Watchman Newsletter

Lisbon Treaty Q & A: your guide to what it means and what happens next

Telegraph UK (Link) - Bruno Waterfield (September 4, 2009)

WHAT IS THE LISBON TREATY?

The Lisbon Treaty is the controversial successor to the European Union Constitution and is billed as necessary update to streamline Brussels institutions.
EU leaders agreed the reforms in order to help the Union function more smoothly now its membership has grown from 15 to 27, and in order for Europe to play more of a role as a single bloc on the global stage.

It is the latest in a series of treaties amending the original 1957 Treaty of Rome - from the Single European Act, through the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaties of Amsterdam and of Nice - to integrate institutions, as the policies and scope of the EU has expanded over the last 20 years.

British diplomats have claimed that the Lisbon Treaty will be the last changes to EU institutions until 2020, or beyond.

When the treaty comes into force, it will create two new and potentially powerful posts, a President and a "foreign minister", and further streamline decision-making to make it harder for countries to block legislation that most members favour.

In particular there will be more "qualified majority voting" in the Council of Ministers, the Brussels body where ministers from each member state must thrash out many of the big policy decisions together. That will make it harder for individual countries like Britain to block laws that they do not like. There will also be greater involvement of the European Parliament, although MEPs will still not have the power to propose or table laws by themselves.

Russia 'delivers SAMs to Syria'

UPI (Link) (September 4, 2009)

Russia has begun deliveries of Pantsir S1 air-defense missiles to Syria, some of which are expected to be passed on to Iran, Syria's strategic ally that has largely bankrolled the deal, according to the Interfax-AVN military news agency.

Interfax quoted Yuriy Savenkov, deputy director general of the Instrument Design Bureau, or KBP, as saying that deliveries started several weeks ago. KBP produces the Pantsir and other high-precision weapons.

Meantime, Kommersant quoted Alexei Fedorov, head of Russia's United Aircraft Corp., as confirming the existence of a 2007 contract with Syria for eight twin-engined MiG-31E interceptors.

This aircraft, NATO codename Foxhound, can fly at three times the speed of sound and engage several targets at a range of up to 110 miles simultaneously.

But Fedorov said that none has been delivered because work on the jet fighters at United Aircraft's Sokol plant in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod had been suspended because of strenuous objections by Israel against upgrading Syria's rundown military.

The MiG contract is worth an estimated $400 million to $500 million.

European Defence League Poised for Debate on Dormant Pact

EU Observer (Link) - Andrew Rettman (September 3, 2009)

A group of the EU's major foreign policy players is waiting to find out what happens to the Lisbon Treaty before deciding if it should keep or scrap an old "musketeer" defence pact.

The security pact is found in Article V of the Modified Brussels Treaty, created in 1954 at the height of the Cold War.

"If any of the high contracting parties should be the object of an armed attack in Europe, the other high contracting parties will ...afford the party so attacked all the military and other aid and assistance in their power," it states.

The contracting parties are EU and Nato member states France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Greece.

The pact is similar to Nato's Article 5, which is sometimes called the musketeer clause as it echoes the "all for one, one for all" motto of the protagonists in Alexandre Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers.

The Brussels Treaty is significant because it is the only European defence pact in existence.

Israel keeping watch on northern border

YNet News (Link) - Hanan Greenberg (September 3, 2009)

Israel is keeping close watch on Hezbollah's activities in Lebanon. A wide-scale exercise of the IDF's field intelligence unit, Shahaf, was completed Wednesday in the Northern Command.

"Below the surface, there is extensive activity whose goal, quite clearly, is to prepare for the day of visitation," said Shahaf Commander Lt. Col. Motti of military actions in Lebanon. "We are likely to take a hit, but even if we don't manage to thwart every event, we will be able to inflict a price. This is why we are strenuously preparing a 'target bank'. When the need arises, we'll know how to take action against them."

Four days of walking with a heavy load on their backs, settling into undetectable positions, locating a quality target deep in Lebanese territory, closing in, firing and destroying. This is what the Shahaf exercise consisted of. From this week on, the field reconnaissance corps becomes a intelligence collection corps. This is the first exercise in which the full capabilities of the soldiers, who mostly remain anonymous, are coming to fruition.

Spain Pledges Help in Jumpstarting Mideast Peace Process

Latin America Herald Tribune (Link) (September 3, 2009)

King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero expressed on Wednesday to the Palestinian president Spain’s desire to help jumpstart the Middle East peace process.

