Watchman Newsletter

Street Preachers Killed In United States

Bos News Life (Link) (February 6, 2010)

A religious liberty group warned Saturday, February 6, that “Anti-Christian hostility is getting increasingly deadly” in the United States after two street preachers were shot and killed by a teenager who apparently opposed their message.

“The increasing demonization of Christians in our culture makes some feel its open season on Christians,” said Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission.

Tite Sufra, 24, (pictured above) and Stephen Ocean (pictured below), 23, were shot to death late Saturday, January 30, in Boynton Beach in the U.S. State of Florida, where they evangelized, after meeting 18-year-old Jeriah Woody, local police said.

“They witnessed to Woody for fifteen minutes, when he got a phone call and told the preachers he ’had to go’,” added the Commission, which closely monitored the case.

CHRISTIANS EXECUTED

“As they walked away, Woody suddenly started walking back toward them. Sufra walked up to greet him and was killed with a shot gun blast at point blank range. When Ocean ran, he was shot in the back. After he fell, Woody shot him in the head execution style.”

Syria: We're ready for peace or war

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Herb Keinon (February 6, 2010)

The rhetorical ping-pong between Jerusalem and Damascus continued over the weekend, though at a lower level of intensity, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman saying Israel should not be mum when another country threatens to attack its cities, and a Syrian government mouthpiece says Damascus is ready for either peace or war.

Lieberman – who created waves on Thursday during a speech at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan by saying Syrian President Bashar Assad should know that in a war with Israel, he would not only lose militarily, but would also lose his control of Syria – defended those statements on Friday, saying he did not regret them.

In an interview on Channel 1, Lieberman said he was amazed by the negative reactions his words generated on the Israeli political scene.

“I must say that I am always surprised anew,” he said. “It needs to be understood that we are not looking for either confrontation or friction with Syria, but when the Syrian foreign minister says that they will attack population centers in Israel, that is crossing a red line.”

On Wednesday, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem warned that Israel “should not test Syria’s determination” and added that Israel “should know that a war will move to Israeli cities.”

Lieberman said that Assad, the same day, delivered a similar message.

Report: Hezbollah raises alert level

YNet News (Link) - Roee Nahmias (February 6, 2010)

Hezbollah has raised the alert level among its fighters, Saudi newspaper Okaz reported Saturday, citing Lebanese sources.

According to the report, the Shiite group’s leaders were instructed to take precautionary measures for fear of an Israeli strike.

The Lebanese sources told the newspaper Hezbollah believes the chances of an Israeli attack have increased in light of the belligerent back and forth between Israel and Syria.

For the most part, Hezbollah has so far refrained from directly addressing the war of words between Jerusalem and Damascus.

Also on Saturday, Syria’s state-run Tishreen newspaper published an editorial saying that Damascus believes the recent threats made by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reflect the Israeli government’s intention to wage new wars in the Middle East.

According to the Syrian regime’s mouthpiece, “Israel thought it could wage wars and not suffer the consequences – but it was wrong. It (Israel) tested the patience of Syria and the Arab and Islamic nations – and it turned out that this patience has its limits. Israel is testing Syria’s determination to return its conquered land by all the legitimate means at its disposal.

“The path to peace is open and its conditions are known, but the path of destruction can also open the moment Israel complies with the aggressive tendencies of leaders who have crime running in their veins and their way is the way of the mafia,” the editorial read.

German foreign minister backs idea of European army

France 24 (Link) - AFP (February 6, 2010)

Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, backed the idea of a permanent European army Saturday. While speaking to the Munich Security Conference, Westerwelle said a parliamentary run army would help the EU in its role as a “global player.”

Germany supports the creation of a European army in the long term so that the EU can be a “global player,” Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

“The long-term goal is the establishment of a European army under full parliamentary control. The European Union must live up to its political role as a global player. It must be able to manage crises independently. It must be able to respond quickly, flexibly and to take a united stand,” he said.

“We want strong European crisis management. This is not intended to replace other security structures. More Europe is not a strategy directed against anyone. No one has any reason to fear Europe, but everyone should be able to depend on Europe,” he added.

Frustration in Damascus

The Jerusalem Post (Link) (February 5, 2010)

Israel has completed its withdrawal from the Golan Heights as stipulated in the Syria-Israel Treaty of Peace; ambassadors have been exchanged; embassies opened; direct flights established; an exhibit of ancient artifacts from Jerusalem's Bible Lands Museum has been loaned to the National Museum in Damascus. Asma Assad and Sarah Netanyahu are engaged in a series of collaborative civil society initiatives…

Bashar Assad understands the price he and the ruling Alawite minority would have to pay, in a country that is 74 percent Sunni, for a genuine peace with Israel. That is why in this week’s New Yorker, Assad frankly told Seymour Hersh that even if Syria regained the entire Golan, Israel, “cannot expect me to give them the peace they expect.”

