots initiative created to express the spontaneous love of the Russian people for their president. But analysts said the movement showed all the hallmarks of being a Kremlin concoction and predicted it would be used as a vehicle to allow Mr Putin to remain as president. They also claimed that Za Putina had been deliberately modelled on Mao Tse Tung's Red Guards movement during the Cultural Revolution and would be used to make denunciations against ruling party deputies considered disloyal to the president. The organisation has already created an online petition and is planning to deliver 30 lorries with 30 million signatures to the Kremlin, pleading with the president to stay on. Everything is now ready for a referendum, said Yevgeny Kiselyov, a leading political commentator. Now this movement is being used to reinforce the notion of Putin the father, Putin the son and Putin the Holy Spirit.
Monday, December 03, 2007
PUTINS PARTY LEADS (REAL SURPRISE)
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.
Another earthquake jolts, Jordan, Israel and West Bank
Posted: 02-12-2007 , 12:52 GMT
A minor earthquake was felt in Israel, Jordan and the West Bank on Sunday, the fourth in two weeks, without causing injuries or damage, officials said. None of the recent quakes have caused injuries or damage. Sunday's earthquake measured 4.0 on the Richter scale and was felt mostly in Jerusalem, Jericho and near the Dead Sea, said Israel's geophysics institute, according to AFP. Jordan's Natural Resources Authority reported a quake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale north of the Dead Sea. NRA spokesman Darwish Habbes said the earthquake occurred at 9:40 am.
2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
Fourth quake in 2 weeks shakes Israel
Earthquake measuring 4.0 on the Richter Scale felt in Dead Sea, Jerusalem and Coastal Plain areas Sunday morning; no injuries or damage reported Ynet reporters Published: 12.02.07, 10:14 / Israel News
A mild earthquake was felt throughout Israel Sunday morning, the fourth tremor to be registered in the country in the last two weeks.Reports of the quake poured in from the Dead Sea, Jerusalem and the Coastal Plain areas. Head of the Geophysical Institute of Israel Rami Hopshteter reported that the quake measured 4.0 on the Richter Scale, and that the quake's epicenter was, yet again, the Dead Sea. Last Saturday, a 4.1 magnitude earthquake was felt throughout the country. No injuries or damage were reported. According to reports, the earthquake hit around 00:19 am, originating in Israel's plains area. Earlier in the week, two earthquakes, measuring 3 and 4.2 on the Richter scale, were felt throughout Israel, also causing no damage or injuries. Hopshteter explained that the quake is not surprising as there is a lot of activity in the Dead Sea area… However, it is impossible to draw any clear conclusions about the future from this quake. Israel has been preparing for a possible large-scale earthquake for the past several years now, but we can always do more to improve our preparedness.
Asia-Pacific News
Moderate earthquake jolts western coast of Indonesia's Java
Dec 2, 2007, 1:24 GMT
Jakarta - A 6.0-magnitude earthquake jolted the western coast of Indonesia's Java island Sunday morning, but there were no immediate reports of injury or property damage, seismologists said. The quake struck the Ujung Kulon National Park area on the western tip of Java at about 6:01 am (2301 GMT Saturday), with its epicentre in the Indian Ocean about 75-kilometres south-east of Ujung Kulon, Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said. It occurred about 32-kilometres beneath the seabed. The agency said the quake, the latest in a series to hit Indonesia in recent days, has no potential of triggering a tsunami. Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago nation, is prone to earthquakes because the country sits atop the Pacific 'Ring of Fire,' where continental plates collide, making earthquakes and volcanic eruptions frequent. 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.
ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
ISAIAH 26:21
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die).
ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
JOEL 2:20,30
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
REVELATION 9:18
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
LUKE 17:34-37
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).
MATTHEW 24:37-51
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
December 2, 2007
Israelis hit Syrian ‘nuclear bomb plant’
Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv and Michael Sheridan in Seoul
ISRAEL’S top-secret air raid on Syria in September destroyed a bomb factory assembling warheads fuelled by North Korean plutonium, a leading Israeli nuclear expert has told The Sunday Times. Professor Uzi Even of Tel Aviv University was one of the founders of the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona, the source of the Jewish state’s undeclared nuclear arsenal. I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely, a factory for assembling the bomb, he said. I think the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] transferred to Syria weapons-grade plutonium in raw form, that is nuggets of easily transported metal in protective cans. I think the shaping and casting of the plutonium was supposed to be in Syria.All governments concerned - even the regime in Damascus - have tried to maintain complete secrecy about the raid.
Israeli raid hit Syrian nuclear reactor
They apparently fear that forcing a confrontation on the issue could spark a war between Israel and Syria, end the Middle East peace talks and wreck America’s extremely complex negotiations to disarm North Korea of its nuclear weapons. The political stakes could hardly be higher. Plutonium is the element which fuelled the American atomic bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Critics in the United States say proof that North Korea supplied such nuclear weapons material to Syria, a state technically at war with Israel, would shatter congressional confidence in the Bush administration’s diplomatic policy. From beneath the veil of military censorship, western commentators have formed a consensus that the target was a nuclear reactor under construction. But Even said that purely from scientific observation, he had reached a different conclusion - that it was a nuclear bomb factory, posing a more immediate danger to Israel. He said that satellite photos of the site, taken before the Israeli strike on September 6, showed no sign of the cooling towers and chimneys characteristic of nuclear reactors. Syria’s haste after the attack to bury the site under tons of soil suggested that hundreds of square yards were contaminated and there were fears of radiation, the professor added. Since then the Syrians have sealed up the location, levelled the site and diverted curious journalists to a place that had not been attacked by Israel.
The professor’s theory fits with authoritative technical evidence about North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. The North Koreans are able to produce weapons-grade plutonium, which is electro-refined, alloyed and cast into shapes ready to be machined to fit into a warhead, according to a team of distinguished American nuclear weapons scientists who visited the country’s laboratories.
One of those scientists, Siegfried Hecker, was allowed to hold a sample and was told that it was “good bomb grade plutonium, because it had a very low content of plutonium240, the isotope which reduces the overall quality of the material. Assembly of a Nagasaki-type bomb involves mating a plutonium core with a uranium wrap and inserting a small quantity of polonium and beryllium to initiate the chain reaction. Plutonium is highly dangerous material, explained the Israeli professor. It is easily oxidised in air unless protective measures are taken. The oxide is easily dispersed as dust in air when machining plutonium to create the pit [a hollow sphere in many nuclear weapons] and thus can be inhaled, causing a fatality in minute quantities. Plutonium pellets are handled and machined exclusively in a large array of glove boxes, to protect the technicians and their environment. That is why you need a relatively large containment building and cannot assemble a nuclear weapon in your garage - unless you are suicidal of course.The debris from a destructive raid on a weapons-building facility could therefore contain toxic radioactive waste. But the main danger for Syria would be the telltale exposure of the elements to surveillance and detection by America. This would explain the cover-up at the site. North Korea, for its part, has more than enough plutonium to sell some of its stock to Syria. The same team of visiting US scientists estimated that by late 2006 the nation had made 40-50kg (88-100lb) of the material. Between six and eight kilograms are needed for a weapon. For the US and its allies the Syrian connection raises the deeply worrying possibility that North Korea has succeeded in building what the US scientists called a sophisticated design with smaller dimensions and mass so as to fit onto a . . . medium-range missile. That puzzle was complicated when North Korea announced that it had tested its first nuclear bomb on October 9 last year. The yield of the blast was small - less than a 20th of the Nagasaki bomb - suggesting to some scientists that the device was sophisticated and small while others believed the North Koreans had simply not made a very good bomb. Professor Even believes the North Koreans have not yet perfected small warheads. The mechanical dimensioning at this stage is extremely demanding (less than 0.01mm). So is the casting of the explosives around the plutonium core and the initiation of the implosion, he said.
The question is under urgent study by nations who might one day be targets of a North Korean device sold to Syria or Iran. Iran is known to have financed missile and weapons deals between North Korea and Syria, causing concern to Israel and the US. One day after the Israeli attack, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, sent his nephew with a personal letter to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader. The professor’s theory of a clear and present danger that Damascus would get the bomb may be the only credible explanation why Israel carried out a military strike against Syria and risked an all-out conflict. Indeed on September 6 Israel was ready for war with Syria. Israeli sources said its military chiefs assumed Syria would launch a retaliatory attack, but no reprisal came. Meanwhile, President Bush has authorised his chief negotiator, Christopher Hill, to go on talking to North Korea in the search for a peaceful solution. Hill will visit Pyongyang this week to pursue negotiations after international technicians got to work on disabling the reactor at Yongbyon, the source of North Korea’s plutonium. The North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is supposed to make a full declaration of his nuclear programmes by December 31. The US says that must include information on his weapons deals with Syria and Iran.
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
Sunday, December 02, 2007 by Staff Writer
Olmert gave us the Temple Mount, say Palestinians
A senior Palestinian negotiator says Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert lied last week when he said Israel's control of Jerusalem's Temple Mount is not up for negotiation. Speaking to WorldNetDaily, the Palestinian official revealed that Olmert has already all but signed away the holy site. What Olmert said (regarding the Mount) is absolutely false. I think he's not yet ready to tell the Israeli public and is waiting for the right time, said the negotiator. We had intense debates on many topics, which remain open and unsettled, but the Harem Al-Sharif (Temple Mount) is not a sticking point. The Israelis didn't argue with us.According to the deal Olmert reportedly agreed to on the Temple Mount, the site would be surrendered to joint control by Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
Olmert: Annapolis Declaration Doesn't Mean Specific Timeline by Hana Levi Julian DEC 2,07
(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tried to convince cabinet ministers Sunday morning that his joint statement with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Annapolis last Tuesday does not mean Israel would have to meet a specific deadline for a final agreement.Olmert told the cabinet that the statement, which calls for final status talks to be completed by the end of 2008, was not a binding commitment to a certain timetable. He claimed that the government would be able to review the statement, adding that the negotiations would be conducted according to the American Road Map plan, which he said would protect Israel's security interests.A number of ministers were vocal in their efforts to point out that Olmert's assurances were in direct contradiction to the joint declaration he signed last week with Abbas and U.S. President George W. Bush.
Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman doubted Abbas's ability to follow through on his commitments, saying, Abu Mazen [Abbas's nom de guerre - ed.] represents the Palestinians like I represent the Norwegians. The chances that Abbas can retake control of Gaza are very slim, he said. Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, a member of Olmert's Kadima party, pointed out that the Prime Minister had agreed to reach a final agreement with Abbas by 2008, leaving them with less time for serious negotiations than had been set aside for the first stage of the Roadmap. Even if negotiations begin soon, Dichter said, Israel cannot discuss core issues such as the status of Jerusalem or the PA's demand for Israel to accept millions of Arab refugees as citizens until the PA fulfills its Roadmap obligations, particularly the obligation to fight terrorism. This, however, appears to stand in opposition to Olmert's agreement to begin final-status negotiations as early as this month.The joint declaration, read at the conference by U.S. President Bush, included a statement saying, In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements. We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008. The declaration throws into overdrive the 2003 Roadmap process that withered and died within days of the American attempt to create order out of terrorism and chaos.
The Real Roadmap Plan, Uncut Version
The text released by the U.S. State Department on April 30, 2003, required Phase I - entitled Ending Terror And Violence, Normalizing Palestinian Life, and Building Palestinian Institutions - to be fulfilled within the first month. The agreement states: In Phase I, the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence according to the steps outlined below; such action should be accompanied by supportive measures undertaken by Israel…. By the end of that initial process, according to the document, Palestinian leadership issues an unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel.Discussions on provisional borders for a PA state, in Phase II, were not to begin until Phase I had been successfully implemented. Phase III, which includes final status talks rested upon successful completion of the tasks in Phase II.Included in the document was a section in Phase I outlining an agreement that Arab states cut off public and private funding and all other forms of support for groups supporting and engaging in violence and terror, among other requirements.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Vladimir Putin's party leads Russian polls
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 7:03pm GMT 02/12/2007
President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party has swept towards an overwhelming victory in a heavily manipulated parliamentary election dismissed by critics as a sham. Stop Vladimir Putin by spoiling vote, say rivals.Exit polls showing more than 60 per cent of the vote point to a landslide for Mr Putin’s United Russia party, triggering fresh speculation that a referendum could be called to change the constitution and allow him to remain in office after his second and final term expires next May. Few doubt that the widely anticipated result will be used as a pretext to justify Mr Putin retaining power in some capacity.Whether he plans to do so as president, prime minister or from some other post is, however, only likely to become apparent later this month.Mr Putin was as enigmatic as ever as he cast his ballot at a Moscow polling station where he largely restricted his comments to pleasantries.
