The Love of Money

England Icy chaos after hours of snowfall overnight with 50mph winds making it feel like -12C

Police warned of treacherous road conditions for commuters tonight and tomorrow morning as Britain faces a week of Siberian weather, with the odds of a white Easter falling as fast as the temperatures.

The freeze that struck Britain at the weekend after a spell of warm sunny weather will continue today, with temperatures expected to plunge as low as -7C and winds reach up to 50mph in the South West.

A band of light sleet and snow falling from East Anglia to Lancashire yesterday became heavier today, with the whole of the South Coast facing snowy conditions.




The worst affected areas today will be Devon, Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, as well as over higher ground like the Pennines, where up to four inches are expected.

Police in Sussex were called to a number of crashes today caused by the snowy conditions. A force spokesman said: ‘Some drivers are just not making allowances for the conditions.But there is potential for a dusting of snow in all areas, bringing with it a risk of travel problems for morning and evening rush hour. Met Office 'feels like' temperatures, which take into account wind chill and humidity levels, show Swindon, Wiltshire, will drop as low as -12C tonight


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2291408/UK-weather-Areas-facing-4ins-snow-today-bookies-slash-odds-white-Easter.html#ixzz2NFfFD1db

Mid-East War On Bilderberg 2013 Agenda

According to veteran journalist Jim Tucker, during a recent meeting in London, several elitists shared the sentiment that a mid-east war targeting Iran and Syria could be on the agenda for the secretive Bilderberg Group’s 2013 confab.

“War in the Middle East has been on the minds of Bilderberg members,” states the report, referring to an exchange between Vernon E. Jordan Jr. and another attendee about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasing hostility towards Iran. Jordan, a Bilderberg regular, is the Senior Managing Director with Lazard Freres & Co. LLC, an investment banking firm. He also sits on the board of directors of numerous large corporations, including American Express, J.C. Penney Corporation, Asbury Automotive Group and the Dow Jones & Company.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, when Bennie boy gets mad about anything, it is directed at Iran and adds to the potential for war,” Jordan reportedly said, adding, “The more Bennie Boy gets mad at Iran, the better the chances for a really big Mideast war.”

Jordan’s fellow attendee responded, “The bigger the war, the better the chances of establishing a global banking system to finance such ventures.”

The conversation took place during a meeting in London on February 25 and was reportedly overheard by a source, “who travels extensively and regularly attends gatherings hosted by the country’s top elites.” Jim Tucker is renowned for having sources inside Bilderberg who routinely leak to him the group’s annual location and agenda weeks beforehand.

US Secretary of State John Kerry also weighed in, responding to concerns that there had been no boots on the ground and no direct US or NATO military intervention in Syria by remarking, “we can fix that.”

On the same day, Kerry gave a news conference in London asserting that Syrian rebels would not be left, “dangling in the wind wondering where the support is or if it’s coming.”

The issue of regime change in Syria was also on the agenda during last year’s conference, which was attended by Syrian National Transitional Council head Bassma Kodmani.

Kerry also hinted that the 2013 Bilderberg meeting will take place in the United States for an unprecedented second year running because no matter where the secretive group hosts its annual confab, “hoodlums” will always show up to demonstrate.

“In another indication Bilderberg will again meet in Chantilly, Virginia (though definitely not a certainty), Kerry said it is “most convenient” because “there are so many reasons for people around the world to fly to Washington. It’s easy to drop in on Bilderberg on a weekend when you have scheduled meetings at the State Department, White House or wherever. We know the hoodlums will be there wherever we meet. So make it convenient for everybody,” reports Tucker.

Kerry’s arrogant vitriol directed towards vocal opponents of Bilderberg’s undemocratic agenda has become a general theme in recent years.

During last year’s confab in Chantilly, a source working inside the Westfields Marriott hotel told London Guardian journalist Charlie Skelton that Bilderberg attendees referred to protesters outside the hotel as “cockroaches”.

