Tuesday, January 10, 2012

STOCK RESULTS JAN 10,12

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,(WORLD SOCIALISM) 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/
CNBC VIDEOS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839263/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS WED JANUARY 11,2012

09:30 AM +2.43
10:00 AM +105.31
10:30 AM +95.70
11:00 AM +94.30
11:30 AM +101.76
12:00 PM +92.49
12:30 PM +62.63
01:00 PM +65.05
01:30 PM +68.74
02:00 PM +71.25
02:30 PM +70.70
03:00 PM +78.23
03:30 PM +68.43
04:00 PM +69.78 12,462.47

S&P 500 1292.08 +11.38

NASDAQ 2702.50 +25.94

GOLD 1,634.00 +26.10

OIL 102.27 +0.96

TSE 300 12,270.66 +73.94

CDNX 1542.23 +14.75

S&P/TSX/60 699.59 +4.60

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +111 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow +1 points at low today.
Dow +111 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,637.20.OIL opens at $102.72 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow +1 points at low today so far.
Dow +111 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow +1 points at low today.
Dow +111 points at high today.

GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,902.60 (NOT AT CLOSE)

Monday, January 09, 2012

STOCK RESULTS JAN 9,12

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,(WORLD SOCIALISM) 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/
CNBC VIDEOS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839263/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS MON JANUARY 09,2012

09:30 AM +2.43
10:00 AM +3.61
10:30 AM +35.22
11:00 AM +6.65
11:30 AM -12.90
12:00 PM -0.08
12:30 PM +18.43
01:00 PM +13.52
01:30 PM +17.67
02:00 PM +21.80
02:30 PM +23.52
03:00 PM +33.26
03:30 PM +28.46
04:00 PM +32.77 12,392.69

S&P 500 1280.70 +2.89

NASDAQ 2676.56 +2.34

GOLD 1,609.40 -7.40

OIL 101.35 -0.21

TSE 300 12,196.72 +8.08

CDNX 1527.48 +1.75

S&P/TSX/60 694.99 +1.27

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +19 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -12 points at low today.
Dow +35 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,620.20.OIL opens at $101.00 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -26 points at low today so far.
Dow +41 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -26 points at low today.
Dow +41 points at high today.

GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,902.60 (NOT AT CLOSE)

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-10 WORLD REGIONS) 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).

Hackers dump EU staff passwords and credit card details onto net Today JAN 9,12 @ 15:09 By Nikolaj Nielsen

BRUSSELS - A number of people working for the EU institutions have had their emails, passwords and credit card details hacked and released to the general public over the Christmas break.A partial list was recently published online by Anonymous, a loose network of cyber activists campaigning against the so-called New World Order.Among the victims are administrators and officials at the European Commission, Eurojust (an EU body fighting organised crime), the European External Action Service, the European Parliament and Brussels-based think-tank the European Policy Centre (EPC).
Some have yet to be informed of the breach.EUobserver on Monday (9 January) spoke to EPC analyst Amanda Paul who was unaware that her credit card number, password, mobile telephone number, mail address and email are floating in the public domain.

This website read her credit card number to her over the phone to confirm authenticity. After a very brief phone interlude, she promptly called her credit card company to cancel her card and change her email password.All together, some 850,000 confidential details were released when Anonymous hacked into the Texas-based Stratfor Global Intelligence security firm.Stratfor is a widely used private security research company. About 75,000 of its paying subscribers also had their credit card details disclosed, including some working for the EU institutions.
The leaked database has 19,000 email addresses ending in the .mil domain of the US military according to the Guardian newspaper. The list also included 242 Nato staff members.This company has suffered a blow to its reputation,Andreas Hartmann, who heads the European Parliament's policy department on Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs, told this website.Hartmann's confidential details were also breached, but he said numerous actors immediately informed him. He would not go into further detail.I immediately blocked my account. I didn't suffer any problems,he said, adding that he was satisfied by Stratfor's prompt response and communication on the matter.Last year, Hartmann headed a study on the parliamentary oversight of security and intelligence agencies in the European Union.

For his part, Fred Burton, Stratfor's vice president of intelligence made a YouTube address on 28 December assuring paid subscribers they would be informed of the breach with details on how to protect their data. The company's website is still offline and has since been replaced by a page informing customers they will be entitled to a free one-year data identity coverage from a partner firm as compensation.Perhaps the reason Stratfor's taking its time to get back online is because they simply have no infrastructure anymore,anonymouSabu, one of the alleged masterminds behind Anonymous, tweeted on Saturday (7 January). According to Anonymous, the details were easily hacked because Stratfor did not run routine encryption on the data.The entire operation could cast a long shadow over intense US lobbying against a leaked draft proposal for a Data Protection Regulation from the European Commission this past December.Among the US complaints are the European Commission's views on data breach requirements, which they consider as overly severe and could undermine corporate data security practices.It is interesting to note that the US document tends to oppose specific proposals, such as the notification deadline and fines, in support of the vague issues such as not distracting businesses from improving corporate data security practices,wrote Joe McNamee in an email to EUobserver.McNamee is an EU advocacy co-ordinator at European Digital Rights.Public consultation of the draft ends on 15 January, with European Commissioner Viviane Reding, in charge of fundamental rights, expected to release a final draft of the directive before the end of the month.

Merkel urges Greece to implement debt deal
Today JAN 9,12 @ 17:23 By Honor Mahony


BRUSSELS - The latest in a series of Franco-German meetings to deal with the eurozone crisis saw little in the way of concrete decisions, but Chancellor Angela Merkel took the opportunity to warn Greece there will be no more money unless progress is made on details of the country's second aid package.We have to implement the conclusions from October. That means the voluntary restructuring of Greek debt must be pushed forward. And from our point of view, the second Greek programme - including debt restructuring - must be achieved quickly otherwise it will not be possible to pay out the next tranche for Greece,she said following a working lunch in Berlin with President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday (9 January).We want Greece to stay in the euro area. We have repeatedly said that the restructuring of Greece's debt is an offer to improve Greek debt sustainability. However, Greece must really implement its troika obligations,she said, referring to conditions laid down by the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).The EU and the IMF in 2010 agreed to lend Greece €110 billion. Last year they signed off a further loan of €109 billion.Since then both sides have been locked in negotiations over whether Greece is fulfilling its side of the bargain and how to make the private sector voluntarily accept a 50 percent loss on the value of their Greek bonds.

Talks have been complicated by suggestions from various experts that the private sector deal should either be scrapped altogether or that the writedown should be more substantial for it to make a real difference to Greece's debt.Outlining a vague to-do list following the meeting, Merkel said France and Germany are working on plans to speed up contributions to the eurozone's permanent bailout fund (the ESM) and promised to look into the best practices of member states when it comes to labour market policies.They also expressed confidence that a new intergovermental treaty on tightening fiscal discipline in the eurozone would be ready quickly. There is a good chance that it can be signed by the end of January, Merkel said.The chancellor supported President Sarkozy's decision to forge ahead with plans for a French-only financial transactions tax, but did not say if Germany would come onboard, admitting there is no agreement within her own cetnre-right/liberal ruling coalition on the issue.Finance ministers should come with a report on the issue by March at the latest, she noted.

Small step

Sarkozy acknowledged that Monday's meeting was just a small step in the drawn-out eurozone crisis.Asked if enough measures had been taken to ensure the eurozone would be safe in the event of a Greek default, he said that if they were feeling calm about the situation they would not feel the need to meet so often.The situation is very tense,he said.The Merkel-Sarkozy event marks the beginning of a series of meetings leading up to the EU summit on 30 January. Merkel will hold talks with IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Tuesday and see her Italian counterpart Mario Monti on Wednesday. The leaders of France, Germany and Italy will meet on 20 January while EU finance ministers will meet three days later.

