Watchman Newsletter

Jews raise millions to be ready for coming of the Messiah

The Sydney Morning Herald (Link) - Jason Koutsoukis (November 14, 2009)

Yehuda Glick is a 44-year-old American-born Jew who spends most of every day preparing for the arrival of the Messiah in Jerusalem.

Since he became the executive director of the Temple Institute, Mr. Glick's main task has been to supervise the manufacture of the utensils the high priests will need when the day arrives.

Crowns and other instruments made of solid gold fill glass cases in the Temple Institute museum in Jerusalem's Old City.

Other artifacts include an array of copper urns, trumpets made of silver and garments to be worn by the High Priest, woven from golden thread.

Musical instruments, including hand-made harps and lyres, lie ready to be brought to life upon the Messiah's appearance.

So, when can we expect this momentous event? ''That is a very good question,'' Mr. Glick told the Herald.

''All that we know is that we are now living in the age of miracles and all of those miracles are predicted in the Book as happening on the eve of the end of days. It could well be tomorrow, but it might be another 100 years, or even 400 years.''

Germany leads eurozone out of recession

Times Online (Link) - Francesca Steele (November 13, 2009)

The eurozone has emerged from recession in the third quarter, boosted by strong growth in Germany, leaving Britain languishing in its longest downturn in history.

The eurozone, comprising the 16 countries that use the euro, reported that gross domestic product (GDP) — a key measure of economic health — grew by 0.4 per cent in the three months to September. The 27-nation European Union, home to half a billion people, also reported growth of 0.2 per cent in the third quarter.

Germany, the zone’s biggest economy, confirmed its recovery, after exiting recession in the second quarter, when it said that GDP increased by 0.7 per cent in the third quarter. France also underlined its recovery, with 0.3 per cent growth.

However, the rate of growth for Europe’s two largest economies was not as high as expected. Economists had forecast that Germany would grow by about 0.8 per cent in the third quarter, and France by 0.6 per cent.

Britain remains the only leading economy still in recession after America joined Germany, France, Japan and China in exiting the downturn.

Eight million have no job (and don't even want one)

Daily Mail (Link) - Becky Barrow (November 12, 2009)

The number of people who do not have a job - and are not bothering to look for one - has soared to its highest since records began in 1971.

A record 7.9million - one in five people of working age - are ' economically inactive'. That is more than the entire population of Greater London.

Tories called the figures from the Office for National Statistics ' shocking' and said they exposed an ' alarming trend'. Theresa May, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: 'A culture of worklessness has become rife in pockets of Brown's Britain.

'It is shocking that one in five people of working age is economically inactive and that five million people have never worked under this government.

'Labour's decision to duck the real challenge of welfare reform over the past decade has fuelled this alarming trend.'

The Coming Climate Dictatorship

Investors Business Daily (Link) (November 12, 2009)

The House and Senate climate bills contain a provision giving the president extraordinary powers in the event of a "climate emergency." As chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the "trigger" placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee.

As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points out, the Kerry-Boxer bill requires the declaration of a "climate emergency" if the concentration of carbon dioxide and other declared greenhouse gases in the atmosphere exceeds 450 parts per million (ppm). It was at about 286 ppm before the Industrial Revolution and now sits at around 368 ppm.

That figure was picked out of a hat because the warm-mongers believe that's the level at which the polar ice caps will disappear, boats can be moored on the Statue of Liberty's torch and dead polar bears will wash up on the beaches of Malibu.

The Senate version includes a section that gives the president authority, under this declared "climate emergency," to "direct all Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions ... to address shortfalls" in achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions.

Dollar trouble, oil's bubble could derail recovery

Reuters (Link) - Wanfeng Zhou and Barani Krishnan (November 11, 2009)

The weakness in the U.S. dollar risks inflating a bubble in the oil market, which could threaten consumer spending and potentially cause a double dip recession.

