“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”
(2 Peter 1:20)

Private Interpretation

Dear Friends,

Greetings! With what is happening in the Middle East and the Ukraine one has to wonder how far this will go and how it will end. Many commentators now appear visibly shaken and concerned that the confrontation in the Ukraine could escalate into a nuclear exchange.

Would it really be a surprise to any student of Bible prophecy if a peace covenant were to emerge from the wreckage and carnage taking place in the world today with the middle east, Syria, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinians, the Ukraine etc. Would it be startling if a man were to emerge onto the world stage who would have the extra ordinary ability and wisdom to bring a temporary settlement to the madness that is engulfing more and more of the world every day.

Would it also be shocking if this man were to confirm this Holy peace covenant for seven years ushering in the last seven years before the return of Jesus Christ to set up His thousand year reign on earth?

We don't think many students of Bible prophecy and current events would be all that surprised.

We of course don't know exactly when this will happen, it could still be well in the future but conditions today remind us of what Jesus said in Matthew, chapter sixteen: “The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.

He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.

And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowing. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

If we are on the cusp of seeing the antichrist emerge on the world scene, and many Bible scholars and teachers think we are, then there are several timed sign posts to watch out for especially in the books of Daniel and Revelation.

The one we wanted to discuss today are two verses from the book of Daniel, specifically Daniel 8:13-14.

We have debated whether to even write anything concerning this verse as it may prove redundant and unnecessary, but there is a colloquialism which says; “better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it”, and we feel this applies to Daniel 8:13-14.

We wanted to start by presenting you with some information concerning the Septuagint which we spent some time explaining in our introduction of July 5, 2014. (link)

English Translations of the Septuagint

The Septuagint has been translated a few times into English, the first one (though excluding the Apocrypha) being that of Charles Thomson in 1808; his translation was later revised and enlarged by C. A. Muses in 1954.

The translation of Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton, published in 1851, is a long-time standard. For most of the time since its publication it has been the only one readily available, and has continually been in print. It is based primarily upon the Codex Vaticanus and contains the Greek and English texts in parallel columns. There also is a revision of the Brenton Septuagint available through Stauros Ministries, called The Apostles' Bible, released in January 2008.

The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) has produced A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title (NETS), an academic translation based on standard critical editions of the Greek texts. It was published by Oxford University Press in October 2007.

The Apostolic Bible Polyglot, published in 2003, includes the Greek books of the Hebrew canon along with the Greek New Testament, all numerically coded to the AB-Strong numbering system, and set in monotonic orthography. Included in the printed edition is a concordance and index.

The Orthodox Study Bible was released in early 2008 with a new translation of the Septuagint based on the Alfred Rahlfs edition of the Greek text. To this base they brought two additional major sources. First the Brenton translation of the Septuagint from 1851. Second, Thomas Nelson Publishers granted use of the New King James Version text in the places where the translation of the LXX would match that of the Hebrew Masoretic text. This edition includes the New Testament as well, which also uses the New King James Version. It also includes extensive commentary from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.[65]

The Eastern / Greek Orthodox Bible (EOB) is an extensive revision and correction of Brenton’s translation which was primarily based on Codex Vaticanus. Its language and syntax have been modernized and simplified. It also includes extensive introductory material and footnotes featuring significant inter-LXX and LXX/MT variants. Father Nicholas King a Jesuit priest who lectures in New Testament Studies at Oxford University has completed a four volume translation of the Septuagint, begun in 2012, and this is available from Kevin Mayhew Publishers. It has a very useful mini commentary on each book which gives a flavour of what it is to be hoped is the start of accessible reasonably priced individual commentaries for the general reader. It is titled, The Old Testament. However, the most comprehensive English edition is that of Gary F. Zeolla entitled: Analytical Literal Translation of The Old Testament (Septuagint). Four volumes have already been published, and the fifth and final volume on the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books is expected to be published by LuLu Publishers in 2015. It is a word for word literal translation, rather than a dynamic equivalence, or sectarian translation. Like the NETS it has every 'Septuagintal' Book, rather than slavishly following the Hebrew canon as a template, which makes for completeness. An advantage for the beginner in using Zeolla's edition is that he can compare with the original Greek or any English translation of the Hebrew OT to see the variations between the two versions. Wikipedia

In the King James version of the Bible, which was translated from the Masoretic Hebrew scriptures, Daniel 8:13,14 reads: “Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”

In Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton's 1851 translation of the Greek Septuagint the same verses read: “And I heard one saint speaking, and a saint said to a certain one speaking, How long shall the vision continue, even the removal of the sacrifice, and the bringing in of the sin of desolation; and how long shall the sanctuary and host be trampled? 14 And he said to him, Evening and morning there shall be two thousand and four hundred days; and then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.”

There is a difference of one hundred days. The confirming of the covenant, the breaking of the covenant and the time of Jesus' return, “immediately after the tribulation” remain the same.

Let's take a moment to study what one Bible prophecy teacher had to say concerning these two verses in Daniel 8.

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Daniel 8:14

by David Brandt Berg (This has been edited from a longer document.)

March 1981

Daniel 8 Verse 14: "And he said unto me, unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." How long is it going to be from the time the daily sacrifice begins, as mentioned in the 13th verse, until the sanctuary is cleansed? The only way the sanctuary can be cleansed is at the end of the Tribulation with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the slaughter of the Antichrist forces, a casting of Satan and the Antichrist and his False Prophet into Hell and the cleansing of the whole Earth!

You're going to find out that if you figure out two thousand three hundred days, it amounts to about six years and three months. So what you're getting here is a specific exact prophecy regarding the length of time from the reinstitution of the Jewish sacrificial worship in front of the Temple.

Here we see the daily sacrifice has been restored, because now it is caused to be ceased, so therefore it must have been started. Therefore he's telling us the length of time from the reinstitution of the daily sacrifice before a restored rebuilt Temple, a newly dedicated Temple built in these Last Days by the Jews under the Antichrist and his seven-year Pact of peace with the World's greatest religions.

How long is it going to take them to get that temple rebuilt. It is right here as clear as can be. The Bible in other places tells us that the Pact that he makes is for seven years, the Pact that the Antichrist makes which literally makes him ruler of the World, as well then to share and internationalize Jerusalem.

The Pact that he makes is for seven years and we've already studied how that he breaks the pact in the middle of the seven years, at the end of 3 1/2 years, and follows it with a period of great persecution and chaos of all religions because he sets himself up as God then. He sets his idol or image up in the Holy place and tries to force the World to worship him as God.

Here is one saint speaking and asking a question to another saint. Apparently Daniel is in the land of saints and the land of saintly spirits and angels, he's getting visions and dreams and messages from God and he's not the only one asking questions. He hears one saint ask another: "How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation and the trodding under of the sanctuary and the host"--for the 3 1/2 years of Great Tribulation, in other words. And someone tells him, two thousand and three hundred days--six years and three months, and then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.

The only possible way and time the sanctuary could then be cleansed is by the coming of Jesus Christ and the end of the Antichrist rule. Jesus puts an end to the Tribulation, an end to this desolation, an end to this abomination, an end to this contamination and this desecration.

But how long is this going to last? Well, he says, until the sanctuary shall be cleansed will be six years and three months. Well, isn't that interesting, because the Antichrist makes a Pact for seven years and that leaves a nine month difference, doesn't it?

Which shows that from the time that the antichrist makes this seven-year pact, the Jews don't waste any time rebuilding their Temple, because within nine months they have rebuilt the Temple and restored Temple worship and resumed the daily sacrifices exactly six years and three months from the End.

Exactly nine months after the antichrist rule has begun, exactly nine months after this international Pact is made by the Antichrist between the World's powers and three great religions, to internationalize Jerusalem and to make peace between the great powers and religions of the World, by the end of the first nine months of that seven-year period of the Antichrist reign and rule, the Jews will have rebuilt their Temple and restored their Temple worship and resumed the daily sacrifices. It has to be then, according to this exact time prophecy giving the exact number of days, as 2300 days later the sanctuary will be cleansed by the coming of Jesus Christ .

Beloved, would you like to predict the exact day of the coming of Jesus? Then I suggest that you watch the news for the proclamation of this great Pact, this great religious Treaty between the World's three great religions made by the Antichrist, this coming great World leader, this superman, this Devil-man who is going to rule the World! From the day he makes that Pact, God's Word tells us clearly it's going to be exactly seven years till Jesus comes and ends his reign! Would you like to know when the Temple is going to be rebuilt and rededicated and sacrificial worship restored?--Exactly nine months after the Pact, and you can count the days from then--2300 days until the sanctuary is cleansed by the coming of Christ!

Would you like another prediction of exactly how to figure out the day of Christ's coming? Well, when you see and hear on television that the Antichrist has broken the pact and has abandoned it in the midst of the seven years, at the end of first 3 1/2, from then on, 1260 days later, Jesus will come--you'll again know exactly the time of Christ's coming.

Don't tell me we can't figure it out or won't know the day of His coming! The Apostles in Jesus' day didn't know, Jesus Himself didn't know, the angels of Heaven didn't know, but God knew, and He said, "Of that day knoweth no man"--at that time nobody knew. Right now, nobody knows exactly the day of Jesus' coming. But according to God's own Word you can measure the time to the exact day of Jesus' coming by counting the days of Daniel 8 and counting the days of Daniel 12 and counting the days of Revelation 12!