Fearing international opprobrium, Mr Putin has always pledged to respect the constitution by not seeking a third term.But commentators suggest that a recent series of ostensibly spontaneous demonstrations beseeching Mr Putin to stay on indicate that the president may have changed his mind.With so much hinging on the result, critics slammed the vote as the most dishonest in Russia’s post Soviet history, outstripping even Boris Yeltsin’s highly questionable re-election in 1996.If under Yeltsin there were two ways to get votes, intimidation and ballot fixing, now they have thought up at least 15 ways to entrap and betray voters, said the Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov.While the election retained an illusion of competition, critics condemned it as an exercise in phantom democracy. Although voters theoretically had a choice of 11 parties on their ballot papers, the only ones with a chance of making it into Russia’s notoriously feckless Duma are either creations of the Kremlin or broadly loyal to it.Even the Communist Party, likely to take second place, is reluctant to criticise Mr Putin openly even if it is allowed to oppose the government on peripheral matters.
Two small pro-western parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces were allowed to participate - but only, critics say, because their failure to unite meant they have no chance of crossing the seven per cent threshold needed to gain representation in the Duma.Mr Putin’s most serious opponents, an unlikely coalition of pro-western liberals and radical nationalists known as The Other Russia, were prevented from standing. Its leader, the ex-chess champion Garry Kasparov, was jailed for five days last weekend after being found guilty of participating in an unlawful opposition protest which was violently broken up by police.They are not just rigging the vote, they are raping the whole electoral system, Mr Kasparov said after casting a deliberately spoiled ballot. These elections are a reminder of Soviet elections when there was no choice.While the elections will lack international legitimacy after Europe’s main observer body boycotted the poll, many Russians appeared happy to endorse the president - who they credit with bringing the country chaotic decade in the 1990s - by supporting United Russia.Life has improved for both me and my circle of friends, said Yelena Parinova, an economist, as she left a polling station. Instead of drinking vodka we now drink something healthier because we have something to live for now. For the first time we have a government we can trust.Affection for Mr Putin is widespread, thanks both to Russia’s energy driven economic boom and the heavy censorship of much of the media.
Needing to double United Russia’s share of the vote from the 35 per cent it received in 2003 to justify the president’s power grab, the election campaign has been almost laughably one-sided. State television has lavished positive coverage on the party, whose billboards has been almost omnipresent across Russia’s 11 time zones. Some university academics, civil servants and students claim to have been threatened with dismissal or expulsion if they do not vote for United Russia, while opposition protests have been violently broken up.Many Russians believe the loss of freedom has been an acceptable price to pay for the stability they have enjoyed in the past few years - but not everyone agrees.Stability isn’t really stability if basic human rights are violated, said Georgy Tskhadadze, a 23-year-old risk management analyst, after casting his vote for the Union of Right Forces.I don’t want to live in a country where repression, the absence of freedom of speech and political prisoners are again the norm.
Temple Institute Announces: High Priest's Crown is Ready!
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) The Temple Institute in Jerusalem announces the completion of the Tzitz, the High Priest's headplate - now ready for use in the Holy Temple.The tzitz is made of pure gold, was fashioned over the course of a more than a year by the craftsmen of the Temple Institute, and is ready to be worn by the High Priest in the rebuilt Holy Temple in Jerusalem.The words Holy for G-d are engraved on the headplate, in accordance with Exodus 28:36.A short video clip presenting the tzitz can be viewed here. Rabbi Chaim Richman, International Director of the Temple Institute, explained to Arutz-7 that until it can actually be used, the tzitz will be on view in the Institute's permanent exhibition display, together with other vessels and priestly garments fashioned for use in the Holy Temple by the Institute.
Legal Aspects: Impurity and Hekdesh
Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, Director of the Institute, explained to Arutz-7 some of the Halakhic [Jewish legal] aspects of the fashioning of the vessels for the Temple. For one thing, he said, they are made in impurity - for now we are impure, and will remain impure until we are able to have a Red Heifer whose ashes can be used in the Torah-prescribed purification ceremony. If no Red Heifer is available, then the High Priest must even serve in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur in a state of impurity.Asked whether the fact that the vessels are dedicated for the Temple does not render them hekdesh (consecrated) and therefore forbidden for any other use, Rabbi Ariel explained, There are two stages. First of all, we make it very clear to the donors and to the craftsmen that the ultimate purpose of these vessels is not to be used for exhibitions or the like, but rather for the fulfillment of Torah commandments in the Holy Temple. They must know this in advance. However, to gain the actual status of hekdesh, we similarly make it clear that this does not happen until the vessel is actually brought in to the Temple Mount for use in the Temple. This means that someone can try on and measure the headplate, for example, without worrying that he is benefiting in any way from something that has been consecrated to the Temple.
Menorah Moves Closer to Temple Mount
Rabbi Richman noted that in less than two weeks from now, on Rosh Chodesh Tevet, the famous Menorah (candelabrum) - suitable for use in the Holy Temple, familiar to visitors to the Cardo section of the Old City of Jerusalem - will be relocated to the landing of the wide staircase that leads down from the Jewish Quarter to the Western Wall. It will be protected inside the same type of glass structure that now houses it.The new tzitz is an improvement on one made several years ago, in that it has a backpiece, in accordance with some commentators and the account of Josephus. In addition, it has a locking mechansim so that it will not slip off the Priest's head, and can be adjusted to fit heads of different sizes. The old one will be preserved, of course as a spare, in keeping with the Mishnaic account that several models of various vessels were kept in the Temple, in case the need arose to replace one.Asked what project they're working on at present, Rabbi Richman said, We have begun work on 120 sets of garments for 'regular' priests, not the High Priest. This involves special thread from India, etc. In addition, we have begun work on architectural blueprints for the Third Temple, including cost projection, modern supplies, electricity, plumbing, computers, etc.
Bringing G-d Into Our World
At present, Rabbi Richman explained, people are in despair, and wonder if we're not dreaming futilely while around us our leaders are planning to give the country away. We say to them: It appears that those who went to Annapolis are the dreamers, thinking that their efforts to make peace will succeed, or that the public is with them in their efforts to give away our Jerusalem, our Temple Mount, and other national historic assets.We are now approaching the holiday of Chanukah, Rabbi Richman continued, which is the holiday that commemorates the re-dedication of the Holy Temple. We're not just building beautiful vessels; we're interested in granting G-d the dwelling place that He wants in this world; the Temple is not merely a building, but a way of bringing G-d into our lives in a very real way. And that is what we aim to do. This tzitz is G-d's Chanukah present to us, and our Chanukah gift to the Jewish People.
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.
Another earthquake jolts, Jordan, Israel and West Bank
Posted: 02-12-2007 , 12:52 GMT
A minor earthquake was felt in Israel, Jordan and the West Bank on Sunday, the fourth in two weeks, without causing injuries or damage, officials said. None of the recent quakes have caused injuries or damage. Sunday's earthquake measured 4.0 on the Richter scale and was felt mostly in Jerusalem, Jericho and near the Dead Sea, said Israel's geophysics institute, according to AFP. Jordan's Natural Resources Authority reported a quake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale north of the Dead Sea. NRA spokesman Darwish Habbes said the earthquake occurred at 9:40 am.
2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
Fourth quake in 2 weeks shakes Israel
Earthquake measuring 4.0 on the Richter Scale felt in Dead Sea, Jerusalem and Coastal Plain areas Sunday morning; no injuries or damage reported Ynet reporters Published: 12.02.07, 10:14 / Israel News
A mild earthquake was felt throughout Israel Sunday morning, the fourth tremor to be registered in the country in the last two weeks.Reports of the quake poured in from the Dead Sea, Jerusalem and the Coastal Plain areas. Head of the Geophysical Institute of Israel Rami Hopshteter reported that the quake measured 4.0 on the Richter Scale, and that the quake's epicenter was, yet again, the Dead Sea. Last Saturday, a 4.1 magnitude earthquake was felt throughout the country. No injuries or damage were reported. According to reports, the earthquake hit around 00:19 am, originating in Israel's plains area. Earlier in the week, two earthquakes, measuring 3 and 4.2 on the Richter scale, were felt throughout Israel, also causing no damage or injuries. Hopshteter explained that the quake is not surprising as there is a lot of activity in the Dead Sea area… However, it is impossible to draw any clear conclusions about the future from this quake. Israel has been preparing for a possible large-scale earthquake for the past several years now, but we can always do more to improve our preparedness.
Asia-Pacific News
Moderate earthquake jolts western coast of Indonesia's Java
Dec 2, 2007, 1:24 GMT
Jakarta - A 6.0-magnitude earthquake jolted the western coast of Indonesia's Java island Sunday morning, but there were no immediate reports of injury or property damage, seismologists said. The quake struck the Ujung Kulon National Park area on the western tip of Java at about 6:01 am (2301 GMT Saturday), with its epicentre in the Indian Ocean about 75-kilometres south-east of Ujung Kulon, Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said. It occurred about 32-kilometres beneath the seabed. The agency said the quake, the latest in a series to hit Indonesia in recent days, has no potential of triggering a tsunami. Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago nation, is prone to earthquakes because the country sits atop the Pacific 'Ring of Fire,' where continental plates collide, making earthquakes and volcanic eruptions frequent. 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.
ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
ISAIAH 26:21
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die).
ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
JOEL 2:20,30
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
REVELATION 9:18
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
LUKE 17:34-37
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).
MATTHEW 24:37-51
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
December 2, 2007
Israelis hit Syrian ‘nuclear bomb plant’
Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv and Michael Sheridan in Seoul
ISRAEL’S top-secret air raid on Syria in September destroyed a bomb factory assembling warheads fuelled by North Korean plutonium, a leading Israeli nuclear expert has told The Sunday Times. Professor Uzi Even of Tel Aviv University was one of the founders of the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona, the source of the Jewish state’s undeclared nuclear arsenal. I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely, a factory for assembling the bomb, he said. I think the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] transferred to Syria weapons-grade plutonium in raw form, that is nuggets of easily transported metal in protective cans. I think the shaping and casting of the plutonium was supposed to be in Syria.All governments concerned - even the regime in Damascus - have tried to maintain complete secrecy about the raid.
Israeli raid hit Syrian nuclear reactor
They apparently fear that forcing a confrontation on the issue could spark a war between Israel and Syria, end the Middle East peace talks and wreck America’s extremely complex negotiations to disarm North Korea of its nuclear weapons. The political stakes could hardly be higher. Plutonium is the element which fuelled the American atomic bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Critics in the United States say proof that North Korea supplied such nuclear weapons material to Syria, a state technically at war with Israel, would shatter congressional confidence in the Bush administration’s diplomatic policy. From beneath the veil of military censorship, western commentators have formed a consensus that the target was a nuclear reactor under construction. But Even said that purely from scientific observation, he had reached a different conclusion - that it was a nuclear bomb factory, posing a more immediate danger to Israel. He said that satellite photos of the site, taken before the Israeli strike on September 6, showed no sign of the cooling towers and chimneys characteristic of nuclear reactors. Syria’s haste after the attack to bury the site under tons of soil suggested that hundreds of square yards were contaminated and there were fears of radiation, the professor added. Since then the Syrians have sealed up the location, levelled the site and diverted curious journalists to a place that had not been attacked by Israel.
The professor’s theory fits with authoritative technical evidence about North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. The North Koreans are able to produce weapons-grade plutonium, which is electro-refined, alloyed and cast into shapes ready to be machined to fit into a warhead, according to a team of distinguished American nuclear weapons scientists who visited the country’s laboratories.
One of those scientists, Siegfried Hecker, was allowed to hold a sample and was told that it was “good bomb grade plutonium, because it had a very low content of plutonium240, the isotope which reduces the overall quality of the material. Assembly of a Nagasaki-type bomb involves mating a plutonium core with a uranium wrap and inserting a small quantity of polonium and beryllium to initiate the chain reaction. Plutonium is highly dangerous material, explained the Israeli professor. It is easily oxidised in air unless protective measures are taken. The oxide is easily dispersed as dust in air when machining plutonium to create the pit [a hollow sphere in many nuclear weapons] and thus can be inhaled, causing a fatality in minute quantities. Plutonium pellets are handled and machined exclusively in a large array of glove boxes, to protect the technicians and their environment. That is why you need a relatively large containment building and cannot assemble a nuclear weapon in your garage - unless you are suicidal of course.The debris from a destructive raid on a weapons-building facility could therefore contain toxic radioactive waste. But the main danger for Syria would be the telltale exposure of the elements to surveillance and detection by America. This would explain the cover-up at the site. North Korea, for its part, has more than enough plutonium to sell some of its stock to Syria. The same team of visiting US scientists estimated that by late 2006 the nation had made 40-50kg (88-100lb) of the material. Between six and eight kilograms are needed for a weapon. For the US and its allies the Syrian connection raises the deeply worrying possibility that North Korea has succeeded in building what the US scientists called a sophisticated design with smaller dimensions and mass so as to fit onto a . . . medium-range missile. That puzzle was complicated when North Korea announced that it had tested its first nuclear bomb on October 9 last year. The yield of the blast was small - less than a 20th of the Nagasaki bomb - suggesting to some scientists that the device was sophisticated and small while others believed the North Koreans had simply not made a very good bomb. Professor Even believes the North Koreans have not yet perfected small warheads. The mechanical dimensioning at this stage is extremely demanding (less than 0.01mm). So is the casting of the explosives around the plutonium core and the initiation of the implosion, he said.
