WORLD GOVERNMENT
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
DANIEL 12:4,1
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
REVELATION 13:1-3,7,8,12,16-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
REVELATION 17:3,7,9-10,12,18
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
THE NEW WORLD DISORDER British PM calls for Global New Deal Calls on Obama to join worldwide solution for economic downturn March 03, 2009 7:30 pm Eastern By Jerome R. Corsi 2009 WorldNetDaily
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
NEW YORK – Meeting with President Obama at the White House today, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown repeated his request for a Global New Deal, answering questions to a select group of reporters in the Oval Office. Critics of Brown in Britain assert the Labour Party leader has come to the U.S. to ask for economic assistance as a way of stemming his sharp drop in the polls after the failure of his government's bank-bailout measures. Brown, the first European leader to meet with Obama at the White House, is also scheduled to address a joint session of Congress tomorrow. By calling for a Global New Deal, Brown suggested an expansion of globalism was the only possible solution to the current world crisis and that the two left-leaning leaders would share common ground on a New Deal-like expansion of government and social welfare programs, instead of tax cuts or favorable regulatory treatment for small businesses to stimulate job creation. There is the possibility in the next few months of a Global New Deal that will involve all the countries of the world in sorting out and cleaning up the banking system, Brown said. And there is the possibility of all the different countries of the world coming together to agree the expansion in the economy that is necessary to both restore confidence and to give people jobs and growth through prosperity for the future.Brown suggested his view of a Global New Deal could be implemented through international institutions rather than through nation-states.
There is the possibility of the international institutions for the first time being reformed in such a way that they can do the job that people want them to do and deal with some of the problems that exist in the poorest countries of the world, he added. Brown also told reporters the recovery could be a green, or low-carbon, recovery, suggesting support for the type of cap-and-trade carbon tax Obama has proposed as part of his $3.7 trillion federal budget. Last Sunday, before leaving for the U.S., Brown wrote an editorial published in the London Times in which he proclaimed, Globalism is not an option, it is a fact, so the question is whether we manage it well or badly. Rebuilding global financial stability is a global challenge that needs global solutions,Brown wrote. Our task in working together is to secure a high-growth, low-carbon recovery by taking seriously the global challenge of climate change.Obama did not specifically address or endorse Brown's call for a Global New Deal, nor did he propose any specific financial aid for Britain or the European Union to expand social welfare services or to provide additional funds for government bailout programs. At home, Obama 's $787 billion economic stimulus program and his proposed $3.7 trillion 2009 federal budget have been sharply criticized as an unprecedented amount of deficit-spending aimed at creating an unprecedented expansion of the federal government and the building of a massive U.S. welfare state on the European model.
Referring to the special relationship between the two countries, Brown appeared to suggest the U.S. and Britain could come up together with a proposed solution for the world economic downturn in advance of the G-20 meeting scheduled for April in London.Prior to today's meeting with Brown, the Obama administration appeared to play down the Brown's visist by not scheduling a joint press conference broadcast nationally on live television. WND reported previously that on April 30, 2007, President Bush signed an agreement with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, then-president of the European Council, and with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso to create a Transatlantic Economic Council. The Transatlantic Economic Council was aimed at deeper transatlantic economic integration between the U.S. and the EU, without the agreement being ratified by the Senate as a treaty, and without the passage by Congress of a law authorizing the new international entity.
WND also reported on a meeting held at the U.S. State Department in March 2008 under the auspices of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy that discussed the integration of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in concertwith a move toward a Transatlantic Union, linking a North American community with the European Union.
Clinton to map out priorities with European ministers
VALENTINA POP Today MAR 04,09 @ 09:29 CET
EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS – US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will meet her European counterparts in Brussels this evening for a transatlantic dinner ahead of the Nato ministerial meeting on Thursday set to focus on Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and Russia.She will convey on behalf of the Obama administration our commitment to revitalising Nato, listening to our allies and consulting, hearing their views and building strategies together,Kurt Volker, the US permanent representative to Nato told EUobserver.The informal get-to-know-each-other meeting will also see non-Nato foreign ministers from Finland, Sweden and non-EU nation Switzerland attend.Renewed commitment to the Nato operation in Afghanistan, which the Obama administration has put high on its agenda, is set to dominate the talks. Ms Clinton will likely also be faced with questions regarding the planned US missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic after reports that President Barack Obama sent a secret letter to Moscow offering to back down from the project in return for Russian support against Iran's nuclear programme.What I said in the letter is what I have said publicly, which is that the missile defense that we have talked about deploying is directed toward not Russia, but Iran, Mr Obama said after meeting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday (3 March).To the extent that we are lessening Iran's commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for, or the need for a missile defence system,he explained.
On the same day, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said the Kremlin was working closely with the US on the Iranian file, but not in the context of the missile defence shield. However, he did appreciate the American readiness to discuss the issue of the shield which the previous Bush administration considered a done deal. It's good, because several months ago we were getting different signals - that the decision has been made, there is nothing to speak about, that we have done everything as we have decided, Mr Medvedev said.In a possible sign of Russian-US warming, Moscow reported on Tuesday that a first train with US supplies bound for Afghanistan had crossed its territory and was currently located in Kazakhstan.On Friday, Ms Clinton is due to meet her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva for their first bilateral meeting since the Obama administration took office.Before traveling to Geneva, Ms Clinton will meet European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, as well as the Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, on behalf of the EU presidency. She is also scheduled to participate in a public debate with European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering on Friday.
Croatia Nato-entry
Slovenia's potential referendum on Croatian Nato accession is also likely to come up at the ministerial meeting on Thursday at the Nato headquarters, meant to set out the main issues for the upcoming anniversary summit of the alliance from 2-4 April in Strasbourg and Kehl.The US ambassador to the alliance still hoped all our Nato allies would ratify the accession of both Albania and Croatia in time for the summit.
However, the Dutch ambassador to Nato, Herman Schaper, maintained a more reserved line.What can we do about it? A referendum in Slovenia is not something we can oppose. We had hoped to be able to welcome both Croatia and Albania at the summit, but we're not sure anymore that that's possible,Mr Schaper told this website.
Considered a mere formality after the heads of state gave their green light at a Nato summit in Bucharest last year, the ratification of Croatia's accession protocol has now been delayed in Slovenia after two nationalist groups blocked the procedure by filing an application for a referendum on the issue.The two parties now have at least five weeks to collect signatures from Slovenian citizens, while the Nato summit is only six weeks away. The groups said they might withdraw their initiative if Slovenian lawmakers pass a law on the country's sea border dispute with Croatia, an issue which also affects Zagreb's EU accession track.One of the conditions that were set out in the 90s for the countries who wanted to join Nato was not to bring unsolved bilateral issues and then to use your position in the allience to shut out others. Unfortunately, we have seen some of that, Dan Hamilton, director of the Washington-based Center for Transatlantic Relations and a former official in President Bill Clinton's administration told EUobserver.Macedonia's Nato bid was also blocked by a bilateral dispute with Greece, while Nato-EU cooperation was hindered by the Turkish-Cypriot issue, Mr Hamilton added.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
Microchip implant forum (done already just for info)
http://www.cio-conference.ucla.edu/2009/
http://www.winmec.ucla.edu/rfid/ResearchForum/2009/
http://www.winmec.ucla.edu/rfid/experience/Feb2009/
http://support.simplyrfid.com/noxvault
http://www.rfidrecruiters.com/Moving_into_RFID.htm
RFID world APR 22-24 ASIA MEETING
http://www.terrapinn.com/2009/rfid/
http://www.rfidupdate.com/articles/index.php?id=1696
SPYCHIPS - BOOK TO BUY
http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?DEPARTMENT_ID=6&SUBDEPARTMENT_ID=20&ITEM_ID=1925
LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER Vigil protests mandatory chip implants,Organizers object to ordinance in light of dog that bled to death March 02, 2009 9:45 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn 2009 WorldNetDaily
Charlie Brown, dog that bled to death from a mandated microchip implant procedure
Organizers are planning a candlelight vigil tomorrow in San Marcos, Texas, to protest the city's ordinance requiring pets be implanted under the skin with an identifying microchip. The protesters have already sent letters and informational packets to the city's mayor, council members and animal control board members explaining their objections to the mandatory cost, perceived invasion of privacy and potential health risks of microchipping family pets. Those gathering on San Marcos City Hall steps tomorrow evening will be joined by national radio talk show host and identity chip expert Katherine Albrecht, who explains the protesters' concerns:
Chipping should be a voluntary decision made by a pet owner, in consultation with his or her veterinarian, after weighing the risks, states Dr. Albrecht, a Harvard-trained researcher and privacy advocate. It should never be required at the point of a government gun.The group's candlelight vigil is being held in memoriam for Charlie Brown, a pet Chihuahua in California who bled to death after receiving a microchip implant. As WND reported, Charlie Brown's owners objected to the implant, but were compelled to comply with an ordinance requiring microchipping of pets in unincorporated Los Angeles County, only to watch their dog die of unexplained complications from the procedure. Yes, Big Brother is watching! Find out more in Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government plan to Track your every Move.I wasn't in favor of getting Charlie chipped, but it was the law, said Lori Ginsberg, Charlie Brown's owner.This technology is supposedly so great until it's your animal that dies.VeriChip, a major manufacturer of the microchip implants, touts the technology's capability to identify a lost pet and enable its return home, while dismissing potential health risks. Over the last 15 years, states the VeriChip website,millions of dogs and cats have safely received an implantable microchip with limited or no reports of adverse health reactions from this life-saving product, which was recently endorsed by the USDA. These chips are a well-accepted and well-respected means of global identification for pets in the veterinary community.
Katherine Albrecht
And while Albrecht doesn't doubt the ability of the chips to return lost pets home, she explained to WND that the decision should be left to pet owners, not mandated by government. We think it is totally inappropriate to require people to do this, Albrecht said. Given that this is a very controversial technology – not just because of the medical risks associated with it, but for many people who have a moral, philosophical and even religious objection to these technologies – to mandate that someone has to do this really is an example of the government as an evil nanny state.
Albrecht's concern over government-mandated microchipping has been heightened lately by reports that the technology, with the support of the Obama administration, may be expanding beyond just family pets. As WND reported, Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, advocates embedding radio chips into citizens' driver's licenses. The enhanced driver's licenses, as they're called, would contain built-in radio chips providing an identifying number or information that can be accessed by a remote reading unit while the license is inside a wallet or purse. They're actually talking about issuing every person a spychip driver's license, Albrecht told WND. That is the potential problem.Imagine, she said, going to a First Amendment-protected event, a church or a mosque, or even a gun show or a peace rally.What happens to all those people when a government operator carrying a reading device makes a circuit of the event? she asked. They could download all those unique ID numbers and link them.Participants could find themselves on watch lists or their attendance at protests or rallies added to their government dossier.
She said even if such license programs are run by states, there's virtually no way that the databases would not be linked and accessible to the federal government. WND previously has reported on such chips when hospitals used them to identify newborns, a company desired to embed immigrants with the electronic devices, a government health event showcased them and when Wal-Mart used microchips to track customers.
Michigan State Rep. Paul Opsommer, R-DeWitt, a recent guest on Albrecht's radio show, explained why many Americans object to the government mandating citizens carry identifying information on a scannable chip: If EDLs are the new direction for secure licenses in all states, it just reinforces what many have been telling me that DHS wants to expand this program and turn it into a wireless national ID with a different name, he said. We'll wake up one day and without a vote in Congress DHS will just pass a rule and say something like starting next month you will need an EDL to fly on a plane, or to buy a gun, or whatever.
Global Television For Our Global Leader AIM Report|By Cliff Kincaid|March 1, 2009
This outlandish and frightening proposal doesn’t come from a fringe organization.
Elite members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, at the end of January were considering a proposal for a new global television network to usher in a state of global governance. It sounds authoritarian, even totalitarian, to some.The media proposal, which was included in The Global Agenda 2009 report, is to create a new global network with the capacity to connect the world, bridging cultures and peoples, and telling us who we are and what we mean to each other. Several prominent U.S. media figures signed on to the alarming and controversial proposal.Isn’t it nice that we might have a TV network telling us who we are? And what we mean to each other? Perhaps we will learn that we are global citizens. Perhaps a global leader of some sort will tell us that. Who might that be?
This outlandish and frightening proposal doesn’t come from a fringe organization. The WEF is an exclusive club of very rich and powerful people from around the world. It describes itself as an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.This year’s conference featured speeches by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. The event’s corporate sponsors, which pay about half a million dollars each to participate, include several failing institutions that have received tens of billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers. They include Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Morgan Stanley. These entities are termed Strategic Partners of the World Economic Forum.News Corporation, the parent of Fox News, was another strategic partner of the event. Valerie Jarrett, Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison, represented the Obama Administration at this year’s event and called leaders from all nations to seize gladly the duties of collaborating and boldly embrace a new era of global financial responsibility.
But in a major embarrassment, the WEF also released a report,The Future of the Global Financial System, acknowledging intellectual stewardship and guidance provided by a steering committee co-chaired by John Thain, the former Merrill Lynch & Co. chief executive officer who was recently ousted from Bank of America in a scandal. Thain oversaw the disastrous sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and was criticized for lavish spending on office decorations, including a $1,405 waste basket and $87,784 rug.The other co-chair of the committee was David Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group, who has been quoted as saying that China holds the key to the world economy’s future. One report notes that Rubenstein says Carlyle was an early investor in the Chinese marketplace, that its China office has hired many native-born Chinese, and the company is seeking to build its buyout and growth-capital businesses there.
The End Of Sovereignty
The Global Agenda 2009 report says that sovereign states do not adequately address problems reaching across borders and that international taxation may be needed to generate the additional resources for global governance.Could this become a source of new bailout money here and abroad? As current global governance problems come from market failures, sovereign failures and inter-governmental failures that cross boundaries, sacrificing sovereignty for greater gain may become an option, the report says.
Law Of The Sea Treaty
The report says the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty, which is a top priority for Senate ratification under the Obama Administration, is a measure that has earned the acceptance and compliance of most nations. The treaty would turn over oil, gas, and mineral resources to the U.N. and authorize access to them through payment of a global tax to a U.N. body. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has engendered criticism from conservatives for having endorsed the Law of the Sea Treaty in 2007. But the WEF also envisions cooperation and collaboration in global media ventures. It asks, How can we save journalism to help it save the world? Clearly, this is advocacy journalism on a global scale.Indeed, the list of Recommendations says it is imperative to start Communicating a global agenda, and motivating and mobilizing people to support it…Is this journalism? Or is it brainwashing and propaganda?
It says that a genuine, global voice is needed that shares a fundamental commitment to being an international media voice, and makes mention of the media voices we think of as international coming from London (the BBC), Qatar (Al-Jazeera) or Atlanta (CNN).BBC is known for its anti-American programming, Al-Jazeera for its pro-terrorist slant, and CNN for its left-wing and pro-Democratic bias. It will take innovative public-private funding to bring this new network into being, apparently meaning that the taxpayers in the U.S. will have to be soaked in order to help bring this about. But no price tag is put on the venture and no objection was apparently raised to government funding of such a network on a global basis. An overview statement does, however, decry censorship and self-censorship.Elsewhere in the report (page 31) the idea of international taxation is proposed for global action of various kinds. Perhaps this is a vehicle for raising revenue for the new global voice.The media proposal was developed by one of several Global Agenda Councils under the auspices of the WEF. The new TV network proposal was issued under the supervision of Pat Mitchell, the president of the Paley Center for Media and former President and Chief Executive Officer of the Public Broadcasting Service. She was the chair of the Global Agenda Council on the Future of Media.
Key Members
Other members of the Council on the Future of Media were Betsy Morgan of the left-wing Huffington Post (former general manager of CBSNews.com); Rui Chenggang of China Central Television, an official political propaganda arm of the communist regime; and Zafar Siddiqi of CNBC Arabiya, a subsidiary of General Electric which is described as a 24-hour Arabic language financial and business information channel.
There is no indication in the published report that the Huffington Post executive raised any objection to working hand-in-glove with the communist propaganda channel. Is the Chinese media model a precedent for the new global network? The conference was covered by media organizations such as CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Forbes and Fox, but no coverage that we could find was devoted to the proposal for a government-financed global media network. Talk about self-censorship! John J. DeGioia, President of Georgetown University and the Rapporteur of the Global Agenda Councils focusing on Society and Values, summarized the work of Mitchell’s panel. He says (page 46) that We believe that this new moment also calls for a new media platform, across all media channels, a global non-profit CNN providing a new form of independent journalism to inform, illuminate and deepen knowledge about issues that improve the state of the world.According to DeGioia’s biography, he walks the walk and is dedicated to helping prepare young people for leadership roles in the global community.His bio adds, He is a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO and Chair of its Education Committee and he represents Georgetown at the World Economic Forum and on the Council on Foreign Relations.The media council took advantage of what a description of its work said was an enormous opportunity to redefine the media and its roles in a global, interconnected society.
Under the title of Recommendations (page 182), the Council on the Future of Media declares that The Council is championing a new global, independent news and information service whose role is to inform, educate and improve the state of the world—one that would take advantage of all platforms of content delivery from mobile to satellite and online to create a new global network.It goes on, In a world where there are calls for global governance as a response to a global financial crisis, where scientific research, capital flows and production chains are globalized, the media and the communities in which we imagine ourselves remain fiercely localized. Hence, a global network will work against localized or national-based systems and convince people to go global with their outlook and solutions. In other words, the new network will help undermine old-fashioned notions of national sovereignty and patriotism.There are 22 members (page 183) of the Council on the Future of Media. In addition to Mitchell and Morgan, American members include:
Alex S. Jones, former media reporter for the New York Times and now Director, Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Susan King, former Washington correspondent for ABC News and now Director, Journalism Initiative, Special Initiatives and Strategy, Carnegie Corp. of New York.
John Lavine, Dean, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.
Nicholas Lemann, former Washington Post reporter and now Dean, School of Journalism, Columbia University.
David Nordfors, Director, Innovation Journalism and Senior Research Scholar, Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning, Stanford University.
Monroe Price, Director, Centre for Global Communications Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, the University of Pennsylvania.
Orville H. Schell, Director, Center on US-China Relations, Asia Society.
There doesn’t appear to be one identifiable conservative member on the list. Of course, this is probably the way it was designed.
CRIMES AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION
The liberals have come up with a clever way of ratifying dangerous treaties, which now require a two-thirds vote (67) to pass in the Senate. They may introduce them as legislation, requiring only a majority vote to pass. The model for this new approach is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).Such an approach would mean quicker and easier passage of controversial and expensive measures that, if debated as treaties in the Senate, might take too long and upset and alarm too many Americans.By submitting a new global warming treaty as a statute, scholars at the Brookings Institution argue, the Congress can act more quickly on the measure.
They specifically cite a U.N. climate conference scheduled for December, when the international community is scheduled to gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.The new agreement that comes out of this, they suggest, should be a statute, not a treaty, even though the 1997 Kyoto Protocol was a treaty.Brookings scholars William J. Antholis and Nigel Purvis say that the U.S. must quickly transform its domestic and international energy policy and come into line with international demands. To reclaim global leadership, the United States must show the world proof that it has the political will to curb greenhouse gases, they say.The political will would be a power grab by Obama and his liberal allies in Congress. Left unsaid is the fact that this is obviously a way to cut conservative Republican senators out of the process and forge a bare majority of senators in favor of controversial treaties.They say that ...in consultation with Congress, the president would decide that future climate and energy agreements are to be approved by the United States by statute rather than as treaties.In other words, Obama would decide, after getting the approval of leading Democrats in Congress, that he won’t submit the new U.N. climate treaty as a treaty. Instead, he would submit it as just a statute. This would obviously make passage much easier.
They argue that all of this can be accomplished under the rubric of a new Climate Protection Authority that Obama should adopt.
Time To Act
Domestically, the president’s public approval and congressional majorities may never be as high, they note, in an obvious reference to Obama’s Democratic edge in both congressional bodies.The implication is that Obama has to act now, bypassing Senate conservatives, especially Republicans, by implementing the Climate Protection Authority and then submitting future climate and energy agreements as statutes rather than as treaties.It must be done now, rather than later, the Brookings scholars argue, because the prospect of regulating greenhouse gases could fade if the economy continues to worsen.In other words, expensive and costly prohibitions of energy use might be tougher to impose if peoples’ living and working conditions continue to deteriorate.This approach is needed, they argue, because other nations distrust our treaty-making process.They explain,These countries are reluctant to make politically difficult concessions only to see the United States stay out of the agreement in the end.Translated into common language, this means that the treaty process takes too long and the treaty may ultimately be rejected by senators reacting to popular pressure.Antholis is Managing Director of the Brookings Institution, while Purvis, a former State Department official, is a Nonresident Brookings Scholar on Environment and Development and Foreign Policy.Purvis also runs a group, Climate Advisers, which has a vested financial interest in seeing the theory of man-made global warming imposed on the U.S. and the world.Arguing for the abandonment of the constitutional requirement that treaties get two-thirds approval, they explain,Statutes require a majority in both houses of Congress, whereas treaties require two-thirds of only the Senate. Federal courts have repeatedly upheld the constitutionality of bicameral statutory approval of international pacts. In fact, the United States enters into more international agreements this way than by treaty, including some arms control agreements and environmental pacts and almost all trade deals.This point is at least partly true. For example, President Clinton submitted NAFTA as a statute, not a treaty, after he realized that he didn’t have the two-thirds vote in the Senate to pass it.
