Watchman Newsletter

Obama: Fresh crisis without new financial rules

My Way News (Link) - AP - Darlene Superville (April 17, 2010)

The U.S. is destined to endure a new economic crisis that sticks taxpayers with the bill unless Congress tightens oversight of the financial industry, President Barack Obama said Saturday.

The overhaul is the next major piece of legislation that Obama wants to sign into law this year, but solid GOP opposition in the Senate is jeopardizing that goal.

“Every day we don’t act, the same system that led to bailouts remains in place, with the exact same loopholes and the exact same liabilities,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “And if we don’t change what led to the crisis, we’ll doom ourselves to repeat it.

“Opposing reform will leave taxpayers on the hook if a crisis like this ever happens again,” the president said.

A proposal that Senate Democrats are readying for debate creates a mechanism for liquidating large financial companies to avoid a meltdown.

EU to review national budgets under commission plans

EU Observer (Link) - Andrew Willis (April 15, 2010)

The budgets of eurozone members could first need EU approval before being then being passed on to national parliaments, under radical new plans to be presented by the European Commission this May.

The controversial suggestion drives right to the heart of questions of national sovereignty and is likely to produce heated debate when discussed by the group’s finance ministers this Friday (16 April) in Madrid.

Greece’s ongoing fiscal crisis has increased member state appetite for greater budgetary surveillance however, with the EU executive confident its proposals will find a favourable audience.

Speaking at a debate on Thursday organised by The European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank, EU economy commissioner Olli Rehn gave an indication of the plan’s current details, which have yet to be finalised.

Federal judge rules Day of Prayer unconstitutional

One News Now (Link) - AP (April 15, 2010)

A federal judge in Wisconsin says the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb issued the ruling Thursday in a lawsuit filed by the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The atheists and agnostics group brought the lawsuit against former President George W. Bush's administration. It argued the day violates the separation of church and state.

Congress established the day in 1952. In 1988, it set the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray.

President Barack Obama issued a proclamation last year but didn't hold public events with religious leaders as Bush had done.

A message was left for the U.S. Department of Justice, which represented the government in the case.

Fears that war between Israel and Hizbollah is ‘Imminent’

Telegraph UK (Link) - Alex Spillius, Richard Spencer & Adrian Blomfield  (April 15, 2010)

The king, in Washington for President Barack Obama’s nuclear summit, gave his warning after Israel claimed that Syria had handed over Scud missiles in its armoury to the Lebanon-based Hizbollah.

His comments, which were made to private meeting of the US Congressional Friends of Jordan caucus were said to be “sobering.”

Syria yesterday denied the allegation that it has provided Hizbollah with long-range Scud missiles, which would allowing them to target Israel’s cities. The country’s foreign ministry said the claims would be used as a pretext by Israel to raise tension prior to a possible attack on Hizbollah.

“For some time now, Israel has been running a campaign claiming that Syria has been supplying Hizbollah with Scud missiles in Lebanon,” a foreign ministry statement released yesterday said.

“Syria strongly denies these allegations which are an attempt by Israel to raise tensions in the region.”

However, the statement did not appear to rule out an alternative possibility being raised by defence sources, that Damascus has allowed Hizbollah control of or access to Scud missiles still currently in Syria.

Low supplies slow China earthquake rescue efforts

Yahoo! News (Link) - AP - Anita Chang (April 15, 2010)

Earthquake survivors shivered through a second night outdoors in a remote Tibetan corner of western China with rescuers fighting altitude sickness and dealing with a lack of supplies as the death toll rose to 760.

People with broken arms or legs cried in pain as medical teams could offer little more than injections. A doctor at the Qinghai provincial hospital, where the severely injured were being flown, said she had no idea how many were being treated because there was no time to count them all.

Stunned survivors wandered the dusty streets of Jiegu, where relief workers estimated 70 percent to 90 percent of the low-slung town of wood-and-mud housing had collapsed. Hundreds gathered to sleep in a plaza around a 50-foot (15-meter) tall statue of the mythical Tibetan King Gesar, wrapped in blankets taken from homes shattered by Wednesday morning’s quakes.

“There’s nothing to eat. We’ve just been drinking water,” said Zhaxi Zuoma, a 32-year-old camped with thousands of others on a rocky field. They asked a reporter to bring them food the next day.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 760 people had died, 243 people were missing, and 11,477 were injured, 1,174 severely. The worst of the quakes measured magnitude 6.9 by the U.S. Geological Survey and 7.1 by China’s earthquake administration.

