News for May 17, 2006

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Former Military Intelligence Chief Warns of Impending World Jihad ‘Tsunami’ (May 15, 2006) - Former Military Intelligence chief Aharon Ze’evi warned Monday morning of an impending world jihad “tsunami” that he said may soon descend on the entire Middle East. Ze’evi, speaking at a Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies conference in Tel Aviv University, said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad has been overheard promising the “end of history in two or three years.” Ze’evi recommended that the Iranian threats be taken seriously, saying that Tehran will soon have nuclear warhead compatible surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 5,000 kilometers, putting Europe within striking distance. Ze’evi also warned that Israel should not rule out the possibility of a conventional war against Islamic militants. Ze’evi said he foresees this war breaking out on Israel's northern frontier, against Syria and Hezbollah. Emphasizing the radicalization of Islamic militancy, Ze’evi cited recent changes in the objectives of major militant organizations, which have recently begun targeting sites in Arab countries. “We are seeing attacks carried out in Amman, Dahab and Sharm el-Sheikh,” said Ze’evi. He cited the increased accessibility of Internet in the Arab world as facilitating the process, saying, “Today, anyone who is interested can learn how to blow up a bomb.” Major General (Res.) Ze’evi stepped down as chief of Military Intelligence about four months ago, and was replaced by Major General Amos Yadlin.
| Iran | Israel | Islam | Gog/Magog |

The Caliphate: One nation, under Allah, with 1.5 billion Muslims (May 10, 2006) - The three middle-aged men sitting in an Indian restaurant in Jordan’s capital scarcely look like Islamic revolutionaries. They are smartly dressed in Western-style suits and sip thoughtfully from cans of Pepsi as they share their plan to reshape the Muslim world. “President Bush says that we want to enslave people and oppress their freedom of speech,” says Abu Abdullah, a senior member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation. “But we want to free all people from being slaves of men and make them slaves of Allah.” Hizb ut-Tahrir says that Muslims should abolish national boundaries within the Islamic world and return to a single Islamic state, known as “the Caliphate,” that would stretch from Indonesia to Morocco and contain more than 1.5 billion people. It’s a simple and seductive idea that analysts believe may someday allow the group to rival existing Islamic movements, topple the rulers of Middle Eastern nations, and undermine those seeking to reconcile democracy and Islam and build bridges between East and West. “A few years ago people laughed at them,” says Zeyno Baran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the leading expert on Hizb ut-Tahrir. “But now that [Osama] bin Laden, [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi, and other Islamic groups are saying they want to recreate the Caliphate, people are taking them seriously.” “The Caliphate is a rallying point between the radicals and the more moderate Islamists,” says Stephen Ulph, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation. “The idea of a government based on the Caliphate has a historical pedigree and Islamic legitimacy that Western systems of government by their very nature do not have.” But unlike Al Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir believes it can recreate the Caliphate peacefully. Its activists aim to pursuade Muslim political and military leaders that reestablishing the Caliphate is their Islamic duty. Once these leaders invite Hizb ut-Tahrir to take power - effectively staging a military coup - the party would then repeat the process in other countries before linking them up to form a revived Caliphate. more...
| Islam |

Cancer Destroyed by Antibody ‘Triple Whammy’ (May 10, 2006) - A new cancer therapy using a “triple whammy” of antibodies has shown unprecedented success in mice. Not only does the treatment destroy tumors – even when they have spread around the body – it also prevents the tumors coming back. And the approach should work for a range of cancers. Success in mice is far from a guarantee of success in people, but human trials have now begun on one component of the therapy. The research, by scientists in Australia and Japan, is “an exciting advance”, according to cancer biologist Carl June of the University of Pennsylvania, US: “This novel form of therapeutic vaccination would not only enable potent tumor eradication but also protect from recurrence.” The idea of using the body’s immune system to kill cancerous cells is already routinely deployed. Our immune system contains killer white blood cells called cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), which single out and destroy tumors. But the body’s natural response to cancerous cells is often not strong enough to wipe out the tumour. more...