France to push for financial tax at Berlin meeting
Today JAN 9,12 @ 09:27 By Valentina Pop


BRUSSELS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy is meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday (9 January) to seek support for a financial transactions tax that risks aggravating EU division on how to handle the financial crisis.We won't wait for others to agree to put it in place, we'll do it because we believe in it,he said on Friday after talks in Paris with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti in reference to Britain's opposition to the new tax.Amid ever-widening disagreement in the Union on how to react to the crisis, British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday he would block any attempt to introduce an EU-wide toll, but added that if France wants to go it alone it is free to do so.The idea of a transactions tax put in place only in Europe that doesn't include other jurisdictions, what that would do is it would cost jobs, it would cost us tax revenue, it would be bad for the whole of Europe,he told the BBC.Britain fears that the so called Tobin tax - named after Nobel prize-winning economist James Tobin - would see financial institutions leave London for softer tax regimes such as Switzerland or China.Protecting the interests of the City of London was one main reason why Cameron in December vetoed an EU treaty change. The British leader demanded safeguards that no further legislation will be passed to curb the freedom of financial markets. The veto isolated Britain as the 26 other EU countries went with a new inter-governmental treaty on financial discipline without it.Other EU leaders including Angela Merkel and Mario Monti still back the idea of an EU-wide Tobin tax.It is necessary that the different countries do not go it alone in the application of this tax. I believe in a European perspective,Monti said on Friday. Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said the German government is pushing for an EU tax even though there is no global agreement on the subject at the level of the G20 countries.

For his part, French state secretary Benoist Apparu said on Sunday that a first draft of legal proposals for an EU tax will be discussed by finance ministers probably in February.He added that Paris will lead by example and vote on a France-only tax ahead of the presidential elections in April.French finance groups have warned against any attempt to play politics with th sector.Association Paris Europlace - representing key players in the French financial sphere - said the tax would hurt the country's economy unless it was implemented across the Union.If this tax was applied only in France, it would inevitably lead to an exodus of banks, insurance companies and management, and would reduce the role of Paris in the European and global economy,it said.Audit firm Ernst & Young estimates that even an EU-wide tax would have a negative impact on revenues.Last September, the European Commission published an impact study of the tax suggesting it could raise annual revenue of around €37 billion.Ernst & Young said in its report the commission made a number of optimistic assumptions about the likely decline in trading activity that would result and instead predicted that it would create a €116 billion hole in EU countries' public finances.

Confidence ebbs in Greece's ability to stay in euro
Today JAN 9,12 @ 09:29 By Andrew Rettman


BRUSSELS - Experts in Germany and the Czech Republic are losing faith that Greece will be able to stay in the single currency despite its multi-billion bail-outs.The negative feeling was voiced in two newspaper interviews over the weekend.Clemens Fuest, an Oxford University economist and an advisor to German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble, told Greek newspaper To Vima on Sunday (8 January) that private bondholders will have to write off more than the 50 percent of Greek debt agreed at an EU summit last October.He warned that even this may not be enough to stop a default, however.To my view, Greece has already defaulted ... I believe that the best thing would be if one honestly says that the Greek government cannot repay its debt. In such a way, a better settlement could be achieved,he said.Miroslav Singer, the head of the Czech central bank, told the Hospodarske Noviny newspaper in remarks published on Monday that unless the EU pours in more money, Greece will have to leave the euro.If there is not the will to give Greece a massive amount of money from European structural funds, I do not see any other solution than its departure from the eurozone and a massive devaluation of the new Greek currency,he noted.So far Greece has been given loans that served mainly for buying time and for rich Greeks to move their money out of the country. This lowers the trustworthiness of Europe.The EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2010 agreed to lend Greece €110 billion. In 2011, they gave the nod to a top-up loan of €109 billion. The money is being paid out in tranches on the basis of Greek conformity with related austerity demands. The next slice is due in March.

IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard in an interview with CNBC on Friday also predicted extra pain for private lenders. The numbers [for Greece] are not good ... There'll have to be substantial haircuts [debt write-offs],he warned.IMF pessimism was confirmed on Monday when German magazine Der Spiegel cited an internal IMF memo saying Greece will have to quit the single currency unless private investors take bigger losses, the EU gives more money or Greece sells more state-owned assets.
Blanchard in his blog recently noted that gloomy statements have a tendency to become self-fulfilling prophecies.Perceptions matter: once the real money investors have left a market, they do not come back overnight ... Not much happened to change the economic situation in the eurozone in the second half of the year. But once markets and commentators started to mention the possible breakup of the euro, the perception remained and it also will not easily go away. Many financial investors are busy constructing strategies in case it happens,he wrote on New Year's day.For his part, Greek central bank governor George Provopoulos also on New Year's day told Greek press that a return to the drachma would be hell ... a nightmare.Provopoulos predicted the new drachma would lose up to 70 percent of its value, creating fuel and food shortages and disabling the Greek police and army. He added that Greece might have revert to a barter economy for a period of up to two and a half years while the drachma was gradually put back into circulation.

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,(JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, PALESTINIANS,JORDAN) and the Hagarenes;(EGYPT)
7 Gebal,(HEZZBALLOH,LEBANON) and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA,ARABS,SINAI) 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.

Iran starts underground nuclear work, condemns American to die ReutersBy Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl | Reuters – JAN 9,12

TEHRAN/VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has switched on a uranium enrichment plant deep inside a mountain and sentenced to death an American arrested as a spy, actions sure to provoke the West's anger and undermine diplomacy aimed at averting crippling sanctions or even war.The start of enrichment at the Fordow bunker near the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Qom was confirmed on Monday by an Iranian official in Tehran and two diplomats in Vienna, home of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspected it.Locating enrichment - the most contentious part of Iran's nuclear program - deep underground could eventually make it much harder for U.S. or Israeli forces to bomb, narrowing the time window for diplomacy to avert any potential attack.The death sentence for Amir Mirza Hekmati, 28, an Arizona-born former U.S. military translator, further riled Washington, which denies he is a spy and has demanded his immediate release since his arrest last month.If true, we strongly condemn such a verdict and will work with our partners to convey our condemnation to the Iranian government,White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.The two moves come at a time when new U.S. sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program are causing real economic pain. Tehran has responded with threats to international shipping that have frightened oil markets. And a parliamentary election in two months is widening Iran's internal political divisions.On New Year's Eve, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law by far the toughest financial sanctions yet against Iran, which if fully implemented could make it impossible for most countries to pay for Iranian oil. The European Union, which still buys a fifth of Iran's 2.6 million barrels per day of exports, is expected to announce an embargo this month.

TALKS COLLAPSED

Nuclear talks collapsed a year ago between Iran and the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany (P5+1). Efforts to restart them have foundered over Iran's refusal to negotiate over its right to enrich uranium, which it says is for peaceful use but the West believes is for an atomic bomb.The United States and Israel both say they are leaving military options on the table if they believe it is the only way to prevent Iran from making a nuclear weapon.If Iran is enriching uranium at Fordow, that escalates the crisis and may shorten the timeline for the P5+1 to dissuade Israel from taking military action, said Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Hekmati's case is thought to be the first in which Tehran has passed a death sentence on a U.S. citizen for spying. His family says he was arrested while visiting grandparents in Iran.Iran has aired a televised confession - denounced by Washington - in which Hekmati said he worked for a New York-based video company designing games to manipulate public opinion in the Middle East on behalf of U.S. intelligence.Amir Mirza Hekmati was sentenced to death ... for cooperating with the hostile country America and spying for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), ISNA news agency quoted judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei as saying.The court found him Corrupt on the Earth and Mohareb (one who wages war on God).Hekmati's execution could still be blocked by Iran's highest court, which must confirm all death sentences. Iran could hold on to Hekmati and use him - as they have with previous foreign detainees - as a pawn in their rivalry with the United States, said Gala Riani, analyst at forecasting firm IHS Global Insight.

