Watchman Newsletter

Lebanon seeks to approve oil law against Israel

YNet News (Link) - Roee Nahmias (June 25, 2010)

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Friday that his country plans to approve an oil law, which would maintain Lebanon’s gas rights in the Mediterranean. He was speaking in response to remarks made by Israel’s National Infrastructure Minister, who threatened to use force to defend the offshore gas reserves.

According to Berri, the gas reserves found in drillings off Israel’s coast are located within Lebanon’s territorial waters as well.

“Israel is ignoring the fact that, according to the maps, this field is included within Lebanon’s territorial waters,” he said.

Berri called on the Lebanese government to launch gas and oil drillings in its waters and warned that Israel would gain control of Lebanon’s gas rights in the Mediterranean.

“The best answer to Israel’s threats is to rush to approve the oil law,” he said. The Lebanese government is expected to discuss the matter on Monday.

Signs point to oil under gas in Israel

Israel21c (Link) (June 24, 2010)

Global oil and gas exploration company Noble Energy says that initial analysis of 2D and 3D seismic data leads the firm to estimate the gross unrisked resource potential on its Eastern Mediterranean acreage to be in excess of 30 trillion cubic feet (tcf).

Noble says that at the Leviathan site offshore Israel, there are gross unrisked mean resources of 16 tcf of natural gas and a geologic chance of success of 50 percent.

Noble also published its progress on its previous Tamar project in Israel. Since that project is expected to supply Israel with its natural gas needs for the next three decades, a discovery at Leviathan, should there be one, would probably be earmarked for export.

According to reports in Israel’s leading financial daily Globes, in response to the preliminary results of the survey at the Leviathan site, Delek Group controlling shareholder Yitzhak Tshuva says that the discovery will change Israel’s geopolitical standing in the world.

“The chances of finding gas at the Tamar site were 35%, whereas the chances at the Leviathan site are 50%. We can say with full confidence that the potential is huge,” says Tshuva, adding “... Thanks to the discovery, Israel will become a player in the global energy market, and will supply energy to many other countries.”

Pelosi asks for donations to fend off potential GOP investigations

The Hill (Link) - Eric Zimmermann (June 23, 2010)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is asking supporters for contributions to help prevent the “subpoenas and investigations” that would result from a GOP majority.

In a fundraising letter for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Pelosi says if Republicans take back the House, they’ll initiate “endless investigations against President Obama” and “bring back the days of Ken Starr and the politics of personal destruction.”

“Remember a Republican-controlled Congress that devoted more time to subpoenas and investigations than to solving our country’s problems?” Pelosi asks. “There is far too much at stake for our country now to allow it to happen again.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, has shown himself willing and eager to be a thorn in the side of the Obama administration on everything from the BP oil spill to the Joe Sestak job offer. Few doubt that he would use a chairmanship to ramp up those efforts.

Seizing on Pelosi’s letter, Issa said Pelosi was effectively seeking “immunity” for the Obama administration.

“Obviously, Speaker Pelosi believes that a Democratic Congress should give this administration immunity from legitimate questions and appropriate accountability,” Issa said. “Her statements are indicative of the desperate state her Majority is in and if the best case she can make is to caution the American people against the dangers of conducting legitimate and vigorous oversight, she is welcome to make that case.”

Many Americans expect Jesus’ return by 2050

YNet News (Link) - AP (June 23, 2010)

A new survey finds that Americans are divided over whether they believe Jesus Christ will return by the year 2050.

Among respondents to the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and Smithsonian Magazine, 41% said they expect Jesus’ Second Coming in the next 40 years, while 46 percent said it probably or definitely won’t happen.

The poll suggests that 58 percent of white evangelicals believe Jesus will return by 2050 compared to only 32 percent of Catholics, and respondents with no college education were three times as likely as those with college degrees to expect Christ’s Second Coming in the next 40 years.

A majority of all respondents, meanwhile, say they expect there to be nuclear terrorism against the US or another world war by 2050.

Sixty-eight percent of respondents under the age of 30 predict a world war by 2050, 72% believe that there will be an energy crisis worldwide by 2050 and 31% expect an asteroid will strike the planet.

According to the poll, 53% expect a terrorist attack against the United States using a nuclear weapon.

The poll also shows a sharp dip in overall optimism from 1999, when 81% expected a good life for themselves and their families.

Dark War Clouds Loom on Mid-East Horizon

Human Events (Link) - Herbert London (June 23, 2010)

The gathering storm in the Middle East is gaining momentum. War clouds are on the horizon and, as with conditions prior to World War I, all it takes for explosive action to commence is a trigger.

Turkey’s provocative flotilla—often described in Orwellian terms as a humanitarian mission—has set in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity, but if the Iranians send escort vessels for the next round of Turkish ships, it could present a casus belli.

It is also instructive that Syria is playing a dangerous game with both missile deployment and rearming Hezbollah. According to most public accounts, Hezbollah is sitting on 40,000 long-, medium- and short-range missiles and Syrian territory has served as a conduit for military material from Iran since the end of the 2006 Lebanon War.

