TODAY ON JONES FROM 12PM-3PM EST
Alex talks with activist, speaker and blogger Rosa Koire about the United Nations' Agenda 21. Koire is a forensic real estate appraiser specializing in eminent domain valuation. She is the co-founder of the Santa Rosa Neighborhood Coalition, Democrats Against UN Agenda 21, and the Post Sustainability Institute. She is the author of Behind the Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21.
http://rss.nfowars.net/20120216_Thu_Alex.mp3
BILL SALUS ON HAGMANN AND HAGMANN REPORT FROM 10PM-12AM EST
http://www.libertybroadcastingnetwork.com/hagmann-and-hagmann-show/
BILLS SITE
http://www.prophecydepot.net/prophecy-update-radio/
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 THU FEBRUARY 16,2012
09:30 AM +2.43
10:00 AM +33.70
10:30 AM +59.34
11:00 AM +51.07
11:30 AM +83.93
12:00 PM +108.07
12:30 PM +111.97
01:00 PM +99.37
01:30 PM +117.23
02:00 PM +117.68
02:30 PM +124.91
03:00 PM +117.42
03:30 PM +116.61
04:00 PM +123.13 12,904.08
S&P 500 1358.04 +14.81
NASDAQ 2959.85 +44.02
GOLD 1,729.10 +1.00
OIL 102.33 -0.53
TSE 300 12,485.59 +123.56
CDNX 1648.11 +14.53
S&P/TSX/60 710.36 +7.65
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +18 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow +1 points at low today.
Dow +108 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,712.60.OIL opens at $101.62 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow +1 points at low today so far.
Dow +128 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow +1 points at low today.
Dow +128 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,902.60 (NOT AT CLOSE)
NATURAL GAS-THU -127 BCF
Iran Threatens West with Heavy Casualties-Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman warns the U.S. and its allies: Hasty steps will lead to heavy casualties.By Elad Benari First Publish: 2/16/2012, 4:15 AM
Just hours after Iran announced it would be expanding centrifuge operations at the underground Fordo nuclear facility near Qoms, the Islamic Republic continued to threaten the West.Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast warned the U.S. and its allies on Wednesday evening that hasty steps will lead to heavy casualties, Channel 2 News reported.The U.S. and its Western allies are unable to carry out any operation against Iran, Mehmanparast was quoted as having said. Any irresponsible response will lead to heavy casualties.He added that the global hegemony against the Islamic Republic is due to its influence on world politics. Referring to the accusations that Tehran was behind the latest wave of terrorist attacks against Israeli targets, Mehmanparast said, Israel commits acts of terrorism, then blames Tehran to divert public opinion.Iran also announced on Wednesday that it activated a new generation of centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear site in order to accelerate its uranium enrichment activities.The United States, however, downplayed Iran's announcement and said it was not terribly new and not terribly impressive.We frankly don't see a lot new here. This is not big news. In fact it seems to have been hyped,State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
REBUILT 3RD TEMPLE (THE EU DICTATORS TEMPLE)
ISAIAH 30:10-15
10 Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:
11 Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.
12 Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:
13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.
14 And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters’ vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.
15 For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.
16 But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.
REVELATION 11:1-2
1 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.
2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
DANIEL 9:27
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
REBUILT 4TH TEMPLE (THE TRUE MESSIAHS TEMPLE)
ZECHARIAH 6:12-13
12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD:
13 Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
ISAIAH 60:9-10
9 Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the LORD thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee.
10 And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee: for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee.
ISAIAH 2:1-5
1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
5 O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.
MARK 11:9-10,15-17
9 And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord:
10 Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.
15 And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;
16 And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.
17 And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
EZEKIEL 40 TO 48 IS THIS 4TH TEMPLE TO BIG FOR THE MOUNT I BELIEVE TO BE BUILT 25 MILES FROM JERUSALEM.
ZOA: End Discrimination Against Jews On Temple Mount Now-The ZOA sent a sharply critical letter to government officials demanding unfettered access for Jews to pray on the Temple Mount-By David Lev First Publish: 2/16/2012, 8:24 AM
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) this week sent a sharply critical letter to Knesset members government ministers, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, demanding that Jews have the right to unfettered access and freedom to pray on the Temple Mount (Har Habayit). The Mount, the letter says, and not the Western Wall (Kotel) is Judaism's holiest site. More Jews have wanted to visit the Temple Mount in recent years as, increasingly, rabbinic authorities are stating publicly that Jewish law does not prohibit this. Yet, Israeli police and security personnel, hoping to appease Muslim extremists including the Wakf authority on the Temple Mount, have been engaging in blatantly discriminatory and humiliating behavior toward Jewish visitors.This is patently unfair – and constitutes discrimination against Jews.The ZOA's letter was sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Minister of the Interior Eli Yishai, Minister of Internal Security Yitzchak Aharonovitch; Minister of Justice Yaakov Ne’eman, Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein, Minister of Religious Affairs Yakov Margi, and Knesset Interior Affairs and Environment Committee Chair MK Amnon Cohen, along with fellow committee members. These are the officials who have the authority to allow free access to Jews to ascend the Mount for prayers, the ZOA said.
Access to holy places is a right guaranteed by Israeli law, but the law is not being implemented,the letter says.When Jerusalem once again became a united city in 1967 as a result of the Six Day War, the Israeli Knesset passed an amendment to the Law and Administration Ordinance, extending Israeli sovereignty to Jerusalem's eastern sector. That includes the Old City, and the Temple Mount in its center.In addition, the ZOA charges, Identifiably Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount are singled out for biased treatment. Unfortunately there is more concern for the extremist demands of the Wakf than regard for the rights of all citizens, including Jewish citizens, under Israeli law. For years, Israeli authorities have been engaging in many discriminatory practices on the Temple Mount directed against openly identifiable Jews,the letter says. For example, Jews wearing overt Jewish symbols or dress have to endure waiting in a special security line before entering the Temple Mount while all others pass them by,showing their IDs before entering the Mount, special ritual item searches” before entering the Mount,and other indignities.The letter also cited numerous examples of discrimination – and worse. A mother of five was arrested for quietly reciting the Hallel prayer on the fifth day of Chanuka last December. On a particularly hot day in September, a 67-year-old man was arrested after he sat down and quietly recited a blessing before taking a sip of water, as required by Jewish law. Another person found his water confiscated at the entrance to prevent the possibility a blessing might be recited.
There have been ten arrests in the past four months alone,the letter continued. Most recently, Yosef Rabin, a Temple Mount activist and Temple Renewal Institute liaison, informed ZOA's Israel Office that Yosef Idan, son of prominent Sephardic rabbi and scholar Rav Tzvi Idan, had been arrested for praying. Allegedly, Idan also was physically struck by the authorities even though, according to reports, he offered no resistance. Identified Jews are shunted to the side to wait separately in what some have come to cynically call the selekzia,alluding to the Nazis' orderly process of deciding which Jews would live and which Jews would go to their demise.Although the ZOA is reluctant to use such a loaded term, the letter said, it is telling that Jews subjected to systematic abuse on the Temple Mount would even contemplate using this term.And it isn't only Jews who are targeted, the ZOA contends. The same oppressive measures are extended to a non-Jew in the company of an identifiable Jew, in which case guilt is suspected by association. And a Christian visiting the Temple Mount alone, then caught reciting a prayer, also faces the consequences: Wakf representatives notify the police with their walkie talkies, who then confiscate IDs and arrest the perpetrator once he/she leaves the Mount.And through it all, police have taken an extremely light view of Arab crimes. The fact is, not one act of desecration or disrespect for Muslim holy places has been committed by Jews on the Temple Mount. No Jews ever have terrorized Muslims there or engaged in rioting. The worst acts of Temple Mount violence and desecrations have been perpetrated by Muslims, such as raining rocks on Jewish worshippers below at the Western Wall. And it is the Wakf that has illegally been digging up and trashing tons of earth laden with First and Second Temple artifacts, thereby devastating a priceless archeological historical record.
The time has come to end the discrimination, the letter says. The ZOA recognizes the need to maintain the highest level of security at a site as sensitive as the Temple Mount. Yet, it has been demonstrated that security threats to date have come from, rather than have been directed toward, the Muslims praying there. And while the ZOA feels it is proper to be attuned to the sensibilities of all religious groups, including Muslims, it objects to the unjustified and unnecessary abrogation of one group's rights, to pray non-provocatively at its holiest site, in order to accommodate another group's enmity.The ZOA, therefore, urges the Government of Israel to take steps to end the discriminatory policy that is applied on the Temple Mount, so that visiting Jews and other non-Muslims may be accorded all of the civil and religious rights taken for granted in the international community,the letter adds. Our co-religionists want to practice a simple act of faith at the ultimate Jewish holy site, they just want to pray quietly and respectfully, and we must advocate for them. For if not here, then where?
Don't bow to the Vatican-Op-ed: State of Israel should not be giving up its sovereignty over holy sites in Jerusalem Giulio Meotti Published:02.04.12, 13:56 / Israel Opinion
Israel reached an historical agreement with the Vatican to give up some sort of sovereignty over the Hall of the Last Supper on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. The Vatican will now have a foothold at the site: Israel agreed to give the Vatican first priority in leasing opportunities and access to it.
This was the culmination of a long campaign by the Roman Catholic Church to regain religious stewardship over the place where Jesus broke bread and drank wine with his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion, and where the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples at Pentecost.The room is the third-most holy site in Christendom after the Sepulcher in Jerusalem, built over Christ’s tomb, and the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where the birth of Jesus took place.A few months ago, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, asked to place the Israeli holy site under Vatican authority. The problem is that the site is also King David’s Tomb, a complex of buildings of some 100,000 square feet where David and Solomon, and Jewish kings of Judea, are buried.That's why the agreement constitutes sad capitulation by Israel to the Vatican’s efforts to Christianize the holy site, like when a Catholic convent was built in Auschwitz. In 1989, US Rabbi Avi Weiss protested against the Catholic decision to build the convent in the death camp. The cloister was a few feet from the barbed wire fence and Nazi guard towers. It also had a 23-foot wooden cross in the middle.Weiss and other Jewish protesters scaled the walls of the convent and blew a shofar. Catholic workers at the site poured paint and water on the Jewish protesters and physically removed them. Will we see the same kind of episodes on the Mount of Zion?
Tell them no
The Diaspora Yeshiva, located in Mount Zion after 1967, says that the Vatican will turn it into a pilgrimage site for hundreds of thousands of Catholics and hold religious services there. In fact, during his visit to Israel in 2000, Pope John Paul II held mass in the Hall of Last Supper. The Pope knew that the site had a strategic location, as it’s just a few hundred yards from the Temple Mount and adjacent to the Old City walls.The Vatican wants Israel to also relinquish sovereignty at the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. The Holy See uses the expression Holy Basin, which refers to the area of the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives, Mount Zion and a variety of Christian holy sites that many US governments also asked to be administered under a special regime.Israel should no be bowing to the Vatican, as the Jewish State is admirably committed to protecting the holy sites of all religions and guaranteeing the right of worship for all faiths. However, instead of saying keep your hands off Jerusalem, it’s not for sale, the Israeli government accepted the Vatican’s ransom request.In the long term, the gesture will increase tensions between Jews and the tremendously large assets of the Vatican. The Holy See has long been working to reduce Jewish rights in Jerusalem and in the Old City. Now, after the Muslim Waqf authority expelled the Christians from the site and turned it into a mosque, it’s the turn of the Vatican to lay its hands on the Jewish Jerusalem.The goal is to ensure that a Jew will not set foot in the heart of Jerusalem, as was the case before 1967. Israel, tell them no with a capital N. Vatican’t.Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism.
The Pope, St Malachy, war, economy and 2012-Vic ♦ January 10, 2012-Pope Benedict to step down April 15 2012
According to Italian daily newspaper Libero, Pope Benedict XVI is thinking about leaving the papacy next April, when he will turn 85-ANdrea Tornielli Vatican City
There is one front page news story that will certainly not go unnoticed: that is, that the Pope is thinking about resigning during the Spring of 2012. Journalist Antonio Socci has confirmed the same in the Italian daily, Libero.For now, Socci writes, he is saying that this may be true (Joseph Ratzinger’s personal assumption), but I hope the story does not reach the news. But this rumor is circulating high up in the Vatican and therefore deserves close attention. The Pope has not rejected the possibility of his resignation when he turns 85 in April next year.Socci recalls that the assumption he will resign, without any hitches, was the same thing Ratzinger talked about in an interview in the book Luce del mondo (Light of the World), when, in response to a question by interviewer Peter Seewald, he said: When a Pope arrives at a clear awareness that he no longer has the physical, mental, or psychological capacity to carry out the task that has been entrusted to him, then he has the right, and in some cases, even the duty to resign.Furthermore, in another passage, Benedict XVI wondered if he would be able to withstand it all, just from the physical point of view.Next Up is Peter the Roman.(THE FALSE VATICAN POPE)
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.
Israel Complains to UN Chief Over Iranian Terror Campaign-Israel's UN envoy Ron Prosor filed a formal complaint with UN chief Ban Ki-moon over Iran's terror campaign on Israeli diplomats.By Gavriel Queenann First Publish: 2/16/2012, 5:56 PM
Israel on Thursday lodged a complaint with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over a terror campaign Jerusalem says Iran has mounted against the Jewish state.This week a terror attack seriously wounded the wife of an Israeli diplomat in India, while authorities in Georgia disarmed a bomb on an Israeli diplomatic vehicle, and three Iranian nationals botched a bombing attempt targeting Israeli diplomats in Bangkok
This campaign bears the unmistakable fingerprints of the Iranian regime and the highest echelons of the Hizbullah leadership,Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ron Proser, said in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Their actions constitute a clear threat to security and stability of Lebanon, to the Middle East, and to many countries that have been targeted, Prosor wrote.In each of these instances, the letter said, Iran and Hizbullah have sought to harm innocent civilians and have flagrantly violated the sovereignty of member states.Iran has long employed international terrorism as a pillar of its foreign policy, often using Hizbullah as a proxy to stage attacks,the letter said.Prosor's letter came on the same day that the Mossad and authorities in Singapore thwarted a terror attack targeting Defense Minister Ehud Barak.In the letter, Prosor chastised the United Nations for failing to immediately condemn this week’s attacks in Bangkok, Delhi, and Tsbili. He also noted terror attacks on Israeli diplomats in Azerbaijan and Bulgaria were also thwarted in recent months.Israel expects it to issue a clear condemnation…without any further delay or equivocation. The Council must also address this threat by considering active steps against Iran, Hizbullah and their terrorist infrastructure worldwide.
