Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Signs of the Times

Daily NewsInternet - Jan 6/02/12
Categories: Today's Headlines;Prophecy

Semeru volcano (East Java, Indonesia): alert level raised to 3 due to an increase of activity
its alert level was raised to 3 (out of 4, "watch") on 3 February 2012, after it had been on level 2 since 16 July 2009. Only small to moderate eruptions had been occurring over most of the past year. Between 29 December and 15 January, 8 explosions were counted which produced ash clouds up to 600 m high. One explosion threw incandescent bombs to a distance of 300 m from the Jonggring Seloko crater.

Magnitude 6.7 - NEGROS - CEBU REGION, PHILIPPINES
At least 43 people killed, 40 missing and 100 injured, many buildings damaged or destroyed.

Magnitude 5 Earthquake Strikes Near Iran’s Bushehr Nuke Plant
The earthquake struck at 9:40 a.m. local time (06:10 GMT) on Sunday some 70 km (45 miles) southwest of Bushehr, with its epicenter registered at a depth of 10 km.

Ayatollah: Kill all Jews, annihilate Israel
The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people. ...Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a ‘jurisprudential justification” to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”

Obama Still Tries to Stop Israeli Iran Strike. West Confronts Iran in Syria

Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

US President Barack Obama, by asserting Sunday, Feb. 5, he doesn't think Israel has made a decision on whether to attack Iran, indicated he preferred to keep Israel back from military action and set aside as a strategic reserve, while at the same time using the broad presumption of Jerusalem's assault plans to intimidate Iran into opting for diplomatic talks on its nuclear program.

To this end, the president directly contradicted Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's statement six days earlier that he expected Israel to strike Iran in April, May or June.

In Israel, no knowledgeable source any longer doubts that the Netanyahu government has already reached a decision. It was instantly assumed that Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, whose appointment as the next Israeli Air Force commander was announced Sunday, would lead the coming operation against Iran.

Obama also said, "We are going to be sure we work in lockstep as we proceed to try to solve this – hopefully diplomatically." debkafile's analysts report that by "lockstep" he meant the role to which he had assigned Israel in the massive disinformation contest underway between the West and Iran.

Tehran responded to this verbal assault with one of its own, publishing a paper which suggested for the first time that Iran would not wait to be attacked but was preparing pre-emptive action of its own against Israel. The paper spoke of a surprise missile offensive targeting Israel's military installations, which were said to be concentrated between Kiryat Gat and the South, and the central Lod-Modiin district in the center, which Iran considers to be the soft urban-military belly of Israel.
Two features stood out from the verbiage of the last 24 hours:
1. Iran has no intention whatsoever of abandoning its drive for a nuclear bomb. According to the information in Israeli hands, its program has passed the point of no return and capable of producing a weapon whenever its rulers so decide. This situation, American and Israeli leaders year after year had vowed to avert.
Iran underscored its negative on diplomacy by contemptuously refusing the IAEA inspectors visiting the country this week access to any of its nuclear facilities.

2. The US-led confrontation against Iran by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar has made Syria a major hub of the conflict, especially since the Russian-Chinese blockage Saturday of their UN Security Council motion to remove President Bashar Assad and end his brutal crackdown.

Israel has no role in this clash of wills, and President Obama is doing his best to keep Israel on the sidelines of the Iran controversy too, while he continues to angle for nuclear dialogue.
He was supported in this course by the veteran ex-diplomat Thomas R. Pickering who wrote in the New York Times on Feb. 2 that US relations with Iran remind him of the old Afghan adage: "If you deal in camels, make sure the doors are high" – meaning that to strike a deal, both President Obama and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would have to make concessions.
Obama's latest words indicate he is willing; Khamenei shows the opposite tendency.
Israel could if it so decided upset this unequal diplomatic applecart before it started rolling by a surprise attack on Iran without prior notice to Washington.

For the Obama administration the Security Council defeat was a major policy setback on top of reversals in Cairo.
Tehran in contrast was buoyed up by what it saw as the lifebelt Moscow and Beijing cast to rescue the Assad regime, for now at least, from the onslaught of its enemies and the stabilization of their Mediterranean flank to the west and direct front against Israel.

The Syrian ruler's fall would rob Tehran of its most powerful military ally for taking on Israel without direct Iranian involvement. It would also cause the Lebanese Hizballah's disempowerment as a military force. Severance of its geographic link to Tehran via Syria would expose the Shiite militia to Western and Arab diplomatic pressure and an Israeli attack.