The question is under urgent study by nations who might one day be targets of a North Korean device sold to Syria or Iran. Iran is known to have financed missile and weapons deals between North Korea and Syria, causing concern to Israel and the US. One day after the Israeli attack, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, sent his nephew with a personal letter to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader. The professor’s theory of a clear and present danger that Damascus would get the bomb may be the only credible explanation why Israel carried out a military strike against Syria and risked an all-out conflict. Indeed on September 6 Israel was ready for war with Syria. Israeli sources said its military chiefs assumed Syria would launch a retaliatory attack, but no reprisal came. Meanwhile, President Bush has authorised his chief negotiator, Christopher Hill, to go on talking to North Korea in the search for a peaceful solution. Hill will visit Pyongyang this week to pursue negotiations after international technicians got to work on disabling the reactor at Yongbyon, the source of North Korea’s plutonium. The North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is supposed to make a full declaration of his nuclear programmes by December 31. The US says that must include information on his weapons deals with Syria and Iran.
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
Sunday, December 02, 2007 by Staff Writer
Olmert gave us the Temple Mount, say Palestinians
A senior Palestinian negotiator says Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert lied last week when he said Israel's control of Jerusalem's Temple Mount is not up for negotiation. Speaking to WorldNetDaily, the Palestinian official revealed that Olmert has already all but signed away the holy site. What Olmert said (regarding the Mount) is absolutely false. I think he's not yet ready to tell the Israeli public and is waiting for the right time, said the negotiator. We had intense debates on many topics, which remain open and unsettled, but the Harem Al-Sharif (Temple Mount) is not a sticking point. The Israelis didn't argue with us.According to the deal Olmert reportedly agreed to on the Temple Mount, the site would be surrendered to joint control by Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
Olmert: Annapolis Declaration Doesn't Mean Specific Timeline by Hana Levi Julian DEC 2,07
(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tried to convince cabinet ministers Sunday morning that his joint statement with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Annapolis last Tuesday does not mean Israel would have to meet a specific deadline for a final agreement.Olmert told the cabinet that the statement, which calls for final status talks to be completed by the end of 2008, was not a binding commitment to a certain timetable. He claimed that the government would be able to review the statement, adding that the negotiations would be conducted according to the American Road Map plan, which he said would protect Israel's security interests.A number of ministers were vocal in their efforts to point out that Olmert's assurances were in direct contradiction to the joint declaration he signed last week with Abbas and U.S. President George W. Bush.
Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman doubted Abbas's ability to follow through on his commitments, saying, Abu Mazen [Abbas's nom de guerre - ed.] represents the Palestinians like I represent the Norwegians. The chances that Abbas can retake control of Gaza are very slim, he said. Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, a member of Olmert's Kadima party, pointed out that the Prime Minister had agreed to reach a final agreement with Abbas by 2008, leaving them with less time for serious negotiations than had been set aside for the first stage of the Roadmap. Even if negotiations begin soon, Dichter said, Israel cannot discuss core issues such as the status of Jerusalem or the PA's demand for Israel to accept millions of Arab refugees as citizens until the PA fulfills its Roadmap obligations, particularly the obligation to fight terrorism. This, however, appears to stand in opposition to Olmert's agreement to begin final-status negotiations as early as this month.The joint declaration, read at the conference by U.S. President Bush, included a statement saying, In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements. We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008. The declaration throws into overdrive the 2003 Roadmap process that withered and died within days of the American attempt to create order out of terrorism and chaos.
The Real Roadmap Plan, Uncut Version
The text released by the U.S. State Department on April 30, 2003, required Phase I - entitled Ending Terror And Violence, Normalizing Palestinian Life, and Building Palestinian Institutions - to be fulfilled within the first month. The agreement states: In Phase I, the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence according to the steps outlined below; such action should be accompanied by supportive measures undertaken by Israel…. By the end of that initial process, according to the document, Palestinian leadership issues an unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel.Discussions on provisional borders for a PA state, in Phase II, were not to begin until Phase I had been successfully implemented. Phase III, which includes final status talks rested upon successful completion of the tasks in Phase II.Included in the document was a section in Phase I outlining an agreement that Arab states cut off public and private funding and all other forms of support for groups supporting and engaging in violence and terror, among other requirements.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Vladimir Putin's party leads Russian polls
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 7:03pm GMT 02/12/2007
President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party has swept towards an overwhelming victory in a heavily manipulated parliamentary election dismissed by critics as a sham. Stop Vladimir Putin by spoiling vote, say rivals.Exit polls showing more than 60 per cent of the vote point to a landslide for Mr Putin’s United Russia party, triggering fresh speculation that a referendum could be called to change the constitution and allow him to remain in office after his second and final term expires next May. Few doubt that the widely anticipated result will be used as a pretext to justify Mr Putin retaining power in some capacity.Whether he plans to do so as president, prime minister or from some other post is, however, only likely to become apparent later this month.Mr Putin was as enigmatic as ever as he cast his ballot at a Moscow polling station where he largely restricted his comments to pleasantries.
Fearing international opprobrium, Mr Putin has always pledged to respect the constitution by not seeking a third term.But commentators suggest that a recent series of ostensibly spontaneous demonstrations beseeching Mr Putin to stay on indicate that the president may have changed his mind.With so much hinging on the result, critics slammed the vote as the most dishonest in Russia’s post Soviet history, outstripping even Boris Yeltsin’s highly questionable re-election in 1996.If under Yeltsin there were two ways to get votes, intimidation and ballot fixing, now they have thought up at least 15 ways to entrap and betray voters, said the Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov.While the election retained an illusion of competition, critics condemned it as an exercise in phantom democracy. Although voters theoretically had a choice of 11 parties on their ballot papers, the only ones with a chance of making it into Russia’s notoriously feckless Duma are either creations of the Kremlin or broadly loyal to it.Even the Communist Party, likely to take second place, is reluctant to criticise Mr Putin openly even if it is allowed to oppose the government on peripheral matters.
Two small pro-western parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces were allowed to participate - but only, critics say, because their failure to unite meant they have no chance of crossing the seven per cent threshold needed to gain representation in the Duma.Mr Putin’s most serious opponents, an unlikely coalition of pro-western liberals and radical nationalists known as The Other Russia, were prevented from standing. Its leader, the ex-chess champion Garry Kasparov, was jailed for five days last weekend after being found guilty of participating in an unlawful opposition protest which was violently broken up by police.They are not just rigging the vote, they are raping the whole electoral system, Mr Kasparov said after casting a deliberately spoiled ballot. These elections are a reminder of Soviet elections when there was no choice.While the elections will lack international legitimacy after Europe’s main observer body boycotted the poll, many Russians appeared happy to endorse the president - who they credit with bringing the country chaotic decade in the 1990s - by supporting United Russia.Life has improved for both me and my circle of friends, said Yelena Parinova, an economist, as she left a polling station. Instead of drinking vodka we now drink something healthier because we have something to live for now. For the first time we have a government we can trust.Affection for Mr Putin is widespread, thanks both to Russia’s energy driven economic boom and the heavy censorship of much of the media.
Needing to double United Russia’s share of the vote from the 35 per cent it received in 2003 to justify the president’s power grab, the election campaign has been almost laughably one-sided. State television has lavished positive coverage on the party, whose billboards has been almost omnipresent across Russia’s 11 time zones. Some university academics, civil servants and students claim to have been threatened with dismissal or expulsion if they do not vote for United Russia, while opposition protests have been violently broken up.Many Russians believe the loss of freedom has been an acceptable price to pay for the stability they have enjoyed in the past few years - but not everyone agrees.Stability isn’t really stability if basic human rights are violated, said Georgy Tskhadadze, a 23-year-old risk management analyst, after casting his vote for the Union of Right Forces.I don’t want to live in a country where repression, the absence of freedom of speech and political prisoners are again the norm.
Temple Institute Announces: High Priest's Crown is Ready!
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) The Temple Institute in Jerusalem announces the completion of the Tzitz, the High Priest's headplate - now ready for use in the Holy Temple.The tzitz is made of pure gold, was fashioned over the course of a more than a year by the craftsmen of the Temple Institute, and is ready to be worn by the High Priest in the rebuilt Holy Temple in Jerusalem.The words Holy for G-d are engraved on the headplate, in accordance with Exodus 28:36.A short video clip presenting the tzitz can be viewed here. Rabbi Chaim Richman, International Director of the Temple Institute, explained to Arutz-7 that until it can actually be used, the tzitz will be on view in the Institute's permanent exhibition display, together with other vessels and priestly garments fashioned for use in the Holy Temple by the Institute.
Legal Aspects: Impurity and Hekdesh
Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, Director of the Institute, explained to Arutz-7 some of the Halakhic [Jewish legal] aspects of the fashioning of the vessels for the Temple. For one thing, he said, they are made in impurity - for now we are impure, and will remain impure until we are able to have a Red Heifer whose ashes can be used in the Torah-prescribed purification ceremony. If no Red Heifer is available, then the High Priest must even serve in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur in a state of impurity.Asked whether the fact that the vessels are dedicated for the Temple does not render them hekdesh (consecrated) and therefore forbidden for any other use, Rabbi Ariel explained, There are two stages. First of all, we make it very clear to the donors and to the craftsmen that the ultimate purpose of these vessels is not to be used for exhibitions or the like, but rather for the fulfillment of Torah commandments in the Holy Temple. They must know this in advance. However, to gain the actual status of hekdesh, we similarly make it clear that this does not happen until the vessel is actually brought in to the Temple Mount for use in the Temple. This means that someone can try on and measure the headplate, for example, without worrying that he is benefiting in any way from something that has been consecrated to the Temple.
Menorah Moves Closer to Temple Mount
Rabbi Richman noted that in less than two weeks from now, on Rosh Chodesh Tevet, the famous Menorah (candelabrum) - suitable for use in the Holy Temple, familiar to visitors to the Cardo section of the Old City of Jerusalem - will be relocated to the landing of the wide staircase that leads down from the Jewish Quarter to the Western Wall. It will be protected inside the same type of glass structure that now houses it.The new tzitz is an improvement on one made several years ago, in that it has a backpiece, in accordance with some commentators and the account of Josephus. In addition, it has a locking mechansim so that it will not slip off the Priest's head, and can be adjusted to fit heads of different sizes. The old one will be preserved, of course as a spare, in keeping with the Mishnaic account that several models of various vessels were kept in the Temple, in case the need arose to replace one.Asked what project they're working on at present, Rabbi Richman said, We have begun work on 120 sets of garments for 'regular' priests, not the High Priest. This involves special thread from India, etc. In addition, we have begun work on architectural blueprints for the Third Temple, including cost projection, modern supplies, electricity, plumbing, computers, etc.
Bringing G-d Into Our World
At present, Rabbi Richman explained, people are in despair, and wonder if we're not dreaming futilely while around us our leaders are planning to give the country away. We say to them: It appears that those who went to Annapolis are the dreamers, thinking that their efforts to make peace will succeed, or that the public is with them in their efforts to give away our Jerusalem, our Temple Mount, and other national historic assets.We are now approaching the holiday of Chanukah, Rabbi Richman continued, which is the holiday that commemorates the re-dedication of the Holy Temple. We're not just building beautiful vessels; we're interested in granting G-d the dwelling place that He wants in this world; the Temple is not merely a building, but a way of bringing G-d into our lives in a very real way. And that is what we aim to do. This tzitz is G-d's Chanukah present to us, and our Chanukah gift to the Jewish People.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
PROPHECY OF ANNAPOLIS BY A RABBI
NOW HERES A RABBI THATS RIGHT ON HE EVEN PREDICTS A RAPTURE WHICH HARDLY ANY ISRAELI BELIEVE IN. THIS RABBIS RIGHT ON.
PSALMS 2:1-6 King James Bible
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
JOEL 3:2 King James Bible
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
ZECHARIAH 14:4-9
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
THIS IS THE 3RD AND FINAL WAVE OF WW3 WHEN ALL NATIONS COME AGAINST ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM AT THE END OF DANIELS 70TH WEEK OR THE 7 YEAR PEACE TREATY WHEN JESUS RETURNS TO RULE FROM JERUSALEM.