During the 2010 Bilderberg meeting in Spain, members were overheard complaining about the fact that demonstrators could even afford to travel to different countries in order to make their voices heard and that the fact they still had an income that allowed them to do so was a “permanent threat” to and “very scary” to Bilderberg’s agenda.

Bilderberg’s possible decision to avoid Europe for a second year running, which would represent a first in the group’s history, could have been prompted by events during the 2011 conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland, during which Bilderberg members were directly confronted by protesters. Dominique Baettig, a prominent member of Switzerland’s largest political party, also attempted to confront other Swiss politicians attending the secretive confab and called for a parliamentary investigation into the activities of the group.

Italian lawyer Alfonso Luigi Marra also recently requested that the Public Prosecutor of Rome investigate Bilderberg for criminal activity, another good reason for its members to avoid gathering in Europe.

During a November 30-December 3 meeting in Washington of Bilderberg’s North American Group, former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage reportedly said that Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg luminaries were angry over “their constant exposure,” citing it as a reason for why Bilderberg was planning to avoid Europe, where attention from media outlets is more intense in contrast to the largely compliant US corporate press.

Attempts to book a room at the Westfields Marriott hotel in Chantilly, Bilderberg’s usual haunt, from Friday to Monday June 21-June 24 are met with a message saying no rooms are available. However, it is still possible to book a room when checking out on Sunday June 23rd. All other weekends around these dates are still available.


Infowars

British Teachers Under Fire for Refusing to Teach Gay Agenda

A primary school teacher faced disciplinary action because she didn’t want to read to her class from a storybook about gay penguins.

The teacher, who has not been named, works in a school in a London Borough and her case has been told to a committee of MPs looking the gay marriage bill.

Another teacher, from Scotland, says he was pressured to promote gay marriage against his will and it contributed to a breakdown.

The two teachers have remained anonymous because they fear for their careers, but have permitted a lawyer to outline their cases to Parliament.

The teacher from London, referred to as “Mrs. A”, began reading a book called “And Tango Makes Three” to her primary school class.

When she realized the book was advocating gay marriage, she stopped reading it.

She is a Christian and she told the class that there are different views about that issue in society.

But the school’s head teacher said Mrs. A had broken the law, and she would not be allowed to have her own class in the new school year.

Another teacher, referred to as “Mr. X” in the evidence given to MPs, teaches in a secondary school in Scotland.

He was prepared to teach about marriage and sexuality in a balanced and objective way, but could not in all conscience say gay marriage was the same as straight marriage.

But the head of department was angered by Mr. X’s stance, and the head teacher said M.r X must toe the line and keep his views to himself.

Mr. X said this contributed to “a breakdown and being signed off work for several months with stress.”

Top lawyers have warned the Government that its plans to redefine marriage could mean Christian teachers face the sack if they refuse to endorse gay marriage in the classroom.

In January, a senior source in the Education Department admitted that the British government may be powerless to stop this happening.

Charisma

North Korea reportedly nullifies armistice

South Korea and the United States began annual military drills Monday despite North Korean threats to respond by voiding the armistice that ended the Korean War and launching a nuclear attack on the U.S.

After the start of the drills, South Korean officials said their northern counterparts didn't answer two calls on a hotline between the sides, apparently following through on an earlier vow to cut the communication channel because of the drills.

Japanese media were citing a story in the Monday edition of North Korea's ruling party newspaper as saying the armistice is no longer in effect.

Anti-war demonstrators turned out near the U.S. Embassy in the South Korean capital of Seoul to protest the start of the drills.

Pyongyang had launched a bombast-filled propaganda campaign against the drills, which involve 10,000 South Korean and about 3,000 American troops, and against last week's U.N. vote to impose new sanctions over the North's Feb. 12 nuclear test. Analysts believe much of that campaign is meant to shore up loyalty among citizens and the military for North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un.