Mahmoud Abbas, who had already visited the Spanish capital at the beginning of the year, met with Zapatero before heading to the Zarzuela Palace to be received by Juan Carlos and then later meeting with Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Zapatero, according to aides, expressed Spain’s willingness to help bring about a prospective tripartite meeting involving the Palestinian National Authority chief, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, set for Sept. 24-25 in New York.

As a pre-condition for that gathering, the Obama administration has demanded a halt to Israeli settlement activity in Palestinian territories.

New Threat: Hizbullah Chemical War on Israel

Israel National News (Link) - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu (September 3, 2009)

A Kuwaiti report Thursday said that a mysterious explosion in a Hizbullah weapons warehouse six weeks ago involved chemical weapons, adding to the mounting evidence that the terrorist organization is preparing for chemical warfare against Israel.

Eight Hizbullah terrorists were killed in the blast, and the Kuwaiti al-Siyasa newspaper now reports that three others inside the warehouse died from the chemicals that were stored there. The report was based on information from European security sources.

Al-Siyasi previously reported that Hizbullah has been smuggling chemical weapons into southern Lebanon, along with thousands of gas masks. The weapons and equipment reportedly were provided from Iran and smuggled via Syria.

The chemical weapons include mustard and nerve gas that were produced in North Korea and are destined for Katyusha rockets aimed at Israel. President Shimon Peres recently stated that Hizbullah has rearmed to the point where it has 80,000 missiles, nearly three times the number in its stockpile before the Second Lebanon War three years ago. Lebanon has dismissed his estimate as exaggerated.

Hizbullah operatives moving into villages near Israeli border

World Tribune (Link) (September 2, 2009)

Israel's military surveillance has detected Hizbullah movements that point to an expanded presence along Lebanon's border with the Jewish state.

Military sources said reconnaissance units have been detecting Hizbullah positions in Lebanese villages near the Israeli border. The sources said the operatives, dressed in civilian clothes, have been renting houses or stores for the storage of equipment and housing of fighters.

"Hizbullah has intensified its deployment along the Israeli border," a military source said. "What was secret a year ago is a lot less secret today."

The Hizbullah effort was deemed a violation of the United Nations Security Council-arranged ceasefire that ended the Lebanon war in 2006. Under the council resolution, Hizbullah was banned from maintaining a presence south of Lebanon's Litani River.

The Hizbullah weapons were said to include air defense systems, such as the SA-8 and SA-18. The sources said Hizbullah has also stockpiled rockets with a range of more than 200 kilometers.

Deadly 7.0 Earthquake hits Indonesia

BBC News (Link) (September 2, 2009)

A powerful earthquake has struck off the Indonesian island of Java, killing 44 people, officials say.

More than 300 have been injured and it is feared the death toll will rise as many homes have reportedly been buried by a landslide triggered by the quake.

More than 700 houses were badly damaged by the magnitude 7.0 quake, a social affairs ministry official told AP.

The quake struck around 1500 (0800 GMT). Its epicentre was offshore, 115km (70 miles) south-west of Tasikmalaya.

Medical teams have been dispatched to the city, where damaged properties included the mayor's home and a mosque.

The tremors were felt in the capital, Jakarta, 200km to the north, where hundreds fled into the streets from offices and shops.

A local tsunami alert was issued but revoked shortly afterwards.

Obama praises Islam at Ramadan meal

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - AP (September 2, 2009)

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised American Muslims for enriching the nation's culture at a dinner to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

"The contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country," Obama said at the iftar, the dinner that breaks the holiday's daily fast.

The president joined Cabinet secretaries, members of the diplomatic corps and lawmakers to pay tribute to what he called "a great religion and its commitment to justice and progress."

Israel may soon agree on settlement freeze: Solana

EU Business (Link) - AFP (August 31, 2009)

Israel may agree to a West Bank settlement freeze by mid-September and is discussing the technical aspects of a deal with the United States, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Monday.

Solana also said after meeting the Israeli premier that a summit between the US, Israeli and Palestinian leaders to relaunch the dormant peace process could take place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly at the end of September.

"I spoke to the prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu)... I got the clear sentiment that there is a possibility to get to an agreement before the beginning of the General Assembly that will allow us to resume negotiations," he told reporters.