Three U.S. backpackers jailed in Iran as spies in 2009 were freed in 2010 and 2011 in what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a humanitarian gesture. An Iranian-American sentenced to eight years for spying in 2009 was freed after 100 days.A spokesman for Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, where Hekmati's father works, said the family would not be commenting on the sentence because it's a very tricky diplomatic situation.Hekmati previously worked as a U.S. military translator. Iran's Farsi language is one of the two main tongues spoken in Afghanistan, and the U.S. military often deploys Americans of Iranian origin there as translators.

ENRICHMENT

Iran has long said it would begin enrichment of uranium at the Fordow bunker, but some Western capitals may have hoped it could be persuaded to hold off to restart diplomacy.Tehran says it intends to refine uranium to 20 percent purity for use in a peaceful medical research reactor, and that it has hidden nothing from the IAEA.All nuclear activities, including enrichment in Natanz and Fordow, are under continuous surveillance and control and safeguards of the IAEA, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told Reuters in Vienna.The West says uranium of 20 percent purity is not necessary for power plants and would be a big step towards the higher purity needed for a nuclear bomb. Western officials say Iran lacks the technology to use it in a medical research reactor.Iran disclosed to the IAEA in 2009 that it was building the facility beneath a mountain at Fordow, but only after learning that it had been detected by Western intelligence.All of Iran's enrichment activity is in violation of (United Nations) Security Council resolutions and any expansion of its capacity at Fordow just compounds those violations,said a Western diplomat in Vienna.

SANCTIONS BITE

In a case apparently separate from Hekmati's, Iran said on Monday it had broken up a U.S.-linked spy network planning to fuel unrest ahead of a parliamentary election in March.The detained spies were in contact with foreign countries through cyberspace, Intelligence Minister Haydar Moslehi was quoted by state television as saying. He gave no information about the nationalities or the number of those detained.The parliamentary election will be Iran's first since a 2009 presidential vote whose disputed result triggered eight months of unrest. Iran's rulers put those protests down by force but since then the Arab Spring has shown the vulnerability of authoritarian governments in the region to such uprisings.After years in which economic sanctions had little effect, the latest measures are causing real pain.Oil buyers are demanding deep discounts from Iran, cutting the revenue it needs to feed its 74 million people. The rial currency has plunged and Iranians have scrambled to withdraw savings from banks to buy dollars.Iran has remained defiant. In a televised speech on Monday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: Sanctions imposed on Iran by our enemies will not have any impact on our nation.The Iranian nation believes in its rulers.Iran has responded to the new sanctions by threatening to shut the Strait of Hormuz, the outlet for ships carrying oil from the Gulf, guarded by a huge U.S.-led international fleet.Brent Crude was trading at around $113 a barrel on Monday, up by about $6 in the nine days since Obama signed the new sanctions into law. Iran's military threats and sanctions news have caused spikes in the price in recent weeks.The U.S. sanctions law allows Obama to issue temporary waivers to firms buying Iranian oil to prevent havoc on energy markets, but countries are meant to show they are cutting back purchases from Tehran to receive permits. Saudi Arabia has promised to make up any shortfall in global supplies.The foreign minister of Japan, one of the main buyers of Iranian oil, visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar in recent days and discussed oil security, although a spokesman said it was too early to make specific requests.Diplomacy was made more difficult late last year when European countries withdrew their ambassadors after protesters stormed the British embassy in Tehran in November. France said on Monday its ambassador had returned.(Additional reporting by Hossein Jaseb, Mitra Amiri and Ramin Mostafavi in Tehran, Christopher Wilson and Caren Bohan in Washington and Regan Doherty in Qatar; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Arab monitors buy time for Assad-Syria opposition
ReutersBy Alistair Lyon | Reuters – JAN 9,12


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Arab League monitors are only giving Syrian authorities more time to crush their opponents, opposition figures said on Monday after the League opted to keep the mission in place despite Syria's failure to comply fully with an Arab peace plan.The observers, who began work on the ground two weeks ago, have so far failed to stop the violent suppression of protests against President Bashar al-Assad in which the United Nations says more than 5,000 people have been killed in 10 months.After a review meeting in Cairo on Sunday, the Arab League said the government had only partly implemented a pledge to stop the bloodshed, free detainees and withdraw troops from cities.Adnan Khodeir, head of the monitors' operations room in the Egyptian capital, said more observers would reach Syria this week, bringing the team's strength to 200 from 165 now.The initial report is too vague, and it essentially buys the regime more time, said Rima Fleihan, a member of the Syrian National Council, a leading opposition group in exile.We need to know what the League will do if the regime continues its crackdown in the presence of the monitors. At one point it needs to refer Syria to the U.N. Security Council.The Arab League appears divided over whether to take such a step, which in the case of Libya led to foreign military intervention that helped rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi.

Russia and China have opposed any Security Council move on Syria, while Western powers hostile to Assad have so far shown little appetite for Libya-style intervention in a country that sits in a far more combustible area of the Middle East.Gunfire erupted near a car carrying Arab monitors away from an anti-Assad demonstration they had attended in the turbulent city of Homs on Monday, but no one was hurt, activists said.They said the shooting came from a security checkpoint. A video posted on YouTube shows a crowd following a black car. When gunfire is heard, the car stops and the protesters flee. Then the car slowly moves again and the shooting stops.As with most events in Syria, where most independent media are banned, it was impossible to verify what had happened.Rami Abdulrahman, of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said keeping the Arab monitors in Syria without a substantial increase in their numbers would only give the regime more time to deal with the Syrian revolution.

HIDING TANKS

He said Syrian authorities had hidden tanks in military and security compounds or repainted armored vehicles in blue police colors. Only a small proportion of the many thousands of detainees seized during the unrest had been freed, he added.

Syrian officials say they are fighting "terrorism" by subversives armed from abroad, not a broad-based revolt against more than four decades of Assad family rule. The authorities say their foes have killed 2,000 security force members.

Arab League officials said the future of the monitoring mission, due to make a full report on January 19, depended on the Syrian government's commitment to ending the daily bloodshed.If the ... report comes out saying the violence has not stopped, the Arab League will have a responsibility to act on that, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told a news conference after the Cairo meeting.He did not outline any next step by the League, which suspended Syria in November for failing to comply with an agreed peace plan. The 22-member body also announced sanctions, but these do not appear to have been fully implemented.The Arab plan called for tolerance of peaceful protests, a political dialogue and free access for foreign media.There was no formal Syrian government response to the Cairo meeting, but the state-appointed mufti Ahmed Hassoun, Syria's most senior Muslim authority, gave a defiant message.The land of Sham (Syria) will not be humiliated, he said in a Damascus church during multi-faith prayers for 26 people the government said were killed by a suicide bomber on Friday.