Japanese PM Tells Barak: Iran Attack Dangerous-Defense Minister says Assad family will fall within weeks.By Gil Ronen First Publish: 2/16/2012, 6:14 PM
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday that attacking Iran would be a dangerous move and attempted to dissuade him from it, according to a report by a Japanese news agency.Noda warned that a strike on Iran could escalate the standoff between Iran and the West.On Thursday, Barak met his Japanese counterpart, Naoki Tanaka. The meeting dealt with a wide range of regional matters in the Middle East, as well as Asia-related issues.The international community must join hands and stop Iran from reaching nuclear weapons through crippling sanctions, Barak told Tanaka.A nuclear Iran is a danger to world stability and provides a tailwind for terror organizations worldwide.Barak mentioned the recent series of terror attacks against Israeli diplomatic targets as proof that Iran uses terror to destabilize the world.The Defense Minister said that the Assad family would fall from power in Syria in a few weeks' time. The fall of the Assad family will be a blow to the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah axis,he added.Israel is monitoring with concern the transfer of advanced weapons systems from Syria to Lebanon, Barak said.
Bail-out delay prompts fear of Greek euro exit
Today FEB 16,12 @ 09:30 By Valentina Pop
BRUSSELS - Greece fears it is being pushed out of the euro after eurozone ministers delayed a decision on its second bail-out for another five days.We are continually faced with new terms ... In the euro area, there are plenty who don't want us anymore. There are some playing with fire, domestically and abroad. Some are playing with torches and some are playing with matches. But the risk is equally great, Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos told reporters in Athens on Wednesday (15 February) after a three-hour conference call with his 16 counterparts from the eurozone.Greek politicians have pledged not to undo spending cuts after April elections and to find another €325 million of flesh to trim from the budget.Bur eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker said further technical work is needed before the ministers can sign off on the €130 billion bail-out, most likely on Monday.He said in an emailed statement after the Wednesday tele-meeting that ministers want to see detailed list of prior actions together with a timeline for their implementation and specific mechanisms to strengthen the surveillance of programme implementation put in place before the deadline.Germany, Finland and the Netherlands have been at the forefront in demanding stronger reassurances that Athens sticks to its promises.
We just need to be reassured 110 percent, one diplomat told this website after the conference call.In Helsinki, Finnish finance minister Jutta Urpilainen said creditor countries have become very strict after Greece broke promisses on its first bail-out in 2010.Ultimately the question is whether Greece has political will to sort out its economy and fulfill the conditions,she said during a press conference.German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble in the past few days has used harsh language on Athens.On Sunday he told Die Welt we are not going to pour money into a bottomless pit and that if Greece defaults on its debt the eurozone is better prepared now than two years ago. On Monday he said in Der Spiegel that Greece should temporarily relinquish some of its sovereignty if it wants more money.German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok on Wednesday said Greek elections should be postponed for one year to let technocrats stay in power.Such statements have produced strong reactions in Greece.
Greek EU commissioner Maria Damanaki told Tagesspiegel that her country's efforts are being underestimated in certain European capitals.German flags have been burned on the streets of Athens and banners, while some tabloids portrayed German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a Nazi uniform.Meanwhile, President Karolos Papoulias, who recently gave up his salary as a gesture of solidarity, told a meeting of military commanders this week: I cannot accept that my country should be reviled by Schauble. I cannot accept this as a Greek. Who is Schauble to insult Greece? Who are the Dutch? Who are the Finnish?
EU and US roll out gold standard for organic food
Today FEB 16,12 @ 09:28 By Nikolaj Nielsen
BRUSSELS - Organic goods produced in the United States and in Europe will be sold and certified under the same organic label in both markets after a trade deal signed on Wednesday (15 February).Previously, both European and US farmers had to obtain separate certifications. A European farmer, for instance, wishing to sell organic food in the US would have had to obtain a US organic label and vice-versa.Under the new deal, which is to be launched in June, producers on both sides of the Atlantic will have one standard and one certificate issued by existing US or EU national authorities.Meats, cereals, and wines receiving organic certification in one region can be sold as organic in the other.Organic farmers and food producers will benefit from easier access, with less bureaucracy and less costs, to both the US and the EU markets, strengthening the competitiveness of this sector,said EU agriculture commissioner Dacian Ciolos in Nuremberg, Germany where the deal was inked.The organic industry in the US and Europe is worth a combined €40 billion a year.
According to the European Commission, both regions account for 90 percent of global organic consumption. In the EU, the market had a six percent annual growth in the past decade.Ambassador Isi Siddiqui, a senior US trade representative, said the new deal would lead to more jobs in this important sector for both America and Europe.The two sides agreed that each other's standards were almost identical after two years of inspections.But slight variations mean not all organic produce can be freely exported.US organic pears and apples, for instance, do not qualify. Nor do some EU organic meats and fish, which are sometimes exposed to antibiotics - strictly prohibited under the new agreement.All organic products will have a label identifying where they are from and who certified them so that regulators can track compliance with the new regime.
Monti to make Italy driving force of EU integration
15.02.12 @ 18:03 By Valentina Pop
BRUSSELS - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti charmed all major political parties in the European Parliament on Wednesday (15 February), pledging to defend EU institutions at a time when national governments are increasingly blaming Brussels for austerity.Too often in Brussels as a commissioner I saw national governments pointing the finger at EU institutions after they were part and parcel of the decision making process. I made a pledge never to play this dirty trick on the EU, the former EU commissioner, appointed last year as head of the Italian government told MEPs in Strasbourg to warm applause.His speech - one of the rare occasions when Italian was used for over an hour in the assembly - was aimed at restoring his country's standing as one of the founding members of the EU and the euro after years of political penumbra under his controversial predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi.
The new Italy - in the words of Monti, a former banker and economics professor - will be committed not only to austerity, but also to growth and will not just passively transpose EU guidelines, but wants to be a major driver of these guidelines.It is in this spirit that he invited German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Rome on Friday, for talks which will focus on the community method and recognise the priority of EU institutions.He noted that Germany and France, with the complicity of Italy, were the first to water down original eurozone discipline rules, the so-called Stability and Growth Pact.He promised to do everything he can not to further increase the gap between euro and non-euro countries. He also pointedly switched to English when criticising a deeply superficial insular culture that naively might believe EU integration means a superstate after the UK vetoed crisis-related changes to the EU Treaty last December.
His speech had something for everyone - praise for German budget discipline culture, sympathy for Greece for arguably excessive austerity measures, but also a reproach that Athens cooked the books for years and tolerated corruption, nepotism and dodgy public procurements.Monti appeared to push all the right buttons.Centre-right chief Joseph Daul - a Frenchman - said that even though he supports the Franco-German partnership as the engine of Europe, Monti is an example for the EU in his rejection of intergovernmentalism.Socialist leader Hannes Swoboda urged him to return to the European scene so we can elect you as house speaker.Liberal supremo Guy Verhofstadt suggested that Monti be sent to all troubled euro-countries once he has finished reforms in Italy. Even the Greens - usually caustic towards any unelected officials - had words of praise. You are a strong man contributing to EU politics becoming more civilised,said Rebecca Harms, the Green group chief.The only criticism came from the far right and the far left - for being an unelected technocrat and a member of the very same international banking elite that is to blame for the crisis in the first place.
Alaska Bill Would Criminalize Invasive TSA Pat Downs-Rep. Sharon Cissna’s legislation would also ban body scanners that produce naked images Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Thursday, February 16, 2012
A bill introduced by Alaska lawmaker and TSA grope victim Rep. Sharon Cissna would criminalize both invasive pat downs and body scans that produce naked images conducted by the federal agency, setting the stage for another states’ rights battle with the government.When Texas lawmakers tried to pass a similar law last year, the federal government threatened to enforce a no fly zone over the lone star state, and the measure was eventually defeated after a lengthy legislative struggle.Cissna was barred from flying by the TSA after an incident at SEA-TAC International Airport last year during which she refused to undergo an intrusive pat down after she had already passed through a naked body scanner. The scan results showed scars from her breast cancer surgery, prompting TSA officials to insist she underwent secondary screening.Facing the agent I began to remember what my husband and I’d decided after the previous intensive physical search. That I never had to submit to that horror again! she said. It would be difficult, we agreed, but I had the choice to say no, this twisted policy did not have to be the price of flying to Juneau.The bill introduced by Cissna, HB 262, states;
A person commits the offense of interference with access to public buildings or transportation facilities if the person, as a condition for access to a public building or transportation facility, requires another person to consent or otherwise submit to(1) physical contact by any person touching directly or through clothing the genitals, buttocks, or female breast of the person seeking access; or(2) any electronic process that produces an electronic image of the genitals, anus, or female breast or otherwise creates an electronic image of the person seeking access that exposes or reveals a physical characteristic that is normally hidden by clothing and is not normally visible to the public.Cissna’s legislation goes further than the Texas bill in that it bans body scanners that produce naked images. The abuse of such technology was in the news again this week after the TSA forced a woman to go through a body scanner three times at DFW International Airport so TSA screeners in a back room could get a good look at her cute figure.Cissna told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that rights guaranteed in the constitutions of Alaska and the United States are violated by security measures that require unwanted physical contact or exposure of physical traits usually not visible in public, reports the Associated Press.In a related development, lawmakers in Salt Lake City have introduced a resolution that seeks to put a stop to invasive pat downs and launch a Congressional investigation into the abuses of the TSA itself.
If they can do that, what can’t they do? Rep. Ken Ivory, the sponsor of the resolution asked. Can you imagine George Washington or Thomas Jefferson going to the airport and saying, Go ahead and stick your hand down my pants. I need to get where I’m going? Ivory decries the fact that Americans are being conditioned to just submit to the feds.Our liberties are being conditioned away, he told the Deseret News.The TSA is facing a series of confrontations over the next few months, with Texas State Rep. David Simpson set to resurrect the Traveler Dignity Act, the aforementioned bill that would have made invasive TSA groping a criminal offense in Texas, as well as the passage of a new law which now opens the door for airports to evict the TSA from the security screening process altogether.
http://www.infowars.com/alaska-bill-would-criminalize-invasive-tsa-pat-downs/
Investigation: Media Matters Conspires With White House to Influence News-Progressive government mouthpiece routinely attacks Alex Jones, Ron Paul Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Monday, February 13, 2012
An investigation by the Daily Caller has confirmed that the leftist organization Media Matters, which routinely attacks Alex Jones and Infowars, is an Obama administration front that strategizes with the White House on a weekly basis on how to influence and direct the media.Media Matters has habitually attempted to denigrate and smear Alex Jones and his message of liberty, by dismissing Jones as a crazed conspiracy theorist and then connecting him to other targets of their attacks, people like Ron Paul, Glenn Beck, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Lou Dobbs and the Fox News network.Media Matters also recently defended Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security by impugning an Infowars story about the DHS targeting white middle class Americans as terrorists, and then deriding other media networks for also covering the issue.The organization has also routinely carried smear attacks implying that questioning the official story behind 9/11 is some kind of thought crime, despite the fact that six of the ten 9/11 commissioners have disputed the government’s account.A new investigation into Media Matters by the Daily Caller has revealed that the organization conducts a weekly strategy call with the White House and that an Obama administration representative meets with Media Matters reps at the Common Purpose Project meeting at the Capitol Hilton on 16th Street in Washington every Tuesday evening.
Media Matters has been in regular contact with political operatives in the Obama administration,states the report. According to visitor logs, on June 16, 2010, (David) Brock and then-Media Matters president Eric Burns traveled to the White House for a meeting with Valerie Jarrett, arguably the president’s closest adviser. Recently departed Obama communications director Anita Dunn returned to the White House for the meeting as well.Media Matters brags about how it works with the White House to control big media networks. We were pretty much writing their prime time, a former Media Matters employee said of the cable channel MSNBC. But then virtually all the mainstream media was using our stuff.The group also targets journalists who refuse to be water carriers for Media Matters’ propaganda. If you hit a reporter, say a beat reporter at a regional newspaper,a Media Matters source said, all of a sudden they’d get a thousand hostile emails. Sometimes they’d melt down. It had a real effect on reporters who weren’t used to that kind of scrutiny.The investigation also reveals that current Media Matters head David Brock lives in paranoia that right-wing assassins want to kill him and is regularly surrounded by bodyguards. Brock also carries a gun despite Media Matters’ vehement support for gun control policies.As we have previously reported, Media Matters barely even attempts to hide the fact that it is a mouthpiece for the Obama administration and the political elite.Media Matters is tied at the hip with Think Progress as part of John D. Podesta’s Progressive Media propaganda campaign, described as a war room for promoting the foreign and domestic policies of Barack Obama. Podesta, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, also helped found Media Matters. The organization also received a $1 million contribution from billionaire globalist George Soros back in 2010.
Podesta, who headed up Barack Obama’s presidential transition team, founded The Center for American Progress, which is tasked with driving the White House’s message and agenda.According to SourceWatch, CAP’s Progressive Media project emerged as a major communications war room on behalf of Obama’s domestic and foreign policy agenda and CAP became a strong advocate for escalation in Afghanistan. Progressive Media is run through the Center for American Project Action Fund, the more political 501(c)4 arm of CAP. It coordindates closely with the Common Purpose Project, an effort to create message discipline among the pro-Obama organizations, with a direct tie to the White House.Media Matters’ sister organization Think Progress, also founded under the umbrella of Podesta’s Center for American Progress, has aggressively attacked Alex Jones, even blaming him for influencing Richard Poplawski in the 2009 murder of three Pittsburgh police officers, despite the fact that numerous other leftist media organizations were forced to retract the baseless claim.
Media Matters has now been completely exposed as little more than an attack dog for the Obama administration. The fact that Alex Jones is regularly smeared by this organization proves that Infowars is hitting the establishment where it hurts and taking flak from the very top of the power structure.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
IMF AUSTERITY COMES TO ONTARIO CANADA
GREECE HAS COME TO ONTARIO CANADA IF THIS IMF AUSTERITY IS DONE HERE IN ONTARIO CANADA.THEY ALSO WANT TO CHARGE TO DRIVE ON SCHOOL BUSES.THEY WANT MORE SLOT MACHINES IN CANADA AND MORE ACCESS TO LOTTERY TICKETS IN MORE STORES AND PLACES.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1119065--star-exclusive-ontario-to-face-sweeping-cost-cutting
Drummond report on Ontario calls for cutbacks CBC News Posted: Feb 15, 2012 5:06 AM ET
The Ontario government must curtail its spending with the kind of cuts not seen since the Mike Harris years, according to a report by former TD Bank chief economist Don Drummond.Released Wednesday, Drummond’s report calls for extensive spending reductions and warns that without his recommended belt-tightening, the province will face a crippling $30-billion deficit by 2017-18.Drummond warns that failing to follow such severe austerity measures could cause Ontario’s debt, which currently stands at $215 billion, to balloon to more than $411 billion in five years.
The long-awaited report from Don Drummond was released Wednesday.The long-awaited report from Don Drummond was released Wednesday.To avoid this and balance the books by 2017-18, Drummond outlines hundreds of recommendations in his 540-page report, which he calls a wrenching reduction from the path that spending is now on.His recommendations include everything from moving more patients away from hospital care to cheaper forms of health care. He also calls for increases in school class sizes, tighter controls over public-sector wages and moves to curtail the underground economy.He said the moves are necessary if Ontario is to escape its recent history of rising public debt that forces the government to spend more than it should on interest payments.
