Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Saudi Oil Plan: Inflict Major Damage on Iran
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsKoenig's Eye View from the White House
Categories: Contemporary Issues

It is obvious that the Saudis are trying to protect their market share in the U.S. oil industry and stop U.S. shale-oil drillers, but they also want to cripple Iran’s economy.

The ill-timed nuclear talks brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton brought sanctions relief to Iran, just when its economy was “up against the ropes.”

Crude oil in the $50-to-$70 range could inflict major damage on the Iranian economy and the regime in Tehran. The Sunni countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) want to inflict as much pain as possible on Shiite Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund assets are estimated at $757 billion. The UAE’s are estimated at $773 billion and Kuwait’s at $548 billion. The UAE has another $300 billion in other various sovereign wealth funds, providing Abu Dhabi with more than $1 trillion in total assets.

All of these countries are at risk of an eventual missile attack by Iran. They know this and are attempting to prepare — while at the same time, they want to cripple the Iranian economy.

Putin Pushes Back: Beware the Wounded Russian Bear
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsProphecy News Watch
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Contrary to what he would like us to believe, things are going very poorly for Vladimir Putin these days. Having found the West more united than he expected on the issue of sanctions against Russia, he now discovers that the bottom has fallen out of the international oil market. As if that were not enough, he also finds Europe nixing his pet Southstream gas pipeline, supposed to run under the Black Sea, which he had hoped would increase Russia’s energy stranglehold over Ukraine and the rest of Europe.

But before we indulge in too much glee over Putin’s discomfort, we should consider the all-too-real risk that when cornered, he is apt to become even more dangerous.

Russia has a long history of rulers who start armed adventures abroad to deflect attention from economic and social troubles at home. When he annexed Crimea last March, Putin appeared to be continuing in that tradition. 

A real danger is that a Russian economy in tatters will only increase the incentives for aggressive moves abroad.
The aggression came about in order to defuse growing domestic opposition to his increasingly corrupt handling of the Russian economy, and increase his authoritarian grip over the country. It worked. Encouraged by the highly favorable domestic response, Putin kept the foreign pot boiling by blatantly backing separatism in Eastern Ukraine.

When he launched his Ukrainian adventure around a year ago, Putin was counting on a divided Europe inability to join the U.S. in imposing meaningful economic sanctions as a response. He must now feel deeply disappointed. Despite considerable business pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to duck sanctions, Europe did join in strengthening penalties on the Russian energy and financial sectors. This forced Putin to strike a long-term energy supply arrangement with China at prices generally viewed as unfavorable to Russia.

Since then, Europe has managed to thwart Russia’s further attempts to undermine Ukraine and increase its stranglehold on the European energy market. Effectively blocking the construction of Southstream was an important step in the process. Russia intended to use the pipeline to supply Europe with gas without having to go through Ukraine—a move that would have drastically increased his ability to squeeze that country without putting Europe’s energy supply in play.

The Southstream setback has caused Putin to make another hasty and questionable move: an alternative pipeline deal with Turkey. In order to seal the deal, Russia had to offer a 6 per cent discount on its gas prices. At the same time, supplying Europe through Turkey rather than through Ukraine will add considerably to Gazprom’s transportation costs and it is still not clear whether Europe will allow that gas to enter Europe through Greece.

In addition, Putin appears to have been caught totally flatfooted by developments in the international oil market. He especially seems to have misjudged the major shifts caused by the U.S. shale oil revolution, along with increased offshore oil and gas production in a variety of other countries, and the slowing in the overall global economy. Those changes have seen benchmark global oil prices decline from $115 per bbl. to around $75 over the past six months.

All this, in turn, has blown a hole in the Russian budget, which depends on oil for around 45 per cent of its tax revenues. Over the past six months, the Russian ruble has also lost around half its value, contributing to an inflation rate now at 9 per cent.

Coupled with sanctions, the dismal oil picture has caused a collapse in investor and household confidence in the economy, and forced Moscow to acknowledge that the country is headed for a recession next year.

A real danger, however, is that a Russian economy in tatters will only increase the incentives for aggressive moves abroad. This is, after all, how Putin’s era got started: with a lethal campaign against Chechnya to consolidate his regime at home.