SYRIA'S ANGELS

Those who want Syria to be an arena for their own agenda against the will of its people, I say to the Arab League and to the United Nations that Syria has angels ... that will fly over it until resurrection day, Hassoun said.Hundreds of people have been killed since Syria first agreed to the Arab plan, most of whose provisions remain unfulfilled.We have no doubt in our minds that the Syrian authorities are doing everything they can to avoid any form of scrutiny, said Nadim Houry, a Beirut-based Human Rights Watch campaigner.Qatar, which chairs the Arab League committee on Syria, has acknowledged mistakes made by the observers, but its proposal to invite U.N. experts to help them was not accepted.The problem with these missions is that mistakes are costly because every day people are dying, said Houry, who urged the monitors to be more transparent and communicative.Ahmad al-Khatib, a member of the Syrian Revolution General Commission, said the Arab League report could have been more damning, but at least it recognized the need for more monitors to observe unrest and repression across a nation of 23 million.The Arab League seems to want to keep a line open with the Syrian regime and not risk having the monitors expelled or see their work further restricted,he told Reuters.The League communique called on the Syrian opposition to present its own political vision and asked the League's secretary general to convene a Syrian opposition meeting.Syrian opposition groups have struggled to unify or to form a widely accepted representative council.
They are split over the role of armed resistance in what set out as a peaceful protest movement, the weight Islamist groups should have in any joint opposition body, and the scope for Arab, U.N. or other external action to drive Assad from power.(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Dominic Evans and Mariam Karouny in Beirut and Yasmine Saleh and Ayman Samir in Cairo; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

WW3 THE 3 WAVES THAT MARCH TO ISRAEL
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2005/11/questions-ww3-whats-coming.html (WW3 COMPLETE HAPPENINGS)

AMOS 9:10
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

China nudges North and South Korea to reach out
ReutersBy Chris Buckley | Reuters – JAN 9,12


BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday nudged his visiting South Korean counterpart to seek better ties with North Korea, the official Xinhua news agency reported, ahead of meetings between envoys to discuss the North's nuclear program.Lee Myung-bak's visit to Beijing has been overshadowed by questions about how the two sides will grapple with North Korea, where the death last month of long-time leader Kim Jong-il fanned worries about fresh regional confrontation as his successor, Kim Jong-un, consolidates power.President Hu, whose government is the North's sole major backer, told Lee stability was his paramount concern.Hu said China will continue to support the improvement of relations between the two sides of the divided Korean peninsula, Xinhua reported.It is in line with the interests of all parties concerned to safeguard the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula, he said. China is also willing to enhance communication and coordination with all relevant parties and make unremitting efforts in this respect, Xinhua reported in English.China hopes the parties concerned will have more moves that help promote peace and stability on the peninsula, Hu said.The Chinese leader's reported remarks shed no new light on how Beijing sees the transition in Pyongyang, where Kim Jong-il was succeeded by his untested and largely unknown youngest son, Kim Jong-un. But Hu's comments underscored Beijing's focus on avoiding fresh flare-ups on the peninsula.Some analysts have speculated the young Kim may order a provocation, such as a small-scale military attack or nuclear or missile test, to burnish a hardline image with the North's powerful military, whose support is crucial to him.Earlier, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Lim Sung-nam, Seoul's top nuclear envoy, would meet Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei during Lee's trip to discuss denuclearising the North.The South has also said its main foreign policy goal this year is maintaining stability on the peninsula as its unpredictable neighbor embarks on a third generation of dynastic rule following Kim Jong-il's death last month.But Beijing has also faced growing wariness from neighbors over its military modernization and strategic intentions, especially over North Korea, a problem acknowledged by a leading Chinese newspaper.

Particularly with China's rapid development altering the relative balance of power between the two sides, problems have arisen in Chinese-South Korean relations that need urgent attention,said the overseas edition of the People's Daily, the official paper of China's ruling Communist Party.Above all there is the problem of mutual political trust, said a front-page commentary in the paper by Zhang Liangui, a prominent Chinese expert on Korean affairs.Seoul's ambassador to China, Lee Kyu-hyung, recently said the South would continue to raise the issue of China's unwillingness to condemn North Korea when it provokes the South.Although Beijing and Seoul share broad aims on the divided Korean peninsula, Zhang said, their different interests and positions have produced a negative impact on bilateral relations.Lee angered Pyongyang by cutting off aid to its impoverished neighbor when he took office in 2008, demanding nuclear disarmament and economic reform as preconditions to reopen food assistance and political engagement.Tensions on the Korean peninsula rose in 2010 when the North launched an artillery barrage into a South Korean island, killing civilians. The North was also blamed for a torpedo attack against a South Korean navy ship that killed 46 sailors.North and South Korea are technically still at war under a truce ending the 1950-53 Korean War.

TRADE TALKS FLAGGED

Lee's three-day visit began after Chinese media flagged the prospect of trade pact talks in coming months, holding out closer economic ties as a way to narrow political distrust.The China Daily said the two sides are considering negotiations for a three-way free trade agreement including Japan, and a separate China-South Korea trade agreement.An unidentified source from China's Ministry of Commerce told the paper the China-South Korea bilateral trade pact talks will probably start in the first half of the year.Marking the start of the talks, Lee noted the rapid development of relations between South Korea and China in all spheres since formal ties were established 20 years ago.Despite Beijing's political support for North Korea, Chinese economic ties with South Korea are much larger.In the first 11 months of 2011, China's trade with the South was worth $224.8 billion, a rise of 19.5 percent on the same period in 2010, according to Chinese customs data. Its trade with North Korea was worth $5.2 billion in the first 11 months of 2011.Since 2008, South Korea and China have conducted joint studies on their possible free trade deal.
(Additional reporting by Jeremy Laurence in SEOUL; Editing by Ken Wills and Paul Tait)

Gaza leader promises difficult days for Israel
AFPAFP – JAN 9,12


The prime minister in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Sunday promised difficult days for Israel, and at a rally in Tunis urged Arab Spring revolutionaries to fight for an independent Palestine.Ismail Haniya received an ovation from the crowd of some 5,000 men, women and children gathered in a stadium waving Palestinian, Tunisian and Hamas flags.Israel no longer has allies in Egypt and in Tunisia, we are saying to the Zionist enemies that times have changed and that the time of the Arab Spring, the time of the revolution, of dignity and of pride has arrived, he said to loud cheers.We promise you that we will not cede a single part of Palestine, we will not cede Jerusalem, we will continue to fight and we will not lay down our arms, he said.
He urged the people of the revolution to fight the army of Al-Quds as Jerusalem is known in Arabic.To Tunisia we say: It is us today who are going to build the new Middle East.Haniya insisted We will not recognise Israel, as the crowd chanted: Death to Israel, The Tunisian revolution supports Palestine, and The army of Mohammed is back.Some wiped their feet on the Star of David.Haniya arrived in Tunis on Thursday for a five-day visit at the invitation of the new Islamist-led Tunisian authorities. He has also visited Egypt, Sudan and Turkey and will next travel to Qatar and Bahrain.Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation by Western powers.
Haniya's visit does not sit well with representatives of the Palestinian Authority led by president Mahmud Abbas. One source told AFP: The Palestinians are furious.Jews in Tunisia asked the government earlier Sunday to take steps to avoid a repeat of anti-Semitic slogans chanted during the Hamas leader's visit.No Tunisian should be insulted, and the government must take measures to ensure this incident is never repeated, Peres Trabelsi, a representative of Tunisia's small Jewish population, told AFP after the incident.And the chief rabbi of Tunis, Haim Bittan, said: Certain members of the community were frightened after this incident, but you have to make a distinction between the situation in the Middle East and here.Islamist activists welcoming Haniya were heard chanting slogans like: Kill the Jews, it is our duty, along with anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian messages.There are no Zionists in Tunisia and we don't want to be mixed into the problems of the Middle East,said Trabelsi.Tunisia is our country.Tunisia has one of the Arab world's largest Jewish minorities, numbering about 1,500 individuals in a population of more than 10 million.The population has shrunk drastically from the 100,000 Jews who lived in Tunisia after independence in 1956.Ajmi Lourimi, a member of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, said the slogans were an isolated incident that did not reflect the views of the government.Ennahda last month said Jews living in the north African country were citizens with all their rights and duties.Those comments came in response an invitation by Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom for Tunisian Jews to settle in Israel.Asked about the anti-Semitic slogans, Haniya told AFP: We are not against the Jews because they are Jews. Our problem is with those who occupy the land of Palestine.The Jews are all over the world and Hamas is not targeting them,he added, speaking from the airport.