He also admits the cuts will be painful.The government will have to cut program spending more deeply on a real per capita basis and over a much longer period of time than the Harris government did in the 1990s,he writes in the report.Key to meeting the target is capping annual increases in health-care spending at 2.5 per cent, something Drummond said no jurisdiction has achieved in the past 30 years.Health-care spending in Ontario currently rises by almost seven per cent a year.Drummond wants to see more home-based care and a move toward cheaper health-care providers, such as nurse practitioners and personal support workers instead of doctors.In education, Drummond calls for annual spending increases capped at one per cent and says current increases of three to five per cent a year are not sustainable.He calls for cuts to non-teaching positions and suggests school bus service be subject to user fees and be opened up to competitive bidding.Drummond also wants the Ontario Child Benefit held at $1,100 per child, per year, instead of allowing it to rise to the $1,310 called for in the 2011 budget.Other measures call for the province to boost revenue by clamping down on the underground economy, and allowing slot machines in more locations.
He also wants the LCBO to consider expanding locations and wants the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation to fold its two head offices into one while closing one of two casinos in Niagara Falls.Leading up to the release of the report, the government hinted it was free to choose which of Drummond’s recommendations it will adopt.For example, Drummond calls for the elimination of all-day kindergarten, which the Liberals have already said they will not do.Drummond, however, says failing to follow his recommendations means the government will have to find the money elsewhere, either through new taxes or other spending cuts.Our recommendations can deliver the needed degree of spending restraint to balance the budget by 2017-18 only if all are implemented, he writes.We expect that many of our recommendations will be rejected. We accept that, but each rejected recommendation must be replaced not by a vacuum, but by a better idea, one that delivers a similar fiscal benefit.
Gloomy Drummond report calls for overhaul to Ontario health care, education-elizabeth church Globe and Mail Update Published Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 2:28PM EST Last updated Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 2:40PM EST GLOBE AND MAIL.
Get ready for a new reality, Ontario.A sweeping report on the financial health of Canada’s largest province calls for a major rethink of an economy long regarded as the engine of the country’s growth.The highly anticipated report delivered Wednesday by economist Don Drummond warns that Ontario is in the midst of a sea change driven by the decline of its manufacturing sector and shifting demographics.The prescription is a massive cost-cutting plan, a laundry list of austerity measures delivered in a 532-page report, a brick, in Mr. Drummond’s estimation. Its 362 recommendations range from broad reforms such as a culture shift in health care to focus on health promotion from the existing after-the-problem treatment model to nitty-gritty details, such as a call for commuters to pay for parking at GO Transit stations.In total, the work of the four-person panel amounts to a wake-up call to the province and the politicians who govern it – one it concedes could take some time to sink in.Our message will strike many as profoundly gloomy. It is one that Ontarians have not heard, the report cautions at the onset.The days of relying on economic growth to solve the province’s fiscal problems are over, Mr. Drummond warns. We don’t think the previous growth rates, unfortunately, will come back,he told reporters.If left unchecked, Ontario’s deficit will swell to $30.2-billion by 2018, or more than double last year’s figure. In order to correct that course, the report says annual spending growth must be held at 0.8 per cent over seven years – a target that given population growth and inflation actually will require a 16.2 per cent cut in program spending over that period for every man, woman and child in the province.As well as its list of prescriptive measures, the report raises two key themes, the need to make policy decisions based on evidence and the need to integrate public services – everything from social assistance to provincial real estate holdings.
This is not the first time a Canadian government has embarked on such a belt-tightening endeavor, Mr. Drummond said. But this time around the province has told indicated raising taxes is off the table and the report recommends that no cuts be made to social assistance rates, as they were under the Mike Harris government.
With those caveats, Mr. Drummond said his report would sent the province into largely uncharted waters. I think it would be fair to say it would be unprecedented in the post war period in Canada,he said.
The report’s major recommendations include:
Health care
The bulk of the report – like the provincial budget – is devoted to health-care reforms. Health-care spending accounts for more than 40 per cent of the provincial budget.
-capping annual increase to health-care spending at 2.5 per cent.
-shifting treatment from hospitals to clinics and homecare
-shifting services to lower cost caregivers where possible and making more use of nurse practitioners
-favours revamped Local Health Integration Networks, tightly integrated with Community Care Access Centres and with clear accountability structures.
-linking CEO and executive compensation to health outcome targets
Education
-Funding should grow at 1 and 1.5 per cent respectively for primary and postsecondary education, far below the current 3 to 5 per cent
-Full-day kindergarten should be scrapped, but as the government has already refused this advice, its implementation should at least be delayed three years, and staffing trimmed
-Class size caps should be relaxed, to 23 students in primary classes, and an average of 22 to 26 in later years
-Salary increases must be modest, and pensions may need to be jointly managed
-Seventy per cent of 13,800 non-teaching jobs created since 2003 should be scrapped, as should 25 per cent of funds for textbooks and classroom supplies
-Universities should sign individual mandate agreements, tying funding to goals, outcomes and graduation rates, and be forced to differentiate more
-The province needs federal help closing the wide gap in on-reserve education funding, and should join First Nations in forming new entities with powers similar to a school boards Labour
-The report does not recommend wage freezes, calling them ineffective
-More centralized bargaining in the public sector
-More flexibility for the public sector workforce including changes to bumping provisions.
Revenue
-Most of the report focuses on restraint, it estimates $2-billion in new revenue can be found in areas such as contraband tobacco, the underground economy, collections issues, tax expenditures and additional income from Crown agencies.
-It also calls for an honest discussion about revenue solutions such as road tolls, congestion charges, regional gas taxes, parking surcharge and a review of user fees.
With files from Tavia Grant and James Bradshaw
Drummond Report: Higher hydro bills, more user fees urged in sweeping report Published FEB 15,2012STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR
Robert Benzie Queen’s Park Bureau Chief
Gloom — or doom.
Ontarians could face higher hydro bills, bigger school classes, fewer hospitals, more expensive tuition and user fees to protect the future of provincial public services.That’s the grim message from Don Drummond, chair of the commission on public-service reform.His two-volume, 665-page report delivered Wednesday is so weighty that a table collapsed when Ontario Provincial Police officers unloaded copies in the media lock-up.Ontario faces more severe economic and fiscal challenges than Ontarians realize, Drummond warned.We can no longer assume a resumption of Ontario’s traditional strong economic growth and the continued prosperity on which the province has built its public services, he said.Our message will strike many as profoundly gloomy. It is one that Ontarians have not heard, certainly not in the recent election campaign, but one this commission believes it must deliver.While Premier Dalton McGuinty struck the Drummond commission in the March 2011 budget, the need for drastic cuts was rarely if ever broached by the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives or New Democrats in the Oct. 6 election.All the major parties agreed that the deficit, which sits at $16 billion this year, could be eliminated by 2017-18 relatively painlessly.Not so, warned Drummond, who projected the deficit would balloon to $30.2 billion in 2017-18 unless spending growth is radically curbed.
As first disclosed by the Star, overall increases must be capped at 0.8 per cent per year through 2017-18.Health care spending, up an average of 6.3 per cent annually over the past five years, must be held to 2.5 per cent growth.But Drummond admitted not one jurisdiction in the world over the past 30 years has managed to keep health costs to even that annual rate.Primary and secondary education costs can rise only 1 per cent with colleges and universities going up 1.5 per cent and social programs just 0.5 per cent.Everything else the government funds must be reduced by 2.4 per cent per year.Reform must be pervasive and speedy. The government will need to implement all the reforms we recommend … to restrain the growth of program spending enough to achieve balance by 2017-18, he said.With 362 recommendations — 105 on health alone — there is much for McGuinty’s Liberal government to digest.Senior Liberal officials, speaking before Finance Minister Dwight Duncan was to meet with reporters later Wednesday, confided much of Drummond’s report would be taken under advisement.Some of its tenets will be introduced in Duncan’s budget next month or are already under way with Health Minister Deb Matthews’ reforms announced two weeks ago.But Liberal insiders told the Star that the report presents a worst-case scenario that could give the government political cover when less dramatic cuts are made later this year.
That is not what Drummond wanted to hear.This is not a smorgasbord from which the government can choose only the tastiest morsels and ignore the less palatable, he said.We can all agree that change is disruptive, but the medicine does not go down more easily if it is dragged out over a long period.Although Drummond was not allowed to consider tax hikes, he said he cheated a bit and found $2 billion in enhanced revenues though higher fees and better collection of monies owed the province.But the lion’s share of the savings he identified came from cutting some of the Liberal government’s most treasured achievements, including:
• scrapping or revamping full-day kindergarten;
• raising the 20-student class-size cap in junior grades to 23 children and increasing the average in junior grades from 24.5 to 26 students and from 22 to 24 in secondary school;
• ending the Ontario clean air benefit, the 10 per cent rebate to electricity bills that costs the treasury $1 billion a year;
• cancelling the new 30 per cent Ontario tuition grant for college and university undergraduate students unless the overall post-secondary budget can be kept to a 1.5 per cent rise;
• extending the period municipal social service costs will be uploaded back to Queen’s Park by two years to 2020
• amalgamating some of Ontario’s 151 hospital corporations.
But Drummond urged against across-the-board cuts, wage freezes or targets for civil-service job reduction, though he implored the government to be creative.Do not hang on to public assets or public service delivery when better options exist. Consider privatizing assets and moving to the private delivery of services wherever feasible, he said.That does not mean a fire sale of assets.Do not partially or fully divest any or all of the province’s government enterprises – Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One – unless the net long-term benefit to Ontario is considerable and can be clearly demonstrated through comprehensive analysis.Still, he suggested the LCBO improve its purchasing power and open more stores to generate revenue.As well, the gambling agency should close one its two head offices — in Toronto or Sault Ste. Marie — as well as one of the two Niagara casinos and allow more slot machines to be installed beyond just at racetracks or existing gaming facilities.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1119065--star-exclusive-ontario-to-face-sweeping-cost-cutting
Drummond report on Ontario calls for cutbacks CBC News Posted: Feb 15, 2012 5:06 AM ET
The Ontario government must curtail its spending with the kind of cuts not seen since the Mike Harris years, according to a report by former TD Bank chief economist Don Drummond.Released Wednesday, Drummond’s report calls for extensive spending reductions and warns that without his recommended belt-tightening, the province will face a crippling $30-billion deficit by 2017-18.Drummond warns that failing to follow such severe austerity measures could cause Ontario’s debt, which currently stands at $215 billion, to balloon to more than $411 billion in five years.
The long-awaited report from Don Drummond was released Wednesday.The long-awaited report from Don Drummond was released Wednesday.To avoid this and balance the books by 2017-18, Drummond outlines hundreds of recommendations in his 540-page report, which he calls a wrenching reduction from the path that spending is now on.His recommendations include everything from moving more patients away from hospital care to cheaper forms of health care. He also calls for increases in school class sizes, tighter controls over public-sector wages and moves to curtail the underground economy.He said the moves are necessary if Ontario is to escape its recent history of rising public debt that forces the government to spend more than it should on interest payments.
He also admits the cuts will be painful.The government will have to cut program spending more deeply on a real per capita basis and over a much longer period of time than the Harris government did in the 1990s,he writes in the report.Key to meeting the target is capping annual increases in health-care spending at 2.5 per cent, something Drummond said no jurisdiction has achieved in the past 30 years.Health-care spending in Ontario currently rises by almost seven per cent a year.Drummond wants to see more home-based care and a move toward cheaper health-care providers, such as nurse practitioners and personal support workers instead of doctors.In education, Drummond calls for annual spending increases capped at one per cent and says current increases of three to five per cent a year are not sustainable.He calls for cuts to non-teaching positions and suggests school bus service be subject to user fees and be opened up to competitive bidding.Drummond also wants the Ontario Child Benefit held at $1,100 per child, per year, instead of allowing it to rise to the $1,310 called for in the 2011 budget.Other measures call for the province to boost revenue by clamping down on the underground economy, and allowing slot machines in more locations.
He also wants the LCBO to consider expanding locations and wants the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation to fold its two head offices into one while closing one of two casinos in Niagara Falls.Leading up to the release of the report, the government hinted it was free to choose which of Drummond’s recommendations it will adopt.For example, Drummond calls for the elimination of all-day kindergarten, which the Liberals have already said they will not do.Drummond, however, says failing to follow his recommendations means the government will have to find the money elsewhere, either through new taxes or other spending cuts.Our recommendations can deliver the needed degree of spending restraint to balance the budget by 2017-18 only if all are implemented, he writes.We expect that many of our recommendations will be rejected. We accept that, but each rejected recommendation must be replaced not by a vacuum, but by a better idea, one that delivers a similar fiscal benefit.
Gloomy Drummond report calls for overhaul to Ontario health care, education-elizabeth church Globe and Mail Update Published Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 2:28PM EST Last updated Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 2:40PM EST GLOBE AND MAIL.
Get ready for a new reality, Ontario.A sweeping report on the financial health of Canada’s largest province calls for a major rethink of an economy long regarded as the engine of the country’s growth.The highly anticipated report delivered Wednesday by economist Don Drummond warns that Ontario is in the midst of a sea change driven by the decline of its manufacturing sector and shifting demographics.The prescription is a massive cost-cutting plan, a laundry list of austerity measures delivered in a 532-page report, a brick, in Mr. Drummond’s estimation. Its 362 recommendations range from broad reforms such as a culture shift in health care to focus on health promotion from the existing after-the-problem treatment model to nitty-gritty details, such as a call for commuters to pay for parking at GO Transit stations.In total, the work of the four-person panel amounts to a wake-up call to the province and the politicians who govern it – one it concedes could take some time to sink in.Our message will strike many as profoundly gloomy. It is one that Ontarians have not heard, the report cautions at the onset.The days of relying on economic growth to solve the province’s fiscal problems are over, Mr. Drummond warns. We don’t think the previous growth rates, unfortunately, will come back,he told reporters.If left unchecked, Ontario’s deficit will swell to $30.2-billion by 2018, or more than double last year’s figure. In order to correct that course, the report says annual spending growth must be held at 0.8 per cent over seven years – a target that given population growth and inflation actually will require a 16.2 per cent cut in program spending over that period for every man, woman and child in the province.As well as its list of prescriptive measures, the report raises two key themes, the need to make policy decisions based on evidence and the need to integrate public services – everything from social assistance to provincial real estate holdings.
This is not the first time a Canadian government has embarked on such a belt-tightening endeavor, Mr. Drummond said. But this time around the province has told indicated raising taxes is off the table and the report recommends that no cuts be made to social assistance rates, as they were under the Mike Harris government.
With those caveats, Mr. Drummond said his report would sent the province into largely uncharted waters. I think it would be fair to say it would be unprecedented in the post war period in Canada,he said.
The report’s major recommendations include:
Health care
The bulk of the report – like the provincial budget – is devoted to health-care reforms. Health-care spending accounts for more than 40 per cent of the provincial budget.
-capping annual increase to health-care spending at 2.5 per cent.
