Next American Revolution

A Record $2 Trillion In Deposits Over Loans

Perhaps one of the most startling and telling charts of the New Normal, one which few talk about, is the soaring difference between bank loans - traditionally the source of growth for banks, at least in their Old Normal business model which did not envision all of them becoming glorified, Too Big To Fail hedge funds, ala the Goldman Sachs "Bank Holding Company" model; and deposits - traditionally the source of capital banks use to fund said loans. Historically, and logically, the relationship between the two time series has been virtually one to one. However, ever since the advent of actively managed Central Planning by the Fed, as a result of which Ben Bernanke dumped nearly $2 trillion in excess deposits on banks to facilitate their risk taking even more, the traditional correlation between loans and deposits has broken down. It is time to once again start talking about this chart as for the first time ever the difference between deposits and loans has hit a record $2 trillion! But that's just the beginning - the rabbit hole goes so much deeper...



There are many reasons why the deposit hoard has continued to rise in the past 4 years, and according to the latest H.8 statement just hit a record $9.173 trillion as of December 12. This compares to $7.259 trillion in the week after the Lehman collapse: an increase of $1.9 trillion.

One contributing factor to this surge in deposits is the collapse in the Commercial Paper market (driven in big part due to the ongoing lack of counterparty faith as well as the ongoing Fed intervention in every possible market which has the paradoxical impact of eliminating confidence in the system and the desire by corporations to be able to fund themselves at a moment's notice come hell or high water) coupled with the unlimited insurance of various deposits courtesy of the government's Transaction Account Guarantee (TAG) program, which however will expire in 5 days, and which has made deposits the preferred pathway of preserving liquidity "dry powder" for both corporations and individuals.

But perhaps the biggest driver of the surge in deposits is the Fed's own ongoing liquidity tsunami, which using various traditional and shadow conduits has injected nearly the entire $2 trillion amount into the banking system (as Excess Reserves, Reverse Repos, Deposits with Federal Reserve Banks, and Other Fed Liabilities which combined conveniently amount to just about $1.8 trillion), which then via reflexive shadow pathways, most notably repo, has translated into an actual excess of cash to the bank's balance sheet: perfectly fungible cash which can then be used for any generic purpose: such as prop trading under the guise of "hedging" as JPM so vividly demonstrated a few months back. More on this in a second.

While the source of the cash for record deposits - i.e., the ever so incorrectly classified "cash on the sidelines" is debatable (but not much), one thing is certain: the total issuance of loans since the Lehman collapse in September of 2008 has barely budged and has increased by a whopping... -120.6 billion! That's a negative.

Indeed, in the past 4+ years, bank loan issuance has declined from $7.27 trillion to $7.15 trillion! To keep up with the increase in deposits, at least based on the historical relationship between deposits and loans, this number would have to be $2 trillion higher today, or some $9.2 trillion - money that would be going to individuals, households, and small, medium and large businesses to fund expansion and growth (instead the gross debt issuance frenzy we have seen over the past 3 years is only to refinance existing debt and lower rates: i.e., not only zero, but negative net issuance).

At least we can put to rest any debate whether banks are willing, able or even interested to lend out money in an unprofitable Net Interest Margin environment, such as that the Fed has created currently courtesy of ZIRP and courtesy of constant fronrunning of the Fed's purchases on the long-end.

If that was all, we could end this post here and tell readers to make up their own mind about what is truly happening behind the scenes. But there is much more to discuss about this record excess of deposits over loans. And the "more" is something that was only recently discovered, courtesy of a massive blunder by none other than JPM's Jamie Dimon. It is important to expose the "more" as it is in stark contrast with the conventional thinking adopted by much of the mainstream media (and even us until some time in May of 2012).

The conventional, or wrong way of thinking about the excess funding used by banks is best exemplified by this following headline from a August 20 Bloomberg article titled, "Banks Use $1.77 Trillion to Double Treasury Purchases."

In it the BBG authors note, correctly, that there was an excess $1.77 trillion in deposits over loans: a number which has since risen to $2.019 trillion as this post observes. Where the article is dead wrong is in its explanation of what the banks use said money for. Because while banks may or may not have used the excess cash for Treasury purchases (recall that we first highlighted that Primary Dealers held a record $140 billion in net Treasurys as of the latest week), the reality is that US Treasury paper is most certainly not what the final use of proceeds is.

Recall that as we have been describing for the past 3 years, a primary driver of "growth" in the US market, if not economy, has been the ability to transform asset and liability exposure off the books using various shadow conduits. The primary such conduit is and has always been repo funding (and various other forms of limited and/or unlimited rehypothecation made so popular after the collapse of MF Global). What repo does is it allows banks to exchange their holdings of Security X (in this case trasury) in exchange for nearly par cash courtesy of some custodian bank - and when it comes to the US non tri-party repo market there are only two: State Street and Bank of New York.

The biggest benefit of Repo financing is that the bank can still hold the original pledged security on its books for Fed "supervision" purposes, even as it obtains fungible cash equivalents via repo, cash which it can then use for whatever downstream purposes it desires such as purchasing stocks. This is where it gets confusing, and certainly confused our friends at Bloomberg who arrived at the wrong conclusion in their analysis.

A good summary of what really happens under the hood when account for repo comes from Citi's brilliant head of credit, Matt King, and his legendary note from September 5, 2008 "Are The Brokers Broken?" (which should be required reading for everyone), where he described the scheme as follows:

Paragraph 15 of the accounting rule FAS 140 stipulates that the amount referred to on the balance sheet statement need only be “collateral pledged to counterparties which can be repledged to other counterparties”. A further portion of the financial instruments owned – which is in many cases substantial – is reported in the 10-Q footnotes of “collateral pledged to counterparties which cannot be repledged”. An example might be tri-party repo, where until recently some custodians could not cope with the administrative complications of rerepoing received collateral. Although the assets themselves have always featured on the balance sheet, the fact that this non-repledgeable portion too is funded on repo is less widely appreciated. The combined volume – once it is arrived at – comes close to 50% of all financial instruments owned.