This logic, of course, might be applied to other controversial treaties, including the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Criminal Court.Will Obama do it? With the backing of a major liberal think tank with Democratic Party connections like Brookings, it might be tempting, even irresistible. Susan Rice, Obama’s close foreign policy adviser and now his U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., was a senior fellow at Brookings from 2002 to 2009.In fact, the Brookings approach is not new.
Trashing The Red States
In a June 18, 2007 article in the liberal American Prospect, Thomas Geoghegan had lamented that the Kyoto global warming treaty and the International Criminal Court are among the great global projects of our day but are not getting through the Senate because of the two-thirds majority required for passage. So what’s the way out of this bind? It’s the same way out we used for NAFTA or for fast-track free-trade agreements. That is, we just pass a simple law,he said.Geoghegan says the reason liberals can’t get these measures currently passed in the Senate is because this body over-represents states like Wyoming, Idaho and America’s backwoods. In other words, Red State senators have too much clout under the Constitution. They are obstructing the progressive vision.Geoghegan says legal justification for this new approach can be found in an article in the October 2004 American Journal of International Law (AJIL) by Steve Charnovitz, an associate professor of international law at the George Washington University School of Law. The article complains about Senate inaction on such treaties as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention on Biological Diversity, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and various U.N. human rights treaties.Charnovitz admits the approach of pushing these treaties as mere agreements would be controversial. But he finds comfort in the fact that the legal action against NAFTA was thrown out. Asked about the Brookings proposal, Charnovitz said it was similar to his approach. He explained, In my proposal published in the American Journal of International Law in October 2004, I proposed a U.S. framework statute that would authorize and set goals for U.S. participation in negotiations in advance. I specifically mentioned environment as one example of where the approach would be useful and discussed the Kyoto experience. The Brookings staff proposal is similar to what I have advocated.
However, in regard to using such an approach with the Law of the Sea Treaty or the International Criminal Court, he believes it is too late now to use a framework statute as those negotiations have already concluded and the treaties are already in force. He explains, I would not support the Congress approving those treaties by a statute because I think the approach should be used only when authorized in advance. But I don’t think it would be unconstitutional to approve those treaties with a statute. In my AJIL article, I also noted that with the statutory approach, a supermajority could be required. So one could require for a 60 vote margin (or 67) in the Senate and still use a statute.
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DEAR FELLOW MEDIA WATCHDOG MARCH-A 2009
THESE ARE TROUBLING TIMES. ARTHUR B. ROBINSON OF THE ACCESS to Energy newsletter comments that we have a Marxist as President and have equipped him with a socialist Congress, while the Supreme Court is so frightened that its members were unwilling to ask the new President for his birth certificate. Progressive Rep. Barbara Lee, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, says Obama has done a phenomenal job and cites his executive orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, ban the torture of terrorists, and support abortion overseas. She also notes that he signed legislation passed by Congress to spend more money in the name of children’s health care and women’s pay equity. The socialist agenda is being implemented. Not to mention the stimulus bill and the push by Senators Debbie Stabenow and Tom Harkin for the return of the Fairness Doctrine targeting conservative media voices. We need your support to survive.OUR ON-LINE COLUMNS ABOUT THE TAX CHEATING OF TOM DASCHLE, THE FORMER senator who withdrew his nomination as Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, prompted Google News to ask me for comment. I told them that Daschle was on record in favor of a Federal Reserve-style national health board that could order the rationing of medical care and treatments. This seems to be the policy of the Obama Administration, with or without Daschle. Chuck Todd on the NBC Nightly News contrasted Daschle’s failure to pay taxes on a chauffeur and limousine with a Daschle campaign ad in which the senator drove around in an old car. But Todd should also report on some embarrassing facts that affect him. It turns out that Daschle had taken money from GE Healthcare, a subsidiary of General Electric. GE Healthcare stands to benefit from the Obama national socialist health care plan because it specializes in the electronic processing of health care records, a major part of the plan. Another GE subsidiary, GE Capital, has received a $139-billion taxpayer-financed loan guarantee as part of the Wall Street bailout. Doesn’t this present a continuing conflict of interest for GE media properties covering the financial crisis? Please send Chuck Todd the enclosed postcard about this.
AN EXCERPT OF REP. PAUL KANJORSKI’S APPEARANCE ON C-SPAN’S WASHINGTON JOURNAL on February 6, 2009, was posted on YouTube and is still creating controversy. Kanjorski, a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, made the claim that the financial crisis was triggered by a $550 billion electronic run on the banks on or around September 15, 2008. He said the Treasury then pumped $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide; we were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic out there. If they had not done that, their estimation was that by two o’clock that afternoon, five and a half trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed... It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it. So the obvious question is: who was behind this run on the banks? Where are the investigations into this? Please send Kanjorski the enclosed postcard.ONE INTERESTING FACT IS THAT THE U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW Commission was scheduled to hold a February 17 hearing titled China’s Role in the Origins of and Response to Global Recession.It did not say alleged role in the origins of the crisis.
APPEARING BEHIND A PODIUM THAT PROCLAIMED, FINANCIAL STABILITY AND RECOVERY, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on February 10 carefully read from a teleprompter and provided what his flack said was a comprehensive plan. It was not comprehensive in any way. It seemed so amateurish and shallow that the market dropped and commentators and senators were almost incredulous at the lack of detail. But what were they expecting? Those who expected the details of the plan were operating under the false assumption that the Treasury Secretary—and by extension, the U.S. Government—is in practical control and charge of the U.S. economy. It turns out the speech, which did mention the spending of trillions of dollars, was delivered in the Treasury Department’s Cash Room.No kidding.GEITHNER IS A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL COMMUNITY, AND THAT IS WHY, despite his own tax cheating problems, he was confirmed. He was a prominent figure in the Group of Thirty organization of central bankers and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former employee of Kissinger Associates and lived in China and speaks Chinese. His father, Peter Geithner, is a former top official of the Ford Foundation who knew Obama’s mother when she was working on microfinance in Indonesia. It would be a serious mistake to say that Geithner is incompetent. Essentially, his programmed performance was designed to send the message to the American people and the Congress that we can’t be trusted with the details. This is the New World Order and we had better get used to it.
GEITHNER DID NOT HAVE THE ANSWERS BECAUSE HE HAD NOT GOTTEN HIS MARCHING orders. After giving non-answers to Congress, Geithner was preparing to take off for a G-7 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Rome, Italy. These foreign finance officials may determine the nature and fate of Geithner’s stability and recovery plan. These top finance officials include central bank governors, who play a role in what press reports described as economic coordination among the top industrialized nations. One key global player is China. Geithner spoke late on Sunday evening (February 8) with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan,Reuters reported. Hence, Geithner was talking to a Chinese official even before he outlined his plan to the American people and the Senate. This was the second such conversation in a week. In a statement, the Treasury Department said that Wang and Geithner agreed that strong cooperation on macroeconomic financial and regulatory matters was an essential part of the U.S. relationship with China and that it was important to sustain close dialogue, particularly at this time of global financial turmoil. Wang Qishan was honored last year at a dinner sponsored by the United States Committee on United States- China Relations, on whose board Kissinger and Peter Geithner serve. Another speaker was Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Geithner’s predecessor.
OBAMA SPEAKS OF A POSSIBLE CATASTROPHE BUT HE ISN’T TELLING THE PEOPLE THAT HIS prescription of more debt and spending is what brought us to this precipice. He can only succeed, at least in the sense of getting foreign credit to pay for this spending spree, if the Communist Chinese and the rich Arabs agree.OUR LEAD ARTICLE IN THIS AIM REPORT IS VERY TROUBLING, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE MAJOR media figures are in favor of this proposed new global television network, apparently designed to make us all into subservient global citizens. Please send Pat Mitchell, formerly of PBS, a postcard about this. We will fight it tooth and nail. Things will get worse before they get better. But we will all fight through this together so that we can save our country.For Accuracy in Media, Editor.
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.
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU Israel has already forfeited Jerusalem,Jews barred as U.S. helps Arabs fortify their presence in holy city March 02, 2009 9:19 pm Eastern By Aaron Klein 2009 WorldNetDaily
Sign in Kfar Akeb boasting of 'American gift' to Palestinian Authority
JERUSALEM – Sections of Jerusalem have essentially been forfeited on the ground to the Palestinian Authority, while Jews, including local landowners, are barred from entering parts of Israel's capital, a WND investigation has found. The probe further determined the U.S. has been aiding the Palestinians in developing infrastructure in Jerusalem. Also, it has emerged, the Israeli government has failed to stop Arabs from illegally building thousands of housing projects on Jerusalem land purchased and owned by a U.S. Jewish group for the express purpose of Jewish settlement, culminating in an Arab majority in the neighborhoods. The situation has been unfolding in the northern Jerusalem neighborhoods of Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis, which are close to the Jewish neighborhoods of Neve Yaacov and Pisgat Zeev in Israel's capital. Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis are located entirely within the Jerusalem municipality. A tour of the three Jerusalem neighborhoods in question finds some surprising developments. Official PA logos and placards abound, including one glaring red street sign at the entrance to the neighborhoods warning Israelis to keep out. Get Aaron Klein's classic book on Mideast radicals: Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans – to a Jew!
Another official sign, this one in Kfar Akeb in Jerusalem, reads in English, Ramallah-Jerusalem Road. This project is a gift form (sic) the American people to the Palestinian people in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority and PECDAR. 2007.The sign bears the emblems of the American and PA governments and of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. The displays were not present during a previous WND tour of the neighborhoods in 2006. Some local schools in the Jerusalem neighborhoods are officially run by the PA – some in conjunction with the U.N. – with many teachers drawing PA salaries. Civil disputes are usually settled not in Israeli courts but by the PA judicial system, although at times Israeli courts are used depending on the matter. Councils governed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization oversee some municipal matters. USAID provides the PA funds for road and infrastructure projects. Israeli security officials said the local Jerusalem police rarely operate in Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis; instead security has been turned over to the Israel Defense Forces and Border Police, who work almost daily with PA security forces. The PA police operate in the Jerusalem neighborhoods in coordination with Israel. Shmulik Ben Ruby, spokesman for the Jerusalem police, confirmed the arrangement. If there are fights between some local families, sometimes we involve the PA police to make peace between the families,he told WND. Yes, the PA police can operate in these neighborhoods in coordination with the IDF and Border Police.
Jews barred from sections of Jerusalem
In another recent development, Israeli Jews, including local property owners, have been almost entirely barred from entering Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis, while Israeli Arabs can freely enter. Aryeh King, a nationalist activist who holds the power of attorney to some Kfar Akeb land owned by an Israeli Jew, told WND he was barred several times during the past few months from entering the neighborhood to administer to the land, upon which local Arabs illegally constructed apartments.
Police spokesman Ben Ruby explained this new arrangement is due to security concerns.It's quite dangerous to be there alone, so if they don't have to be there it's not allowed, because they might find themselves in danger if they go in, said Ben Ruby.In 2002, in response to the outbreak one year earlier of the Palestinian intifada, or terrorist war against the Jewish state, the Israeli government constructed its security barrier blocking off the West Bank from Jewish population zones. The route of the fence also cut into northern and eastern Jerusalem, incorporating Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis on the so-called Palestinian side.
Israel recaptured northern and eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – during the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians, however, have claimed eastern Jerusalem as a future capital. About 244,000 Arabs live in Jerusalem, mostly in eastern neighborhoods, out of a total population of 724,000, the majority Jewish. Jews lived in Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis years before the establishment of Israel in 1948, but they were violently expelled during deadly Arab riots in 1929. Jordan, together with other Arab countries, attacked Israel after its founding in 1948 and administered the three Jerusalem neighborhoods as well as all of eastern Jerusalem following an armistice agreement. In 1967, Jordan attacked again and Israel liberated the entire city of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War. During the period of Jordanian control, some new construction took place, including in areas previously purchased by Jews. The recent barring of Jews from northern Jerusalem sections seems to coincide with an Israeli government decision the past year to allow the PA some presence in Jerusalem. Last June, WND exclusively reported Prime Minister Ehud Olmert allowed the PA to hold an official meeting in Jerusalem to discuss dealing with expected Palestinian sovereignty over key sections of the city. Dmitri Ziliani, a spokesman for the Jerusalem section of PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, confirmed to WND the meeting was related to the activities and structure of Fatah's local command in some neighborhoods of Jerusalem. We were covering the best ways to improve our performance on the street and how we can be of service to the community,Ziliani said.Ziliani said the regular PA meetings in Jerusalem are, in part, held in anticipation of a future Palestinian state encompassing all of eastern Jerusalem.
Our political program as Fatah dictates there will be no Palestinian state if these areas – all of east Jerusalem – are not included, Ziliani told WND. According to Israeli law, the PA cannot officially meet in Jerusalem. The PA previously maintained a de facto headquarters in Jerusalem, called Orient House, but the building was closed down by Israel in 2001 following a series of suicide bombings in Jerusalem. Israel said it had information indicating the House was used to plan and fund terrorism.Thousands of documents and copies of bank certificates and checks captured by Israel from Orient House – including many documents obtained by WND – showed the offices were used to finance terrorism, including direct payments to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group
U.S. Jewish group to blame for division of Jerusalem?
Key land in Qalandiya and Kfar Akeb is owned by a U.S. Jewish group that over the years has allowed tens of thousands of Arabs to illegally squat on its land, resulting in the current Arab majority. The Jewish National Fund, or JNF, purchased the land in the early 1920s using Jewish donor funds for the specific purpose of Jewish settlement. The JNF lands have been utilized for the illegal construction of dozens of Arab apartment buildings, a refugee camp and a U.N. school. A previous tour of Qalandiya and Kfar Akeb found dozens of Arab apartment complexes, a Palestinian refugee camp and a U.N. school for Palestinians constructed on the land.
According to officials in Israel's Housing Ministry, Arabs first constructed facilities illegally in Qalandiya and Kfar Akeb between 1948 and 1967, prior to the 1967 Six-Day War during which Israel retook control of the entire city of Jerusalem.
Qalandiya, still owned by JNF, came under the management of the Israeli government's Land Authority in the late 1960s. Ministry officials say the bulk of illegal Arab construction in Qalandiya occurred in the past 20 years, with construction of several new Arab apartment complexes taking place in just the past two years.
Neither the Israeli government nor JNF took any concrete measures to stop the illegal building, which continues today with at least one apartment complex in Qalandiya under construction. Land in another Jerusalem' neighborhood, Shoafat, which has an estimated value of $3 million, was also purchased by JNF in the early 1900s and fell under the management of the Israel Land Authority about 40 years ago. Much of the illegal Arab construction in Shoafat took place in the past 15 years, with some apartment complexes built as late as 2004.In Qalandiya and Shoafat, Israel's security fence cordons off the Arab sections of the JNF lands from the rest of Jewish Jerusalem.Internal JNF documents obtained by WND outline illegal Arab construction on the Jewish-owned land. A December 2000 survey of Qalandiya summarized on JNF stationery and signed by a JNF worker states, In a lot of the plots I find Arabs are living and building illegally and also working the JNF land without permission.The JNF survey goes on to document illegal construction of Arab apartment complexes and the U.N. school under the property management of Israel's Land Authority.
Group misleading donors?
In response to a previous WND exclusive report on the JNF's alleged mismanagement of the properties, JNF CEO Russell Robinson sent statements to concerned donors that the illegal construction occurred during periods the Jerusalem land was occupied by Jordan.1991 photo of Shoafat shows region entirely forest land.During that time the Jordanian government oversaw all activities, including the U.N. building. Under international law, this makes matters pertaining to the land more complicated than what [WND describes],states Robinson's letter. But WND obtained aerial photos of the two JNF sites in question, Shoafat and Qalandiya, which Robinson claimed were illegally built upon prior to 1967.
1967 aerial photo of Qalandiya region
A photo taken in 1991 of Shoafat shows the entire area was a forest – meaning all illegal Arab construction took place after 1967 while the land was under Jewish control. An aerial photo taken in 1967 of the second site, Qalandiya, which is now a large Arab town, finds construction of a U.N. building but few other sites, indicating the vast majority of Arab construction – dozens of large apartment complexes – occurred under JNF control. WND originally reported some of the construction took place prior to 1967, but the bulk of the building occurred the past few years, under Jewish management.
HELP SUPPORT ISRAEL LEGISLATION
https://secure2.convio.net/ifcj/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=233&JServSessionIdr006=sl7rjq8hf1.app45a
Dear Friend of Israel,
We have all heard the saying, The road to ruin is paved with good intentions.The message is clear. While good intentions may provide the starting point for our efforts, they mean little if they are not translated into positive deeds.Today I want to tell you about an organization, founded with a noble purpose, that has strayed far from that original purpose – and tell you what you can do to help set it back on its proper path.In 1949, the United Nations formed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to provide emergency aid to Arab refugees who had fled their homes or been displaced in 1948 due to the ongoing war waged by Arab nations upon the newly-formed state of Israel.
Sixty years later, UNRWA’s reach and budget has expanded exponentially. In this case care of all descendants of the original refugees is also provided by UNRWA. Today the agency provides for more than 4 million people, both those living in refugee camps and those in established communities who are nonetheless considered refugees by UNRWA’s definition.
Stop U.N. funding of terrorists – take action today!
Many say UNRWA perpetuates, rather than eases, the plight of Palestinian refugees and the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. Often it plays an indirect role in supporting Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Hamas members have been found on the agency’s payroll, and recently the agency revealed that it has no screening system in place to exclude members of certain terrorist groups from working in its schools.
A couple of high-profile cases have brought to the world’s attention the connection between terror groups and UNRWA. Awad Al-Qiq, chief rocket-maker for the Islamic Jihad terror group, worked as a science instructor at an UNRWA school in Gaza. A senior Hamas leader targeted and killed by an Israeli air strike during last month’s Gaza war, Said Siyam, was on the UNRWA payroll for years, also working as a teacher. And if terrorists are the teachers, what is being taught in UNRWA-funded schools? Textbooks used in these schools often reinforce a point of view that is deeply hostile to Israel. One book obtained by Israeli officials glorified terrorists and anyone who died during armed struggle with Israel as martyrs.To address this problem, a bi-partisan group of Congressmen, lead by Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Steve Rothman (D-N.J.) have introduced a bill (H. Con. Res. 29) that would require UNRWA to operate in compliance with existing U.S. laws to ensure that no American taxpayer dollars are being directed to terrorists or to further terrorist propaganda. In addition, it would call on UNRWA to publish online copies of all the educational material used in its schools, and urge the agency to adopt strict screening procedures to ensure that no terrorists are included among UNRWA staff.Today, I ask you to join the fight for fairness for Israel by responding to our Action Alert and urging your Congressman to support this bill that calls on UNRWA to reform. And, after you have done so, please help us spread the word on this important legislation by forwarding the alert to your friends. Thank you, my friends, for making your voice heard! With prayers for shalom, peace,
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein President International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
https://secure2.convio.net/ifcj/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=233
So, forget Durban, it's time to get out protests regarding US participation in the UN Human Rights Council. http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
To locate your congresspersons:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
To locate your senators:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
European Union members oppose Muslim views on racism meeting
Published Tuesday March 3rd, 2009 Eliane Engeler, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GENEVA - European Union countries Tuesday stepped up their opposition to Muslim attempts to shield Islam from criticism and attack Israel through a United Nations conference on racism.EU members were unusually outspoken in appearances before the UN Human Rights Council, saying they were worried about preparations for a global racism conference to be held next month because attention was being diverted from the real problems of racial discrimination. I am deeply disturbed by the turn this event is taking,Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen said. The thematic world conference is used by some to try to force their concept of defamation of religions and their focus on one regional conflict on all of us, Verhagen told the 47-member council. References to Israel and protection of religion in the current draft conclusion being negotiated for the so-called Durban II conference are unacceptable, Verhagen said. We cannot accept any text, which would put religion above individuals, not condemn discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, condone anti-Semitism or single out Israel, he said. Denmark, Germany, Belgium and Italy voiced similar concerns. Islamic countries, still angry over cartoons and films attacking Muslims, have been campaigning for wording that would equate criticism of a religious faith with a violation of human rights. The informal negotiations have proven difficult with many issues that marred the first UN conference on racism in 2001 re-emerging - such as criticism of Israel.