-shifting treatment from hospitals to clinics and homecare
-shifting services to lower cost caregivers where possible and making more use of nurse practitioners
-favours revamped Local Health Integration Networks, tightly integrated with Community Care Access Centres and with clear accountability structures.
-linking CEO and executive compensation to health outcome targets
Education
-Funding should grow at 1 and 1.5 per cent respectively for primary and postsecondary education, far below the current 3 to 5 per cent
-Full-day kindergarten should be scrapped, but as the government has already refused this advice, its implementation should at least be delayed three years, and staffing trimmed
-Class size caps should be relaxed, to 23 students in primary classes, and an average of 22 to 26 in later years
-Salary increases must be modest, and pensions may need to be jointly managed
-Seventy per cent of 13,800 non-teaching jobs created since 2003 should be scrapped, as should 25 per cent of funds for textbooks and classroom supplies
-Universities should sign individual mandate agreements, tying funding to goals, outcomes and graduation rates, and be forced to differentiate more
-The province needs federal help closing the wide gap in on-reserve education funding, and should join First Nations in forming new entities with powers similar to a school boards Labour
-The report does not recommend wage freezes, calling them ineffective
-More centralized bargaining in the public sector
-More flexibility for the public sector workforce including changes to bumping provisions.
Revenue
-Most of the report focuses on restraint, it estimates $2-billion in new revenue can be found in areas such as contraband tobacco, the underground economy, collections issues, tax expenditures and additional income from Crown agencies.
-It also calls for an honest discussion about revenue solutions such as road tolls, congestion charges, regional gas taxes, parking surcharge and a review of user fees.
With files from Tavia Grant and James Bradshaw
Drummond Report: Higher hydro bills, more user fees urged in sweeping report Published FEB 15,2012STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR
Robert Benzie Queen’s Park Bureau Chief
Gloom — or doom.
Ontarians could face higher hydro bills, bigger school classes, fewer hospitals, more expensive tuition and user fees to protect the future of provincial public services.That’s the grim message from Don Drummond, chair of the commission on public-service reform.His two-volume, 665-page report delivered Wednesday is so weighty that a table collapsed when Ontario Provincial Police officers unloaded copies in the media lock-up.Ontario faces more severe economic and fiscal challenges than Ontarians realize, Drummond warned.We can no longer assume a resumption of Ontario’s traditional strong economic growth and the continued prosperity on which the province has built its public services, he said.Our message will strike many as profoundly gloomy. It is one that Ontarians have not heard, certainly not in the recent election campaign, but one this commission believes it must deliver.While Premier Dalton McGuinty struck the Drummond commission in the March 2011 budget, the need for drastic cuts was rarely if ever broached by the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives or New Democrats in the Oct. 6 election.All the major parties agreed that the deficit, which sits at $16 billion this year, could be eliminated by 2017-18 relatively painlessly.Not so, warned Drummond, who projected the deficit would balloon to $30.2 billion in 2017-18 unless spending growth is radically curbed.
As first disclosed by the Star, overall increases must be capped at 0.8 per cent per year through 2017-18.Health care spending, up an average of 6.3 per cent annually over the past five years, must be held to 2.5 per cent growth.But Drummond admitted not one jurisdiction in the world over the past 30 years has managed to keep health costs to even that annual rate.Primary and secondary education costs can rise only 1 per cent with colleges and universities going up 1.5 per cent and social programs just 0.5 per cent.Everything else the government funds must be reduced by 2.4 per cent per year.Reform must be pervasive and speedy. The government will need to implement all the reforms we recommend … to restrain the growth of program spending enough to achieve balance by 2017-18, he said.With 362 recommendations — 105 on health alone — there is much for McGuinty’s Liberal government to digest.Senior Liberal officials, speaking before Finance Minister Dwight Duncan was to meet with reporters later Wednesday, confided much of Drummond’s report would be taken under advisement.Some of its tenets will be introduced in Duncan’s budget next month or are already under way with Health Minister Deb Matthews’ reforms announced two weeks ago.But Liberal insiders told the Star that the report presents a worst-case scenario that could give the government political cover when less dramatic cuts are made later this year.
That is not what Drummond wanted to hear.This is not a smorgasbord from which the government can choose only the tastiest morsels and ignore the less palatable, he said.We can all agree that change is disruptive, but the medicine does not go down more easily if it is dragged out over a long period.Although Drummond was not allowed to consider tax hikes, he said he cheated a bit and found $2 billion in enhanced revenues though higher fees and better collection of monies owed the province.But the lion’s share of the savings he identified came from cutting some of the Liberal government’s most treasured achievements, including:
• scrapping or revamping full-day kindergarten;
• raising the 20-student class-size cap in junior grades to 23 children and increasing the average in junior grades from 24.5 to 26 students and from 22 to 24 in secondary school;
• ending the Ontario clean air benefit, the 10 per cent rebate to electricity bills that costs the treasury $1 billion a year;
• cancelling the new 30 per cent Ontario tuition grant for college and university undergraduate students unless the overall post-secondary budget can be kept to a 1.5 per cent rise;
• extending the period municipal social service costs will be uploaded back to Queen’s Park by two years to 2020
• amalgamating some of Ontario’s 151 hospital corporations.
But Drummond urged against across-the-board cuts, wage freezes or targets for civil-service job reduction, though he implored the government to be creative.Do not hang on to public assets or public service delivery when better options exist. Consider privatizing assets and moving to the private delivery of services wherever feasible, he said.That does not mean a fire sale of assets.Do not partially or fully divest any or all of the province’s government enterprises – Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One – unless the net long-term benefit to Ontario is considerable and can be clearly demonstrated through comprehensive analysis.Still, he suggested the LCBO improve its purchasing power and open more stores to generate revenue.As well, the gambling agency should close one its two head offices — in Toronto or Sault Ste. Marie — as well as one of the two Niagara casinos and allow more slot machines to be installed beyond just at racetracks or existing gaming facilities.
12 EU COUNTRIES IN ECONOMIC TROUBLE
OZONE DEPLETION JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH DUE TO SIN
ISAIAH 30:26-27
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold,(7X OR 7-DEGREES) as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people,(ISRAEL) and healeth the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:
MATTHEW 24:21-22,29
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake (ISRAELS SAKE) those days shall be shortened (Daylight hours shortened)
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
REVELATION 16:7-9
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
THE EARTH (WORLD) NEVER ENDS
ECCLESIASTES 1:4
4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
PSALMS 104:5
5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
MATTHEW 5:5
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
PSALMS 37:29
29 The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.
ISAIAH 45:17
17 But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.
EPHESIANS 3:21
21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
What If Earth's Magnetic Poles Flip?
LiveScience.comLiveScience.com – FEB 15,12
The end of the world as we know it could come in any number of ways, depending on who you ask. Some people believe global cataclysm will occur when Earth's magnetic poles reverse. When north goes south, they say, the continents will lurch in one direction or the other, triggering massive earthquakes, rapid climate change and species extinctions.The geologic record shows that hundreds of pole reversals have occurred throughout Earth's history; they happen when patches of iron atoms in Earth's liquid outer core become reverse-aligned, like tiny magnets oriented in the opposite direction from those around them. When the reversed patches grow to the point that they dominate the rest of the core, Earth's overall magnetic field flips. The last reversal happened 780,000 years ago during the Stone Age, and indeed there's evidence to suggest the planet may be in the early stages of a pole reversal right now.But should we really fear this event? What will actually happen when north-pointing compasses make a 180-degree turn toward Antarctica? Will the continents tear themselves apart, or are we in store for much more mundane changes?
Weak field
The most dramatic changes that occur when the poles reverse is a very large decrease of the total field intensity, said Jean-Pierre Valet, who conducts research on geomagnetic reversals at the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris. [5 Ways the World Will Change Dramatically this Century]Earth's magnetic field takes between 1,000 and 10,000 years to reverse, and in the process, it greatly diminishes before it re-aligns. It's not a sudden flip, but a slow process, during which the field strength becomes weak, very probably the field becomes more complex and might show more than two poles for a while, and then builds up in strength and [aligns] in the opposite direction,said Monika Korte, the scientific director of the Niemegk Geomagnetic Observatory at GFZ Potsdam in Germany.The scientists say it's the weak in-between phase that would be roughest on Earthlings.According to John Tarduno, professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester, a strong magnetic field helps protect Earth from blasts of radiation from the sun. Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) occasionally occur on the Sun, and sometimes hurtle directly toward Earth, Tarduno said. Some of the particles associated with CMEs can be blocked by Earth's magnetic field. With a weak field, this shielding is less efficient.
The charged particles bombarding Earth's atmosphere during solar storms would punch holes in Earth's atmosphere, and this could hurt humans. Ozone holes, like that over Antarctica (which today are due to an entirely different cause related to man) could form as solar particles interact with the atmosphere in a cascade of chemical reactions. These holes would not be permanent, but might be present on one- to 10-year timescales — arguably important enough to be a concern in terms of skin cancer rates, Tarduno said. [Will Sunscreen Protect You from the Upcoming Solar Flares?]Valet agrees that a weak magnetic field could lead to the formation of ozone holes. He wrote a paper last year proposing a direct link between the demise of Neanderthals, our evolutionary cousins, and a significant decrease of the geomagnetic field intensity that occurred exactly at the same period. (That time, the lead-up to a geomagnetic reversal appears to have been aborted; the field weakened but didn't end up flipping.)Other scientists aren't convinced that there's a connection between pole reversals and species extinctions. Even if the field becomes very weak, at the Earth's surface we are shielded from radiation by the atmosphere. Similarly as we cannot see or feel the presence of the geomagnetic field now, we most likely would not notice any significant change from a reversal,Korte said.Our technology definitely would be in danger, however. Even now, solar storms can damage satellites, cause power outages and interrupt radio communications. These kinds of negative influences clearly will increase if the magnetic field and thus its shielding function became significantly weaker, e.g. during a reversal, and it will be important to find mitigation strategies,she told Life's Little Mysteries.
One additional worry is that a weakening and eventual reversal in the field would disorient all those species that rely on geomagnetism for navigation, including bees, salmon, turtles, whales, bacteria and pigeons. There is no scientific consensus on how those creatures would cope.
Continental shifts?
Many of the disaster scenarios associated with geomagnetic pole reversals in popular imagination are pure fantasy, the scientists said. There definitely won't be any break-up or shift of the continents.The first proof is the geologic record. When the last pole switch happened, no worldwide shifting of continents or other planet-wide disasters occurred, as geoscientists can testify to from fossil and other records, said Alan Thompson, head of geomagnetism at the British Geological Survey.The scientists explained that changes in the Earth's liquid core happen on a completely different distance and timescale than convection in the Earth's mantle (which causes Earth's tectonic plates to shift, moving the continents). The liquid core does indeed touch the bottom of the mantle, but it would take tens of millions of years for changes in the core to propagate up through the mantle and influence the motion of the tectonic plates. In short, there is no evidence from the geological past and in my opinion also no conceivable method that magnetic reversals couldtrigger Earthquakes, Korte said.
Sooner or later
The geomagnetic field is currently weakening, possibly because of a growing patch of reverse-alignment in the liquid core deep beneath Brazil and the South Atlantic. According to Tarduno, the strength of Earth's magnetic field has been decreasing for at least 160 years at an alarming rate, leading some to speculate that we are heading toward a reversal.The reversal might happen, or it might be aborted — Earth is too complex a system for scientists to know which outcome to expect. Either way, the process will drag on over the next few thousand years, giving us time to adjust to the changes. Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter
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 FEBRUARY 15,2012
09:30 AM +2.43
10:00 AM -17.79
10:30 AM -32.32
11:00 AM -36.86
11:30 AM -34.25
12:00 PM -20.09
12:30 PM -34.29
01:00 PM -79,70
01:30 PM -77.50
02:00 PM -80.25
02:30 PM -99.41
03:00 PM -119.25
03:30 PM -114.25
04:00 PM -97.33 12,780.95
S&P 500 1343.23 -7.27
NASDAQ 2915.83 -16.00
GOLD 1,730.70 +13.10
OIL 102.02 +1.28
TSE 300 12,362.03 +7.56
CDNX 1633.58 +3.55
S&P/TSX/60 702.44 +0.11
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +14 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -40 points at low today.
Dow +15 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,737.00.OIL opens at $101.67 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -119 points at low today so far.
Dow +15 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -119 points at low today.
Dow +15 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,902.60 (NOT AT CLOSE)
CRUDE OIL -171,000 BARRELS
GASOLINE +400,000 BARRELS
DISTILLATE INVENTORIES -2.9 MILLION BARRELS
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 Uses Homemade Fuel Rods – PR Stunt or Step to N-Bomb? Iran announced Wednesday it placed its first homemade nuclear fuel rods in a reactor, but it may not be able convert them into fuel.By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu First Publish: 2/15/2012, 12:35 PM
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/152778#.TzvY5FG3hko
Iran announced Wednesday that it has placed its first homemade nuclear fuel rods in a reactor, but it may not be able convert them into fuel. The regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad often has made claims, such as the development of long-range missiles, that analysts say may be exaggerated if not untrue.Tehran issued a statement on its official Iranian Student News Agency to announce what it said is a giant step in its nuclear program.The research reactor is located in Tehran.We have started enriching uranium to 20 percent to build nuclear fuel rods since western countries are reluctant to provide us with assistance,Iranian Deputy Nuclear Negotiator Ali Bagheri said. His statement to the Russian Ria Novosti news agency, and reported by ISNA, indicates the close ties between Iran and Russia, which has a vested interest in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear development.The rods are the first ones produced by Iranian scientists and they will be placed into Tehran research reactor in presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday,he added.
He also reiterated that Fordo nuclear site working under the IAEA supervision has entered into operational phase.The use of homemade nuclear fuel rods, which Iran last month said were successfully tested, in a move to overcome international sanctions aimed at preventing or slowing down further development in its unsupervised nuclear program.Iran last year refused to agree to conditions for importing fuel rods from the West, but the use of the homemade nuclear rods does not necessarily mean that scientists will be able to convert the produced uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors.
Panetta: Israel Hasn't Decided Yet on Iran Strike-U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says he doesn't think Israel has made a decision to launch a military strike on Iran.By Elad Benari First Publish: 2/15/2012, 5:44 AM
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Tuesday said he does not think Israel has made a decision to launch a military strike on Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions, The Associated Press reported.Panetta made the comments while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he was pressed on the growing possibility that Israel would attack Iran.AP quoted Panetta as having said Iran was a great concern and the U.S. has a common cause with Israel and the international community to ensure that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon. He said the U.S. and other nations have taken strong steps with sanctions and stressed the importance of keeping the international community together.Panetta then said that, as President Barack Obama has previously suggested, that the administration does not think Israel has made a decision on an attack in Iran.The media has been rampant with speculations in recent months that Israel is planning to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
A recent report on NBC revealed what an Israeli attack on Iran may look like. The report, which was based on conversations the American network held with current and former officials in Israel and the United States, suggested that an attack on Iran will combine air and ground faces but will not include naval forces.Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey also defended the Pentagon's slimmed-down, $614 billion budget for 2013, AP reported, telling lawmakers it's time to show Congress is serious about reducing the deficit.According to the report, Panetta warned lawmakers that budget cuts will hit all 50 states but said the reductions have been carefully planned and there is little room for changes.Reports on Monday said that as part of the slimmed-down budget, the Obama administration is seeking to cut the amount of money Israel receives for its missile defense systems in 2013 by $6.3 million relative to the 2012 budget proposal.