And this is where everyone loses the plotline, because the reality is that virtually half the balance sheet of US brokers can be repoed back to custodians, in the process leading to double, triple, and x-ple counting a single asset serving as deliverable collateral, and using and reusing (if need be), the cash proceeds, net of a token haircut (or no haircut in the case of English rehypotecation transactions), every single time purchasing riskier assets to generate a return on a return on a return of the original investment. In short: the magic of off-balance sheet accounting which allows brokers to abuse their already TBTF status and lever any underlying asset to the helt and beyond.

Think of Shadow Banking as your own in house synthetic structured product, allowing virtually unlimited leverage.

"Pure Hogwash!" One may say. "These are ridiculous allegations with no base in reality." One may add. We thought so too until the JPM "whale trade" fiasco happened, and all the dirt of the synthetic deposit-funding repo pathways was exposed for all to see.

Presenting Exhibit A, which comes directly from page 24 of JP Morgan's June 13 Financial Results appendix, in which the firm laid out, for all to see, just how it is that the Firm generated over $5 billion in prop trading losses in its Chief Investment Office unit - a department which had previously been tasked with "hedging" trades but as it turned out, was nothing but a glorified, and blessed from the very top, internal hedge fund, one with $323 billion in Assets Under Management! To wit:




The chart above shows the snapshot - from the horse's mouth -of how a major "legacy" bank, one engaged in both deposits and lending, decided to use the "deposit to loan gap" which had swelled to $423 billion at just JPM (blue box in middle), and led to $323 billion in CIO "Available For Sale securities."

What happened next is well-known to all: JPM's Bruno Iksil, together with Ina Drew and the rest of the CIO group (all of whom have since been dismisses), decided to put on a massive bet amounting to over $100 billion in notional across the credit spectrum (the one place where a position of this size could be established without becoming the entire market, although by the time it imploded Bruno Iksil was the market in IG9 and various other indices and tranches). The loss was just as staggering, and amounts to what is one of the largest prop bets gone horribly wrong in history.

Now the JPM spin is well-known: the CIO was merely there to "hedge" exposure, as a direct prop bet would be illegal as per the Volcker Rule, not to mention the avalanche of lawsuits and the regulatory nightmare that would ensue if it became clear that the firm was risking what amount to deposit capital to fund massive, highly risky prop trading bets. Which, when one cuts out the noise, is precisely what JPM did of course, especially since the "hedge" trade blew up just as the market tumbled in the spring of 2012, a time when it should have otherwise hedged the balance of the firm's otherwise bullish posture. That it did not do this refutes the logic that this was a hedge, and confirms that what JPM was doing was nothing short of using an internal, heavily shielded hedge fund, which had $323 billion in collateral as investible equity, to trade away, knowing very well no regulator would dare touch JPM. This is further compounded by the fact, that as one of only two Tri-Party repo dealers in the market(and by far the greater of the two, the second one being the innocuous Bank of New York Mellon), JPM could run circles around both the entire market, and the Fed, if it so chose,courtesy of its monopoly position in the repo market.

* * *

So where does that leave us?

Well, instead of JPM's "deposit to loan gap" discussion, whose massive loss (but, but, hedging...) was the dominant topic on the airwaves for a large part of the summer of 2012, we have the US financial system's "deposits to loan gap" - amounting to some $2 trillion - to contend with. But the punchline is that whereas JPM's decided to express its prop risk using fixed income instruments, and certainly not to buy simple boring Treasurys as the Bloomberg article speculated earlier, nothing prevented JPM from simply bidding up other risky assets "as a hedge" such as stocks, or crude, or slamming silver, or doing anything else it was perfectly entitled to do using the repledging mechanics of the repo system. And since Jamie Dimon has not yet given a full P&L breakdown listing CUSIP by CUSIP just what instruments JPM depositors were funding - either directly or indirectly - nobody actually knows just what securities the CIO was long or short.

The question then becomes: just how are the remaining hundreds of depositor US banks expressing their own iteration of the JPM CIO "deposits over loans" problem? Are they all trading CDS in the IG or HY space? Are they using repo proceeds from TSY purchases to generate fungible cash? Or are they simply using the cash directly and using it to big up risk assets?

All these questions will remain unanswered as it is in both the banks' and, therefore, regulators' best interests to keep the accounting behind repo, pledging and hypothecation transactions as is - nebulous, complicated and even contradictory (especially when it comes to FAS 140 whose paragraph 15 (d) makes borrowed versus pledged transactions off balance sheet, while paragraph 94 makes them on balance sheet), as overhauling the reporting requirements would expose just how much double-, triple-, quadruple- and more dipping America's major money centers are engaged in when it comes to propping up the market: dirt that would put the result of any "Audit the Fed" outcome to shame.

And after all, why should the Fed dirty its hands when it can simply provide the banks with the cash resources to do what they need without it having to engage in what is certainly illegal based on any of its charters. Because while the Liberty 33 Plunge Protection Team may, on occasion, engage the Citadel trading desk to buy ES at times when nobody else will step up, it certainly will not have to do so all the time if it were to flood banks with $2 trillion (soon to be $3, then $4 trillion as QE4EVA drags on and on and on...) in perfectly fungible capital, which can be metamorphozed from innocuous Excess Reserves to perfectly tradeable cash using two or three simple shadow banking transformations.

In that regard, we have to thank Jamie Dimon and his firm for being the biggest beacon of light in 2012, because without the generous contribution of the JPM CIO desk, and its explanation of how the "deposit to loan gap" we would all still be in the dark, and just like Bloomberg, assume naively that all a bank does with excess trillions in deposits, is to buy boring old treasurys.