Among other things, the bad news for Putin could be equally bad news for early resolution of the Ukraine crisis. Worse yet, as Senator John McCain has recently warned, it could spell trouble for countries like Moldova and the Baltic states, which Russia has long considered to be part of its “near abroad.”

It could also be the prelude for Russia using its energy leverage over countries even further afield, such Bulgaria, Finland and Slovakia. Like the Baltics, all are totally dependent on Russia for their natural gas supplies.

Thwarting a bear does not turn the beast into a lamb. It mostly creates an angrier and more unpredictable bear.

Patterns of War will History Repeat Itself?
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsProphecy News Watch
Categories: Today's Headlines;Not yet categorized

The world is changing and becoming even more dangerous -- in a way we've seen before.

In the decade before World War I, the near-hundred-year European peace that had followed the fall of Napoleon was taken for granted. Yet it abruptly imploded in 1914. Prior little wars in the Balkans had seemed to predict a much larger one on the horizon -- and were ignored.

The exhausted Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires were spent forces unable to control nationalist movements in their provinces. The British Empire was fading. Imperial Germany was rising. Czarist Russia was beset with revolutionary rebellion. As power shifted, decline for some nations seemed like opportunity for others.

The same was true in 1939. The tragedy of the Versailles Treaty of 1919 was not that it had been too harsh. In fact, it was far milder than the terms Germany had imposed on a defeated Russia in 1918 or the requirements it had planned for France in 1914.

Instead, Versailles combined the worst of both worlds: harsh language without any means of enforcement.

The subsequent appeasement of Britain and France, the isolationism of the United States, and the collaboration of the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany green-lighted Hitler's aggression -- and another world war.

We are entering a similarly dangerous interlude. Collapsing oil prices -- a good thing for most of the world -- will make troublemakers like oil-exporting Iran and Russia take even more risks.

Terrorist groups such as the Islamic State feel that conventional military power has no effect on their agendas. The West is seen as a tired culture of Black Friday shoppers and maxed-out credit card holders.

NATO is underfunded and without strong American leadership. It can only hope that Vladimir Putin does not invade a NATO country like Estonia, rather than prepare for the likelihood that he will, and soon.

The United States has slashed its defense budget to historic lows. It sends the message abroad that friendship with America brings few rewards while hostility toward the U.S. has even fewer consequences.

The bedrock American relationships with staunch allies such as Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan and Israel are fading. Instead, we court new belligerents that don't like the United States, such as Turkey and Iran.

No one has any idea of how to convince a rising China that its turn toward military aggression will only end in disaster, in much the same fashion that a confident westernizing Imperial Japan overreached in World War II. Lecturing loudly and self-righteously while carrying a tiny stick did not work with Japanese warlords of the1930s. It won't work with the communist Chinese either.

Radical Islam is spreading in the same sort of way that postwar communism once swamped postcolonial Asia, Africa and Latin America. But this time there are only weak responses from the democratic, free-market West. Westerners despair over which is worse -- theocratic Iran, the Islamic State or Bashar al-Assad's Syria -- and seem paralyzed over where exactly the violence will spread next and when it will reach them.

There once was a time when the United States encouraged the Latin American transition to free-market constitutional government, away from right-wing dictatorships. Now, America seems uninterested in making a similar case that left-wing dictatorships are just as threatening to the idea of freedom and human rights.

In the late 1930s, it was pathetic that countries with strong militaries such as France and Britain appeased fascist leader Benito Mussolini and allowed his far weaker Italian forces to do as they pleased by invading Ethiopia. Similarly, Iranian negotiators are attempting to dictate terms of a weak Iran to a strong United States in talks about Iran's supposedly inherent right to produce weapons-grade uranium -- a process that Iran had earlier bragged would lead to the production of a bomb.

The ancient ingredients of war are all on the horizon. An old postwar order crumbles amid American indifference. Hopes for true democracy in post-Soviet Russia, newly capitalist China or ascendant Turkey long ago were dashed. Tribalism, fundamentalism and terrorism are the norms in the Middle East as the nation-state disappears.

Under such conditions, history's wars usually start when some opportunistic -- but often relatively weaker -- power does something unwise on the gamble that the perceived benefits outweigh the risks. That belligerence is only prevented when more powerful countries collectively make it clear to the aggressor that it would be suicidal to start a war that would end in the aggressor's sure defeat.