The greenback's decline this year has been lauded as good for America as it benefits earnings, stimulates exports and helps rebalance the U.S. economy. But runaway oil prices could be the Achilles' heel to the thesis that sees only a benign impact of a weak dollar.

This year, when the dollar has been weak, oil has been strong; a weaker dollar supports oil because dollar-priced commodities become cheaper for buyers using other currencies. The inverse relationship between the dollar and crude has been remarkably tight: the 200-day correlation coefficient between the dollar index and oil is -0.94, Reuters data showed.

In some respects, this is a repeat of last year when a weak dollar, along with low interest rates and growth in energy-intensive Asia, drove oil to a record near $150 a barrel, which contributed to a deep global recession.

"Many factors are the same as the summer of 2008," said Ethan Harris, head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. "What are the things that would derail the recovery? I think that an oil price bubble is near the top of the list."

When Students Are Left for the Wolves

Understanding The Times (Link) - Jan Markell (November 10, 2009)

I wasn't prepared for what I was about to hear the evening of November 3. My alma mater, Bethel University in St. Paul, MN, sponsored an Interreligious Symposium promoting some kind of "common ground" between Buddhism and Christianity. One would think if a Christian had an ounce of discernment, they would deduce that Christianity has nothing to do with Buddhism and such unions are playing with fire. But a panel concluded that there was "common ground" when it came to "meditation."  Granted, this kind of meditation could put one in a dangerous altered state of consciousness, but maybe that's ok as long as we can find a bit of unity here! Some would call this common bond of meditation "contemplative prayer."

About 200 students and a few adults were crammed into the symposium auditorium. Attendance by the students was mandatory. The three main presenters were Buddhist monk Witiyala Seewalie from Sri Lanka, Bethel professor Paul Reasoner who is a part of the "Christian Zen" movement, and Ted Meissner, an active Buddhist layman and meditator in Zen, although he grew up in a Christian home.

The kind of meditation being promoted by the panelists is the kind that brings "enlightenment," whatever that means.

Ted Meissner described the goal of enlightenment to our daily growth and walk with Christ. Panelist Paul Reasoner did not particularly enlighten anyone to his area of interest, Christian Zen, so I am still clueless as to what that is. I think it's an attempt to again help people become Buddhist-friendly. It was clearly an emphasis on the blending of Christianity and Buddhism.  With only about 20 minutes for questions, there was no way I was going to get a multitude of mine answered.

Erdogan promises Iran Turkish intelligence aid against Israel

DEBKAfile  (Link) (November 10, 2009)

In the secret part of their talks in Tehran on Oct. 28, DEBKAfile's military sources reveal that Turkish prime minister Tayyep Recep Erdogan and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck military cooperation deals which promised Iran Turkish military intelligence and air force assistance against a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear sites.

Their understandings have bound Turkish to pass intelligence data to Tehran on potential Israeli preparations for a strike and on US military movements in the Middle East for providing backup. Our sources report that the details finalized in meetings between the Turkish and Iranian military specialists in Istanbul Monday, Nov. 9, were due to be sealed by presidents Abdullah Gul and Ahmadinejad Tuesday. The Iranian president is to be in Turkey as guest of the Islamic Conference.

The Turkish prime minister has not only buried his country's longstanding military and intelligence ties with Israel but climbed aboard the adversarial axis confronting the Jewish state. Turkey has agreed to round out the forward surveillance outposts encircling Israel's borders: Hamas from the southwest in Gaza, Syria in the east, Lebanon in the north and now Turkey from the northwest. Tehran is banking on this encirclement for early warning of an approaching Israeli strike and any supportive American movements.

The Goldstone Report

The Omega Letter (Link) - Jack Kinsella (November 10, 2009)

The United Nations Human Rights Council has formally endorsed the conclusions of the UN-commissioned "Goldstone Report" that accuses the government of Israel of war crimes during the Operation Cast Lead assault on Gaza Strip terrorists.

