News for May 31, 2006

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Israeli Prime Minister Blesses America - Says Israelis Will “Bow” Their Heads to America on Memorial Day (May 29, 2006) - “The Bible tells us that as Joshua stood on the verge of the Promised Land, he was given one exhortation: ‘Chazak Ve’ematz’ ‘Be strong and of good courage’. To the Congress of the United States and to the great people of America, I wish to say ‘Chazak Ve’ematz’ - be strong and of good courage, and we, and all peoples who cherish freedom, will be with you.” The following are excerpts from a powerful speech given by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s to Congress on May 24, 2006: “On behalf of the people and State of Israel, I wish to express my profound gratitude to you for the privilege of addressing this Joint Meeting of the US Congress. The United States is a superpower whose influence reaches across oceans and beyond borders. Your continued support, which, I am happy to say, transcends partisan affiliations, is of paramount importance to us. We revere the principles and values represented by your great country, and are grateful for the unwavering support and friendship we have received from the US Congress, from President George W. Bush and from the American people.” more...

Volcano’s Lake Turns From Blue to Red (May 28, 2006) - WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A lake atop a rumbling volcano on the South Pacific island of Ambae has changed color from blue to bright red, puzzling scientists. Mount Manaro, one of four active volcanoes on the island nation of Vanuatu, has been showing signs of erupting for only the second time in 122 years. “We are still ... trying to understand this change of color in the lake from blue to red,” Geology and Mines Department director Esline Garae said by telephone Monday from Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila. She said two scientists on Ambae Island were monitoring Lake Vui as well as seismic activity on the 5,000-foot Mount Manaro. If the change of color “comes from new activity in the ground or just chemical change in the lake - these are two things I want to know from those guys before I can say anything” about the danger posed by the volcano, she said. Mount Manaro last erupted in November 2005, forcing half the island’s 10,000 inhabitants to evacuate their villages. An 1884 eruption killed scores of villagers. New Zealand volcanologist Brad Scott said Lake Vui’s color was “quite a spectacular red,” but what had caused it “is the $64,000-question.” He said water samples from the lake would help determine what was happening in the crater and below it. The color change could be a chemical process or gas from molten volcanic rock or something else coming into the lake, he said. Three other volcanoes in Vanuatu - Lopevi, Yasur and a two-crater volcano on Ambryn Island called Marum and Benbow - have spewed rocks, ash, smoke and steam in recent weeks. Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides Islands, is made up of 13 main islands located about 1,400 miles east of Australia.
| Earth Changes |

Ahmadinejad is Not Unhinged (May 26, 2006) - For months, the world has been captivated by the sudden rise of a relative unknown to the presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran and by his torrent of outrageous statements and claims. In a short time, he has acquired a great many names, including zealot, fascist, fanatic, anti-Semitic, and lunatic, among others. An increasing number of Western commentators are calling him “unhinged”. In doing so, they attempt to dismiss the man as an aberration, as someone who is in urgent need of psychological help, a person out of touch with reality who represents nothing of substance. Once again the West is misreading and misjudging the people and the events in the Middle East as it tries to view the world through its own prism. Looking at the man through Western spectacles, he indeed appears to be all of the above and more. Yet Ahmadinejad is far from unhinged. Instead, he is firmly hinged to a set of beliefs that dictate his views of the world and how he should use his position of power. Ahmadinejad is therefore rational and there is very little that can be done to a person who is rationally and thoughtfully committed to an all-encompassing ideology. In Ahmadinejad’s case, his views are firmly rooted in the most orthodox teachings of Shiite Islam. To understand Ahmadinejad’s mindset and behavior accurately requires a close scrutiny of the elaborate and intricate theology of his faith in the most fundamentalist of numerous Shiite sects. For our purposes, however, it is sufficient to document the fact that Ahmadinejad is not unhinged. “Unhinged” is a derogatory term for a mentally disturbed individual. A prominent feature of such a person is the display of contradictory thoughts and behavior. By contrast, Ahmadinejad’s words, deeds, and beliefs show a fully rational person. His reasoning may be dangerous and faulty, but he is rational nevertheless. Consider the following examples of Ahmadinejad’s sayings, beliefs and actions. Whether one agrees or disagrees with them, they all fit into a consistent pattern. more...
| Iran | Gog/Magog |