Pyongyang isn't believed to be able to build a warhead small enough to mount on a long-range missile, and the North's military has repeatedly vowed in the past to scrap the 1953 armistice. North Korea wants a formal peace treaty, security guarantees and other concessions, as well as the removal of 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.
CBS

You only think you know what's coming...EXO-VATICANA (Part No19)

As our book Exo-Vaticanaheads to the printer we still do not know whether the last pope will turn out to be a person on our short list, but, whoever he is, intrigue surrounds how he may accommodate the newly celebrated astro-theology of Rome’s top astronomers and theologians and whether this will somehow fulfill the Catholic prophecies of the coming Man of Sin—the seed of Satan—either as an alien serpent-savior, or as a deceiver that points mankind to a god of another world.

In point of fact, the Bible describes both the False Prophet (Petrus Romanus?) and the Antichrist as having allegiances and endowments not of this Earth. Not only can both of them call “fire” (lightning that struck St. Peter's Basilica two weeks ago?) down from out of those heavens suspected to be the host-location of aliens (see Revelation 13:12–14 as a clear alliance with the “powers” of the celestial realm), but the prophet Daniel tells us their belief system will actually honor a “strange, alien god.” In Daniel 11:38–39 we read:

But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most strong holds [Hebrew Mauzzim] with astrange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain. (emphasis added)

Several parts of Daniel’s prophecy stand out as very unusual. First, the “God of forces” or alternately “god of fortresses” (מעזים אלה) has been connected to Baal-Shamem, literally “Lord of the Heavens,” a deity whom the Manichaean Gnostics later worshipped as “the greatest angel of light.”^[i] His second reference to the deity as “a strange god” is also intriguing. The Hebrew text “עִם־אֱלוֹהַּ נֵכָר” can be literally rendered “with an alien god.” Add to this how the turn-of-the-century Protestant scholars translated this text as directly related to segments at the Vatican, and things get really interesting (more on that later).

With this in mind and based on other documents contained in the upcoming book, it’s evident that for hundreds of years, both Catholic prophets and Protestant reformers believed the Antichrist would ultimately champion a strange, alien deity (and this fits perfectly with what we have documented and have even been assured of in person by today’s Vatican authorities, astronomers, and theologians, as readers will discover). They also saw how this union would ultimately lead to war and destruction from the heavens. And these visionaries were not alone in their assessment concerning a powerful alien-christ and his coming war as the result of otherworldly alliances. Government leaders around the globe have believed this for some time, and as far back as 1955, General Douglas MacArthur warned:

You now face a new world, a world of change. We speak in strange terms, of harnessing the cosmic energy, of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy. The nations of the world will have to unite, for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets.^[iv]

Over thirty years later, one of America’s most beloved presidents, Ronald Reagan, echoed the same before the United Nations when he said:

In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.^[v]

In Britain, the five-star admiral and former head of the British Ministry of Defence, Lord Hill-Norton, expressed his opinion that “some UFO encounters are definitely antithetical to orthodox Christian belief” and helped to form an international group called UFO Concern to assess the phenomenon as it pertains to religion and national security.^[vi] More recently, the former UFO adviser for the UK Ministry of Defence, Nick Pope, acknowledged that Britain has even prepared (and is preparing) top-secret sophisticated aparati in anticipation of this future military engagement against space invaders.^[vii] Global leaders outside the United Kingdom who have hinted similar knowledge of a potential external threat include former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, former US Senator Barry Goldwater, J. Edgar Hoover when he was director of the FBI,^[viii] and the former president of the old Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, who believed “it must be treated seriously.”^[ix] It makes one wonder if something of this knowledge was behind recent Vatican comments when it criticized the Ridley Scott film Prometheus, saying that it is “a bad idea to defy the gods.”^[x]