PA Double Talk: Song Wishes for a World Without Israel-The official TV of the moderate PA Chairman Abbas airs song which longs for Israeli cities such as Jaffa, Haifa and Akko.By Elad Benari First Publish: 2/15/2012, 6:16 AM
Twice in the past two weeks, official Palestinian Authority TV has broadcast a song which expresses longing for a world without Israel.The lyrics of the song express a desire for the Israeli cities of Haifa, Jaffa, Akko, Ramle and Nazareth to be part of my country,which is Palestine, where all cities would be accessible with no borders.The music video, which aired on January 30 and again on February 9, was translated by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) research institute and presented on its website. The official PA TV is run by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, who has often been described as more moderate than the Hamas terror group, whose charter states that Israel must be destroyed.The following is the transcript of the song as translated by the PMW and which includes places such as Nazareth, the Galilee, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Akko, and Haifa, all of which are Israeli cities and places:
I wish I could enter my country with no borders...
I will go about in Bethlehem and in Al-Aqsa [Mosque], which is held captive
I will eat lunch in Nazareth and eat dinner in Beit Sahour...
I do not forget Jenin nor Nablus [Shechem], and the Galilee
I do not forget you, Jaffa, your long sea [shore]
I will never forget the olives of the Galilee
Even if our path has grown long, one day we will return:
To Jerusalem, to Gaza, to Acre, to Haifa, oh Lord.
To Jerusalem, to Ramle, to Acre, to Haifa, oh Lord...
I wish I could enter my country with no borders.
PMW often exposes such instances of double talk by the PA’s official media. These incidents occur despite Abbas often telling international media that he is in favor of peace with Israel.Recently, PMW exposed statements made by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, against Jews.At an event marking the 47th anniversary of the Fatah movement, Hussein said that the killing of Jews by Muslims is a religious Islamic goal.He cited the Hadith (Islamic tradition attributed to Muhammad) saying that the Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein later requested that a criminal investigation on suspicion of incitement to violence and racism be opened against the Mufti.The statements were condemned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as well as by President Shimon Peres. The Mufti denied that he called for genocide of Jews, saying that sentences were cut from my speech and added that Islam calls for respect of all human beings. I am amazed that these comments were attributed to me.
Israeli leader: Iranian aggression must be halted
Associated PressAssociated Press – FEB 15,12
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Iran is destabilizing the world and its aggression must be stopped.At Israel's parliament on Wednesday, Netanyahu reiterated Israel's claims that Iran was behind explosions this week that targeted Israeli diplomats in India and the former Soviet republic of Georgia.Netanyahu said, If this aggression isn't halted, ultimately it will spread to many other countries.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.BANGKOK (AP) — The homemade sticky bombs discovered in a Bangkok house after an accidental blast were similar to devices used against Israeli Embassy targets in India and Georgia, Israel's ambassador said Wednesday, building on his country's claims the incidents are part of a covert terror campaign by Iran.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the allegations baseless, saying Israel was trying to damage its relations with Thailand and fuel conspiracy theories.Thailand's government was struggling to piece together what a trio of Iranian men were plotting when a cache of explosives detonated by mistake in their home in Bangkok's busy Sukhumvit Road area a day earlier. Bomb disposal teams searched the Iranians' house again Wednesday looking for more evidence, while security forces were searching for an Iranian woman they said had originally rented it.Two of the men were detained, and Thai immigration police chief Lt. Gen. Wiboon Bangthamai said a third suspect who fled the destroyed house escaped to Malaysia after boarding a flight bound for Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday night. He identified the man as Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, but had no other details.
Israel has accused Iran of waging a campaign of state terror and has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has blamed the Jewish state for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists and has denied responsibility for all three plots this week.On Monday in New Delhi, an explosion tore through an Israeli diplomatic vehicle, wounding the driver and a diplomat's wife, according to Indian officials. On the same day in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, authorities say attackers planted an explosive device on the car of a driver for the Israeli Embassy, but it was discovered and defused before it went off.Israeli Ambassador to Thailand Itzhak Shoha told The Associated Press in an interview that after Tuesday's blasts Thai police found and defused two magnetic bombs that could be stuck on vehicles.They are similar to the ones used in Delhi and in Tbilisi, Shoham said. From that we can assume that there is the same network of terror.That and the arrest of the two Iranians in Thailand again leaves not too much room to assume who was behind it, Shoham said.Late Tuesday, Israel's Channel 10 TV quoted unidentified Thai authorities as saying the captured Iranians confessed to targeting Israeli interests.Thai police have named the Iranian pair in custody as Saeid Moradi, who lost at least one leg in a self-inflicted grenade blast as he tried to flee police, and Mohummad Hazaei, who was detained Tuesday as he tried to board a flight to Malaysia.Both men are now facing four criminal charges, including possession of explosives, attempted murder, attempted murder of a policeman and causing explosions that damaged property.
Top security agencies called a news conference in which authorities acknowledged to being caught by surprise and said they had little information about who the alleged attackers were or their possible targets.National Security Council chief Wichean Potephosree said the government had not yet determined if there was any link between the events in Bangkok, New Delhi and Tbilisi.We haven't found any links but we are still investigating, Wichean said.We admit there was magnetic component, aiming at individuals, but the origin of the magnets still has to be investigated.When police searched the house, the bomb squad found and defused two explosives, each made of three or four pounds of C-4 explosives inside a pair of radios.Wichean said that the type of explosives suggested they would have been used to target individuals.Based on the equipment and materials we found, they were aimed at individuals and the destruction capacity was not intended for large crowds or big buildings, Wichean said.Wichean also acknowledged his nation could be a weak link for international terrorism because we are open to foreigners.Thailand itself has rarely been a target for international terrorists, but its main airport is a major hub for Asian air travel and its government — heavily reliant on tourism — is known for tolerance but criticized for corruption and graft.Associated Press writers Ravi Nessman in New Delhi, Jocelyn Gecker in Bangkok and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran contributed to this report.
Iranian boats shadow USS aircraft carrier in Gulf
Associated PressBy ADAM SCHRECK | Associated Press – Tue, Feb 14, 2012
ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (AP) — The American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has passed through the Strait of Hormuz, shadowed by Iranian patrol boats.
But there were no incidents on Tuesday as the Lincoln's battle group crossed through the narrow strait, which Iran has threatened to close in retaliation for tighter Western sanctions.Several U.S. choppers flanked the carrier group throughout the voyage from the Gulf. Radar operators also picked up an Iranian drone and surveillance helicopter in Iran's airspace near the strait, which is jointly controlled by Iran and Oman.The Lincoln entered the Gulf last month amid heightened tensions with Iran. It is scheduled to begin providing aiding the NATO mission in Afghanistan starting Thursday.
SINCE IRAN WAS BEHIND THESE ISRAELI BOMBINGS GUESS WHO THE SCORE WILL BE SETTLED WITH.......IRAN LOOKOUT,ISRAELS 400 NUKES WILL BE COMING IN HANDY.
Israel to settle score with Bangkok attackers
Associated PressAssociated Press – Tue, Feb 14, 2012
JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli Cabinet minister says his country will settle the score with the perpetrators of a bombing attempt in Bangkok.An Iranian man carrying grenades blew his own legs off in the blast. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday the explosion, which wounded four civilians, was an attempted terrorist attack backed by Iran.Israel has also blamed Iran for a pair of attacks on Israeli diplomatic targets in India and Georgia on Monday.Speaking on Israel Radio, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch did not mention Iran explicitly, but strongly implied Israel would seek revenge.We know who carried out the terror attacks, we know who sent them, and Israel will settle the score with them, he said.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.BANGKOK (AP) — An Iranian man carrying grenades blew off his own legs and wounded four civilians in Bangkok on Tuesday after an earlier blast shook his rented house, authorities said. Israel's defense minister accused Iran of being behind the violence.The blasts came a day after an Israeli diplomatic car was bombed in India — an attack Israel also blamed on Iran.Thai security forces found more explosives in the house where the Iranian man was staying in Bangkok, but the possible targets were not immediately known, Police Gen. Pansiri Prapawat said.
Pansiri said a passport found at the scene of one of the blasts in Bangkok indicated the assailant was Saeid Moradi from Iran. Tehran did not immediately comment.Iran has denied responsibility for the India attack Monday, as well as a foiled bombing of an Israeli diplomatic car in Georgia, which appeared to mirror the recent sticky bomb killings of Iranian nuclear scientists that Tehran has blamed on Israel.Israeli police raised their state of alert throughout the country following the attacks Monday. Officials predicted those attacks were just the first in a wave of assaults on Israeli targets worldwide by Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.
The bombings have ratcheted already high tensions between Tehran and the Jewish state over Iran's nuclear program. Israel doesn't believe Iran's claims that it aims to produce electricity, not bombs, and its threats of a possible military strike have grown more ominous in recent weeks.In Thailand, Tuesday's bizarre sequence of explosions appear to have begun when a stash of explosives detonated by accident in a Bangkok house occupied by three Iranians. The explosion blew off part the roof, and two of the men quickly left the residence.A third man identified as Saeid Moradi was seriously wounded and left the residence shortly afterward, police Gen. Pansiri Prapawat said.He tried to wave down a taxi, but he was covered in blood, and the driver refused to take him, Pansiri said. He then threw an explosive that hit the taxi and damaged it and began running.Police who had been called to the area after the first blast then tried to apprehend Moradi, who hurled a grenade at them to defend himself. "But somehow it bounced back" and blew off his legs, Pansiri said.
Photos of the wounded Moradi showed him covered in dark soot on a sidewalk strewn with broken glass. He lay in front of a Thai primary and secondary school, head raised as if he was attempting to sit up or look around.Police told reporters later said that security forces at Bangkok's international airport detained a second Iranian — identified him as Mohummad Hazaei — as he tried to board a flight for Malaysia. They said he was one of the three in the house where explosives first went off.They said a third Iranian — believed wounded in that initial explosion — was also on the run.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the violence in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror.He said that Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah are unrelenting terror elements endangering the stability of the region and endangering the stability of the world.
Barak spoke during an official visit in Singapore. A statement issued by the Israeli Defense Ministry noted Barak was in Bangkok on Sunday.In India, investigators were searching for what they called a well-trained motorcycle assailant who stuck a magnet bomb on an Israeli diplomatic car in New Delhi, wounding four people Monday.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called on people not to panic after Tuesday's explosions and said the situation was under control.Three Thai men and one Thai woman were brought to Kluaynamthai Hospital for treatment of injuries suffered in the explosions, said Suwinai Busarakamwong, a doctor there.Last month, a Lebanese-Swedish man with alleged links to pro-Iranian Hezbollah militants was detained by Thai police. He led authorities to a warehouse filled with more than 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate.
Israel and the United States at the time warned their citizens to be alert in the capital.Pansiri said that so far, we haven't found any links between these two cases.
Immigration police are trying to trace Moradi's movements, but initial reports indicated he flew into Thailand from Seoul, South Korea on Feb. 8, Pansiri said. He landed at the southern Thai resort town of Phuket, then stayed in a hotel in Chonburi, a couple hours drive southeast of Bangkok, for several nights.Pansiri said a bomb disposal unit checked a dark satchel near the spot where Moradi was wounded, and police found Iranian currency, US dollars and Thai money in the bag.Thailand has rarely been a target for foreign terrorists, although a domestic Muslim insurgency in the country's south has involved bombings of civilian targets.The Bangkok blasts — the day after bombs targeted Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia — raised worry that a fast-escalating proxy war between Iran and Israel might spread.Iran has accused the Israelis of being behind a series of assassinations of nuclear scientists and other sabotage of its nuclear program. Israel, like the West, believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.Associated Press writers Jocelyn Gecker in Bangkok and Amy Teibel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Iran Deploys Oil Weapon, Cuts off Six European Nations-Iran rolled out its oil weapon Wednesday and announced a cut in exports to six European countries, including France and Greece.By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu First Publish: 2/15/2012, 3:31 PM
Iran rolled out its oil weapon Wednesday and announced a cut in exports to six European countries, including France, Spain and Greece.The government-run PRESS TV announced, In response to the latest sanctions imposed by the EU (European Union) against Iran's energy and banking sectors, the Islamic Republic has cut oil exports to six European countries.It named them as the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Portugal in response to a EU boycott of new oil contracts with the Islamic Republic.The move immediately sparked a one percent rise in the price of crude oil on world markets, sending a cost of barrel of crude to more than $101.
Iran has insisted the Western sanctions will backfire because it can make up for the lost sales by exporting to other countries. It also has warned that higher oil prices could wreak havoc with the fragile Western economies, where some countries in Europe already are in a recession.Under current circumstances, the prices of oil will increase due to cold weather and also the psychological impact of foreign sanctions imposed on Iran's oil exports,Iran’s OPEC official Mohammad Ali Khatibi told the semi-official Mehr news agency.Saudi Arabia, which shares Western fears of a nuclear Iran that threatens to dominate the Middle East, has vowed it will pump more oil to make up for any shortfall.
Iran sits on the world’s third largest oil reserves and second largest natural gas fields.Asian countries have not cooperated with the Western efforts for international sanctions. Most of Iran’s oil exports are to South Korea, China, India and Japan, which may benefit from the Western boycott if it forces Iran to offer discounts to its other customers as a temptation to resist pressure to join the move for sanctions.
Play a Media Game – and Help US Catch Terrorists-The US last month said a new app monitors social media accounts. Now it has developed a game for the public to help track terrorists.By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu First Publish: 2/14/2012, 5:47 PM
The United States last month said a new app monitors social media accounts. Now it has developed a game for the public to help track terrorists.Called Tag Challenge, the social media game will be played by people in Washington D.C., New York City, London, Stockholm, Sweden and Bratislava, Slovakia on March 31.The infamous Panther Five has pulled an audacious new heist: they’ve stolen the world’s 3rd most expensive jewel, the Adly Diamond, from the Overholt Showroom in Washington, D.C., the Tag Challenge website announces. “Now they’ve split up and fled – dispersed to five different cities. We’re offering a reward to help find them.Profiles and mug shots of five suspects in each city will be posted on Tag Challenge, and players will have one day to locate the suspects in their city.The suspects will be wearing a T-shirt with the Tag Challenge logo, and they are not real-life crime suspects.