Indeed, if Israel got the peace we expected, Assad’s de-facto truce with the Muslim Brotherhood would come undone. He’d have to expel Hamas leaders from Syria, a step the Brotherhood would find insufferable. A bad divorce with Teheran would ensue. Hizbullah would reorient Lebanon’s policies accordingly.

In short, Assad would be going down the path taken by the late Anwar Sadat: carving out a separate peace with Israel while the Palestinian issue festered, albeit due to the Palestinians’ own intransigence.

Naturally, if Assad got the Golan Heights on his terms, the legitimacy of his regime would be bolstered. But no Israeli government – not Yitzhak Rabin’s and not Binyamin Netanyahu’s – can come down from the Golan in return for a sham peace.

US food stamps set ever-higher record-32.8 million

Guardian UK (Link) - Reuters - Charles Abbott (February 5, 2010)

A record 38.2 million Americans were enrolled in the food stamp program at latest count, up 246,000 from the previous month and the latest in record-high monthly tallies that began in December 2008.

Food stamps are the primary federal anti-hunger program, helping poor people buy groceries. The Agriculture Department updated enrollment data on Friday with a preliminary figure for November.

USDA estimates up to $58 billion will be spent on food stamps this fiscal year, which ends Sept 30, with average enrollment of 40.5 million people. Food stamps were renamed the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program in 2008.

Participation has surged since the financial-market turmoil of late 2008 and has set records each month since December 2008, when it reached 31.78 million. Enrollment is highest during times of economic distress.

Europe Fears Another World Economy Crisis

Fox News (Link) - AP (February 5, 2010)

Fears of another crisis spiral for the world economy deepened Friday after the Portuguese parliament defeated a government austerity plan, triggering renewed concern that the financial crisis in that country and in Greece could spread through the eurozone and spill across its borders.

Spooked investors worldwide were fleeing risky assets like stocks. And from Shanghai to Sao Paolo, people were awakening to the reality that what is happening in these European minnow states has vast implications for the fate of the fragile global economic recovery.

Stocks fell in Asia and Europe as governments in Portugal and Greece pushed against fierce political resistance at home to cutbacks aimed at getting their deficits under control.

Markets fear Greece may default or require a costly bailout from already strapped European governments, and those concerns are spreading to other financially troubled governments such as Portugal and Spain.

Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ to be republished in Germany

Telegraph UK (Link) - Allan Hall (February 4, 2010)

Under the post-1945 German constitution, the dissemination of Nazi philosophy has been a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment.

But the copyright, held by the state of Bavaria where the Nazi movement began life in the 1920s, expires in 2015, 70 years after the death of its author in his Berlin bunker.

On Thursday the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History (IfZ) pledged to publish an “annotated version” with historical notes that it hopes will see the book used in schools and colleges.

The finance ministry in Bavaria said it had still not decided whether to give its permission but it is understood that with the lapse in copyright, the IfZ will not need the green light from it. “Besides, we think our version, with sensible notes and comments pointing out the falsity of much of what he wrote, will be far better than neo-Nazis putting out their own versions,” said the IfZ.

Jewish leaders in Germany have already pledged their support for the project, saying they believe it “would prevent neo-Nazi from profiteering from Mein Kampf. while an aggressive and enlightening engagement with the book would doubtless remove many of its false, persisting myths.”

Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks

The Washington Post (Link) - Ellen Nakashima (February 4, 2010)

The world’s largest Internet search company and the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google -- and its users -- from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The partnership strikes at the core of one of the most sensitive issues for the government and private industry in the evolving world of cybersecurity: how to balance privacy and national security interests. On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair called the Google attacks, which the company acknowledged in January, a “wake-up call.” Cyberspace cannot be protected, he said, without a “collaborative effort that incorporates both the U.S. private sector and our international partners.”

Iran announces launch of powerful rocket carrying animals into space

Los Angeles Times (Link) - Borzou Daragahi (February 3, 2010)

Iran announced that it fired a powerful rocket loaded with a rat and several other live animals into space Wednesday, a week before a national holiday and amid heightened international concerns about Tehran’s nuclear research and missile programs.

The launch of the Kavoshgar-3 satellite carrier and the unveiling of other new technology coincided with Iran’s annual Space Day, as well as the buildup to the Feb. 11 anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

State television aired video of the flying Kavoshgar-3, and photos posted on news websites showed a rat strapped into a space pod. Reports said two turtles and worms were also aboard. Officials said it was the first time Iran has launched living organisms into space.

“These miraculous satellite projects are, in fact, key to the connection between God and mankind,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony, state radio reported. “Today, Iranian scientists are capable of capturing the skies.”