This is a really good article introducing the reality of the Iranian president’s beliefs and actions. We cannot discount this man as a madman because he is quite intelligent and knows exactly what he’s doing. His belief system centers around a prophesied leader, the 12th Mahdi coming in a time of chaos and he’s intent on creating that environment. I personally believe the 12th Mahdi is possibly the false prophet of Revelation 13:11-18. I believe that he may point all Muslims to worship of the first beast of Revelation 13:1-10, the anti-christ. For more information, I've tried to define the beast here.

Gillerman: World War III already begun (May 31, 2006) - Syrian and Iranian diplomats traded barbs with Israel’s UN ambassador on Tuesday, as a routine Security Council meeting on fighting terrorism degenerated into insults. At a meeting aimed at assessing the progress and work of the Security Council’s three anti-terror committees, Israel’s UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman said that World War III had already begun and urged the former Allied forces from World War to act against the axis of terror, consisting of Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizbullah. He called the four entities the “greatest state sponsor of terrorism and the largest threat to international peace and security.” Gillerman also lashed out at the oft-repeated argument by Iran and many Arab states that a distinction must be made between terrorism and armed resistance movements - namely the Palestinians’ fight against the Jewish state. The ambassador said Israel has “an intimate awareness of the need to fight international terrorism,” and stressed that there can be no justification for terrorism. Syria responded that Israel was the one precipitating a third world war, saying that “If we examine the matter, we will find that Israel was behind the eruption of both World War I and World II.” Syrian diplomat Ahmed Alhariri countered that Damascus had taken a front-line role in the fight against terror and called on the Security Council to “avoid double standards in combating terrorism.” Such a battle must be “based on strict legal criteria, and not flimsy political considerations,” he said. more...
| Gog/Magog | Israel | Islam |

Russia-China Relations at Unprecedented High (May 31, 2006) - Relations between giant neighbors China and Russia have reached an unprecedented high, China’s president said in comments published on Wednesday ahead of a regional security forum summit, the Reuters news agency reported. President Hu Jintao also called Russia China’s most important strategic cooperation partner in an interview with journalists from member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which groups the two with the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. “Relations between the two countries have reached unprecedented levels,” Hu said, in comments that were carried on the Foreign Ministry's website (www.fmprc.gov.cn). “The volume of bilateral trade has had seven years of extremely high growth and cooperation in the fields of energy and investment has made great progress,” he said. Ties between the two, for years Cold War foes, have been growing, as China seeks to tap Russia’s oil and gas resources to fuel its booming economy and with the two countries sharing common views on how the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program should be resolved. Trade between China and Russia, who share a 4,300-km (2,700-mile) border, reached nearly $30 billion last year, and the two signed a series of energy agreements during a visit by President Vladimir Putin in March. Beijing and Moscow also see common ground in trying to ensure stability in Central Asia and in checking the U.S. presence there. more...
| Gog/Magog | Israel |

Italy ‘ready to join EU mainstream’ (May 30, 2006) - Romano Prodi, Italian prime minister, on Monday returned to his old stamping ground in Brussels and declared that his country was ready to rejoin the European mainstream. Mr Prodi, a former European Commission president, said Italy would work to restore good relations with other European Union member states, repairing some of the strains caused by the premiership of his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi. Mr. Prodi said he would visit Angela Merkel, German chancellor, in Berlin on the eve of next month’s EU summit, in an attpt to build ties with a leader who has become the Union’s pivotal player. more...
| EU/UN |