It will be exactly 2300 days from the restoration of the temple sacrifices at Jerusalem, no doubt the dedication of the newly rebuilt Temple by the Jews. It will also be exactly 1260 days from the day that the Antichrist breaks that Covenant and sets up his image there, the Abomination of Desolation, and stops the sacrificial worship and demands that the whole World worship him as God.

From the day the antichrist makes that treaty, it will be exactly seven years. And from the day Temple worship, sacrificial offerings are resumed it will be 2300 days. And from the day of the breaking of that treaty, the holy Covenant, the religious Pact with those great religions by the Antichrist, when he breaks it in the midst of those seven years at the end of the first 3 1/2 and the beginning of the next 3 1/2, God's Word by the mouth of His Own prophet right here says it'll be 1260 days, exactly 3 1/2 years.

From the day the antichrist takes over and makes that covenant you will know virtually the day of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it will be confirmed again when the Jews resume sacrificial worship before the Temple, it'll be just 2300 days later. And it will be confirmed again when the Antichrist breaks the Pact in the midst of the seven years, at the end of the first 3 1/2, and it'll be exactly 3 1/2 years longer and to the day, 1260 days later.

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As we said previously this possible one hundred day difference poses no problem concerning the timing of the confirming of the covenant, the breaking of the covenant, and the return of Jesus.There is however one possible problem though if the 2400 day prophecy is correct which we will explain in a moment.

Making matters a little more difficult, as you read above from Wikipedia, the Septuagint has had several English translations.

The two oldest English translations of the Septuagint are the 1808 Charles Thomson translation and the 1851 Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton translation. These both say 2400 days.

From what we have been able to ascertain the Brenton translation is the most highly regarded and read of the English translations.

Charles Thomson 1808 translation of Daniel 8:14

The C. A. Muses 1954 translation which is a revision of the Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton we were not able to obtain.

The Apostolic Bible Polyglot, the NETS, and the Analytical Literal Translation of the Old Testament all say 2300 days. So there is an obvious discrepancy. With not knowing ancient Koine Greek or knowing anyone who does we frankly have gone about as far as we can.

Why is any of this important at all. What difference does the one hundred days make.

Well, should it possibly be 2400 days, and we again are not claiming to know that it is, that would mean the the Jewish temple would be built in just under six months rather than nine months.

And again what difference does this make? If you are using the King James Bible, which a great many Christians believe is the most accurate English Bible, and you start counting 2300 days, and the Temple is actually built in just under six months rather than nine months, that would mean by the time those 2300 are up, Jesus would not actually be returning for another one hundred days, just over three months.

You could think the prophecies are wrong, and maybe the whole thing is wrong, you might think you missed the Rapture, like in the Left Behind series. It could possibly really shake your faith, or maybe not. It could cause some real confusion.

As we said earlier there may be no problem with the 2300 day prophecy in the King James Bible, but it is better to have the warning and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

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Addendum:

Charles Thomson

From Wikipedia

Charles Thomson (November 29, 1729 – August 16, 1824) was a Patriot leader in Philadelphia during the American Revolution and the secretary of the Continental Congress (1774–1789) throughout its existence.

Biography[edit]

Thomson was born in Gorteade townland, Maghera parish, County Londonderry, Ireland, to Scots-Irish parents. After the death of his mother in 1739, his father emigrated to the British colonies in America with Charles and two or three brothers. The father died at sea, and the penniless boys were separated in America. Charles was cared for by a blacksmith in New Castle, Delaware, and was educated in New London, Pennsylvania. In 1750 he became a tutor in Latin at the Philadelphia Academy.

During the French and Indian War, Thomson was an opponent of the Pennsylvania proprietors' American Indian policies. He served as secretary at the Treaty of Easton (1758), and wrote An Enquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the Delaware and Shawanese Indians from the British Interest (1759), which blamed the war on the proprietors. He was allied with Benjamin Franklin, the leader of the anti-proprietary party, but the two men parted politically during the Stamp Act crisis in 1765. Thomson became a leader of Philadelphia's Sons of Liberty. He was married to the sister of Benjamin Harrison V, another signer, as delegate, of the Declaration of Independence.

Thomson was a leader in the revolutionary crisis of the early 1770s. John Adams called him the "Samuel Adams of Philadelphia". Thomson served as the secretary of the Continental Congress through its entirety. Through those 15 years, the Congress saw many delegates come and go, but Thomson's dedication to recording the debates and decisions provided continuity. Along with John Hancock, president of the Congress, Thomson's name (as secretary) appeared on the first published version of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.

Thomson's Great Seal proposal; a modified version was accepted

Thomson's role as secretary to Congress was not limited to clerical duties. According to biographer Boyd Schlenther, Thomson "took a direct role in the conduct of foreign affairs." Fred S. Rolater has suggested that Charles Thomson was essentially the "Prime Minister of the United States". Thomson is also noted for designing, with William Barton, the Great Seal of the United States. The Great Seal played a prominent role in the January 14, 1784, (Ratification Day) ratification of the Treaty of Paris. Britain's representatives in Paris initially disputed the placement of the Great Seal and Congressional President Thomas Mifflin's signature, until mollified by Benjamin Franklin.

But Thomson's service was not without its critics. James Searle, a close friend of John Adams, and a delegate, began a cane fight on the floor of Congress against Thomson over a claim that he was misquoted in the "Minutes" that resulted in both men being slashed in the face. Such brawls on the floor were not uncommon, and many of them were promoted by argument over Thomson's recordings. Political disagreements prevented Thomson from getting a position in the new government created by the United States Constitution. Thomson resigned as secretary of Congress in July 1789 and handed over the Great Seal, bringing an end to the Continental Congress. He spent his final years at Harriton House in Bryn Mawr working on a translation of the Bible. He also published a synopsis of the four evangelists in 1815. In retirement, Thomson also pursued his interests in agricultural science and beekeeping.

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Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton

From Wikipedia

Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton (1807–1862) was the son of Sir Jahleel Brenton. Lancelot was the second of four children and his key claim to fame was as the translator of one of only two English translations of the Septuagint. His father, Jahleel, was a Vice Admiral in the British Navy and a contemporary of Nelson. Jahleel was later made a Baronet for services to the crown. It was this title that Lancelot Brenton inherited. Lancelot however didn't inherit his father's acceptance of war, when he re-edited his father's memoirs he made it clear that he was a pacifist.

He trained for ministry at Oriel College and was ordained by the Church of England in 1830. He had left the established church by December 1831 to found an independent chapel in Bath with a friend, William Moreshead. He had met Darby at Oxford in 1830. By 1835 this chapel was associated with the Brethren and by 1837 Lancelot was contributing to "The Christian Witness", an early Brethren journal, and appears to have cemented his relationship with the emerging Brethren movement.

On the death of his father in 1844, Lancelot became Sir Charles. He moved to the Isle of Wight from Bath in 1849 where, although married, he died childless, the second and last Baronet of his line.

At time of writing, his translation of the Septuagint was the second and the latest English translation available. It was first released in 1844 and has gone through several reprints and formats in the over a century and a half since.

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THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

Want world peace? ‘Build 3rd Temple’

Organization launches campaign to raise funds for draft plans of site, which, if built, it says, would ‘usher in universal harmony’

BY BEN SALES

July 29, 2014

The Temple Institute, which has recreated 60 vessels to be used in a Third Temple and which sponsors educational programs about the temple worldwide, has created a $100,000 Indiegogo campaign to draft plans for a Third Temple.

Building the temple, says the Indiegogo campaign statement, would “usher in a new era of universal harmony and peace,” as prophesied in the Bible.

“It is not enough to wait and pray for the Third Temple,” the statement added. “It is a Biblical obligation to build it.”

According to Rabbi Chaim Richman, the institute’s international director, the temple would stand in the present location of the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine. Muslims revere the mount as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary.

But Richman did not set a target date for breaking ground for the construction project. The temple will be built, he told JTA, when “the world will want us to build the temple.”

“The Jewish people have a responsibility to all of humanity, including Islam,” Richman said. “I don’t expect it to come about through any sort of confrontation or any sort of military maneuver. The Jews have to represent good in the world, light in the world.”

The Indiegogo campaign is tied to the upcoming fast of Tisha b’Av, which mourns the First and Second Temples’ destruction. Richman quoted the verse in Isaiah calling the temple “a house of prayer for all nations.”

But recently, the Temple Mount has been the scene of confrontation.

Palestinian groups have repeatedly protested Jewish groups visiting the mount in recent weeks. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told JTA that on Saturday, a group of Palestinian rioters burned and heavily damaged the police stand on the mount.

Referring to these incidents, Richman said the mount “is overrun by terrorists. This is a tangible fact.” He said rebuilding the temple is the next step to Israel’s current military operation in the Gaza Strip.

“We cannot be the people we’re supposed to be without the Holy Temple,” he said. “So what if we root out the [Gaza] tunnels and missiles? Then what are we doing with our lives? The redemption of humanity is dependent on the Jewish people.”

Launched on July 27, the campaign has so far raised $3,991. It will run until Rosh Hashana, on Sept. 25.

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Global Research (While we may not agree with every conclusion reached, and may also not agree with some of the word usage, this article never the less we believe illustrates how more and more are viewing today's world. No wonder they will follow a man who will bring order out of chaos. Ed)

The Emperor’s Rage: Let Chaos Envelop the World!

By Prof. James Petras

Global Research, July 29, 2014

Chaos reigns and spreads as enraged leaders in the US, Europe and their clients and allies pursue genocidal wars.