The Gospel According to ET—Ready or Not, Here it Comes

Over the last decade especially, the Vatican has ramped up its production of science and theology studies aimed at developing an ecclesiastical position for disclosure of extraterrestrial intelligence. This includes November 2009, when it convened a five-day study week on astrobiology at the summer residence of the pope on the grounds of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, during which astronomers and scientists from countries around the world joined prominent churchmen to evaluate “the origin of life and its precursor materials, the evolution of life on Earth, its future prospects on and off the Earth, and the occurrence of life elsewhere.”^[xi] Whether any discussion was held at that time concerning the LUCIFER device and what it is monitoring in deep space from atop Mt. Graham is unknown (the meetings were private), but just three months later, in January 2010, the Royal Society, the National Academy of Science of the UK, and the Commonwealth hosted representatives from NASA, the European Space Agency, and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs to discuss “The Detection of Extraterrestrial Life and the Consequences for Science and Society.”^[xii] Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal, and other speakers at that time referred to “overwhelming evidence” and “unprecedented proof” to signify how close we are to making irrefutable disclosure of alien life. This had Vatican spokesmen in the news again with increasingly candid statements regarding the future of the Church and Jesuit preparations to accommodate a dynamic ET reality.

In the lead-up to the Vatican-sponsored conference on astrobiology, the official Church newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, interviewed Father José Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory who made it clear that accepting the reality of intelligent aliens does not contradict the Catholic faith and that, in fact, to believe otherwise is the real heresy, as it puts “limits on God’s creative freedom.” Attorney Daniel Sheehan, who served for ten years as general counsel to the United States Jesuit Headquarters in Washington, DC, said Funes’ explicit statement that disbelief in extraterrestrial intelligence “puts limits on God’s creative freedom” was code-talk for those in the know. He wrote:

On the face of it, this statement may not seem like an important event…. However, unbeknownst to the non-Catholic world, Father Funes’ specific choice of words tracks precisely the exact wording of the key aspect of the official Catholic Church Edict that was issued in 1277 by Bishop Etienne Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, in which the Catholic Church officially condemned St. Thomas Aquinas’ Theological Proposition #34 in which Aquinas had publically asserted that “the first cause [meaning God] cannot possibly have created other worlds.” Proposition #34 was officially condemned by the Catholic Church on the specific grounds that “it seems to set limits on God’s creative freedom,” the precise words that were deliberately used by Father Funes in 2008.^[xiv]

Sheehan went on to explain why the reassertion of this theological position by Roman Catholic leaders is very important:

The fact that these precise words were chosen by the official Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory to announce the new official policy of the Roman Catholic Church acknowledging the likelihood of the existence of extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the universe is understood by those of us who are familiar with such matters to be no mere coincidence. It may, indeed, prove to be of extraordinary importance. For this specific 1277 Catholic Edict that condemned Proposition #34 of Thomas Aquinas is deemed, by Church authorities and by secular historians alike, to have been the action which opened “the plurality of worlds debate” in Western civilization, which led directly to the removal of earth from the center of the universe four-hundred years ago. And these words may point the way, here in the twenty-first century,to our removal from our position on the pinnacle of the pyramid of life.” ^[xv]

What Sheehan here identified is the belief by most Catholic theologians that Christianity as we know it is based on a pre-Copernican cosmology. Once cosmology changes as a result of new discovery or disclosure of alien life, so, too, will theology, whether explicitly or implicitly. To believe otherwise is “cosmic hubris,” thought Andrew Burgess, who wrote:

As long as someone is thinking in terms of a geocentric universe and an earth-deity, the story has a certain plausibility.… As soon as astronomy changes theories, however, the whole Christian story loses the only setting within which it would make sense. With the solar system no longer the center of anything, imagining that what happens here forms the center of a universal drama becomes simply silly.^[xvi]

While some in the Catholic church believe there is no official church teaching on Extraterrestrial Intelligence (which, as we document, is coming), it is possible to derive their trajectory even now from officially sanctioned literature. Kenneth J. Delano’s Many Worlds, One God (1977) is described on its dust jacket as “an intelligent discussion of the existence of extraterrestrial life and its impact upon mankind.” The thing that makes this book important is that it advocates belief in ETs and boasts anihil obstat and an imprimatur. A nihil obstat is an official approval granted by a designated censor in the Roman Catholic Church. Its presence certifies that a work does not contradict Catholic teachings on matters of faith and morals. An imprimatur is the final approval and official declaration by the bishop in the diocese where the work is to be published, indicating the content is free from errors concerning Catholic doctrine.