Instead, we now know the truth, and for that Jamie - you have our sincerest gratitude.

* * *

Finally, the indirect implication of all this is for all those demanding that the "money on the sidelines" leaves the sidelines and is once again used by companies. The problem is that said money is already used by banks as prop trading capital: likely all $2 trillion of it (and if re-hypothecated, more) - in other words, if instead of being used by banks to prop up corporate stocks and risk in general, companies revert to the old mentality of actually reinvesting in themselves - i.e, CapEx spending, hiring new people, even M&A and generally growth - the fungible cash used by banks as investing capital will be redeemed and result in commensurate sales of stocks. Which means that should said "sideline capital" ever be pulled back by the same companies who are now granting, unbeknownst to them, direct asset management duties of said cash by the US banks, then watch out below, at least in the S&P. Which, as the Fed has made all too clear, is the only thing that matters in the New Normal.
Zero Hedge

Netanyahu visited Jordan with plans to destroy Syrian chemical weapons

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently held top-secret talks in Jordan regarding possible methods for destroying Syria’s sizable chemical weapons stockpiles, including air strikes or a ground assault, but so far Amman is reluctant to put its weight behind such action.

Unnamed senior Israeli officials confirmed the visit late Wednesday, but would not give any other details, according to Israel Radio.

The visit was first reported by the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.

Citing an anonymous source, the paper said that Israel suggested precision strikes on President Bashar Assad’s chemical arsenals, but that the idea was nixed due to the potentially large number of Syrian civilian casualties, as well as the threat to the environment.

The other option, a ground incursion aimed at taking control of the stockpiles and neutralizing them, was reportedly shot down by Jordan due to the large number of casualties that such action would likely entail, the high financial cost, and the detrimental impact on the local and regional balance of power.

Jerusalem and Amman are in constant contact over the situation in Syria while Egypt and Saudi Arabia are unwilling to deal with Israel, the report said. No details were provided, however, as to when Netanyahu visited Jordan. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not confirm the report.

Abdullah, at their meeting, also reportedly complained to Netanyahu over his failure to engage with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in substantive negotiations; Netanyahu has blamed Abbas’s preconditions for the failure to resume peace talks.

Arab powers were reluctant to include Israel in discussions aimed at reaching a resolution to the bloody conflict in Syria, because they see the Jewish state as a hindrance, the report said. However, according to the paper, the situation could change if Israel, the United States, and Jordan believe that a desperate Assad will unleash chemical weapons on rebel forces in order to save his regime.

In early December, Jeffrey Goldberg reported in The Atlantic that Israel in the preceding two months had twice requested “permission” from Jordan to bomb Syria, but was denied the go-ahead. Mossad officials who traveled to Jordan to discuss the matter were told that Amman felt “the time was not right,” Goldberg reported.

According to that report, Israel wants Jordanian approval for a strike on Syria because some of the regime’s chemical weapons are stored near the border with Jordan, and both Jerusalem and Amman are concerned about the repercussions of interfering with the delicate situation on the ground.

Damascus would presumably assume “Jordanian complicity” in any military action by Israel, Goldberg quoted an intelligence official as saying, and Amman does not want to provoke its potentially reckless neighbor to the north.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel was carefully monitoring Syria’s chemical weapons.

“We’re taking steps in order to prepare for the far-reaching changes that are commencing there,” Netanyahu said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting, alluding to recent assessments that Assad’s days in power were numbered.

“There are dramatic developments in Syria on an almost daily basis,” he said. “We’re working in cooperation with the United States, and, together with the international community, we’re taking the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the possibility of changes with a bearing on the sensitive weapons systems in Assad’s hands.”

Amos Gilad, a senior official in Israel’s Defense Ministry, said that, “for the time being,” Syria’s chemical weapons were “under control,” despite the fact that Assad has been losing ground to the rebels.

Last month, NBC reported that Washington was “huddling” with its allies, including Israel, over how to grapple with the danger, according to CNN. US intelligence, Israeli intelligence and other agencies were “working this problem round the clock,” it said, adding that concern in the region “is growing by the hour.”

The Times of London reported that the US, along with several key allies, is prepared to launch a military intervention in Syria should the Assad government resort to using its chemical weapons against the rebels.

A military source told the Times that US forces could be ready “rapidly, within days,” and implied that the necessary forces were already in the region.

Israel is particularly concerned that Syrian chemical and biological weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists and be used against Israel.

Times of Israel

Crisis Event Unleashed Soon

Where are Obama and Netanyahu's nuclear clocks?

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his deputy, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon, suddenly woke up Tuesday, Dec. 25, when at the launch of their Likud-Beitenu election campaign, they were asked what had happened to the dire Iranian nuclear threat. “It will soon be back in the headlines,” they said. “Not a day goes by without it receiving our attention,” said sources close to the prime minister. “The nuclear clock is still ticking” - and it is fact that National Security Adviser Yaacov Amidror has made several recent trips to Washington to discuss the issue with American colleagues. “Now we are waiting for Barack Obama to form his new government,” Yaalon remarked.
But Obama and his government will only be sworn in on January 21, and the next day Israel itself goes to the polls. On past performance, an incoming Israel prime minister takes weeks, if not months, to assemble a new government. Iran has therefore been given the gift of at least three months to play with before either administration is ready for strategic decision-making with regard to preemptive action against its nuclear program. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can therefore rest easy until the late spring of 2013.