Mercenary wars in Syria; Israel’s terror bombing on Gaza; proxy wars in the Ukraine, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Somalia.

Tens of millions of refugees flee scenes of total destruction. Nothing is sacred. There are no sanctuaries. Homes, schools, hospitals and entire families are targeted for destruction.

Chaos by Design

At the center of chaos, the wild-eyed President Obama strikes blindly, oblivious of the consequences, willing to risk a financial debacle or a nuclear war. He enforces sanctions against Iran; imposes sanctions on Russia; sets up missile bases five launch minutes from Moscow; sends killer drones against Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan; arms mercenaries in Syria; trains and equips Kurds in Iraq and pays for Israel’s savagery against Gaza.

Nothing works.

The Chaos President is blind to the fact that starving one’s adversaries does not secure submission: it unites them to resist. Regime change, imposing proxies by force and subterfuge, can destroy the social fabric of complex societies: Million of peasants and workers become uprooted refugees. Popular social movements are replaced by organized criminal gangs and bandit armies.

Central America, the product of decades of US direct and proxy military interventions, which prevented the most basic structural changes, has become a chaotic, unlivable inferno for millions. Tens of thousands of children flee from their ‘free market’- induced mass poverty and militarized state and gangster violence. Children refugees at the US border are arrested in mass, and imprisoned in makeshift detention camps, subject to psychological, physical and sexual abuse by officials and guards on the inside. On the outside, these pitiful children are exposed to the racist hatred of a frightened US public unaware of the dangers these children are escaping and the US government’s role in creating these hells.

The US-backed Kiev aviation authorities re-directed international passenger airlines to fly over war zones bristling with anti-aircraft missiles while Kiev’s jets bombed the rebellious cities and towns. One flight was shot down and nearly 300 civilians perished. Immediately an explosion of accusations from Kiev blaming Russian President Putin flooded Western media with no real facts to explain the tragedy/crime. War-crazy President Obama and the slavering prime ministers of the EU ejaculated ultimatums, threatening to convert Russia into a pariah state. ‘Sanctions, sanctions, everywhere . . . but first… France must complete its $1.5 billion sale to the Russian navy.’ And the City of London exempts the Russian oligarchs from the ‘sanctions’, embedded as they are in London’s money-laundering, parasitical FIRE (Fire, Insurance and Real Estate) economy. The Cold War has returned and has taken an ugly turn… with exceptions…for business.

Confrontation among nuclear powers is imminent: And the maniacal Baltic States and Poland bray the loudest for war with Russia, oblivious to their positions on the front lines of incineration…

Each day Israel’s war machine chews up more bodies of Gaza’s children while spitting out more lies. Cheering Israeli Jews perch on their fortified hills to celebrate each missile strike on the apartments and schools in the densely populated Shejaiya neighborhood of besieged Gaza. A group of orthodox and secular entrepreneurs in Brooklyn have organized group tours to visit the Holy Sites by day and enjoy the Gaza pyrotechnics by night . . . night goggles to view the fleeing mothers and burning children are available at a small extra charge…

Again the US Senate votes unanimously in support of Israel’s latest campaign of mass murder – no crime is depraved enough to ruffle the scruples of America’s leaders. They hew close to a script from the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations. Together they embrace a Beast from the Apocalypse gnawing on the flesh and bones of Palestine.

But, Sacre Bleu! France’s Zionists have prevailed on the ‘President-Socialiste’ Hollande. Paris bans all anti-Israel demonstrations despite the clear reports of genocide. Demonstrators supporting the Gazan resistance are gassed and assaulted by special riot police – ‘Socialist’ Hollande serves the demands of powerful Zionist organizations while trashing his country’s republican traditions and its sacred ‘Rights of Man’.

The young protestors of Paris fought back with barricades and paving stones in the finest traditions of the Paris Commune waving the flags of a free Palestine. Not a single ‘red banner’ was in sight: The French ‘left’ were under their beds or off on vacation.

There are ominous signs away from the killing fields. The stock market is rising while the economy stagnates. Wild speculators have returned in their splendor widening the gap between the fictitious and real economy before the ‘deluge’, the chaos of another inevitable crash.

In industrial America’s once great Detroit, clean water is shut-off to tens of thousands of poor citizens unable to pay for basic services. In the midst of summer, urban families are left to defecate in hallways, alleyways and empty lots. Without water the toilets are clogged, children are not washed. Roscoe, the master plumber, says the job is way beyond him.

According to our famed economists, the economy of Detroit is ‘recovering . . . profits are up, it’s only the people who are suffering’. Productivity has doubled, speculators are satisfied; pensions are slashed and wages are down; but the Detroit Tigers are in first place.

Public hospitals everywhere are being closed. In the Bronx and Brooklyn, emergency rooms are overwhelmed. Chaos! Interns work 36 hour shifts . . . and the sick and injured take their chances with a sleep-deprived medic. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, private clinics and ‘boutique’ practices for the elite proliferate.

Scandinavians have embraced the putschist power grab in Kiev. The Swedish Foreign Minister Bildt bellows for a new Cold War with Russia. The Danish emissary and NATO leader, Rasmussen, salivates obscenely at the prospect of bombing and destroying Syria in a replay of NATO’s ‘victory’ over Libya.

The German leaders endorse the ongoing Israeli genocide against Gaza; they are comfortably protected from any moral conscience by their nostalgic blanket of ‘guilt’ over Nazi crimes 70 years ago.

Saudi-funded Jihadi terrorists in Iraq showed their “infinite mercy” by… merely driving thousands of Christians from ancient Mosul. Nearly 2,000 years of a continuous Christian presence was long enough! At least most escaped with their heads still attached.

Chaos Everywhere

Over one hundred thousand agents of the US National Security Agency are paid to spy on two million Muslim citizens and residents in the USA. But for all the tens of billions of dollars spent and tens of millions of conversations recorded, Islamic charities are prosecuted and philanthropic individuals are framed in ‘sting operations’.

Where the bombs fall no one knows, but people flee. Millions are fleeing the chaos.

But there is no place to go! The French invade half a dozen African countries but the refugees are denied refuge in France. Thousands die in the desert or drown crossing the Med. Those who do make it, are branded criminals or relegated to ghettos and camps.

Chaos reigns in Africa, the Middle East, Central America and Detroit. The entire US frontier with Mexico has become a militarized detention center, a multi-national prison camp. The border is unrecognizable to our generation.

Chaos reigns in the markets. Chaos masquerades as trade sanctions: Iran yesterday, Russia today and China tomorrow. Washington, Watch out! Your adversaries are finding common ground, trading, forging agreements, building defenses; their ties are growing stronger.

Chaos reigns in Israel. War-obsessed Israelis discover that the Chosen People of God can also bleed and die, lose limbs and eyes in the alleyways of Gaza where poorly armed boys and men stand their ground. When the cheers turn to jeers, will they re-elect Bibi, their current kosher butcher? The overseas brethren, the fundraisers, the lobbyists and the armchair verbal assassins will automatically embrace some new face, without questions, regrets or (god forbid!) self-criticism –if it’s ‘good for Israel and the Jews’ it’s got to be right!

Chaos reigns in New York. Judicial rulings favor the pirates and their vulture funds demanding one-thousand percent returns on old Argentine bonds. If Argentina rejects this financial blackmail and defaults, shock waves will ripple throughout global financial markets. Creditors will tremble in uncertainty: Fears will grow over a new financial crash. Will they squeeze out another trillion-dollar bailout?

But where’s the money? Printing presses are working day and night. There are only a few life boats . . . enough for the bankers and Wall Street, the other ninety-nine percent will have to swim or feed the sharks.

The corrupted financial press now advises warlords on which country to bomb and politicians on how to impose economic sanctions; they no longer provide sound economic information or advise investors on markets. Their editorial rants will incite an investor flight to buy king-sized mattresses for stuffing as the banks fail.

The US President is on the verge of a mental breakdown: He’s a liar of Munchausen proportions with a bad case of political paranoia, war hysteria and megalomania. He’s gone amok, braying, ‘I lead the world: its US leadership or chaos’. Increasingly the world has another message: ‘It’s the US and chaos.’

Wall Street is abandoning him. The Russians have double-crossed him. The Chinese merchants are now doing business everywhere we used to be and we ought to be. They’re playing with loaded dice. The stubborn Somalis refuse to submit to a Black President: they reject this ‘ML King with drones’ . . . The Germans suck on their thumbs in total stupor as Americans monitor and record their every conversation…for their own safety! “Our corporations are ingrates after all we have done for them”, the First Black President whines. “They flee from our taxes while we subsidize their operations!”

Final Solutions: The End of Chaos

The only solution is to move on: Chaos breeds chaos. The President strives to project his ‘Leadership’. He asks his close advisers very hard questions: “Why can’t we bomb Russia, just like Israel bombs Gaza? Why don’t we build an ‘Iron Dome’ over Europe and shoot down Russian nuclear missiles while we fire upon Moscow from our new bases in Ukraine? Which countries will our ‘Dome’ protect? I am sure that the people of East Europe and the Baltic States will gladly make the supreme sacrifice. After all, their leaders were at the very front frothing for a war with Russia. Their reward, a nuclear wasteland, will be a small price to ensure our success!”

The Zionist lobby will insist our ‘Iron Dome’ covers Israel. But the Saudis may try to bribe the Russians to spare the oil fields as Moscow targets the US missile bases near Mecca. Our radio-active allies in the Middle East will just have to relocate to a new Holy Land.