The April 20-25 meeting is designed to review progress in fighting racism since the global body's first such conference eight years ago in Durban, South Africa. That 2001 meeting was dominated by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery, and particularly marred by attacks on Israel and anti-Israel demonstrations at a parallel conference of non-governmental organizations. The United States and Israel walked out midway through the 2001 conference over a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism - the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state - to racism. The EU also refused to accept demands by Arab states to criticize Israel for its racist practices.In the end, the 2001 conference dropped criticism of Israel. It urged governments to take concrete steps to fight discrimination and recognized the plight of the Palestinian people and the need for Israel to have security.Israel and Canada have already announced they will boycott Durban II. The United States said Friday it will stay away from this year's conference unless its final document is changed to drop all references to Israel and the defamation of religion.Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Monday that countries should not put conditions for the participation in the meeting. Durban II should deal with contemporary forms of racism, such as religious profiling and Islamophobia, he said.
METEORS HIT THE EARTH
REVELATION 6:12-17
12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
REVELATION 8:12-13
12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
13 And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels,which are yet to sound!
Asteroid plays chicken with Earth
Richard Macey March 4, 2009
IT COULD have put an end to our worries about the economy and those sharks at Sydney beaches.At 12.40 yesterday morning, as the city slept, a previously unknown asteroid swept about 60,000 kilometres over the south-western Pacific.In astronomical terms it was a close call. Estimated to be between 30 metres and 50 metres wide, it passed almost seven times closer than the moon.No object of that size, or larger, has been observed to come closer to the Earth, said Rob McNaught, of the Siding Spring Observatory, near Coonabarabran.In 1908 an object possibly up to 50 metres across flattened some 2000 square kilometres of Siberian forest.Mr McNaught said yesterday's asteroid was probably smaller but it could do a lot of damage to a city. If it had crashed into the ocean I imagine it would produce a tsunami, he said.
Funded by NASA to search for asteroids bigger than one kilometre across, Mr McNaught spotted the object on Friday night. Within 24 hours astronomers had calculated it would narrowly miss the planet.Mr McNaught said as the asteroid approached Earth yesterday morning it had glowed 5000 times brighter than on Friday night. It was so bright I could actually observe it through the cloud. That is very rare,he said.
He believed that if 2009 DD45 had been on a collision course with a populated part of the planet, there would have been time to act. A lot of people falsely claim there is nothing you could do, but there is. If there is an asteroid coming, and you have 24 hours, you can evacuate.About 1000 asteroids are known to have come close enough to be classified as potentially hazardous.While a collision with a one-kilometre-wide asteroid could cause global devastation, Mr McNaught said one that was just 300 metres wide could throw the world into a short-term winter.Objects bigger than one kilometre wide were likely to hit the world only every few million years but ones large enough to threaten a city crashed probably once a century.
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
SPECIAL CONFERENCE MAR 23-24,2009,ALL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS WILL BE THERE,ALL THE EU MEMBERS WILL BE THERE,AND THE G-20 WILL BE THERE.THIS SAME GROUP OF EU,BANKERS,G-20 WILL ALSO BE IN LONDON IN APRIL TO LAY PLANS FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER,ESPECIALLY THE G-20.https://futurefinance.wsj.com/index.php
HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS WED MAR 04,2009
09:30 AM +18.25
10:00 AM +77.90
10:30 AM +51.69
11:00 AM +94.30
11:30 AM +145.76
12:00 PM +169.41
12:30 PM +135.22
01:00 PM +105.29
01:30 PM +125.21
02:00 PM +130.14
02:30 PM +167.34
03:00 PM +224.05
03:30 PM +225.08
04:00 PM +149.82 6875.84
S&P 500 712.87 +16.54
NASDAQ 1353.74 +32.73
GOLD 908.30 +5.30
OIL 45.14 +3.50
TSE 300 7814.75 +183.13
CDNX 830.95 +6.88
S&P/TSX/60 471.33 +11.40
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -23.36%
S&P -22.91%
Nasdaq -16.23%
TSX Advances 540,declines 962,unchanged 296,Volume 2,556,342,301.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 299,Declines 436,Unchanged 326,Volume 133,653,700.
Dow +110 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow +18 points at low today.
Dow +121 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $920.20.OIL opens at $43.43 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow +18 points at low today so far.
Dow +174 points at high today so far.
DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 2,793,declines 885,unchanged 89,New Highs 1,New Lows 304.
Volume 4,091,682,857.
NASDAQ Advances 1,827,declines 788,unchanged 129,New highs 1,New Lows 246.
Volume 1,052,190,575.
TSX Advances 824,declines 464,unchanged 243,Volume 1,488,882,084.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 267,Declines 233,Unchanged 274,Volume 103,287,894.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow +18 points at low today.
Dow +253 points at high today.
Dow +2.23% today Volume 464,828,107.
Nasdaq +2.48% today Volume 2,147,483,648.
S&P 500 +2.38% today Volume N/A
RECORD LOWS DOW
-Sept 30,1996 5,882.17
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-Nov 6,1996 6,177.71
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-Apr 15,1997 6,587.16
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-May 1,1997 6,976.48
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RECORD LOWS S&P 500
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-Nov 4,1996 706.73
-Nov 5,1996 714.14
-Dec 17,1996 726.04
ECONOMY VIDEO
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/29481513#29481335
BANK BAILOUT MAY COST MORE
http://uk.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=99702&videoChannel=75
WHITEHOUSE KNOCKS CRAMER
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnbc/white_house_knocks_jim_cramer
_for_calling_obama_budget_greatest_wealth_destruction_by_a_president_110203.asp
UPDATE 1-U.S. senator wants Fed to name loan recipients Tue Mar 3, 2009 8:29pm GMT (Adds details on proposed legislation)
WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - A U.S. senator berated Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday for refusing to name banks that borrow from the central bank and introduced legislation that would require public disclosure.In a testy exchange at a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who usually votes with the Democrats, said he found it unacceptable that the central bank risked taxpayer money without detailing where the funds went.My question to you is, will you tell the American people to whom you lent $2.2 trillion of their dollars? Sanders asked, referring to the size of the Fed's balance sheet.
Bernanke responded that the Fed explains the various lending programs on its website, and details the terms and collateral requirements.When Sanders pressed on whether Bernanke would name the firms that borrowed from the Fed, the central bank chairman replied, No, and started to say that doing so risked stigmatizing banks and discouraging them from borrowing from the central bank.Isn't that too bad, Sanders interrupted, cutting him off.They took the money but they don't want to be public about the fact that they received it.According to the text of the proposed legislation, e-mailed by Sanders' staff, he wants the central bank to identify any firm that has received financial assistance since March 24, 2008, including details on the type of borrowing, amount, date, terms and the Fed's rationale for lending.
Sanders wants the Fed to publish those details on its website and update them at least every 30 days.At the hearing, the senator said businesses in his state were in trouble and needed loans, but were not permitted to borrow from the Fed.Do you have to be a large, greedy, reckless financial institution to apply for this money? he asked.Bernanke said the Fed's lending programs were not gifts or subsidies but rather over-collateralized loans. He said the law restricted the types of firms to which the central bank can lend.We have never lost a penny doing it, he said.Sanders responded: Let me just say this, Mr. Chairman. I have a hard time understanding how you have put $2.2 trillion at risk without making those names available, those institutions public.It is unacceptable to me that that this goes on,he added. (Reporting by Emily Kaiser, Editing by Dan Grebler)
EU has a solution to rescue any member that risks economic collapse By AOIFE WHITE AP Business Writer 3/3/2009 6:29 AM
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's top economy official said Tuesday that the 16 euro nations have a solution to rescue any member that risks economic collapse.
EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said it would not be clever to give out details in public but the solution exists.Investors see a risk that euro-zone nations like Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy could default on debt payments and are charging them more to borrow on government bonds. Almunia said this solution would kick in before a member nation needed to approach the International Monetary Fund for a bailout. Don't fear, we are equipped intellectually, politically, economically to face this crisis scenario,he said in a speech at an event organized by the European Policy Centre think tank.But by definition this kind of things should not be explained in public.He also said it is possible and it is reasonable for two or more euro countries to issue bonds together but it is not politically viable today because some important member states said no.Germany has denied reports that it was weighing up issuing bilateral bonds with other nations — although German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week that euro nations would find ways of solidarity if necessary. Germany has also refused to consider a euro-zone bond.Almunia said it was unlikely that the European Commission could issue more bonds to help out EU nations because treaty rules forbid it from running a deficit. The EU executive is already selling bonds to help pay for a €9.6 billion ($12 billion) bailout for Hungary and Latvia.
He also rejected speculation that any euro nation would quit the zone — a move that might allow the country to devalue its currency and stoke sluggish demand. Who is crazy enough to leave the euro area? Nobody, he said. The number of candidates to join the euro area increases, the number of candidates to leave the euro area is zero.The EU's executive Commission says that the shared currency has helped create a safe haven for member nations, increasing trade between them and helping shield them against the worst of the global financial crisis. But he said he was concerned by recent exchange rate volatility, even though he welcomed the recent fall of the euro against the U.S. dollar. Almunia said the current euro exchange rate of $1.26 was within the range of what we can consider normal because it fell between $1.20 to $1.30. He said the EU's executive still sees the Chinese yuan as undervalued. He was more pessimistic about the economy after a raft of gloomy data indicated a bad start to the year. He said downside risks are bigger than in January, when the Commission forecast that the euro-zone would contract 1.9 percent this year and the entire European Union by 1.8 percent.Almunia said governments needed to lay out plans to cut public debt in the longer-term to stabilize their economies. But he said it was too soon for the European Union's 27 nations to consider follow-up stimulus programs to the plans they have already announced to stoke growth this year. Existing spending plans cost 3.3 percent of the EU's gross domestic product, he said, including 1.1 percent of GDP for stimulus programs and 1.7 percent of GDP for automatic stabilizers when governments spend more on welfare as the economy slows.
Rescue plan for defaulting euro-zone states drawn up
ANDREW WILLIS 03.03.2009 @ 17:45 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union is able to help any member of the euro area that defaults on debt repayments, economy commissioner Joaquin Almunia said on Tuesday (3 March), adding that a rescue plan has already been drawn up, but that it would not be clever to reveal such solutions in public.If a crisis emerges in one euro area country, there is a solution before visiting the IMF, he said during an address to the European Policy Centre, a Brussels based think-tank. You can be sure that there is a solution. And you can be sure that it is not clever to tell you in public what the solution is. But the solution exists ... we are equipped intellectually, politically, and economically to face this crisis scenario.
Later in the day a commission spokesperson referred to the balance of payments facility that has been used to support both Latvia and Hungary.The same way we have a particular instrument that we used for Hungary and Latvia to help EU countries outside the euro area ... that solidarity would be equally be displayed one way or the other [to eurozone countries].The balance of payments facility was set up in 2002to allow the commission to make loans to non-euro area countries experiencing difficulties meeting debt obligations. The commission raises the necessary funds by issuing bonds on the international money markets. In December, ministers decided to increase the facility's lending ceiling from €12 to €25 billion. German Chancellor Angela Merkel signalled last month that her country might come to the help of euro-zone countries experiencing financial difficulties. However, Mr Almunia re-iterated on Tuesday that government bail-outs are prohibited under monetary union, as is the purchase of national bonds by the European Central Bank. Likewise, he was quick to dismiss the idea of a euro-area break-up. The probability of this happening is zero. Who is crazy enough to do this? Nobody.Instead he pointed to the increasing list of countries clamouring to join the eurozone as well as calls from candidate countries for accelerated access.Poland hopes to join ERM-II next year. This is the normally two-year waiting period during which governments must maintain a stable currency before becoming a full member.However Finland, Italy and Slovenia all completed ERM-II is under two years, raising the prospect that current candidate countries may follow suit.
EU bonds
In parallel with euro-area membership, the debate over the possible issuance of 'EU bonds' has intensified in recent weeks. States whose borrowing costs have skyrocketed, such as Italy, whose finance minister favours such a move, would likely benefit from cheaper borrowing if a common bond for the euro-area was created.
However Germany and the Netherlands oppose moves towards EU bonds, fearing they would drive up the cost of their borrowing. Similarly, non-euro area states are sceptical about the idea, concerned that investors would no longer buy their national bonds when faced with the safer EU bond. Mr Almunia acknowledged the current opposition to the idea but did not rule it out in the future. It's not politically viable today but maybe tomorrow,he said.
Commission submission to European Council
On Wednesday, the commission will present its contribution to the European Council on 19-20 March.Speaking to Socialist MEPs ahead of publication of the commission's position, Mr Almunia said that the top priority would be the restoration of normal credit flows, otherwise national stimulus packages would not have the desired effect.
He also mentioned the need for strengthened regulation of the financial sector. It should not only be better regulation but more regulation,he stressed. He indicated that the commission had been impressed with the report on financial regulation presented last week by the high-level group of financial experts headed by Jacques de Larosiere.I am sure the commission will adopt initiatives with as much ambition as the treaty allows,he said, indicating that the commission would support many of the initiatives contained in the report, provided a treaty change was not necessary for their implementation.The report calls for a European Systemic Risk Council to be set up, a body designed to gather information on the potential financial risks faced by the EU economy.
Bosnia Faces Drastic Fall In Economic Growth - World Bank Tue, Mar 3 2009, 15:46 GMT http://www.djnewswires.com/eu
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AFP)--Bosnia is facing a drastic reduction in economic growth as a result of the global financial crisis, the World Bank warned Tuesday.
Like the rest of transition economies, Bosnia-Hercegovina is almost certain to experience a drastic reduction in the rate of growth,the bank said. In 2009, real GDP (gross domestic product) growth is likely to drop by 70% or even more and the recovery is expected to be slow,it said in a newsletter. Bosnia had been hard hit in particular by the credit crunch, a fall in export prices and demand, and a drop in remittances, the bank said. Despite struggling to recover from its devastating 1992-1995 war, Bosnia posted economic growth of more than 6.0% during the past three years. The World Bank suggested measures to mitigate the impact of the crisis, including continued efforts aimed at securing the stability of its monetary and financial system.Other recommended measures included implementing a fiscal stimulus financed from external sources, cutting and targeting public spending and reducing the burden of social contributions to public enterprises. Some 15,000 Bosnian workers have been laid-off since October 2008, official figures show.
72 VIRGINS
http://www.road90.com/watch.php?id=T6gNGDkXTK
CLINTON IN ISRAEL - VIDEO
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/29481513#29481513
JERUSALEM IN 1932 - VIDEO
http://www.road90.com/watch.php?id=wGqygPHXFA
IDF TRIBUTE OPERATION CAST LEAD
http://www.road90.com/watch.php?id=QKjVXtXMsl
Clinton Says Two-State Answer to Mideast Conflict Inescapable By Gwen Ackerman and Viola Gienger
March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said a fresh attempt at finding a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is inescapable, while defending Israel’s right to respond to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.
Clinton, during a day of meetings in Jerusalem on her first Middle East visit since taking office, said today that Israel and the U.S. share a common commitment to promoting Palestinian statehood. The inevitability of working toward a two-state solution is inescapable, Clinton said at a news conference after talks with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Clinton aims to reassure Israeli leaders of the Obama administration’s commitment to their country’s security as the U.S. discusses ways to engage Israel’s foes in Iran and presses for renewed Middle East peace efforts. The Israelis and Palestinians would have to resolve contentious issues such as borders and control of Jerusalem, while each side tries to end internal political divisions. Israel’s current support for a Palestinian state may change under the new government that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud Party leader, is trying to assemble. After Livni, Clinton met with Netanyahu, who played down any concerns about disagreement. In the past, Netanyahu has said Palestinians aren’t ready for statehood and suggested Israel try to help strengthen their economy instead. We found a common language for achieving the common goals, Netanyahu said after meeting with Clinton at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. He said the two agreed to meet after a new government is formed and think together creatively to get out of this maze.
Cannot Stand Idly By
Clinton, 61, who arrived in Israel last night, started the day by visiting President Shimon Peres, saying the U.S. understands Israel’s need to respond to attacks from Gaza. There is no doubt that any nation including Israel cannot stand idly by while its territory and people are subjected to rocket attacks,Clinton said. Not long afterwards, Israeli aircraft bombed smuggling tunnels dug underneath the border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the army said in an e-mailed statement. The air strikes were in retaliation for rocket attacks from Gaza on southern Israel during the past few days, the army said.It is important that the U.S. underscore its unshakeable, durable and fundamental support for the state of Israel,Clinton said. Our relationship is more than just one of shared interests. It is one of shared values. President Obama and I look forward to working with Israel’s new government.
Viable State
Clinton came to Jerusalem from Egypt, where the U.S. and international donors sought to bolster Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who controls the West Bank, and undercut the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. Israel fought Hamas two months ago in a 22-day military operation it said was intended to stop rocket attacks. Israel should help its responsible Palestinian partners strengthen their capacity to govern the Palestinian people and move toward a viable state,Clinton said yesterday after the Palestinians secured more than $4.2 billion in pledges at a conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Nobody in Israel wants to control the life of the Palestinians,Peres said after meeting with Clinton.You will find in us a real and sincere partner to prevent and stop terror and achieve peace for all of the people in the Middle East.Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, labeled Clinton’s statements disappointing and said there will be no change in its refusal to recognize Israel and work for its destruction.
Hamas Positions Fixed
The Clinton visit shows that there will be no new U.S. policies toward the region, said Mushier al-Massri, who represents the movement in the Palestine Legislative Council.Hamas’s positions are fixed and cannot be changed, al-Massri said in a phone interview from Gaza. After parting from Peres, Clinton went straight to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance complex. She was escorted by Yisrael Meir Lau, a former Israeli chief rabbi, to a ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance in which she rekindled the eternal flame for the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis and laid a wreath on a crypt of ashes of Holocaust victims. She also walked through a museum at the complex dedicated to the 1.5 million children who died in the Holocaust and signed Yad Vashem’s guest book.Clinton also had meetings scheduled today with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
West Bank Settlements
Clinton will travel to the West Bank city of Ramallah tomorrow for talks with Abbas and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. She praised both yesterday for winning the confidence of donor nations and international organizations in Sharm el-Sheikh.Clinton ducked a question yesterday on whether she would call on Israeli leaders to stop allowing Jewish settlers to build in Palestinian territories. And she reiterated the U.S. goal of an independent Palestinian state while avoiding details on how to get there. We will be discussing specific policies with that new government once it is formed,Clinton said yesterday. To contact the reporters on this story: Viola Gienger in Jerusalem at vgienger@bloomberg.net; Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net.
Leaders pledge billions to rebuild Gaza Jason Koutsoukis, Jerusalem March 4, 2009http://www.theage.com.au/world/leaders-pledge-billions-to-rebuild-gaza-20090303-8ncq.html?page=-1
MORE than 80 kings, presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers from around the world have pledged $US8 billion ($A12.5 billion) in foreign aid to rebuild the Gaza Strip after a conference at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.At the end of the conference, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit read a statement on behalf of participants calling for an immediate, complete and unconditional opening of Israel's crossings with the Gaza Strip.
Leaders unite to rebuild Gaza
World leaders attend a conference in Egypt to discuss the way forward for Gaza and how to bring peace to the Middle East.The statement added the participants considered Palestinian reconciliation and a truce to be necessary conditions to achieve Gaza reconstruction.Israel launched a three-week military assault against Hamas late last year. More than 1200 Gazans were killed and thousands of buildings destroyed.The donors are yet to finalise plans on how to distribute the money without it being used for political purposes by the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — who attended the conference and was due to meet Mr Abbas overnight in the West Bank city of Ramallah — said the US would transfer $US1.6 billion to the Palestinians, with $US470 million to go to Gaza, and $US1 billion to be deposited with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad for development in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel, Iran and Hamas were banned from the conference.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's speech called for the immediate release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who also holds French citizenship and has been held inside the Gaza Strip for almost 1000 days.Mr Abbas used his speech to emphasise that all reconstruction efforts in Gaza would be ineffective without hope of a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and reconciliation between his Fatah party and Hamas.Israeli aggression on Gaza affirmed once again that resorting to force is futile and that there is a need to support peace as outlined by international legitimacy and the (2002) Arab peace initiative,Mr Abbas said.He said there was a need for the US and other nations to revive quickly the peace process, which should lead to the end of the occupation of all Palestinian territories that were occupied in 1967, in order to establish the Palestinian state next to Israel.Mrs Clinton promised to vigorously pursue a two-state peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, and her mention of peace on other fronts suggested the Obama Administration might push for a deal between Israel and Syria.
Later she shook hands and spoke briefly with the Syrian Foreign Minister, Walid al-Moallem, an unscheduled meeting that perhaps suggested warmer relations were coming.
She said the US would send two envoys to Syria. There are a number of issues we have between Syria and the United States as well as the larger regional concerns that Syria obviously poses.They are Jeffrey Feltman, Under Secretary of State for the Middle East, and senior White House official Daniel Shapiro.Mrs Clinton was scheduled to meet Israeli President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu.Israeli media said Mrs Clinton would be told Israel intended to adhere to the peace process. Mr Netanyahu was expected to tell Mrs Clinton that before any step could be taken towards peace with the Palestinians, the issue of Iran had to be resolved. With AFP
Biden heads to Belgium for NATO summit 3/3/2009, 4:18 p.m. EST The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden plans to visit NATO headquarters next week.The White House on Tuesday announced Biden plans to travel to Brussels to meet with NATO's 26 member states. Biden plans to talk with U.S. allies about Afghanistan and Pakistan and report back to President Barack Obama.Biden also plans to meet with the secretary general of NATO, European Union officials and Belgian leaders.