Dennis Ross, Obama’s former adviser on Iran, who is well versed in White House thinking and has good access to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, said in an interview Monday that, for the moment, the Iranians “are not convinced we are prepared to use force.” Speaking to the Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post, Ross said he believed 2013 would be the critical year.
DEBKAfile connects this remark to a comment President Obama made while campaigning for reelection: He spoke of Iran attaining “breakout capacity” next year - a development which must be prevented, because it means, “we would not be able to intervene in time to stop their nuclear program.”
For breakout capacity, Iran would have to acquire the materials – highly-enriched uranium and components for a weapon - and the knowhow to build nuclear weapons quickly if it is so decided. A decision could be too fast for US intelligence, or presumably Israel, to catch in time to take action. It was this eventuality which Obama said must be prevented.

The current situation poses two problems. Although the US president has often expressed his determination to prevent Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, he has never explained how he would achieve this, or promised to use force if nothing else availed. The other problem is that, according to DEBKAfile’s intelligence and Iranian sources, Tehran has already reached “breakout capacity.”

This phrase has therefore become a convenient slogan for delayed action, another red line to be missed, like the ones set by Netanyahu in his cartoon presentation to the UN Assembly last September, such as 20-percent enriched uranium.
Khamenei has rejected the stipulations the United States laid down in the secret direct negotiations held earlier this month for settling the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program. And there are no signs he is worried about repercussions. The only true words about the current stalemate were heard from Dennis Ross, that the Iranians “are not convinced we are prepared to use force.” The rest is spin.




DEBKA file

Nightfall

Joseph Herrin (12-24-2012)

I have been testifying for many years of the importance of the saints recognizing the hour in which they live. Much of my labors of late have been in the area of seeking to arouse the saints from slumber, to remove the scales from blind eyes, to sound an alarm to ears that have grown dull of hearing. I am confident that this is something the Father would have me as a watchman to do in this hour. I see the enemy’s approach. There is a great storm on the horizon. The deep darkness of night is about to descend upon the earth.

John 9:4
“We must work the works of Him who sent Me, as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work.”

This is NOT an hour for the saints to be at ease. It is NOT a time in which to idly pass the days. The following words of the apostle Paul should be taken to heart by all of the elect and chosen of God at this hour.

Ephesians 5:11-17
And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says, "Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Let me challenge you to answer the questions, “Are you making the most of your time?” “Are you understanding what the will of the Lord is for your life?” “Do you perceive that the earth is falling into great darkness?” “Are you pressing into the presence of the Father that you might be filled with light and stand in readiness for dark days?”

Yahshua chided the Jews for not discerning the hour they lived in. If they had known, they would have been looking for the appearing of the Messiah. In their ignorance and failure to recognize the prophetic day upon them, they missed the hour of their visitation.

Matthew 16:2-4
He answered and said to them, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' And in the morning, 'There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.' Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?”

Luke 19:42-44
"If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

People of God, the dark night at the end of this age is falling. It is at the door. Satan knows the hour, as do all of his servants, yet God’s people are blind and deaf.

Isaiah 42:19-20
Who is blind but My servant, or so deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is so blind as he that is at peace with Me, or so blind as the servant of Yahweh? You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; Your ears are open, but none hears.

The Scriptures reveal that the demons know the timing of God. They understand when things must transpire. Should not the people of God, those indwelt by the Holy Spirit, perceive these things?

Matthew 8:29
And behold, [the demons] cried out, saying, "What do we have to do with You, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?"

All things in this creation are moving forward according to a divine plan of the ages. The Scriptures provide insight into what must occur at this very hour. We stand 6,000 years removed from Adam, and 2,000 years from the time the Second Adam, who is Christ, walked upon this earth. Prophetically 6 days have passed since Adam, and 2 days since Christ.

II Peter 3:8-9
But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Here, in symbolic speech, is disclosed a key to understanding Yahweh’s prophetic timetable. Using this key we can unlock the truths contained in the following passages.

Luke 13:32
And [Yahshua] said, “Go, tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.'”

Hosea 6:1-2
“Come, let us return to Yahweh. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him.”

For two days (2,000 years) Christ through His body has been casting out demons and performing cures. For two days a remnant of mankind have known what it is to be torn as they experience the internal battle of the Spirit against the flesh, and violence has been waged in their members. As Paul stated,

I Corinthians 9:27
But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit [not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit].
[Amplified Bible]

For two days the church has had opportunity to work the works of Christ. Now the hour is at hand for the sons of God to be perfected. The third day is before us when Christ will raise up a remnant of overcoming sons and daughters that they may live before Him.

Using the key provided by Peter, we also understand that six days have passed since Adam was created. Christ appeared 4,000 years after Adam. It was prophetically the end of day four on Yahweh’s prophetic timetable. The demons understood that the time prophesied for them to be bound and cast into the lake of fire was at the end of 6,000 years. This is why they asked the Messiah if He had come to torment them “before the time.”

The seven days of creation serve as a parable of God’s work to bring man to perfection. The seventh day is a day when no work is done. It is the Sabbath. It is an hour for perfected sons of God to rule and reign with Christ. The seventh day represents that thousand years when the earth will know peace under the rule of Yahshua. For 6,000 years the earth has experienced strife as the forces of light and darkness collided. Now, at the end of 6,000 years the night will fall. It will be a time in which no work can be done. Yet it will give way to a glorious day.

Satan and his servants know the Scriptures far better than the majority of the people of God. They have had millennia to study them. Satan is testifying through many ways that his hour, the hour of darkness is at hand.

Luke 22:52-53
And Yahshua said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come against Him, "Have you come out with swords and clubs as against a robber? While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on Me; but this hour and the power of darkness are yours."

As the evil of Satan reached its zenith while the Son of God hung on a cross, Yahweh symbolically testified that an evil work of Satan was being carried out against a righteous man.

Luke 23:44-45
Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened...

Now, another hour of great darkness is at hand. Let the saints of God have hope, for Christ did not remain in the grave. He was resurrected at the break of day and the dawning of the light after three days. So too will the dark night that is rising be limited to a finite duration, while the brightness to follow will be without end.