"I hope we will arrive at some agreement sufficiently constructive (for) the meeting in New York of three parties" to take place, added Solana, who was meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Monday as part of a regional tour.

Israeli officials have been engaged in intensive talks with President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell as Washington presses its close ally to halt settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Workers' rights hot topic in Lisbon 2 campaign

EU Observer (Link) - Leigh Phillips (August 31, 2009)

Ireland's second biggest trade union on Monday encouraged its members to vote No in the country's upcoming referendum on the Irish Treaty, accusing the document of cementing restrictions on workers' rights delivered in a series of recent decisions by the European Court of Justice.

Unite, a joint Anglo-Irish trade union, representing some 60,000 workers in Ireland, warned that the additional guarantees extracted by the government after the treaty was defeated in the country's first referendum last June covered ‘moral' issues but were insufficient in protecting employee protections and rights.

"We were told that workers' rights would be protected under Lisbon and that we were scaremongering," said the union's Irish regional secretary, Jimmy Kelly, according to a report in the Irish Times. "When the Irish government went seeking legal guarantees they got them in areas of taxation, of morality, and in numbers of commissioners but not in relation to workers' rights."

"Instead we got a ‘solemn declaration' that is worthless given the way in which the European Courts have interpreted workers' rights as being subservient to those of business," he added.

The union, which opposed the the treaty during the last referendum as well, has also offered its building for use by the Vote No to Lisbon campaign, prominently backed by the Socialist Party of Dublin MEP Joe Higgins and Sinn Fein, the republican party.

Commercial Real Estate Lurks as Next Potential Mortgage Crisis

The Wall Street Journal (Link) - Lingling Wei & Peter Grant (August 31, 2009)

Federal Reserve and Treasury officials are scrambling to prevent the commercial-real-estate sector from delivering a roundhouse punch to the U.S. economy just as it struggles to get up off the mat.

Their efforts could be undermined by a surge in foreclosures of commercial property carrying mortgages that were packaged and sold by Wall Street as bonds. Similar mortgage-backed securities created out of home loans played a big role in undoing that sector and triggering the global economic recession. Now the $700 billion of commercial-mortgage-backed securities outstanding are being tested for the first time by a massive downturn, and the outcome so far hasn't been pretty.

The CMBS sector is suffering two kinds of pain, which, according to credit rater Realpoint LLC, sent its delinquency rate to 3.14% in July, more than six times the level a year earlier. One is simply the result of bad underwriting. In the era of looser credit, Wall Street's CMBS machine lent owners money on the assumption that occupancy and rents of their office buildings, hotels, stores or other commercial property would keep rising. In fact, the opposite has happened. The result is that a growing number of properties aren't generating enough cash to make principal and interest payments.

The other kind of hurt is coming from the inability of property owners to refinance loans bundled into CMBS when these loans mature. By the end of 2012, some $153 billion in loans that make up CMBS are coming due, and close to $100 billion of that will face difficulty getting refinanced, according to Deutsche Bank. Even though the cash flows of these properties are enough to pay interest and principal on the debt, their values have fallen so far that borrowers won't be able to extend existing mortgages or replace them with new debt. That means losses not only to the property owners but also to those who bought CMBS -- including hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds and other financial institutions -- thus exacerbating the economic downturn.

Federal Government Will Borrow 40 Percent of the Money It Spends Next Year, Says White House Report

CNS News (Link) - Matt Cover (August 31, 2009)

According to the Obama administration’s mid-session budget update, the federal government will have to borrow nearly 40 percent of its total expenditures in 2010.

The report, “Mid-Session Review, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010,” shows that 39.9 percent of all federal income will be borrowed, making borrowing the single largest share of revenue in 2010. The next largest component of federal revenue is the personal income tax, which accounts for only 27.3 percent of federal funds.

This is only slightly lower than in 2009, when the federal government borrowed 43.3 percent of the money it has spent so far. The 2009 fiscal year ends Aug. 31, 2009.

The 2010 figures are estimates, based on current policy proposals which have not all been enacted yet. However, all new spending proposals, including spending from initiatives such as health care reform and a proposed cap-and-trade program, would be added to the 2010 deficit.

The revised budget estimates mean that the government will be borrowing the second largest share of federal spending since World War II, when the federal government borrowed 62 percent of the budget in 1943, at the war’s apex. Borrowing, however, dropped off quickly after the war, falling to 28 percent in 1946 – with the government running at a surplus by 1947.