The 574-page report included accusations that Israeli forces indiscriminately attacked universities, mosques and civilian areas. Its pages are full of testimony from witnesses, or partial witnesses or, more accurately, non-witnesses who heard stories from their brother-in-law who knows someone who was almost there.

As South African jurist Richard Goldstone himself described it, "We had to do the best we could with the material we had."

But if the Goldstone Report represents all the evidence they had, they didn't have much. One example of a non-finding contained in the report concerning the Israeli attack on Gaza's Islamic University read this way:

"These were civilian, educational buildings and the mission did not find any information about their use as a military facility."

They didn't look very hard. The evidence they were looking for was in the Palestinian Broadcasting Authority archives.

The Islamic University was previously featured as the site of clashes between Fatah and Hamas gunmen, with Fatah soldiers identifying it as a weapons laboratory for the new and improved Qassam rockets that Hamas fires by the thousands into Israel. Palestinian Authority television had a full display of the weapons cache found in the Islamic University at the time.

Syria: Give us the Golan, or face more terror

Israel Today (Link) (November 10, 2009)

Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday warned that if Israel does not negotiate away the Golan Heights, his nation may turn to more violent methods of reclaiming the territory it once controlled.

Speaking at an Islamic economic summit in Istanbul, Assad claimed to still want to reach a peace agreement with Israel, but said that if such an agreement is not based on Israel full surrender of the Golan, then "resistance" is an option he is seriously considering.

It was not the first time Assad has threatened war should Israel not meet his precondition for peace talks by guaranteeing a full Israeli pullout from the Golan.

Israel captured the Golan during the 1967 Six Day War after Syria had used it during the previous 19 years as a launching pad for repeated invasions of and attacks on the Jewish state. In the run-up to the Six Day War, the Syrian army had massed on the Golan in preparation for yet another invasion.

In 1982, Israel officially annexed the Golan returning the territory to the lands originally promised to the Jews by League of Nations, the forerunner to the UN.

Lebanon's Hariri forms unity government with Hezbollah

Yahoo! News (Link) - Reuters - Nadim Ladki (November 9, 2009)

Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri formed a new unity government on Monday that includes two ministers from Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Lebanon has been without a functioning government since Hariri led his coalition, backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia, to victory in a June parliamentary election against Hezbollah and its allies.

A government acceptable to all main parties is seen as key to maintaining stability in a country facing sectarian and political tensions, as well as a huge debt burden.

"Finally, the government of national concord has been born," Hariri told reporters after agreeing the cabinet at a meeting with President Michel Suleiman at the presidential palace in Baabda on the outskirts of Beirut.

"We have turned a page that we don't want to go back to and opened a new page that we strive to make a page of concord and work," he said.

A Boatload of Trouble

Foreign Policy (Link) - Magnus Norell (November 9, 2009)

Think Hezbollah was tamed following the 2006 war? The recent seizure of a cargo ship full of weapons intended for the organization proves otherwise.

Ever since the end of the war in the summer of 2006 between Israel and the radical Lebanese Shiite organization, Hezbollah, there has been a major effort on the part of Hezbollah to rearm, especially with offensive weapons such as rockets and medium-range missiles. The organization has also rebuilt its bunker and defensive positions in southern Lebanon, despite the presence of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which expanded following the 2006 war to its current size of 12,425 troops from 30 countries.

In sheer numbers, this international force is much larger than the one I personally observed in southern Lebanon on numerous extended visits earlier this decade, when my own country of Sweden was actively participating in UNIFIL's mission. Yet the sad fact is that today, notwithstanding its greatly increased size and strengthened mandate, UNIFIL has consistently failed to hinder Hezbollah from regaining its position as the only serious political and military player in southern Lebanon. The organization has even been unable to stop continued shipments of arms to Hezbollah, despite UNIFIL's explicit U.N. mandate against them. These arms shipments come mainly from Hezbollah's leading backer, Iran. Since long before the 2006 war, the bulk of the weapons and munitions came overland through Syria -- where they were flown in from Iran -- but there have been attempts to smuggle weapons into Lebanon by sea as well.