Russia modernizing Syria ports for its warships

World Tribune (Link) (April 15, 2010)

The Russian Navy has been expanding cooperation with Syria. Officials said the navies of Russia and Syria were enhancing cooperation over the last year. They said Moscow was modernizing naval facilities in Syria’s port of Latakia and Tartous to accommodate Russian Navy warships.

“I am certain that we will witness new and significant progress in our bilateral cooperation in the near future,” Russian ambassador to Syria, Sergei Kirpichenko, said.

On April 14, Kirpichenko welcomed the arrival of the Russian Navy’s nuclear-powered missile cruiser, Pyotr Veliky, to Tartous. Russia has modernized Tartous and deploys 50 naval officers to maintain and supply warships that operate in the Mediterranean.

“The Pyotr Veliky’s visit to the Syrian port of Tartus is a symbolic event,” Kirpichenko said. “It is a continuation of our historic ties with Syria that serves as a guarantee of our future cooperation not only in the naval sphere but also in other areas.”

Iceland volcano eruption melts glacier, causes floods

Yahoo! News (Link) - AFP (April 14, 2010)

Iceland’s second volcano eruption in less than a month melted part of a glacier and caused heavy flooding on Wednesday, forcing up to 800 people to evacuate and grounding some flights over Norway.

“We have two heavy floods coming out from the melting of the Eyjafjallajokull glacier,” local police spokesman Roegnvaldur Olafsson told AFP from near the site of the eruption in the south of the country.

So far, “no lives are in danger but we have evacuated the area and all roads are closed,” he said, adding that the ongoing eruption was bigger than the blast at the nearby Fimmvorduhals volcano last month.

Police said earlier Wednesday that following the eruption, which began around 1:00 am (0100 GMT), between 700 and 800 people had been evacuated from their homes in the remote, lightly populated area 125 kilometres (75 miles) east of Reykjavik.

“There were a lot of earthquakes in the area,” police spokesman Baldur Sigurdsson told AFP.

Senators consider gasoline tax as part of climate bill

Los Angeles Times (Link) - Jim Tankersley (April 14, 2010)

Leading voices in the Senate are considering a new tax on gasoline as part of an effort to win Republican and oil industry support for the energy and climate bill now idling in Congress.

The tax, which according to early estimates would be in the range of 15 cents a gallon, was conceived with the input of several oil companies, including Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips, and is being championed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

It is shaping up as a critical but controversial piece in the efforts by Graham, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to write a climate bill that moderate Republicans could support. Along those lines, the bill will also include an expansion of offshore oil drilling and major new incentives for nuclear power plant construction.

Environmental groups have long advocated gasoline taxes to reduce fossil fuel consumption; the oil industry has spent heavily in recent years to fight taxes, which it says would harm consumers.

In this case, though, several oil companies like the tax because it figures to cost them far less than other proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including provisions in the climate bill the House passed last year.

Syria Supplies Scud Missiles to Hizbullah While Accepting American Overtures

The Media Line (Link) (April 14, 2010)

Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad has been supplying Scud missiles to Hizbullah while accepting overtures of relationship-building from President Obama. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that American officials have confirmed Israeli charges that Syria is, indeed, providing Hizbullah with Scuds that pose a serious threat to cities deep inside of Israel.

Israeli President Shimon Peres told Israel Radio on Wednesday that Syria is “claiming it wants peace while simultaneously delivering Scud missiles to Hezbollah, which is constantly threatening the security of the state of Israel.”

President Obama, who has made engaging Syria a foreign policy priority, has appointed a new ambassador to Damascus; has sent high ranking officials including Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry on numerous trips to meet with Al-Asad; and is easing sanctions on Syrian import of airplane parts and software.

But on Tuesday, Israeli officials made the Scud allegation against Syria and a day later, U.S. officials confirmed the charge. According to The Wall Street Journal, Republicans asked that the ambassadorial appointment be frozen even as the House of Representatives voted to approve the nomination of Robert Hall as ambassador to Damascus, but the administration said it will press on regardless of confirmation of the scud transfers. The Syrian ambassador to the United States told the Washington Post that the Obama administration has never raised the issue of scuds with him.