In this hard-to-find work, Delano states, “Extraterrestrial visitors to our planet might display an astonishing knowledge and understanding of the universal laws of nature as well as psychic abilities that enable them to exercise powers of mind over matter to an equally amazing degree. To our bewildered human race, their wondrous deeds would be indistinguishable from the miraculous. An experience of this sort would shake the foundations of many a person’s religion.”^[xvii] He continues, “In our dealings with ETI, we will have to adopt a way of thinking called ‘cultural relativism’ by anthropologists. Like cultural relativists who do not assume that their way of life is better than the ‘weird’ or ‘evil’ practices of other peoples, we must not assume that our species, Homo sapiens, is morally superior to any other species of intelligence in space.”^[xviii] This sort of relativism leaves mankind wide open for a great deception scenario. Furthermore, the idea that “moral truth is relative” is dangerously false. An extreme example makes this self-evident. For example, we ask, “Is there ever a circumstance in which ‘killing babies for fun’ is morally virtuous?” Of course, no one in his or her right mind will answer affirmatively. Thus, moral truths are not relative. If something is evil, it is evil for all. The sanctioned Roman Catholic position treating ETI in terms of cultural relativism demonstrates just how susceptible the Vatican is to evil supernaturalism cloaked in an alien guise.

Philosopher J. Edgar Burns foresaw how space exploration would thus become the cosmic center for the birth of a new “space-faith” (what he also called “cosmolatry”) that ultimately would give birth to a new religion. “By ‘new religion’ it is not entirely clear whether Burns meant an annihilation of the past or a breakthrough in religious consciousness that renders our ‘truth claims’ obsolete,” wrote Ilia Delio in Christ in Evolution. “What the term does connote, however, echoes an insight of the [Jesuit] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin [whose conclusions were celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI], namely, that Christianity is reaching the end of one of the natural cycles of its existence. ‘Christ must be born again,’ he said, ‘he must be reincarnated in a world that has become too different from that in which he lived.’ It is in light of this insight that ‘exoChristology,’ a term Burgess used to discuss Christological issues ‘raised by discoveries in outer space,’ takes on new import for Christian faith.”^[xix] This also casts significant light on the new official position of the Vatican that not believing in aliens and being willing to accept their superior morality and coming new religion is not only paramount to heresy, but is based on a dying and antiquated belief system. 

Given that the Vatican holds sway to over 1 billion followers as well as influencing an even greater number of peoples, governments, and policies worldwide, any puny obstacles to their revised Christianity will thus hardly keep most of the world’s “spiritual” people from wholeheartedly embracing the alien serpent-saviors on their arrival. In fact, acquiescence to ET gods will be widely and positively received by the masses of the world, according to Vatican astronomer and professor of fundamental theology, Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, exactly because:

Extraterrestrial life contexts re-propose the intervention of mediators from faraway worlds, the delivery of moral messages that awaken in human beings the existential questions that ordinary terrestrial life has made dormant. Moreover… contact with civilizations different from our own is…a powerful conceptual place in which the human family returns to wisdom and self-understanding.

As Paul Davies has intelligently pointed out… “The powerful theme of alien beings acting as a conduit to the Ultimate—whether it appears in fiction or as a seriously intended cosmological theory—touches a deep chord in the human psyche. The attraction seems to be that by contacting superior beings in the sky, humans will be given access to privileged knowledge, and that the resulting broadening of our horizons will in some sense bring us a step closer to God.” ^[xx]

Professor Tanzella-Nitti further elaborated on this alien-derived “privileged knowledge” in his doctrinal paper for the Vatican in which he expressed theologically how, upon open contact with these highly advanced aliens, the Church will “have to conclude that our understanding of Revelation until that moment had been largely imprecise and even ambiguous [or, nowhere near the truth].”^[xxi]

But all is not lost, as a new and improved religious “revelation” based on information acquired from another world is coming. It will involve a “strange, alien God” according to prophecy and (according to both ancient and modern authorities) be advocated for by a priesthood seated in Rome. Just be aware that there is a considerable downside. To reject the mysterious new gospel or even to neglect bowing down before the image that the deity sets up in its place (Daniel 11:38–38; Revelation 13:15) will result in “as many as [will] not worship the image of the beast [to] be killed.” There will be no place for those heretics Father Funes referred to who reject the (papal?) decree and refuse to accept the alien dogma. Any such denial will definitely not go unpunished.