Cardinal says atheist’s theories absurd By Associated Press Tuesday, March 3, 2009
ROME — A Vatican cardinal said today that the Catholic Church does not stand in the way of scientific realities like evolution, though he described as absurd the atheist notion that evolution proves there is no God.Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, reiterated church teaching about faith and science at the start of a Vatican-sponsored conference marking the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species.Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Levada said the Vatican believed there was a wide spectrum of room for belief in both the scientific basis for evolution and faith in God the creator.We believe that however creation has come about and evolved, ultimately God is the creator of all things,he said.He said that while the Vatican did not exclude any area of science, it did reject as absurd the atheist notion of biologist and author Richard Dawkins and others that evolution proves there is no God.Of course we think that’s absurd and not at all proven, he said.But other than that ... the Vatican has recognized that it doesn’t stand in the way of scientific realities.The Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI has been trying to stress its belief that there is no incompatibility between faith and reason, and the five-day conference at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University is a key demonstration of its efforts to engage with the scientific community.
Church teaching holds that Catholicism and evolutionary theory are not necessarily at odds. But the Vatican’s position became somewhat confused in recent years, in part because of a 2005 New York Times [NYT] op-ed piece written by a close Benedict collaborator, Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn.In the piece, Schoenborn seemed to reject traditional church teaching and back intelligent design, the view that life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone, and that a higher power has had a hand in changes among species over time.Vatican officials later made clear they did not believe intelligent design was science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only created confusion.The evolution conference will explore intelligent design later this week, although not as science or theology but as a cultural phenomenon.In his remarks, Levada referred to both Dawkins and the debate over teaching creationism in schools in the United States. He declined to pinpoint the Vatican’s views, saying merely: The Vatican listens and learns.
THESE SCAMMERS TRY ANYTHING AS YOU WILL READ NOW.
bankimoon12@yahoo.com.hk - UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION UNIT, IN AFFILIATION WITH WORLD BANK.Attention: Friend, How are you today? Hope all is well with you and family?, You may not understand why this mail came to you.We have been having a meeting for the passed 7 months which ended 2 days ago with the then secretary to the UNITED NATIONS. This email is to all the people that have been scammed in any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of US$ 500,000. This includes every foreign contractors that may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc.We found your name in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this have been agreed upon and have been signed.You are advised to contact Rev.Dr S K Williams of our paying center in Africa, as he is our representative in Nigeria, contact him immediately for your Cheque/ International Bank Draft of USD$500,000. This funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose ok? so he will send it to you and you can clear it in any bank of your choice.Therefore, you should send him your full Name and telephone number your correct mailing address where you want him to send the Draft to you. Contact Rev.Dr S K Williams immediately for your Cheque:
Person to Contact: Rev.Dr S K Williama
Email: drskwilliams@ubbi.comPhone: +234-8063983125 Thanks and God bless you and your family. Hoping to hear from you as soon as you cash your Bank Draft. Making the world a better place.Regards,Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.http://www.un.org/sg/
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
ASEAN EU TRADE BLOC BY 2015
2 YEARS AGO THE WHOLE WORLDS ECONOMY,ASSETS AND WORTH WERE WORTH A TOTAL OF $60 TRILLION DOLLARS. TODAY ITS WORTH $30 TRILLION,IN 2 YEARS THE WORLD ECONOMIES HAS LOST $30 TRILLION IN RICHES. WE ARE SEEING COLLAPSING OF THE WORLD ECONOMIES AS THE BANKERS BLACKMAIL THEIR GOVERNMENT FOR CASH,THEN BREAK THAT COUNTRY AND BUY UP ALL THE LAND. THE BANKERS THEN AFTER THEY CONTROL EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH WILL FORCE THE WORLD INTO 10 REGIONAL TRADE BLOCS I BELIEVE,LEAD BY 7 LEADING (MOST RICH EUROPEAN BANKS)(PLUS THE VATICAN)AND THE EUROPEAN UNION TOGETHER IN UNITY WILL THEN PLACE THE WORLD INTO A ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT,ONE WORLD ECONOMY AND ONE WORLD RELIGION.AFTER THE BANKERS,VATICAN AND THE EU CONTROL THE WORLD,THEN THE MANDITORY MICROCHIP IMPLANT SYSTEM IMPLIMENTED BY THE EU,VATICAN WILL COME INTO FORCE AND WHOEVER DOES NOT ACCEPT THIS MICROCHIP IMPLANT WILL BE MURDERED. EVERYTHING IS COMING CLEAR NOW HOW THE BIBLE SAYS THROUGH THE ECONOMY THE EU CONTROLS THE WHOLE EARTHS POPULATION.
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
THESE 10 REGIONAL WORLD TRADE BLOCS I BELIEVE WILL ALL BE TOGETHER BY 2011 OR 12 AT THE LATEST.
Southeast Asian countries plan EU-style union by 2015
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today MAR 02,09 @ 09:27 CET
The leaders of ten Southeast Asian countries have signed a declaration to integrate their economies and construct an economic and political union modelled on that of the European Union by 2015.Meeting in Thailand over the weekend for the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the heads of ten Asian countries agreed to the Cha-Am Hua Hin Declaration on the Roadmap for An ASEAN Community (2009-2015). The plan looks to build a single market - although without a euro-style common currency - within six years.Thailand - the disparity of ASEAN economies will make it hard to forge a common market (Photo: Wikipedia)This ASEAN goal is made even more urgent by the global financial crisis, read the 12-page declaration.ASEAN needs to respond effectively to this financial crisis in order to retain its central position in the regional architecture. In this connection, we mandated all ASEAN organs to be guided by and to fully implement the ASEAN Charter.ASEAN, founded in 1967 to replace the Association of Southeast Asia, brings together Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
The region is slightly bigger than the European Union in terms of population, the former being home to around 570 million people and the latter some 500 million, but their economies bear no comparison. ASEAN has a combined annual GDP of €870 billion, while the EU's GDP clocks in at over €12 trillion.Thailand's prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, said the creation of an attractive single market for the region was urgent.The move further develops the bloc's integration, moving a step beyond the charter the nations signed in 2007 that requires consensus amongst all member states for any ASEAN-level actions.The group is also to construct a human rights unit, but the body would be largely toothless, being unable to criticise any abuses occurring in any single country.However, the wide disparities between the different economies in ASEAN makes it difficult to create common standards because our national standards remain so far apart, said finance minister Korn Chatikavanij in an interview, according to Bloomberg news.We've got to be realistic in the kind of goals that we set for 2015, Mr Korn continued.We're not talking about the level of integration that has taken place in the EU.
Celente: U.S. Has Entered The Greatest Depression Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com Tuesday, March 3, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46MEqEgdLTg&eurl=http://www.infowars.com/celente-predicts-revolution-food-riots-tax-rebellions-by-2012/&feature=player_embedded
Trends research analyst Gerald Celente, who has risen in prominence on the back of his deadly accurate economic predictions, says that the collapse of financial markets heralds the start of The Greatest Depression.In his latest Trend Alert bulletin, Celente attacks mainstream pundits who falsely predicted a market bottom and the start of a recovery, noting that conventional analysts have been proven dead wrong again and that, There will be no turn around in the second quarter of 2009 or 2010 or 2011.The global financial system, built on endless supplies of cheap money, rampant speculation, fraud, greed, and delusion is terminally ill and will not be coaxed into remission by stimulus packages nor restored to health by government buyouts and bailouts,writes Celente.The most positive prediction that Celente makes is that the Dow will not reach zero, a tongue in cheek reaction to yesterday’s record plunge which saw the Dow rolled back to 1997 levels well below 7,000.Celente warns that the first signs of real panic are starting to set in, unrest that will cause governments to take draconian measures to prevent total economic collapse and public panic.Expect massive bank failures, runs on banks, and bank holidays, writes Celente. Even if deposits are FDIC insured, quick access to money is by no means assured. At minimum, have reserves on hand for emergencies, he forecasts.
Celente cites gold as one of the few investments that will continue to rise in value, eventually reaching $2,000 an ounce and beyond.Celente’s dire forecasts were initially scoffed at by the media but as the crisis has worsened, his credibility has soared.Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November 2007 that the following year would be known as The Panic of 2008,adding that giants (would) tumble to their deaths, which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others.
Bush administration memos claimed vast war powers
By Neil A. Lewis Published: March 3, 2009
The secret legal opinions issued by Bush administration lawyers after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks included assertions that the president could use the nation's military within the United States to combat people deemed as terrorists and to conduct raids without obtaining a search warrant.That opinion was among nine that were disclosed publicly for the first time Monday by the Justice Department, in what the Obama administration portrayed as a step toward greater transparency. The opinions showed a broad interpretation of presidential authority, asserting as well that the president could unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties, deal with detainees suspected of terrorism while rejecting input from Congress and conduct a warrantless eavesdropping program.Some of the legal positions had previously become known from statements made by Bush administration officials in response to court challenges and congressional inquiries. But the opinions provided the clearest illustration to date of the broad definition of presidential power that was approved by government lawyers, including John Yoo and Jay Bybee, in the months following the Sept. 11 attacks.In a memorandum dated Jan. 15, 2009, just before President George W. Bush left office, a top Justice Department official wrote that the earlier memorandums had not been relied on since 2003. But the official, Stephen Bradbury, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel, said it was important to acknowledge in writing the doubtful nature of these propositions, and he used the memo to formally repudiate the opinions.Bradbury said that the earlier memorandums were the product of lawyers confronting novel and complex questions in a time of great danger and under extraordinary time pressure.
White House takes a team approach on health policy
The opinion authorizing the military to operate on domestic territory was dated Oct. 23, 2001, and written by Yoo, at the time a deputy assistant attorney general, and Robert Delahunty, a special counsel. It was directed to Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked whether Bush could use the military to combat terrorist activities inside the United States.The law has recognized that force (including deadly force) may be legitimately used in self-defense, Yoo and Delahunty wrote to Gonzales. Any objections based on the prohibition against unreasonable searches in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution would vanish, he said, because any privacy offense that comes with such a search would be less than any injury from deadly force.Yoo and Delahunty also said in the Oct. 23 memorandum that First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully. They added that the current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.Yoo said the Posse Comitatus Act, a statute first enacted in 1878 and since renewed, would also not present an obstacle to the use of the armed forces. The Posse Comitatus Act generally forbids the use of military forces in domestic law enforcement.Yoo and Delahunty asserted that the act's prohibition against use of the military was only for law enforcement functions and that using soldiers against terrorist suspects would be a national security function.Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is widely known as the principal author of a 2002 memorandum that critics said authorized torture. The memorandum, signed by Bybee, was repudiated in 2004.The memorandum issued by Bradbury in January appears to have been the Bush lawyers' last effort to reconcile their views with the wide-scale rejection by legal scholars and some Supreme Court opinions of the sweeping assertions of presidential authority made earlier by the Justice Department.
Walter Dellinger, a former head of the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration who was also a law professor at Duke University, said that Bradbury's memo disclaiming the opinions of earlier Bush lawyers sets out in blunt detail how irresponsible those earlier opinions were.He said it was important that it was now widely recognized that the earlier assertions that Congress had absolutely no role in these national security issues was contrary to constitutional text, historical practice and judicial precedent.Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said Monday morning before the release of the documents: Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties. Not only is that thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good.
Holder said that the memorandums were being released in light of the legitimate and substantial public interest.One of the opinions, issued in March 2002, suggests that Congress lacks any power to limit a president's authority to transfer detainees to other countries. Other memorandums say that Congress has no authority to intervene in the president's determination of the treatment of detainees, a proposition that has since been invalidated by the Supreme Court.Bradbury's memo repudiating these views said that it was not sustainable to argue that the president's power as commander in chief precludes Congress from enacting any legislation concerning the detention, interrogation, prosecution and transfer of enemy combatants.
Upcoming Swedish EU presidency launches logo
VALENTINA POP Today MAR 02,09 @ 17:40 CET
EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS – Sweden's Europe minister, Cecilia Malmstrom, on Monday (2 March) presented the logo of the upcoming Swedish EU presidency as climate change and the financial crisis are set to dominate Stockholm's agenda in the second half of 2009.With the Copenhagen UN conference on climate change taking place in December, the Swedish presidency is due to begin preparations for a new global agreement on emissions reduction one of its key priorities, Lisa Dahlen Jonsson, press officer with the Swedish permanent representation to the EU, told this website.
The 27 member states take it in turns to chair the six-month presidency of the bloc, which in practical terms means organising all the ministerial and top-level meetings as well as the day-to-day agenda of the EU.Other priorities are still being worked upon, with an official launch expected later this spring, before Stockholm takes over the helm of the EU. On 1 July, the current Czech EU presidency will end its mandate.Climate, light, down-to-earth, as well as transparency and dialogue were some of the key words used in working on the logo.Unlike previous EU presidencies that used the national top-level domain name of their countries, the Swedish EU presidency will use the .eu domain. However, the .se adress will also guide the user to the presidency website, Ms Jonsson added.The Swedish diplomacy was bracing itself for the institutional uncertainty due to the Lisbon Treaty, according to the government's website. Stockholm will also have to work with a newly elected European Parliament and supervise the nomination of a new EU commission, which is to take on its mandate on 1 November. Before that date [31 October], the governments of member states must agree on the individuals who are to be nominated for the post of president and members of the commission, the website reads.The Swedish government is to allocate €77 million for its turn at the EU presidency. So far, the French EU presidency has been by far the most lavish one, spending some €190 million. The current Czech EU presidency has a budget of €124.5 million.
Financial regulation agreement
Another issue of importance for the Swedish EU presidency will be the overhaul of the international financial system. Speaking to Reuters last Thursday, financial minister Mats Odell said that a deal in this regard could be possible in the second half of this year.Sweden believed it had gained useful experience from its own banking crisis in the early 1990s and saw the current market turmoil as a golden opportunity for achieving EU-wide rules, Odell said.The report on supervision presented last week by a group headed by former Bank of France Governor Jacques de Larosiere, sets out a two-phase process towards reforming institutional supervision and would entail some loss of regulatory control by the 27 EU capitals. I think there are favourable political conditions for this, because citizens expect politicians on a European level to get together and prevent future crises like the one we are seeing now, Mr Odell told Reuters after meeting EU commissioner for internal market Charlie McCreevy to discuss the report.
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.
Northeast pounded by snowy late-winter storm By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer MAR 02,09
NEW YORK – A massive late winter snowstorm pummeled the Northeast on Monday, grounding hundreds of flights, causing spinouts on highways, delaying trains and buses and closing school for over a million children from South Carolina to Maine.
The same storm hammered the Southeast on Sunday as it made its way north, blanketing Civil War statues and canceling hundreds of church services around the region.By Monday, the storm was dumping snow on Maine, and most areas in the storm's wake expected to see at least 8 to 12 inches of accumulation.The blizzard-like snow — together with sleet, freezing rain and wind gusts of up to 30 mph — contributed to four deaths on roads in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and on New York's Long Island.
An accident caused a 15-mile-long traffic jam in North Carolina, where as much as a foot of snow fell, and prompted police and rescuers to go car-to-car Monday to check on the stranded motorists.The storm was blamed for 350 crashes in New Jersey between Sunday night and Monday morning, state police Sgt. Stephen Jones said. Most were spinouts and cars hitting guardrails, he said.On New York's Long Island, high winds caused 2-foot snow drifts on highways in the town of Southampton.In New York City, about 7 inches of snow was recorded at Central Park by Monday morning.New Yorkers expressed characteristic resilience, struggling to get to work and appointments, and patching together child care arrangements.Diane Lugo, 29, of Yonkers, had to leave her two children with her mother-in-law rather than drive them to day care. She got a ride with her husband to avoid trudging 10 minutes in the slush to her bus stop.
Getting out of the driveway was pure hell, Lugo said in Manhattan, where she works as a college admissions coordinator.Outside the Sound Shore Medical Center in New Rochelle, N.Y., Emilia Rescigna struggled to push a stroller through the snow and slush. In the stroller, asleep under a plastic tent, was her 1-year-old son Adam, who had a 9 a.m. appointment with his pediatrician.I called the doctor's office last night and this morning, to see if the appointment was still on, but no one was in, said Rescigna, a Bronx resident. After all this they better not tell me I have to come back.At the three major airports serving New York City, more than 900 flights were canceled — a majority of all flights at Kennedy, Newark and LaGuardia, according to the Port Authority. Most flights in and out of Boston's Logan International Airport were scrubbed, and the airport shut down for about 40 minutes to clear a runway. Philadelphia International Airport spokeswoman Phyllis VanIstendahl said about 44 people were stranded there overnight.Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport remained open Monday, although a number of flights were canceled or delayed. Spokesman Jonathan Dean didn't have numbers on cancellations.In downtown Boston, pedestrians negotiated slushy sidewalks and streets ankle-deep in snow as cars struggled past.Anderson Francois, 27, of Boston, was waiting for a bus and said he prepared for the snow by doubling up on socks and wearing pajama pants under his jeans.You've still got to go where you got to go, said Francois. I'm always ready for stuff like this.But Dave Richardson, 30, of Salem, didn't think the storm was such a big deal.
This is New England, after all.
More than 10 inches of snow was on the ground in southern New Jersey by 7 a.m. Monday, while South Carolina was dealing with 8 inches. Delaware had up to 9 inches by late Monday morning. Greyhound and Peter Pan bus lines canceled trips affecting travelers in and out of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Schools from North Carolina to Maine gave children a snow day. Public schools in Philadelphia and Boston did the same. In New York City, 1.1 million public school students got a snow day; the last time that happened was Jan. 28, 2004.In Fairfax, Va., Sarah Conforti, 8, said Monday's day off was just what she'd been hoping for, and planned to make a snowman or play in the snow with my friends,she said. Her mother, Noelle Conforti, said Sarah and her 10-year-old sister couldn't be happier about the school-free day. The kids are against the window, just looking out the window like a cat, she said. It's hilarious.Commuter trains in Boston and New York had some delays during the morning rush. Transportation officials in the Philadelphia area said the rush hour wasn't bad considering the slippery conditions. Amy Ledger, 30, was among many who braved the snow to attend the annual Philadelphia Flower Show, an indoor exhibition that provided a fragrant, spring-like respite from the blustery snow and wind. Ledger and two friends took the train in from Lancaster, where they said there was only about an inch of snow on the ground early Monday morning. It got progressively snowier on the hour-long ride east. At one point, we couldn't even see out the train window, said Ledger, of Bethlehem. It was really coming down.
Once at the show, winter seemed to melt away as the trio wandered past yellow daffodils, crimson azaleas and white tulips. I'm ready for spring, said Mindy Schlott, 29, of Ephrata, Pa. In New Hampshire, where snow was falling at up to an inch per hour, Transportation Department spokesman Bill Boynton said plow crews were having trouble keeping up.In Maryland, strong winds were complicating cleanup efforts as gusts were blowing just-plowed snow right back onto roads, said Lora Rakowski, a spokeswoman with the State Highway Administration. In Virginia, about 120,000 customers were without electricity, including tens of thousands in the Richmond metropolitan area. In North Carolina, more than 100,000 customers were without power early Monday. In South Carolina, there were nearly 80,000 outages.
Thousands more were without power in southern Maryland, the Washington, D.C.-area, and central Jersey. I thought it was over, New Yorker Clarissa Arroyo said of the winter weather. But it's not.Associated Press writers Frank Eltman on Long Island, N.Y.; Jim Fitzgerald in Westchester County; Ula Ilnytzky, Tom McElroy and Amy Westfeldt in New York City; Daniel Yee and Christina Almeida in Atlanta; Rodrique Ngowi in Boston; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; Bruce Shipkowski and Samantha Henry in Trenton, N.J.; Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia; Kamala Lane in Washingtonand correspondant Matt Small in Washington contributed to this report.
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
SPECIAL CONFERENCE MAR 23-24,2009,ALL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS WILL BE THERE,ALL THE EU MEMBERS WILL BE THERE,AND THE G-20 WILL BE THERE.THIS SAME GROUP OF EU,BANKERS,G-20 WILL ALSO BE IN LONDON IN APRIL TO LAY PLANS FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER,ESPECIALLY THE G-20.https://futurefinance.wsj.com/index.php
HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS TUE MAR 03,2009
09:30 AM +26.13
10:00 AM +43.17
10:30 AM +44.69
11:00 AM +20.39
11:30 AM -11.78
12:00 PM -32.17
12:30 PM +28.80
01:00 PM -19.83
01:30 PM -20.15
02:00 PM -1.11
02:30 PM +43.97
03:00 PM +85.39
03:30 PM -13.22
04:00 PM -37.27 6726.02
S&P 500 696.33 -4.49
NASDAQ 1321.01 -1.84
GOLD 916.00 -24.00
OIL 41.45 +1.28
TSE 300 7631.62 -55.89
CDNX 824.07 -4.17
S&P/TSX/60 459.93 -1.68
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -22.94%
S&P -22.41%
Nasdaq -16.12%
TSX Advances 290,declines 1,284,unchanged 242,Volume 2,573,048,216.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 271,Declines 511,Unchanged 434,Volume 179,052,551.