Should Syria move its own scuds to Lebanon or deploy its troops as reinforcement for Hezbollah, a wider regional war with Israel could not be contained.

In the backdrop is an Iran with sufficient fissionable material to produce a couple of nuclear weapons. It will take some time to weaponize missiles, but the road to that goal is synchronized in green lights, since neither diplomacy nor diluted sanctions can convince Iran to change course.

Roach: Global Stimulus Sets Stage for Next Crisis

Money News (Link) - Dan Weil (June 22, 2010)

Governments and central banks aren’t moving fast enough to exit their fiscal and monetary stimulus, says Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Steve Roach.

“Policy makers are making a mistake by keeping monetary and fiscal policy in stimulus positions for too long, injecting a lot of excess liquidity into markets and economies,” he told Bloomberg.

“It ends up setting the stage for the next crisis. This is a recipe that didn’t work out well in the period following the (2000) bursting of the equity bubble. And I see no reason why it’s going to work out differently this time either,” he said.

The Federal Reserve is keeping the federal funds rate at a record low of zero to 0.25 percent, and last year’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus is still working its way through the economy.

New hit song for Palestinian children: When we die as martyrs

Haaretz (Link) (June 22, 2010)

An Arabic children’s choir has been racking up views all over the world with the new YouTube hit “when we die as martyrs, we will go to heaven.”

The song was apparently recorded by the Jordanian-owned production company and television channel “birds of Paradise.”

According to The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), one of the world’s most comprehensive data centers on radical Islamic terrorist groups, the song is a hit on Arabic and worldwide websites and the children’s choir performing it fast is becoming one of the most popular children’s groups in the Arab world.

In the video clip, which can be viewed on the popular video sharing site YouTube, a young brown-eyed girl sings in front of what seems to be a group of children in pre-school the lyrics “Without Palestine, what does childhood mean?”

YouTube has already received dozens of spin-offs and remakes of the video, some of which depict Arabic children mimicking the lyrics while others show Jihadists using it as background music.

Journalist Fawzia Nasir al-Naeem wrote in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Jazirah that “[Birds of Paradise] is one of the most widely distributed children’s song groups in the Arab world, and it seems to have crossed the ocean to Canada and Britain.”

She added that the group represents a new wave in Jihadist youth indoctrination, as it is child-friendly, as opposed to previous Jihadist programs.

Details emerge on final set-up of EU diplomatic corps

EU Observer (Link) - Honor Mahony (June 22, 2010)

Both EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and MEPs have claimed victory in the final outcome of the battle of wills to establish the thousands-strong European diplomatic service.

To be on its feet by 1 December, the corps is supposed to give impetus to the EU’s often incoherent foreign policy by bringing all its different aspects - external relations, military, civil and development - under one roof.

The path to the agreement on Monday (21 June) was a typically Brussels-style battle, forcing a mindset change in the EU capital as member states and EU institutions for the first time sought to make a body etwining both intergovernmental and communitarian cultures.

It pitted Ms Ashton’s still small team against a parliament determined to push the limits of the powers given to it under the Union’s new rulebook.

The power politics saw Ms Ashton saying she is too busy to take calls from deputies while MEPs prevaricated over meeting points.

Both sides claimed victory in the end, however.

Report: California on ‘Verge of System Failure’

Money News (Link) - Julie Crawshaw (June 21, 2010)

Think of it as Greece on the Pacific: A place with beautiful scenery where the government spent so far beyond its means that mass layoffs, welfare reductions that leave a million children and the poor and elderly without needed services and failing infrastructure are now the norm.

California’s fiscal hole reportedly is now so large that the state would have to free 168,000 prison inmates and permanently close 240 university and community college campuses to balance its budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

“We are on the verge of system failure,” Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, told the Globe and Mail.

“We have to get some federal money,” Ross says. “It would be bad for the U.S. and, arguably, bad for the world to do the shock-therapy approach.”

Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College, calls this a classic American dilemma.

“Americans expect a lot of their government,” Dreier says. “But politicians have convinced them they’re not getting what they want.”

1,000 missing in Brazil floods

Breitbart (Link) - AFP (June 21, 2010)

More than 1,000 people are missing after days of heavy rain and flooding, the governor of Brazil’s northeastern Alagoas state said, voicing fear that the death toll of 35 could skyrocket.

“Up until the early afternoon we had 22 confirmed dead in Alagoas (state) and more than 1,000 people missing,” Alagoas governor Teotonio Vilela Filho said, quoted on the official Agencia Brasil news agency.

“We are praying for the missing to be found alive. But we are very worried because bodies are starting to turn up on beaches and on riverbanks,” Vilela told reporters at a press briefing before meeting with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Fannie, Freddie Could Cost $389 Billion

Moneynews (Link) - Julie Crawshaw (June 21, 2010)

For all the focus on the historic federal rescue of the banking industry, it is the government’s decision to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008 that reportedly is likely to cost taxpayers the most money.

So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion and rising, the New York Times reports.

The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that the final bill could reach $389 billion.

Some analysts even estimate the total may reach $1 trillion, which Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones Ratings, recently told Bloomberg is “a reasonable worst-case scenario."