What is scary in these unstable times is that a powerful United States either thinks that it is weak or believes that its past oversight of the postwar order was either wrong or too costly -- or that after Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, America is no longer a force for positive change.

A large war is looming, one that will be far more costly than the preventative vigilance that might have stopped it.

Let the Headlines Speak
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines

Pope Francis Addresses Gay Marriage: Church Should Support Families With LGBT Children
The Catholic Church must help parents stand by their gay children, said Pope Francis in a new interview about his papal ministry. The pontiff’s comments come a day after Francis urged top church officials to pay attention to the “signs of the times”...  

Holuhraun Biggest Lava Flow in Centuries
If the Holuhraun volcanic eruption continues as it has done, then both the sinking of Bárðarbunga and the eruption itself can be expected to continue for at least several more months.  

The pope’s door is always open to ISIS. Why America’s should be, too.
Many questioned whether the Pope had taken leave of his senses.  

US advises security review at overseas posts ahead of CIA report's release
The message directs all overseas posts, including those used by CIA personnel, to "review their security posture" for a "range of reactions that might occur." A similar statement is being sent to military combatant commands to assess their readiness.  

Leftists using Ferguson to wage race war?
The recent murder of immigrant Zemir Begic in a brutal hammer attack shocked the Bosnian community in south St. Louis and people across the nation. St. Louis City Police Chief Samuel Dotson and St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay rushed to deny race had anything to do with it, calling it merely a carjacking. Ferguson Mayor James Knowles say there is something far more insidious going on in St. Louis and that the people of St. Louis are being used for a much more sinister aim.  

War Clouds
The world is changing and becoming even more dangerous -- in a way we've seen before. In the decade before World War I, the near-hundred-year European peace that had followed the fall of Napoleon was taken for granted. Yet it abruptly imploded in 1914. Prior little wars in the Balkans had seemed to predict a much larger one on the horizon -- and were ignored. A large war is looming, one that will be far more costly than the preventative vigilance that might have stopped it.  

Rising dollar major threat to global economy - study
The durability of the dollar isn’t a given, and pressure in the $12.3 trillion US Treasury market is causing alarm. A study by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) suggests dollar dominance could spell disaster for emerging markets.  

Eric Garner protests turn violent in California
a march in California turned violent when a splinter group smashed windows and threw objects at police. A Berkeley police officer received hospital treatment for a dislocated shoulder after being hit with a sandbag, while another sustained minor injuries, police spokeswoman Jenn Coats said.  

Russia wants Israeli explanation for 'aggressive actions' in Syria
The Kremlin is seeking clarifications from Israel regarding the air strikes that hit Syria on Sunday reportedly destroying Russian-made arms bound for Hezbollah, the DPA news agency is reporting on Monday.  

Poll Calls to Replace PM Netanyahu in Coming Elections
A poll conducted by Channel 2 News by Prof. Mina Tzemach and Mano Geva released over the weekend shows that 65% of Israeli voters want to see Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu replaced as prime minister. 30% want to see him continue as the nation’s leader.  

Putin’s New Deal Spells End to 15 Years of Wage Gains
Instead of the rising living standards he’s delivered the past 15 years in exchange for the public’s acquiescence, the Russian president now holds out declining wages and more austere lifestyles as the price of swollen national pride.  

GEOMAGNETIC UNREST
A stream of fast-moving solar wind is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, and this is causing G1-class geomagnetic storms around the poles.  

California’s ‘Hot Drought’ Ranks Worst in at Least 1,200 Years
Record rains fell in California this week. They’re not enough to change the course of what scientists are now calling the region’s worst drought in at least 1,200 years. Just how bad has California’s drought been? Modern measurements already showed it’s been drier than the 1930s dustbowl, worse than the historic droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. That's not all.  

Suspected Israeli war jets strike near Damascus airport
Suspected Israeli aircraft bombed a military complex on the outskirts of Damascus’ international airport Sunday in what Syrian state television said was an attack on warehouses housing an advance Russian-made anti-aircraft system. The attack would be consistent with repeated Israeli pledges that it would not allow Syria to deploy the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system...  