Sunday, January 08, 2012

TORAH PORTION JAN 08-14,2012

TORAH PORTION JAN 08-14,2012
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2010/12/parshah-shemot-exodus-11-61.html

IRAN ENRICHING IN SECRET SITE

IMF chief: End of euro unlikely in 2012, but crisis will drag on 06.01.12 @ 17:26 By Valentina Pop

BRUSSELS - The euro will not vanish this year, but problems within the eurozone will slow down the global economy, with the International Monetary Fund set to lower its growth predictions in an upcoming report, its chief Christine Lagarde said Friday (6 January).Will 2012 be the end of the euro currency? My answer is I don't think so, she told reporters after meeting the South African finance minister.It's a young currency, it's a solid one as well. You have, within the zone, not in relation with the currency, serious pressures and issues concerning the sovereign debt, concerning the strength of the banking system, but the currency itself is not one that would vanish or disappear in 2012, she added.However, Lagarde appeared less convinced when asked about Greece potentially exiting the single currency.Will Greece quit the euro zone in 2012? The euro partners have affirmed, reaffirmed, and reaffirmed their determination. We can only support that.Greek officials this week warned of an uncontrolled default and being left out of the euro as they struggle to convince unions to cut labour costs - a key condition for the next tranche of bail-out money.

On Friday, the euro tumbled to record lows against the US dollar and Japanese yen, as it traded for $1.27, the lowest in 16 months and 98.21 yen, the lowest level in 11 years.Meanwhile, fears of a credit crunch in Europe are returning as banks parked a record €455 billion in the European Central Bank instead of lending to each other or to the real economy. The sum is almost equal to the cheap loans made available to EU banks by the very same ECB, precisely in order to avoid liquidity strains which would bring national economies to a halt.Fresh Eurostat data published that same day from November showed that eurozone unemployment remained at an all-time high of 10.3 percent for the second month running, with the highest rates once again registered in Spain (22.9%) and Greece (18.8%).Lagarde, who last month warned of another Great Depression looming due to the eurozone crisis, told her South African hosts to brace themselves for a 2012 that will not be a walk in the park and that they may suffer setbacks if the Europe crisis is not addressed successfully.

Cameron sees legal difficulties' in fighting new fiscal treaty 06.01.12 @ 22:01 By Valentina Pop

BRUSSELS - British PM David Cameron on Friday (6 January) vowed to do everything possible to prevent EU institutions from being used in a new fiscal treaty the UK has refused to join, but admitted there were legal difficulties in pursuing that path.The treaty negotiations resumed on Friday among 26 member states, with the UK participating as an observer. The text would allow the EU commission, acting on behalf of other signatories to the pact, to take deficit sinners to the European Court of Justice.Cameron, whose veto on EU treaty changes in December led to the creation of this new inter-governmental pact, told BBC 4 Radio on Friday that there are legal difficulties over blocking the 26 members from using the EU institutions.
Part of the problem is that the legal position is unclear. One of the strengths of there not being a treaty within the European Union is that the new thing, whatever it is, can't do things that are the property of the European Union.The British leader vowed to do everything possible to ensure that the single market and competitiveness were not discussed outside the full EU framework.We will be very clear that, when it comes to that, you cannot use the European institutions for those things because that would be wrong. You can't have a treaty outside the European Union that starts doing what should be done within the European Union, and that goes back to the issue of safeguards.Asked what he had achieved for the UK through his veto, Cameron said: What I stopped was that if you have a treaty within the framework of the European Union that didn't have safeguards on the single market and on financial services, Britain would have been in a worse position. I am not making some great claim to have achieved a safeguard, but what I did do was stop a treaty without safeguards.Cameron's stance was criticised domestically not only by the Labour opposition but also by his Liberal governing partner and vice-premier Nick Clegg, who warned against Britain being isolated in Europe after the veto.

France's Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly called Cameron an obstinate kid for insisting on safeguards which ultimately would have benefited only bankers and traders, while Angela Merkel suggested the British leader was negotiating in bad faith. I really don't believe David Cameron was ever with us at the table,she said at the time.EU officials privately point to the equally intransigent Merkel's insistence on a full treaty change, which has become a political mantra in Germany, when much of the fiscal rules could have been dealt with through other legal ways, instead of creating this mess of a new treaty at 26-level but relying on EU institutions.
EUobserver understands that a legal u-turn by the council's own legal services also left Cameron in the cold, as his line of defence was based on an initial assessment that EU member states cannot use the community institutions outside the EU treaties.

As for the EU commission itself, it took a cautious line on Friday on the matter. The enforcement capacity of this international treaty is a matter that should be decided at the end of negotiations based on the provisions in the text, commission spokesman Olivier Bailly said during a press conference.German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok, who participated as an observer at the talks on Friday on the new legal text, told this website on the issue of involving the EU commission that nothing is decided until everything decided.But he was confident that in the end, the EU executive would get an even stronger role than the current wording which allows it to take countries to court on behalf of other signatories to the fiscal pact. It's still an ongoing process,he said after the meeting, as more follow-ups are being scheduled in the coming two weeks.As for Cameron's opposition to using EU institutions, Brok, a long-standing federalist said: He should go to the European Court of Justice then.

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,(JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, PALESTINIANS,JORDAN) and the Hagarenes;(EGYPT)
7 Gebal,(HEZZBALLOH,LEBANON) and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA,ARABS,SINAI) 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.

Iran holds military exercise near Afghan border
ReutersReuters – Sat, Jan 7, 2012


TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran launched a military maneuver near its border with Afghanistan on Saturday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, days after naval exercises in the Gulf increased tensions with the West and pushed up oil prices.Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' ground forces, said the Martyrs of Unity exercises near Khvat, 60 km (40 miles) from Afghanistan, were aimed at boosting security along the Iranian borders, Fars reported.The Revolutionary Guards' naval forces' 10-day exercise in the Gulf that ended last Monday worsened relations with Washington days after U.S. President Barack Obama approved sanctions that aim to stop countries buying Iranian oil.Threats that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, which leads out of the Gulf and provides the outlet for most oil from the Middle East, pushed up oil prices and Iran warned Washington not to send an aircraft carrier back into the Gulf.Forces with the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier strike group, the target of Tehran's threat, rescued 13 Iranian fishermen from Somali pirates days after passing through the Strait. [ID:nL6E8C6004]Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi played down the political significance of the rescue.On some occasions, Iran has helped and secured the released of many other countries' sailors that had been caught by pirates, he told state-run Press TV.This is a humanitarian gesture and it is not related to the countries' relations with each other.(Reporting By Mitra Amiri; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Report: Iran begins uranium enrichment at new site
Associated PressBy ALI AKBAR DAREINI | AP – JAN 8,12


TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has begun uranium enrichment at a new underground site well protected from possible airstrikes, a leading hardline newspaper reported Sunday in another show of defiance against Western pressure to rein in Tehran's nuclear program.Another newspaper quoted a senior commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard force as saying Tehran's leadership has decided to order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil route, if the country's petroleum exports are blocked. Revolutionary Guard ground forces also staged war games in eastern Iran in an apparent display of resolve against U.S. forces just over the border in Afghanistan.The supreme authorities ... have insisted that if enemies block the export of our oil, we won't allow a drop of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the strategy of the Islamic Republic in countering such threats, Revolutionary Guard deputy commander Ali Ashraf Nouri was quoted as saying by the Khorasan daily.Iranian politicians have issued similar threats in the past, but this is the strongest statement yet by a top commander in the security establishment.The latest statements are certain to fuel tensions with the U.S. and its allies, which are trying to turn up pressure on Iran with new sanctions to punish it over its disputed nuclear program. The West suspects Iran is trying to make nuclear weapons, but Iran denies this.