Reuters employee issues ‘Zionist pig’ death threat (May 30, 2006) - A Reuters employee has been suspended after sending a death threat to an American blogger. The message, sent from a Reuters internet account, read: “I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut.” It was sent to Charles Johnson, owner of the Little Green Footballs (LGF) weblog, a popular site which often backs Israel and highlights jihadist terrorist activities. In the threat, the Reuters staff member, who has not been named, left his email address as “zionistpig” at hotmail.com. Reporting the message to his readers, Johnson wrote on his website: “This particular death threat is a bit different from the run of the mill hate mail we get around here, because an IP lookup on the sender reveals that he/she/it was using an account at none other than Reuters News.” Speaking to Ynetnews, Johnson said: “I was surprised to receive a threat from a Reuters IP, but only because it was so careless of this person to use a traceable work account to do it.” He added: “I think it's more than fair to say that Reuters has a big problem.” In an additional twist, Johnson traced the movements of the sender of the threat, and found direct parallels between the internet locations of the sender and Inayat Bunglawala, Media Secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain. Bunglawala, who contirbuted an editorial to the Guardian website, has attracted negative attention in the past after making anti-Semitic outbursts, and has declared that the British media was “Zionist-controlled.” more...
| Islam |

Indonesia Quake Death Toll at 5,427 (May 30, 2006) - International relief efforts picked up on Tuesday for survivors of a weekend earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people on Indonesia's Java island, with over a score of countries now involved. Planes carrying vital supplies from abroad reached the stricken region, while the airport at the ancient royal capital of Yogyakarta re-opened to commercial traffic despite a heavily damaged terminal. A plane carrying a 40-member Chinese medical team as well as five tonnes of medical supplies landed early on Tuesday at Solo, some 60 km (40 miles) north of Yogyakarta province, Xinhua news agency reported. The quake’s official death toll had reached 5,427 as of Tuesday morning, according to the government’s Social Affairs Department. The 6.3 magnitude quake left more than 130,000 homeless by one estimate, many without shelter and short of food. Many survivors who were injured or whose homes were destroyed have been staying on the grounds of hospitals and mosques or in makeshift shelters beside the rubble of their houses. The tremor early on Saturday was centred just off the Indian Ocean coast near Yogyakarta, the former Javanese royal capital. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said 20,000 people were injured and more than 130,000 left homeless, of which 40 percent were children. more...
related story: 647,000 Indonesians displaced by quake | Earth Changes |

Babies aborted for not being perfect (May 29, 2006) - The ethical storm over abortions has been renewed as it emerged that terminations are being carried out for minor, treatable birth defects. Late terminations have been performed in recent years because the babies had club feet, official figures show. Other babies were destroyed because they had webbed fingers or extra digits. Such defects can often be corrected with a simple operation or physiotherapy. The revelation sparked fears that abortion is increasingly being used to satisfy couples’ desire for the ‘perfect’ baby. A leading doctor said people were right to be ‘totally shocked’ that abortions were being carried out for such conditions. Campaigners warned we are turning into a society that can no longer tolerate imperfection. Doctors were recently told they can now screen IVF embryos to try to weed out inherited cancers. Ethical groups fear parents are opting for abortions because they are not told of the support and help available if they continued with the pregnancy. Details of the terminations emerged as new figures revealed an alarming rise in the use of an abortion pill that has been linked to 10 deaths. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that between 1996 and 2004, 20 babies were aborted after 20 weeks because they had a club foot. more...