Dow +74 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -47 points at low today.
Dow +84 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $926.30.OIL opens at $41.67 today.
BERNANKE FUMBLES HIS WAY THROUGH QUESTIONS THIS MORNING.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -47 points at low today so far.
Dow +84 points at high today so far.
GEITHER TRYS TO TALK ABOUT THE SO CALLED BUDGET PLAN(3 TRILLION BANK MONEY GRAB)
DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 1,052,declines 2,662,unchanged 109,New Highs 13,New Lows 813.
Volume 3,455,797,216.
NASDAQ Advances 968,declines 1,619,unchanged 156,New highs 4,New Lows 429.
Volume 869,879,529.
TSX Advances 393,declines 883,unchanged 254,Volume 1,068,744,329.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 206,Declines 308,Unchanged 248,Volume 69,553,199.
INSIDE THE T.A.L.F
-Begins with $200 BILLION of Financing from FED.
-$20 BILLION from TREASURY (TARP).
-Securitized credit card,Auto,student and small biz loans.
-to be expanded to $1 TRILLION,include CMBS and private - label MBS.
-First funds disbursed march 25th,for deals originated in MARCH.
-Interest rates range from 50-100 BP over LIBOR.
-Runs through DEC.2009,can be extended.
FEDERAL BUDGET (DETAILS)
-$1.75 TRILLION deficit in fiscal year 2009.
-$3.6 TRILLION in spending in fiscal year 2010.
-$635 BILLION for Health Care.
-$250 BILLION for Bank Aid.
-$130 BILLION for IRAQ/AFGHANISTAN wars.
INSIDE THE CONSUMER (Current levels of Debt/GDP):
-Over 90%
-10 Years ago it was 60%.
-Implies a needed reduction of $4.5 TRILLION in Consumer Debt.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -59 points at low today.
Dow +89 points at high today.
Dow -0.55% today Volume 445,283,252.
Nasdaq -0.14% today Volume 2,147,483,648.
S&P 500 -0.64% today Volume N/A
RECORD LOWS DOW
-Sept 30,1996 5,882.17
-Oct 30,1996 5,993.23
-Nov 6,1996 6,177.71
-Dec 16,1996 6,268.35
-Apr 15,1997 6,587.16
-Apr 21,1997 6,660.21
-Apr 28,1997 6,783.02
-May 1,1997 6,976.48
-May 7,1997 7,085.65
RECORD LOWS S&P 500
-Sept 5,1996 649.44
-Sept 6,1996 655.68
-Sept 11,1996 667.28
-Sept 12,1996 671.13
-Oct 1,1996 689.08
-Oct 28,1996 697.26
-Nov 4,1996 706.73
-Nov 5,1996 714.14
-Dec 17,1996 726.04
EU COMMISSION ON MAR 1,09 PRESS CONFERENCE,MINI SUMMITT
http://video.consilium.europa.eu/index.php?pl=3&sessionno=2152&lang=EN
Canada fourth-quarter GDP slides most since 1991 By Louise Egan – Mon Mar 2, 11:35 am ET
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada's economy shrank more in the fourth quarter of 2008 than at any time since 1991, confirming the country is now in recession, and reinforcing expectations of a central bank interest rate cut on Tuesday.Statistics Canada said on Monday the economy contracted at an annualized rate of 3.4 percent in the quarter as the global financial crisis bit into exports and curtailed consumer and business spending.It was the worst performance since the 5.9 percent contraction in the first quarter of 1991, which marked the end of the country's last recession.Still, the result was slightly better than market expectations for a 3.6 percent downturn, giving the Canadian dollar a boost.The report officially marks a recession, said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.It's almost as bad as expected. Most areas of spending were down, outside of government, he said.But the result was worse than the 2.3 percent decline projected by the Bank of Canada and market players expect the bank will see fit to chop another half point off its key interest rate on Tuesday to a record low of 0.5 percent.In our opinion, a 50-basis-point cut is still by far the most likely outcome tomorrow, said Eric Lascelles, chief economics and rates strategist at TD Securities.The central bank has reduced its overnight rate by 350 basis points since December 2007, and although most market dealers expect a cut this week, most also see the bank nearing the end of its rate-cutting campaign.The Canadian dollar firmed immediately against the U.S. dollar after the data from a three-month low. Markets had been bracing for the worst after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty hinted at a substantive decline in GDP in remarks to the media before the data was released.At 11 a.m. the currency was at C$1.2872 to the U.S. dollar, or 77.69 U.S. cents, up from a pre data level of C$1.2889 to the U.S. dollar, or 77.59 U.S. cents.
RETURN TO DEFICIT
Compared with the third quarter, gross domestic product declined 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter.Growth for the year fell to 0.5 percent from 2.7 percent in 2007. Statscan revised its third-quarter annualized growth estimate to 0.9 percent from 1.3percent.Nominal GDP, a key indicator for determining tax revenues, fell 3.5 percent, or 13.4 percent annualized, in the fourth quarter. That was the largest decline since at least 1961, Statscan officials said. The slide was partly due to the decline in oil and metals prices in the period.The nominal GDP signals the return to government budget deficits in 2009 after 11 straight years of surplus, a development already well flagged by Flaherty.The quarterly report revealed wide-ranging weakness in the economy, including a collapse of personal spending after 13 years of expansion.The volume of both exports and imports fell in the quarter at the fastest rate in 26 years. Business investment in machinery and equipment plummeted, as did investment in housing.And economists see an even worse scenario for the first quarter of this year. The Bank of Canada projects first-quarter 2009 GDP to contract much more sharply, by 4.8 percent, followed by another slide in the second quarter before returning to growth in the second half of the year. Guatieri of BMO Capital Markets expects a bleaker outcome. We look for an even bigger decline in the current quarter. For the first quarter we're looking at a decline of 5.7 percent annualized -- a pretty hefty drop,he said.(Additional reporting by Toronto Treasury team; Editing by Peter Galloway)
AIG posts $61.7B 4Q loss, bailout is restructured By IEVA M. AUGSTUMS, AP Business Writer – Mon Mar 2, 11:18 am ET
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – American International Group Inc., once the world's largest insurer, said Monday it lost $61.7 billion in the fourth quarter, the biggest quarterly loss in U.S. corporate history, amid continued financial market turmoil.
The results come as the U.S. government announced a restructuring of a bailout plan for the troubled insurer, extending $30 billion in additional aid to the company.
New York-based AIG said it lost $22.95 per share in the last three months of 2008. It lost $5.3 billion, or $2.08 per share, in the same quarter a year ago.Revenue fell to negative $23.8 billion, as the company had to reverse gains it recorded from investments in past quarters.The latest results include $7.2 billion in unrealized losses and credit valuation adjustments at AIG Financial Products, the source of credit-default swaps, and pretax losses of $21.6 billion tied to the declining value of AIG's investment portfolio.AIG's general insurance business swung to a loss on $2.8 billion in net realized capital losses. General insurance net premiums dropped 16.3 percent to $9.2 billion, and net premiums earned fell 5.9 percent to nearly $11 billion.Adjusted to exclude certain items, operating losses totaled $37.9 billion, or $14.17 per share, versus a loss of $3.2 billion, or $1.25 per share, last year.
The results fell drastically short of estimates. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, on average, forecast a loss of 37 cents per share on revenue of $24.82 billion. Analysts have been dropping coverage of AIG in recent weeks due to the uncertainty of AIG's future.Its shares rose 6 cents to 48 cents in morning trading but are down from $51.47 on Feb. 28, 2008 and have lost nearly all of their value since the market meltdown began in September.We have made meaningful progress in addressing liquidity issues related to AIG Financial Products and our securities lending activities and have announced several divestitures, AIG chairman and chief executive Edward Liddy said in a statement. However, the economy and capital markets remain in turmoil and we are taking additional steps to preserve the value of our businesses and maximize the ultimate proceeds for the benefit of all stakeholders, including taxpayers.The government's new financial assistance to AIG includes providing the troubled company another $30 billion on an as needed basis.In an interview on NBC's Today show Monday morning, Liddy, said: We're going to be able to pay back the Federal Reserve. The new $30 billion is a stand-by line. It's not necessarily something that we think we'll have to draw on right away.The Federal Reserve said Monday it will also take stakes in two international units.Instead of paying back $38 billion in cash with interest that it has used from a Federal Reserve credit line, AIG now will repay that amount with equity stakes in Asia-based American International Assurance Co. and American Life Insurance Co., which operates in 50 countries.AIG also announced plans to spin off part of its property-casualty business, to be renamed AIU Holdings Inc.It marked the fourth time the government has stepped in to help AIG. Its initial lifeline came in September. The action was announced jointly early Monday by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.
The new package is designed to enhance the company's capital and liquidity to facilitate the orderly completion of the company's global divestiture program, the agencies said.They said the company continues to face significant challenges due to the rapid deterioration in certain financial markets in the last two months of the year. The additional resources will help stabilize the company and in doing so help stabilize the financial system,the agencies said. AIG has been forced to seek more help in part because of the ongoing recession and its falling stock price, now well under $1. Among its biggest problems: It can't sell assets to pay back government loans because the credit crisis is preventing would-be buyers from getting financing to complete such deals.As of Feb. 13, AIG had sold interests in nine businesses. In November, the U.S. government restructured previous loans provided to AIG, giving the company about $150 billion in total as part of a rescue package to help the insurer remain in business amid the worsening credit crisis. That package replaced earlier loans, including the original $85 billion lent in September, after it became apparent the insurer needed more funds. Problems at AIG did not come from its traditional insurance operations, but instead from its financial services units, and primarily its business insuring mortgage-backed securities and other risky debt against default.
Our insurance policy holders, they're in good shape. They're secure, they're protected, Liddy said in the Today show interview. It's all the other ancillary businesses that are causing this. And it's the decline in asset values around the globe.For the full year, AIG lost $99.3 billion, or $37.84 per share, compared with a proft of $6.2 billion, or $2.39 per share, a year earlier. Total revenue fell 89.9 percent to $11.1 billion from $110.1 billion a year ago.
Weak economic data ups pressure for ECB rate cut
ANDREW WILLIS Today @ 09:32 CET
The European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to cut interest rates when its governing council meets on Thursday (5 March) following the release of more weak economic data on the European economy. New figures released by the EU's statistics office, Eurostat, last Friday show unemployment in the 16-country euro area has reached 8.2 percent, the highest level for two years, following the loss of over a quarter of a million jobs in January. Unemployment is a clear concern right now in many parts of the euro area,ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet said in Dublin last week.Labour-market reforms are very important to counteract the economic downturn and limit its negative impact on employment.Asked whether the ECB will cut the rate by 50 or 25 basis point in March, Mr Trichet said the first figure is more likely.Eurostat figures also showed that inflation for the area fell by a record amount in January, down from 1.6 to a paltry 1.1 percent, well below the ECB's desired target of below, but close to two per cent.Inflation figures for the EU27 fell to 1.7 percent.
Analysts expect the central bank to react to the bad news by cutting interest rates by 0.5 percent when they meet on Thursday. Euro area interest rates are currently at two percent following steep cuts since the financial crisis started last autumn.
Eurostat now estimates that over 13 million people are unemployed in the euro area, with the highest unemployment rates recorded in Spain on 14.8 percent and the lowest in the Netherlands with 2.8 percent. The January figures amounted to the tenth consecutive month of rising unemployment in the euro area, as employers cut jobs in the face of falling consumer demand. The EU27 fared little better, with unemployment rising 0.1 percent in January to reach 7.6 percent. Falling commodity prices such as oil have contributed to the dramatic drop in inflation, which only last summer hit record highs of 4.0 percent. The ECB expects inflation to continue to fall until the middle of this year, before gradually starting to increase again. They are adamant however that such a decline does not signal a deflationary spiral. In the UK, where interest rates are already as low as one percent, the independent Bank of England will take the exceptional measure this week of buying corporate and government debt in a last-ditch attempt to boost the economy.
Wall Street tumbles anew as financials slide By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer MAR 02,09
NEW YORK – Investors' despair about financial companies and the recession have brought the Dow Jones industrial average to another unwanted milestone: its first drop below 7,000 in more than 11 years.The market's slide Monday wasn't nowhere near the largest is has seen since last fall, but the tumble below 7,000 was nonetheless painful. The credit crisis and recession have slashed more than half of the average's value since it hit a record high over 14,000 in October 2007. And now many investors fear the market could take a long time to regain the lost 7,000.We do feel that things can improve but it is going to be years before we get back to levels we saw in the markets a year ago, said David Chalupnik, head of equities at First American Funds.Monday's move below the milepost came as insurer American International Group Inc. posted a staggering $61.7 billion in quarterly losses and as the government agreed to inject more money into the company. AIG will get another $30 billion in loans, on top of the $150 billion the government has already invested.
Investors also grew fearful that more banks will have to raise capital and risk depleting the value of the existing shares after HSBC PLC, Europe's largest bank by market value, said it needs to raise $17.7 billion. The company reported a 70 percent drop in 2008 earnings and said it would cut 6,100 jobs.The fresh anxiety over hard-hit financial stocks pushed the blue chips below 7,000 for the first time since Oct. 28, 1997 and then below 6,900 for the first time since May 1, 1997.As bad as things are, they can still get worse, and get a lot worse, said Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist for Bell Curve Trading. Strazzullo said he believes there's a significant chance the S&P 500 and the Dow will fall back to their 1995 levels of 500 and 5,000, respectively.The game-changer, he said, will be the housing market and whether it can stabilize.In midafternoon trading, the Dow fell 214.89, or 3 percent, to 6,848.04. The Dow last closed below the 7,000 level on May 1, 1997.
Broader stock indicators also slid. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 25.15, or 3.4 percent, to 709.94, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 40.15, or 2.9 percent, to 1,337.69.The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 15.66, or 4 percent, to 373.36.About 10 stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to a moderate 1.16 billion shares.Bond prices jumped as stocks fell. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, tumbled to 2.91 percent from 3.02 percent late Friday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, slipped to 0.24 percent from 0.25 percent Friday.The dollar rose against most other major currencies, while gold prices fell.Light, sweet crude fell $4.40 to $40.36 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.Mixed economic readings on Monday did little to dislodge a sense in the market that the economy's slide isn't slowing. Personal spending rose 0.6 percent in January and incomes rose 0.4 percent, while construction spending fell 3.3percent, more than twice as much as economists expected. Manufacturing contracted in February for the 13th straight month, but at a slower pace than expected.I don't think we find a bottom in the market until we see some sort of increased level of optimism and confidence among consumers and investors, said Jim Baird, chief investment strategist at Plante Moran Financial Advisors.Analysts are looking for indications in the economic numbers that businesses and consumers are starting to boost spending after making big cutbacks in the fall. But the economic readings are so alarming it weighs on sentiment. I don't think we find a bottom in the market until we see some sort of increased level of optimism and confidence among consumers and investors,said Baird. Last week the Dow and the S&P 500 index fell below their Nov. 20-21 lows, reached at the height of the credit crisis. Many traders had hoped would mark the market's low. The economy definitely has deteriorated since November, said Sean Simko, head of fixed income management at SEI Investments. It's just the fact that we haven't seen signs of improving or stabilizing, per se, which is adding to the morass of the market.Even big name investors are sounding a cautious note. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett wrote in his annual letter to investors Saturday he is sure the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 — and, for that matter, probably well beyond — but that conclusion does not tell us whether the stock market will rise or fall.Investors try to look beyond the news of the day and place bets on what their expectations are. But that has been difficult with the economic news so grim and so little indication of when the housing market might stabilize and help banks that have been by bad mortgage debt.
In the last 60 years, the S&P 500 index reached its bottom about five months before a recession ended and nine months before corporate profits reached their low or unemployment hit its peak. The market could recover before the economy starts picking up steam but investors will need some sense that the worst is over. That was hard to come by Monday. The market didn't even see the panic selling that can signal a bottom is emerging but instead continued its grind downward. Most financials suffered again Monday. AIG was an exception, rising 4 cents, or 8.8 percent, to 46 cents a share after the government pledged the latest round of money. HSBC Holdings fell $6.50, or 18.9 percent, to $28.30. Other financials also fell sharply. Bank of America Corp. fell 10 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $3.85. Even banks that investors consider to be in better shape took hits. JPMorgan Chase & Co. slid $1.03, or 4.5 percent, to $21.82. Wells Fargo & Co. fell 80 cents, or 6.6 percent, to $11.30.
Overseas, Britain's FTSE 100 tumbled 5.3 percent, Germany's DAX index fell 3.5 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 4.5 percent. Japan's Nikkei stock average dropped 3.8 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 3.9 percent. On the Net: New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com
EU leaders paper over divisions on economic crisis
HONOR MAHONY 01.03.2009 @ 20:25 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Just hours after the European Commission approved a French car aid plan, EU leaders on Sunday (1 March) sought to put a lid on damaging divisions in the bloc on how to deal with the financial crisis by saying that none of its member states is being protectionist.We agreed that there is no case that we see as protectionist, said Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek, who called the informal gathering of EU leaders to discuss the threat of protectionism.Downplaying the public spat between Paris and Prague sparked by French comments against car companies relocating to eastern Europe, the Czech leader added: We agreed that this is rather more a media thing than reality.The summit had been called on the back of rising fears that internal market rules would be breached as countries sought to protect industries, particularly the car sector, from haemorrhaging jobs. Bullish talk by Mr Sarkozy in the run-up to the summit on his right to protect industry had led to tension around the EU. But the heat was taken out of the summit after a u-turn by the French government relaxing some of the conditions for its €6 billion car industry aid plan, meaning the European Commission could give its approval to the plan just ahead of the summit.
Bad word - bad idea
After Sunday's meeting French president Sarkozy told reporters that protectionism was a bad word and a bad idea.Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, who chaired a pre-summit gathering of nine central and eastern European states said: Everybody without exception agreed that protectionism is not a cure for the crisis. We also reached agreement that the EU will jointly try to stabilise currencies, no matter how many countries are in the eurozone.European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso noted that it was very clearly stated that the internal market is the engine for recovery.There was also a concerted effort to stop talk of an east-west divide as richer member states look to spend their way out of the crisis.Mr Barroso stressed that each country has to be looked at on its own merits and that the region could not be viewed as a homogenous whole, while Czech prime minister Topolanek said: I think it is clear that the EU is going to leave nobody in the lurch.
No bailout for eastern Europe
However, a push by the new member states to speed up the procedure for entering the eurozone as a way of helping them cope with the economic crisis was rejected by other EU member states. A proposal by Hungary to set up a fund of at least €160 billion for central and eastern European countries was also turned down.German chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the need for a one-size-fits-all bailout, saying the situation in Hungary - which has been hard hit by the global credit crisis - cannot be directly compared to other countries in the region.The final statement of the summit says that protectionism is no answer to the current crisis and has a line saying that support for parent banks should not imply any restrictions on the activities of subsidiaries in the EU host countries. Eastern member states fear that if parent banks in western countries get into financial trouble they could withdraw capital from their daughter banks in eastern Europe.Although diplomats said there was a harmonious atmosphere around the table, little of substance was agreed.
Business group Eurochambres complained about the results of the meeting, saying there were no tangible actions.This summit was yet another rather unproductive political showpiece, bringing no concrete solutions to the dramatic economic situation and showing a worrying lack of economic co-ordination among member states. We deeply hope that the spring European Council will do better in a couple weeks time,said secretary general Arnaldo Abruzzini.EU leaders are due to meet for their regular spring meeting on 19-20 March.
Egypt FM: $5.2 billion pledged at Gaza conference By SALAH NASRAWI and JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writers MAR 02,09
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – International donors pledged $5.2 billion to rebuild the devastated Gaza Strip and boost the Palestinian president at a conference Monday, and they urged the Palestinians to end their divisions and revive the peace process with Israel.Still to be determined is how the money will be distributed. Most international donors won't funnel money directly to the Islamic militants of Hamas that rule Gaza. And lack of a formal cease-fire between Israel and Hamas has kept Gaza's borders sealed to most aid shipments.The conference gathered the presidents of Egypt and France, the U.N. chief and top diplomats from 45 nations — including Hillary Rodham Clinton in her first Mideast trip as U.S. secretary of state — in a high-profile attempt to show international support for reconstruction after Israel's crippling offensive against Hamas.But the broader message was that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his rivals in Hamas must resolve their dispute and form a government that can move ahead with rebuilding in Gaza and return to the negotiating table with Israel.British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned there will be only limited physical reconstruction without political reconstruction and stressed that Palestinians need a single government across the Occupied Territories —a direct appeal for rival Palestinian factions to hammer out a unity government.