Revelation 21:23-25
And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk by its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it. And in the daytime (for there shall be no night there) its gates shall never be closed...

Let us take heed to what time it is. Satan has been boasting that his hour of great wrath is nigh at hand. One of the leading book series, and top grossing movie series, of this present hour has been the Twilight series. The final movie in this series is in the theaters at this very moment. Note the darkness of the image below. There are two characters pictured standing outside in the woods as darkness falls.




Twilight

The word twilight is defined as: The soft, diffused light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, either from daybreak to sunrise or, more commonly, from sunset to nightfall.

According to Yahweh’s timetable we are approaching the time of nightfall. There is a Satanic purpose in putting the word Twilight before the eyes of mankind at this hour. He is boasting about his hour, and the power of darkness, that are approaching. As I have mentioned in recent posts, this same message that the dark night is approaching is being declared in multiple movies at this time.



Read this as “The Dark NIGHT Rises.”



Into Darkness to be Released on May 17, 2013



The name of the above movie, which was just released, is an admixture of military time terminology and a reference to darkness. Throughout this year, Satan has been announcing that an hour of great darkness is at hand, an hour when the hordes of hell will usher forth.



Underworld Awakening

Note that this movie which was released at the beginning of 2012 is not only titledUnderworld Awakening, but has the catch phrase “Vengeance Returns.” Both of these messages were very pronounced at the 2012 London Olympics, which will be mentioned further in a moment.



Ghost Rider - Spirit of Vengeance

In February of this year the movie Ghost Rider - Spirit of Vengeance was released, continuing the theme of diabolical revenge.

The Olympics are always a showcase of Luciferian design. They are completely controlled by servants of Satan, and they declare that message Satan desires to broadcast to the entire human race. The London Olympics had some very dark themes, among them a message of Satanic vengeance against God and man. One of the official songs of the XXX Olympiad was Survival by the British group Muse. This song was played every time athletes entered the Olympic Stadium. It contains the following words. As you read them, view them as a declaration of Satan to mankind.

Muse – Survival Lyrics

Race, life’s a race
And I am gonna win
Yes, I am gonna win

And I’ll light the fuse
And I’ll never lose
And I choose to survive
Whatever it takes
You won’t pull ahead
I’ll keep up the pace
And I’ll reveal my strength
To the whole human race
Yes I am prepared
To stay alive
I won’t forgive, the vengeance is mine
And I won’t give in
Because I choose to thrive

I’m gonna win

These words are not befitting human athletes that are held to a strict code of conduct and sportsmanship. Why then were these specific words chosen? The answer is supplied as one understands that Satan is using the Olympics as a forum to speak to mankind. The Bible testifies the following about the hour which is at hand.

Revelation 12:10-13
"Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death. For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time." And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.

Satan’s hour of wrath upon mankind is at hand. It will be a time of great darkness. This also was a theme of the Olympics. Another of the official Olympic songs wasGood Morning to the Night by Elton John.



This song was a remix performed by an Australian duo known as Pnau. (The name of this group is derived from the sound of a gunshot.) The Olympics served as a world forum to call forth the powers of darkness. This was the purpose of the focus on bells, and bell ringing. I will not restate all the information relating to bells in the Olympic games. You can read about them at the following link to the post titledRinging in Satan’s Kingdom.

http://parablesblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/babylon-rising-part-seven-ringing-in.html

There was also The Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe, located in central London, that was completed just in time for the opening of the Olympics. This building served as a beacon to gather the forces of evil to one central location. This was discussed in the following posts:

http://parablesblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/babylon-rising-part-six-london-as-zion.html

http://parablesblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/london-calling-legions-arise-thorns-of.html

The hordes of hell being summoned forth was illustrated in the Opening Ceremony as people issued forth from under the ground of an image of Glastonbury Tor. As the tree above the Tor rose into the air, an underground portal was opened and smoke arose as people filed forth.



There was nothing subtle about this, for a moment later the group named Underworld began playing the song Pandemonium. (In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Pandemonium is the capital city of hell where demons dwell.) This entire segment of the Opening Ceremony was titled “Dark Satanic Mills.” Something quite unusual was done as the smell of sulphur was pumped into the stadium to accompany the people coming forth from the underworld. The smell of sulphur has long been associated with the presence of demons and various unclean spirits.

Had there been any doubt left about what was being signified, the Opening Ceremony removed it when a forty foot tall apparition of great evil rose to tower over all those on the stadium floor. His focus was especially upon the children who were lying on hospital beds at his feet.



A reader named Chris posted a comment to the previous blog on the events that occurred at Sandy Hook, informing me of the following:

Hello Joseph, thanks for your blog. Is it a coincidence that Emile Sande sang at the Olympic ceremony? Wikipedia reveals that her name is pronounced San(dee) not sanday as we know it.

No, it is not a coincidence, anymore than it was a coincidence that Captain Hook appeared at the same ceremony. Satan included both a Sande and a Hook in this show to broadcast what was coming as his evil hordes arise to do his bidding.



Captain Hook

Even as the two official Olympic songs already mentioned were chosen to declare a message from Satan, so too the song chosen for Sande to sing at the Olympics served as a declaration of devilish intent. There was no other reason that the particular song she sang would have been chosen for this venue. It seems completely out of place until one examines the lyrics to see how well they match the message coming forth of great darkness and trouble coming to mankind. Following are the words from the hymn Abide With Me, sung by Emeli Sande.




Emeli Sande Singing Abide With Me

Abide With Me

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me...

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

I encourage you to read these words understanding that the Lord being mentioned is NOT Christ Yahshua, it is Satan. Remember, this is London whose inner city is marked by boundary dragons, and whose coat of arms is a shield flanked by dragons. Sande sang this song as she stood in front of the giant bell inscribed with the words of Caliban from The Tempest. Caliban was the spawn of Satan and a witch.