Sunday, Feb. 5, Tehran followed up with a large-scale, three-week long military exercise in southern Iran opposite the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Ocean. The Iranians were showing Washington that after stabilizing their Syrian front, they were braced for any military surprises the US or Israeli might spring on their most vulnerable region.
Monday, Feb. 6, opposition sources reported that the Syrian army had redoubled its deadly artillery and mortar offensive against Homs and, for the first time, bombarded the national financial and business capital of Aleppo. French sources reported Syrian armored cars were attacking Zabadani between Damascus and the Lebanese border.

If all these reports are confirmed, it would mean that Bashar Assad is taking ruthless advantage of the respite granted him by the Russian and Chinese Security Council veto to stamp out the uprising against him once and for all.

On the diplomatic front Monday, the US-led Western and Arab camp was reported to be pushing hard for the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Internal Security chief Mikhail Fradkov to use their visit to Damascus Tuesday and compel Assad to abandon his brutal attacks, pull his troops out of Syrian towns and step down.
To this end, the Western-Arab bloc is trying to set up another Council session before the end of the week – hopefully to reverse its contretemps of Saturday.

The Six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers meet in Riyadh this week for another round of consultations on the Syrian crisis after the Security Council fiasco and failed attempt to deploy monitors in the war-stricken country.
The West is also threatening to supply the rebels with heavy weaponry, at the risk of an escalation to full-scale civil war. This is an indirect admission that only light arms were given the anti-Assad forces until now. By boosting rebel strength, the West would tell Moscow that tolerance for the Assad regime to continue to rule Syria had dropped to zero.

The Russians are being called upon to back away from their support for Assad and reverse the policy which actuated their veto vote at the Security Council. Whether or not this is realistic will become known as the week unfolds.

Krauthammer: Leak Indicates Israeli Attack on Iran ‘Certain’

Daily NewsThe Daily Caller - Jeff Poor
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Last week in his Washington Post column, David Ignatius wrote that Israel was preparing to attack Iran to prevent it from being able to build a nuclear bomb.

According to his Post opinion page colleague Charles Krauthammer, based on the source behind Ignatius’ claim it is likely an attack will occur.

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Inside Washington,” Krauthammer explained his thought process.

“I think it’s fairly certain the Israelis are going to attack or you would not have had this leak, deliberately coming this week from secretary of Defense through David Ignatius of The [Washington] Post saying that he thinks there is a high likelihood Israel is going to attack, and then he went ahead and specified when. He said three months, April, May or June. And you don’t say that unless there is obviously indications from the Israelis that they are going to do this even if they get and they are getting a signal from the United States not to do it.”

Krauthammer doubted Israel was factoring what impact a strike against Iran might have on upcoming U.S. presidential election.

“No, I think the calculation is what Ignatius reported as Panetta said: The Israelis think that the problem is that Iran is about to enter the zone of immunity. And that means the trigger is not the assumption that Iran now has the know-how to make a bomb. That is later down the road. What comes earlier is when Iran has put enough uranium in completely untouchable, protected sites, like the mountain outside of Qom where you cannot touch it, meaning that at that point, Iran has the wherewithal, the facilities, the material that it can build a bomb unmolested, and then it can never be attacked again. If Israel thinks it is approaching the point of immunity, it will attack.”

Krauthammer reminded viewers that the real threat of escalation would be if the rogue state attempted to block the Strait of Hormuz.

Islamists Register Big Gains in Kuwaiti Parliamentary Elections

Daily NewsWorld tribune .com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

ABU DHABI — Sunni Islamists have won a majority of Kuwait’s parliament.

Authorities said Islamic opposition candidates won 34 out of 50 seats in the parliament. They said Sunni Islamists, bolstered by tribal support, won 23 seats, compared to nine in the previous parliament. No women were
elected.

“The Kuwait of tomorrow will not be the Kuwait of yesterday,” said Obeid Al Wasmi, a key opposition figure elected to parliament.

In contrast, Shi’ites, who comprise more than 45 percent of the Gulf Cooperation Council sheikdom, won seven seats, most of them Islamist candidates. In the previous parliament, nine Shi’ites had served.

Al Wasmi and other opposition parliamentarians pledged to intensify their fight against corruption, particularly in the ruling Al Sabah family. Al Wasmi said he would lobby to release evidence of corruption against senior officials when parliament begins its session in mid-February.

Pro-government candidates did poorly in the elections, said to have been the most violent in years. Royalists won only a handful of seats, with many losing their reelection bid amid an investigation over corruption charges.

The Salafists, regarded as followers of Al Qaida, increased their representation from three to 12 seats. The Salafists have been vociferous opponents of the U.S. military presence in Kuwait, with more than 25,000 troops.

Iranian Parliament's Website: Attack Israel This Year

Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Gill Ronnen
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

The Iranian parliament's official website has published an article calling on the government to attack Israel before the end of the year.