Snub for EU as Barack Obama ducks out of summit

Guardian UK (Link) - Ewen MacAskill & Nicholas Watt  (February 3, 2010)

Europe failed the first test of new arrangements introduced by the Lisbon treaty yesterday when the US announced that Barack Obama would not attend a joint summit in May, partly out of ­frustration in Washington over the confused management of the EU.

In what was seen as a snub to the EU, the White House said Obama would not travel to Madrid in the spring for the summit that is meant to symbolise the close co-operation between the US and Europe. Senior diplomats in Brussels said last night the cancellation was a big embarrassment for the EU, which had hoped to increase its standing on the world stage when it ended a decade of debate about its institutional architecture with the ratification of the Lisbon treaty in December.

Washington discovered that no fewer than three EU presidents would line up to shake Obama’s hand at the summit: Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European council; José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister who holds the title of president in office during Spain’s six-month presidency of the EU.

One Brussels diplomat said: “The US simply don’t know who they’re meant to be dealing with. The US is mightily pissed off. They thought the Lisbon treaty was meant to solve all these problems.”

Dollar Turns a Sickly Shade of Green

The Wall Street Journal (Link) - Phil Thornton (February 3, 2010)

The World Economic Forum has often served as a launch pad for attacks on the dollar. At Davos two years ago, the billionaire financier George Soros predicted the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency of choice was under threat. Last year, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claimed the world’s over-reliance on the dollar posed a danger to the global economy.

There is little sign of that reliance diminishing just yet. In the year following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries rose 15.6% to $2.38 trillion. But currencies trade heavily on confidence and there are worries that such attacks are having a cumulative effect. Although the dollar has risen recently against the euro, the U.S. currency has lost over a quarter of its value since reaching its peak trade-weighted exchange rate eight years ago this month.

Prof. Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and a former World Bank chief economist, wants to see an “orderly transition” from a dollar-based global economy. “It is peculiar that we still have the dollar system when we are so globalized,” he says. “[There is a] need for a new global reserve system to replace the dollar-based system.”

Will Rockefeller build 3rd Temple?

WorldNet Daily (Link) - Aaron Klein (February 3, 2010)

A Rockefeller is raising capital to rebuild the Jewish Temple, said the news release published on CNN Money’s Internet site and other news sources.

The plan would include a united Jewish and Palestinian Arab state. A Jewish group promoting the rebuilding of the Temple was reported to be cooperating.

The story spread virally through the evangelical Christian blogosphere. But it was all part of an elaborate hoax.

The release, filed with MarketWire and republished at CNNMoney.com, claims “Supriem David Rockefeller” is director of a company, Kinti Holdings group, which is working with a Jewish Temple organization to rebuild the Third Temple.

States the release: “Kinti Holdings will be raising funds to go towards building the Third Temple in Jerusalem in strict coordinance with The Temple Institute, Rabbi Hiam Richman and The Palestinian National Interest Committee (PNIC) and supporting Husam Bajis for President of Palestine.”

Richman, international director of the Temple Institute, a Jewish Temple activist group, told WND the release is a “scam.”

Davos - the Biggest News!

The Trumpet (Link) - Ron Fraser (February 3, 2010)

Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild”—that was the mantra chosen as the theme for this year’s annual World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, January 27 to 31. Over those five days, business leaders and politicians from all over the world came together to discuss ideas to regenerate a global economic system that is still teetering on collapse.

If anyone had high hopes for consensus on a breakthrough—a way forward to a brighter global economic future—their hopes would have been clearly dashed. For most journalists, there was little of note to report from Davos.

Yet there was one BIG news item at Davos—startling news, largely ignored by the press! “Germany’s government launched an initiative to strengthen its military industry during the World Economic Forum this weekend in the latest sign that the country has become emboldened to fight for its international interests” (Dow Jones, January 31).

Germany’s defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, used Davos as the occasion to announce that Germany is commencing an aggressive development of its defense industry! “A group of top executives from German blue chips met with federal ministers, talking military business in Davos. German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg brought up the ‘necessary interplay of defense policy and Germany’s economic interests,’ at a breakfast meeting with a group of top managers from utilities, chemical groups and other companies, his spokesman said” (ibid.).

Report: N. Korea resumes military aid to Syria

YNet News (Link) - Yitzhak Benhorin (February 2, 2010)

The Pyongyang-Damascus axis is back in order. For the first time since the Syrian reactor was bombed in September 2007, North Korea has renewed its supply of sensitive military technology to Damascus, according to a report Tuesday in Japanese business newspaper, Nikkei.

Western intelligence sources told the newspaper that North Korea is aiding Syria in the production of maraging steel, which is extremely durable at high heats and pressure. It is typically used in missile skins, ballistic warheads, and gas centrifuges critical in the uranium enrichment process. Its durability and malleability makes it ideal to for creating thin missile skins capable of carrying heavier payloads.

The West and Japan restrict the export of maraging steel.