Raidersnewsupdate.com

Fearing terror attacks, IDF boosts forces on Syrian border

Syrian rebels have threatened to retake Golan Heights from Israel, and in response the IDF has begun reinforcing its presence along the border.

In the meantime, the forces are focusing on providing security for contract workers building Israel's new border fence with Syria - a fence intent on providing Israeli security in a post-Assadera.

The head of the IDF Operation Directorate has outlined a new operational plan for soldiers manning the border in wake of rebel advances towards the border region.

For now, the IDF's chief concern is gun attacks on those charged with building Israel's new border fence, much like the terror attacks plaguing workers building Israel's new Sinai-border fence with Egypt.

The IDF has also begun installing sensitive new alarm systems, armed with a special fiber that sounds an alarm at the slightest touch.

The fighters sent to the Golan Heights are supposed to back-upGolani forces and operational artillery units actively patrolling the area.

Among the forces patrolling the border, soldiers from the IDF's most elite units can be found, as well as fighters from the IDF'sOketz Unit armed with their combative canine companions.

In one of the videos, rebel forces can be seen firing not far from the Israeli-Syrian border, specifically next to a UN sign informing visitors of the area's demilitarized status.




UN border post (Photo: AP)

In another one of the videos, the rebels are seen traveling in a vehicle within the demilitarized area. One of the rebels slams the Assad regime while conveying a message to Israel.



Peacekeepers released

"We are now in front of the occupied Golan, the blessed land sold by Hafez Assad," he says in the clip.

"For 40 years, not a single gunshot has been fired on this land. For 40 years, not a single gunshot has been fired towards Israel."

Meanwhile, the 21 Filipino UN peacekeepers that were kidnapped by Syrian rebels earlier this week have been handed over to Jordan, where they were welcomed by Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.

The peacekeepers were kidnappednear the village of Jamla in southern Syria, after rebels over-took their convoy, conditioning their release on a retreat of Assad's forces from the village.

Ynet

US-South Korea drills begin amid North Korea tensions

The US and South Korea have begun annual military drills amid high tensions with North Korea in the wake of a UN sanctions vote.

Pyongyang has strongly condemned the exercises, threatening to scrap the armistice that ended the Korean War.

Seoul says North Korea also appears to have carried out a threat made last week to sever a cross-border hotline.

The drills come days after the UN approved new sanctions on North Korea following its nuclear test in February.

The test last month was the communist country's third. It followed an apparently successful launch in December of a three-stage rocket, seen as a banned test of missile technology.

North Korea's neighbours and the US fear it is working to build a nuclear warhead small enough to put on a missile, but believe it does not yet have the capabilities to do so.'Unpredictable'

The US-South Korea joint drills, which are known as "Key Resolve", last two weeks and involve more than 13,000 troops. Another joint exercise, known as Foal Eagle, has been under way since the beginning of March.

Both exercises take place every year, usually prompting strong rhetoric from the North.

In apparent response to the UN sanctions vote, however, North Korea has issued multiple threats, promising to abandon the Korean War armistice, pull out of non-aggression pacts with North Korea and cut cross-border links, including the hotline.

Early on Monday, South Korea's Unification Ministry said efforts to contact the North via the hotline had been unsuccessful. The hotline, installed in 1971, has been severed on five previous occasions.

North Korea also appears set to carry out its own military drills this week, South Korea says.

Late last week, South Korea's new President, Park Geun-hye, warned that the security situation on the Korean Peninsula was "very grave".