Egan told Bloomberg that the final tally could hit $1 trillion assuming a 20 percent loss on the companies' more than $5 trillion in loans and guarantees, similar to what other big mortgage companies, like Countrywide Financial, suffered.

The two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) now own more houses than there are in Seattle and are foreclosing on homeowners whose mortgages they guaranteed, the Times said.

Report: Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to discuss ‘possible Israeli attack’

YNet News (Link) (June 21, 2010)

Palestinian sources say Hamas and Hezbollah are holding talks ahead of a possible meeting between their representatives and leaders of the Palestinian factions in Damascus, Kuwaiti newspaper al-Anaba reported.

According to the report, senior Iranian officials will also take part in the meeting, which will be held at the end of the month and deal with “a possible Israeli strike in Iran or southern Lebanon.” The report has not been confirmed by any other sources.

Spain PM mulls reshuffle to calm markets - media

Forexyard (Link) - Reuters: Judy MacInnes & Manuel Ruiz (June 21, 2010)

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is considering a cabinet reshuffle following a parliamentary vote on labour market reform, media reported, with his economy and labour ministers possible casualties.

However, a source familiar with the cabinet process questioned the logic of any imminent changes so soon after the IMF had backed the Socialist government’s policies, despite concerns about Spain’s long-term solvency.

La Ser radio said on Monday that Zapatero was mulling a reshuffle to restore financial markets’ confidence in his minority government and reassure them that Spain does not need a Greek-style bailout.

Various weekend press reports, citing unnamed sources, said Zapatero could announce changes to his cabinet as early as the next few days, once parliament has ratified on Tuesday the labour reforms aimed at restoring economic health.

Al-Zahar: Let Hamas Fire Rockets from West Bank

YNet News (Link) - Ali Waked (June 20, 2010)

On the day that President Shimon Peres urged Hamas to abandon terror, to free Gaza from the blockade and put an end to the need for flotillas, it seems now more than ever, these calls fall on deaf ears.

An official from the Palestinian organization, Mahmoud al-Zahar on Sunday urged the Palestinian Authority to instruct its staff to stop pursuing terror organizations and allow them to fire rockets at Israel from the West Bank.

In an interview to Palestinian paper al-Quds, al-Zahar said the Gaza Strip has been liberated, “and the PA’s security apparatus should free our hands. In order to liberate Jerusalem and the West Bank, rockets must be fired from the West Bank. Why should this fire come only from the Strip?”

Al-Zahar said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and their security apparatus are fighting the “resistance” in the West Bank, but stressed, “We will not change our policies even after we win the coming elections. These are our policies, and we will not waive our rights, even if they continue with the siege. If we were willing to give up on our rights, I would have been in Washington right now.”

The Hamas official added, “Resistance is the solution, as the international community has given the PA nothing, and Israel does not care about the Arab Peace Initiative.”

Egypt oil spill threatens Red Sea marine life

Google News (Link) - AFP (June 20, 2010)

An oil spill off the Egyptian Red Sea coast of Hurghada threatening to damage marine life in the area has prompted environmental agencies to demand tighter regulation of offshore oil platforms.

Large quantities of oil have appeared in recent days around the resorts of Hurghada which draw millions of tourists who come to dive or snorkle, according to the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Agency.

“It started four or five days ago and the companies responsible didn’t notify anyone. It is catastrophic,” HEPCA Managing Director Amr Ali told AFP.

The spill was caused by leakage from an offshore oil platform north of Hurghada and has polluted protected areas and showed up on tourist beach resorts.

“The companies have said they will pay damages, but it is the environmental damage that we are concerned about,” Ali said, declining to name the companies for legal reasons.

Give Credit to God For Israel’s Survival

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Earl Cox (June 20, 2010)

Words are inadequate to express our heartfelt congratulations to the nation and people of Israel on the wonderful occasion of their recent 62nd Independence Day anniversary.

To say that Israel is unique is an understatement. There has never been another nation like it in all the history of the world. Many individuals deserve credit for what Israel is today. No one can argue, however, that most of the credit must go to the God of Israel. It is He who fulfilled His promises through His prophets to regather the Jewish people to their ancient homeland and to reestablish their special little nation. And it is He who has also fulfilled His prophecies to preserve and prosper the people.

We understand how significant it is for the nation to observe two holidays back to back:

First, Israel observes the solemn Remembrance Day in honor of all the nation’s fallen soldiers, followed immediately by the joyful celebration of the rebirth of the nation, Independence Day. No other nations of the world can identify with the deep emotions Israelis experience on these two back-to-back days. No other nation has experienced what Israel has gone through to become the restored, free and prosperous nation that it is today.

We understand that nearly every Israeli has lost a family member or friend in the several wars that Israel has had to fight to survive. So, for every Israeli, Remembrance Day is certainly a deeply heartfelt and solemn time. But at sunset, the day of mourning is over and the day of rejoicing begins. Israelis turn from weeping to rejoicing about what the sacrifices of the lives of their loved ones have produced — a safe and secure Jewish homeland, after thousands of years of exile and persecution. No celebration anywhere can compare with the emotion of Israel’s Independence Day!