According to the report, a production line for the material was built at the military factory in the city of Homs, in northern Syria.

North Korea, in defiance of the West, does not restrict its export of the special nickel-alloy steel, and has supplied Syria with a melting furnace and molding tools necessary for making the steels at their Homs plant.

Largest-ever federal payroll to hit 2.15 million

The Washington Times (Link) - Stephen Dinan (February 2, 2010)

The era of big government has returned with a vengeance, in the form of the largest federal work force in modern history.

The Obama administration says the government will grow to 2.15 million employees this year, topping 2 million for the first time since President Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over” and joined forces with a Republican-led Congress in the 1990s to pare back the federal work force.

Most of the increases are on the civilian side, which will grow by 153,000 workers, to 1.43 million people, in fiscal 2010.

The expansion could provide more ammunition to those arguing that the government is trying to do too much under President Obama.

“I’m shocked that the ‘tea party’ hasn’t focused on it yet, and the Obama administration only has a thin sliver of time to deal more directly with it, I believe,” said Paul C. Light, who studies the federal bureaucracy as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at New York University. “When you talk about big government, you’re talking about a big employer.”

Next in line for a bailout: Social Security

CNN Money (Link) - Allan Sloan (February 2, 2010)

Don’t look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system.

A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits.

Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it has done for decades, our nation’s biggest social program needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing -- in other words, a taxpayer bailout.

No one has officially announced that Social Security will be cash-negative this year. But you can figure it out for yourself, as I did, by comparing two numbers in the recent federal budget update that the nonpartisan CBO issued last week.

The first number is $120 billion, the interest that Social Security will earn on its trust fund in fiscal 2010 (see page 74 of the CBO report). The second is $92 billion, the overall Social Security surplus for fiscal 2010 (see page 116).

This means that without the interest income, Social Security will be $28 billion in the hole this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

The US Is Not the Only Nation with a Debt Problem

Bible Prophecy Today (Link) - Todd Strandberg (February 1, 2010)

For the past few years, I’ve been regularly reporting on America ’s growing national debt load. We are not the only nation spending more than we take in. In fact, there are several countries with a much larger problem with public debt--Greece , Portugal, and Japan are three examples. They all suffered downgrades last week to their credit worthiness.

Greece has an out-of-control budget deficit. It has been in the news concerning whether it may need an emergency loan from fellow EU members to avoid default. “If you fear a Greek crisis, then you should not only avoid government bonds but corporates as well,” said Philip Gisdakis, head of credit strategy at UniCredit SpA in Munich.

Portugal also has runaway spending. Moody’s ratings agency warned that Portugal ’s credit rating could suffer unless its deficit was reduced. Last week, Portugal reported a larger-than-expected budget deficit of 9.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2009.

‘Iran will deliver telling blow to global powers on Feb. 11’

Press TV (Link) (February 1, 2010)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the nation will deliver a harsh blow to the “global arrogance” on this year’s anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

“The Islamic Revolution opened a window to liberty for the human race, which was trapped in the dead ends of materialism,” Ahmadinejad said during a cabinet meeting on Sunday.

“If the Islamic Revolution had not occurred, liberalism and Marxism would have crushed all human dignity in their power-seeking and money-grubbing claws. Nothing would have remained of human and spiritual principles,” he added.

Ahmadinejad said that in the three decades of its history, the Islamic Revolution had inspired some great developments in the world.

The Iranian president made the remarks as the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution approaches.

Iranians are expected to pour into the streets on February 11 to celebrate the occasion in public rallies across the country, as they have done annually over the past three decades.

A One-World Government? God is Laughing!

Until Jesus Comes (Link) - Heidi Swander (January 31, 2010)

Yes, there really is a collaboration to create a one-world government.  This government is to include a ten-region world government, a new international monetary system and the uniting of all world religions into what they, themselves, call a New World Order.  Sound familiar?

Before you write me off as a quack job, you should take a look at the already-completed Constitution for the Federation of Earth.  This document was created over a period of nine years (1982 – 1991) through the efforts of an organization known as The World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA), established in 1958.

According to Gary Kah, former high-ranking government liaison and author of the book En Route to Global Occupation, WCPA has been “charged with the task of actually bringing us into the New World Order.”  They’ve gotten a pretty good jump-start on their mission.

“As part of its role of putting the final pieces into place [for a world government] the association has assembled a Provisional World Parliament,” Kah explains.  The 12^th session of that parliament is scheduled for June 2010 in Zagreb, Croatia.

A number of the most powerful New Age (read: occult) organizations, such as Lucis Trust (originally founded by occultist Alice Bailey as The Lucifer Press — a printing and distribution arm for the Theosophical Society) and World Union (another occult organization heavily involved in the politics of planning and implementation of the world government) are well connected with all the one-world political societies, which in turn feed directly into the World Constitution and Parliament Association.