Clinton issued a blunt call for urgent action to forge a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.We cannot afford more setbacks or delays — or regrets about what might have been, had different decisions been made, she said in apparent reference to the failure of previous peace initiatives, including those pushed vigorously by her husband's administration.The 80 nations and international organizations at Monday's gathering in this Red Sea resort pledged $5.2 billion, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters. Most of that amount — $4.48 billion — was in new pledges, with the remainder made up of previous, unfulfilled pledges that donors recommitted to giving, he said.Aboul Gheit said the figure is beyond of our expectations.Palestinian Planning Minister Samir Abdullah said the money is earmarked for humanitarian aid to Gaza, rebuilding in the territory and budget support to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority led by Abbas. He could not immediately say how much was going to each fund.The biggest donor is Saudi Arabia, at $1 billion, followed by the United States, which promised $900 million. A third of the U.S. pledge was for humanitarian aid to Gaza and the rest to assist the Palestinian Authority.Control of the funds is a key question. The international community refuses to negotiate with Gaza's militant Hamas rulers, considered a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and Israel. Hamas was not invited to the conference in this Red Sea resort. But Abbas' government has little presence in Gaza after being driven out by Hamas in 2007.In a significant move, Arab Persian Gulf nations — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait — pledged $1.6 billion, but bypassed both Hamas and Abbas. The gulf nations said in a statement they would set up a joint office in Gaza to carry out reconstruction on their own, deciding on projects and implementing them.They may be trying to signal to Hamas that the gulf nations are not favoring Abbas, hoping to encourage the militant group to moderate and reconcile with the Palestinian Authority.Karen AbuZayd, the head of the U.N. aid agency for Palestinian refugees, told The Associated Press that many donor nations had discussed possibly using the United Nations as an alternative route to avoid the sticky issue of who controls the funds.
Certain donors have come forward to ask, and some of the regional parties as well have thought that perhaps the U.N. could do more than what it's doing or what is its mandate, she said.Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned in opening remarks to the gathering that the donors' pledges should not be treated as spoils of war — a message to rival Palestinian factions not to squabble over the funds.He also said reconstruction will depend on reaching a long-term truce between Hamas and Israel, which Egypt is trying to mediate, and the opening of Gaza's border crossings, which have been largely closed by Egypt and Israel since Hamas seized control of the territory. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said responsible Palestinians should seek peace with Israel and said a prisoner exchange by Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, held by Gaza militants since June 2006, is a priority. Israel has demanded Schalit's release as part of any truce deal. You must admit that there is no other road to the creation of a Palestinian state but to engage resolutely in searching for a political solution and engage in a dialogue with Israel, Sarkozy said in a clear message to the militant group. Abbas asked participants to adopt the reconstruction plan of his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, describing it as a national comprehensive development plan. He promised reconstruction would be based on transparency and justice.Fayyad prepared a 53-page plan for donors, including detailed damage assessments. For example, fixing war damage to infrastructure and homes would cost $501 million, according to the plan, which says 4,036 homes were destroyed and 11,514 damaged. Hamas spokesmen Fawzi Barhoum sought to dispel fears his group was trying to grab funds but also said the donations shouldn't be channeled through Abbas. He urged the conference to work out meaningful mechanisms to get money directly to Gazans without going into the internal Palestinian political differences.Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City contributed to this report.
Clinton calls for action to forge Mideast peace By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writer MAR 02,09
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that Israel cannot just sit and take rockets from Gaza terrorizing its citizens as she stressed the Obama administration's commitment to finding a peaceful existence for Israelis and Palestinians.On her first foray into Middle East diplomacy, Clinton used an international donors conference to issue a blunt call for urgent action to forge a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. She also signaled a possible warming in U.S. relations with Syria after several years of division.With the Obama administration's Mideast peace envoy, George Mitchell, seated behind her at a conference meant to raise billions to help the Gaza Strip recover from its recent war with Israel, Clinton said President Barack Obama would continue the Bush administration's focus on seeking a two-state solution that involves Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state coexisting in peace.She made it clear, however, that Mideast leaders could count on Obama to take a more active approach than did his predecessor, George W. Bush.It is time to look ahead, she said, with an eye on the human aspects of what years of regional conflict have meant for the Palestinians and others.The United States is committed to a comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and we will pursue it on many fronts, she said.The former New York senator and one-time first lady told the gathering: I have to confess I am troubled by the continuing rocket attacks coming out of Gaza. She added that Israel cannot just sit and take rockets falling on its people.The Sharm el-Sheik conference was called in the aftermath of the Gaza crisis, which remains in danger of heating up. Israel ended its air and ground assault meant to halt rocket fire coming from Gaza about six weeks ago with a shaky cease-fire by both sides. Some 1,300 Palestinians — at least half of them civilians — and 13 Israelis died in the three-week offensive, officials have said.Militants have continued to fire rockets sporadically into southern Israel, triggering retaliatory airstrikes.Asked if a peaceful settlement was possible by year's end, Clinton indicated that the process will take a long time.I personally am very committed to this. I know that it can be done. I believe that with all my heart, she said, avoiding any timetable.
In a sign of a possible warming of relations with Syria, Clinton also shook hands and spoke briefly with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem. They were not scheduled to meet but encountered each other during the daylong conference at this Red Sea resort, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.Washington withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in 2005 to protest Syria's suspected role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus denied involvement in his death, but in the uproar that followed, it was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, ending a 29-year military presence.Clinton declined to discuss the specifics of her discussion but said: In consultation with our friends and allies, our partners, we are reaching out to determine what, if any, areas of cooperation and engagement are possible, and that includes with respect to Syria.
Clinton, who is scheduled to travel this week to Jerusalem to consult with Israeli government officials and to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian officials, said the United States was pledging $900 million to the international aid effort for the Gaza Strip. She gave no breakdown of the funds, but her spokesman, Robert A. Wood, said on Sunday that it included $300 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza and about $600 million in budget and development aid to the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank.We cannot afford more setbacks or delays — or regrets about what might have been, had different decisions been made, she said in apparent reference to the failure of previous peace initiatives, including those pushed vigorously by her husband's administration.Clinton conducted a rapid-fire series of one-on-one meetings with Arab and other counterparts attending the conference. In an afternoon session with the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, she expressed doubt that Iran would respond to Obama administration diplomatic overtures, according to a U.S. official who was present in the meeting. The official described the exchange for reporters on condition of anonymity because the session was private.Clinton also met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and she attended a meeting of the so-called Quartet of international mediators — the U.S., the European Union, the United Nations and Russia — seeking to forge progress toward peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. At that session, Mitchell said that while the situation is difficult between Israel and the Palestinians he's sees opportunity for progress, according to the U.S. official. Mitchell stressed the need to consolidate a cease-fire in Gaza and he forecast that once Israel creates a new governing coalition it will be in position to improve living conditions in the West Bank. The Obama administration is casting its Gaza and Palestinian Authority contributions as a calculated effort to ensure that the money does not reach Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza and is viewed by Washington as a terrorist organization and not a legitimate governing body.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they (MUSLIMS) have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
DANIEL 11:40-43
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Russia questions NKorea rocket launch: reports MAR 02,09
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia on Monday questioned the type of rocket North Korea intends to launch and urged restraint among all interested parties, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Monday as quoted by Russian agencies.No-one forbids anyone to launch satellites, but on the other hand, we must understand what kind of missile this is, Lavrov said.We monitor the situation and expect that everyone will employ restraint and keep to the obligations based on the UN resolutions, the minister said.
Last week North Korea, defying international warnings, said its preparations to launch a satellite are making brisk headway but gave no date for the exercise.Seoul and Washington see such a launch as a pretext to test the Taepodong-2 missile, which could theoretically reach Alaska.They say a rocket launch for any purpose would violate a UN resolution passed after the last missile test.
Manual lays out Army hopes for electronic warfare FEB 27,09
FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the Army is updating its manual for the electronic battlefield.The new 112-page Army doctrine on electronic warfare, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, was produced at Fort Leavenworth and will be released Thursday at an Army conference in Florida.The doctrine is aimed at guiding the Army as it moves to protect soldiers against roadside bombs and other nontraditional warfare used by increasingly sophisticated insurgents.The report suggests that without new training, U.S. forces may be at a deadly disadvantage.The doctrine calls on the Army to develop and deploy directed-energy weapons such as high-powered microwaves, lasers and infrared beams, as well as wireless networks and other devices to confuse enemy communication.
HENTOFF: Obama's state secrets echo Bush,U.S. wants torture of suspect kept under wraps Nat Hentoff Monday, March 2, 2009
British resident Binyam Mohamed, who was detained at Guantanamo, hides his face as he leaves a Royal Air Force base upon his recent return to the United Kingdom.
OP-ED:
Last year, Britain's Foreign Office angered the British High Court by ordering it to censor seven paragraphs from a previous ruling in the case of a British legal resident, Binyam Mohamed, who had been rendered and tortured by the CIA in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morocco and Guantanamo. This muzzling of the High Court was caused by a Bush State Department threat to the Foreign Office, a threat renewed last month when Mr. Mohamed's case came again before the High Court. Last August, John Bellinger, then chief legal adviser to the State Department, wrote the Foreign Office: We want to affirm in the clearest terms that the public disclosure of these documents or of the information contained therein is likely to result in serious damage to U.S. national security, and could harm existing intelligence-sharing arrangements between our two governments.On Feb. 4, the British High Court wanted to finally disclose those seven paragraphs summarizing actual U.S. reports on Mr. Mohamed's treatment, paragraphs originally provided to the Foreign Office. The judges expected that the situation had changed significantly following the election of President Barack Obama, who was avowedly determined to eschew torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. (That court is also interested in British involvement with Mr. Mohamed's interrogations.) Although all U.S. charges against Mr. Mohamed were dropped last year, this year the Obama administration continues to demand that those seven paragraphs remain secret and was reported by the New York Times on Feb. 18 as having thanked the British government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security administration.As Mr. Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder has already shown in another case involving Mr. Mohamed before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Bush-Cheney State Secrets policy continues to reign in the Obama administration.
Even a letter sent directly to Mr. Obama by Mr. Mohamed's British lawyers to look into the truly medieval ways in which Mr. Mohamed was tortured has not changed the president's mind. (See the Jurist Legal News & Research, Web site, Feb. 12). In the 9th Circuit court papers (Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan Inc.), American Civil Liberties Union lawyers for Mr. Mohamed cite his claim that in Morocco, his clothes were cut off with a scalpel and the same scalpel was then used to make incisions on his body, including his penis.It is reasonable to believe that the seven paragraphs involuntarily censored by the British High Court would be quite useful to Mr. Mohamed's case in both the British and American courts. The High Court in England reacted angrily to the Obama administration refusal to annul the Bush threat to impair relations with British intelligence about the release of the seven paragraphs. The High Court declared on Feb. 5 its acute disappointment that the United States, governed by the rule of law, would continue to censor evidence relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be.Mr. Mohamed, who was on a hunger strike (his only form of protest) at Guantanamo Bay, has finally been released and returned home to England where his lawyers continue to press his case concerning his treatment by the CIA. The Obama administration wanted a gag rule imposed on the returned Mr. Mohamed, but his lawyers rejected the demand (New York Times, Feb. 24). Before his release, as reported Feb. 18 by the New York Times' Raymond Bonner, a member of Mr. Mohamed's legal team - U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley - told reporters his torture by the Moroccans would make waterboarding seem like child's play.In San Francisco, at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Mr. Mohamed is one of five victims of CIA kidnapping who are charging a subsidiary of giant Boeing Aircraft with providing planes and logistics for the harrowing CIA renditions flights. Mr. Holder sent Justice Department lawyer Douglas Letter to order the court to dismiss the case without discussing it in court.
One of the startled judges, Mary Schroeder, asked: The change in administration has no bearing? She was assured that the Obama government's echo policy on state secrets has been thoroughly vetted with the new administration. Another surprised judge, William Canby, puzzled by the invocation of state secrets, asked: You can say something is secret even when a newspaper reporter has it? (Many newspaper reporters, including this writer, have written in detail about the CIA's torture flights, including those of the shackled Mr. Mohamed.) On the same day that the attorney general's silencer addressed the court, Mr. Holder himself announced that the Justice Department will review all the pending cases in which the Bush administration asserted state secrets, to ensure they are invoked only in legally appropriate situations. I wonder if the attorney general gets extra pay for being the president's emergency public relations flack while actually commanding that this crucial case be dismissed. The ACLU's Ben Wizner, arguing Mr. Mohamed's case at the 9th Circuit, said: This administration is going to have to face the issue of accountability. [It] cannot pretend the last seven years didn't happen.Want to bet?
Barack Obama's White House counsel Gregory B. Craig on Feb. 18 was reported telling the New York Times' Charlie Savage: We have been some of the most articulate and vociferous critics of the way the Bush administration handled things. There has been a dramatic change of direction.I would sure like to see Binyam Mohamed's reaction to that talking point from the transparent Obama administration. Nat Hentoff's column for The Washington Times runs on Mondays. 2009 The Washington Times.
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
THESE 10 REGIONAL WORLD TRADE BLOCS I BELIEVE WILL ALL BE TOGETHER BY 2011 OR 12 AT THE LATEST.
Southeast Asian countries plan EU-style union by 2015
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today MAR 02,09 @ 09:27 CET
The leaders of ten Southeast Asian countries have signed a declaration to integrate their economies and construct an economic and political union modelled on that of the European Union by 2015.Meeting in Thailand over the weekend for the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the heads of ten Asian countries agreed to the Cha-Am Hua Hin Declaration on the Roadmap for An ASEAN Community (2009-2015). The plan looks to build a single market - although without a euro-style common currency - within six years.Thailand - the disparity of ASEAN economies will make it hard to forge a common market (Photo: Wikipedia)This ASEAN goal is made even more urgent by the global financial crisis, read the 12-page declaration.ASEAN needs to respond effectively to this financial crisis in order to retain its central position in the regional architecture. In this connection, we mandated all ASEAN organs to be guided by and to fully implement the ASEAN Charter.ASEAN, founded in 1967 to replace the Association of Southeast Asia, brings together Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
The region is slightly bigger than the European Union in terms of population, the former being home to around 570 million people and the latter some 500 million, but their economies bear no comparison. ASEAN has a combined annual GDP of €870 billion, while the EU's GDP clocks in at over €12 trillion.Thailand's prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, said the creation of an attractive single market for the region was urgent.The move further develops the bloc's integration, moving a step beyond the charter the nations signed in 2007 that requires consensus amongst all member states for any ASEAN-level actions.The group is also to construct a human rights unit, but the body would be largely toothless, being unable to criticise any abuses occurring in any single country.However, the wide disparities between the different economies in ASEAN makes it difficult to create common standards because our national standards remain so far apart, said finance minister Korn Chatikavanij in an interview, according to Bloomberg news.We've got to be realistic in the kind of goals that we set for 2015, Mr Korn continued.We're not talking about the level of integration that has taken place in the EU.
Celente: U.S. Has Entered The Greatest Depression Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com Tuesday, March 3, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46MEqEgdLTg&eurl=http://www.infowars.com/celente-predicts-revolution-food-riots-tax-rebellions-by-2012/&feature=player_embedded
Trends research analyst Gerald Celente, who has risen in prominence on the back of his deadly accurate economic predictions, says that the collapse of financial markets heralds the start of The Greatest Depression.In his latest Trend Alert bulletin, Celente attacks mainstream pundits who falsely predicted a market bottom and the start of a recovery, noting that conventional analysts have been proven dead wrong again and that, There will be no turn around in the second quarter of 2009 or 2010 or 2011.The global financial system, built on endless supplies of cheap money, rampant speculation, fraud, greed, and delusion is terminally ill and will not be coaxed into remission by stimulus packages nor restored to health by government buyouts and bailouts,writes Celente.The most positive prediction that Celente makes is that the Dow will not reach zero, a tongue in cheek reaction to yesterday’s record plunge which saw the Dow rolled back to 1997 levels well below 7,000.Celente warns that the first signs of real panic are starting to set in, unrest that will cause governments to take draconian measures to prevent total economic collapse and public panic.Expect massive bank failures, runs on banks, and bank holidays, writes Celente. Even if deposits are FDIC insured, quick access to money is by no means assured. At minimum, have reserves on hand for emergencies, he forecasts.
Celente cites gold as one of the few investments that will continue to rise in value, eventually reaching $2,000 an ounce and beyond.Celente’s dire forecasts were initially scoffed at by the media but as the crisis has worsened, his credibility has soared.Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November 2007 that the following year would be known as The Panic of 2008,adding that giants (would) tumble to their deaths, which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others.
Bush administration memos claimed vast war powers
By Neil A. Lewis Published: March 3, 2009
The secret legal opinions issued by Bush administration lawyers after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks included assertions that the president could use the nation's military within the United States to combat people deemed as terrorists and to conduct raids without obtaining a search warrant.That opinion was among nine that were disclosed publicly for the first time Monday by the Justice Department, in what the Obama administration portrayed as a step toward greater transparency. The opinions showed a broad interpretation of presidential authority, asserting as well that the president could unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties, deal with detainees suspected of terrorism while rejecting input from Congress and conduct a warrantless eavesdropping program.Some of the legal positions had previously become known from statements made by Bush administration officials in response to court challenges and congressional inquiries. But the opinions provided the clearest illustration to date of the broad definition of presidential power that was approved by government lawyers, including John Yoo and Jay Bybee, in the months following the Sept. 11 attacks.In a memorandum dated Jan. 15, 2009, just before President George W. Bush left office, a top Justice Department official wrote that the earlier memorandums had not been relied on since 2003. But the official, Stephen Bradbury, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel, said it was important to acknowledge in writing the doubtful nature of these propositions, and he used the memo to formally repudiate the opinions.Bradbury said that the earlier memorandums were the product of lawyers confronting novel and complex questions in a time of great danger and under extraordinary time pressure.
White House takes a team approach on health policy
The opinion authorizing the military to operate on domestic territory was dated Oct. 23, 2001, and written by Yoo, at the time a deputy assistant attorney general, and Robert Delahunty, a special counsel. It was directed to Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked whether Bush could use the military to combat terrorist activities inside the United States.The law has recognized that force (including deadly force) may be legitimately used in self-defense, Yoo and Delahunty wrote to Gonzales. Any objections based on the prohibition against unreasonable searches in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution would vanish, he said, because any privacy offense that comes with such a search would be less than any injury from deadly force.Yoo and Delahunty also said in the Oct. 23 memorandum that First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully. They added that the current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.Yoo said the Posse Comitatus Act, a statute first enacted in 1878 and since renewed, would also not present an obstacle to the use of the armed forces. The Posse Comitatus Act generally forbids the use of military forces in domestic law enforcement.Yoo and Delahunty asserted that the act's prohibition against use of the military was only for law enforcement functions and that using soldiers against terrorist suspects would be a national security function.Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is widely known as the principal author of a 2002 memorandum that critics said authorized torture. The memorandum, signed by Bybee, was repudiated in 2004.The memorandum issued by Bradbury in January appears to have been the Bush lawyers' last effort to reconcile their views with the wide-scale rejection by legal scholars and some Supreme Court opinions of the sweeping assertions of presidential authority made earlier by the Justice Department.
Walter Dellinger, a former head of the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration who was also a law professor at Duke University, said that Bradbury's memo disclaiming the opinions of earlier Bush lawyers sets out in blunt detail how irresponsible those earlier opinions were.He said it was important that it was now widely recognized that the earlier assertions that Congress had absolutely no role in these national security issues was contrary to constitutional text, historical practice and judicial precedent.Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said Monday morning before the release of the documents: Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties. Not only is that thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good.
Holder said that the memorandums were being released in light of the legitimate and substantial public interest.One of the opinions, issued in March 2002, suggests that Congress lacks any power to limit a president's authority to transfer detainees to other countries. Other memorandums say that Congress has no authority to intervene in the president's determination of the treatment of detainees, a proposition that has since been invalidated by the Supreme Court.Bradbury's memo repudiating these views said that it was not sustainable to argue that the president's power as commander in chief precludes Congress from enacting any legislation concerning the detention, interrogation, prosecution and transfer of enemy combatants.
Upcoming Swedish EU presidency launches logo
VALENTINA POP Today MAR 02,09 @ 17:40 CET
EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS – Sweden's Europe minister, Cecilia Malmstrom, on Monday (2 March) presented the logo of the upcoming Swedish EU presidency as climate change and the financial crisis are set to dominate Stockholm's agenda in the second half of 2009.With the Copenhagen UN conference on climate change taking place in December, the Swedish presidency is due to begin preparations for a new global agreement on emissions reduction one of its key priorities, Lisa Dahlen Jonsson, press officer with the Swedish permanent representation to the EU, told this website.