Indonesia's quake kills one, wounds 88

China View (Link) (November 9, 2009)

A powerful quake of 6.7 on Richter scale in West Nusa Tenggara province on Monday has killed one person, wounded 88 others and damaged hundreds of houses, the Health Ministry said here. Head of the crisis center of the ministry Rustam Pakaya said that six out of the 88 suffered from serious injuries.

The quake damaged two health facilities and 282 houses, he told Xinhua. Four school buildings and one religious building collapsed in Bima town, spokesman of the Disaster Management Agency Priyadi Kardono told Xinhua.

The quake occurred at 02:41 Jakarta time (1941 GMT Sunday) with the epicenter 28 km southwest Raba of West Nusa Tenggara province and 25 km under sea bed, an official of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency named only Ardiatno told Xinhua.

The intensity of the quake was felt at 4 to 5 MMI (Modified Mercally Intensity) at Bima, Dompu, at 3 to 4 MMI at Sumbawa Besar,3 MMI at Mataram of the province, he said.

West Sumatra and West Java provinces had been hit by respectively 7.6-magnitude and 7.3-magnitude quakes recently, which killed more than 100 people.

Indonesia with over 230 million people sits on a quake-prone zone called the "Pacific Ring of Fire," where two continental plates meet that cause frequent seismic and volcanic movements.

Jordan's king: Region heading towards abyss

YNet News (Link) - Roee Nahmias (November 9, 2009)

In interview to al-Hayat newspaper, King Abdullah warns, 'If we miss this opportunity and peace is not achieved in a year or two, I believe our generation will not see peace'

Jordan's King Abdullah II warned on Monday against the continuation of the political stalemate reached in the region. In a special interview to London-based al-Hayat newspaper, Abdullah warned that if the current situation continues, it would be "heading towards an abyss. If there is no progress, if there is no vision, I am concerned about Palestine, and about the entire region."

In the first part of the two-part interview, Abdullah urged Israel to cease its "illegitimate steps that make chances for peace tough."

He said, "Jerusalem is the red line. The Israelis must understand Jerusalem's standing among the Arabs, the Muslims and the Christians, and should not play with fire."

He also commented on statements made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said he does not plan to run for another term in office. "He is a true partner in the peace process, and does everything he can for his people's interests in order to obtain the Palestinians' rights and peace based on two states.

PM heads to U.S. under threat of Palestinian statehood declaration

Haaretz (Link) - Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya (November 8, 2009)

Concerns are growing in Israel's government over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the 1967 borders, a move which could potentially be recognized by the United Nations Security Council.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently asked the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama to veto any such proposal, after reports reached Jerusalem of support for such a declaration from major European Union countries, and apparently also certain U.S. officials.

The reports indicated that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Such recognition would likely transform any Israeli presence across the Green Line, even in Jerusalem, into an illegal incursion to which the Palestinians would be entitled to engage in measures of self-defense.

In late August Fayyad presented the international community with a detailed plan for building up Palestinian Authority institutions and set a timetable of up to two years for its implementation. Senior Israeli officials said Fayyad's plan initially met with positive reaction in Jerusalem for its emphasis on institution-building and making security services more efficient.

But some Israeli officials told Haaretz that alongside the clauses reported in the media - which are similar to elements of Netanyahu's call for "economic peace" between Israel and the Palestinians - Fayyad's plan also contains a classified, unreleased portion stipulating a unilateral declaration of independence.

'Hizbullah getting ready for new war'

The Jerusalem Post (Link) (November 8, 2009)

Fearing Israel will launch an assault on Hizbullah ahead of a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, the Lebanese guerrilla group is getting ready for war, The Observer reported on Sunday.