Israel Says Syria Gave Missiles to Hezbollah

The New York Times (Link) - Ethan Bronner (April 14, 2010)

Israeli officials say that Syria has delivered accurate long-distance Scud missiles to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, placing cities deep in Israel’s heartland, including Tel Aviv, within range.

The officials added that the delivery of the missiles — strongly denied by Syria and yet to be confirmed by sources outside of Israel — would change the strategic balance in the area and increase the risk of war.

The issue was raised by President Shimon Peres, who during a visit to Paris told journalists earlier this week, “Syria claims that it wants peace, while simultaneously delivering Scud missiles to Hezbollah, which is constantly threatening the security of the State of Israel.” He added, after meeting with the French prime minister, François Fillon, that Syria was playing “a double game.” Mr. Fillon, who was recently in the Syrian capital, Damascus, had told Mr. Peres that the government of President Bashar al-Assad wanted peace with Israel.

Mr. Peres did not specify which type of Scud missiles had been delivered. However, aides accompanying him and officials in Jerusalem said that the missiles in question were of a ballistic nature normally used only by state armies. One official said they were Scud D’s, the most accurate and long range.

“This creates a new situation,” another Israeli official said, insisting on anonymity because there were continuing diplomatic efforts to deal with the concern. “These are more accurate and far more dangerous.”

Western China quakes kill at least 400

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - AP (April 14, 2010)

A series of strong earthquakes struck a far western Tibetan area of China on Wednesday, killing at least 400 people and injuring thousands as houses made of mud and wood collapsed, trapping many more, officials said.

Paramilitary police were forced to use shovels to dig through the rubble in a Qinghai province township where most of the homes had been flattened, footage on state television showed. Officials said excavators were not available and with most of the roads leading to the nearest airport damaged, equipment and rescuers would have a hard time reaching the area.

Downed phone lines, strong winds and frequent aftershocks also hindered rescue efforts, said Wu Yong, a local military chief.

Workers were racing to release water from a reservoir in the disaster area where a crack had formed after the quake to prevent a flood, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

The magnitude-6.9 temblor struck Wednesday morning in an area in the south of Qinghai province, near Tibet, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake was centered on Yushu county, with a population of about 100,000, mostly herders and farmers.

Tehran: If Iran is attacked, nuclear devices will go off in American cities

DEBKAfile (Link) (April 13, 2010)

This warning, along with an announcement that Iran would join the world’s nuclear club within a month, raised the pitch of Iranian anti-US rhetoric to a new high Tuesday, April 13, as 47 world leaders gathered in Washington for President Barack Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit. The statement published by Kayhan said: “If the US strikes Iran with nuclear weapons, there are elements which will respond with nuclear blasts in the centers of America’s main cities.” For the first time, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, Tehran indicated the possibility of passing nuclear devices to terrorists capable of striking inside the United States.

Without specifying whether those elements would be Iranian or others, Tehran aimed at the heart of the Nuclear Security Summit by threatening US cities with nuclear terror.

DEBKAfile’s Iranians sources report that Tehran is playing brinkmanship to demonstrate that the Washington summit, from which Iran and North Korea were excluded, failed before it began, because terrorist elements capable of striking inside the US had already acquired nuclear devices for that purpose.

Although Iran has yet to attain operational nuclear arms, our military sources believe it does possess the makings of primitive nuclear devices or “dirty bombs.”

Border incidents fall on deaf ears

One News Now (Link) - Chad Groening (April 13, 2010)

The head of an organization advocating for reduced immigration says the Obama administration seems willing to ignore the plight of ranchers near the Mexican border who face the constant threat of property damage or even death from the invasion of illegal immigrants.

As reported earlier on OneNewsNow, Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was recently found shot to death on his property. Officials suspect the perpetrator was an illegal alien who made his way back across the border, and Arizona Attorney General has suggested the murder may have been carried out by someone attached to the drug cartels in the area.

Roy Beck, founder and president of Numbers USA, says it is unfortunate that the mainstream media does not report on much of the violence that happens along the border.

“I do think that there’s a lot more than we hear about,” he remarks. “I mean, this Robert Krentz murder [has] hardly gotten any publicity outside of the Internet circles. The other thing that happens is that our Border Patrol [officers] are getting fired upon far more often than we hear about. They’re constantly encountering people in Mexican military uniforms.”