Do Obama and his advisers imagine reducing the Asian population by a billion or two? Do they plan several hundred Hiroshimas because the Chinese crossed the President’s ‘red lines’: China’s economy and trade grew too fast, expanded too far, it was too competitive, too competent, too successful at gaining market shares, and they ignored our warnings and our unparalleled military might.

Most of Asia will inhale nuclear dust, millions of Indians and Indonesians will perish as collateral damage. Their survivors will feast on ‘radiated fish’ in a glowing sea.

Beyond Chaos: The New American Way:

Because our ‘Iron Dome’ will have failed us, we will have to re-emerge out of toxic ashes and crawl from our bunkers, dreaming of a New America free from wars and poverty. The Reign of Chaos will have ended. The ‘peace and order’ of the graveyard will reign supreme.

The emperors will be forgotten.

And we never will have found out who fired that missile at the doomed Malaysian airliner with its 300 passengers and crew. We will have lost count of the thousands of Palestinian parents and children slaughtered in Gaza by the Chosen People of Israel. We will not know how the sanctions against Russia panned out.

It won’t matter in the post-nuclear age, after the Chaos…

***

PRESSTV

US sends 'very clear message to Israel': International lawyer

Sat Jul 26, 2014 3:28PM GMT

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s strong criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza indicates a “fundamental change in policy” by the US government and is a “clear message” to Israel, an international lawyer says.

In a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Brzezinski, political scientist, geo-strategist, and former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, said Netanyahu is isolating Israel and “endangering its longer-range future.”

“This is not some third-rate stringer or third-rate pundit,” Barry Grossman told Press TV in a phone interview on Saturday. “We are talking here about a former national security advisor, current advisor to the Obama administration and senior member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).”

“We have to assume that he has chosen his words very carefully and that, indeed, they have probably been vetted by the Obama administration which is prevented by politics from expressing that which Brzezinski is saying,” the analyst said.

“There is every reason to assume that his recent statements are being made by design with the intention of sending a very clear message to Israel,” Grossman explained.

Brzezinski told CNN that Netanyahu’s strategy in the Gaza Strip will not succeed.

“I think he [Netanyahu] is making a very serious mistake. When Hamas, in effect, accepted the notion of participation in the Palestinian leadership it acknowledged the determination of that leadership to seek a peaceful solution from Israel - with Israel. That was a real option. They should have persisted in that,” he said.

“Instead Netanyahu launched the campaign of defamation against Hamas, seized on the killing of three innocent Israeli kids to immediately charge Hamas with having done it without any evidence, and has used that to stir up public opinion in Israel in order to justify this attack on Gaza, which is so lethal,” Brzezinski added.

“I think he is isolating Israel. He's endangering its longer-range future. And I think we ought to make it very clear that this is a course of action which we thoroughly disapprove and which we do not support and which may compel us and the rest of the international community to take some steps of legitimizing Palestinian aspirations perhaps in the UN,” he stated.

Grossman said that, “the substance and intensity of [Brzezinski’s] remarks directed at Netanyahu are a very significant development and signals the possibility of a fundamental change in policy by the Obama administration.”

“This is very significant. He berated Netanyahu in the strongest possible language,” he added.

Israeli warplanes and tanks have been pounding numerous sites inside the Gaza Strip and killing innocent residents of the impoverished Palestinian enclave since July 8.

About 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded since the Israeli military first launched its onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip.

***

PCR

ISRAEL IS STEALING AND MURDERING ITS WAY THROUGH PALESTINE

The Moral Failure Of The West

by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

JULY 30, 2014

Readers are asking for my take on the Israel-Gaza situation, and, believe it or not, Oxford University’s famous debating society, the Oxford Union, invited me to debate the issue.

I replied to the Oxford Union that I was unprepared to take responsibility for the Palestinians without undergoing the extensive preparation that an Oxford Union debate deserves and requires. Unless things have changed since my time at Oxford, one prevails in a Union debate by anticipating every argument of one’s opponent and smashing the arguments with humor and wit. Facts seldom, if ever, carry the day, and sometimes not even wit and humor if the audience is already committed to the outcome by the prevailing propaganda. There is no time or energy in my overfull schedule for such preparation plus time away and jet lag.

Moreover, I am not an expert on Israel’s conquest and occupation of Palestine. I know more than most people. I was rescued from Zionist propaganda by Israeli historians, such as Ilan Pappe, by Jewish intellectuals, such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, by documentary film makers, such as John Pilger, by Israeli journalists such as Uri Avnery and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and by an Israeli houseguest who is an Israeli member of an Israeli peace group that opposes Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes, villages, and orchards in order to build apartment blocks for settlers.

There is only one take on the current Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, which Netanyahu, the demonic Israeli leader, declares will be a “protracted campaign” this time. We are witnessing yet again Israeli war crimes that are supported by the Great Moral West that is so concerned about the deaths of 290 passengers on MH-17 that they are about to drive the world to a major war, while Palestinian casualties pile up so fast that they are out of date by the time you put the numbers in a column. So far more than 1,200 deaths, with injuries to 2,000 children, 1,170 women, and 257 elderly.

Reading the Western Media, watching Western TV, and listening to Western radio, one is left with the propaganda that the Palestinians are to blame for the Israeli attack on Gaza, just as one is left with the propaganda that the Malaysian airliner deaths are Russia’s fault. There is no evidence, but propaganda does not require evidence. Just repetition.

The Gaza strip, a ghetto full of Palestinians evicted from their homes and villages in the West Bank, is one of the most densely populated areas on earth where life with scant resources is difficult. Israel is currently in the process of shrinking Gaza by 44 percent, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, is preparing another “emergency” aid package consisting of US tax dollars to finance Israel’s slaughter and compression of Palestinian lives. (See:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/28/as-israel-enforces-its-buffer-zone-gaza-shrinks-by-40-per-cent.html , http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39255.htm, andhttp://news.antiwar.com/2014/07/28/senate-leader-israel-may-need-more-us-aid-for-war/print/)

One would think that the Great Moral West would be discussing sanctions on Israel and on Washington’s stooge government in Kiev, which is bombing civilian homes, apartment complexes, and infrastructure in provinces where the people object to the Russophobic government installed by Washington in place of the one that they elected. But the Great Moral West only aids the perpetrators of death and destruction, not the victims.

Palestinians are being dispossessed and exterminated exactly as were the native American Indians. On occasion Israeli officials have said that they are only following America’s lead in clearing the land of undesirables. This is my take on what is one of the West’s great moral failings:

Israel Is Stealing and Murdering Its Way Through Palestine

Paul Craig Roberts

As Zionists have endeavored to teach the world for decades, Israel is not subject to criticism. Only Jew-haters, anti-semites, and people who want to gas Jews and boil them in oil criticize Israel. Israel is above criticism, because Israelis are God’s Chosen People and despite being God’s Chosen People suffered the Holocaust.

This means that the Israeli government, like the one in Washington, can do whatever it wants and remain above criticism.

Since the 1940s Zionists have been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians. The majority of Palestinians have been removed from their homes and their country. They exist in refugee camps in other countries and 1.5 million are concentrated in the Gaza Ghetto, which is blockaded by Israel on one end and by the Washington paid Egyptians on the other.

This makes it convenient for Israel from time to time to attack the civilian population and civilian infrastructure in Gaza with military force. So far in Israel’s latest war crime, Israel has murdered more than 1,200 Palestinians, largely women and children. You will seldom see the photos of the destruction in the American media, but RT provides a few glimpses. http://rt.com/news/175852-gaza-ceasefire-deathtoll-thousand/

Israel is always the aggressor but always takes the role of the victim. Palestinian women and children are all subhumans–”snakes” as one Israeli politician put it–who sneak into Israel through secret tunnels (whose existence is akin to Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction) wearing suicide bomb belts and blow up innocent Israelis along with themselves while Israelis sit in cafes peacefully discussing philosophical issues and the latest news. To stop this slaughter of innocent Israelis, Israel has to blow up Palestinian hospitals, schools, and civilian homes and apartment blocks.

These unmistakable war crimes, these crimes against humanity are all ignored by the great moral arbiters of the world–the Governments of the West who are shaking their fingers not at Israel but their fists at Russia.

Western governments ignore Israel’s war crimes but not all Western peoples comply with this neglect. Many thousands of demonstrators against Israel have been in the streets in South America, London, Paris, Germany, Dublin, and Israel’s own Tel Aviv. http://rt.com/news/175860-london-gaza-protest-march/But don’t look for much reporting of these demonstrations in the American presstitute media.

The American presstitute media is focused on those who died in the downing of the Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine, in order to blame those 290 deaths on Russia. As far as the American presstitute media is concerned, the murder of 1,200 Palestinian deaths is not happening or if it is, the Palestinians deserve it for responding to Israel’s oppression by firing in frustration primitive rockets that seldom, if ever, hit their targets.

What is another 1,200 murdered Palestinians? Who cares? Not Washington or the British PM in Whitehall and certainly not the Israelis. As far as Israel and the Great Moral West is concerned, 1,200 murdered Palestinians amount to nothing. They are not even chafe in the wind.

The last time Israel attacked the civilians in Gaza, a distinguished Israeli jurist, himself a Zionist, prepared a case for the UN that Israel had committed war crimes. On Israel’s orders the craven but very obedient US Congress passed a resolution denouncing the distinguished jurist for defaming the pure and innocent Israeli government. The pressure from Washington and Israel on the jurist broke his commitment to truth, and he retracted his findings.