The United Nations has already sanctioned Iran for refusing to stop uranium enrichment — which can produce both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material. Tehran says its nuclear program is only for energy and medical research, and refuses to halt uranium enrichment.Kayhan daily, which is close to Iran's ruling clerics, said Tehran has begun injecting uranium gas into sophisticated centrifuges at the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom.Kayhan received reports yesterday that show Iran has begun uranium enrichment at the Fordo facility amid heightened foreign enemy threats, the paper said in a front-page report. Kayhan's manager is a representative of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final word on all important matters of state.Iran's nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi, said late Saturday that his country will soon begin enrichment at Fordo. It was impossible to immediately reconcile the two reports.Iran has a major uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in central Iran, where nearly 8,000 centrifuges are operating. Tehran began enrichment at Natanz in April 2006.The Fordo centrifuges, however, are reportedly more efficient. And the site better shielded from aerial attack.Nouri said Iran's leadership has made a strategic decision to close the Strait of Hormuz, should the country's exports be blocked. One-sixth of the world's oil flows to market through the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

President Barack Obama approved new sanctions against Iran a week ago, targeting the central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad. The U.S. has delayed implementing the sanctions for at least six months, worried about sending the price of oil higher at a time when the global economy is already struggling. But the new sanctions nevertheless prompted a series of threats from Iranian officials about closing the Strait of Hormuz.The newspaper paraphrased Nouri as saying that a 10-day naval war game which ended Tuesday was preparation for such a closure. The Guard, which is Iran's most powerful military force and which has its own naval arm, has planned more sea maneuvers for February.The exalted leader (Khamenei) determined a new strategy for the armed forces, by which any threat from enemies will be responded to with threats, Nouri said.The U.S. and Israel have said that all options remain open, including military action, should Iran continue with its enrichment program.Tehran says it needs the program to produce fuel for future nuclear reactors and medical radioisotopes needed for cancer patients.The country has been enriching uranium to less than 5 percent for years, but it began to further enrich part of its uranium stockpile to nearly 20 percent as of February 2010, saying it needs the higher grade material to produce fuel for a Tehran reactor that makes medical radioisotopes needed for cancer patients. Weapons-grade uranium is usually about 90 percent enriched.

Iran says the higher enrichment activities — to nearly 20 percent — will be carried out at Fordo. These operations are of particular concern to the West because uranium at 20 percent enrichment can be converted into fissile material for a nuclear warhead much more quickly than that at 3.5 percent.Built next to a military complex, Fordo was long kept secret and was only acknowledged by Iran after it was identified by Western intelligence agencies in September 2009.Buried under 300 feet (90 meters) of rock, the facility is a hardened tunnel and is protected by air defense missile batteries and the Revolutionary Guard, Iran's most powerful military force. The site is located about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Qom, the religious nerve center of Iran's ruling system.The Fordo facility, like Natanz, has been designed and built underground. The enemy doesn't have the ability to damage it,the semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted nuclear chief Abbasi as saying Sunday.

How threat of loose Soviet nukes was avoided
Associated PressBy VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV | AP – JAN 8,12


MOSCOW (AP) — The doomsday scenario of Soviet nukes falling into the hands of rogue states or terrorists has, as far as is known, remained fiction, thanks to a massive U.S.-Russian effort to lock the weaponry up safely after the Soviet Union fell apart.
The vast nuclear arsenal, scattered among several newly independent nations, was secured because Russian military officers acted with professionalism and honesty, Moscow and Washington shared clear priorities, and the U.S. taxpayer coughed up billions of dollars, former top officials who dealt with the Soviet nuclear legacy say.Even so, as the world marks the 20th anniversary of the Soviet demise at the end of 1991, occasional doubts surface about whether the system was airtight. There's the Russian scientist who perhaps went to work for Iran's nuclear program, an old claim that portable nuclear devices went astray, the seizures of smuggled fissile material in the 1990s.But difficult though it is to prove a nuclear negative, U.S. and Russian officials insist in interviews with The Associated Press that the fears of the 1990s have not become a reality, even though the challenges of safeguarding Soviet nukes were daunting at the time.Twenty years on it's pretty hard to believe that not a single nuclear weapon has shown up loose,said Graham Allison, who played a key role in the effort as an assistant secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton and now heads Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

A quick U.S.-sponsored deal had Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan handing all their nukes over to Russia, and American cash helped safeguard the weapons at a time when the new governments couldn't even afford to pay military wages on time. Additional U.S. incentives offered jobs to disgruntled nuclear scientists from the former Soviet Union, many of whom were courted by nations like Iran.There have been gnawing fears that a few Soviet nukes still might have gone missing, but experts with inside knowledge say that if it were true the world would already know.If somebody or a terrorist group got hold of a nuclear weapon, they would probably use it as quickly as possible,said Steven Pifer, who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, held other senior State Department posts and is now director of the Brookings Institution's Arms Control Initiative. So the fact that you haven't seen a nuclear detonation ... reflects the fact that the nuclear weapons have been maintained in a secure way.That was no mean achievement given the enormous proliferation risks posed by the Soviet breakup.The economic meltdown of the early 1990s forced many officers of the once-proud Soviet Army to moonlight as security guards or even cab drivers. And with the wars and ethnic clashes triggered by the Soviet collapse came strong incentives to steal weapons for the black market.The immediate task for the Russian military was to quickly remove thousands of battlefield weapons such as nuclear artillery shells and land mines from other Soviet nations. These relatively compact arms posed the biggest proliferation risk and often were stored close to areas of conflict.The military officers who did the job were the unknown heroes, said Alexander Golts, a Russian independent analyst. It's hard to imagine what might have happened if the tactical nuclear weapons had remained on the territories of the states involved in military conflicts.

The next goal, strongly backed by Washington, was to remove strategic nuclear weapons from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The first two agreed quickly, but Ukraine, which had inherited enough of the Soviet arsenal to be the world's third largest nuclear power, balked at the plan, setting the stage for years of diplomatic battles.A war for custody of nukes? All this was quite terrifying,said Allison.
Pifer said that some Ukrainian officials longed to keep them, but around 1992 concluded their country had neither the money nor the expertise to remain a nuclear power.Also, the world's worst nuclear disaster had happened in 1986 at Chernobyl, in Ukraine, and public opinion wasn't keen on keeping nukes.Still, Ukraine bargained for years for compensation in tough talks that sometimes made even seasoned diplomats lose their temper.There was a lot of pressure, they threatened us with all kinds of economic sanctions, they wanted to get this issue over with fast, Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine's then president, told the AP.Ukraine insisted the U.S. provide hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for safeguarding and dismantling the arsenal. From Russia it demanded nuclear fuel as compensation for the highly enriched uranium in the warheads. And it wanted security guarantees from all the nuclear powers.We didn't want to get naked for free,Kravchuk said.Tensions over which country military officers in Ukraine should swear allegiance to — Russia or Ukraine — also stoked tensions. In February, 1992 an entire squadron of combat jets flew from Ukraine to Russia after their pilots refused to take the oath.Ukraine eventually got the money and security guarantees it was seeking, but the Russians had other obstacles to overcome. For instance, the economy was so bad that the military struggled to pay wages on time, and top brass were reduced to struggling to give the strategic nuclear forces personnel better rations, said Maj.-Gen. (Ret.) Vladimir Dvorkin, a nuclear weapons expert in the Russian Defense Ministry in the early 1990s.Control over the security of nuclear weapons never slackened, Dvorkin said. People realized their responsibility because they were fully aware of the dangers.Nuclear arsenals surrendered by former Soviet republics had to be safely transported long distances to centralized storage sites and secured. Dismantling missiles, bombers and submarines as required by the 1991 START treaty with the U.S. also required huge funds.Russia badly needed assistance, Dvorkin said, and the U.S. responded quickly with the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program initiated by Sens. Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, which provided billions of dollars in equipment and know-how to help Russia and its neighbors deal with the Soviet nuclear legacy.It seems to me that Nunn-Lugar was one of the smartest uses of defense dollars we ever made,Pifer said.