Quake Rocks Islands Near New Zealand (May 16, 2006) - A powerful earthquake hit deep under the South Pacific late Tuesday near an uninhabited chain of islands north of New Zealand, and it rocked a wide area of the country, but no damage or injuries were reported. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a bulletin saying the magnitude 7.4 quake had not generate a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami but warned it could spawn a small tsunami within 60 miles of its epicenter. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at 10:39 p.m. (6:39 a.m. EDT) about 90 miles below the seabed, and was centered about 180 miles south-southwest of Raoul Island, which is 712 miles northeast of New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland. more...
| Earth Changes |

Aksa Brigades threatens US, Europe (May 16, 2006) - The Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, on Monday threatened to strike at US and European interests in response to international sanctions on the Palestinian Authority. The threat, the first of its kind, came as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was scheduled to hold talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin on the severe financial crisis in the PA territories. Moreover, the threat by Abbas’s Fatah party came as Palestinians marked the 58th anniversary of the nakba, or catastrophe (the secular anniversary of Israel's independence). “We won’t remain idle in the face of the siege imposed on the Palestinian people by Israel, the US and other countries,” said a leaflet issued by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Gaza Strip. “We will strike at the economic and civilian interests of these countries, here and abroad.” The leaflet added: “Let the entire world know that we won’t succumb in the face of the policy of blackmail, siege and starvation. In the past we did not capitulate in the face of the policy of assassinations, detentions and air raids.” more...
| Islam |

Putin’s Address Heralds Return to Soviet Times (May 15, 2006) - Former presidential aide Andrei Illarionov comments on Putin’s key-note speech delivered by the president on May 10 to Russia’s Federal Assembly. Putin’s address shows that Russia has chosen a course towards militarization and sends out a clear signal to restore Soviet-era values and prepare for confrontation with the West. Putin’s address was full of military rhetoric, Andrei Illarionov told the Ekho Moskvy radio station. “The address contains quite undisguised hints about who now poses the main threat to Russia... We cannot but notice that the way the tasks have been formulated is unprofessional from the military point of view,” he said commenting on the president’s instruction to ensure that Russia should be capable of waging several wars at a time. It would be impossible even for the U.S. to wage several wars at a time, he added. “This address is not for the world outside Russia, this address is for ourselves, for our own country. The address makes the militarization of life inside the country possible, necessary, substantiated and justified. And this is probably the main goal for the sake of which the statement was made,” Illarionov said. more...
| Gog/Magog |

Northeast Floods Spark States of Emergency (May 15, 2006) - Torrential rain forced hundreds of people from their homes in parts of New England on Sunday, as water flowed over dams and washed out roads. The governors of New Hampshire and Massachusetts declared states of emergency, activating the National Guard to help communities respond to the storm. Maine’s governor also declared a state of emergency for one county. “It’s a very serious situation,” said New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, adding that forecasters were predicting 12 to 15 inches of rain by the end of the storm in parts of southern New Hampshire. “It continues to change and the situation continues to worsen.” A dam in Milton, N.H., was in danger of failing, which could send a 10-foot wall of water downstream, the National Weather Service said in a bulletin. People downstream were being evacuated in the town. The state Office of Emergency Management said at least a dozen dams were being closely watched. In Massachusetts, cars were pulled from flooded streets in downtown Peabody, about 20 miles north of Boston, and about 300 people were evacuated from an apartment complex for seniors. About 150 residents in Melrose, Mass., had to leave their homes after sewage lines were overwhelmed, backing up into houses, said Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. About 10 communities in the northeast section of the state opened temporary shelters, Romney said. more...
| Earth Changes |