This is what the Israel Lobby and the craven American presstitute media do to everyone who criticizes Israel’s crimes against humanity and Washington’s protection of Israel’s crimes. Anytime you see a person attacked by the Israel Lobby, you know for certain that the person under attack is the salt of the earth. The distinctive mark of a moral human being is to be attacked by the Israel Lobby and the presstitute American media.

While Israel murders Palestinians in Gaza with attacks on hospitals, schools, and civilian apartment blocks, Washington and its puppets in Kiev attack civilians in apartment blocks in the former Russian provinces of Ukraine who object to Washington’s overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine and Washington’s installation of a Russophobic Russian-hating government in its place.

Washington has declared those in Ukraine who object to Washington’s takeover of their country to be “terrorists” and is seeking legislation that will permit US troops legally to enter Ukraine to suppress the “terrorists.”

David Ward, a member of the British Parliament, who has the right as a British citizen and member of Parliament to express his opinion, said that if he lived in Gaza under Israeli oppression, he would likely fire a rocket into Israel.

The British media and government is yet to criticize Israel for its crimes, but instantly attacked Ward for his “vile comments.” A Conservative member of Parliament, Nadhim Zahawi wrote the Metropolitan Police demanding an investigation into Ward’s statement “as a matter of urgency.” The Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps declared Ward’s statement to be an “incitement to violence,” a felony. The craven Labour Party declared Ward’s opinion to be “so vile and irresponsible” that “it defied belief.”http://rt.com/uk/174920-david-ward-israel-tweet/

The Liberal Democrats of which Ward is a member “utterly condemned” Ward’s remarks and declared that Ward would be subject to disciplinary hearings and may permanently be expelled from the party.

There you have it. A member of Parliament in the country that invented freedom of speech expresses an honest opinion, and he is dead meat. Ward’s harmless remarks killed no one. The Israelis with weapons supplied by Washington have, at this time of writing murdered more than 1,200 people. But it is Ward who must be restrained, not Israel. Ward’s remarks are declared “vile and irresponsible” but not Israel’s murder of 1,200 people.

The US and UK pretend to be countries that are not afraid of the truth, where there is free inquiry and freedom to express one’s views, but it is all a great lie.

The US and UK are the two greatest threats to free speech on the face of the earth. In the UK no truth contrary to the line is permissible. In the US people who speaks the truth is put on the Watch List.

How much longer will the governments of the rest of the world regard the US and UK as homes of free speech and uplifting Western morality?

In America the success of Israeli propaganda, never challenged of course by the US media, exceeds the success of Washington’s own propaganda. Most Americans believe that Palestinian women and children are outfitted with explosive suicide belts and that “the snakes,” as they are described by Israeli politicians, walk into Israeli cafes and blow everyone up including themselves.

The fact of the matter is that Palestinians cannot get into Israel. Gaza is blockaded as are the few remaining Palestinian settlements in the West Bank. Israel has stolen almost all of Palestine. The few Palestinian settlements still permitted to exist are cut off by a massive wall from Israel and from each other by barbed wire and check points, cut off from hospitals and schools, from water, and from their fields and olive groves, which are being destroyed to make room for settlers‘ apartment blocks.

People this hemmed in are helpless, and the extreme right-wing Israeli settlers are moving into the few remaining Palestinian settlements evicting the Palestinians from their properties with the aid of US-provided Caterpillar tractors especially designed for uprooting Palestinian olive groves and demolishing Palestinian houses, just like the Caterpillar tractor that the Israelis ran over US citizen Rachel Corrie, murdering this protesting US citizen in cold blood. Yes, you are correct, the Great Moral US government did nothing about it. Israel learned when it murdered the crew of the USS Liberty in 1967 that Israel had carte blanche from Washington to murder US citizens.

When you view the photos of Palestinians who have undergone an Israeli attack, what do you see? You see unarmed people crying, hugging dead children in their arms and one another. You never see a resolute armed people prepared to repel the next Israeli attack. You see devastated hospitals, schools, and apartment complexes and Palestinians in tears and no weapons.

What is striking about the success of Israeli propaganda is its success when all evidence is that Palestinians are pacifists, incapable of resistance. The bulk of the people in Gaza are refugees from the West Bank where their land and homes were stolen by the Great Democratic State of Israel. The Israeli destruction of Palestine has been going on for almost seven decades. And still Palestinians are not armed and have no effective military units.

After seven decades the Palestinian people remain unarmed. Hamas has a few ineffective weapons, but the people themselves are unarmed. Their response to the Israeli murders of their children, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, and friends is to cry. This is not the response of a warlike people.

In contrast, there are reports that Israeli civilians sit atop the hill overlooking Gaza on sofas that they bring along with their drinks and food and watch in glee, clapping and cheering as Israeli bombs destroy Palestinians in their homes, children in their schools, and the ill in hospitals. If this is the true face of “the only democracy in the Middle East,” it is the face of evil.

The view brainwashed into the West that Palestinians are a threat to Israel is absurd. If Palestinians are a threat and a danger to Israel, how is it possible that Palestinians are locked away into sealed ghettos in the remnants of their own country or into refugee camps in foreign countries?

As Israel’s most distinguished historian, Ilan Pappe, has related, the story of Israel is the story of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.” This story has been hidden by Western “moral” governments and by a corrupt Western media and “Christian” priests from Western populations that, possibly, would have objected, but who are now too brainwashed and disinformed to know.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.

***

***

MailOnline

Razing Gaza: Before and after satellite images show the true devastation of Israel's bombardment as 700 homes and mosques are turned to rubble and 400 craters blight the war zone

Blitzed: This map illustrates satellite-detected damage and destruction in the north-eastern portion of the Gaza Strip including areas of Gaza City, Toffah and Shija'ia

***

“CONSERVATIVES” SILENT ON THE GENOCIDE OF CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Half a million Christians have fled Mosul. Any who remain will be slaughtered

Image Credits: Twitter

by CHRISTOPHER MANION | LEW ROCKWELL BLOG | JULY 31, 2014

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) took to the House floor yesterday to condemn the silence in Washington – in both the White House and Congress — regarding the massacres of Christians in Iraq (especially) and the rest of the Middle East.

Why is Washington silent, he asks?

Here’s why.

Christian leaders in Iraq have put the blame for these atrocities squarely on George W. Bush and his invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.

Half a million Christians have fled Mosul. Any who remain will be slaughtered.

Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, head of Iraq’s Catholic Church, says that the invasion did what Moslems couldn’t do in 1500 years: destroy Christianity in Iraq.

Thus, Republicans are afraid. If they acknowledge the genocide, they fear that people will remember that it was their war that led to it. So they are silent.

Democrats are too busy attacking Christianity in the U.S.

So both parties, corrupt to the core, are silent on this holocaust.

Bush cowers, silent and sullen, behind his compound walls. When questioned about his own involvement, Cheney snarls like a trapped animal. “Blame Obama!” he sneers.

National Review’s paymasters insist that any comments mentioning the Christian holocaust be immediately deleted (just try it, here.). Apparently, there’s no money in defending Christians. And this comes from the once-respected journal that valiantly defended the rights of Christians put behind the Iron Curtain by FDR.

Pope John Paul II warned Bush before the invasion that it would cause chaos in the Middle East. Bush blew him off, and a cadre of fawning Catholics cheered — some of them my friends (Michael Novak, George Weigel, Deal Hudson, among others). William McGurn, a former Bush speechwriter who then went to work for Rupert Murdoch, actually tried to sell the story that Pope Benedict recognized that Pope John Paul’s opposition was a mistake (McGurn now edits Murdoch’s New York Post).

As this writer has repeatedly, and sadly, observed on these pages for the last decade and more, the neocons never admit their mistakes, and they never, ever apologize.

***

Zero Hedge

The Shocking Reason Putin Isn't Worried About The $50 Billion Yukos Ruling

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/28/2014 23:51

Having $50 billion of assets under potential seizure is enough to make anyone whince. However, despite a quickly worded statement on the Yukos award, Vladimir Putin seems less than anxious to find a resolution. We think we know why, and it's very concerning.

As The FT reports confirming our earlier comments:

The award is a landmark not just for its size – 20 times the previous record for an arbitration ruling. The tribunal also found definitively that Russia’s pursuit of Yukos and its independently-minded main shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a decade ago was politically motivated.

...

Though Russia cannot appeal against the award, Moscow said it would pursue all legal avenues for trying to get it “set aside”.

Even if the ruling stands, shareholders face a tortuous battle trying to enforce it. If Moscow refuses to pay, they must pursue Russian sovereign commercial assets in the 150 countries that are party to the so-called 1958 New York Convention on enforcing arbitration awards.

But perhaps this explains why Putin is not coming out swinging, as The FT concludes,

One person close to Mr Putin said the Yukos ruling was insignificant in light of the bigger geopolitical stand-off over Ukraine.

“There is a war coming in Europe,” he said. “Do you really think this matters?”

Source: The FT

***

CNN

Yukos win delivers blow to Russia's Putin

By John Defterios, CNN

July 28, 2014 -- Updated 1321 GMT (2121 HKT)

Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky stands in a Moscow courtroom on November 2, 2010.

Editor's note: John Defterios is CNN's Emerging Markets Editor and anchor of Global Exchange, CNN's business show focused on the emerging and BRIC markets. Follow John on Twitter.