Syrian Jewish bibles at core of ownership dispute
Two decades after Israeli spies helped whisk ancient Hebrew bibles from Damascus to Jerusalem, Israel's national library has asked an Israeli court to grant it official custodianship over the manuscripts. The move could spark a bitter ownership battle over some of the Syrian Jewish community's most important treasures.  

China develops new rocket for manned moon mission
China is developing a huge rocket that will be used for its first manned mission to the moon, state media said Monday, underscoring Beijing's increasingly ambitious space programme. The first launch of the Long March-9 will take place around 2028, said the China Daily, which also cited experts saying the rocket's development is at the research stage.  

EU's Mogherini to press Turkey over IS militants
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is in Turkey to urge it to participate fully in the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria. Ms Mogherini and other top EU officials will urge Turkey to stop the flow of foreign fighters across its borders. In a tweet from the capital Ankara, she said her agenda also included Turkey's EU accession bid.  

Australian banks need more capital to avert crises, Murray report says
Australian banks need to hold more capital to be able to survive future financial crises, says a new report. There should also be minimum education standards for financial advisers, it said. The report, released on Sunday, also recommended superannuation (pension fund) fees be reduced.  

EU earns 'fail' grade over bank capital regime
New EU laws do not meet new global standards and would not be enough to ensure that the bloc's banks could survive a future financial crisis, according to a new report by the leading global bank regulator. The rebuke is contained in a report published on Friday (5 December) by the Basel committee at the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements, the body tasked with formulating the rules that govern the world's lenders.  

Top Putin aide: Mossad training ISIS terrorists in Iraq, Syria
A top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accused Israel and the United States of training the Islamic State in order to undermine Moscow’s interests in the Middle East. In an interview with Iranian state television, Alexander Prokhanov said that Mossad agents were training ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq.  

Hezbollah drones, anti-aircraft missiles destroyed in alleged IAF attack, says Syrian opposition
Syrian opposition sources told Arab media on Monday that the airstrikes near Damascus that were alleged to have been carried out by Israeli warplanes destroyed a storage facility housing anti-aircraft missiles as well as drones belonging to Hezbollah.  

An Iran-Russia axis
What do two nations with a history of over 200 years of enmity and war do when they seek a change of discourse? Find a common enemy — real or imagined. For Russia and Iran, traditional foes since the 18th century, that common enemy is the United States, according to political circles in Moscow and Tehran.  

Watchdogs brace for surprises in massive $1.014T spending bill
Outside groups are bracing for surprises in the massive government-funding bill the Congress is expected to consider next week. The $1.014 trillion bill funding most of the government through September 2015 is one of the last trains out of the station, as the 113th Congress is set to close shop on Friday.  

Kerry: Israeli-Palestinian peace is not a pipe dream
The two-state solution is the only path to peace, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday in Washington, less than 24 hours after Economy Minister Naftali Bennett dismissed that as unrealistic.  

China Announces Record Trade Surplus, Helped by Weak Oil Price
China’s trade surplus soared in November to hit a record, as the steeply falling price of oil, iron ore and other commodities reduced the cost of imports even as China’s exports continued to capture a growing share of world markets.  

Jews rally in Paris suburb to protest rise in anti-Semitism
Jews rally in Paris suburb to protest rise in anti-Semitism • By JOSEPH STRICH and Reuters Hundreds of Jews gathered Sunday in Creteil, to protest a violent racially motivated attack last week in the Paris suburb, after the interior minister admitted that anti-Semitic threats and incidents have more than doubled so far this year in France.  

Leave Or Let Live? Arabs Move In To Jewish Settlements
JERUSALEM - Little noticed amid the furor over one of Israel's most contentious policies, a small but growing number of Arabs are moving into Jewish settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem, drawn by cheaper rent and better services.  

Jordan - Abdullah Plays the Flawed Demographics Card
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsJerold Auerbach - Jerold Auerbach
Categories: The Nation Of Israel

During his recent visit to Washington to meet with President Obama, King Abdullah II of Jordan was interviewed on “CBS This Morning.” Displaying his keen sense of the terrible neighborhood in which his kingdom is embedded, he identified the war against ISIS jihadi terrorists as “clearly a fight between good and evil.”