Solana: Syria ready to resume talks

The Jerusalem Post (Link) (August 31, 2009)

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Monday told President Shimon Peres that he got the impression during his meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad that that latter was interested in resuming negotiations with Israel.

Peres replied, "If Assad is interested in peace with Israel, he must enter into direct negotiations without preconditions."

The president stressed the importance of remembering that Israel's presence in the Golan Heights was the result of a Syrian attack, adding that "Israel has every right to ensure that we will not be attacked again."

Peres added, "Hizbullah is Syria's reserve army, which acts on its behalf as a terrorist organization. Assad must decide whether he wants peace or continued conflict. I believe that we must try and make peace with Syria, but there is no need for intermediaries," he concluded.

Solana and Peres also discussed the advancement of the Israel-Palestinian peace process and of the Arab peace initiative, as well as the strengthening of relations between Israel and the European Union.

Syrian DM Tells Troops to Prepare for 'Dangers Ahead'

YNet News (Link) - Roee Nahmias (August 31, 2009)

Syrian Defense Minister Ali Habib called on his troops to increase their training "for the challenges and dangers ahead."

Speaking at a ceremony marking the 61st anniversary of the establishment of the Syrian Navy, Habib said that "the Zionist movement is taking unprecedented racist steps and is a source for concern worldwide," adding that Syria was at one of its most sensitive times ever.

Meanwhile European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana conveyed the message to Israeli President Shimon Peres that he got the impression that Syrian President Bashar Assad is interested in renewing peace talks with Israel.

Solana, who is in Israel after meeting with Assad in Damascus, met with Peres at his residence in Jerusalem and told him he believes Assad is interested in resuming talks.

Peres told Solana in his meeting, "If Assad is interested in peace with Israel, he must take the route of direct negotiations, without preconditions."

In reference to Hezbollah, Peres said that it is "Syria's reservist army that acts as a terrorist organization in all manners in Syria's service. Assad needs to make a decision whether he wants peace or continued conflict. I think peace with Syria should be attempted, but there is not need to make use of mediators."

He added that it must be remembered that Israel is in the Golan Heights because it was attacked and has a right to ensure that it will not be attacked again.

Solana: EU supports future de facto Palestinian state

China View (Link) (August 31, 2009)

European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Monday evening that he supports the Palestinian vision on establishing a de facto independent Palestinian state within two years.

"We (EU) support Dr. Fayyad's plan," Solana told a joint news conference with Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad following a one-hour meeting in Ramallah.

"We support the plan. It is very good and it shows the fact that the Palestinian government is functioning," Solana told reporters.

Last Tuesday, Fayyad presented a plan of establishing a de facto independent state within two years on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 including east Jerusalem, regardless of whether the peace talks with Israel succeed or not.

Israel has downplayed Fayyad's plan, saying it will be a unilateral decision and it would stop the plan.

Israel Launches Air Strike in Gaza

VOA News (Link) - Robert Berger (August 30, 2009)

Israel has launched an air strike in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. There was damage, but no reports of injuries.

The Israeli air force bombed a tunnel the army said was meant to smuggle Palestinian terrorists from Gaza into Israel. A building over the entrance to the tunnel was destroyed about a kilometer and a-half from the Israeli border fence. The military said the air raid was in response to Palestinians firing a rocket into Israel on Saturday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has adopted a new policy of deterrence since he took office five months ago. Mr. Netanyahu told Israel Radio that terror against Israeli citizens would not be tolerated. "If rockets are fired at Israel," he said, "there will be an immediate and painful response."

Palestinian rocket attacks have dropped off sharply since the Gaza War in January, when Israel launched a devastating three-week offensive against the ruling Islamic militant group Hamas. But Israel has ruled out a formal ceasefire until Hamas releases captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held for more than three years in Gaza.

Hamas is demanding the release of about a thousand Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, including top militants, and Arab media reported last week that a deal is imminent. Mr. Netanyahu would neither confirm nor deny it.

He would only say that Israel is committed to bringing the Israeli soldier home "safe and sound."

Zionist Candidate for Jerusalem Rabbi Wants to 'Unify'

Israel National News (Link) - Gil Ronen (August 30, 2009)

Rabbi Aryeh Stern, the religious-Zionist candidate for the position of Jerusalem Chief Rabbi, said Sunday that if elected, he will strive to bring religious and non-observant populations closer together. 