The Latin phrase Domine Dirige Nos is translated “Lord Direct Us.” It is not Christ who is represented by an image of a dragon. It is Satan.

Revelation 12:9
And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan...

This hymn sung by Sande states “Fast falls the eventide.” Is this not an indication that the “Twilight” is upon mankind? It then states, “The darkness deepens... Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day.” In hindsight, with full knowledge of the recent loss of the lives of twenty little children at Sandy Hook, the full evil of what was in view at the Olympic Opening Ceremonies is revealed. A singer whose name is pronounced Sandy sings about dying during a ceremony in which dozens of little children are portrayed as being terrorized by demonic creatures, and threatened by the child hating pirate named Hook.

It was also mentioned in a comment to the blog that the heavy metal rock group Metallica has a song titled Enter Sandman. In this song is a reference to the Peter Pan story, a story whose author J.M. Barrie confessed to be about children who died young.

Metallica - Enter Sandman

Say your prayers little one
Don't forget my son
To include everyone
I tuck you in
Warm within
Keep you free from sin
'Til the sandman he comes

Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
We're off to never never-land

Something's wrong, shut the light
Heavy thoughts tonight
And they aren't of snow white
Dreams of war
Dreams of lies
Dreams of dragons fire
And of things that will bite, yeah

Sleep with one eye open
Grippin' your pillow tight

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
We're off to never never-land...

Exit light
Enter night
Grain of sand

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
We're off to never never-land

Never never-land is a reference to the Never Land of Peter Pan where the Lost Boys and Captain Hook dwelt. This is the same Captain Hook who in the theatrical version of Peter Pan, Act V Scene I, states, “A holocaust of children, there is something grand in the idea!”

J.M. Barrie revealed that the Lost Boys are actually dead boys. Therefore, Never Land is the place that dead children go. In the Metallica song the lyrics speak of the Sandman coming for a child to take them off to Never Never-Land.

This Satanic ceremony held in London before the eyes of the entire world was used to summon forth forces of darkness to bring forth a holocaust of children. As it was mentioned in a previous post, the name Sandy is a diminutive of Alexander. A reader informed me that in the Aurora shootings at the opening night for The Dark Knight Rises, three of the twelve people killed had the name Alexander.

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/07/aurora_theater_shooting_list_o.php

Such an occurrence is a statistical anomaly, and points once again to powers of darkness orchestrating these events.

It is alarming that the people of God are so blind to what is occurring in the spiritual realm that hundreds of churches, and thousands of professing Christians throughout the United Kingdom, rang bells to usher in the beginning of these Olympic games. To understand the great evil of this, I urge you to read the post titled Ringing in Satan’s Kingdom.

The number one action movie in Hong Kong this year 2012, the Chinese year of the Water Dragon, is named Nightfall.



Nightfall

The adversary of God’s people knows what time it is. Do you? Are you making the most of the days knowing that they are evil? Are you prepared for the dark night that is rising? Do you see the twilight all around you? Do you perceive that light is fading, and darkness increasing? Do you see the anticipation of the servants of Satan who are saying “Good Morning to the Night”?

Satan has been declaring the hour even through the evil board games that are wildly popular among the youth in this dark hour. The following image is from a game released this year.



If you are not pressing into the presence of God, separating yourself from evil, laying aside a pursuit of the world and the things in it, then you will not stand in the evil day.

Ephesians 6:13
Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm

May you be blessed with peace and understanding in these days.

US preparing attack option in Syria

The US is gearing up for the option of military involvement in Syria if embattled President Bashar Assad uses chemical weapons against opposition fighters, a senior member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet implied on Thursday.

Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya’alon noted, however, that at the current juncture there was no fear of the regime in Damascus deploying its sizable stockpile of nonconventional weapons against Israel.

While current US efforts were focused on the diplomatic track, if nonconventional weapons “falling into irresponsible hands” became a plausible scenario, Washington would take action to prevent it from occurring, Ya’alon told Israel Radio.

Asked whether he meant that the US was mulling “an actual insertion of military forces,” Ya’alon, a former IDF chief of General Staff, said vaguely: “I don’t know about an actual insertion of forces, but there’s a variety of options for preventing it from happening, and of course Israel and other countries in the area are closely monitoring the situation in Syria.”

President Barack Obama warned in August that the utilization of Syrian chemical weapons would be a “red line” for the United States. “We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” he said, cautioning that “there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front, or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly.”

On Wednesday it was revealed that Netanyahu recently held clandestine talks in Jordan regarding possible methods for destroying Syria’s chemical weapons, including airstrikes or a ground assault, but that so far Amman is reluctant to put its weight behind such action.

Ya’alon wouldn’t directly comment on Netanyahu’s visit, but did say that “Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan are cooperating closely” on strategic matters. “The two [countries] have mutual interests, such as extremist Islamist terror, Syria, and the situation in Iran,” the minister said, adding that “even though there are differences of opinion, the interests are there.”

In early December, Jeffrey Goldberg reported in The Atlantic that Israel in the preceding two months had twice requested “permission” from Jordan to bomb Syria, but was denied the go-ahead. Mossad officials who traveled to Jordan to discuss the matter were told that Amman felt “the time was not right,” Goldberg reported.

According to that report, Israel wants Jordanian approval for a strike on Syria because some of the regime’s chemical weapons are stored near the border with Jordan, and both Jerusalem and Amman are concerned about the repercussions of interfering with the delicate situation on the ground.

Damascus would presumably assume “Jordanian complicity” in any military action by Israel, Goldberg quoted an intelligence official as saying, and Amman does not want to provoke its potentially reckless neighbor to the north.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel was carefully monitoring Syria’s chemical weapons.

“We’re taking steps in order to prepare for the far-reaching changes that are commencing there,” Netanyahu said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting, alluding to recent assessments that Assad’s days in power were numbered.