Believing that they threaten “a third world war by other means,” he boldly called upon Arab and Islamic nations “to stand up” and demonstrate their resolute opposition to this “war inside of Islam” by “fighting back.” It was a rousing – perhaps unrivaled – appeal by an Arab leader for a demonstration of wisdom and courage in confronting the virulent Muslim poison within their midst.

But the King, as his survival strategy requires, played both sides of a volatile issue. He pointedly identified two possible resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a one-state or two-state solution. But he erroneously cited “the demographic threat” to Israel, with a Palestinian majority west of the Jordan River eventually outnumbering the Jewish population. 

Then he posed the dilemma that Israel presumably confronts: the choice between a democratic or “apartheid” (i.e. Jewish) state. “The two state solution,” he concluded, “is the only solution.” It would, however, be a three-state solution, comprising Jordan, Israel and Palestine-on-the-West Bank.

The King chose not to mention that Palestinians have rejected every two-state solution since 1937, when the British Peel Commission proposed the second partition of Palestine. The first came fifteen years earlier, when British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill lopped off three-quarters of Mandatory Palestine as a gift to Abdullah’s great-grandfather for his wartime loyalty to the Allied cause. 

But unwilling to tolerate a Jewish state of any size in their midst, Arab leaders rejected the Peel proposal, the UN partition plan that followed a decade later, and even the dangerously generous two-state offers, involving huge Israeli land concessions, offered by Prime Ministers Barak and Olmert.

King Abdullah also chose (understandably) to ignore the demographic reality in Jordan, which poses a significant threat to the stability of his own regime. For obvious reasons, his kingdom provides no official census data about its Palestinian inhabitants. Best estimates (including by the U.S. State Department) indicate that they comprise more than half, and perhaps as high as two-thirds, of the Jordanian population.

In sum: the Hashemite king rules over a majority Palestinian population in two-thirds of Palestine. In translation: the Palestinians already have a state named Jordan, located in Palestine, and comprise a majority of its population. That is as it should be: the fulfillment of international assurances to Jews, and British promises to the Hashemites, that date back nearly a century.

Across the Jordan River to the West, the demographic reality decisively favors Israel – even if every West Bank Palestinian were to become a citizen of the Jewish state (which will never happen). Just as Jordanians deny the identity of the Palestinian majority they rule, so Palestinians inflate their own numbers in the former West Bank, more appropriately identified as Judea and Samaria – the biblical homeland of the Jewish people.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Labor Statistics, waging what it has labeled a “civil intifada” against Israel, insists that 2.6 million Palestinians inhabit this contested territory. But according to Israeli demographer Yoram Ettinger, the Palestinian Bureau has inflated the actual number of West Bank Palestinians (1.6 million) by two-thirds, including overseas residents, under-reporting Palestinian emigration, and double-counting Jerusalem Arabs.

Between the Jordan and Mediterranean two-thirds of the population is Jewish. Furthermore, during the past twenty years Palestinian birth rates have stabilized while Jewish births have significantly increased. “There is no demographic machete,” Ettinger concluded, “at the throat of the Jewish state.”

King Abdullah finds himself trapped between Palestinian rocks in hard places: his own Jordanian kingdom and its lost West Bank. As Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian Palestinian political refugee residing in London has written (Middle East Q., Winter 2012), the King “is merely using [Palestinians] as pawns in his game against Israel by threatening to make it responsible for Jordanians of Palestinian descent in the name of the ‘right of return.’”

King Abdullah’s verbal gymnastics should not be permitted to conceal the truths of ancient Jewish claims to their promised land. Nor should they hide the reality of the return to the Land of Israel launched by Zionist settlers in the 19th century, long before the Kingdom of Jordan was imagined by his Hashemite ancestors. King Abdullah’s ruse may sell in the Arab shuk to Israel-bashing tourists, but any knowledgeable shopper would instantly detect its fraudulence.

Huckabee Declares 'Iran's Ultimate Goal is the U.S.'
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Arutz Sheva correspondent Dr. Joseph Frager recently spoke with former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on a range of issues, starting with one of the most pressing threats to Israel and America - the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran.

"In relation to Iran I think it's very important that we understand that we cannot trust their government. The government is totally against Israel and against the United States," remarked Huckabee.

The US-led world powers last month extended talks on Iran's nuclear program for the second time, as Iran is demanding to retain enough centrifuges to build 38 atomic bombs every year.