A prize of $5,000 is being offered to the first player to upload photos of each of the five suspects to the Tag Challenge.The U.S. Department of State and its embassy in Prague are sponsoring the contest to test ways social media and open source data can be used to track terrorists and locate missing children.The State Department promises it is not associated with any law enforcement agency, and the contest is not part of any law enforcement effort.The game was organized by graduate students from six countries who participated in social media and security conferences and will offer government officials insight to whether and how social media can be used to accomplish a realistic, time-sensitive, international law enforcement goal,the Tag Challenge website says.Results, strategies, and any data derived from the event will be made public after its conclusion,it adds.
Eurozone ministers postpone Greek deal
Today FEB 15,12 @ 09:29 By Valentina Pop
BRUSSELS - Eurozone countries have again postponed the new Greek bail-out despite the country's looming bankruptcy, with a meeting of finance ministers on Wednesday (15 February) downgraded to a conference call, pending more spending cuts by Athens and written pledges from Greek politicians.Despite the Greek parliament having approved a €3.2 billion austerity plan on Sunday, further technical work...is needed in a number of areas, including the closure of the fiscal gap of €325 million euro in 2012,Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the eurogroup meetings of finance ministers, said in an emailed statement on Tuesday evening.Coalition leaders in Athens also need to send Juncker the required political assurances that they will not undo the reform programme after general elections due in April.Against this background, I have decided to convene ministers to a conference call tomorrow in order to discuss the outstanding issues and prepare the ordinary meeting of the Eurogroup on Monday, 20 February 2012,Juncker explained.The fresh setback puts Athens in real jeopardy of not being able to repay €14.5 billion worth of bond yields on 20 March.
This is not our problem,one EU diplomat told this website on Tuesday, reflecting a growing hostility in Brussels toward the Greek government and its track record of delays and broken promises.Until we have it all definitively on paper, with really solid guarantees from Greece as well, and legislation, we can’t make any decisions, Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager told Dutch TV.Back in Athens, where the parliament defied public anger in passing more austerity cuts over the weekend, public order minister Christos Papoutsis said the government has made superhuman efforts to comply with the demands of eurozone countries.Greece has made all the efforts that it needed to do, and the people cannot take any more ... From now on, Europe has to take the responsibility,he told press after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.An official report published earlier the same day showed that the Greek economy shrunk faster than expected in the last three months of 2011, when it contracted by seven percent from five percent in the previous quarter.Meanwhile, a coalition of human rights associations on has warned that the new set of austerity measures imposed on Greece will create a dramatic and suicidal situation.This mad race of increasing austerity can only worsen the existing strong economic and social recession in a context of already extremely degraded living conditions of the Greeks,the European Association for the Defence of Human Rights said in a statement.
For his part, EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn on Tuesday said he can understand the pain and turmoil in Greece.But he insisted that the austerity plan is the lesser evil compared to an outright default, which would have a devastating impact on the Greek society and the wider eurozone through its contagion effect.
Unfortunately Greece lived systematically beyond its means in the past 10 years - that's why corrective action is needed so that the Greek economy is restored to a sustainable path,he said.
EU report: 12 countries at risk of new economic crises 14.02.12 @ 19:07 By Valentina Pop
BRUSSELS - A first report by the EU commission looking at macro-economic data across the bloc up until 2010 warns that 12 countries, including Italy and Spain are at risk of new crises due to their public debt and lack of competitiveness.Part of legislation strengthening economic surveillance, the Alert Mechanism Report published on Tuesday (14 February) singles out Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK as in need for further in depth scrutiny of their macro-economic policies.If it turns out that imbalances exist and that they are harmful, this new tool is a meaningful step towards correcting the imbalances which built up over the years. Sound fiscal policies and early detection and correction of risky economic imbalances are necessary conditions to return to sustainable growth and jobs,EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said.Based on ten indicators such as housing prices, private loans, public deficit and export performance, the report initially singled out Italy, Spain, Hungary and Cyprus as pressing cases. But in the final version, all 12 countries were put in the same basket, even though housing bubbles and increased private debt in Denmark and Sweden are less of a problem than Rome's high public indebtedness.According to Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, a former EU commissioner, put pressure on the college of commissioners to water down the language of the report ahead of a treasury bonds sale in Rome on Friday.
When asked about the draft version, Rehn said he regretted the leak, but insisted he still stands behind the final version of the document.This is what I proposed to the college,he said.An EU official in Brussels told journalists under condition of anonymity that there were better ideas at some point than what the draft had proposed, and that is what ended up in the final version.Another official dealing with this dossier admitted that the data is relatively old - as it only goes up until 2010 - but insisted that this is just a first filter,with the in depth analysis to look at fresher data from last year. If member states fail to take these warnings into account, a so-called macro-economic imbalance procedure can be launched, which could lead to the suspension of EU funds from 2014 onwards.Apart from the old data, the report also does not deal with surpluses, as they are not seen as a potential problem in the bigger EU picture. Rehn explained that for this first exercise, his team focused on deficits and competitiveness laggards, rather than the surpluses and maintained that the German economy performed relatively well during the crisis. But structural factors driving surpluses will be analysed in upcoming reports, he promised.German Green MEP Sven Giegold however says the commission is turning a blind eye to the surplus countries. One of the main reasons for the continued difficulties in the eurozone are the imbalances between core and peripheral countries. You can't stabilise the eurozone unless deficit and surplus countries are moving towards each other,he wrote on his website.
Barroso to China: EU is not falling apart
14.02.12 @ 18:12 By Andrew Rettman
BRUSSELS - European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has told the Chinese public that the EU will become a fully-fledged political union after the financial crisis.
Speaking to TV cameras after a meeting with Chinese leader Wen Jiabao in Bejing on Tuesday (14 February), he noted the EU has recently suffered mass strikes and protests, including violent clashes in Greece.It is true that in many of our member states there have been student protests and strikes. This is normal in our open societies where people have a right to protest, he said.He added that the crisis has prompted a new wave of integration, however, citing the fiscal treaty agreed last month by 25 EU countries.I want to make this very clear to Chinese public opinion. Because I understand when you see the news you may be putting some questions. Is the European Union really going to progress? I say: Yes. No doubt about it ... Precisely because of the problems in the euro area the conclusion has been to further integrate and to complete the monetary union with a fiscal union and, I believe, in the future toward a political union.Barroso and EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy went to China to attract money for EU bail-out funds.For his part, Van Rompuy highlighted a clause in the joint summit communique which says the EU is willing to swiftly give China market economy status - a move that would help it sell more cheap goods to Europe. It's the first time we put this kind of agreement with this kind of langauge after an EU-China summit,he said.Wen declined to give a concrete promise despite the charm offensive.He said only that: China is ready to increase its participation in resolving the European debt problems. We are willing to conduct close communication and co-operation with the EU side.
He also stonewalled on Iran and Syria.Van Rompuy voiced serious concern about Iran's nuclear programme and violence in Syria. The EU last month imposed an oil embargo on Iran only to hear that Chinese firms are moving in to buy the oil at lower prices. It is also keen to send UN peacekeepers to Syria, but China recently vetoed UN action on the crisis.Wen said nothing on Iran and indicated that China does not want outside interference in Syria.The future of Syria is for the Syrian people to decide,he said.Meanwhile, the summit communique was weak on human rights.It mentioned that: Both sides looked forward to the strengthening of the EU-China dialogue and co-operation on human rights based on equality and mutual respect.The dialogue - a behind-closed-doors meeting of mid-level EU and Chinese diplomats which takes place a few days before each summit - is seen as a pointless exercise by NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, in terms of putting pressure on China to stop abuses.
Neither the communique nor the EU envoys publicly mentioned Tibet, even though another Buddhist monk set himself on fire on Monday in protest against repression.
Back in Brussels, a spokesman for EU digital affairs commissioner Neelie Kroes emailed journalists to promote a minor summit initiative - the launch of an EU-China Cyber Taskforce, which he called good progress.Asked by EUobserver if China - a country notorious for Internet censorship - is an appropriate partner for the EU on managing the Internet, the spokesman, Ryan Heath, said: It's not a partnership. It's a taskforce to see how we can deal with these issues co-operatively.
Moody's cuts Italy and Spain, warns France and UK
14.02.12 @ 09:28 By Valentina Pop
BRUSSELS - US-based ratings agency Moody's has downgraded six eurozone countries, including Spain and Italy. It also warned that Britain and France may lose their triple-A rating, citing doubts over the bloc's capacity to cope with the debt crisis.Its statement downgraded Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch. It also put its outlook on Austria, France and the UK - all triple-A countries - on negative to reflect their susceptibility to the growing financial and macroeconomic risks emanating from the euro area crisis.The announcement is the first time since the financial crisis began that the UK and the Bank of England's triple-A grade is put in doubt.British finance minister George Osborne called it a reality check for his country to reduce its budget deficit. This is proof that, in the current global situation, Britain cannot waver from dealing with its debts, he said.The French government also said it will press ahead with budget-slashing measures.The government is determined to press ahead with its actions to boost growth and competitiveness, notably the reform of the financing of welfare, of employment and the reduction of public deficits, finance minister Francois Baroin said in a statement.Moody's warning comes one month after another US-based agency, Standard & Poor's cut France's triple-A rating.EU leaders recently pulled forward the creation of a permanent eurozone bail-out fund, the European Stability Mechanism, and agreed a new treaty on fiscal discipline. But Moody's said there is still uncertainty over the euro area's prospects for institutional reform of its fiscal and economic framework and the resources that will be made available to deal with the crisis.It added that: Europe's increasingly weak macroeconomic prospects ... threaten the implementation of domestic austerity programmes and the structural reforms that are needed to promote competitiveness.
The situation leaves a high potential for further shocks to funding conditions for stressed sovereigns and banks across Europe.At the same time, Moody's confirmed the triple-A rating of Germany, Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands as well as non-eurozone countries Denmark and Sweden. It also said Estonia, Belgium, Ireland and the eurozone's temporary bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, should keep their current ratings for now.Spain got more bad news on Monday when Standard & Poor's and another high-profile agency, Fitch dropped the rating on several of the country's banks, including its four largest lenders.
Santander, the biggest eurozone bank by market capitalisation, saw its grade cut by two notches to A. BBVA, Bankia and CaixaBank were downgraded by one notch.The downgrade of Spain indicates a weakening of its ability to support its largest banks,Fitch said in a statement.According to the Bank of Spain, the country's banking sector is struggling with €176 billion worth of problematic loans, mainly due to a real estate bubble which burst in 2008, coinciding with the start of the financial crisis.Standard & Poor's said it expects the Spanish banking system's profitability to remain below its historical average over the medium term as banks continue to operate in an unfavourable economic and financial environment.
ISAIAH 30:26-27
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold,(7X OR 7-DEGREES) as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people,(ISRAEL) and healeth the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:
MATTHEW 24:21-22,29
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake (ISRAELS SAKE) those days shall be shortened (Daylight hours shortened)
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
REVELATION 16:7-9
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
THE EARTH (WORLD) NEVER ENDS
ECCLESIASTES 1:4
4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
PSALMS 104:5
5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
MATTHEW 5:5
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
PSALMS 37:29
29 The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.
ISAIAH 45:17
17 But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.
EPHESIANS 3:21
21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
What If Earth's Magnetic Poles Flip?
LiveScience.comLiveScience.com – FEB 15,12
The end of the world as we know it could come in any number of ways, depending on who you ask. Some people believe global cataclysm will occur when Earth's magnetic poles reverse. When north goes south, they say, the continents will lurch in one direction or the other, triggering massive earthquakes, rapid climate change and species extinctions.The geologic record shows that hundreds of pole reversals have occurred throughout Earth's history; they happen when patches of iron atoms in Earth's liquid outer core become reverse-aligned, like tiny magnets oriented in the opposite direction from those around them. When the reversed patches grow to the point that they dominate the rest of the core, Earth's overall magnetic field flips. The last reversal happened 780,000 years ago during the Stone Age, and indeed there's evidence to suggest the planet may be in the early stages of a pole reversal right now.But should we really fear this event? What will actually happen when north-pointing compasses make a 180-degree turn toward Antarctica? Will the continents tear themselves apart, or are we in store for much more mundane changes?
Weak field
The most dramatic changes that occur when the poles reverse is a very large decrease of the total field intensity, said Jean-Pierre Valet, who conducts research on geomagnetic reversals at the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris. [5 Ways the World Will Change Dramatically this Century]Earth's magnetic field takes between 1,000 and 10,000 years to reverse, and in the process, it greatly diminishes before it re-aligns. It's not a sudden flip, but a slow process, during which the field strength becomes weak, very probably the field becomes more complex and might show more than two poles for a while, and then builds up in strength and [aligns] in the opposite direction,said Monika Korte, the scientific director of the Niemegk Geomagnetic Observatory at GFZ Potsdam in Germany.The scientists say it's the weak in-between phase that would be roughest on Earthlings.According to John Tarduno, professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester, a strong magnetic field helps protect Earth from blasts of radiation from the sun. Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) occasionally occur on the Sun, and sometimes hurtle directly toward Earth, Tarduno said. Some of the particles associated with CMEs can be blocked by Earth's magnetic field. With a weak field, this shielding is less efficient.
The charged particles bombarding Earth's atmosphere during solar storms would punch holes in Earth's atmosphere, and this could hurt humans. Ozone holes, like that over Antarctica (which today are due to an entirely different cause related to man) could form as solar particles interact with the atmosphere in a cascade of chemical reactions. These holes would not be permanent, but might be present on one- to 10-year timescales — arguably important enough to be a concern in terms of skin cancer rates, Tarduno said. [Will Sunscreen Protect You from the Upcoming Solar Flares?]Valet agrees that a weak magnetic field could lead to the formation of ozone holes. He wrote a paper last year proposing a direct link between the demise of Neanderthals, our evolutionary cousins, and a significant decrease of the geomagnetic field intensity that occurred exactly at the same period. (That time, the lead-up to a geomagnetic reversal appears to have been aborted; the field weakened but didn't end up flipping.)Other scientists aren't convinced that there's a connection between pole reversals and species extinctions. Even if the field becomes very weak, at the Earth's surface we are shielded from radiation by the atmosphere. Similarly as we cannot see or feel the presence of the geomagnetic field now, we most likely would not notice any significant change from a reversal,Korte said.Our technology definitely would be in danger, however. Even now, solar storms can damage satellites, cause power outages and interrupt radio communications. These kinds of negative influences clearly will increase if the magnetic field and thus its shielding function became significantly weaker, e.g. during a reversal, and it will be important to find mitigation strategies,she told Life's Little Mysteries.
One additional worry is that a weakening and eventual reversal in the field would disorient all those species that rely on geomagnetism for navigation, including bees, salmon, turtles, whales, bacteria and pigeons. There is no scientific consensus on how those creatures would cope.
Continental shifts?