Huge Gold Action and Earth Shaking Change Imminent (May 17, 2006) - Since January, gold rose over $200, something that is really out of the box for gold’s price action in the last 30 or more years. I was talking with a subscriber about the gold action and the probable sources of the huge price swings. I will outline some of that discussion here. My conclusion is that we are in for earth shaking changes politically and economically. Hold on to your hats. First of all, I have to point out that these kinds of price swings in gold indicate that major change is on the horizon for the world. The changes are going to affect everyone’s life on this planet. If gold was not moving so strongly up and down, my prognostications for the future would be more sanguine. Because gold is the historical money par excellence, it has a singularly unique tendency to telegraph any major change for better or worse. Gold reacts directly and immediately to world political developments, economic developments, social developments, war developments. In my work, I have focused 100% of my gold study on macroeconomic trends and world political developments. I have found this method very fruitful in understanding precious metals. I have not used charting, mathematical modeling of price activity, Fibonacci ratios, or other methods. This, even though I am a mathematician myself. Rather, being a student of history as well, I have found that macroeconomic news, and political developments are the primary drivers of the precious metals markets. The study of charts and other methods are very secondary ways to forecast where metal prices are going. One of the most significant benefits of my approach is that I get a very good idea of what is happening in the world politically and economically as a direct benefit to my study of precious metals. And this leads me to make the following observations about gold’s price action this year: The world is about to change radically... in every way, and you and your life are going to be directly affected, and soon too. As a matter of fact, the impending demise of the USD system is so serious that there is actual fear among world central banks as to the implications. There is not just concern, there is fear. The fear that is evident in the gold market is about a coming war in the Middle East, combined with an imminent collapse of the USD system. The effects of a war in the Middle East will collapse oil shipments to 2/3 of the world. The effects of a collapse of the USD system will also collapse 2/3 of world economic activity for probably 5 to 10 years. In other words we are looking at a world war coming and also a great depression due to the collapse of the USD system. Your life is about to change radically. more...

I suggest reading the whole article. I don’t think many realize how precarious this country sits. Nations around the world like Iran, Venezuela, and Mexico along with liberal thinking that appeases everyone, the US cannot handle the financial responsibilities. It costs more to produce coins than the coins are worth now. Iran is threatening to open it’s own oil market not based on the US dollar. If you’ve ever wondered why America’s not in prophecy, this may be one of the beginning reasons. Given the tensions already present in the Middle East, things could heat up really quickly.

Typhoon Chanchu Barrels Towards Hong Kong, Southern China (May 17, 2006) - with development in Hong Kong, ADDS Taiwan warning /// Typhoon Chanchu barrelled towards Hong Kong and southern China Tuesday after claiming at least 41 lives in the Philippines and becoming the strongest storm on record to enter the South China sea in May. At 6:00 pm (1000 GMT), Chanchu was centered about 440 kilometers (273 miles) south-southeast of Hong Kong and was moving north at 18 kilometers per hour towards the city and the eastern part of southern China’s Guangdong province, the Hong Kong Observatory said. In Hong Kong, signs that warn residents to prepare for a possible typhoon could be seen outside ferry terminals and in office buildings. Although the air was still calm with only thin drizzle on Tuesday afternoon, officials at the Observatory predicted stronger winds and heavy rains later Tuesday or Wednesday morning, when it will consider raising its alert level. “The intensity of the typhoon remains at 130 kilometers per hour. So it’s a very intense typhoon. We expect local wind to strengthen gradually today,” said Pon Hoi-to, senior scientific officer at the Observatory. more...
| Earth Changes |

Bill Permits 193 Million More Aliens by 2026 (May 17, 2006) - The Senate immigration reform bill would allow for up to 193 million new legal immigrants -- a number greater than 60 percent of the current U.S. population -- in the next 20 years, according to a study released yesterday. “The magnitude of changes that are entailed in this bill -- and are largely unknown -- rival the impact of the creation of Social Security or the creation of the Medicare program,” said Robert Rector, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation who conducted the study. Although the legislation would permit 193 million new immigrants in the next two decades, Mr. Rector estimated that it is more likely that about 103 million new immigrants actually would arrive in the next 20 years. Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican who conducted a separate analysis that reached similar results, said Congress is “blissfully ignorant of the scope and impact” of the bill, which has bipartisan support in the Senate and has been praised by President Bush. “This Senate is not ready to pass legislation that so significantly changes our future immigration policy,” he said yesterday. “The impact this bill will have over the next 20 years is monumental and has not been thought through.” The 614-page “compromise” bill -- hastily cobbled together last month by Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Mel Martinez of Florida -- would give illegal aliens who have been in the U.S. two years or longer a right to citizenship. Illegals who have been here less than two years would have to return to their home countries to apply for citizenship. Although that “amnesty” would be granted to about 10 million illegals, the real growth in the immigrant population would come later. As part of the bill, the annual flow of legal immigrants allowed into the U.S. would more than double to more than 2 million annually. In addition, the guest-worker program in the bill would bring in 325,000 new workers annually who could later apply for citizenship. more...