ACTS 1:9-11
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
REVELATION 19:11-16
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
THE FIRST ONE THE RABBI IS TALKING ABOUT IS WAVE 1 OF WW3 WHEN 5/6THS OF THE RUSSIA ARABS-MUSLIMS ARE DESTROYED BY GOD.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Annapolis: Fall of Goyim,(Nations) Revival of Am Israel
Guest post by Rabbi Eliezer Sachs Shlita
(Rav Eliezer Sachs Shlita works with Binyamin Goldin and other Autistics for 10 years)
The Honorable Holy Rebbe of Shomrei Emunim Admor spoke about the Annopolis Summit, the fall of the non-Jews, and the revival of Am Israel.
(The following intriguing article is only partially translated)
When non-Jews are feeling threatened by the Geula, they awaken to cause Am Israel pain by interfering in the land of Eretz Israel, a land that does not belong to them.
Am Israel is now in the stage of ikveta demeshicha (footsteps of Mashiach). Yishmaelim (ARAB MUSLIM NATIONS) are preparing for the war in order to have control over the land (Israel) and thereby, trying to delay the final redemption, the Geula. Only Moshiach can wipe out the Klipa of the Yishmaelim.(WAVE 1 OF WW3)(RUSSIA ARABS DESTROYED)
The Holy Land is the only and main topic of the nations of the world even though there is plenty of unused land, free of inhabitants in the Middle East where Palestinians can live but they specifically want only the Holy Land.
All that is occuring now is are clear signs of Moshiach's arrival, as it is written in the sefer Tanna Devei Eliyahu. It says that there is no laughter for HKB'H till the nations of the world gather to fight HaShem, and only then והק"שמים ישחק וילעג למו And HKB'H in Shamayim 'laughs' at them.(PSALMS 2:1-9)
The RaMaK, zs'l, writes that before the Geula, nations of the world will gather in pretense of making 'peace' and HaShem will cause them to fight between one another, as it says, וסכסכתי במצרים במצרים.
The word Annapolis אנפוליס comes from the word נפל (collapse).
The signs are crystal-clear; as it says at the end of Parshat Chayei Sara, על פני כל אחיו נפל he died in the presence of all his brethren. כל אחיו נפל died in the presence of all his brethren, with the words equals the exact gematria value of Annapolis.
The Annapolis Summit gathered the nations of the world, together with the Erev Rav and Yishmaelim to discuss how to divide the land of Israel. The Annaplis Summit 'peace talks' will collapse, and will cause the collapse of the Unites States. The American currency is plummeting and know that it will not revive.
It says in Chazal that when the earth quaked and swollowed Korach and his men, his 2 sons did Teshuva and were miracously lifted in the air.(Raptured) This is what will happen before Moshiach arrives, the earth of Eretz Israel will quake and open her mouth but the people that will do Teshuva and have faith in HKB'H, they too will be miracously elevated in the air and no harm will come to them.(Raptured)
It is worthwhile that every Jew should observe the vicissitudes of the universe and study the holy words of Chazal and our prophets and strengthen in Emunah (faith). This will quicken the coming of Moshiach and the complete redemption.
PSALMS 2:1-6 King James Bible
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
JOEL 3:2 King James Bible
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
ZECHARIAH 14:4-9
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
THIS IS THE 3RD AND FINAL WAVE OF WW3 WHEN ALL NATIONS COME AGAINST ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM AT THE END OF DANIELS 70TH WEEK OR THE 7 YEAR PEACE TREATY WHEN JESUS RETURNS TO RULE FROM JERUSALEM.
ACTS 1:9-11
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
REVELATION 19:11-16
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
THE FIRST ONE THE RABBI IS TALKING ABOUT IS WAVE 1 OF WW3 WHEN 5/6THS OF THE RUSSIA ARABS-MUSLIMS ARE DESTROYED BY GOD.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Annapolis: Fall of Goyim,(Nations) Revival of Am Israel
Guest post by Rabbi Eliezer Sachs Shlita
(Rav Eliezer Sachs Shlita works with Binyamin Goldin and other Autistics for 10 years)
The Honorable Holy Rebbe of Shomrei Emunim Admor spoke about the Annopolis Summit, the fall of the non-Jews, and the revival of Am Israel.
(The following intriguing article is only partially translated)
When non-Jews are feeling threatened by the Geula, they awaken to cause Am Israel pain by interfering in the land of Eretz Israel, a land that does not belong to them.
Am Israel is now in the stage of ikveta demeshicha (footsteps of Mashiach). Yishmaelim (ARAB MUSLIM NATIONS) are preparing for the war in order to have control over the land (Israel) and thereby, trying to delay the final redemption, the Geula. Only Moshiach can wipe out the Klipa of the Yishmaelim.(WAVE 1 OF WW3)(RUSSIA ARABS DESTROYED)
The Holy Land is the only and main topic of the nations of the world even though there is plenty of unused land, free of inhabitants in the Middle East where Palestinians can live but they specifically want only the Holy Land.
All that is occuring now is are clear signs of Moshiach's arrival, as it is written in the sefer Tanna Devei Eliyahu. It says that there is no laughter for HKB'H till the nations of the world gather to fight HaShem, and only then והק"שמים ישחק וילעג למו And HKB'H in Shamayim 'laughs' at them.(PSALMS 2:1-9)
The RaMaK, zs'l, writes that before the Geula, nations of the world will gather in pretense of making 'peace' and HaShem will cause them to fight between one another, as it says, וסכסכתי במצרים במצרים.
The word Annapolis אנפוליס comes from the word נפל (collapse).
The signs are crystal-clear; as it says at the end of Parshat Chayei Sara, על פני כל אחיו נפל he died in the presence of all his brethren. כל אחיו נפל died in the presence of all his brethren, with the words equals the exact gematria value of Annapolis.
The Annapolis Summit gathered the nations of the world, together with the Erev Rav and Yishmaelim to discuss how to divide the land of Israel. The Annaplis Summit 'peace talks' will collapse, and will cause the collapse of the Unites States. The American currency is plummeting and know that it will not revive.
It says in Chazal that when the earth quaked and swollowed Korach and his men, his 2 sons did Teshuva and were miracously lifted in the air.(Raptured) This is what will happen before Moshiach arrives, the earth of Eretz Israel will quake and open her mouth but the people that will do Teshuva and have faith in HKB'H, they too will be miracously elevated in the air and no harm will come to them.(Raptured)
It is worthwhile that every Jew should observe the vicissitudes of the universe and study the holy words of Chazal and our prophets and strengthen in Emunah (faith). This will quicken the coming of Moshiach and the complete redemption.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
BIBLICAL JERUSALEM WALL FOUND
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.
One dead as earthquake rocks the Caribbean
Staff and agencies Friday November 30, 2007 Guardian Unlimited
A strong earthquake struck the eastern Caribbean yesterday, damaging buildings on several islands and killing at least one person.France's overseas minister, Christian Estrosi, told French television that about 100 people on the French island of Martinique had required medical treatment for minor injuries.A woman died at an old people's home after suffering a heart attack during the quake, which measured 7.4 on the Richter scale, officials told the news agency AFP.Six people were injured when they jumped through windows, including one who was in a serious condition, according to local officials.Estrosi earlier said a British man had died from heart failure on the island during the quake, but local officials said this happened before it struck.
The epicentre of the earthquake was 14 miles (23km) north-west of Martinique's coastline. More than 31,000 people on the island were without electricity last night, said local officials.My house shook so hard I thought it was going to fall, said a caller to Radio Martinique. The door, the windows, everything shook. Buildings also collapsed in Barbados where a woman was trampled as workers fled an office building in the capital, Bridgetown. She is in hospital in a stable condition. Another woman broke her leg while trying to rush out of her home, according to a police report.
The quake, which struck at 2pm EST (7pm GMT), also slightly damaged some homes and water pipes in St Lucia, St Vincent and other nearby islands.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii said the depth of the quake, at 90 miles, was too deep to generate a destructive tsunami.I wouldn't expect major damage because the quake has some depth, said Don Blakeman, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Centre in Golden, Colorado.
Scientists at the Seismic Research Unit at the University of the West Indies, in Trinidad, said the quake was the second strongest since the unit began monitoring the Caribbean tectonic plate in 1952.
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.
Algeria flood toll rises to 15 dead, three missing: officials Sat Dec 1, 10:31 AM
ALGIERS (AFP) - A week of heavy rains in northern Algeria caused the death of 15 people, while three more people are missing feared dead, latest figures showed Saturday.In the latest incident, one person was killed and four hurt overnight when a building's floor collapsed in central Algiers, civil defence officials said.On Tuesday a child was killed in the Algiers Casbah; four people died Tuesday and Wednesday in the northwestern Mediterranean city of Oran; and on Thursday the collapse of a house in Ain Defla, 160 kilometres (100 miles) west of the capital, killed three members of the same family.East of Algiers, in the Boumerdes area, officials said two people were killed due to the floods earlier in the week.A 15-year-old boy was swept away by a flooded river and found later Tuesday at Sidi Daoud in the same region, they said.
An elderly woman was killed when her house in Oran collapsed on Monday night, said civil protection officials.On Sunday, two people died and eight were injured when a bridge at Beni Messous, in the western suburbs of Algiers, gave way during the heavy rains.
Three people are also missing feared dead in Dellys, near Boumerdes, after being carried away by floodwaters on Tuesday.The downpours, which in the north of the country have been almost continuous for days, have made it virtually impossible to use the main roads leading to Algiers.Several roads were still closed Saturday.Flooding in November 2001 in Algeria left more than 800 people dead and caused major damage in certain parts of the country.
Blast from the past? Coldest winter in 15 years, Environment Canada says Fri Nov 30, 9:55 PM
Not since the grunge era and Brian Mulroney's days as prime minister has Canada experienced a winter quite as bitter as the one expected to creep in this December, Environment Canada forecasted on Friday.In its first winter outlook of the year, the agency predicts that until February, climates across most of the country will be the coldest in 15 years, with the exception of a small pocket in southern Ontario.Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips said the trend in recent years of uncharacteristically warm, short winters will be wiped out by a chilly reminder of what a real Canadian winter feels like.
Although it won't necessarily be the winter from hell or face-numbing wind chills every time, Phillips said temperature-wise, we could have conditions that would be perhaps three-quarters or a degree colder than normal.Colder air this year is expected to drive down temperatures.We think that with La Nina - which encourages more Canadian air, more Siberian air, whatever you want to call it, Alaskan air - it tends to be more of that flow, he said, referring to the phenomenon of lower-than-normal temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.The cooler climate will likely also blanket some cities with snow after years without a white Christmas, he said.Last year, a number of traditionally cold and snow-covered cities such as Quebec City, Ottawa and Timmins, Ont., had their first green Christmas in decades.There are several up-sides to the mercury dipping, Phillips said. Winter sports enthusiasts might embrace the cooler winter, as would businesses that rely on the snow.I always think it's good for the economy when weather is behaving like it should, when winters are cold and summers are hot, he said, adding more people will likely book holidays to escape the harsh weather.With files from the Canadian Press
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TR BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
Unclear EU treaty provisions causing nervousness
28.11.2007 - 17:43 CET | By Honor Mahony
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Although the ink has barely dried on the EU's new treaty, analysts are already scratching their heads as to how the document, with its unclear division of power between the EU's top politicians, is going to work in practice.Come 2009, when the Reform Treaty is supposed to click into place, there will be three big jobs to be had in Brussels - the president of the European Commission; the president of the European Council and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The three have overlapping job descriptions that are set to be defined only by the strength of the personalities involved, meaning that the treaty, agreed in October after years of wrangling, could be laying the ground for a political hornet's nest.
Igor Sencar, Slovenia's EU ambassador, says there are at least 40 elements in the treaty that have to considered and understood during the course of next year.Speaking at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels on Wednesday, Mr Sencar – whose country will run the EU during the first half of next year – says he already feels the nervousness in Brussels about the lack of clarity in the document.The questions run from pinning down the exact powers of the EU president; agreeing who the president will be; to sorting out the funding, personnel and scope of the diplomatic service as well as looking at issues such as whether the EU's police body, Europol, needs to be adjusted and how national ministers will fit into the EU decision-making process.Mr Sencar indicated that the issues will have to be dealt with by EU leaders and that a common view should be drawn up by the end of next year.