In his first at-length interview since a committee of rabbis selected him as the favored religious-Zionist candidate for the long-vacant position (he spoke with Israel National News the night he was chosen), Rabbi Stern told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew service: "If I am chosen for the position, I will strive to bring the Rabbinate – which I believe should be a magnet – to the entire public, which will see it as a central spiritual leadership for everyone, and I mean everyone, but especially for that Zionist-religious public which lacks that leadership.”

“I have the power and the will to reach the secular public and to contribute to a process of bringing the hearts closer together – and also, of course, the ability to reach the hareidi public,” he added. “The message that I bear is from the Torah, from faith and halakhah (Jewish law). I am no politician. The Torah is common to all of us and I have experience with the hareidi public that knows me - 'I dwell among my people.'”

'I can make the ends come together'

“For several years there are have been no [Chief] Rabbis in Jerusalem and the need is urgent and important, and there is a need to bring to the Jerusalem Rabbinate rabbis who will be open to the public, especially the religious-Zionist public,” Rabbi Stern said. “There is a very large populace that makes use of the Rabbinate's services and there has been a vacuum for many years. The matter was not dealt with properly and it must be fixed. For instance – with regard to Jerusalem's kashrut, the eruvs and the mikvehs in the city.”

“I have the ability to make the ends come together, by power of Torah,” the rabbi said. “The Rabbinate should be unifying, and it should be open to the public.”

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Part of the fulfillment of end time prophecy is the coming together of Israel to a mentality of Old Testament Israel leading eventually to the recognition of Yeshua as the Meshiach Nagid (Messiah the Prince). Daniel 9:24-27 - The 70 Weeks of Daniel

There is coming a time when the alliances of Ezekiel 38,39 - Iran, Russia, Turkey, Libya, etc. - will be destroyed by God in an attack on Israel. I believe this will be a catalyst to bringing together the people of Israel, secular and orthodox, to be of one mind in recognition of God and of their history and God's commandments for them. Having rejected Yeshua as the awaited Messiah, the will return to the daily sacrifice that was the foreshadow of the ultimate sacrifice made once for all mankind by Yeshua as prophesied in Isaiah 53.

I expect to see people like this Rabbi increase in number and influence among Israel as the end times continue to unfold.

Millions facing famine in Ethiopia as rains fail

The Independent (Link) (August 30, 2009)

The spectre of famine has returned to the Horn of Africa nearly a quarter of a century after the world's pop stars gathered to banish it at Live Aid, raising £150m for relief efforts in 1985. Millions of impoverished Ethiopians face the threat of malnutrition and possibly starvation this winter in what is shaping up to be the country's worst food crisis for decades.

Estimates of the number of people who need emergency food aid have risen steadily this year from 4.9 million in January to 5.3 million in May and 6.2 million in June. Another 7.5 million are getting aid in return for work on community projects, as part of the National Productive Safety Net Program for people whose food supplies are chronically insecure, bringing the total being fed to 13.7 million.

Donor countries provided sustenance to 12 million Ethiopians last year, more than half of it through the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). Having passed that total only eight months into this year, and with the main harvest already in doubt, aid agencies fear the worst is still to come. "We're extremely worried," said Howard Taylor, who heads the Department for International Development's office in Ethiopia. DfID has given £54m in aid to the country this year, and Britain has also contributed through the EU. "This is exactly the time when we shouldn't turn away from the people in need," he said.

"Critical water shortages" were reported in some areas by the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs last week with water-borne diseases such as acute diarrhoea spreading as communities resort to drinking from insanitary wells and ponds. Unicef said that the outbreaks are putting extra pressure on its Out-Patient Therapeutic Programme, which provides healthcare in some of the most needy areas.

Israel has Iran in its sights

Los Angeles Times (Link) - Micah Zenko (August 30, 2009)

Unless Tehran responds by late September to international proposals on its nuclear program, history strongly suggests the Israelis will act alone.

Iran has until late September to respond to the latest international proposal aimed at stopping the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear weapon. Under the proposal, Iran would suspend its uranium enrichment program in exchange for a U.N. Security Council commitment to forgo a fourth round of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

But if diplomacy fails, the world should be prepared for an Israeli attack on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons facilities. As Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently acknowledged: "The window between a strike on Iran and their getting nuclear weapons is a pretty narrow window."