18/04/2012

                     Struggle for Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:3; Luke 21:20)

False start: Israeli-Palestinian talks collapse

Palestine’s prime minister has pulled out of planned negotiations with his Israeli counterpart. The talks promised to be the first high level meeting of the two sides of the conflict in almost two years.
­It appears that expectations of the US, the main initiator of the talks, have been dashed and the last chance to bring seemingly irreconcilable opponents to the negotiation table before the US presidential elections has been lost.Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority has allegedly pulled out of talks because of possible public opposition to the meeting.

                 Damascus, Syria (Isaiah 17:1-3)

UN mission in Syria threatened as 67 killed in recent clashes


At least 67 people were killed in Syria on Tuesday, activists said, with the continued violence threatening the future of a United Nations observer mission overseeing a peace plan."There are many obstacles, and the Syrian government is not helping to ease them off, which delays the movement of the team to prepare the ground for the larger batch of observers to arrive in Syria," a western diplomat based in Syria told DPA, on condition of anonymity.

Activists: Despite truce, Syria troops attack Homs


BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say Syrian government forces are pounding a rebel stronghold with mortar fire, violating a week-old cease-fire the international community is reluctant to declare dead despite ongoing violence.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the regime on Wednesday resumed its attack on the city of Homs, battered by artillery for weeks.

                 Magog Invasion – Iran, Russia (Ezekiel 38-39)

Barak in Colombia: Time for Serious Sanctions on Iran

Defense Minister Ehud Barak met on Tuesday with Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos in the Colombian capital Bogota.During the meeting, which lasted for over an hour, Barak thanked Santos for his country’s support for Israel in international forums.

U.S. official says Netanyahu was fully briefed on Iran talks

After Israeli PM claimed that Iran was handed a 'freebie' at Istanbul talks, senior official says Netanyahu was fully briefed on strategy of six world powers; at next meeting, major powers to demand Iran suspend uranium enrichment at level of 20 percent at next meeting. In their upcoming round of talks next month with Iran over its nuclear program, the six major powers will demand an Iranian commitment to suspend uranium enrichment at the relatively high level of 20 percent, a senior American official said.

U.S. ambassador to Israel sounds warning on Iran 

The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Daniel B. Shapiro, Tuesday called on Egypt to honor its peace treaty with Israel and warned that the diplomatic window for Iran was "shrinking." "Egypt must honor its peace treaty with Israel," Shapiro told a luncheon of the Israel, Britain and the Commonwealth Association in Tel Aviv. "We need to establish the principle that [political] parties cannot go to the polls with a gun in one hand and a ballot in the other."

             The Rise of the East

Global military machine: Rise of Russia and China

Worldwide military spending held strong at $1.7 trillion dollars in 2011, despite the lingering global financial crisis. With US arms spending on the slide, Russia and China are on the rise. ­The data released by The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute [SIPRI] shows that despite the astronomical global arms outlays for last year, the great recession halted a decade-long trend in increased military spending.While the United States remains by far the world’s biggest spender with a defense budget of US$711 billion dollars, its military spending decreased by 1.3 per cent from the previous year.

        Famines, Drought, Floods, Earthquakes & Pestilences (Matthew 24:7-8) (Luke 21:11; 25) (Rev 6:5-8)

Underwater volcano activity resumes at Greece’s infamous Santorini volcano basin

April 17, 2012 – GREECE – Santorini’s volcanic basin is showing signs of resumed volcanic activity. According to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, satellite research tools suggest that a build-up of some 14m cubic meters of lava at a depth of 5km took place between September and January last. Widely touted by academics as the cause of the Minoan civilization’s obliteration, what is left of the volcano – a small archipelago – last witnessed significant geological activity in January of 2011.

6.2 magnitude earthquake strikes near S. Sandwich Islands

April 17, 2012 – ANTARCTICA - A shallow 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck near the Sandwich Islands around the Scotia tectonic plate. This is the third major 6.0+ magnitude earthquake to strike the planet in 16 hours. The earthquake is only one of the latest in a growing cluster of large quakes to strike the planet along plate boundaries after the massive 8.6 and 8.2 lateral slip-fault quakes off the coast of Sumatra set the entire planet reeling. Today’s 6.2 magnitude quake was rather shallow about 1 to 5 km in depth and is not expected to generate a tsunami. –The Extinction Protocol

Large explosion seen on the Sun’s northeastern limb

April 17, 2012 – SPACE – Magnetic fields on the Sun’s northeastern limb erupted around 17:45 UT on April 16th, producing one of the most visually-spectacular explosions in years. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded the blast at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. The explosion, which registered M1.7 on the Richter scale of solar flares, was not Earth-directed, but it did hurl a CME into space. 

Did N. Sumatra earthquakes set off a chain-reaction? Planet shaken by shocking number of tremors since April 11, 2012

April 17, 2012 - WORLD - The shocking number of earthquakes that have rattled the globe, especially along tectonic plate boundaries, since the double 8.0+ magnitude earthquakes struck off the coast of Northern Sumatra on April 11 could be early indication the planet may be shifting towards a new catastrophic model. Romania’ s top seismologist, Gheorghe Marmureanu, told the Bucharest Herald: “There is no doubt something is seriously wrong. There have been too many strong earthquakes.”

6.8 magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of Papua New Guinea

April 17, 2012 – PAPUA NEW GUINEA - A 6.8-magnitude quake struck off the northeast of Papua New Guinea on Tuesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but there was no tsunami warning issued. The quake hit at 5:13 pm (0713 GMT) 141 kilometers (88 miles) north of the country’s second largest city of Lae and 443 kilometers from the capital Port Moresby at a depth of 201 kilometers, it said.