“There are dramatic developments in Syria on an almost daily basis,” he said. “We’re working in cooperation with the United States, and, together with the international community, we’re taking the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the possibility of changes with a bearing on the sensitive weapons systems in Assad’s hands.”

The Times of London reported that the US, along with several key allies, is prepared to launch a military intervention in Syria should the Assad government resort to using its chemical weapons against the rebels.

A military source told the Times that US forces could be ready “rapidly, within days,” and implied that the necessary forces were already in the region.

The Times of Israel

Coalition may use 'nuclear option’ to force through gay marriage law

Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary, has signalled that the Government might be prepared to use the Parliament Act to get its planned “equal marriage” legislation on to the statute book if it is rejected in the Lords.

The Act, which has been used only seven times in the past century, is sometimes described as the “nuclear” option of parliamentary process to break stalemates between the Commons and the Lords. It asserts the superiority of the House of Commons by allowing Bills that cannot clear the Lords to become law, but is intended to be used only in exceptional circumstances.

The Act was last used by the Blair government to force through the ban on foxhunting after years of acrimony over the issue.

Despite predictions that almost half of Tory MPs will vote against same-sex marriage in a free vote, the proposal is likely to secure a majority in the Commons with the support of Labour and Liberal Democrat members. But the situation in the Lords is less clear, with almost equal numbers of Tory and Labour peers but a large independent contingent as well as 26 Church of England bishops.

Some peers have already predicted that the Bill could be sunk in the Lords even if it passes the Commons. Mrs Miller has been asked repeatedly in recent days whether she would rule out using the Parliament Act but has sidestepped the question by saying that she was confident the Lords would back the measure.

An official statement from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said only: “We do not foresee that this will be the case and have no plans to do so.”

David Cameron’s popularity among homosexual voters has risen since he backed same-sex marriage, according to a poll for Pink News, an online publication for homosexuals. Just 11 per cent voted Conservative at the last general election, but this would rise to 30 per cent if a vote were called tomorrow.

The Telegraph

3 dead as Snowstorm heads east after South twisters

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — An enormous storm system that dumped snow and sleet on the nation's midsection and unleashed damaging tornadoes around the Deep South began punching its way toward the Northeast on Wednesday, slowing holiday travel.

Post-Christmas travelers braced for flight delays and a raft of weather warnings for drivers, a day after rare winter twisters damaged buildings in Louisiana and Alabama.

Snow and ice covered roads in southern Illinois and southern Indiana early Wednesday. Officials urged residents to stay home if they can. State police reported numerous slide-off accidents in the Evansville, Ind., area and white-out conditions on Interstate 64 in Indiana with wind gusts around 30 mph.

The storm system headed from the Gulf Coast to New England has been blamed for three deaths and several injuries, though no one was killed outright in the tornadoes. In snowy Arkansas, the storm left more than 189,000 customers without electricity Wednesday, utility Entergy Arkansas said.

Severe thunderstorms were forecast for the Carolinas while a line of blizzard and winter storm warnings stretched from Arkansas up the Ohio River to New York and on to Maine.

Thirty-four tornadoes were reported in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama during the outbreak Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.

Rick Cauley's family was hosting relatives for Christmas when tornado sirens went off in Mobile. Not taking any chances, he and his wife, Ashley, hustled everyone down the block to take shelter at the athletic field house at Mobile's Murphy High School in Mobile.

It turns out, that wasn't the place to head.

"As luck would have it, that's where the tornado hit," Cauley said. "The pressure dropped and the ears started popping and it got crazy for a second." They were all fine, though the school was damaged, as were a church and several homes, but officials say no one was seriously injured.

Camera footage captured the approach of the large funnel cloud.

Mobile was the biggest city hit by numerous twisters. Along with brutal, straight-line winds, the storms knocked down countless trees, blew the roofs off homes and left many Christmas celebrations in the dark. Torrential rains drenched the region and several places saw flash flooding.

More than 325 flights around the U.S. were canceled as of Wednesday morning, according to the flight tracker FlightAware.com. The cancelations were mostly spread around airports that had been or soon would be in the path of the storm.

Holiday travelers in the nation's much colder midsection battled treacherous driving conditions from freezing rain and blizzard conditions from the same fast-moving storms. In Arkansas, highway department officials said the state was fortunate the snowstorm hit on Christmas Day when many travelers were already at their destinations.

Texas, meanwhile, dealt with high winds and slickened highways.

On Tuesday, winds toppled a tree onto a pickup truck in the Houston area, killing the driver, and a 53-year-old north Louisiana man was killed when a tree fell on his house. Icy roads already were blamed for a 21-vehicle pileup in Oklahoma, and the Highway Patrol there says a 28-year-old woman was killed in a crash on a snowy U.S. Highway near Fairview.

Trees fell on homes and across roadways in several communities in southern Mississippi andLouisiana. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency, saying eight counties reported damages and some injuries.

It included McNeill, where a likely tornado damaged a dozen homes and sent eight people to the hospital, none with life-threatening injuries, said Pearl River County emergency management agency director Danny Manley.

The snowstorm that caused numerous accidents pushed out of Oklahoma late Tuesday, carrying with it blizzard warnings for parts of northeast Arkansas, where 10 inches of snow was forecast. Freezing rain clung to trees and utility lines in Arkansas and winds gusts up to 30 mph whipped them around, causing about 71,000 customers to lose electricity for a time.

Christmas lights also were knocked out with more than 100,000 customers without power for at least a time in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

Blizzard conditions were possible for parts of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky up to Cleveland with predictions of several inches to a foot of snow. By the end of the week, that snow was expected to move into the Northeast with again up to a foot predicted

Jason Gerth said the Mobile tornado passed by in a few moments and from his porch, he saw about a half-dozen green flashes in the distance as transformers blew. His home was spared.