The 27 member states take it in turns to chair the six-month presidency of the bloc, which in practical terms means organising all the ministerial and top-level meetings as well as the day-to-day agenda of the EU.Other priorities are still being worked upon, with an official launch expected later this spring, before Stockholm takes over the helm of the EU. On 1 July, the current Czech EU presidency will end its mandate.Climate, light, down-to-earth, as well as transparency and dialogue were some of the key words used in working on the logo.Unlike previous EU presidencies that used the national top-level domain name of their countries, the Swedish EU presidency will use the .eu domain. However, the .se adress will also guide the user to the presidency website, Ms Jonsson added.The Swedish diplomacy was bracing itself for the institutional uncertainty due to the Lisbon Treaty, according to the government's website. Stockholm will also have to work with a newly elected European Parliament and supervise the nomination of a new EU commission, which is to take on its mandate on 1 November. Before that date [31 October], the governments of member states must agree on the individuals who are to be nominated for the post of president and members of the commission, the website reads.The Swedish government is to allocate €77 million for its turn at the EU presidency. So far, the French EU presidency has been by far the most lavish one, spending some €190 million. The current Czech EU presidency has a budget of €124.5 million.
Financial regulation agreement
Another issue of importance for the Swedish EU presidency will be the overhaul of the international financial system. Speaking to Reuters last Thursday, financial minister Mats Odell said that a deal in this regard could be possible in the second half of this year.Sweden believed it had gained useful experience from its own banking crisis in the early 1990s and saw the current market turmoil as a golden opportunity for achieving EU-wide rules, Odell said.The report on supervision presented last week by a group headed by former Bank of France Governor Jacques de Larosiere, sets out a two-phase process towards reforming institutional supervision and would entail some loss of regulatory control by the 27 EU capitals. I think there are favourable political conditions for this, because citizens expect politicians on a European level to get together and prevent future crises like the one we are seeing now, Mr Odell told Reuters after meeting EU commissioner for internal market Charlie McCreevy to discuss the report.
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.
Northeast pounded by snowy late-winter storm By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer MAR 02,09
NEW YORK – A massive late winter snowstorm pummeled the Northeast on Monday, grounding hundreds of flights, causing spinouts on highways, delaying trains and buses and closing school for over a million children from South Carolina to Maine.
The same storm hammered the Southeast on Sunday as it made its way north, blanketing Civil War statues and canceling hundreds of church services around the region.By Monday, the storm was dumping snow on Maine, and most areas in the storm's wake expected to see at least 8 to 12 inches of accumulation.The blizzard-like snow — together with sleet, freezing rain and wind gusts of up to 30 mph — contributed to four deaths on roads in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and on New York's Long Island.
An accident caused a 15-mile-long traffic jam in North Carolina, where as much as a foot of snow fell, and prompted police and rescuers to go car-to-car Monday to check on the stranded motorists.The storm was blamed for 350 crashes in New Jersey between Sunday night and Monday morning, state police Sgt. Stephen Jones said. Most were spinouts and cars hitting guardrails, he said.On New York's Long Island, high winds caused 2-foot snow drifts on highways in the town of Southampton.In New York City, about 7 inches of snow was recorded at Central Park by Monday morning.New Yorkers expressed characteristic resilience, struggling to get to work and appointments, and patching together child care arrangements.Diane Lugo, 29, of Yonkers, had to leave her two children with her mother-in-law rather than drive them to day care. She got a ride with her husband to avoid trudging 10 minutes in the slush to her bus stop.
Getting out of the driveway was pure hell, Lugo said in Manhattan, where she works as a college admissions coordinator.Outside the Sound Shore Medical Center in New Rochelle, N.Y., Emilia Rescigna struggled to push a stroller through the snow and slush. In the stroller, asleep under a plastic tent, was her 1-year-old son Adam, who had a 9 a.m. appointment with his pediatrician.I called the doctor's office last night and this morning, to see if the appointment was still on, but no one was in, said Rescigna, a Bronx resident. After all this they better not tell me I have to come back.At the three major airports serving New York City, more than 900 flights were canceled — a majority of all flights at Kennedy, Newark and LaGuardia, according to the Port Authority. Most flights in and out of Boston's Logan International Airport were scrubbed, and the airport shut down for about 40 minutes to clear a runway. Philadelphia International Airport spokeswoman Phyllis VanIstendahl said about 44 people were stranded there overnight.Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport remained open Monday, although a number of flights were canceled or delayed. Spokesman Jonathan Dean didn't have numbers on cancellations.In downtown Boston, pedestrians negotiated slushy sidewalks and streets ankle-deep in snow as cars struggled past.Anderson Francois, 27, of Boston, was waiting for a bus and said he prepared for the snow by doubling up on socks and wearing pajama pants under his jeans.You've still got to go where you got to go, said Francois. I'm always ready for stuff like this.But Dave Richardson, 30, of Salem, didn't think the storm was such a big deal.
This is New England, after all.
More than 10 inches of snow was on the ground in southern New Jersey by 7 a.m. Monday, while South Carolina was dealing with 8 inches. Delaware had up to 9 inches by late Monday morning. Greyhound and Peter Pan bus lines canceled trips affecting travelers in and out of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Schools from North Carolina to Maine gave children a snow day. Public schools in Philadelphia and Boston did the same. In New York City, 1.1 million public school students got a snow day; the last time that happened was Jan. 28, 2004.In Fairfax, Va., Sarah Conforti, 8, said Monday's day off was just what she'd been hoping for, and planned to make a snowman or play in the snow with my friends,she said. Her mother, Noelle Conforti, said Sarah and her 10-year-old sister couldn't be happier about the school-free day. The kids are against the window, just looking out the window like a cat, she said. It's hilarious.Commuter trains in Boston and New York had some delays during the morning rush. Transportation officials in the Philadelphia area said the rush hour wasn't bad considering the slippery conditions. Amy Ledger, 30, was among many who braved the snow to attend the annual Philadelphia Flower Show, an indoor exhibition that provided a fragrant, spring-like respite from the blustery snow and wind. Ledger and two friends took the train in from Lancaster, where they said there was only about an inch of snow on the ground early Monday morning. It got progressively snowier on the hour-long ride east. At one point, we couldn't even see out the train window, said Ledger, of Bethlehem. It was really coming down.
Once at the show, winter seemed to melt away as the trio wandered past yellow daffodils, crimson azaleas and white tulips. I'm ready for spring, said Mindy Schlott, 29, of Ephrata, Pa. In New Hampshire, where snow was falling at up to an inch per hour, Transportation Department spokesman Bill Boynton said plow crews were having trouble keeping up.In Maryland, strong winds were complicating cleanup efforts as gusts were blowing just-plowed snow right back onto roads, said Lora Rakowski, a spokeswoman with the State Highway Administration. In Virginia, about 120,000 customers were without electricity, including tens of thousands in the Richmond metropolitan area. In North Carolina, more than 100,000 customers were without power early Monday. In South Carolina, there were nearly 80,000 outages.
Thousands more were without power in southern Maryland, the Washington, D.C.-area, and central Jersey. I thought it was over, New Yorker Clarissa Arroyo said of the winter weather. But it's not.Associated Press writers Frank Eltman on Long Island, N.Y.; Jim Fitzgerald in Westchester County; Ula Ilnytzky, Tom McElroy and Amy Westfeldt in New York City; Daniel Yee and Christina Almeida in Atlanta; Rodrique Ngowi in Boston; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; Bruce Shipkowski and Samantha Henry in Trenton, N.J.; Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia; Kamala Lane in Washingtonand correspondant Matt Small in Washington contributed to this report.
DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.
JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
SPECIAL CONFERENCE MAR 23-24,2009,ALL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS WILL BE THERE,ALL THE EU MEMBERS WILL BE THERE,AND THE G-20 WILL BE THERE.THIS SAME GROUP OF EU,BANKERS,G-20 WILL ALSO BE IN LONDON IN APRIL TO LAY PLANS FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER,ESPECIALLY THE G-20.https://futurefinance.wsj.com/index.php
HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS TUE MAR 03,2009
09:30 AM +26.13
10:00 AM +43.17
10:30 AM +44.69
11:00 AM +20.39
11:30 AM -11.78
12:00 PM -32.17
12:30 PM +28.80
01:00 PM -19.83
01:30 PM -20.15
02:00 PM -1.11
02:30 PM +43.97
03:00 PM +85.39
03:30 PM -13.22
04:00 PM -37.27 6726.02
S&P 500 696.33 -4.49
NASDAQ 1321.01 -1.84
GOLD 916.00 -24.00
OIL 41.45 +1.28
TSE 300 7631.62 -55.89
CDNX 824.07 -4.17
S&P/TSX/60 459.93 -1.68
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -22.94%
S&P -22.41%
Nasdaq -16.12%
TSX Advances 290,declines 1,284,unchanged 242,Volume 2,573,048,216.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 271,Declines 511,Unchanged 434,Volume 179,052,551.
Dow +74 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -47 points at low today.
Dow +84 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $926.30.OIL opens at $41.67 today.
BERNANKE FUMBLES HIS WAY THROUGH QUESTIONS THIS MORNING.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -47 points at low today so far.
Dow +84 points at high today so far.
GEITHER TRYS TO TALK ABOUT THE SO CALLED BUDGET PLAN(3 TRILLION BANK MONEY GRAB)
DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 1,052,declines 2,662,unchanged 109,New Highs 13,New Lows 813.
Volume 3,455,797,216.
NASDAQ Advances 968,declines 1,619,unchanged 156,New highs 4,New Lows 429.
Volume 869,879,529.
TSX Advances 393,declines 883,unchanged 254,Volume 1,068,744,329.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 206,Declines 308,Unchanged 248,Volume 69,553,199.
INSIDE THE T.A.L.F
-Begins with $200 BILLION of Financing from FED.
-$20 BILLION from TREASURY (TARP).
-Securitized credit card,Auto,student and small biz loans.
-to be expanded to $1 TRILLION,include CMBS and private - label MBS.
-First funds disbursed march 25th,for deals originated in MARCH.
-Interest rates range from 50-100 BP over LIBOR.
-Runs through DEC.2009,can be extended.
FEDERAL BUDGET (DETAILS)
-$1.75 TRILLION deficit in fiscal year 2009.
-$3.6 TRILLION in spending in fiscal year 2010.
-$635 BILLION for Health Care.
-$250 BILLION for Bank Aid.
-$130 BILLION for IRAQ/AFGHANISTAN wars.
INSIDE THE CONSUMER (Current levels of Debt/GDP):
-Over 90%
-10 Years ago it was 60%.
-Implies a needed reduction of $4.5 TRILLION in Consumer Debt.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -59 points at low today.
Dow +89 points at high today.
Dow -0.55% today Volume 445,283,252.
Nasdaq -0.14% today Volume 2,147,483,648.
S&P 500 -0.64% today Volume N/A
RECORD LOWS DOW
-Sept 30,1996 5,882.17
-Oct 30,1996 5,993.23
-Nov 6,1996 6,177.71
-Dec 16,1996 6,268.35
-Apr 15,1997 6,587.16
-Apr 21,1997 6,660.21
-Apr 28,1997 6,783.02
-May 1,1997 6,976.48
-May 7,1997 7,085.65
RECORD LOWS S&P 500
-Sept 5,1996 649.44
-Sept 6,1996 655.68
-Sept 11,1996 667.28
-Sept 12,1996 671.13
-Oct 1,1996 689.08
-Oct 28,1996 697.26
-Nov 4,1996 706.73
-Nov 5,1996 714.14
-Dec 17,1996 726.04
EU COMMISSION ON MAR 1,09 PRESS CONFERENCE,MINI SUMMITT
http://video.consilium.europa.eu/index.php?pl=3&sessionno=2152&lang=EN
Canada fourth-quarter GDP slides most since 1991 By Louise Egan – Mon Mar 2, 11:35 am ET
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada's economy shrank more in the fourth quarter of 2008 than at any time since 1991, confirming the country is now in recession, and reinforcing expectations of a central bank interest rate cut on Tuesday.Statistics Canada said on Monday the economy contracted at an annualized rate of 3.4 percent in the quarter as the global financial crisis bit into exports and curtailed consumer and business spending.It was the worst performance since the 5.9 percent contraction in the first quarter of 1991, which marked the end of the country's last recession.Still, the result was slightly better than market expectations for a 3.6 percent downturn, giving the Canadian dollar a boost.The report officially marks a recession, said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.It's almost as bad as expected. Most areas of spending were down, outside of government, he said.But the result was worse than the 2.3 percent decline projected by the Bank of Canada and market players expect the bank will see fit to chop another half point off its key interest rate on Tuesday to a record low of 0.5 percent.In our opinion, a 50-basis-point cut is still by far the most likely outcome tomorrow, said Eric Lascelles, chief economics and rates strategist at TD Securities.The central bank has reduced its overnight rate by 350 basis points since December 2007, and although most market dealers expect a cut this week, most also see the bank nearing the end of its rate-cutting campaign.The Canadian dollar firmed immediately against the U.S. dollar after the data from a three-month low. Markets had been bracing for the worst after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty hinted at a substantive decline in GDP in remarks to the media before the data was released.At 11 a.m. the currency was at C$1.2872 to the U.S. dollar, or 77.69 U.S. cents, up from a pre data level of C$1.2889 to the U.S. dollar, or 77.59 U.S. cents.
RETURN TO DEFICIT
Compared with the third quarter, gross domestic product declined 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter.Growth for the year fell to 0.5 percent from 2.7 percent in 2007. Statscan revised its third-quarter annualized growth estimate to 0.9 percent from 1.3percent.Nominal GDP, a key indicator for determining tax revenues, fell 3.5 percent, or 13.4 percent annualized, in the fourth quarter. That was the largest decline since at least 1961, Statscan officials said. The slide was partly due to the decline in oil and metals prices in the period.The nominal GDP signals the return to government budget deficits in 2009 after 11 straight years of surplus, a development already well flagged by Flaherty.The quarterly report revealed wide-ranging weakness in the economy, including a collapse of personal spending after 13 years of expansion.The volume of both exports and imports fell in the quarter at the fastest rate in 26 years. Business investment in machinery and equipment plummeted, as did investment in housing.And economists see an even worse scenario for the first quarter of this year. The Bank of Canada projects first-quarter 2009 GDP to contract much more sharply, by 4.8 percent, followed by another slide in the second quarter before returning to growth in the second half of the year. Guatieri of BMO Capital Markets expects a bleaker outcome. We look for an even bigger decline in the current quarter. For the first quarter we're looking at a decline of 5.7 percent annualized -- a pretty hefty drop,he said.(Additional reporting by Toronto Treasury team; Editing by Peter Galloway)
AIG posts $61.7B 4Q loss, bailout is restructured By IEVA M. AUGSTUMS, AP Business Writer – Mon Mar 2, 11:18 am ET
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – American International Group Inc., once the world's largest insurer, said Monday it lost $61.7 billion in the fourth quarter, the biggest quarterly loss in U.S. corporate history, amid continued financial market turmoil.
The results come as the U.S. government announced a restructuring of a bailout plan for the troubled insurer, extending $30 billion in additional aid to the company.
New York-based AIG said it lost $22.95 per share in the last three months of 2008. It lost $5.3 billion, or $2.08 per share, in the same quarter a year ago.Revenue fell to negative $23.8 billion, as the company had to reverse gains it recorded from investments in past quarters.The latest results include $7.2 billion in unrealized losses and credit valuation adjustments at AIG Financial Products, the source of credit-default swaps, and pretax losses of $21.6 billion tied to the declining value of AIG's investment portfolio.AIG's general insurance business swung to a loss on $2.8 billion in net realized capital losses. General insurance net premiums dropped 16.3 percent to $9.2 billion, and net premiums earned fell 5.9 percent to nearly $11 billion.Adjusted to exclude certain items, operating losses totaled $37.9 billion, or $14.17 per share, versus a loss of $3.2 billion, or $1.25 per share, last year.
The results fell drastically short of estimates. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, on average, forecast a loss of 37 cents per share on revenue of $24.82 billion. Analysts have been dropping coverage of AIG in recent weeks due to the uncertainty of AIG's future.Its shares rose 6 cents to 48 cents in morning trading but are down from $51.47 on Feb. 28, 2008 and have lost nearly all of their value since the market meltdown began in September.We have made meaningful progress in addressing liquidity issues related to AIG Financial Products and our securities lending activities and have announced several divestitures, AIG chairman and chief executive Edward Liddy said in a statement. However, the economy and capital markets remain in turmoil and we are taking additional steps to preserve the value of our businesses and maximize the ultimate proceeds for the benefit of all stakeholders, including taxpayers.The government's new financial assistance to AIG includes providing the troubled company another $30 billion on an as needed basis.In an interview on NBC's Today show Monday morning, Liddy, said: We're going to be able to pay back the Federal Reserve. The new $30 billion is a stand-by line. It's not necessarily something that we think we'll have to draw on right away.The Federal Reserve said Monday it will also take stakes in two international units.Instead of paying back $38 billion in cash with interest that it has used from a Federal Reserve credit line, AIG now will repay that amount with equity stakes in Asia-based American International Assurance Co. and American Life Insurance Co., which operates in 50 countries.AIG also announced plans to spin off part of its property-casualty business, to be renamed AIU Holdings Inc.It marked the fourth time the government has stepped in to help AIG. Its initial lifeline came in September. The action was announced jointly early Monday by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.
The new package is designed to enhance the company's capital and liquidity to facilitate the orderly completion of the company's global divestiture program, the agencies said.They said the company continues to face significant challenges due to the rapid deterioration in certain financial markets in the last two months of the year. The additional resources will help stabilize the company and in doing so help stabilize the financial system,the agencies said. AIG has been forced to seek more help in part because of the ongoing recession and its falling stock price, now well under $1. Among its biggest problems: It can't sell assets to pay back government loans because the credit crisis is preventing would-be buyers from getting financing to complete such deals.As of Feb. 13, AIG had sold interests in nine businesses. In November, the U.S. government restructured previous loans provided to AIG, giving the company about $150 billion in total as part of a rescue package to help the insurer remain in business amid the worsening credit crisis. That package replaced earlier loans, including the original $85 billion lent in September, after it became apparent the insurer needed more funds. Problems at AIG did not come from its traditional insurance operations, but instead from its financial services units, and primarily its business insuring mortgage-backed securities and other risky debt against default.
Our insurance policy holders, they're in good shape. They're secure, they're protected, Liddy said in the Today show interview. It's all the other ancillary businesses that are causing this. And it's the decline in asset values around the globe.For the full year, AIG lost $99.3 billion, or $37.84 per share, compared with a proft of $6.2 billion, or $2.39 per share, a year earlier. Total revenue fell 89.9 percent to $11.1 billion from $110.1 billion a year ago.
Weak economic data ups pressure for ECB rate cut
ANDREW WILLIS Today @ 09:32 CET
The European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to cut interest rates when its governing council meets on Thursday (5 March) following the release of more weak economic data on the European economy. New figures released by the EU's statistics office, Eurostat, last Friday show unemployment in the 16-country euro area has reached 8.2 percent, the highest level for two years, following the loss of over a quarter of a million jobs in January. Unemployment is a clear concern right now in many parts of the euro area,ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet said in Dublin last week.Labour-market reforms are very important to counteract the economic downturn and limit its negative impact on employment.Asked whether the ECB will cut the rate by 50 or 25 basis point in March, Mr Trichet said the first figure is more likely.Eurostat figures also showed that inflation for the area fell by a record amount in January, down from 1.6 to a paltry 1.1 percent, well below the ECB's desired target of below, but close to two per cent.Inflation figures for the EU27 fell to 1.7 percent.
Analysts expect the central bank to react to the bad news by cutting interest rates by 0.5 percent when they meet on Thursday. Euro area interest rates are currently at two percent following steep cuts since the financial crisis started last autumn.
Eurostat now estimates that over 13 million people are unemployed in the euro area, with the highest unemployment rates recorded in Spain on 14.8 percent and the lowest in the Netherlands with 2.8 percent. The January figures amounted to the tenth consecutive month of rising unemployment in the euro area, as employers cut jobs in the face of falling consumer demand. The EU27 fared little better, with unemployment rising 0.1 percent in January to reach 7.6 percent. Falling commodity prices such as oil have contributed to the dramatic drop in inflation, which only last summer hit record highs of 4.0 percent. The ECB expects inflation to continue to fall until the middle of this year, before gradually starting to increase again. They are adamant however that such a decline does not signal a deflationary spiral. In the UK, where interest rates are already as low as one percent, the independent Bank of England will take the exceptional measure this week of buying corporate and government debt in a last-ditch attempt to boost the economy.
Wall Street tumbles anew as financials slide By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer MAR 02,09
NEW YORK – Investors' despair about financial companies and the recession have brought the Dow Jones industrial average to another unwanted milestone: its first drop below 7,000 in more than 11 years.The market's slide Monday wasn't nowhere near the largest is has seen since last fall, but the tumble below 7,000 was nonetheless painful. The credit crisis and recession have slashed more than half of the average's value since it hit a record high over 14,000 in October 2007. And now many investors fear the market could take a long time to regain the lost 7,000.We do feel that things can improve but it is going to be years before we get back to levels we saw in the markets a year ago, said David Chalupnik, head of equities at First American Funds.Monday's move below the milepost came as insurer American International Group Inc. posted a staggering $61.7 billion in quarterly losses and as the government agreed to inject more money into the company. AIG will get another $30 billion in loans, on top of the $150 billion the government has already invested.