Picking holes
Meanwhile academics and commentators in Brussels are already picking holes in the proposed political set-up contained in the new treaty.Dr Andreas Maurer from the German thinktank Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in a recently published paper notes that the future EU president, who can hold office for up to five years risks becoming EU leaders' play ball because the office lacks its own ministry.Does the new president have sufficient personnel, administrative and financial resources at his disposal to carry out duties such as leading, preparing and giving a sense of continuity to leading EU projects, such as on climate change and energy, asks the paper.It also questions whether EU leaders will really stand behind the president on major issues and points out that there could be a legitimacy problem because the president is not actually accountable to anyone – neither MEPs or MPs.The foreign minister post creates its own set of problems partly because it is not completely clear where his or her duties begin and that of the council president and commission president end.
Dr Maurer's paper notes that the new foreign minister, who will be both vice-president of the commission as well as chairing the regular EU foreign minister meetings, will have an unusually large range of duties.A crucial point will be whether the foreign minister assumes the trade and development aspects of EU foreign policy when chairing the foreign ministers' meeting.If the minister does, it will put into question the autonomy and the political profile of the commission – which traditionally has strong powers in this area.
Hierarchy between commissioners?
The foreign minister's possible portfolio in the trade and development area also have important implications for the hierarchy among commissioners.If it is decided that common foreign and security policy should influence these areas then it is likely to mean that the commissioners responsible for trade and development will become junior commissioners, answering to the foreign minister.The new set-up is also likely to cause all sorts of frictions concerning how the president interacts with the team presidencies of the EU, whereby three member states take charge of the EU in different sectors such as competitiveness or energy.
Meanwhile, European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has already publicly expressed concern about the role of his institution in the future.The danger exists that the governments will handle problems among themselves, without taking into account the European institutions, he said in an interview last month.
Experts believe the answers to these questions will shape whether the EU will be a bloc of 27 member states or run according to the wishes of the big countries, such as France.Speaking to EUobserver, Dr Maurer said the questions are so sensitive that they are being largely left unspoken until after the Irish vote on the new treaty, probably in May or June.Ireland is to be the only country that has a referendum on document, which has to be approved by all member states before it can go into force.
David's Comment:Learning a Lesson From Chanukah
John 10:22-23 Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Yeshua walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch. (NKJ)
As the secular year rapidly approaches its end, Jewish people in Israel and around the world, are preparing to celebrate Chanukah, the Festival of Lights. This non-Levitical festival commemorates the defeat of the Greco-Syrian dictator Antiochus Epiphanes 180 years before the birth of Yeshua. Antiochus was definately an anti-Christ and earned his place in the line of evil men who attempted to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. Antiochus banned circumsion and other Jewish practices. His ultimate affront was to sacrifice a pig on the altar of the Holy Temple. The Jews were frozen in fear of the tyrant and the great majority submitted to every ungodly command of Antiochus and his soldiers.
At the height of Greco-Syrian occupation a Jewish zealot, Judah Macabee and his brothers refused to bow down to the pagan occupiers and began a revolt that ended in the defeat and subsequent departure of their far stronger and better equipped oppressors. I am not too familiar with the details of the Jewish victory, but I am sure there were supernatural beings involved, and the hand of God must surely have been the primary reason behind the Jews regaining rule over their own nation. Just to leave His mark on the defeat if His enemies, the LORD performed an undeniable miracle when He supernaturally kept the Eternal Flame burning after the Temple had been cleansed and rededicated. There was only enough oil on hand for one day, but the flame burnt for the full 8 days that it took to produce a new stock of oil. Surely YHVH had His hand on the situation - the same hand that has been on the Jewish people since the time they became a people, continuing until this very day.
As we prepare to celebrate Chanukah 2007, the Annapolis Peace Summit is now behind us. The outcome will not really be known for some time. But the object of the calls for Israel to give away her legitimate hold on Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) including East Jerusalem is not very different from the object of Antiochus 2100 years ago - - to abort the plans and purposes of God as spoken through the Hebrew prophets. The ultimate plan for the Jewish people is to welcome back the Son of God with the words BARUCH HA BAH B'SHEM ADONAI - Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord - to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. to sit upon the Throne of David in an undivided Jerusalem, capital of the Jewish state.
Israel and Judea and Samara are the heartlands of Israel. Almost every pro Israel commentator has described the calls for Israel to give away Judea and Samaria as a veiled attempt to bring about the end of the Jewish state , thus aborting the plans of God to re-establish Jis Kingdom on the Earth. The same outcome hoped for by Pharaoh, Haman, Antiochus, Herod, Hitler, Arafat and now Armedinejhad. We, the modern day people of God, need to learn a lesson from the Chanukah story. While the unbelievers bow down, consciously or sub-consciously, to the plans of the evil one, we need to be the modern day Macabees and resist the un-Biblical demands of the Annapolis summit.
We need to rise up in prayer and intercession to meet the threat against the Kingdom of God head on ! We also need to make our voices heard in our churches, in our government halls and in our news media. This is not a short term mission, but we need to engage the enemy until the victory over his plans to destroy Israel is clearly won.As we partner with the LORD to defeat His enemies, we can look forward with renewed hope that at a Feast of Dedication not too far away we will see Yeshua walking the temple, in Solomon's porch.The Lord bless you as you bless Israel by standing in defense of her right to exist on the land given to the Jewish people by the God of Israel . Lets pray that Israel will turn back to their God. Do not be silent, but share this with your fellow Christians, share it with your pastors, and with anyone you have a chance to speak to. Lets also pray for that breakthrough to the Muslims, and please remember to pray for our son Jordan, and all of his fellow soldiers in the IDF.
Shabbat Shalom ... David & Josie
NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.
ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
ISAIAH 26:21
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die).
ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
JOEL 2:20,30
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
REVELATION 9:18
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
A few facts and figures on uranium
The Associated PressPublished: November 29, 2007
WHAT IS IT:
Uranium is a naturally occurring radioactive element. It is usually found in extremely small quantities and is relatively harmless in that form because it gives off only a small amount of radiation.
ENRICHMENT:
Naturally occurring uranium is a mixture of three types, or isotopes: uranium-234, uranium-235, and uranium-238. But the mineral can be collected and processed into a silver-colored metal. If that metal is enriched, a process which involves increasing the amount of uranium-235, it becomes dramatically more radioactive.
WHEN IS IT WEAPONS GRADE:
Today in Health & Science
Preventing suicide among the elderlyAfrica makes 'spectacular' progress against measlesExcess sun may lower risk of a uterine cancerUranium is considered weapons-grade if it contains at least 85 percent uranium-235. When enriched to 97.5 percent, it is about 75 times more radioactive than natural uranium.
WHO PRODUCES IT:
Nearly 40,000 metric tons (45,000 U.S. tons) of uranium was mined worldwide in 2006, according to the World Nuclear Association, a trade body which represents the civilian nuclear industry. More than half of the world's production of uranium comes from mines in Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan. Russia, Namibia and Niger are also major producers.
WHO USES IT:
Uranium is used in nuclear power plants as well as on aircraft. In addition to nuclear weapons, it is used by armies to shield tanks, and parts of bullets or missiles.
CAN IT BE TRACED?
Uranium undergoes several transformations as it is concentrated and enriched, and certain processes can leave specific signatures. Scientists can theoretically use those signatures to track where the uranium was manufactured and who enriched it. In the case of weapons-grade material, however, tracing its path can be politically fraught.
It is possible, whether it's easily done or not is another matter, said Ian Hore-Lacy, a spokesman for the World Nuclear Association. He said uranium enriched to 98.6 percent was extremely unlikely to come from a civilian nuclear program.There are some research reactors which use high-enriched uranium, but I doubt if its that high, this would sound to me as if it's almost certainly military material, he said. What actual access anybody would have to military stockpiles to check it against I don't know — I suspect very little.
November 29, 2007, 8:56
Negotiators fail to lure Doomsday cult out
Authorities and Orthodox priests are failing to persuade two groups of religious fanatics to end a bizarre suicide pact in central Russia. About 30 Doomsday cultists are in an underground bunker waiting for the world’s end, while another family is locked in a local prayer house.Persuasion seems to be the only available option, as the cult, which includes children, is threatening to blow itself up if force is used.If they hadn’t threatened mass suicide we could’ve left them alone. But we realise they are very strong minded and they might just do as they say, said Father Aleksey, a local priest.It’s emerged that a family from Belarus has barricaded themselves in the cult’s prayer house in village of Nikolskoye in Central Russia.Another 30 or so people fled to a nearby underground bunker three weeks ago.Meanwhile, the cult’s leader, Pyotr Kuznetsov, is currently being held in a psychiatric hospital.
BETRAYED: The Conspiracy to Divide Jerusalem
Dr. Michael D. Evans The Annapolis Peace Summit Annapolis, Maryland
In the pre-dawn hours, my car winds its way down the streets of this historic city toward the Naval Academy and the Annapolis Summit. Precious fathers, mothers and grandmothers shiver in the cold darkness of the morning. Some of the men blow shofars and pray openly. Most hold signs printed with their pleas: Don’t touch Jerusalem, Don’t touch the Bible land,Don’t touch prophecy.
Unbidden tears slide down my cheeks for I sense how desperate and hopeless they must feel. These who love Jerusalem are overshadowed by the high and mighty of the world: President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and foreign ministers from many Arab states. Among those are known terrorists who are being treated as honored diplomats.
This is the first international peace conference since the U.S. organized-Madrid Peace Summit at the end of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. It was during that debacle that I openly challenged former Secretary of State James Baker over Jerusalem. The names change, but the desire to offer up Jerusalem as the sacrifice to appease terrorists is as passionate as ever.
The Madrid Summit destroyed the economy of Israel. It caused the overthrow of the government as literally tens of thousands of Russian Jewish immigrants were forced to sleep in tents. Why? The U.S. froze $10 billion in loan guarantees that would have provided housing for these destitute men, women and children. Israel was ultimately forced to give up more than 80 villages and towns, i.e., Jericho, Hebron, and Bethlehem.
Today, the vultures gather again, sensing that more of the City of David will be laid on the altar of sacrifice. President Bush has agreed in what is being called The Final Status Plan to divide Jerusalem before the end of his term in 2008. He has also demanded that Israel halt construction in the settlements for refugees. The plan is to turn those settlements over to the PLO.
The Saudis, of course, want the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to be able to move into Israel, not into the Palestinian Authority land holdings. The plan calls for Palestine to be a state within one year, with East Jerusalem as the capital. This Final Status Plan calls for vigorous, unceasing, aggressive negotiations that would end in the creation of a two-state region by the end of 2008.
It seems that the participants of the summit are trying to breathe life back into the Road Map plan introduced in 2003. When Mahmoud Abbas refused to implement the very first clause of the plan – to disarm the terrorist organizations – the plan died in utero.
The Saudis, of course, were overjoyed to hear President Bush’s comments during the Summit. The Road Map, an invention of Saudi Arabia and the Arab League was designed to force Israel to the bargaining table. Then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon related to me that he had asked for 14 amendments. Secretary of State Colin Powell flatly refused to include any of Sharon’s amendments. Phase Two of the plan as outlined was the dismantling of all terror organizations and their infrastructure. HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade to name a few would have been forced to turn over all illegal weapons and stop terror incitement.
Needless to say, Phase Two was not implemented by Abbas. Quite the opposite occurred: HAMAS took over Gaza; Abbas’ own terror organization, Fatah and al-Aksa martyrs Brigade continue to kill Jews. (The latest murder was that of a 29-year old father of two from the village of Shavei Shomron, just days before the Summit in Annapolis.)
The acceptance of this vile plan would turn Israel into a living hell. The Jewish people would be forced to live next door to a state controlled by Islamic fanatics such as Hamas. I am reminded over and over of the scripture in Psalm 83:2-5: For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; and those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, and consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. For they have consulted together with one consent; they form a confederacy against You...
I stand here now with this document in my hand – this Agreement of Joint Understanding” to which both parties have pledged acceptance. This document, if followed, will result in the division of Jerusalem. I’ve asked myself how the U.S. government could partner with a terror organization responsible for thousands of terror attacks worldwide. How could President Bush cavalierly shake hands with the man responsible for the Munich massacre?
Is George W. Bush so consumed by his legacy that he would sacrifice Jerusalem and hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews to attain his goal? Israel would have to give up the Temple Mount and the Western Wall in East Jerusalem; evacuate most of the strategic West Bank which would leave it vulnerable to rocket attacks in Tel Aviv and at its international airport.
What does the future hold for Israel? President Bush has indicated that Israel had “painful compromises” to make during the negotiations that were to begin immediately. I can tell you that Israel seemed very alone during the Annapolis Summit. It greatly concerns me. Why? President Clinton attempted to divide Jerusalem in January 2001, before the end of his term of office. He almost succeeded. I believe those negotiations and Arafat’s subsequent rejection of Clinton’s offer led directly to the events of 9/11.