(CNN) -- The brand name Yukos no longer exists and its former founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky has left Russia after being freed from jail, but a landmark ruling in the Hague released Monday ensures their legacy will live on during a sensitive period of time for Vladimir Putin.

Yukos was one of Russia's oil giants through the 1990s and until the early 2000s, when its assets were expropriated by the state after a political battle with Khodorkovsky.

Now the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in what is considered a landmark judgment, has ordered payment of damages to its former shareholders, totaling $50 billion and including interest and fees for violation of a treaty covering Russia's energy assets.

This case goes back to 2005 and strikes at the heart of Putin's tactics to strip Yukos and Khordorkovsky under charges of tax evasion.

The three judge panel called the Federation's move "equivalent of expropriation of claimants' investments." Those claimants, representing Group Menatep Ltd. or GML, include former Yukos CEO Platon Lebedev and four others who were seeking damages of up to $114 billion.

The main asset of Yukos, known as Yuganskneftegaz, was auctioned in late 2004 for just $9.3 billion and purchased by state-run Rosneft, which is now run by Putin confidant Igor Sechin.

The Russian president has big plans for Rosneft to be one of the top energy players in the world. It now has an enterprise value of $115 billion, but that is just a start with agreements signed with Exxon-Mobil, ENI of Italy and its largest shareholder BP, which has a 20% stake in the group.

Rosneft holds the position that it did not participate in the arbitrations and therefore is not bound by the rulings. In a statement it said, "Rosneft believes that all of its purchases of former Yukos assets, and all other actions taken by it with respect to Yukos were entirely lawful and proper applicable law."

The response from Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a press conference Monday was equally unforgiving about the actions taken.

"The process is not over; appellations are allowed," Lavrov said. "The Russian side, as well as agencies representing Russia in this trial will use all available legal possibilities to defend their stance."

This ruling comes as Moscow faces intense scrutiny for its support of the ongoing fight by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. Another round of European Union economic sanctions are pending after Washington proceeded to tighten the noose earlier this month.

Khodorkovsky was not part of this case, but an attorney who represented the former oligarch during his trial on charges by the Russian state said the ruling serves as a partial vindication for his former client.

According to Robert Amsterdam, "this is a very important decision to be read by all those who lose assets to autocrats." The arbitrators, he said, had "very heroically" cut through "mistruths" to find in favor of the claimants.

This ruling could not only influence Western-led sanctions on Moscow, but could potentially strain talks to find common ground between Russia, Ukraine and the European Union over future gas supplies into Europe.

The Washington Times

Arrested Oil Tycoon Passed Shares To Banker

November 2, 2003

LONDON (Agence France-Presse) - Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shares in the Russian oil giant Yukos have passed to renowned banker Jacob Rothschild, under a deal they concluded prior to Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest, the Sunday Times reported.

Voting rights to the shares passed to Mr. Rothschild, 67, under a "previously unknown arrangement" designed to take effect in the event that Mr. Khodorkovsky could no longer "act as a beneficiary" of the shares, it said.

Mr. Khodorkovsky, 40, whom Russian authorities arrested at gunpoint and jailed pending further investigation last week, was said by the Sunday Times to have made the arrangement with Mr. Rothschild when he realized he was facing arrest.

Mr. Rothschild now controls the voting rights on a stake in Yukos worth almost $13.5 billion, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Moscow.

Mr. Khodorkovsky owns 4 percent of Yukos directly and 22 percent through a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, according to Russian analysts.

From the figures reported in the Sunday Times, it appeared Mr. Rothschild had received control of all Mr. Khodorkovsky's shares.

The two have known each other for years "through their mutual love of the arts" and their positions as directors of the Open Russia Foundation, Yukos' philanthropic branch, it said.

Russian authorities Thursday froze billions of dollars of shares held by Mr. Khodorkovsky and his top lieutenants in Yukos - throwing control of the country's largest oil company into limbo and causing frenzied selling on financial markets.

Russian prosecutors said owners of the shares are still entitled to dividends and retain voting rights, but can no longer sell their stakes.

They said the freeze was necessary as collateral for the $1 billion that Mr. Khodorkovsky and his associates are accused of misappropriating during the 1990s.

Mr. Rothschild is the British head of Europe's wealthy and influential Rothschild family, and runs his own investment empire.

theguardian

To mock President Putin’s pride and test his paranoia is folly

The downing of flight MH17 was clearly an accident. This tragedy should not be used as an excuse to punish Russia.

Simon Jenkins

Thursday 24 July 2014

'Barack Obama was a wimp. François Hollande was an appeaser. David Cameron was a hypocrite.' Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Why does foreign policy default to stupid? From the moment that we heard of the Malaysian airliner shot down over Ukraine it was clearly an accident. Whoever’s finger was on the trigger, the tragedy cannot have been meant. This was not another 9/11. It was cock-up, not conspiracy.

Yet foreign policy craves conspiracy. Vladimir Putin blamed the Ukrainian government. Ukraine blamed the pro-Russian rebels. America’s UN ambassador, Samantha Power, “cannot rule out” Moscow’s responsibility. London howled blue murder all round. There had been blood. There had to be blame.

What happened was a ghastly mess in bandit country, meriting the swiftest possible restoration of dignity for the victims. Yet before even the bodies had been collected, politicians vied with each other for tightening sanctions, ending trade, expelling oligarchs and freezing bank accounts. Soon they were fighting like rats in a sack. Barack Obama was a wimp. François Hollande was an appeaser. David Cameron was a hypocrite. The philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy hurled down thunderbolts on everyone, “This is the spirit of Munich – appeasement. And it is a disgrace.”

These moments are dangerous. In 1914, the Austrian government declared the madcap shooting of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand a “Serbian government plot” and went to war. In 1983, the Russians shot down a Korean airliner that had strayed over Siberia, killing all 269 people on board. It was clearly an accident, the fighter pilots’ ground control being drunk and panicking. This intelligence was suppressed and the incident exploited to precipitate one of the most scary confrontations of the cold war.

Five years later it was America’s turn, when a US cruiser shot down an Iranian civilian Airbus A300 in Iranian airspace. The US navy wriggled and excused itself, while Iran seized on it as a crime of wanton aggression, aided by America rewarding its sailors with medals. Washington refused to admit legal liability, and took eight years to pay $62m in compensation to bereaved families.

What is terrifying is how such incidents are distorted to suit the interests of revenge. Clearly Putin has been reckless along Russia’s western frontier, backing Ukrainian rebels with enough weaponry to make accidents more likely to happen. Yet the idea that he willed the tragedy is as absurd as that Konstantin Chernenko willed the Korean massacre or Ronald Reagan the downing of an Iranian plane.

Putin must have been as appalled as anyone at the fate of the airliner. It also sabotaged his delicate power play in the region and threw him on the defensive. Intelligence from Moscow suggests that he is bruised and angry, retreating into his circle of hawkish advisers and their nationalist rhetoric. This is the moment Confucius advises us to give the enemy a bridge over which to retreat. Instead, the west’s hawks are having a field day, deriding Putin’s paranoia as if to goad him into doing something worse.

Visiting Russia in the 1990s after its humiliation in the cold war, I found it a sad and dangerous place, not unlike Germany after its defeat in 1918. Yet it was as if no western diplomat had read the Treaty of Versailles, or noted Keynes’ warning of the consequences. Much was done to build economic ties between west and east. Energy, investment and contacts flowed back and forth. Western companies cavorted with oligarchs and kleptocrats. Money stolen from the Russian people gushed into the wildcat banks of Cyprus and London and into the Swiss and British property markets. London must rank as the greatest receiver of stolen goods of all time.

So far, so good. But at the same time, Nato and the EU rolled forward over eastern Europe to the Russian frontier, as if aiming its guns at the gates of Moscow to taunt Russia for its defeat. Nato apologists argued that any country, be it Latvia, Georgia or Ukraine, should be free to join whichever club it liked (albeit objecting when Crimeans voted the other way). Yet only fools can ignore the fact of Russian pride and fear of encirclement. The post-cold war provocation of Putin was good public relations, but it was rotten history.

We are told that east Ukraine is one of many potential explosions that Putin could trigger along the Russian border, from the Baltic to the Caucasus. Everywhere are Russian minorities (or majorities) that could clash with local non-Russians. Europe’s leaders have no conceivable interest in stirring up such conflicts – and yet that was precisely what they sought to do in Georgia and Ukraine.

For Britain – or America – to try and lay down the law along Russia’s extensive borders is barking mad; to use a tragic plane accident as casus belli equally so. It is nothing but breast-beating machismo. Yet again we lurch towards the woolly-headed daftness of economic sanctions. It is beyond hypocrisy for the west to demand sanctions against Moscow when it happily buys Russian gas and sells Russia guns, ships, Knightsbridge flats and places at Eton. These double-standards are of our hand. According to the commons committee on arms exports, Britain currently sells arms worth £12bn to 27 countries listed by the Foreign Office as “of human rights concern”. It cannot enhance world peace to make Europe’s energy more expensive, Russian loans harder to get or Harrods less accessible to “Putin’s cronies”. Putin could not care less.

Economic sanctions are to modern statecraft what mounted lancers were to war in the trenches: magnificent but useless. Their continued deployment defies study after study showing them as cosmetic, cruel or counterproductive. Yet how many times has Cameron emerged from his Cobra bunker to threaten “tighter economic sanctions” against some rogue regime, to absolutely no effect? The rhetoric is always the same, to “send a message”, show resolve, impose a price, not to let “wrongdoing go unpunished”. It is as if Britain were some superannuated school prefect.