Many of the disaster scenarios associated with geomagnetic pole reversals in popular imagination are pure fantasy, the scientists said. There definitely won't be any break-up or shift of the continents.The first proof is the geologic record. When the last pole switch happened, no worldwide shifting of continents or other planet-wide disasters occurred, as geoscientists can testify to from fossil and other records, said Alan Thompson, head of geomagnetism at the British Geological Survey.The scientists explained that changes in the Earth's liquid core happen on a completely different distance and timescale than convection in the Earth's mantle (which causes Earth's tectonic plates to shift, moving the continents). The liquid core does indeed touch the bottom of the mantle, but it would take tens of millions of years for changes in the core to propagate up through the mantle and influence the motion of the tectonic plates. In short, there is no evidence from the geological past and in my opinion also no conceivable method that magnetic reversals couldtrigger Earthquakes, Korte said.
Sooner or later
The geomagnetic field is currently weakening, possibly because of a growing patch of reverse-alignment in the liquid core deep beneath Brazil and the South Atlantic. According to Tarduno, the strength of Earth's magnetic field has been decreasing for at least 160 years at an alarming rate, leading some to speculate that we are heading toward a reversal.The reversal might happen, or it might be aborted — Earth is too complex a system for scientists to know which outcome to expect. Either way, the process will drag on over the next few thousand years, giving us time to adjust to the changes. Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter
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 FEBRUARY 15,2012
09:30 AM +2.43
10:00 AM -17.79
10:30 AM -32.32
11:00 AM -36.86
11:30 AM -34.25
12:00 PM -20.09
12:30 PM -34.29
01:00 PM -79,70
01:30 PM -77.50
02:00 PM -80.25
02:30 PM -99.41
03:00 PM -119.25
03:30 PM -114.25
04:00 PM -97.33 12,780.95
S&P 500 1343.23 -7.27
NASDAQ 2915.83 -16.00
GOLD 1,730.70 +13.10
OIL 102.02 +1.28
TSE 300 12,362.03 +7.56
CDNX 1633.58 +3.55
S&P/TSX/60 702.44 +0.11
MORNING,NEWS,STATS
YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +14 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -40 points at low today.
Dow +15 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,737.00.OIL opens at $101.67 today.
AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -119 points at low today so far.
Dow +15 points at high today so far.
WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -119 points at low today.
Dow +15 points at high today.
GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,902.60 (NOT AT CLOSE)
CRUDE OIL -171,000 BARRELS
GASOLINE +400,000 BARRELS
DISTILLATE INVENTORIES -2.9 MILLION BARRELS
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 Uses Homemade Fuel Rods – PR Stunt or Step to N-Bomb? Iran announced Wednesday it placed its first homemade nuclear fuel rods in a reactor, but it may not be able convert them into fuel.By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu First Publish: 2/15/2012, 12:35 PM
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/152778#.TzvY5FG3hko
Iran announced Wednesday that it has placed its first homemade nuclear fuel rods in a reactor, but it may not be able convert them into fuel. The regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad often has made claims, such as the development of long-range missiles, that analysts say may be exaggerated if not untrue.Tehran issued a statement on its official Iranian Student News Agency to announce what it said is a giant step in its nuclear program.The research reactor is located in Tehran.We have started enriching uranium to 20 percent to build nuclear fuel rods since western countries are reluctant to provide us with assistance,Iranian Deputy Nuclear Negotiator Ali Bagheri said. His statement to the Russian Ria Novosti news agency, and reported by ISNA, indicates the close ties between Iran and Russia, which has a vested interest in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear development.The rods are the first ones produced by Iranian scientists and they will be placed into Tehran research reactor in presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday,he added.
He also reiterated that Fordo nuclear site working under the IAEA supervision has entered into operational phase.The use of homemade nuclear fuel rods, which Iran last month said were successfully tested, in a move to overcome international sanctions aimed at preventing or slowing down further development in its unsupervised nuclear program.Iran last year refused to agree to conditions for importing fuel rods from the West, but the use of the homemade nuclear rods does not necessarily mean that scientists will be able to convert the produced uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors.
Panetta: Israel Hasn't Decided Yet on Iran Strike-U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says he doesn't think Israel has made a decision to launch a military strike on Iran.By Elad Benari First Publish: 2/15/2012, 5:44 AM
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Tuesday said he does not think Israel has made a decision to launch a military strike on Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions, The Associated Press reported.Panetta made the comments while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he was pressed on the growing possibility that Israel would attack Iran.AP quoted Panetta as having said Iran was a great concern and the U.S. has a common cause with Israel and the international community to ensure that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon. He said the U.S. and other nations have taken strong steps with sanctions and stressed the importance of keeping the international community together.Panetta then said that, as President Barack Obama has previously suggested, that the administration does not think Israel has made a decision on an attack in Iran.The media has been rampant with speculations in recent months that Israel is planning to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
A recent report on NBC revealed what an Israeli attack on Iran may look like. The report, which was based on conversations the American network held with current and former officials in Israel and the United States, suggested that an attack on Iran will combine air and ground faces but will not include naval forces.Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey also defended the Pentagon's slimmed-down, $614 billion budget for 2013, AP reported, telling lawmakers it's time to show Congress is serious about reducing the deficit.According to the report, Panetta warned lawmakers that budget cuts will hit all 50 states but said the reductions have been carefully planned and there is little room for changes.Reports on Monday said that as part of the slimmed-down budget, the Obama administration is seeking to cut the amount of money Israel receives for its missile defense systems in 2013 by $6.3 million relative to the 2012 budget proposal.
PA Double Talk: Song Wishes for a World Without Israel-The official TV of the moderate PA Chairman Abbas airs song which longs for Israeli cities such as Jaffa, Haifa and Akko.By Elad Benari First Publish: 2/15/2012, 6:16 AM
Twice in the past two weeks, official Palestinian Authority TV has broadcast a song which expresses longing for a world without Israel.The lyrics of the song express a desire for the Israeli cities of Haifa, Jaffa, Akko, Ramle and Nazareth to be part of my country,which is Palestine, where all cities would be accessible with no borders.The music video, which aired on January 30 and again on February 9, was translated by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) research institute and presented on its website. The official PA TV is run by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, who has often been described as more moderate than the Hamas terror group, whose charter states that Israel must be destroyed.The following is the transcript of the song as translated by the PMW and which includes places such as Nazareth, the Galilee, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Akko, and Haifa, all of which are Israeli cities and places:
I wish I could enter my country with no borders...
I will go about in Bethlehem and in Al-Aqsa [Mosque], which is held captive
I will eat lunch in Nazareth and eat dinner in Beit Sahour...
I do not forget Jenin nor Nablus [Shechem], and the Galilee
I do not forget you, Jaffa, your long sea [shore]
I will never forget the olives of the Galilee
Even if our path has grown long, one day we will return:
To Jerusalem, to Gaza, to Acre, to Haifa, oh Lord.
To Jerusalem, to Ramle, to Acre, to Haifa, oh Lord...
I wish I could enter my country with no borders.
PMW often exposes such instances of double talk by the PA’s official media. These incidents occur despite Abbas often telling international media that he is in favor of peace with Israel.Recently, PMW exposed statements made by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, against Jews.At an event marking the 47th anniversary of the Fatah movement, Hussein said that the killing of Jews by Muslims is a religious Islamic goal.He cited the Hadith (Islamic tradition attributed to Muhammad) saying that the Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein later requested that a criminal investigation on suspicion of incitement to violence and racism be opened against the Mufti.The statements were condemned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as well as by President Shimon Peres. The Mufti denied that he called for genocide of Jews, saying that sentences were cut from my speech and added that Islam calls for respect of all human beings. I am amazed that these comments were attributed to me.
Israeli leader: Iranian aggression must be halted
Associated PressAssociated Press – FEB 15,12
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Iran is destabilizing the world and its aggression must be stopped.At Israel's parliament on Wednesday, Netanyahu reiterated Israel's claims that Iran was behind explosions this week that targeted Israeli diplomats in India and the former Soviet republic of Georgia.Netanyahu said, If this aggression isn't halted, ultimately it will spread to many other countries.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.BANGKOK (AP) — The homemade sticky bombs discovered in a Bangkok house after an accidental blast were similar to devices used against Israeli Embassy targets in India and Georgia, Israel's ambassador said Wednesday, building on his country's claims the incidents are part of a covert terror campaign by Iran.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the allegations baseless, saying Israel was trying to damage its relations with Thailand and fuel conspiracy theories.Thailand's government was struggling to piece together what a trio of Iranian men were plotting when a cache of explosives detonated by mistake in their home in Bangkok's busy Sukhumvit Road area a day earlier. Bomb disposal teams searched the Iranians' house again Wednesday looking for more evidence, while security forces were searching for an Iranian woman they said had originally rented it.Two of the men were detained, and Thai immigration police chief Lt. Gen. Wiboon Bangthamai said a third suspect who fled the destroyed house escaped to Malaysia after boarding a flight bound for Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday night. He identified the man as Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, but had no other details.
Israel has accused Iran of waging a campaign of state terror and has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has blamed the Jewish state for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists and has denied responsibility for all three plots this week.On Monday in New Delhi, an explosion tore through an Israeli diplomatic vehicle, wounding the driver and a diplomat's wife, according to Indian officials. On the same day in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, authorities say attackers planted an explosive device on the car of a driver for the Israeli Embassy, but it was discovered and defused before it went off.Israeli Ambassador to Thailand Itzhak Shoha told The Associated Press in an interview that after Tuesday's blasts Thai police found and defused two magnetic bombs that could be stuck on vehicles.They are similar to the ones used in Delhi and in Tbilisi, Shoham said. From that we can assume that there is the same network of terror.That and the arrest of the two Iranians in Thailand again leaves not too much room to assume who was behind it, Shoham said.Late Tuesday, Israel's Channel 10 TV quoted unidentified Thai authorities as saying the captured Iranians confessed to targeting Israeli interests.Thai police have named the Iranian pair in custody as Saeid Moradi, who lost at least one leg in a self-inflicted grenade blast as he tried to flee police, and Mohummad Hazaei, who was detained Tuesday as he tried to board a flight to Malaysia.Both men are now facing four criminal charges, including possession of explosives, attempted murder, attempted murder of a policeman and causing explosions that damaged property.
Top security agencies called a news conference in which authorities acknowledged to being caught by surprise and said they had little information about who the alleged attackers were or their possible targets.National Security Council chief Wichean Potephosree said the government had not yet determined if there was any link between the events in Bangkok, New Delhi and Tbilisi.We haven't found any links but we are still investigating, Wichean said.We admit there was magnetic component, aiming at individuals, but the origin of the magnets still has to be investigated.When police searched the house, the bomb squad found and defused two explosives, each made of three or four pounds of C-4 explosives inside a pair of radios.Wichean said that the type of explosives suggested they would have been used to target individuals.Based on the equipment and materials we found, they were aimed at individuals and the destruction capacity was not intended for large crowds or big buildings, Wichean said.Wichean also acknowledged his nation could be a weak link for international terrorism because we are open to foreigners.Thailand itself has rarely been a target for international terrorists, but its main airport is a major hub for Asian air travel and its government — heavily reliant on tourism — is known for tolerance but criticized for corruption and graft.Associated Press writers Ravi Nessman in New Delhi, Jocelyn Gecker in Bangkok and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran contributed to this report.
Iranian boats shadow USS aircraft carrier in Gulf
Associated PressBy ADAM SCHRECK | Associated Press – Tue, Feb 14, 2012
ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (AP) — The American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has passed through the Strait of Hormuz, shadowed by Iranian patrol boats.
But there were no incidents on Tuesday as the Lincoln's battle group crossed through the narrow strait, which Iran has threatened to close in retaliation for tighter Western sanctions.Several U.S. choppers flanked the carrier group throughout the voyage from the Gulf. Radar operators also picked up an Iranian drone and surveillance helicopter in Iran's airspace near the strait, which is jointly controlled by Iran and Oman.The Lincoln entered the Gulf last month amid heightened tensions with Iran. It is scheduled to begin providing aiding the NATO mission in Afghanistan starting Thursday.
SINCE IRAN WAS BEHIND THESE ISRAELI BOMBINGS GUESS WHO THE SCORE WILL BE SETTLED WITH.......IRAN LOOKOUT,ISRAELS 400 NUKES WILL BE COMING IN HANDY.
Israel to settle score with Bangkok attackers
Associated PressAssociated Press – Tue, Feb 14, 2012
JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli Cabinet minister says his country will settle the score with the perpetrators of a bombing attempt in Bangkok.An Iranian man carrying grenades blew his own legs off in the blast. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday the explosion, which wounded four civilians, was an attempted terrorist attack backed by Iran.Israel has also blamed Iran for a pair of attacks on Israeli diplomatic targets in India and Georgia on Monday.Speaking on Israel Radio, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch did not mention Iran explicitly, but strongly implied Israel would seek revenge.We know who carried out the terror attacks, we know who sent them, and Israel will settle the score with them, he said.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.BANGKOK (AP) — An Iranian man carrying grenades blew off his own legs and wounded four civilians in Bangkok on Tuesday after an earlier blast shook his rented house, authorities said. Israel's defense minister accused Iran of being behind the violence.The blasts came a day after an Israeli diplomatic car was bombed in India — an attack Israel also blamed on Iran.Thai security forces found more explosives in the house where the Iranian man was staying in Bangkok, but the possible targets were not immediately known, Police Gen. Pansiri Prapawat said.
Pansiri said a passport found at the scene of one of the blasts in Bangkok indicated the assailant was Saeid Moradi from Iran. Tehran did not immediately comment.Iran has denied responsibility for the India attack Monday, as well as a foiled bombing of an Israeli diplomatic car in Georgia, which appeared to mirror the recent sticky bomb killings of Iranian nuclear scientists that Tehran has blamed on Israel.Israeli police raised their state of alert throughout the country following the attacks Monday. Officials predicted those attacks were just the first in a wave of assaults on Israeli targets worldwide by Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.
The bombings have ratcheted already high tensions between Tehran and the Jewish state over Iran's nuclear program. Israel doesn't believe Iran's claims that it aims to produce electricity, not bombs, and its threats of a possible military strike have grown more ominous in recent weeks.In Thailand, Tuesday's bizarre sequence of explosions appear to have begun when a stash of explosives detonated by accident in a Bangkok house occupied by three Iranians. The explosion blew off part the roof, and two of the men quickly left the residence.A third man identified as Saeid Moradi was seriously wounded and left the residence shortly afterward, police Gen. Pansiri Prapawat said.He tried to wave down a taxi, but he was covered in blood, and the driver refused to take him, Pansiri said. He then threw an explosive that hit the taxi and damaged it and began running.Police who had been called to the area after the first blast then tried to apprehend Moradi, who hurled a grenade at them to defend himself. "But somehow it bounced back" and blew off his legs, Pansiri said.
Photos of the wounded Moradi showed him covered in dark soot on a sidewalk strewn with broken glass. He lay in front of a Thai primary and secondary school, head raised as if he was attempting to sit up or look around.Police told reporters later said that security forces at Bangkok's international airport detained a second Iranian — identified him as Mohummad Hazaei — as he tried to board a flight for Malaysia. They said he was one of the three in the house where explosives first went off.They said a third Iranian — believed wounded in that initial explosion — was also on the run.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the violence in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror.He said that Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah are unrelenting terror elements endangering the stability of the region and endangering the stability of the world.