Under the program, the U.S. provided reinforced rail cars to carry nuclear warheads, high-tech security systems for storage sites and dismantling mothballed nuclear subs.
The program provided colossal support,Dvorkin said.Building on their cooperation in securing the Soviet nuclear arsenals, Moscow and Washington moved later to reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by both sides, most recently with the New START deal signed by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev that took effect last year.But while Dvorkin says the military in Russia and other ex-Soviet nations kept tight control over atomic weapons, numerous civilian agencies were far less diligent in keeping track of nuclear materials at their disposal. Fissile materials at nuclear power plants were controlled by one agency, and research reactors were in the hands of another one,he said.Oversight at civilian structures was less stringent than in the military, creating conditions for a steady string of thefts of radioactive materials in the early 1990s, which were later seized by police in Germany and other European nations.There were such cases, but they didn't entail catastrophic consequences, Dvorkin said, noting that the amounts of uranium and plutonium seized in Germany and elsewhere were extremely small, each measuring just a few grams.Another major worry for the West was that scientists with nuclear know-how would be hired by unfriendly forces.The U.S. responded quickly by setting up research centers that distributed grants to scientists so that they can do civilian research and do it in Russia and avoid the temptations perhaps to go to countries such as North Korea and Iran,Pifer said.Thousands of scientists participated in this project in Russia and Ukraine, so we know of thousands of people who stayed behind,he said.Whether we got everybody, I don't know.Iran was working actively to attract scientists from Russia and other ex-Soviet lands, and the International Atomic Energy Agency in a report released in November said a foreign expert helped Iran on some of its alleged weapons-related experiments by working on ways to set off a nuclear blast through a sophisticated multipoint explosives trigger. Diplomats identified him as former Soviet scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko, who worked in Iran for several years.Despite the assurances from Russian and U.S. officials that no Soviet nukes got lost in the chaos of the post-Soviet years, allegations occasionally surfaced that some of the weapons went missing.

Gen. Alexander Lebed, who headed Russia's Security Council for several months in 1996, made the most stunning of such claims in 1997, saying the military lost track of dozens of suitcase-sized portable nuclear devices. Lebed issued several contradictory statements about the number missing, and Russian officials rejected his claim.Dvorkin said Lebed, who died in a helicopter crash in 2002, didn't know what he was talking about.I personally know people who were counting the weapons at centralized depots, and they have confirmed that nothing was stolen,he said.They did the check after Lebed's statements and made sure that everything was in place.Maria Danilova in Kiev, Ukraine contributed to this report.(This version CORRECTS to Brookings Institution, not Institute in paragraph 8.)

Iran Guard says will close strait if oil blocked
AP – JAN 8,12


TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian newspaper quotes a senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard as saying that Tehran's leadership has decided to order the closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf if the country's oil exports are blocked.Khorasan daily reported Sunday that Ali Ashraf Nouri says the strategic decision has been made by Iran's top authorities.Iranian politicians have made the threat in the past, but this is the strongest statement yet that a closure of the strait is official policy.The U.S. has recently enacted new sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad over Tehran's nuclear program. Washington says Tehran is trying to develop weapons, while Iran denies the charges.

US will respond if Iran blocks Strait: Panetta
AFPAFP – JAN 8,12


The United States will respond if Iran tries to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Sunday, saying such a move would cross a red line.We made very clear that the United States will not tolerate the blocking of the Straits of Hormuz,Panetta told CBS television. That's another red line for us and that we will respond to them.Panetta was seconded by General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said Iran has the means to close the waterway, through which 20 percent of the world's oil passes.But we would take action and reopen the Straits, the general said on the same show, Face the Nation.Their comments follow Iranian threats to close the strait if the European Union goes through with an embargo on Iranian oil, the latest step to pressure Tehran to give up a nuclear program that the West suspects is aimed at gaining atomic weapons.

Israel razes four Palestinian homes near Jericho
AFPAFP – Thu, Jan 5, 2012


Israeli troops on Thursday demolished four villas near the ancient city of Jericho, which Israel said endangered a nearby archaeological site, sources on both sides said.An AFP correspondent at the scene said the villas, which are located in Ad-Duyuk at-Tahta northwest of the town, were owned by Palestinians living in Jerusalem and Ramallah.Locals at the scene said the villas had been demolished because they were built without a permit.A spokesman for COGAT, a unit within the Israeli defence ministry which administers the occupied West Bank, said the homes were built without permission and were endangering a nearby archaeological site.They are in the area of the Hasmonean palace and were built illegally, without a permit, COGAT spokesman Guy Inbar told AFP, referring to a site on a hill on Jericho's western edge which overlooks the town.He said the owners had been repeatedly warned about the demolition in orders dating back as far as 2008.Israel demolished another four houses in the same area in mid-November, saying they risked threatening the nearby archaeological site.Last month, a coalition of international rights groups and aid organisations said Israel's demolition of homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem had displaced more than 1,000 people in 2011, twice that of the previous year and the highest number since 2005.

Israel vows treat hackers like other terrorists'
AFPAFP – Sat, Jan 7, 2012


Israel said on Saturday that it will respond to cyber-attacks in the same way it responds to violent terrorist acts, by striking back with force against hackers who threaten the Jewish state.The message from Deputy Foreign Minister Dany Ayalon came after a self-defined Saudi hacker from a cabal known as group-xp published details of more than 6,000 Israeli credit cards online.It is necessary to send a message to everyone who attacks or tries to attack Israel, including in cyberspace, Ayalon said in quotes published widely in Israeli media.Hackers stand warned, he said, that they are putting themselves in danger and that they will not benefit from any immunity against reprisal actions from Israel.Cyber-attacks amount to terrorism that must be treated as such. In cyberspace, we have active capacities and we can hit those who try to hit us.Ayalon also applauded the United States for declaring that all attacks in their cyberspace will be considered as a declaration of war and they will react as if it had been a missile attack.On Thursday, the Saudi hacker, who goes by the name OxOmar, said he had posted the details of 11,000 Israeli credit cards online, but Israel's three major credit card companies said only 6,050 cards were affected.

Earlier in the week, 0xOmar posted a message on an Israeli sports website saying group-xp, which he described as the greatest Saudi Arabian hacker team,had posted details of 400,000 Israeli cards online.After examining the details, Israel's major credit card companies said only 14,000 valid cards had been exposed.Israeli news website Ynet reported that an Israeli computer expert claimed to have uncovered the true identity of 0xOmar -- a 19-year-old Mexican waiter called Omar Habib.

The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION
HMCS Charlottetown departs for Mediterranean counter-terrorism mission
By: The Canadian Press Posted: 01/8/2012 9:15 AM


HALIFAX - Hundreds of loved ones gathered on the deck of HMCS Charlottetown this morning to bid farewell to sailors bound for the Mediterranean Sea.About 250 sailors left the Halifax Harbour to embark upon an six-month counter-terrorism mission.The Charlottetown is part of NATO’s Operation Active Endeavour and will be tracking, boarding and reporting on ships believed to be involved in terrorism.That is the anti-terrorism operation launched in October 2001 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.Cmdr. Wade Carter says he doesn't anticipate a significant amount of risk during the mission, but the crew is also trained to react to a crisis if necessary.
He says the ship will not be stationed in any one area of the Mediterranean, but rather patrol throughout the sea.