The emergence in Moscow in the 1990s of a tough, philistine nationalist like Putin was a near certainty. He may be a nasty piece of work but he runs what it is still a powerful nation. Mocking his pride and testing his paranoia is for fools. The one country that knows this and can keep a sane head on its shoulders is run by Angela Merkel. Thank goodness for Germany.

***

CNN

To punish Russia, Europe must be prepared to suffer

By Nina Dos Santos, CNN

July 28, 2014 -- Updated 1521 GMT (2321 HKT)

London (CNN) -- For months, the West has struggled to take a strong stand against Russia for its incursion into Ukraine.

And while Europe's leaders are acutely aware of the threat to peace on their Eastern flank, the countries with the most at stake have, time after time, seemed unable to present a united and resolute front.

But the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 has become a game changer -- a watershed moment which most concede would be too dangerous to let go.

And now, as Europe prepares to finally take decisive steps, its chiefs will have to recognize that, if they are to be effective, they will also have to hurt their economies.

As a block, the European Union exports about 100 billion euros worth of goods and services to Russia and takes in roughly 200 billion euros of the latter's imports.

That is money that matters, for sure, but it's not Russia's role as a consumer that would affect Europe most. Rather, it's Russia's function as a major supplier of energy.

Should Russia cut its gas to the West in response, the loss in European production would more damaging than the hit its trade balance would take.

Just as the region is trying its best to revive a stagnant economy, attempting to mend a fragile debt market and tackle high unemployment, alienating a major trading partner next door is a risk Europe's ministers are understandably loath to take.

And some countries have more to lose than others.

What is the Russian military up to now?

With its billion dollar contracts for Mistral warships -- a deal which keeps some 1,000 Frenchmen and women employed in a country with a 10% unemployment rate -- France is Europe's largest supplier of arms to Russia.

The UK also provides more minor military hardware and sells cars to Russia. With its own gas fields in the North Sea and the potential in future years to harness its shale oil, the UK does have other energy options.

However if the EU hits Russian state-owned banks, London's financial center would suffer while its luxurious residences in the capital would also become less appealing to the swathe of oligarchs who have relocated to Britain of late.

For Germany, curtailed trade with Russia could really bite. And considering as the former is Europe's biggest economy the implications would be felt well beyond its borders.

More than 6,000 German firms operate in Russia, pouring in billions of dollars in foreign direct investment. Some 300,000 German workers depend on their country's trade with Russia for their livelihoods.

Sectors like the automotive industry, defense and engineering which have haemorrhaged jobs since the 2008 crisis would be hit hard once again.

So, are such sanctions really worth it and would they work?

To answer this question it depends on what Europe hopes to achieve.

Russia's economy was already headed for a recession before Europe and the U.S. started talking tough.

Some $90 billion of capital is likely to flee its markets this year, according to the conservative estimates of Russia's central bank which was forced to pull a recent bond auction due to unfavorable market conditions.

By tightening the noose over Russia's banks, Europe hopes not only to turn the country's key industrialists away from president Putin but also to limit the Kremlin's ability to fund its banks on the international markets, meaning Russia would have to dig deep into its currency reserves and undermine the value of the Ruble -- a currency which has up until now been surprisingly unruffled.

In the longer term -- say in three to five years-- bans on equipment and so-called sensitive technologies to the energy sector could hamper Russian plans to further exploit its massive oil and gas reserves.

Presumably the EU hopes that for everyone's sake the crisis surrounding Ukraine will be solved by then.

But in the meantime, if the EU intends to send the strong message it needs, its leaders must reconcile their wish to make a point with the potential to lose a few points off of their GDP.

***

CNN

Europe hits Russia's biggest banks

By Mark Thompson

July 31, 2014: 12:28 PM ET

Sberbank serves more than half the Russian population and has millions of customers abroad.

LONDON (CNNMoney)

Europe cranked up the pressure on Russia on Thursday by including the country's top two banks on a list of sanctions.

Publishing details of new measures aimed at disrupting activity in Russia's banking, oil and arms industries, the EU said Sberbank (SBRCY)and VTB Bank were now banned from raising medium and long-term finance in Europe.

Also on the list: Gazprombank, VEB and Russian Agricultural Bank -- state-controlled banks that can no longer tap European financial markets.

Four of the banks were already subject to similar U.S. sanctions. But Sberbank had managed to escape punishment until now.

Sberbank is a Russian heavyweight, accounting for nearly 30% of all Russian banking assets.

More than half of Russia's population are Sberbank customers, and it provides nearly a third of all loans, providing vital funding for the struggling economy.

It counts France's BNP Paribas (BNPQF) as a strategic partner.

Europe has been shaken into taking tougher action by the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine earlier this month, and by Moscow's continued support for the separatist rebels Western officials blame for the crash.

Apart from restricting Russia's access to finance, Europe has imposed an arms embargo and will make it more difficult to export some oil-related equipment and technology to the energy-dependent economy.

Cold War 2.0: Hitting West's wallet

The EU had trailed the U.S. in taking action over the Ukraine crisis, largely because of fears of damaging a relationship worth $500 billion in trade and investment each year.

Russia's economy is already suffering from the impact of sanctions, and that is beginning to hurt Western firms with significant business ties.

***

BBC

Russia enacts 'draconian' law for bloggers and online media

31 July 2014 Last updated at 19:05 ET

Russia's parliament has voted through a series of internet laws

A new law imposing restrictions on users of social media has come into effect in Russia.

It means bloggers with more than 3,000 daily readers must register with the mass media regulator, Roskomnadzor, and conform to the regulations that govern the country's larger media outlets.

Internet companies will also be required to allow Russian authorities access to users' information.

One human rights group called the move "draconian".

The law was approved by Russia's upper house of parliament in April.

It includes measures to ensure that bloggers cannot remain anonymous, and states that social networks must maintain six months of data on its users.

The information must be stored on servers based in Russian territory, so that government authorities can gain access.

Russia has blocked the sites of opponents such as Garry Kasparov

Critics see it as the latest in a series of recent moves to curb internet freedom.

'Free expression'

Hugh Williamson, of New York-based Human Rights Watch, has called the law "another milestone in Russia's relentless crackdown on free expression".

"The internet is the last island of free expression in Russia and these draconian regulations are clearly aimed at putting it under government control," he added.

Opposition figures have used the internet to air their views, with some gaining millions of followers.

Commentators opposing Vladimir Putin often face restrictions in broadcast outlets and newspapers.

***

King World News (Edited from longer article.)

Celente - Terrifying Crash & Death Of The Global Ponzi Scheme

July 31, 2014

On the heels of the Dow plunging 300 points, today the top trends forecaster in the world warned King World News that we are now going to witness the terrifying crash & death of the global Ponzi Scheme. Below is what Gerald Celente, founder of Trends Research and the man considered to be the top trends forecaster in the world, had to say in this timely and powerful interview.

Celente added: “Right now the gold market should be going up, but gold is down. Why? If gold goes up and it starts to skyrocket under these conditions, you are going to see real fear in the streets. This is because you have a flood of worthless currencies.

We know that every market is manipulated -- that’s a fact. It’s a fact that the LIBOR rates are rigged. It’s a fact that the currency markets are rigged. It’s a fact that those dark pools are rigged. So, yes, gold is rigged too. A rise in the price of gold is the greatest fear of central banks and the governments they front for. This is because when gold skyrockets, which it will, you are going to see a flight away from the paper currencies that will cause a panic like one the world has never seen.”

***

The Telegraph

Barack Obama has already checked out of his job

The degree to which Barack Obama is now phoning it in – sleepwalking perfunctorily through his second term, amid golf rounds and dinner parties – is astonishing

US President Barack Obama enjoys a round of golf in Hawaii Photo: EPA

By Matt K Lewis

12:04PM BST 26 Jul 2014

President Obama has emotionally checked out of his job a couple of years early, it seems. How can one tell?

Candidates for president who brazenly assume they are the inevitable victor are sometimes accused of “measuring the drapes” for the White House.

Obama, conversely, seems to be prematurely packing his bags in hopes for an early departure.

Just last week, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that “The First Family is believed to be in escrow on a contemporary home in a gated community where entertainers Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby once maintained estates”.

George Santayana observed that “Americans don’t solve problems, they leave them behind”. Perhaps the president is taking this to heart.

For rumours to catch fire, an element of truth must typically be involved.

The fact that the press would find relevance in speculating on Obama’s post-White House residence – and identify California as the kind of scene the future ex-president would want to hang out in when he leaves office – is perhaps telling.

And, indeed, this comes on the heels of multiple reports from outlets such as The New York Times and Politico, detailing how Obama has increasingly been spending his time at trendy restaurants and fancy, late-night dinner parties with celebrities and various intellectuals.

Rubbing elbows with the rich and elite is fine enough. Unfortunately, the work suffers. The degree to which he is now phoning it in – sleepwalking perfunctorily through his second term – is astonishing.

And based on his recent handling of situations much more serious than a possible post-presidential move to sunny California, it seems as if “No Drama Obama” is no longer even worried about keeping up appearances; he doesn’t care enough to fake it.