Peres: Syria Arming Hizbullah with Scuds While Talking Peace

Israel National News (Link) - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu (April 13, 2010)

Syria is providing Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon with the Scud missiles that traumatized Israel in the 1991 Gulf War, and a “Scud Crisis” is threatening to ignite an all-out war between Israel and Hizbullah, the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper reported.

President Shimon Peres confirmed the reports prior to leaving for his three-day visit to France.

Paraphrasing Psalms 120:7, the president said on Israeli radio, “Syria claims it wants peace while at the same time it delivers Scuds to Hizbullah whose only goal is to threaten the state of Israel. “I am for peace; When I speak, they are for war.”’

Al-Rai reported this week that Israel warned the Obama administration “it will take steps” if the United States does not succeed in pressuring Syria to cease arming Hizbullah with the weapons. The U.S. State Department then summoned Syrian Ambassador Imad Mustafa “to inform his government about the level of danger if the missiles crossed the border.”

Israel reportedly sent warnings it would bomb Lebanese and Syrian targets if the long-range missiles cross the border into Lebanon. There are conflicting reports on whether several Scud missiles already have been delivered to Hizbullah terrorists. Despite the almost invisible line between Lebanese armed forces and Hizbullah, the Obama has administration shipped weapons to the Beirut-based government, which is heavily dominated by Syrian interests.

Magnitude 7.1 Quake Shakes Solomon Islands

Fox News (Link) - AP (April 11, 2010)

A major earthquake has struck off the Solomon Islands, but a tsunami was not expected.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.1-magnitude quake struck at Sunday evening. Its epicenter was about 130 miles southeast of the capital, Honiara, in the Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says a destructive wave is not expected.

The Solomon Islands is a country of nearly 1,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean, east of Papua New Guinea.

Think Tank Speculates War Could Break Out with Syria

Israel National News (Link) - Maayana Miskin (April 11, 2010)

The increasingly open threats made by Syrian leaders and members of the Hizbullah terrorist group in Lebanon have led analyst David Schenker of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) think tank to warn that war may be on the horizon. In addition, he noted, a future war could include Syria and not only its proxy Hizbullah: in February, Syrian leaders said Syria would not “sit idly by” in case of another war with Israel.

Hizbullah, for its part, declared open war on Israel following the 2008 assassination of senior Hizbullah terrorist Imad Mugniyeh. While Israel has not claimed responsibility for the killing, Hizbullah leaders say they are certain that an Israeli agency was behind the operation.

According to Israeli estimates, Hizbullah has managed to not only recover from the hit it took during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, but has gathered an even greater number of rockets than it possessed prior to the war. Current estimates put Hizbullah’s arms supply at more than 40,000 missiles and rockets.

Syrian officials have spoken publicly about their support for Hizbullah, and have urged other Arab countries to support “the resistance” as well.

US Expert Predicts ‘Oil and Gas Rush’ to Israel

Israel National News (Link) - Gil Ronen (April 11, 2010)

A US energy industry expert estimates that international companies may soon join exploration efforts for oil and gas in Israel.

The expert, Fred Zeidman, told Globes website that it is very likely that international firms will join the exploration efforts on Israeli territory, a year after the ‘Tamar’ and ‘Dalit’ discoveries in the Mediterranean Sea. One international firm is already involved: Noble Energy, which was the partner of Delek and Isramco in the discoveries.

Two of Israel’s largest financial groups – Nochi Dankner’s IDB group and Ofer Nimrodi’s Israel Land Development – have also entered the sector.

Earthquake hits southern Spain; damage said unlikely

CNN (Link) (April 11, 2010)

A strong earthquake struck near the Spanish city of Granada early Monday, but at a depth that made damage to the medieval Moorish capital unlikely, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck at 12:08 a.m. local time Monday (6:08 p.m. Sunday ET), the USGS reported.

It was centered about 24 kilometers (15 miles) southeast of Granada and about 370 kilometers (230 miles) south of Madrid, Spain’s capital.

There was no immediate report of damage or injuries from the temblor. The quake’s recorded depth of 616 kilometers -- nearly 400 miles -- means little damage is likely, geophysicist Susan Potter told CNN.

“When an earthquake is deeper, the seismic energy is absorbed by the Earth,” Potter said. “So there will be less damage expected in the epicenter area.”