Tel Aviv within range of new Iran-supplied Hezbollah rocket (May 29, 2006) - Iran has equipped the Lebanese-based radical Islamic group Hezbollah with long-range rockets capable of hitting targets up to 200 kilometers away, putting all of Israel’s major urban centers - including the southern city of Be’er Sheva - within striking distance. The solid-fuel rockets lack an independent guidance system and their accuracy is questionable but they can still cause considerable damage. According to intelligence estimates, the rockets are meant to strike non-specific areas, such as towns and cities, and carry a warhead estimated to weigh 600 kilograms. This latest development doubles the range of weapons previously in Hezbollah’s arsenal. In this latest transfer of military technology, Iran is seeking to improve its strategic options against Israel rather than better Hezbollah's capabilities. Equipping a Lebanese group considered by the west to be a terrorist organization with such rockets also poses a danger to Lebanon. The government of Lebanon has been pressured in the past by Hezbollah to disregard the United Nations Security Council resolution 1559, which demands that all armed militias in the country disarm. Hezbollah maintains that it is not a militia and is therefore not obliged to disarm, but the Security Council has not accepted this argument. The rockets delivered to the Hezbollah have appeared under different names. One is Zelzal-2, and its earlier model is the Zelzal-1. Another Iranian name for the rocket is Nazeat. more...
| Iran | Islam | Israel |

U.N. making home schooling illegal? (May 28, 2006) - A U.N. treaty conferring rights to children could make home schooling illegal in the U.S. even though the Senate has not ratified it, a home schooling association warns. Michael Farris, chairman and general counsel of the Home School Legal Defense Association, or HSLDA, believes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child could be binding on U.S. citizens because of activist judges, reports LifeSite News. Farris said that according to a new interpretation of “customary international law,” some U.S. judges have ruled the convention applies to American parents. “In the 2002 case of Beharry v. Reno, one federal court said that even though the convention was never ratified, it still has an impact on American law,” Farris explained, according to LifeSiteNews. “The fact that virtually every other nation in the world has adopted it has made it part of customary international law, and it means that it should be considered part of American jurisprudence.” The convention places severe limitations on a parent’s right to direct and train their children, Farris contends. The HSLDA produced a report in 1993 showing that under Article 13, parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deem unacceptable. more...
| EU/UN | NewWorldOrder | America |

Iran’s Military Plans for Invasion by U.S. (May 31, 2006) - Iran, apparently anticipating an American invasion, has quietly been restructuring its military and testing a new military doctrine that calls for a decentralized, Iraqi-style guerrilla campaign against an invading force. Iran’s military planners are acutely aware that a military confrontation with technologically more advanced U.S. armed forces would be rapid and multifronted, unlike the static and slow-paced 1980-88 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Therefore, a series of war games have been carried out since late last year to test the army’s readiness. In December, more than 15,000 members of the regular armed forces participated in an exercise in northwestern Iran’s strategically sensitive Azerbaijan border provinces that focused on irregular warfare carried out by highly mobile army units, according to the official MENA news agency. A second exercise was conducted in the majority-Arab province of Khuzestan in September, according to the Iranian press, aimed at quelling insurgencies in areas subject to ethnic unrest and prone to foreign influence. Involving a reported 100,000 troops, the exercise provided an example of how the Islamic Republic would respond to further disturbances in the strategic, oil-rich province that has been the scene of a year-old terrorist bombing campaign. more...
| Iran | America |

Reducing America So It Can Be Merged (May 31, 2006) - As I write, the treason Senate - under intense pressure from Communist world government traitor Smirk W. Bush - is preparing to pass the legislation that will legalize the present invasion of these United States. So here let me repeat something I have said many times, which nevertheless deserves repetition even more because it is so little mentioned, even by our friends. The goal of the conspirators from the beginning has been to submerge and dissolve our country in a totalitarian socialist world government they would run. But they had a problem. Go back to World War II. When it ended, these united States indisputably comprised the most powerful country on earth. Unlike most of the other participants, our homeland was completely undamaged. We had most of the gold. No other country even came close. The problem was that you can't merge a country at the pinnacle in everything with other countries at the bottom. That would be like trying to moor the Queen Elizabeth in a Dixie Cup. You could only merge them when they are sufficiently alike. So what would you do if your goal were world government? One thing you could try is raising the levels of the countries on the bottom. The conspiracy for world government has tried doing that with programs like foreign aid; the problem is that the nations on the bottom tend to consume any help and stay where they are. Generally, they are bottom feeders. Instead, what about trying to reduce these united States, trying to lower its standard of living so that it corresponds better with the nations at the bottom? At the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, the newly created International Monetary Fund, run by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White, a Soviet spy, arranged to deplete our gold supply. Years later, in a speech lauding IMF, Jack Kennedy interrupted his womanizing long enough to explain that the loss of our goal was not an accident, but the product of a carefully orchestrated plan. In recent years, we saw the departure of our industry, thanks to agreements like NAFTA. Not to worry, they told us. Industry will be replaced by a “service economy.” Let the poor benighted slobs in other countries do the hard work. We here shall sit at desks in white shirts and work with computers. But then the service jobs departed. Now, when you talk with somebody at your credit card company, he or she is probably sitting at a desk in India, doing the job you were supposed to do. It was Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev, who many years ago at the Communist UN in New York, expressed his amazement at the depth of naiveté of the American people. Khrushchev exclaimed, “These Americans! You can spit in their face and they call it dew!” My guess is that today he would marvel even more. more...
| NewWorldOrder | America |