According to Israeli TV Channel 2's veteran Middle East expert, Ehud Yaari, the article cites three reasons for the call.

First – a religious fatwa allowing such a strike. Second – threats from Israel regarding a planned strike on Iran. And third – Iran's alleged military capability to carry out such an attack.

The article specifies that the area between Lod and Jerusalem should be targeted, as well as Tel Nof Air Force Base.

The article seems to be part of a recent trend in Iran to step up the rhetoric regarding a possible attack on Israel. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Friday that Israel is a “cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut.”

“We have intervened in anti-Israel matters, and it brought victory in the 33-day war by Hizbullah against Israel in 2006, and in the 22-day war” between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, Khamenei was quoted as saying.

He added, “From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this.”

On Saturday, press outlets in Iran also widely quoted a blog post by Alireza Forghani, a computer engineer, who called upon Tehran to "wipe out Israel" by 2014.

Forghani called on his leaders to target Israeli sites using land-to-land missiles. Ballistic Sijil missiles should be launched at Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, he suggested, as well as power stations and other vital infrastructure. Then, Shahab 3 and Ghader missiles should target the rest of Israel's population centers. Nine minutes would suffice for "total annihilation," he predicted.

Iran Mass Producing Anti - Ship Cruise Missile: TV

Daily NewsBreitbart.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Iran has begun mass production of an anti-ship cruise missile, state television's website said on Saturday.

The Zafar missile, as it is dubbed in the report, "is a short-range, anti-ship cruise missile capable of destroying small- and medium-sized targets with high precision."

It can be mounted on speed boats and other light vessels, can withstand electronic warfare, and is able to fly in low altitudes to avoid detection, the report said.

Iran has a fleet of speed boats that often challenge US and allied warships in the Gulf.

The vessels are usually controlled by the elite Revolutionary Guards and can be equipped with missiles.

The Islamic republic says it has a wide range of missiles. It says some are capable of striking targets inside Israel as well as Middle Eastern military bases of its other main archfoe, the United States.

Tehran regularly boasts about developing missiles having substantial range and capabilities, but Western military experts cast doubt on its claims.

Iran's military said in January that it could close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf, through which a third of global marine oil traffic passes, if it is attacked.

An Iranian warship fires a Mehrab missile during naval wargames in the Stra...

Hamas, Fatah Sign Reconciliation; Anger in Hamas

Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Gill Ronnen
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Qatari mediation efforts between rival PLO groups Fatah and Hamas have succeeded and the twin terror organizations have signed a reconciliation agreement, it was reported Sunday. The impasse over the identity of the interim prime minister has been solved -- but there are already threats within Hamas to split the organization.

The Qatari suggestion, which was accepted by both parties, was that Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas would head the temporary transition government until elections are held at a date that has yet to be set.

The transition government will be composed of independent "technocrats." It will prepare the groundwork for elections for the presidency and for the legislative council. These had been delayed for procedural reasons.

The ultra-leftist Geneva Initiative called the reconciliation "a diplomatic opportunity that may never be repeated" and called upon Israel to suggest "a serious plan that will test whether the united Palestinian leadership seeks peace."

Al Arabiya news network reported Sunday that senior officials in Hamas are threatening to split the terror group in two, because they do not accept Mahmoud Abbas as prime minister, even in a transitional government.

But the Thing Displeased Samuel.... and Samuel Prayed Unto the Lord. 1 Samuel 8:6

Morning MeditationF. B. Meyer
Categories: Commentary;Inspirational;Book Study

A LITTLE further down in the chapter we learn that Samuel rehearsed the words of the people unto the Lord. His prayer, to a large extent, was a rehearsal of all the strong and unkind things that the people had said to him; and in this way he passed them off his mind, and found relief. There is a suggestion of close communion with God in the expression, "He rehearsed them in the ears of the

Lord." It had been the habit of his life to be on intimate terms with his God.

Things do not always turn out as we had hoped, and we get displeased for our own sakes and God's. We had planned in one direction, but events have issued in another; and the results have threatened to become disastrous. There is but one resource. If we allow vexations to eat into our heart, they will corrode and injure it. We must rehearse them to God spreading the letter before Him, as Hezekiah did; making request like Paul; crying like Samuel.

Surely it is the mistake of our life, that we carry our burdens instead of handing them over; that we worry instead of trusting; that we pray so little. The grass grows thick on the pathway to our oratory; the cobwebs hang across the doorway. The time we spend in prayer is perhaps better spent than in any other way. It was whilst Samuel prayed thus, that he saw the Divine program for Israel:

    "And he who at the sixth hour sought

       The lone house to to pray,

     There gained a sight beyond his thought,

       The dawn of Gentile day.