Now, President Bush is attempting to follow in Bill Clinton’s footsteps. I, for one, am appalled to have to admit that President Bush believes the Palestinian cause is the root of Islamic hatred for America. His advisors are likely telling him that this agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will affect his legacy in a most positive way. How wrong can they possibly be? Only time will tell.
Can the Palestinian crisis be resolved? YES!
I believe that the first action that must be taken is a rehabilitation package calling for the dismantling of the 59 U.N.-maintained refugee camps. The Arab world needs to provide resettlement, employment and housing for the refugees. This would be similar to what happened to the Jewish refugees throughout Europe and the Arab world in 1948. Secondly, I would do everything to help Jordan grant citizenship to Arabs in the West bank. I believe that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan should serve as their representative body. Jordan granted citizenship status to West Bank Palestinians until the late 1980s. The Palestinians do not need more land; they need a life free of Islamic kindergarten camps that continue to instill hatred for the Jews into children at an early age.
Elusive biblical Jerusalem wall finally found, Israeli archaeologist says The Associated PressPublished: November 29, 2007
JERUSALEM: A biblical wall that has eluded archaeologists for years has finally been found, according to an Israeli scholar.A team of archaeologists in Jerusalem has uncovered what they believe to be part of a wall mentioned in the Bible's Book of Nehemiah.The discovery, made in Jerusalem's ancient City of David, came as a result of a rescue attempt on a tower which was in danger of collapse, said Eilat Mazar, head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research and educational institute, and leader of the dig.Artifacts including pottery shards and arrowheads found under the tower suggested that both the tower and the nearby wall are from the 5th century B.C., the time of Nehemiah, according to Mazar. Scholars previously thought the wall dated to the Hasmonean period (142-37 B.C.).The findings suggest that the wall is actually part of the same city wall the Bible says Nehemiah rebuilt, Mazar said. The Book of Nehemiah (chapters 3-6) gives a detailed description of construction of the walls, destroyed earlier by the Babylonians.
Today in Africa & Middle East
Ending famine, simply by ignoring the expertsThe quest for a 'humane Shariah' in NigeriaIn Sudan, demonstrators call for execution of British teacher.We were amazed, she said, noting that the discovery was made at a time when many scholars argued that the wall did not exist.This was a great surprise. It was something we didn't plan, Mazar said.However, another scholar doubted whether the wall was biblical.The first phase of the dig, completed in 2005, uncovered what Mazar believes to be the remains of King David's palace, built by King Hiram of Tyre and also mentioned in the Bible.Ephraim Stern, professor emeritus of archaeology at Hebrew University and chairman of the state of Israel archaeological council, corroborated Mazar's claim. The material she showed me is from the Persian period, the period of Nehemiah, he said. I can sign on the date of the material she found.Another scholar disputed the significance of the discovery.
Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, called the discovery an interesting find, but said the pottery and other remains do not indicate that the wall was built in the time of Nehemiah. Because the debris was not connected to a floor or other structural part of the wall, the wall could have been built later, Finkelstein said.The wall could have been built, theoretically, in the Ottoman period, he said. It's not later than the pottery — that's all we know.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
The two faces of Vladimir Putin
JANE ARMSTRONG From Saturday's Globe and Mail
November 30, 2007 at 11:40 PM EST
MOSCOW — Marat Gelman was once a trusted adviser to President Vladimir Putin, until the President stopped listening. So Mr. Gelman returned to his first love, art. He thinks the President has reverted to his roots, too: jackboot law and order.Sitting in his luxurious, loft-styled apartment overlooking Moscow's magnificent gold-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral, Mr. Gelman says he lost interest in politics when the Kremlin stopped listening to advice from intellectuals.They just need policemen and law enforcers now, said Mr. Gelman, who runs a Moscow art gallery.On the eve of a heavily stage-managed election expected to result in a landslide victory for Mr. Putin's United Russia party, Mr. Gelman reflects the views of many: Mr. Putin is a power-hungry autocrat whose only goal is to perpetuate his control over Russian affairs. He has crushed the opposition, co-opted the press and acquiesced in a growing cult of personality to seed the ground for his continued dominance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a nationwide TV broadcast in Moscow Nov, 29. Mr. Putin, ignoring criticism that he is using his post for campaign purposes, told Russians in a nationwide TV broadcast on Thursday to go vote for his United Russia party in Sunday's parliamentary elections. (Reuters)But that's just one view. Some Putin watchers believe that the two-term President is motivated first by a genuine desire to improve the lot of his long-suffering people, but also by a recognition that Russia is still too poor and too divided in the wake of the turmoil of the post-Soviet era to stand on its feet as a no-holds barred democracy.In this narrative, Mr. Putin isn't a dictator, he's simply a realist.The Putin project was to stabilize society, said Professor Piotr Dutkiewicz, director of Carleton University's institute of European and Russian studies.The Russia Mr. Putin inherited, said Prof. Dutkiewicz, was on the verge of social collapse. Russia's private and public institutions barely functioned. Millions of people lost their salaries and pensions and they were going hungry. Living standards were below those during the Second World War.So Mr. Putin set out to modernize Russia. To do this, he centralized power in the Kremlin and limited the rights of citizens. He knew his project would take time, Prof. Dutkiewicz said.
Now, eight years later, Russian law requires Mr. Putin to step aside.But Russia still isn't nearly as stable or developed as the President hoped.The country has wealth from oil and gas reserves and its large cities have growing middle classes, but there are pockets of extreme poverty and wages have not risen substantially in the provinces. Its institutions are rife with corruption and red tape.You have to be afraid, Prof. Dutkiewicz said. Russia is a huge, complex country. … If you have this unfinished project, you are starting to worry.As a result, Mr. Putin inserted his presence into the parliamentary campaign by leading the electoral list of United Russia, telling voters that a huge vote for United Russia will be viewed as an endorsement of his leadership. A massive win would give him the leverage to maintain his grip on power and finish the job.Eventually, Prof. Dutkiewicz said, more freedom will come [to Russia] if the economic situation continues to improve.In the meantime, he says it's unfair to say Russia is a dictatorship. You can't say there is no democracy in Russia, but it's a different kind than they're used to in the West. There are limits on it.
The University of Toronto's Peter Solomon agrees. Mr. Putin has tried hard to reform Russia's ineffective institutions, but Prof. Solomon thinks his recent tactics — namely, beating and jailing demonstrators — have gone too far.I think as far as the Putin group is concerned, you built the state and the institutions first, you do the democracy second. On that they may be right. On the other hand, it doesn't mean you have to beat your opponents. But Mr. Gelman is less charitable about Mr. Putin's motives. As a former spin doctor, Mr. Gelman was involved in Mr. Putin's ascent to power and helped craft the ideology of managed democracy that fuelled the President's popularity. Mr. Gelman later ran a state-owned television station that duly delivered the President's messages while ignoring opposition parties.But in recent years, Mr. Gelman has had a change of heart. He says Mr. Putin has morphed from a crisis manager to a strongman reminiscent of past Soviet autocrats. Now he is trying to persuade the country that it can't survive without him.Mr. Gelman thinks the former KGB officer lost faith in the Russian public and decided the president alone should have the final say in how Russia is managed.He doesn't trust people to manage their own affairs, and doesn't understand that people in power can't stay in power forever.Other Putin critics agree. Presidential candidate Boris Nemstov remembers the exact day Mr. Putin abandoned all pretense of being a democrat. It was Oct. 23, 2003, when police arrested Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky for fraud. One of Russia's richest businessmen, Mr. Khodorkovsky used his wealth to fund opposition parties in Russia.
Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest was seen as a sign that Mr. Putin would tolerate no dissent in Russia. Mr. Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in a Siberian jail in what many describe as a show trial.After this case, [Mr. Putin] changed completely, said Mr. Nemstov, himself a former Kremlin insider who was a deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin. He said Mr. Putin became the bronze Putin, a ruler who jailed oligarchs, harassed journalists, criticized the West and seized control of television stations.He destroyed the legal system. He established absolute control. He forgot about the constitution, human rights, everything, Mr. Nemstov said.Today, Mr. Putin is simply another veteran leader bent on keeping power, and doesn't care about the welfare of his people, he said.There are no dictators in the world that are thinking about their country, said Mr. Nemstov, founder of the Union of Right Forces (SPS), a right-of-centre opposition party. Mr. Nemstov was detained last Sunday during an anti-Putin march in St. Petersburg.Mr. Nemstov's party has been singled out for harassment during the campaign. Leaflets have been distributed in cities saying SPS canvassers have AIDS and prosecutors seized more than 15 million party newsletters.Mr. Nemstov says he thinks the dirty tricks will backfire. Mr. Putin made a huge mistake, he said. He had huge popularity and people believe he's strong, he's honest, he's popular. If he did nothing, people would have supported him, but now people are so disappointed about his behaviour.Mr. Nemstov might have a point. While opinion polls point to United Russia winning between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of seats in parliament, the same polls show widespread cynicism and indifference.
I don't know if I'll even vote, said Moscow architect Igor Vakhni, 31. The election is already decided, so what is the use of voting? Still, Mr. Vakhni said, Mr. Putin has been a strong leader, which Russia needs.Alexandra Kondratyeva, 67, said she will vote for Mr. Putin's party even though she doesn't like him personally and hasn't voted for him in the past.What other choice is there? Ms. Kondratyeva asked.As for Russia's immediate future, Mr. Gelman is not optimistic. He thinks that democratic reform will only happen when the Kremlin gives the nod, the way former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev finally opened up the Soviet Union.I don't think that will happen any time soon.University of Toronto's Prof. Solomon said he believes Russia's march toward democracy will take years, but it will happen.When I look at successful transitions from authoritarianism to democracy in the 20th century, almost every one had a false start, he said, citing Spain, Hungary and Poland as examples.It's usually the second or the third crack that takes.
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.
One dead as earthquake rocks the Caribbean
Staff and agencies Friday November 30, 2007 Guardian Unlimited
A strong earthquake struck the eastern Caribbean yesterday, damaging buildings on several islands and killing at least one person.France's overseas minister, Christian Estrosi, told French television that about 100 people on the French island of Martinique had required medical treatment for minor injuries.A woman died at an old people's home after suffering a heart attack during the quake, which measured 7.4 on the Richter scale, officials told the news agency AFP.Six people were injured when they jumped through windows, including one who was in a serious condition, according to local officials.Estrosi earlier said a British man had died from heart failure on the island during the quake, but local officials said this happened before it struck.
The epicentre of the earthquake was 14 miles (23km) north-west of Martinique's coastline. More than 31,000 people on the island were without electricity last night, said local officials.My house shook so hard I thought it was going to fall, said a caller to Radio Martinique. The door, the windows, everything shook. Buildings also collapsed in Barbados where a woman was trampled as workers fled an office building in the capital, Bridgetown. She is in hospital in a stable condition. Another woman broke her leg while trying to rush out of her home, according to a police report.
The quake, which struck at 2pm EST (7pm GMT), also slightly damaged some homes and water pipes in St Lucia, St Vincent and other nearby islands.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii said the depth of the quake, at 90 miles, was too deep to generate a destructive tsunami.I wouldn't expect major damage because the quake has some depth, said Don Blakeman, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Centre in Golden, Colorado.
Scientists at the Seismic Research Unit at the University of the West Indies, in Trinidad, said the quake was the second strongest since the unit began monitoring the Caribbean tectonic plate in 1952.
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.
Algeria flood toll rises to 15 dead, three missing: officials Sat Dec 1, 10:31 AM
ALGIERS (AFP) - A week of heavy rains in northern Algeria caused the death of 15 people, while three more people are missing feared dead, latest figures showed Saturday.In the latest incident, one person was killed and four hurt overnight when a building's floor collapsed in central Algiers, civil defence officials said.On Tuesday a child was killed in the Algiers Casbah; four people died Tuesday and Wednesday in the northwestern Mediterranean city of Oran; and on Thursday the collapse of a house in Ain Defla, 160 kilometres (100 miles) west of the capital, killed three members of the same family.East of Algiers, in the Boumerdes area, officials said two people were killed due to the floods earlier in the week.A 15-year-old boy was swept away by a flooded river and found later Tuesday at Sidi Daoud in the same region, they said.
An elderly woman was killed when her house in Oran collapsed on Monday night, said civil protection officials.On Sunday, two people died and eight were injured when a bridge at Beni Messous, in the western suburbs of Algiers, gave way during the heavy rains.
Three people are also missing feared dead in Dellys, near Boumerdes, after being carried away by floodwaters on Tuesday.The downpours, which in the north of the country have been almost continuous for days, have made it virtually impossible to use the main roads leading to Algiers.Several roads were still closed Saturday.Flooding in November 2001 in Algeria left more than 800 people dead and caused major damage in certain parts of the country.