"It missed us by 100 feet and we have no damage," Gerth said.

In Louisiana, quarter-sized hail was reported early Tuesday in the western part of the state and a WDSU viewer sent a photo to the TV station of what appeared to be a waterspout around the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in New Orleans. There were no reports of crashes or damage.

Some mountainous areas of Arkansas' Ozark Mountains could get up to 10 inches of snow, which would make travel "very hazardous or impossible" in the northern tier of the state from near whiteout conditions, the weather service said.

The holiday may conjure visions of snow and ice, but twisters this time of year are not unheard of. Ten storm systems in the last 50 years have spawned at least one Christmastime tornado with winds of 113 mph or more in the South, said Chris Vaccaro, a National Weather Service spokesman in Washington, via email.

The most lethal were the storms of Dec. 24-26, 1982, when 29 tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri,Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi killed three people and injured 32.

In Mobile, a large section of the roof on the Trinity Episcopal Church is missing and the front wall of the parish wall is gone, said Scott Rye, a senior warden at the church in the Midtown section of the city.

On Christmas Eve, the church with about 500 members was crowded for services.
Yahoo

US. administration orders drone strikes on Christmas Eve

A dark Christmas for Pakistani Christians

Christians celebrate Christmas amid growing fear of persecution and rampant economic and social discrimination in Muslim-majority Pakistan. The year 2012 was one of the worst years for them in the country.

In many parts of the world, Christmas means a time of celebration. But for Christians in Pakistan, who live under constant fear of persecution by the state and majority Sunni Muslims, there is not much to celebrate.

Christians make up about two percent of the 180 million people living in Pakistan. Rights organizations say that like any other religious minority, they face legal and cultural discrimination in the Islamic Republic.

Pakistan's non-government human rights commission, HRCP (Human Rights Commission of Pakistan), reported that the year 2012 was one of the worst years for Pakistani Christians; a number of them were charged with blasphemy, their churches were burnt and houses looted in many parts of the country.

Blasphemy is a sensitive topic in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, where 97 percent of the population is Muslim. Controversial blasphemy laws introduced by the Islamic military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s make life for Christians more difficult. Activists say the laws have little to do with blasphemy and are often used to settle petty disputes and personal vendettas; they say the Christians are thereby often victimized.

Living under blasphemy laws

On August 16, Rimsha Masih - a Christian girl aged between 10 and 14 - was accused of committing a blasphemous act by a religious cleric in her town. The cleric said she had burnt pages upon which were inscribed verses from the Koran. Masih was promptly taken into police custody.

Pakistani officials claimed the girl suffered from Down's Syndrome, a genetic disorder causing major learning disabilities. Western governments expressed serious concern over her arrest. After numerous protests by rights organizations and Western governments, a Pakistani court ordered her release from custody.

But Asia Bibi has not had such luck. In 2010, Bibi, an impoverished farmer, was sentenced to death after her neighbors accused her of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. She is still languishing in prison. The liberal Pakistanis who chose to support Bibi were also not spared by Islamists.

A few months after Bibi's conviction, former governor of the Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was murdered by his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. Qadri said he killed Taseer for speaking out against the blasphemy laws and in support of Bibi. In March 2011, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's former minister for minority affairs, was assassinated by a religious fanatic for the same reason.

Farzana Bari, director of Center for Women's Studies at Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University, believes discrimination will persist until the government reforms its legislation.

"It is high time that Pakistani government reform these anti-blasphemy laws. These laws are even against the spirit of Islam and are a cause of notoriety for the country," she told DW.

The government of President Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) was heavily criticized by domestic and international rights organizations for failing to reform the laws after the assassinations of Taseer and Bhatti.

But Karachi-based journalist Mohsin Sayeed does not only blame the government. He told DW in an interview that what used to be a small section of society had now become mainstream.

"The days are gone when we said it was a small group of religious extremists, xenophobes, hatemongers and bigots who commit such crimes. Now the venom has spread to the whole of Pakistani society," he said, adding that those who condemned such "barbaric crimes" were now a minority in Pakistan.

He also criticized the Pakistani judiciary for its alleged sympathetic behavior toward the right-wing. "Asia Bibi is still in jail, while Qadri (Taseer's assassin), is still alive," he said.

Living in fear

Before the rise of Islamic extremism and religious intolerance in Pakistan, Christians celebrated Christmas with much enthusiasm. They would put stars on their houses and decorate their towns with lights and flags. But many now worry about the risk of being conspicuous.

"We are scared. We are frightened. We cannot sit together, we cannot speak loudly, we cannot celebrate openly. We receive threats," Ashraf Masih, a street sweeper, told AFP. "If we sit together and talk, all of a sudden the Muslim owner of the house will come and ask 'Why are you here, what are you talking about?'"

Qadri was celebrated by extremists for the murder of a governor critical of blasphemy laws

Aslam Masih, a 37-year-old gardener, told AFP in an interview that previously they used to celebrate Christmas in the town church but now it it had been closed.

Attacks on churches

Experts say that the worshipping places of Pakistani minorities are also being increasingly targeted - not only by Islamic extremists, but also by common Pakistanis.

Abdul Hai, a senior official of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in Karachi, told DW that while there were also commercial reasons behind the attacks on the minorities' places of worship, most of the time, the temples and churches were attacked for religious reasons. "Religious fanaticism is growing in Pakistan and religious extremist groups are getting stronger by the day. Unfortunately, the government is not doing anything to protect minorities and their places of worship," Hai said.

One of the most violent attacks on Christians and their places of worship in Pakistan was carried out in 2009 in the central Gojra town of the Punjab when Muslims burnt more than 70 Christian houses and many churches, killing seven people, after a rumor that the Koran had been desecrated.
DW