Hizbullah has been "busy reinforcing fixed defense positions" North of the Litani River, and after losing many of its bunkers in the south during the Second Lebanon War, is preparing "a new strategy" to defend villages there, according to the British newspaper.

"Sure, we are rearming, we have even said that we have far more rockets and missiles than we did in 2006," a Hizbullah commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, was quoted as saying by the newspaper. "We had to blow up or leave some of our bunkers and fighting positions, but we still have plenty of capabilities in the south. We expect the Israelis to come soon, if not this winter, then they will wait until spring, when the ground isn't too soft for their tanks."

The report comes less than a week after the Israel Navy seized a cargo ship loaded with hundreds of tons of weaponry sent to Hizbullah from Iran.

Andrew Exum, a military expert on Hizbullah at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, was quoted by the Observer as saying that Hizbullah no longer controls the border, due to the presence of UNIFIL.

"They appear to be hardening the villages for this next round of fighting, while pushing their fixed positions north, away from UNIFIL, to protect the approaches to Beirut and the Bekaa Valley," he said.

US House backs healthcare reforms

BBC News (Link) (November 8, 2009)

The US House of Representatives has backed a healthcare bill in a step towards reforms promised by President Obama, despite strong opposition.

Passed in a narrow 220-215 vote, the bill aims to extend coverage to 36 million more Americans and provide affordable healthcare to 96%.

The Senate now has to pass its own bill and the two must then be reconciled before the programme can become law.

Mr Obama has made healthcare reform a central plank of his domestic agenda.

He described Saturday's vote in the House as "historic", saying he was "absolutely confident" the Senate would follow suit.

Correspondents say the legislation could lead to the biggest changes in American healthcare in decades.

Massive earthquake rocks the Pacific Ocean

Thaindian News (Link) (November 8, 2009)

A massive earthquake rocked the Pacific Ocean on Thursday morning, according to seismologists.

The earthquake, which struck about 232 miles north-northwest of Vanuatu’s Santo, had a preliminary magnitude of 8.1, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Tsunami warnings have been issued for Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Kiribati, Kosrae, wallis-Futuna and Howland-Baker.

A tsunami watch is in effect for the Marshall Islands, Tokelau, the Kermadec Islands, Pohnpei, New Zealand, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Australia, Niue, Cook Islands, Chuuk, Indonesia, Wake Island, Jarvis Island, Palmyra Island, Guam, North Marianas, Johnston Island, Yap, Marcus Island and Belau.

It is not yet known if a tsunami was created. The earthquake struck about 15 miles deep, making it an extremely shallow earthquake. Shallow earthquakes often tend to cause more damage, and increase the risk of a tsunami.

“An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicenter within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours,” a bulletin from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center read.

TAU scientists use lightning to 'take the sun's pulse'

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Judy Siegel-Itzkovich (November 8, 2009)

Tel Aviv University geophysicists have unintentionally struck pay dirt by discovering that ordinary lightning hitting Earth can be assessed to use sunspots for measuring the sun's rotation and preparing long-range predictions of the planet's future.

Sunspots are temporary dark blotches that seem to float over the sun's surface and tell scientists much about the Earth. They are caused by intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection, forming areas of reduced temperatures on the sun's surface.

Sunspots expand and contract as they move across the surface of the sun and can be as large as 80,000 kilometers in diameter, making the larger ones visible from Earth without the aid of a telescope (though the ordinary eye can never look at them directly).

Scientists rely on them, among other things, to measure the sun's rotation. But some years, like this one, sunspots cannot be viewed clearly from Earth. That poses a problem for scientists in a new scientific field called "space weather," which studies the interaction between the sun and the Earth's environment.

Thanks to a serendipitous discovery by TAU Prof. Colin Price, a leading climate change expert and head of the department of geophysics and planetary science, and his graduate student Yuval Reuveni, a more definitive and reliable tool for measuring the sun's rotation when sunspots aren't visible is available.