Blast from the past? Coldest winter in 15 years, Environment Canada says Fri Nov 30, 9:55 PM
Not since the grunge era and Brian Mulroney's days as prime minister has Canada experienced a winter quite as bitter as the one expected to creep in this December, Environment Canada forecasted on Friday.In its first winter outlook of the year, the agency predicts that until February, climates across most of the country will be the coldest in 15 years, with the exception of a small pocket in southern Ontario.Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips said the trend in recent years of uncharacteristically warm, short winters will be wiped out by a chilly reminder of what a real Canadian winter feels like.
Although it won't necessarily be the winter from hell or face-numbing wind chills every time, Phillips said temperature-wise, we could have conditions that would be perhaps three-quarters or a degree colder than normal.Colder air this year is expected to drive down temperatures.We think that with La Nina - which encourages more Canadian air, more Siberian air, whatever you want to call it, Alaskan air - it tends to be more of that flow, he said, referring to the phenomenon of lower-than-normal temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.The cooler climate will likely also blanket some cities with snow after years without a white Christmas, he said.Last year, a number of traditionally cold and snow-covered cities such as Quebec City, Ottawa and Timmins, Ont., had their first green Christmas in decades.There are several up-sides to the mercury dipping, Phillips said. Winter sports enthusiasts might embrace the cooler winter, as would businesses that rely on the snow.I always think it's good for the economy when weather is behaving like it should, when winters are cold and summers are hot, he said, adding more people will likely book holidays to escape the harsh weather.With files from the Canadian Press
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TR BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
Unclear EU treaty provisions causing nervousness
28.11.2007 - 17:43 CET | By Honor Mahony
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Although the ink has barely dried on the EU's new treaty, analysts are already scratching their heads as to how the document, with its unclear division of power between the EU's top politicians, is going to work in practice.Come 2009, when the Reform Treaty is supposed to click into place, there will be three big jobs to be had in Brussels - the president of the European Commission; the president of the European Council and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The three have overlapping job descriptions that are set to be defined only by the strength of the personalities involved, meaning that the treaty, agreed in October after years of wrangling, could be laying the ground for a political hornet's nest.
Igor Sencar, Slovenia's EU ambassador, says there are at least 40 elements in the treaty that have to considered and understood during the course of next year.Speaking at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels on Wednesday, Mr Sencar – whose country will run the EU during the first half of next year – says he already feels the nervousness in Brussels about the lack of clarity in the document.The questions run from pinning down the exact powers of the EU president; agreeing who the president will be; to sorting out the funding, personnel and scope of the diplomatic service as well as looking at issues such as whether the EU's police body, Europol, needs to be adjusted and how national ministers will fit into the EU decision-making process.Mr Sencar indicated that the issues will have to be dealt with by EU leaders and that a common view should be drawn up by the end of next year.
Picking holes
Meanwhile academics and commentators in Brussels are already picking holes in the proposed political set-up contained in the new treaty.Dr Andreas Maurer from the German thinktank Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in a recently published paper notes that the future EU president, who can hold office for up to five years risks becoming EU leaders' play ball because the office lacks its own ministry.Does the new president have sufficient personnel, administrative and financial resources at his disposal to carry out duties such as leading, preparing and giving a sense of continuity to leading EU projects, such as on climate change and energy, asks the paper.It also questions whether EU leaders will really stand behind the president on major issues and points out that there could be a legitimacy problem because the president is not actually accountable to anyone – neither MEPs or MPs.The foreign minister post creates its own set of problems partly because it is not completely clear where his or her duties begin and that of the council president and commission president end.
Dr Maurer's paper notes that the new foreign minister, who will be both vice-president of the commission as well as chairing the regular EU foreign minister meetings, will have an unusually large range of duties.A crucial point will be whether the foreign minister assumes the trade and development aspects of EU foreign policy when chairing the foreign ministers' meeting.If the minister does, it will put into question the autonomy and the political profile of the commission – which traditionally has strong powers in this area.
Hierarchy between commissioners?
The foreign minister's possible portfolio in the trade and development area also have important implications for the hierarchy among commissioners.If it is decided that common foreign and security policy should influence these areas then it is likely to mean that the commissioners responsible for trade and development will become junior commissioners, answering to the foreign minister.The new set-up is also likely to cause all sorts of frictions concerning how the president interacts with the team presidencies of the EU, whereby three member states take charge of the EU in different sectors such as competitiveness or energy.
Meanwhile, European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has already publicly expressed concern about the role of his institution in the future.The danger exists that the governments will handle problems among themselves, without taking into account the European institutions, he said in an interview last month.
Experts believe the answers to these questions will shape whether the EU will be a bloc of 27 member states or run according to the wishes of the big countries, such as France.Speaking to EUobserver, Dr Maurer said the questions are so sensitive that they are being largely left unspoken until after the Irish vote on the new treaty, probably in May or June.Ireland is to be the only country that has a referendum on document, which has to be approved by all member states before it can go into force.
David's Comment:Learning a Lesson From Chanukah
John 10:22-23 Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Yeshua walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch. (NKJ)
As the secular year rapidly approaches its end, Jewish people in Israel and around the world, are preparing to celebrate Chanukah, the Festival of Lights. This non-Levitical festival commemorates the defeat of the Greco-Syrian dictator Antiochus Epiphanes 180 years before the birth of Yeshua. Antiochus was definately an anti-Christ and earned his place in the line of evil men who attempted to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. Antiochus banned circumsion and other Jewish practices. His ultimate affront was to sacrifice a pig on the altar of the Holy Temple. The Jews were frozen in fear of the tyrant and the great majority submitted to every ungodly command of Antiochus and his soldiers.
At the height of Greco-Syrian occupation a Jewish zealot, Judah Macabee and his brothers refused to bow down to the pagan occupiers and began a revolt that ended in the defeat and subsequent departure of their far stronger and better equipped oppressors. I am not too familiar with the details of the Jewish victory, but I am sure there were supernatural beings involved, and the hand of God must surely have been the primary reason behind the Jews regaining rule over their own nation. Just to leave His mark on the defeat if His enemies, the LORD performed an undeniable miracle when He supernaturally kept the Eternal Flame burning after the Temple had been cleansed and rededicated. There was only enough oil on hand for one day, but the flame burnt for the full 8 days that it took to produce a new stock of oil. Surely YHVH had His hand on the situation - the same hand that has been on the Jewish people since the time they became a people, continuing until this very day.
As we prepare to celebrate Chanukah 2007, the Annapolis Peace Summit is now behind us. The outcome will not really be known for some time. But the object of the calls for Israel to give away her legitimate hold on Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) including East Jerusalem is not very different from the object of Antiochus 2100 years ago - - to abort the plans and purposes of God as spoken through the Hebrew prophets. The ultimate plan for the Jewish people is to welcome back the Son of God with the words BARUCH HA BAH B'SHEM ADONAI - Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord - to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. to sit upon the Throne of David in an undivided Jerusalem, capital of the Jewish state.
Israel and Judea and Samara are the heartlands of Israel. Almost every pro Israel commentator has described the calls for Israel to give away Judea and Samaria as a veiled attempt to bring about the end of the Jewish state , thus aborting the plans of God to re-establish Jis Kingdom on the Earth. The same outcome hoped for by Pharaoh, Haman, Antiochus, Herod, Hitler, Arafat and now Armedinejhad. We, the modern day people of God, need to learn a lesson from the Chanukah story. While the unbelievers bow down, consciously or sub-consciously, to the plans of the evil one, we need to be the modern day Macabees and resist the un-Biblical demands of the Annapolis summit.
We need to rise up in prayer and intercession to meet the threat against the Kingdom of God head on ! We also need to make our voices heard in our churches, in our government halls and in our news media. This is not a short term mission, but we need to engage the enemy until the victory over his plans to destroy Israel is clearly won.As we partner with the LORD to defeat His enemies, we can look forward with renewed hope that at a Feast of Dedication not too far away we will see Yeshua walking the temple, in Solomon's porch.The Lord bless you as you bless Israel by standing in defense of her right to exist on the land given to the Jewish people by the God of Israel . Lets pray that Israel will turn back to their God. Do not be silent, but share this with your fellow Christians, share it with your pastors, and with anyone you have a chance to speak to. Lets also pray for that breakthrough to the Muslims, and please remember to pray for our son Jordan, and all of his fellow soldiers in the IDF.
Shabbat Shalom ... David & Josie
NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.
ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
ISAIAH 26:21
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die).
ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
JOEL 2:20,30
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
REVELATION 9:18
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
A few facts and figures on uranium
The Associated PressPublished: November 29, 2007
WHAT IS IT:
Uranium is a naturally occurring radioactive element. It is usually found in extremely small quantities and is relatively harmless in that form because it gives off only a small amount of radiation.
ENRICHMENT:
Naturally occurring uranium is a mixture of three types, or isotopes: uranium-234, uranium-235, and uranium-238. But the mineral can be collected and processed into a silver-colored metal. If that metal is enriched, a process which involves increasing the amount of uranium-235, it becomes dramatically more radioactive.
WHEN IS IT WEAPONS GRADE:
Today in Health & Science
Preventing suicide among the elderlyAfrica makes 'spectacular' progress against measlesExcess sun may lower risk of a uterine cancerUranium is considered weapons-grade if it contains at least 85 percent uranium-235. When enriched to 97.5 percent, it is about 75 times more radioactive than natural uranium.
WHO PRODUCES IT:
Nearly 40,000 metric tons (45,000 U.S. tons) of uranium was mined worldwide in 2006, according to the World Nuclear Association, a trade body which represents the civilian nuclear industry. More than half of the world's production of uranium comes from mines in Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan. Russia, Namibia and Niger are also major producers.
WHO USES IT:
Uranium is used in nuclear power plants as well as on aircraft. In addition to nuclear weapons, it is used by armies to shield tanks, and parts of bullets or missiles.
CAN IT BE TRACED?
Uranium undergoes several transformations as it is concentrated and enriched, and certain processes can leave specific signatures. Scientists can theoretically use those signatures to track where the uranium was manufactured and who enriched it. In the case of weapons-grade material, however, tracing its path can be politically fraught.
It is possible, whether it's easily done or not is another matter, said Ian Hore-Lacy, a spokesman for the World Nuclear Association. He said uranium enriched to 98.6 percent was extremely unlikely to come from a civilian nuclear program.There are some research reactors which use high-enriched uranium, but I doubt if its that high, this would sound to me as if it's almost certainly military material, he said. What actual access anybody would have to military stockpiles to check it against I don't know — I suspect very little.
November 29, 2007, 8:56
Negotiators fail to lure Doomsday cult out
Authorities and Orthodox priests are failing to persuade two groups of religious fanatics to end a bizarre suicide pact in central Russia. About 30 Doomsday cultists are in an underground bunker waiting for the world’s end, while another family is locked in a local prayer house.Persuasion seems to be the only available option, as the cult, which includes children, is threatening to blow itself up if force is used.If they hadn’t threatened mass suicide we could’ve left them alone. But we realise they are very strong minded and they might just do as they say, said Father Aleksey, a local priest.It’s emerged that a family from Belarus has barricaded themselves in the cult’s prayer house in village of Nikolskoye in Central Russia.Another 30 or so people fled to a nearby underground bunker three weeks ago.Meanwhile, the cult’s leader, Pyotr Kuznetsov, is currently being held in a psychiatric hospital.
BETRAYED: The Conspiracy to Divide Jerusalem
Dr. Michael D. Evans The Annapolis Peace Summit Annapolis, Maryland
In the pre-dawn hours, my car winds its way down the streets of this historic city toward the Naval Academy and the Annapolis Summit. Precious fathers, mothers and grandmothers shiver in the cold darkness of the morning. Some of the men blow shofars and pray openly. Most hold signs printed with their pleas: Don’t touch Jerusalem, Don’t touch the Bible land,Don’t touch prophecy.
Unbidden tears slide down my cheeks for I sense how desperate and hopeless they must feel. These who love Jerusalem are overshadowed by the high and mighty of the world: President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and foreign ministers from many Arab states. Among those are known terrorists who are being treated as honored diplomats.
This is the first international peace conference since the U.S. organized-Madrid Peace Summit at the end of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. It was during that debacle that I openly challenged former Secretary of State James Baker over Jerusalem. The names change, but the desire to offer up Jerusalem as the sacrifice to appease terrorists is as passionate as ever.
The Madrid Summit destroyed the economy of Israel. It caused the overthrow of the government as literally tens of thousands of Russian Jewish immigrants were forced to sleep in tents. Why? The U.S. froze $10 billion in loan guarantees that would have provided housing for these destitute men, women and children. Israel was ultimately forced to give up more than 80 villages and towns, i.e., Jericho, Hebron, and Bethlehem.