Barak spoke during an official visit in Singapore. A statement issued by the Israeli Defense Ministry noted Barak was in Bangkok on Sunday.In India, investigators were searching for what they called a well-trained motorcycle assailant who stuck a magnet bomb on an Israeli diplomatic car in New Delhi, wounding four people Monday.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called on people not to panic after Tuesday's explosions and said the situation was under control.Three Thai men and one Thai woman were brought to Kluaynamthai Hospital for treatment of injuries suffered in the explosions, said Suwinai Busarakamwong, a doctor there.Last month, a Lebanese-Swedish man with alleged links to pro-Iranian Hezbollah militants was detained by Thai police. He led authorities to a warehouse filled with more than 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate.
Israel and the United States at the time warned their citizens to be alert in the capital.Pansiri said that so far, we haven't found any links between these two cases.
Immigration police are trying to trace Moradi's movements, but initial reports indicated he flew into Thailand from Seoul, South Korea on Feb. 8, Pansiri said. He landed at the southern Thai resort town of Phuket, then stayed in a hotel in Chonburi, a couple hours drive southeast of Bangkok, for several nights.Pansiri said a bomb disposal unit checked a dark satchel near the spot where Moradi was wounded, and police found Iranian currency, US dollars and Thai money in the bag.Thailand has rarely been a target for foreign terrorists, although a domestic Muslim insurgency in the country's south has involved bombings of civilian targets.The Bangkok blasts — the day after bombs targeted Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia — raised worry that a fast-escalating proxy war between Iran and Israel might spread.Iran has accused the Israelis of being behind a series of assassinations of nuclear scientists and other sabotage of its nuclear program. Israel, like the West, believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.Associated Press writers Jocelyn Gecker in Bangkok and Amy Teibel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Iran Deploys Oil Weapon, Cuts off Six European Nations-Iran rolled out its oil weapon Wednesday and announced a cut in exports to six European countries, including France and Greece.By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu First Publish: 2/15/2012, 3:31 PM
Iran rolled out its oil weapon Wednesday and announced a cut in exports to six European countries, including France, Spain and Greece.The government-run PRESS TV announced, In response to the latest sanctions imposed by the EU (European Union) against Iran's energy and banking sectors, the Islamic Republic has cut oil exports to six European countries.It named them as the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Portugal in response to a EU boycott of new oil contracts with the Islamic Republic.The move immediately sparked a one percent rise in the price of crude oil on world markets, sending a cost of barrel of crude to more than $101.
Iran has insisted the Western sanctions will backfire because it can make up for the lost sales by exporting to other countries. It also has warned that higher oil prices could wreak havoc with the fragile Western economies, where some countries in Europe already are in a recession.Under current circumstances, the prices of oil will increase due to cold weather and also the psychological impact of foreign sanctions imposed on Iran's oil exports,Iran’s OPEC official Mohammad Ali Khatibi told the semi-official Mehr news agency.Saudi Arabia, which shares Western fears of a nuclear Iran that threatens to dominate the Middle East, has vowed it will pump more oil to make up for any shortfall.
Iran sits on the world’s third largest oil reserves and second largest natural gas fields.Asian countries have not cooperated with the Western efforts for international sanctions. Most of Iran’s oil exports are to South Korea, China, India and Japan, which may benefit from the Western boycott if it forces Iran to offer discounts to its other customers as a temptation to resist pressure to join the move for sanctions.
Play a Media Game – and Help US Catch Terrorists-The US last month said a new app monitors social media accounts. Now it has developed a game for the public to help track terrorists.By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu First Publish: 2/14/2012, 5:47 PM
The United States last month said a new app monitors social media accounts. Now it has developed a game for the public to help track terrorists.Called Tag Challenge, the social media game will be played by people in Washington D.C., New York City, London, Stockholm, Sweden and Bratislava, Slovakia on March 31.The infamous Panther Five has pulled an audacious new heist: they’ve stolen the world’s 3rd most expensive jewel, the Adly Diamond, from the Overholt Showroom in Washington, D.C., the Tag Challenge website announces. “Now they’ve split up and fled – dispersed to five different cities. We’re offering a reward to help find them.Profiles and mug shots of five suspects in each city will be posted on Tag Challenge, and players will have one day to locate the suspects in their city.The suspects will be wearing a T-shirt with the Tag Challenge logo, and they are not real-life crime suspects.
A prize of $5,000 is being offered to the first player to upload photos of each of the five suspects to the Tag Challenge.The U.S. Department of State and its embassy in Prague are sponsoring the contest to test ways social media and open source data can be used to track terrorists and locate missing children.The State Department promises it is not associated with any law enforcement agency, and the contest is not part of any law enforcement effort.The game was organized by graduate students from six countries who participated in social media and security conferences and will offer government officials insight to whether and how social media can be used to accomplish a realistic, time-sensitive, international law enforcement goal,the Tag Challenge website says.Results, strategies, and any data derived from the event will be made public after its conclusion,it adds.
Eurozone ministers postpone Greek deal
Today FEB 15,12 @ 09:29 By Valentina Pop
BRUSSELS - Eurozone countries have again postponed the new Greek bail-out despite the country's looming bankruptcy, with a meeting of finance ministers on Wednesday (15 February) downgraded to a conference call, pending more spending cuts by Athens and written pledges from Greek politicians.Despite the Greek parliament having approved a €3.2 billion austerity plan on Sunday, further technical work...is needed in a number of areas, including the closure of the fiscal gap of €325 million euro in 2012,Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the eurogroup meetings of finance ministers, said in an emailed statement on Tuesday evening.Coalition leaders in Athens also need to send Juncker the required political assurances that they will not undo the reform programme after general elections due in April.Against this background, I have decided to convene ministers to a conference call tomorrow in order to discuss the outstanding issues and prepare the ordinary meeting of the Eurogroup on Monday, 20 February 2012,Juncker explained.The fresh setback puts Athens in real jeopardy of not being able to repay €14.5 billion worth of bond yields on 20 March.
This is not our problem,one EU diplomat told this website on Tuesday, reflecting a growing hostility in Brussels toward the Greek government and its track record of delays and broken promises.Until we have it all definitively on paper, with really solid guarantees from Greece as well, and legislation, we can’t make any decisions, Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager told Dutch TV.Back in Athens, where the parliament defied public anger in passing more austerity cuts over the weekend, public order minister Christos Papoutsis said the government has made superhuman efforts to comply with the demands of eurozone countries.Greece has made all the efforts that it needed to do, and the people cannot take any more ... From now on, Europe has to take the responsibility,he told press after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.An official report published earlier the same day showed that the Greek economy shrunk faster than expected in the last three months of 2011, when it contracted by seven percent from five percent in the previous quarter.Meanwhile, a coalition of human rights associations on has warned that the new set of austerity measures imposed on Greece will create a dramatic and suicidal situation.This mad race of increasing austerity can only worsen the existing strong economic and social recession in a context of already extremely degraded living conditions of the Greeks,the European Association for the Defence of Human Rights said in a statement.
For his part, EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn on Tuesday said he can understand the pain and turmoil in Greece.But he insisted that the austerity plan is the lesser evil compared to an outright default, which would have a devastating impact on the Greek society and the wider eurozone through its contagion effect.
Unfortunately Greece lived systematically beyond its means in the past 10 years - that's why corrective action is needed so that the Greek economy is restored to a sustainable path,he said.
EU report: 12 countries at risk of new economic crises 14.02.12 @ 19:07 By Valentina Pop
BRUSSELS - A first report by the EU commission looking at macro-economic data across the bloc up until 2010 warns that 12 countries, including Italy and Spain are at risk of new crises due to their public debt and lack of competitiveness.Part of legislation strengthening economic surveillance, the Alert Mechanism Report published on Tuesday (14 February) singles out Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK as in need for further in depth scrutiny of their macro-economic policies.If it turns out that imbalances exist and that they are harmful, this new tool is a meaningful step towards correcting the imbalances which built up over the years. Sound fiscal policies and early detection and correction of risky economic imbalances are necessary conditions to return to sustainable growth and jobs,EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said.Based on ten indicators such as housing prices, private loans, public deficit and export performance, the report initially singled out Italy, Spain, Hungary and Cyprus as pressing cases. But in the final version, all 12 countries were put in the same basket, even though housing bubbles and increased private debt in Denmark and Sweden are less of a problem than Rome's high public indebtedness.According to Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, a former EU commissioner, put pressure on the college of commissioners to water down the language of the report ahead of a treasury bonds sale in Rome on Friday.
When asked about the draft version, Rehn said he regretted the leak, but insisted he still stands behind the final version of the document.This is what I proposed to the college,he said.An EU official in Brussels told journalists under condition of anonymity that there were better ideas at some point than what the draft had proposed, and that is what ended up in the final version.Another official dealing with this dossier admitted that the data is relatively old - as it only goes up until 2010 - but insisted that this is just a first filter,with the in depth analysis to look at fresher data from last year. If member states fail to take these warnings into account, a so-called macro-economic imbalance procedure can be launched, which could lead to the suspension of EU funds from 2014 onwards.Apart from the old data, the report also does not deal with surpluses, as they are not seen as a potential problem in the bigger EU picture. Rehn explained that for this first exercise, his team focused on deficits and competitiveness laggards, rather than the surpluses and maintained that the German economy performed relatively well during the crisis. But structural factors driving surpluses will be analysed in upcoming reports, he promised.German Green MEP Sven Giegold however says the commission is turning a blind eye to the surplus countries. One of the main reasons for the continued difficulties in the eurozone are the imbalances between core and peripheral countries. You can't stabilise the eurozone unless deficit and surplus countries are moving towards each other,he wrote on his website.
Barroso to China: EU is not falling apart
14.02.12 @ 18:12 By Andrew Rettman
BRUSSELS - European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has told the Chinese public that the EU will become a fully-fledged political union after the financial crisis.
Speaking to TV cameras after a meeting with Chinese leader Wen Jiabao in Bejing on Tuesday (14 February), he noted the EU has recently suffered mass strikes and protests, including violent clashes in Greece.It is true that in many of our member states there have been student protests and strikes. This is normal in our open societies where people have a right to protest, he said.He added that the crisis has prompted a new wave of integration, however, citing the fiscal treaty agreed last month by 25 EU countries.I want to make this very clear to Chinese public opinion. Because I understand when you see the news you may be putting some questions. Is the European Union really going to progress? I say: Yes. No doubt about it ... Precisely because of the problems in the euro area the conclusion has been to further integrate and to complete the monetary union with a fiscal union and, I believe, in the future toward a political union.Barroso and EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy went to China to attract money for EU bail-out funds.For his part, Van Rompuy highlighted a clause in the joint summit communique which says the EU is willing to swiftly give China market economy status - a move that would help it sell more cheap goods to Europe. It's the first time we put this kind of agreement with this kind of langauge after an EU-China summit,he said.Wen declined to give a concrete promise despite the charm offensive.He said only that: China is ready to increase its participation in resolving the European debt problems. We are willing to conduct close communication and co-operation with the EU side.
He also stonewalled on Iran and Syria.Van Rompuy voiced serious concern about Iran's nuclear programme and violence in Syria. The EU last month imposed an oil embargo on Iran only to hear that Chinese firms are moving in to buy the oil at lower prices. It is also keen to send UN peacekeepers to Syria, but China recently vetoed UN action on the crisis.Wen said nothing on Iran and indicated that China does not want outside interference in Syria.The future of Syria is for the Syrian people to decide,he said.Meanwhile, the summit communique was weak on human rights.It mentioned that: Both sides looked forward to the strengthening of the EU-China dialogue and co-operation on human rights based on equality and mutual respect.The dialogue - a behind-closed-doors meeting of mid-level EU and Chinese diplomats which takes place a few days before each summit - is seen as a pointless exercise by NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, in terms of putting pressure on China to stop abuses.
Neither the communique nor the EU envoys publicly mentioned Tibet, even though another Buddhist monk set himself on fire on Monday in protest against repression.
Back in Brussels, a spokesman for EU digital affairs commissioner Neelie Kroes emailed journalists to promote a minor summit initiative - the launch of an EU-China Cyber Taskforce, which he called good progress.Asked by EUobserver if China - a country notorious for Internet censorship - is an appropriate partner for the EU on managing the Internet, the spokesman, Ryan Heath, said: It's not a partnership. It's a taskforce to see how we can deal with these issues co-operatively.
Moody's cuts Italy and Spain, warns France and UK
14.02.12 @ 09:28 By Valentina Pop
BRUSSELS - US-based ratings agency Moody's has downgraded six eurozone countries, including Spain and Italy. It also warned that Britain and France may lose their triple-A rating, citing doubts over the bloc's capacity to cope with the debt crisis.Its statement downgraded Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch. It also put its outlook on Austria, France and the UK - all triple-A countries - on negative to reflect their susceptibility to the growing financial and macroeconomic risks emanating from the euro area crisis.The announcement is the first time since the financial crisis began that the UK and the Bank of England's triple-A grade is put in doubt.British finance minister George Osborne called it a reality check for his country to reduce its budget deficit. This is proof that, in the current global situation, Britain cannot waver from dealing with its debts, he said.The French government also said it will press ahead with budget-slashing measures.The government is determined to press ahead with its actions to boost growth and competitiveness, notably the reform of the financing of welfare, of employment and the reduction of public deficits, finance minister Francois Baroin said in a statement.Moody's warning comes one month after another US-based agency, Standard & Poor's cut France's triple-A rating.EU leaders recently pulled forward the creation of a permanent eurozone bail-out fund, the European Stability Mechanism, and agreed a new treaty on fiscal discipline. But Moody's said there is still uncertainty over the euro area's prospects for institutional reform of its fiscal and economic framework and the resources that will be made available to deal with the crisis.It added that: Europe's increasingly weak macroeconomic prospects ... threaten the implementation of domestic austerity programmes and the structural reforms that are needed to promote competitiveness.
The situation leaves a high potential for further shocks to funding conditions for stressed sovereigns and banks across Europe.At the same time, Moody's confirmed the triple-A rating of Germany, Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands as well as non-eurozone countries Denmark and Sweden. It also said Estonia, Belgium, Ireland and the eurozone's temporary bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, should keep their current ratings for now.Spain got more bad news on Monday when Standard & Poor's and another high-profile agency, Fitch dropped the rating on several of the country's banks, including its four largest lenders.
Santander, the biggest eurozone bank by market capitalisation, saw its grade cut by two notches to A. BBVA, Bankia and CaixaBank were downgraded by one notch.The downgrade of Spain indicates a weakening of its ability to support its largest banks,Fitch said in a statement.According to the Bank of Spain, the country's banking sector is struggling with €176 billion worth of problematic loans, mainly due to a real estate bubble which burst in 2008, coinciding with the start of the financial crisis.Standard & Poor's said it expects the Spanish banking system's profitability to remain below its historical average over the medium term as banks continue to operate in an unfavourable economic and financial environment.
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