     Then reckon not, when perils hour,

       The time of prayer misspent;

     Nor meanest chance, nor place, nor hour,

       Without its heavenward bent."

Ayatollah: Kill All Jews, Annihilate Israel

Daily NewsWND - Reza Kahlili
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

Iran lays out legal case for genocidal attack against 'cancerous tumor'

The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.

The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide.

Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a “‘jurisprudential justification” to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”

The article, written by Alireza Forghani, a conservative analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned conservative sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine.

Because Israel is going to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran is justified in launching a pre-emptive, cataclysmic attack against the Jewish state, the doctrine argues.

On Friday, in a major speech at prayers, Khamenei announced that Iran will support any nation or group that attacks the “cancerous tumor” of Israel. Though his statement was seen by some in the West as fluff, there is substance behind it.

Iran’s Defense Ministry announced this weekend that it test-fired an advanced two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile and boasted about successfully putting a new satellite into orbit, reminding the West that its engineers have mastered the technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles even as the Islamic state pushes its nuclear weapons program.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Seyyed Mehdi Farahi, stated in August that the Safir missile, which is capable of transporting a satellite into space, can easily be launched parallel to the earth’s orbit, which will transform it into an intercontinental ballistic missile. Western analysts didn’t believe this would happen until 2015. Historically, orbiting a satellite is the criterion for crediting a nation with ICBM capability.

Forghani details the Islamic duty of jihad as laid out in the Quran for the sake of Allah and states that “primary jihad,” according to some Shiite jurists, can only occur when the Hidden Imam, the Shiites’ 12th Imam Mahdi, returns. Shiites believe Mahdi’’s return will usher in Armageddon.

In the absence of the hidden Imam, Forghani says, “defensive jihad” could certainly take place when Islam is threatened, and Muslims must defend Islam and kill their enemies. To justify such action, Alef quotes the Shiites’ first imam, Ali, who stated “Waging war against the enemies with whom war is inevitable and there is a strong possibility that in near future they will attack Muslims is a must and the duty of Muslims.” In this regard, Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a fatwa in which he has even authorized carrying out primary jihad in the age of the absence of the Hidden imam under the authorization of Vali Faghih.

The article then quotes the Quran (Albaghara 2:191-193): “And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers] … and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah.”

It is the duty for all Muslims to participate in this defensive jihad, Forghani says. A fatwa by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made it clear that any political domination by infidels over Muslims authorizes Muslims to defend Islam by all means. Iran now has the ICBM means to deliver destruction on Israel and soon will have nuclear warheads for those missiles.

In order to attack Iran, the article says, Israel needs the approval and assistance of America, and under the current passive climate in the United States, the opportunity must not be lost to wipe out Israel before it attacks Iran.

Under this pre-emptive defensive doctrine, several Ground Zero points of Israel must be destroyed and its people annihilated. Forghani cites the last census by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics that shows Israel has a population of 7.5 million citizens of which a majority of 5.7 million are Jewish. Then it breaks down the districts with the highest concentration of Jewish people, indicating that three cities, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, contain over 60 percent of the Jewish population that Iran could target with its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles, killing all its inhabitants.

Forghani suggests that Iran’s Sejil missile, which is a two-stage rocket with a trajectory and speed that make it impossible to intercept, should target such Israeli facilities as: the Rafael nuclear plant, which is the main nuclear engineering center of Israel; the Eilun nuclear plant; another Israeli reactor in Nebrin; and the Dimona reactor in the nuclear research center in Neqeb, the most critical nuclear reactor in Israel because it produces 90 percent enriched uranium for Israel’s nuclear weapons.

Other targets, according to the article, include airports and air force bases such as the Sedot Mikha Air Base, which contains Jericho ballistic missiles and is located southwest of the Tel Nof Air Base, where aircraft equipped with nuclear weapons are based. Secondary targets include power plants, sewage treatment facilities, energy resources, and transportation and communication infrastructures.

Finally, Forghani says, Shahab 3 and Ghadr missiles can target urban settlements until the Israelis are wiped out.

Forghani claims that Israel could be destroyed in less than nine minutes and that Khamenei, as utmost authority, the Velayete Faghih (Islamic Jurist), also believes that Israel and America not only must be defeated but annihilated.

The radicals ruling Iran today not only posses over 1,000 ballistic missiles but are on the verge of ICBM delivery and have sufficient enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs even as they continue to highly enrich uranium despite four sets of U.N. sanctions.

The Iranian secret documentary “The Coming Is Upon Us” clearly indicates that these radicals believe the destruction of Israel will trigger the coming of the last Islamic Messiah and that even Jesus Christ, who will convert to Islam, will act as Mahdi’s deputy, praying to Allah as he stands behind the 12th Imam.