Noam Chomsky: Why it’s Over for America (May 30, 2006) - An inability to protect its citizens. The belief that it is above the law. A lack of democracy. Three defining characteristics of the ‘failed state’. And that, says Noam Chomsky, is exactly what the US is becoming. In an exclusive extract from his devastating new book, America’s leading thinker explains how his country lost its way. The selection of issues that should rank high on the agenda of concern for human welfare and rights is, naturally, a subjective matter. But there are a few choices that seem unavoidable, because they bear so directly on the prospects for decent survival. Among them are at least these three: nuclear war, environmental disaster, and the fact that the government of the world’s leading power is acting in ways that increase the likelihood of these catastrophes. It is important to stress the government, because the population, not surprisingly, does not agree. That brings up a fourth issue that should deeply concern Americans, and the world: the sharp divide between public opinion and public policy, one of the reasons for the fear, which cannot casually be put aside, that, as Gar Alperowitz puts it in America Beyond Capitalism, “the American ‘system’ as a whole is in real trouble - that it is heading in a direction that spells the end of its historic values [of] equality, liberty, and meaningful democracy”. more...
| America |

Geologists Warn Indonesia Quake Could Awaken Nearby Volcano (May 30, 2006) - Geologists warned Tuesday that simmering Mount Merapi volcano could blow its top in the wake of the powerful quake that devastated swathes of Indonesia’s main island of Java. “Theoretically as well as statistically, there is a very large possibility that tectonic activities trigger or increase volcanic activities,” said Syamsulrizal, who works at Indonesia’s national vulcanology office. Quake activity near a dormant volcano may “switch it on,” while already active volcanoes could see more intense rumblings, said the head of the office’s department for disaster risk evaluation. Since Saturday’s 6.3-magnitude earthquake, seismologists have noted increased flows of lava and heat clouds at Merapi, just north of the temblor’s epicentre. Authorities had already issued a red alert ahead of a possible eruption and shelter camps were set up to house more than 24,000 people evacuated from its slopes. more...
| Earth Changes |

Comoros Volcano Erupts, Spews Lava (May 28, 2006) - Lava spewed from a volcano on the Indian Ocean island of Grande Comore on Sunday, lighting up the sky and sending scores of frightened residents onto the streets. Residents of Moroni, the capital of the Comoros islands, said they could see lava at the top of 2,361-metre (7,746-ft) Mount Karthala, one of the world’s largest active volcanoes. “When I saw Karthala glowing we came out to see what was going on but I really don’t know, I’m worried,” said 35-year-old Houmadu Saindou. Karthala last erupted in April 2005, affecting as many as 40,000 residents and forcing thousands to flee in fear of poisonous gas and a possible magma flow. It was the volcano’s first eruption in more than decade on the archipelego nation, 300 km (190 miles) off the coast of east Africa. Volcano scientist Hamidou Nassor said Sunday’s activity also amounted to an eruption but it was too soon to tell how dangerous this one would be. more...
| Earth Changes |