Saturday, January 07, 2012

INSIDE THE RING

Inside the Ring By Bill Gertz The Washington Times
Wednesday, January 4, 2012

http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/4/inside-the-ring-215329133/?page=all#pagebreak

PENTAGON SHIFTS EAST

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on Thursday will put the official Pentagon stamp on a new U.S. strategy toward Asia. The strategy will solidify efforts to refocus on countering China’s growing arsenal of missiles, submarines, cyberweapons and other forces designed to push U.S. forces out of the region.A senior U.S. official tells Inside the Ring that the strategy — produced in response to harsh defense budget cuts imposed by the Obama administration and expected deeper cuts from Congress — is focused on bolstering U.S. forces and alliances in Asia while seeking to maintain an effective military presence in the volatile Middle East.According to the official, the strategy will try to force the military services to better use shrinking resources.Those weapons and forces cutbacks mean that the United States will no longer be able to fight two regional conflicts at the same time, increasing the risk that when a war breaks out in, say, the Middle East, adversaries will use the opportunity to launch wars in other places such as the Taiwan Strait or the Korean Peninsula.The strategy will call for fighting one major war while deterring a second with enough forces to dissuade an adversary from seizing the opportunity to strike while U.S. forces are preoccupied elsewhere.

To deal with the sharp decline in resources — people, weapons and money — the Navy, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force will be required to share forces to a much greater extent than in the past, according to the strategy report set for release at the Pentagon.Regarding China, the strategy is an outgrowth of the Pentagon’s Air-Sea Battle Concept that was announced several weeks ago. The concept calls for a major program of air and naval systems that are designed to counter Beijing’s anti-access and area-denial weaponry.Anti-access weapons, like China’s new anti-ship ballistic missile, are designed to keep U.S. naval and air forces far from China’s coasts. Area-denial weapons — surface-to-surface missiles and stealth aircraft — seek to prevent forward deployed forces, like those in Japan and Guam, from taking action against China.The Pentagon is expected to cut $490 billion from defense spending over the next 10 years. An additional $500 billion could be added to that cut as a result of the congressional spending deal reached last year.U.S. strategic missile defenses and an urgently needed strategic nuclear-modernization program are not expected to be targeted in the spending drawdown.The strategy is being implemented amid heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf over Iran’s continuing refusal to halt its secret nuclear program that the International Atomic Energy Agency has said contains numerous elements related to building nuclear weapons and missile warheads.

Iran this week followed China’s example of seeking to deny access to international waters by U.S. aircraft carriers. Tehran said the carrier strike group led by the USS John C. Stennis should not return to the Persian Gulf after its recent transit through the Strait of Hormuz.China's military last year objected to U.S. aircraft carriers transiting international waters in the Yellow Sea during exercises with South Korean naval forces.Plans announced recently to deploy 2,500 Marines to a base on the northern tip of Australia, close to the increasingly volatile South China Sea, are part of the U.S. buildup in Asia, along with plans for building up military power on Guam and developing a new long-range Air Force bomber.Also, some 600 Marines and 200 Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces troops will take part in exercise Iron Fist on Jan. 16 at California’s Camp Pendleton.The three-day exercise will boost interoperability, said Marine Col. Scott Campbell, commander of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

OBAMA TO SHARE SECRETS

President Obama signaled Congress this week that he is prepared to share U.S. missile defense secrets with Russia.In the president’s signing statement issued Saturday in passing into law the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, Mr. Obama said restrictions aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on U.S. Standard Missile-3 velocity burnout parameters might impinge on his constitutional foreign policy authority.As first disclosed in this space several weeks ago, U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the SM-3 data, despite reservations from security officials who say that doing so could compromise the effectiveness of the system by allowing Russian weapons technicians to counter the missile. The weapons are considered some of the most effective high-speed interceptors in the U.S. missile defense arsenal.There are also concerns that Russia could share the secret data with China and rogue states such as Iran and North Korea to help their missile programs defeat U.S. missile defenses.Officials from the State Department and Missile Defense Agency have discussed the idea of providing the SM-3 data to the Russians as part of the so-far fruitless missile-defense talks with Moscow, headed in part of by Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher, who defense officials say is a critic of U.S. missile defenses.Their thinking is that if the Russians know the technical data, it will help allay Moscow’s fears that the planned missile defenses in Europe would be used against Russian ICBMs. Officials said current SM-3s are not fast enough to catch long-range Russian missiles, but a future variant may have some anti-ICBM capabilities.

Ms. Tauscher has repeatedly denied that her talks with the Russians are secret. However, the administration has provided almost no briefings about the talks to Congress, which prompted critics of the talks to include language in the new defense spending law limiting data-sharing.Section 1227 of the defense law prohibits spending any funds that would be used to give Russian officials access to sensitive missile-defense technology, as part of a cooperation agreement without first sending Congress a report identifying the specific secrets, how they would be used and steps to protect the data from compromise.The president also must certify to Congress that Russia will not share the secrets with other states and that it will not help Russia to develop countermeasures to U.S. defenses.The certification also must show whether Russia is providing equal access to its missile defense technologies, which are mainly nuclear-tipped anti-missile interceptors.Mr. Obama said in the signing statement that he would treat the legal restrictions as non-binding.While my administration intends to keep the Congress fully informed of the status of U.S. efforts to cooperate with the Russian Federation on ballistic missile defense, my administration will also interpret and implement section 1244 in a manner that does not interfere with the president’s constitutional authority to conduct foreign affairs and avoids the undue disclosure of sensitive diplomatic communications,” Mr. Obama said, incorrectly identifying the section of the law containing the restrictions.

CHINESE SLBM TEST?

Internet reports indicate that China's military may have conducted a secret flight test of the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile, one of at least three new long-range Chinese strategic missiles.Richard Fisher, a China military-affairs specialist, told Inside the Ring that online military bulletin boards in China were lit over the New Year’s period with reports that China conducted six JL-2 launches from waters near the major northern military port of Dalian, where China has at least two ballistic-missile submarines at the Northern Fleet base at Xiaopingdao.I can’t confirm these reports, but they are plausible, especially if you assume that two submarines were used: two Type 094 SSBNs or one Type 094 and one test submarine, either the single Golf-class non-nuclear-powered SLBM test sub, or its possible replacement launched in September 2010,Mr. Fisher said.Another scenario is that a single missile submarine fired all six of the JL-2s because each submarine can be outfitted with 12 of the missiles, a variant of the DF-31 land-mobile ICBM.On the reported multiple launches, Mr. Fisher said China's military would clearly want to demonstrate that, after years of protracted development, they can launch submarine-based ballistic missiles at a near wartime frequency.If these reports are true, then the 094 submarine is ready for the PLA version of deterrence patrols, which could commence this year,he said, referring to China’s People’s Liberation Army.This number of successful tests would also indicate that the PLA has, at long last, resolved whatever issues were preventing this missile from achieving operational status.Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said: We have been monitoring JL-2 developments for some years. It has had challenges — resulting in delays in completing the system.Capt. Kirby said the Pentagon’s annual report on China's military noted that China needs to conduct additional tests for the new JL-2, but “once complete and deployed, the JL-2/Jin combo would constitute China’s first real sea-based deterrent.The Jin-class submarine is also known as the Type 094 missile submarine.

Roger Cliff, a China military specialist with the Project 2049 Institute, wrote in Defense News recently that China is likely to conduct a major military test on Wednesday, perhaps its new DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile. That day is the one-one-one anniversary of a Chinese anti-satellite missile tests in 2007 and the first flight of a J-20 stealth jet last year.Some type of saber-rattling test also would be timed to upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Taiwan, a key target of the Chinese military, which conducted missile tests north and south of the island in 1996 in an attempt to intimidate voters prior to an election that year.

ALLTIME