Russia and US Trade Angry Words Over Iran at UN Dinner (May 16, 2006) - The American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, traded barbs during bad-tempered talks at a foreign ministers’ summit in New York on Iran’s nuclear programme. The exchanges provided a candid introduction to diplomacy for Margaret Beckett, the new Foreign Secretary, who attended the tetchy session at the end of her first full day in the job. The row, which further undermines hopes of a diplomatic solution to the Iran crisis, reflects deepening rifts between the United States and Russia. Tension surfaced at a private meeting hosted by Ms Rice in the Waldorf Hotel for the Russian, British, French, German and Chinese foreign ministers, and spilt over into a much-delayed dinner. One official in Washington said: “It was a pretty extraordinary session and everyone’s been talking about it in private since. It was certainly quite an introduction to the rough and tumble of the new job for Mrs Beckett.” more...
| Gog/Magog |

Retired Pakistani General Says He Told Iran to Hit Israel in Event of Any Attack (May 16, 2006) - Pakistan’s former army chief says Iranian officials came to him for advice on heading off an attack on their nuclear facilities, and he in effect advised them to take a hostage -- Israel. Retired General Mirza Aslam Beg said he suggested their government “make it clear that if anything happens to Iran, if anyone attacks it -- it doesn’t matter who it is or how it is attacked -- that Iran’s answer will be to hit Israel; the only target will be Israel.” Since Beg spoke of the encounter, echoes of his thinking have been heard in Iran, though whether they result directly from his advice isn’t known. Mohammed Ebrahim Dehghani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, was quoted last week as saying that if “America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel.” The threat was disavowed the following day by Brigadier General Alireza Afshar, deputy to the chief of Iran's military staff, who said that it was Dehghani’s “personal view and has no validity as far as the Iranian military officials are concerned.” more...
| Gog/Magog | Iran | Israel |

Indonesia’s Merapi Volcano Explodes with Gas (May 15, 2006) - Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano exploded with clouds of hot gas and ash rain early on Monday, sending some villagers who had been reluctant to leave scurrying for safety. Gray ash covered some vegetation and rooftops in the area of Ketep, 10 kms (six miles) from the base of the mountain, and many houses appeared deserted after residents evacuated. Not everyone was gone, however. Some people cleaned ashes off their houses and others opened shops, while commercial mini-buses continued to run. The mountain “has exploded already”, the head of the Merapi section at the Center of Vulcanological Research and Technology in Yogyakarta told Reuters. more...
| Earth Changes |

Ecuador Volcano Shows Signs of Activity (May 15, 2006) - Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano is emitting its loudest and most frequent explosions since it rumbled back to life nearly seven years ago after eight decades of inactivity, scientists said. The volcano registered 133 explosions of vapor and gas between Wednesday and Friday, Ecuador’s Geophysics Institute reported. But the increased activity was not necessarily a sign of an imminent eruption, said Hugo Yepes, the institute’s director. “It has been rumbling constantly in the last six years, always registering explosions, emitting ash,” he told The Associated Press. more...
| Earth Changes |

Doctors Puzzled Over Bizarre Infection Surfacing in South Texas (May 15, 2006) - If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what’s next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas. Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible. “These people will have like beads of sweat but it’s black, black and tarry,” said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients. Patients get lesions that never heal. “Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers,” said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient. Patients say that’s the worst symptom — strange fibers that pop out of your skin in different colors. “He’d have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful,” said Lisa Wilson, whose son Travis had Morgellon’s disease. While all of this is going on, it feels like bugs are crawling under your skin. So far more than 100 cases of Morgellons disease have been reported in South Texas. “It really has the makings of a horror movie in every way,” Savely said. more...

Oil for No One If Iran Attacked (May 15, 2006) - Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said here on Thursday in case of a military attack against Iran, no country in the world would have access to crude oil. Chavez made the remark at a press conference, adding, “as Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has reiterated, if Tehran would come under attack, oil would get scarce for everyone.” He also said that the American President George W. Bush should be put to trial at the International Court of Justice for having launched genocide in Iraq. The Venezuelan president added, “for all the horror it has created around the globe in the course of the past century, the United States’ war machine should be dismantled, since under the current conditions it is a threat against the entire mankind, particularly against our children.” Chavez added, “the North American empire is the most cruel murderer regime that has ever come to power in world history and a serious threat for all nations.” more...
| Iran |