Consider this: In recent days, a) Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down, apparently by Russian separatists in Ukraine, b) In the Gaza strip, the numbers killed continued to mount as Israelis and Palestinians exchange rocket fire, c) a huge influx of children fleeing Central American poverty and gang warfare swamped America’s southern border, creating a humanitarian crisis. And, oh yeah, d) Christians living in Mosul were given the choice to either convert to Islam or flee the area they have inhabited for nearly two thousand years.

You know what else has happened during this time? a) Obama played many rounds of golf, b) he attended numerous fund-raisers, c) he dined on barbecue in Texas and burgers in Delaware, and d) he almost appeared on the comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night television show in Hollywood.

I say “almost” because the White House finally relented. “We ultimately elected not to have the president do that interview over the course of this trip,” the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, conceded. “And that is at least in part related to the challenges of doing a comedy show in the midst of some of these other more serious matters that the president’s dealing with in the international scene.”

The irony is that Obama won election in 2008, partly based on his ability to demonstrate leadership (at least, rhetorically).

And, despite a less-than-perfect first term, the public believed enough in his “hope and change” mantra to return him to office - a move reminiscent of Samuel Johnson’s observation about second marriages being “a triumph of hope over experience”.

But today, one wonders if Obama even has the energy left to summon some of the old magic that got him elected. A souffle, as they say, doesn’t rise twice.

While we tend to think of them as polar opposites, Obama’s predecessor had been similarly excoriated for similarly botching a few big moments where he should have been on the job. For President George W Bush, the images of Hurricane Katrina continue to haunt his legacy. He later regretted not going to there immediately after the hurricane hit.

“I should have touched down in Baton Rouge, met with the governor, and walked out and said, 'I hear you. We understand. And we’re going to help the state and help the local governments with as much resources as needed’,” he confessed in 2010.

Woody Allen famously said, 80 per cent of life is just showing up. He wasn’t wrong. But, in lieu of showing up, there is an even easier way to avoid looking quite so out of touch. If Obama were worried about bad optics – about appearing out of touch – he might play a bit less golf (another lesson he could have learned from his predecessor).

During one unfortunate event caught on tape, and featured in the Fahrenheit 9/11 film trailer, the then President Bush was unfortunately filmed saying: “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you.” Then, holding up a golf club, he added: “Now, watch this drive.”

This was a brutal blow. Fair or not, playing golf has a way of making one look simultaneously elitist and aloof. Obama tends to dismiss such cautionary tales.

For example, the suggestion that while in Texas he should have gone to the border and addressed the growing humanitarian crisis (instead of attending fund-raisers) was dismissed as the suggestion he do a theatrical “photo-op”.

This is at best unromantic, and, at worst, cynical. Words matter.

Showing up matters. Was it a “photo-op” when Ronald Reagan spoke in front of the Brandenburg Gate and declared: “Tear down this wall!”?

I suppose one could have made that argument.

Obama’s not dumb, and he’s clearly capable of marshalling an effective propaganda campaign when he wants to. So what explains this series of bad optics, which might be described by PR professionals as political malpractice?

The only thing that makes sense is that he is exhausted and, perhaps, has checked out of the job early.

If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, then Obama is dining out, golfing, and raising money while the world collapses.

Matt K Lewis is a senior contributor at The Daily Caller website in Washington, DC

***

News.com.au.

Two years ago, we were all going about our daily business, blissfully unaware that our planet almost plunged into global catastrophe.

By James Billington

July 24, 2014 | 11:29pm

A recent revelation by NASA explains how on July 23, 2012, Earth had a near miss with a solar flare, or coronal mass ejection (CME), from the most powerful storm on the sun in over 150 years, but nobody decided to mention it.

Err, what? Well, that’s a sobering bit of news.

“If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” says Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado.

We managed to just avoid the event through lucky timing as the sun’s aim narrowly turned away from Earth. Had it occurred a week earlier, when it was pointing at us, the result could have been frighteningly different.

“I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did,” says Baker. “If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire.”

The power of this ejection would have raced across space to knock us back to the Dark Ages. It’s believed a direct CME hit would have the potential to wipe out communication networks, GPS and electrical grids to cause widespread blackout. The article goes on to say it would disable “everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn’t even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps.”

Just 10 minutes without electricity, Internet or communication across the globe is a scary thought, and the effects of this event could last years. It would be chaos and disaster on an epic scale.

“According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers damaged by such a storm might take years to repair.”

So can we breathe a worldwide sigh of relief? Well, not quite. Physicist Pete Riley, who published a paper titled “On the probability of occurrence of extreme space weather events,” has calculated the odds of a solar storm strong enough to disrupt our lives in the next 10 years is 12 percent.

“Initially, I was quite surprised that the odds were so high, but the statistics appear to be correct,” says Riley. “It is a sobering figure.”

However, the CME that almost battered us was a bit of a freak occurrence as it was actually two ejections within 10 minutes of each other, plus a previous CME had happened four days earlier to effectively clear the path.

Sleep well, everyone.

***

SHTFPLAN.COM

ALERT: DELIVERED BY AIRPLANE: EBOLA NOW THREATENS 21 MILLION PEOPLE IN MAJOR METRO AREA

CDC warned the next plane could bring a pandemic

Image Credits: CDC

by MAC SLAVO

JULY 28, 2014

In January the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the next plane could bring a pandemic.

At the time, they were referring to highly contagious strains of deadly flu virus, but in reality any killer virus could travel around the globe in less than a day.

In March we warned that the deadly Ebola virus, which kills upwards of 85% of its victims, was spreading at an alarming pace in West Africa. It was so serious that governments in the region had locked down their borders. The following month in April, officials in the U.S. and Canada were alerted that the virus may have made its way to North America, though no follow-up information was provided after the initial report. Then, just last month, the World Health Organization issued a dire warning –Ebola could go global.

Despite these warnings and the fact that over 650 people are confirmed dead by medical officials in Africa, global governments failed to take any significant action. Flights out of West Africa were still being allowed to leave without any real screening procedures, even though medical professionals in the region had warned that containment of the virus was spiraling out of control.

Now, amid the highly publicized infection of a leading Ebola doctor, the first case of the virus travelling aboard a commercial passenger airline has been confirmed.

Nigerian health authorities raced to stop the spread of Ebola on Saturday after a man sick with one of the world’s deadliest diseases brought it by plane to Lagos, Africa’s largest city with 21 million people.

The fact that the traveler from Liberia could board an international flight also raised new fears that other passengers could take the disease beyond Africa due to weak inspection of passengers and the fact Ebola’s symptoms are similar to other diseases.

Officials in the country of Togo, where the sick man’s flight had a stopover, also went on high alert after learning that Ebola could possibly have spread to a fifth country.

Screening people as they enter the country may help slow the spread of the disease, but it is no guarantee Ebola won’t travel by airplane, according to Dr. Lance Plyler, who heads Ebola medical efforts in Liberia for aid organization Samaritan’s Purse.

“Unfortunately the initial signs of Ebola imitate other diseases, like malaria or typhoid,” he said.

As always, government officials did nothing until it was too late.

Perhaps the death of the Liberian Ebola patient was an isolated incident.

However, the plane on which he traveled stopped for a layover where other passengers disembarked and then headed to Africa’s most populated city of 21 million residents.

If this man came into contact with just one or two others who then mixed with the rest of the population, it’s quite possible that scores of others are now infected. Because the symptoms during the onset of the virus are similar to a flu, by the time infected individuals realize what is happening it’s too late – too late for them, and for those who they came into contact with.

The virus may not be airborne, and because of its genetic profile it may not spread as quickly as a flu virus, but with its possible exposure to a population of 21 million people there is a distinct possibility that Ebola may mutate into something even more contagious.

While the United States claims to have screening procedures ready, at this point, with global air carriers using numerous hubs to transfer passengers, it is becoming more and more likely that the virus will eventually make an appearance in North America.

For the time being there are no active procedures being implemented to screen passengers from West Africa. If the virus were to arrive in the United States via an airplane, the infected person could easily come into contact with scores of other people who would jet off to various destinations around the country.

If that were to happen, all bets are off.

Tess Pennington, author of The Prepper’s Blueprint, says that Preparing for a Pandemic before information about it hits the news is absolutely essential:

When the pandemic begins, many will remain in a state of denial about any approaching epidemics and not want to think of the long lasting repercussions of such a disaster. Being prepared before the mass come out of their daze will ensure that you are better prepared before the hoards run to the store to stock up.

Ebola could potentially end up all over the United States within a matter of hours, a situation that would very quickly become untenable for medical emergency response teams.

***

Natural News (Edited from longer article.)

Ebola outbreak may already be uncontrollable; Monsanto invests in Ebola treatment drug company as pandemic spreads

Thursday, July 31, 2014

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) A global outbreak of deadly Ebola is underway and has crossed national borders. One infected victim of the horrifying disease flew on international flights, vomiting on board and exposing hundreds of people to the deadly virus which can be transmitted through airborne particles. Ebola has an 8-10 day incubation period, meaning thousands of people could be carrying it right now and spreading it across the cities of the world without even knowing it.

Passengers in Hong Kong and the UK have already shown symptoms of the disease and are being tested, reports USA Today. (2) The Peace Corps has evacuated its volunteers from the region after two were exposed to Ebola. (3)

"Expert claims panic over death of U.S. man in Nigeria is 'justified'" reports the Daily Mail. (1) "He warned the spread of Ebola could become a global pandemic."

Sources for this article include:

(1) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2710...

(2) http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/201...

(3) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/peace-corps-volu...

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“Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”
(Luke 18:16)