Investors also grew fearful that more banks will have to raise capital and risk depleting the value of the existing shares after HSBC PLC, Europe's largest bank by market value, said it needs to raise $17.7 billion. The company reported a 70 percent drop in 2008 earnings and said it would cut 6,100 jobs.The fresh anxiety over hard-hit financial stocks pushed the blue chips below 7,000 for the first time since Oct. 28, 1997 and then below 6,900 for the first time since May 1, 1997.As bad as things are, they can still get worse, and get a lot worse, said Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist for Bell Curve Trading. Strazzullo said he believes there's a significant chance the S&P 500 and the Dow will fall back to their 1995 levels of 500 and 5,000, respectively.The game-changer, he said, will be the housing market and whether it can stabilize.In midafternoon trading, the Dow fell 214.89, or 3 percent, to 6,848.04. The Dow last closed below the 7,000 level on May 1, 1997.
Broader stock indicators also slid. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 25.15, or 3.4 percent, to 709.94, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 40.15, or 2.9 percent, to 1,337.69.The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 15.66, or 4 percent, to 373.36.About 10 stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to a moderate 1.16 billion shares.Bond prices jumped as stocks fell. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, tumbled to 2.91 percent from 3.02 percent late Friday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, slipped to 0.24 percent from 0.25 percent Friday.The dollar rose against most other major currencies, while gold prices fell.Light, sweet crude fell $4.40 to $40.36 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.Mixed economic readings on Monday did little to dislodge a sense in the market that the economy's slide isn't slowing. Personal spending rose 0.6 percent in January and incomes rose 0.4 percent, while construction spending fell 3.3percent, more than twice as much as economists expected. Manufacturing contracted in February for the 13th straight month, but at a slower pace than expected.I don't think we find a bottom in the market until we see some sort of increased level of optimism and confidence among consumers and investors, said Jim Baird, chief investment strategist at Plante Moran Financial Advisors.Analysts are looking for indications in the economic numbers that businesses and consumers are starting to boost spending after making big cutbacks in the fall. But the economic readings are so alarming it weighs on sentiment. I don't think we find a bottom in the market until we see some sort of increased level of optimism and confidence among consumers and investors,said Baird. Last week the Dow and the S&P 500 index fell below their Nov. 20-21 lows, reached at the height of the credit crisis. Many traders had hoped would mark the market's low. The economy definitely has deteriorated since November, said Sean Simko, head of fixed income management at SEI Investments. It's just the fact that we haven't seen signs of improving or stabilizing, per se, which is adding to the morass of the market.Even big name investors are sounding a cautious note. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett wrote in his annual letter to investors Saturday he is sure the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 — and, for that matter, probably well beyond — but that conclusion does not tell us whether the stock market will rise or fall.Investors try to look beyond the news of the day and place bets on what their expectations are. But that has been difficult with the economic news so grim and so little indication of when the housing market might stabilize and help banks that have been by bad mortgage debt.
In the last 60 years, the S&P 500 index reached its bottom about five months before a recession ended and nine months before corporate profits reached their low or unemployment hit its peak. The market could recover before the economy starts picking up steam but investors will need some sense that the worst is over. That was hard to come by Monday. The market didn't even see the panic selling that can signal a bottom is emerging but instead continued its grind downward. Most financials suffered again Monday. AIG was an exception, rising 4 cents, or 8.8 percent, to 46 cents a share after the government pledged the latest round of money. HSBC Holdings fell $6.50, or 18.9 percent, to $28.30. Other financials also fell sharply. Bank of America Corp. fell 10 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $3.85. Even banks that investors consider to be in better shape took hits. JPMorgan Chase & Co. slid $1.03, or 4.5 percent, to $21.82. Wells Fargo & Co. fell 80 cents, or 6.6 percent, to $11.30.
Overseas, Britain's FTSE 100 tumbled 5.3 percent, Germany's DAX index fell 3.5 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 4.5 percent. Japan's Nikkei stock average dropped 3.8 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 3.9 percent. On the Net: New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com
EU leaders paper over divisions on economic crisis
HONOR MAHONY 01.03.2009 @ 20:25 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Just hours after the European Commission approved a French car aid plan, EU leaders on Sunday (1 March) sought to put a lid on damaging divisions in the bloc on how to deal with the financial crisis by saying that none of its member states is being protectionist.We agreed that there is no case that we see as protectionist, said Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek, who called the informal gathering of EU leaders to discuss the threat of protectionism.Downplaying the public spat between Paris and Prague sparked by French comments against car companies relocating to eastern Europe, the Czech leader added: We agreed that this is rather more a media thing than reality.The summit had been called on the back of rising fears that internal market rules would be breached as countries sought to protect industries, particularly the car sector, from haemorrhaging jobs. Bullish talk by Mr Sarkozy in the run-up to the summit on his right to protect industry had led to tension around the EU. But the heat was taken out of the summit after a u-turn by the French government relaxing some of the conditions for its €6 billion car industry aid plan, meaning the European Commission could give its approval to the plan just ahead of the summit.
Bad word - bad idea
After Sunday's meeting French president Sarkozy told reporters that protectionism was a bad word and a bad idea.Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, who chaired a pre-summit gathering of nine central and eastern European states said: Everybody without exception agreed that protectionism is not a cure for the crisis. We also reached agreement that the EU will jointly try to stabilise currencies, no matter how many countries are in the eurozone.European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso noted that it was very clearly stated that the internal market is the engine for recovery.There was also a concerted effort to stop talk of an east-west divide as richer member states look to spend their way out of the crisis.Mr Barroso stressed that each country has to be looked at on its own merits and that the region could not be viewed as a homogenous whole, while Czech prime minister Topolanek said: I think it is clear that the EU is going to leave nobody in the lurch.
No bailout for eastern Europe
However, a push by the new member states to speed up the procedure for entering the eurozone as a way of helping them cope with the economic crisis was rejected by other EU member states. A proposal by Hungary to set up a fund of at least €160 billion for central and eastern European countries was also turned down.German chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the need for a one-size-fits-all bailout, saying the situation in Hungary - which has been hard hit by the global credit crisis - cannot be directly compared to other countries in the region.The final statement of the summit says that protectionism is no answer to the current crisis and has a line saying that support for parent banks should not imply any restrictions on the activities of subsidiaries in the EU host countries. Eastern member states fear that if parent banks in western countries get into financial trouble they could withdraw capital from their daughter banks in eastern Europe.Although diplomats said there was a harmonious atmosphere around the table, little of substance was agreed.
Business group Eurochambres complained about the results of the meeting, saying there were no tangible actions.This summit was yet another rather unproductive political showpiece, bringing no concrete solutions to the dramatic economic situation and showing a worrying lack of economic co-ordination among member states. We deeply hope that the spring European Council will do better in a couple weeks time,said secretary general Arnaldo Abruzzini.EU leaders are due to meet for their regular spring meeting on 19-20 March.
Egypt FM: $5.2 billion pledged at Gaza conference By SALAH NASRAWI and JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writers MAR 02,09
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – International donors pledged $5.2 billion to rebuild the devastated Gaza Strip and boost the Palestinian president at a conference Monday, and they urged the Palestinians to end their divisions and revive the peace process with Israel.Still to be determined is how the money will be distributed. Most international donors won't funnel money directly to the Islamic militants of Hamas that rule Gaza. And lack of a formal cease-fire between Israel and Hamas has kept Gaza's borders sealed to most aid shipments.The conference gathered the presidents of Egypt and France, the U.N. chief and top diplomats from 45 nations — including Hillary Rodham Clinton in her first Mideast trip as U.S. secretary of state — in a high-profile attempt to show international support for reconstruction after Israel's crippling offensive against Hamas.But the broader message was that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his rivals in Hamas must resolve their dispute and form a government that can move ahead with rebuilding in Gaza and return to the negotiating table with Israel.British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned there will be only limited physical reconstruction without political reconstruction and stressed that Palestinians need a single government across the Occupied Territories —a direct appeal for rival Palestinian factions to hammer out a unity government.
Clinton issued a blunt call for urgent action to forge a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.We cannot afford more setbacks or delays — or regrets about what might have been, had different decisions been made, she said in apparent reference to the failure of previous peace initiatives, including those pushed vigorously by her husband's administration.The 80 nations and international organizations at Monday's gathering in this Red Sea resort pledged $5.2 billion, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters. Most of that amount — $4.48 billion — was in new pledges, with the remainder made up of previous, unfulfilled pledges that donors recommitted to giving, he said.Aboul Gheit said the figure is beyond of our expectations.Palestinian Planning Minister Samir Abdullah said the money is earmarked for humanitarian aid to Gaza, rebuilding in the territory and budget support to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority led by Abbas. He could not immediately say how much was going to each fund.The biggest donor is Saudi Arabia, at $1 billion, followed by the United States, which promised $900 million. A third of the U.S. pledge was for humanitarian aid to Gaza and the rest to assist the Palestinian Authority.Control of the funds is a key question. The international community refuses to negotiate with Gaza's militant Hamas rulers, considered a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and Israel. Hamas was not invited to the conference in this Red Sea resort. But Abbas' government has little presence in Gaza after being driven out by Hamas in 2007.In a significant move, Arab Persian Gulf nations — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait — pledged $1.6 billion, but bypassed both Hamas and Abbas. The gulf nations said in a statement they would set up a joint office in Gaza to carry out reconstruction on their own, deciding on projects and implementing them.They may be trying to signal to Hamas that the gulf nations are not favoring Abbas, hoping to encourage the militant group to moderate and reconcile with the Palestinian Authority.Karen AbuZayd, the head of the U.N. aid agency for Palestinian refugees, told The Associated Press that many donor nations had discussed possibly using the United Nations as an alternative route to avoid the sticky issue of who controls the funds.
Certain donors have come forward to ask, and some of the regional parties as well have thought that perhaps the U.N. could do more than what it's doing or what is its mandate, she said.Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned in opening remarks to the gathering that the donors' pledges should not be treated as spoils of war — a message to rival Palestinian factions not to squabble over the funds.He also said reconstruction will depend on reaching a long-term truce between Hamas and Israel, which Egypt is trying to mediate, and the opening of Gaza's border crossings, which have been largely closed by Egypt and Israel since Hamas seized control of the territory. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said responsible Palestinians should seek peace with Israel and said a prisoner exchange by Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, held by Gaza militants since June 2006, is a priority. Israel has demanded Schalit's release as part of any truce deal. You must admit that there is no other road to the creation of a Palestinian state but to engage resolutely in searching for a political solution and engage in a dialogue with Israel, Sarkozy said in a clear message to the militant group. Abbas asked participants to adopt the reconstruction plan of his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, describing it as a national comprehensive development plan. He promised reconstruction would be based on transparency and justice.Fayyad prepared a 53-page plan for donors, including detailed damage assessments. For example, fixing war damage to infrastructure and homes would cost $501 million, according to the plan, which says 4,036 homes were destroyed and 11,514 damaged. Hamas spokesmen Fawzi Barhoum sought to dispel fears his group was trying to grab funds but also said the donations shouldn't be channeled through Abbas. He urged the conference to work out meaningful mechanisms to get money directly to Gazans without going into the internal Palestinian political differences.Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City contributed to this report.
Clinton calls for action to forge Mideast peace By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writer MAR 02,09
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that Israel cannot just sit and take rockets from Gaza terrorizing its citizens as she stressed the Obama administration's commitment to finding a peaceful existence for Israelis and Palestinians.On her first foray into Middle East diplomacy, Clinton used an international donors conference to issue a blunt call for urgent action to forge a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. She also signaled a possible warming in U.S. relations with Syria after several years of division.With the Obama administration's Mideast peace envoy, George Mitchell, seated behind her at a conference meant to raise billions to help the Gaza Strip recover from its recent war with Israel, Clinton said President Barack Obama would continue the Bush administration's focus on seeking a two-state solution that involves Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state coexisting in peace.She made it clear, however, that Mideast leaders could count on Obama to take a more active approach than did his predecessor, George W. Bush.It is time to look ahead, she said, with an eye on the human aspects of what years of regional conflict have meant for the Palestinians and others.The United States is committed to a comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and we will pursue it on many fronts, she said.The former New York senator and one-time first lady told the gathering: I have to confess I am troubled by the continuing rocket attacks coming out of Gaza. She added that Israel cannot just sit and take rockets falling on its people.The Sharm el-Sheik conference was called in the aftermath of the Gaza crisis, which remains in danger of heating up. Israel ended its air and ground assault meant to halt rocket fire coming from Gaza about six weeks ago with a shaky cease-fire by both sides. Some 1,300 Palestinians — at least half of them civilians — and 13 Israelis died in the three-week offensive, officials have said.Militants have continued to fire rockets sporadically into southern Israel, triggering retaliatory airstrikes.Asked if a peaceful settlement was possible by year's end, Clinton indicated that the process will take a long time.I personally am very committed to this. I know that it can be done. I believe that with all my heart, she said, avoiding any timetable.
In a sign of a possible warming of relations with Syria, Clinton also shook hands and spoke briefly with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem. They were not scheduled to meet but encountered each other during the daylong conference at this Red Sea resort, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.Washington withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in 2005 to protest Syria's suspected role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus denied involvement in his death, but in the uproar that followed, it was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, ending a 29-year military presence.Clinton declined to discuss the specifics of her discussion but said: In consultation with our friends and allies, our partners, we are reaching out to determine what, if any, areas of cooperation and engagement are possible, and that includes with respect to Syria.
Clinton, who is scheduled to travel this week to Jerusalem to consult with Israeli government officials and to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian officials, said the United States was pledging $900 million to the international aid effort for the Gaza Strip. She gave no breakdown of the funds, but her spokesman, Robert A. Wood, said on Sunday that it included $300 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza and about $600 million in budget and development aid to the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank.We cannot afford more setbacks or delays — or regrets about what might have been, had different decisions been made, she said in apparent reference to the failure of previous peace initiatives, including those pushed vigorously by her husband's administration.Clinton conducted a rapid-fire series of one-on-one meetings with Arab and other counterparts attending the conference. In an afternoon session with the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, she expressed doubt that Iran would respond to Obama administration diplomatic overtures, according to a U.S. official who was present in the meeting. The official described the exchange for reporters on condition of anonymity because the session was private.Clinton also met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and she attended a meeting of the so-called Quartet of international mediators — the U.S., the European Union, the United Nations and Russia — seeking to forge progress toward peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. At that session, Mitchell said that while the situation is difficult between Israel and the Palestinians he's sees opportunity for progress, according to the U.S. official. Mitchell stressed the need to consolidate a cease-fire in Gaza and he forecast that once Israel creates a new governing coalition it will be in position to improve living conditions in the West Bank. The Obama administration is casting its Gaza and Palestinian Authority contributions as a calculated effort to ensure that the money does not reach Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza and is viewed by Washington as a terrorist organization and not a legitimate governing body.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they (MUSLIMS) have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
DANIEL 11:40-43
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Russia questions NKorea rocket launch: reports MAR 02,09
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia on Monday questioned the type of rocket North Korea intends to launch and urged restraint among all interested parties, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Monday as quoted by Russian agencies.No-one forbids anyone to launch satellites, but on the other hand, we must understand what kind of missile this is, Lavrov said.We monitor the situation and expect that everyone will employ restraint and keep to the obligations based on the UN resolutions, the minister said.
Last week North Korea, defying international warnings, said its preparations to launch a satellite are making brisk headway but gave no date for the exercise.Seoul and Washington see such a launch as a pretext to test the Taepodong-2 missile, which could theoretically reach Alaska.They say a rocket launch for any purpose would violate a UN resolution passed after the last missile test.
Manual lays out Army hopes for electronic warfare FEB 27,09
FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the Army is updating its manual for the electronic battlefield.The new 112-page Army doctrine on electronic warfare, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, was produced at Fort Leavenworth and will be released Thursday at an Army conference in Florida.The doctrine is aimed at guiding the Army as it moves to protect soldiers against roadside bombs and other nontraditional warfare used by increasingly sophisticated insurgents.The report suggests that without new training, U.S. forces may be at a deadly disadvantage.The doctrine calls on the Army to develop and deploy directed-energy weapons such as high-powered microwaves, lasers and infrared beams, as well as wireless networks and other devices to confuse enemy communication.
HENTOFF: Obama's state secrets echo Bush,U.S. wants torture of suspect kept under wraps Nat Hentoff Monday, March 2, 2009
British resident Binyam Mohamed, who was detained at Guantanamo, hides his face as he leaves a Royal Air Force base upon his recent return to the United Kingdom.
OP-ED:
Last year, Britain's Foreign Office angered the British High Court by ordering it to censor seven paragraphs from a previous ruling in the case of a British legal resident, Binyam Mohamed, who had been rendered and tortured by the CIA in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morocco and Guantanamo. This muzzling of the High Court was caused by a Bush State Department threat to the Foreign Office, a threat renewed last month when Mr. Mohamed's case came again before the High Court. Last August, John Bellinger, then chief legal adviser to the State Department, wrote the Foreign Office: We want to affirm in the clearest terms that the public disclosure of these documents or of the information contained therein is likely to result in serious damage to U.S. national security, and could harm existing intelligence-sharing arrangements between our two governments.On Feb. 4, the British High Court wanted to finally disclose those seven paragraphs summarizing actual U.S. reports on Mr. Mohamed's treatment, paragraphs originally provided to the Foreign Office. The judges expected that the situation had changed significantly following the election of President Barack Obama, who was avowedly determined to eschew torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. (That court is also interested in British involvement with Mr. Mohamed's interrogations.) Although all U.S. charges against Mr. Mohamed were dropped last year, this year the Obama administration continues to demand that those seven paragraphs remain secret and was reported by the New York Times on Feb. 18 as having thanked the British government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security administration.As Mr. Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder has already shown in another case involving Mr. Mohamed before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Bush-Cheney State Secrets policy continues to reign in the Obama administration.
Even a letter sent directly to Mr. Obama by Mr. Mohamed's British lawyers to look into the truly medieval ways in which Mr. Mohamed was tortured has not changed the president's mind. (See the Jurist Legal News & Research, Web site, Feb. 12). In the 9th Circuit court papers (Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan Inc.), American Civil Liberties Union lawyers for Mr. Mohamed cite his claim that in Morocco, his clothes were cut off with a scalpel and the same scalpel was then used to make incisions on his body, including his penis.It is reasonable to believe that the seven paragraphs involuntarily censored by the British High Court would be quite useful to Mr. Mohamed's case in both the British and American courts. The High Court in England reacted angrily to the Obama administration refusal to annul the Bush threat to impair relations with British intelligence about the release of the seven paragraphs. The High Court declared on Feb. 5 its acute disappointment that the United States, governed by the rule of law, would continue to censor evidence relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be.Mr. Mohamed, who was on a hunger strike (his only form of protest) at Guantanamo Bay, has finally been released and returned home to England where his lawyers continue to press his case concerning his treatment by the CIA. The Obama administration wanted a gag rule imposed on the returned Mr. Mohamed, but his lawyers rejected the demand (New York Times, Feb. 24). Before his release, as reported Feb. 18 by the New York Times' Raymond Bonner, a member of Mr. Mohamed's legal team - U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley - told reporters his torture by the Moroccans would make waterboarding seem like child's play.In San Francisco, at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Mr. Mohamed is one of five victims of CIA kidnapping who are charging a subsidiary of giant Boeing Aircraft with providing planes and logistics for the harrowing CIA renditions flights. Mr. Holder sent Justice Department lawyer Douglas Letter to order the court to dismiss the case without discussing it in court.
One of the startled judges, Mary Schroeder, asked: The change in administration has no bearing? She was assured that the Obama government's echo policy on state secrets has been thoroughly vetted with the new administration. Another surprised judge, William Canby, puzzled by the invocation of state secrets, asked: You can say something is secret even when a newspaper reporter has it? (Many newspaper reporters, including this writer, have written in detail about the CIA's torture flights, including those of the shackled Mr. Mohamed.) On the same day that the attorney general's silencer addressed the court, Mr. Holder himself announced that the Justice Department will review all the pending cases in which the Bush administration asserted state secrets, to ensure they are invoked only in legally appropriate situations. I wonder if the attorney general gets extra pay for being the president's emergency public relations flack while actually commanding that this crucial case be dismissed. The ACLU's Ben Wizner, arguing Mr. Mohamed's case at the 9th Circuit, said: This administration is going to have to face the issue of accountability. [It] cannot pretend the last seven years didn't happen.Want to bet?
Barack Obama's White House counsel Gregory B. Craig on Feb. 18 was reported telling the New York Times' Charlie Savage: We have been some of the most articulate and vociferous critics of the way the Bush administration handled things. There has been a dramatic change of direction.I would sure like to see Binyam Mohamed's reaction to that talking point from the transparent Obama administration. Nat Hentoff's column for The Washington Times runs on Mondays. 2009 The Washington Times.
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