Huckabee argued that while Iran's leaders speak openly about their designs to "annihilate Israel," Americans should know "that their ultimate goal is the United States."

US President Barack Obama's decision to relax Iran sanctions for the nuclear talks was "a naive and stupid move" according to Huckabee, who suggested that instead stronger sanctions are demanded so as to encourage a popular uprising and replace the belligerent Islamic regime.

John Catsimatidis, owner of Gristedes Foods and former New York mayoral candidate, also spoke with Frager, saying that the economic tensions between the various countries in the Middle East as well as Russia requires a more active role from America.

When asked about the recently burgeoning phenomenon of rampant anti-Semitism seen in attacks, protests and statements worldwide, Huckabee noted on America's culpability in the issue by having a largely negative stance on Israel, a sentiment most glaringly seen in recent statements by anonymous US officials calling Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu "chickens**t."

"What's sad is that the American government has played into this (global anti-Semitism), and rather than be a voice that is steadfast against it, has allowed themselves to supply oxygen to that fire, and it's embarassing, something we shouldn't tolerate," said Huckabee.

He noted that the anti-Semitic hatred is most strongly directed against Jews inside their own country of Israel, and concluded "it's indefensible and unacceptable."

Catsimatidis spoke about other potential effects the rising anti-Semitism and increasingly negative position of the American administration may have on Israel, noting that in such conditions Israel may feel unable to launch attacks due to a lack of American support and backing.

Hamas Delegation in Iran to Normalize Relations
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal

Reuters

A delegation from the terrorist organization Hamas which controls Gaza arrived on Monday for talks with Iranian officials on repairing ties between the two, local media reported.

Tasnim news agency said the team was led by Hamas political bureau member Mohammed Nasr and included Osama Hamdan, who is in charge of international relations. Iran has been a key source of funds and weapons for Hamas.

The visit is aimed at clearing the way for a "mission" by Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal to Iran, Amir Mousavi, the head of Tehran's Center of Strategic Research, said on the website of the Hamas-linked daily Al-Ressalah.

In October, Izzat al-Rishak, a member of Hamas leadership, issued a statement denying Hamas reports that Mashaal was expected to visit Iran in the near future. 

The Syrian conflict has strained the relationship between Hamas and Iran, with the Sunni Muslim Gaza-based group breaking ties with Damascus while Shi'i'te Tehran has remained a strong ally of the regime.

Mashaal, in an interview with AFP in August, acknowledged differences over Syria but said their common enmity against Israel was a uniting factor.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly called for Israel's annihilation. 

In October he bashed Israel for being "crueler than ISIS (Islamic State)" and accused the country of having "no limit or boundaries regarding viciousness, cruelty, and trampling underfoot all human standards and ethnics." 

Iran is known to be one of the main providers of equipment, funding and weaponry for Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in their efforts to destroy the Jewish state.

Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, during a visit to Tehran in October, praised Iran for its role during the recent Israel-Gaza conflict last summer.

The 50-day war between Israel and terrorists in Gaza resulted in the deaths of about 2,200 Gazan Arabs, around 49% of them terrorists, and 73 Israelis, the majority of them soldiers. An icy ceasefire was declared on August 26.

Egypt's Largest Military Maneuver 'Meant for Israel'
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsProphecy News Watch
Categories: Today's Headlines;Commentary

Egypt held its "Badr 2014" military maneuver between October 11 and November 6, its largest exercise since 1996 which was only half the size - according to a senior security expert the Nile state has its sights on Israel, despite the peace treaty.

Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Shay, former deputy head of the Israel National Security Council, detailed the maneuver in Israel Defense on Saturday, analyzing the massive military preparations.

According to Shay, Egypt wants not only to improve security domestically, but also "it hopes to reassert its historic leadership role and become the regional hegemony. ...With the rise of (President) Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a new generation of military leadership in Egypt has taken control of the country’s armed forces."

The security expert continued "Exercise 'Badr 2014' and the creation of the RDF (Rapid Deployment Force) signals a move toward enhancing Egypt’s more offensive, conventional, asymmetric and counterinsurgency capabilities both within and beyond the country’s borders."

Speaking directly about what that means for Israel, Shay noted that the exercise is meant to prepare for "a potential conflict with Israel."