Today, the vultures gather again, sensing that more of the City of David will be laid on the altar of sacrifice. President Bush has agreed in what is being called The Final Status Plan to divide Jerusalem before the end of his term in 2008. He has also demanded that Israel halt construction in the settlements for refugees. The plan is to turn those settlements over to the PLO.
The Saudis, of course, want the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to be able to move into Israel, not into the Palestinian Authority land holdings. The plan calls for Palestine to be a state within one year, with East Jerusalem as the capital. This Final Status Plan calls for vigorous, unceasing, aggressive negotiations that would end in the creation of a two-state region by the end of 2008.
It seems that the participants of the summit are trying to breathe life back into the Road Map plan introduced in 2003. When Mahmoud Abbas refused to implement the very first clause of the plan – to disarm the terrorist organizations – the plan died in utero.
The Saudis, of course, were overjoyed to hear President Bush’s comments during the Summit. The Road Map, an invention of Saudi Arabia and the Arab League was designed to force Israel to the bargaining table. Then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon related to me that he had asked for 14 amendments. Secretary of State Colin Powell flatly refused to include any of Sharon’s amendments. Phase Two of the plan as outlined was the dismantling of all terror organizations and their infrastructure. HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade to name a few would have been forced to turn over all illegal weapons and stop terror incitement.
Needless to say, Phase Two was not implemented by Abbas. Quite the opposite occurred: HAMAS took over Gaza; Abbas’ own terror organization, Fatah and al-Aksa martyrs Brigade continue to kill Jews. (The latest murder was that of a 29-year old father of two from the village of Shavei Shomron, just days before the Summit in Annapolis.)
The acceptance of this vile plan would turn Israel into a living hell. The Jewish people would be forced to live next door to a state controlled by Islamic fanatics such as Hamas. I am reminded over and over of the scripture in Psalm 83:2-5: For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; and those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, and consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. For they have consulted together with one consent; they form a confederacy against You...
I stand here now with this document in my hand – this Agreement of Joint Understanding” to which both parties have pledged acceptance. This document, if followed, will result in the division of Jerusalem. I’ve asked myself how the U.S. government could partner with a terror organization responsible for thousands of terror attacks worldwide. How could President Bush cavalierly shake hands with the man responsible for the Munich massacre?
Is George W. Bush so consumed by his legacy that he would sacrifice Jerusalem and hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews to attain his goal? Israel would have to give up the Temple Mount and the Western Wall in East Jerusalem; evacuate most of the strategic West Bank which would leave it vulnerable to rocket attacks in Tel Aviv and at its international airport.
What does the future hold for Israel? President Bush has indicated that Israel had “painful compromises” to make during the negotiations that were to begin immediately. I can tell you that Israel seemed very alone during the Annapolis Summit. It greatly concerns me. Why? President Clinton attempted to divide Jerusalem in January 2001, before the end of his term of office. He almost succeeded. I believe those negotiations and Arafat’s subsequent rejection of Clinton’s offer led directly to the events of 9/11.
Now, President Bush is attempting to follow in Bill Clinton’s footsteps. I, for one, am appalled to have to admit that President Bush believes the Palestinian cause is the root of Islamic hatred for America. His advisors are likely telling him that this agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will affect his legacy in a most positive way. How wrong can they possibly be? Only time will tell.
Can the Palestinian crisis be resolved? YES!
I believe that the first action that must be taken is a rehabilitation package calling for the dismantling of the 59 U.N.-maintained refugee camps. The Arab world needs to provide resettlement, employment and housing for the refugees. This would be similar to what happened to the Jewish refugees throughout Europe and the Arab world in 1948. Secondly, I would do everything to help Jordan grant citizenship to Arabs in the West bank. I believe that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan should serve as their representative body. Jordan granted citizenship status to West Bank Palestinians until the late 1980s. The Palestinians do not need more land; they need a life free of Islamic kindergarten camps that continue to instill hatred for the Jews into children at an early age.
Elusive biblical Jerusalem wall finally found, Israeli archaeologist says The Associated PressPublished: November 29, 2007
JERUSALEM: A biblical wall that has eluded archaeologists for years has finally been found, according to an Israeli scholar.A team of archaeologists in Jerusalem has uncovered what they believe to be part of a wall mentioned in the Bible's Book of Nehemiah.The discovery, made in Jerusalem's ancient City of David, came as a result of a rescue attempt on a tower which was in danger of collapse, said Eilat Mazar, head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research and educational institute, and leader of the dig.Artifacts including pottery shards and arrowheads found under the tower suggested that both the tower and the nearby wall are from the 5th century B.C., the time of Nehemiah, according to Mazar. Scholars previously thought the wall dated to the Hasmonean period (142-37 B.C.).The findings suggest that the wall is actually part of the same city wall the Bible says Nehemiah rebuilt, Mazar said. The Book of Nehemiah (chapters 3-6) gives a detailed description of construction of the walls, destroyed earlier by the Babylonians.
Today in Africa & Middle East
Ending famine, simply by ignoring the expertsThe quest for a 'humane Shariah' in NigeriaIn Sudan, demonstrators call for execution of British teacher.We were amazed, she said, noting that the discovery was made at a time when many scholars argued that the wall did not exist.This was a great surprise. It was something we didn't plan, Mazar said.However, another scholar doubted whether the wall was biblical.The first phase of the dig, completed in 2005, uncovered what Mazar believes to be the remains of King David's palace, built by King Hiram of Tyre and also mentioned in the Bible.Ephraim Stern, professor emeritus of archaeology at Hebrew University and chairman of the state of Israel archaeological council, corroborated Mazar's claim. The material she showed me is from the Persian period, the period of Nehemiah, he said. I can sign on the date of the material she found.Another scholar disputed the significance of the discovery.
Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, called the discovery an interesting find, but said the pottery and other remains do not indicate that the wall was built in the time of Nehemiah. Because the debris was not connected to a floor or other structural part of the wall, the wall could have been built later, Finkelstein said.The wall could have been built, theoretically, in the Ottoman period, he said. It's not later than the pottery — that's all we know.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
The two faces of Vladimir Putin
JANE ARMSTRONG From Saturday's Globe and Mail
November 30, 2007 at 11:40 PM EST
MOSCOW — Marat Gelman was once a trusted adviser to President Vladimir Putin, until the President stopped listening. So Mr. Gelman returned to his first love, art. He thinks the President has reverted to his roots, too: jackboot law and order.Sitting in his luxurious, loft-styled apartment overlooking Moscow's magnificent gold-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral, Mr. Gelman says he lost interest in politics when the Kremlin stopped listening to advice from intellectuals.They just need policemen and law enforcers now, said Mr. Gelman, who runs a Moscow art gallery.On the eve of a heavily stage-managed election expected to result in a landslide victory for Mr. Putin's United Russia party, Mr. Gelman reflects the views of many: Mr. Putin is a power-hungry autocrat whose only goal is to perpetuate his control over Russian affairs. He has crushed the opposition, co-opted the press and acquiesced in a growing cult of personality to seed the ground for his continued dominance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a nationwide TV broadcast in Moscow Nov, 29. Mr. Putin, ignoring criticism that he is using his post for campaign purposes, told Russians in a nationwide TV broadcast on Thursday to go vote for his United Russia party in Sunday's parliamentary elections. (Reuters)But that's just one view. Some Putin watchers believe that the two-term President is motivated first by a genuine desire to improve the lot of his long-suffering people, but also by a recognition that Russia is still too poor and too divided in the wake of the turmoil of the post-Soviet era to stand on its feet as a no-holds barred democracy.In this narrative, Mr. Putin isn't a dictator, he's simply a realist.The Putin project was to stabilize society, said Professor Piotr Dutkiewicz, director of Carleton University's institute of European and Russian studies.The Russia Mr. Putin inherited, said Prof. Dutkiewicz, was on the verge of social collapse. Russia's private and public institutions barely functioned. Millions of people lost their salaries and pensions and they were going hungry. Living standards were below those during the Second World War.So Mr. Putin set out to modernize Russia. To do this, he centralized power in the Kremlin and limited the rights of citizens. He knew his project would take time, Prof. Dutkiewicz said.
Now, eight years later, Russian law requires Mr. Putin to step aside.But Russia still isn't nearly as stable or developed as the President hoped.The country has wealth from oil and gas reserves and its large cities have growing middle classes, but there are pockets of extreme poverty and wages have not risen substantially in the provinces. Its institutions are rife with corruption and red tape.You have to be afraid, Prof. Dutkiewicz said. Russia is a huge, complex country. … If you have this unfinished project, you are starting to worry.As a result, Mr. Putin inserted his presence into the parliamentary campaign by leading the electoral list of United Russia, telling voters that a huge vote for United Russia will be viewed as an endorsement of his leadership. A massive win would give him the leverage to maintain his grip on power and finish the job.Eventually, Prof. Dutkiewicz said, more freedom will come [to Russia] if the economic situation continues to improve.In the meantime, he says it's unfair to say Russia is a dictatorship. You can't say there is no democracy in Russia, but it's a different kind than they're used to in the West. There are limits on it.
The University of Toronto's Peter Solomon agrees. Mr. Putin has tried hard to reform Russia's ineffective institutions, but Prof. Solomon thinks his recent tactics — namely, beating and jailing demonstrators — have gone too far.I think as far as the Putin group is concerned, you built the state and the institutions first, you do the democracy second. On that they may be right. On the other hand, it doesn't mean you have to beat your opponents. But Mr. Gelman is less charitable about Mr. Putin's motives. As a former spin doctor, Mr. Gelman was involved in Mr. Putin's ascent to power and helped craft the ideology of managed democracy that fuelled the President's popularity. Mr. Gelman later ran a state-owned television station that duly delivered the President's messages while ignoring opposition parties.But in recent years, Mr. Gelman has had a change of heart. He says Mr. Putin has morphed from a crisis manager to a strongman reminiscent of past Soviet autocrats. Now he is trying to persuade the country that it can't survive without him.Mr. Gelman thinks the former KGB officer lost faith in the Russian public and decided the president alone should have the final say in how Russia is managed.He doesn't trust people to manage their own affairs, and doesn't understand that people in power can't stay in power forever.Other Putin critics agree. Presidential candidate Boris Nemstov remembers the exact day Mr. Putin abandoned all pretense of being a democrat. It was Oct. 23, 2003, when police arrested Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky for fraud. One of Russia's richest businessmen, Mr. Khodorkovsky used his wealth to fund opposition parties in Russia.
Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest was seen as a sign that Mr. Putin would tolerate no dissent in Russia. Mr. Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in a Siberian jail in what many describe as a show trial.After this case, [Mr. Putin] changed completely, said Mr. Nemstov, himself a former Kremlin insider who was a deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin. He said Mr. Putin became the bronze Putin, a ruler who jailed oligarchs, harassed journalists, criticized the West and seized control of television stations.He destroyed the legal system. He established absolute control. He forgot about the constitution, human rights, everything, Mr. Nemstov said.Today, Mr. Putin is simply another veteran leader bent on keeping power, and doesn't care about the welfare of his people, he said.There are no dictators in the world that are thinking about their country, said Mr. Nemstov, founder of the Union of Right Forces (SPS), a right-of-centre opposition party. Mr. Nemstov was detained last Sunday during an anti-Putin march in St. Petersburg.Mr. Nemstov's party has been singled out for harassment during the campaign. Leaflets have been distributed in cities saying SPS canvassers have AIDS and prosecutors seized more than 15 million party newsletters.Mr. Nemstov says he thinks the dirty tricks will backfire. Mr. Putin made a huge mistake, he said. He had huge popularity and people believe he's strong, he's honest, he's popular. If he did nothing, people would have supported him, but now people are so disappointed about his behaviour.Mr. Nemstov might have a point. While opinion polls point to United Russia winning between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of seats in parliament, the same polls show widespread cynicism and indifference.
I don't know if I'll even vote, said Moscow architect Igor Vakhni, 31. The election is already decided, so what is the use of voting? Still, Mr. Vakhni said, Mr. Putin has been a strong leader, which Russia needs.Alexandra Kondratyeva, 67, said she will vote for Mr. Putin's party even though she doesn't like him personally and hasn't voted for him in the past.What other choice is there? Ms. Kondratyeva asked.As for Russia's immediate future, Mr. Gelman is not optimistic. He thinks that democratic reform will only happen when the Kremlin gives the nod, the way former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev finally opened up the Soviet Union.I don't think that will happen any time soon.University of Toronto's Prof. Solomon said he believes Russia's march toward democracy will take years, but it will happen.When I look at successful transitions from authoritarianism to democracy in the 20th century, almost every one had a false start, he said, citing Spain, Hungary and Poland as examples.It's usually the second or the third crack that takes.
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