"Israel is quietly stepping up its military co-operation with Egypt as both countries confront security threats from jihadist groups in the Sinai region and Hamas in Gaza strip. However, Egypt continues to see Israel as its primary military potential threat despite a decades-old peace treaty," analyzed Shay.

Shay quoted Egyptian Military Spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir as calling the recent maneuver "the largest and most sophisticated strategic exercise in terms of planning, training, and size of forces involved." He noted that the Egyptian army is the largest in Africa and the Middle East, with most of the country's $1.5 billion in US yearly aid being military aid.

Egypt likewise in February sealed a $2 billion arms deal with Russia, after Russia in November said Egypt offered to buy advanced defense systems, military helicopters, MiG-29 aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

Preparing for Sinai mobilization?

In one part of the maneuver, a simulation of a Suez Canal crossing was held on October 27 by the Third Army. The drill included establishing movable bridges to allow vehicles and tanks to cross, with APCs (Armored Personnel Carriers) crossing accompanied by air force units and boats.

The maneuver is significant in that the peace agreement with Israel forbids large-scale Egyptian military mobilization in the Sinai, although Egypt's military has been recently more active in the region while trying to put down rampant violence by salafist terrorists, with some warning that the increase in Egyptian military presence could potentially signify a threat to Israel.

In another drill on November 3, Sisi attended the main phase of air force exercises in Wadi Nartun. Over 250 combat fighters and helicopters took part in over 60 air sorties, in cooperation with paratrooper units, Egyptian commandos and the Central Military Region regiments.

Recent Egyptian ousters like the sinking of an Israeli ship?

On the naval front, Shay noted "the Egyptian Navy is the largest navy in Middle East and Africa, and is the seventh largest in the world measured by the number of vessels."

He added the annual exercise of the navy is held on Navy Day, October 21, a date established after an incident on that day in 1967 in which the Israeli destroyer "Eilat" was sunk by Egyptian missile boats about 12 miles from Port Said around four months after Egypt's defeat in the 1967 Six Day War.

Sisi released a statement likening the success of the recent ousters of former presidents Hosni Mubarak and Mohammed Morsi with the October 21 sinking of the "Eilat."

"Sisi noted that these events changed the reality of Egypt politically, economically and socially, and he praised the navy as one of the main branches of the Egyptian military," reported Shay.

Claims the U.S. is Considering Sanctions Against Israel 'Unfounded'
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Reports that the Obama administration is considering imposing sanctions against Israel are "unfounded and completely without merit," the State Department said Monday.

"It's simply not something that's being considered," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Despite this denial, the Obama administration has repeatedly criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government for green-lighting "settlement construction," which the White House says runs counter to Israel's "stated commitment to peace."

China's Prophetic Military Build - Up
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsProphecy News Watch
Categories: Today's Headlines;Commentary

What should be made of the tremendous and rapid military growth of China? What does it mean for the stability of rest of the world, and particularly the United States? Does the Bible have anything to say about China and her role in end-time Bible prophecy? 

In a recent analysis titled ‘Is China’s Current Military Build-Up Prophetic?’ published in Concerning the Times, Howard Green attempts to answer these questions. Green explains that a resurgence of Russian and Chinese military power has over the past two decades or so begun to rival U.S military supremacy. It started with Russia but China is the country that has more recently reflected a challenge to U.S economic and military domination. Green proceeds to give some additional reasons for this:

1. On October 14th of this year, the IMF reported that China just surpassed the U.S as the world’s largest economy. The significance of this is that the continued growth of China’s economy fuels its massive military buildup and thirst for expansion to gain additional natural resources such as island chains and waterways, and especially oil.

2. US allies including the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan have all been the target of bullying by a robust Chinese navy despite U.S presence and disapproval. There have also been a number of ‘close calls and provocations’ by the Chinese. It may not be long before there is a miscalculation or a provocation that will set off a chain of events and the result could be a regional conflict or war. China may not necessarily win but could inflict major damage.

3.Some defense analysts project China will match the U.S in military strength within 20 years.

4.China is forging greater military ties with Russia and other U.S adversaries. 

5.China has engaged in cyber warfare against the U.S in numerous ways in recent years, including through hacking into a defense contractor’s system and stealing the information to make its own aircraft.

6.The communist nation is aggressively planning, producing, and deploying hypersonic weapons that could overwhelm U.S missile defense systems, and place U.S aircraft carriers, land based targets, and allies at much greater risk than ever before.

More bad news about the Chinese threat has been reported in other emerging news. According to Investors.com, China now also has the capacity to knock out the entire U.S. power grid. The director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael Rogers, has so warned a congressional panel about the Chinese cyber threat, stating that China and "one or two other nations," after performing constant "reconnaissance" missions on U.S. utility companies, were now in a position to blow out the U.S power grid. It would be an act of war that would leave the U.S. powerless to retaliate and, worse still, powerless to identify the perpetrators.

And in terms of Bible prophecy, the growth of the Chinese military is part of the process via which China is assuming its position as a key player in the culmination of history. The U.S is thought not be a key end-times player, but could still be part of a confederacy of nations originating and based in Europe. As Green puts it: “Perhaps America’s dominance will be reduced by terrorism, war, or a global economic crisis and it would be the natural flow of events to swap its sovereignty and belong to a coalition of nations. I believe this coalition of 10 regions (revived Roman Empire) will be the geographical power base of the antichrist.

Ultimately the Chinese….and perhaps other armies from Asia will constitute the kings of the east. The vast army from Asia will move westward, cross the Euphrates River, and move on toward Israel. The news of the advancing army will trouble the evil world leader. Here is the picture the Bible paints for us about the military campaign: 

“At the time of the end the king of the South shall attack him; and the king of the North shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter the countries, overwhelm them, and pass through. He shall also enter the Glorious Land, and many countries shall be overthrown; but these shall escape from his hand: Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of Ammon. He shall stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape. 

He shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt; also the Libyans and Ethiopians shall follow at his heels. But news from the east and the north shall trouble him; therefore he shall go out with great fury to destroy and annihilate many. And he shall plant the tents of his palace between the seas and the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and no one will help him. (Daniel 11:40-45)

How close are we to these events taking place? Green concludes: “Just a few short decades ago….this didn’t seem possible because China was just another emerging if not struggling country stuck in the past. Now with its economic dominance, aggressive political posture, and military power…..China appears to be situated for its role in the final page of history…We see signs pointing to the Lord’s return and we must tell the people we come into contact with to get ready. Those of us who love His appearing know that we have little time left to warn others to repent because Jesus is coming back soon.”

Or as it is written: He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.”Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20).

Al Qaeda Plot to Blow Up Five Passenger Planes in Christmas Spectacular
Dec 8th, 2014
Daily NewsKoenig's Eye View from the White House
Categories: Warning

In this recent article from the Express (U.K.), Donal MacIntyre uncovers a new terrorist plot against British and European airliners and the steps being considered to counter it:

Mobile phones and electronic devices could still be banned from plane cabins, with the threat of a 9/11-style coordinated attack on London and other major cities feared imminent.

The warning comes as Whitehall officials admit that a terror strike on the U.K. is now “almost inevitable” particularly with British jihadis returning from fighting alongside the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

An airport security source told the Sunday Express: “We’ve been told that five planes are being targeted in a high profile hit before Christmas. They’ve been waiting for the big one.

“We have many scares but this one nearly got hand baggage pulled from all airlines. The threat is still alive and real.”

The plot, which has been known about for the past two months, is thought to involve Islamists smuggling bombs on to planes bound for major European destinations before Christmas.

The latest threat is understood to have been uncovered by American intelligence officers who fear that despite success in taking out key Al Qaeda bomb-makers, the genie is out of the bottle and sleeper cells are currently preparing for a doomsday scenario.

Last night leading terrorism expert Dr Sally Leivesley said the banning of hand luggage and hand held electronic devices is unlikely to be accepted by the airlines despite the risks.

She explained: “Efforts to ban all electronic devices including computers from business class passengers which reaps huge revenue for the airlines is nearly unsustainable in their business model.

“However, I would contend that even a mobile phone in the hold [of a plane] is capable of being used as a trigger for a bomb or used as a bomb in its own right.

“There is [sic] likely to have been dry runs already with terrorists testing airport security.”

Dr. Leivesley, a former [U.K.] Home Office risk adviser, said that terrorists are now more likely to be “white, blond and blue eyed” who are radicalized in as little as five weeks.