The two Koreas remain technically at war, because an armistice was signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean conflict, rather than a peace deal.

Tensions have boiled over on a number of occasions in the past, most recently in November 2010 when four South Koreans were killed in North Korean shelling on a border island.

North Korea's Communist Party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, warned on Monday that the situation was unpredictable.

"With the ceasefire agreement blown apart... no one can predict what will happen in this land from now on," the mouthpiece said.
BBC

HUNDREDS OF CHRISTIANS CLASH WITH PAKISTANI POLICE AFTER MUSLIM MOB TORCHES 170 HOMES

LAHORE, Pakistan (TheBlaze/AP) — Hundreds of Christians clashed with police across Pakistan on Sunday, a day after a Muslim mob burned dozens of homes owned by members of the minority religious group in retaliation for alleged insults against Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Christians are often the target of Pakistan’s harsh blasphemy laws, which rights activists say are frequently used to persecute religious minorities or settle personal disputes. Politicians have been reluctant to reform the laws for fear of being attacked by religious radicals, as has happened in the past.

Pakistani Christians raise their hands during a demonstration in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, March 10, 2013. Hundreds of Christians protesting the burning of their homes by a Muslim mob over alleged blasphemous remarks made against the Islam’s Prophet Muhammad clashed with police on Sunday in eastern and southern Pakistan. Credit: AP

The plight of Pakistan’s other religious minorities, such as Shiite Muslims, Hindus and Ahmadis, has also deepened in recent years as hard-line interpretations of Islam have gained ground and militants have stepped up attacks against groups they oppose. Most Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims.

As TheBlaze previously reported, the latest incident began Friday after a Muslim in the eastern city of Lahore accused a Christian man of blasphemy — an offense punishable by life in prison or even death. A day later, hundreds of angry Muslims rampaged through the Christian neighborhood, burning about 170 houses.

Authorities have arrested 160 suspected members of the mob, many of whom were identified through TV footage and photos published in newspapers, said police officer Abdur Rehman.

The Blaze

Europe stocks lower on Italy downgrade

Stocks in Europe pulled lower on Monday as investors took in Chinese data that gave off some weaker economic signals, while a downgrade for Italy at the end of last week weighed on peripheral markets.

Banks were on the back foot as investors took in Friday’s downgrade of Italy’s sovereign- credit rating to BBB-plus from A- minus. Fitch cited an inconclusive outcome from last month’s parliamentary elections, which the ratings firm said will complicate an already deep recession.


Market Watch

Antibiotics resistance 'as big a risk as terrorism'

The danger posed by growing resistance to antibiotics should be ranked along with terrorism on a list of threats to the nation, the government's chief medical officer for England has said.

Professor Dame Sally Davies described it as a "ticking time bomb".

She warned that routine operations could become deadly in just 20 years if we lose the ability to fight infection.

Dame Sally urged the government to raise the issue during next month's G8 Summit in London.

Dame Sally said: "If we don't take action, then we may all be back in an almost 19th Century environment where infections kill us as a result of routine operations. We won't be able to do a lot of our cancer treatments or organ transplants."

She said pharmaceutical companies needed to be encouraged to develop new drugs, because the manufacture of antibiotics was not viewed as profitable.

"We haven't had a new class of antibiotics since the late 80s and there are very few antibiotics in the pipeline of the big pharmaceutical companies that develop and make drugs," she said.
Continue reading the main story

"We haven't as a society globally incentivised making antibiotics. It's quite simple - if they make something to treat high blood pressure or diabetes and it works, we will use it on our patients everyday.

"Whereas antibiotics will only be used for a week or two when they're needed, and then they have a limited life span because of resistance developing anyway."

Dame Sally said action was needed to overcome this "market failure" and pointed to the Innovative Medicines Initiative - an EU funded body whose aim is to promote the development of new medicines.

Dr Ibrahim Hassan, a consultant microbiologist at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester, said there are more cases of patients with bacterial infections resistant to antibiotics - meaning there are fewer treatment options.

"All you can hope of is a bit of holy water because you don't have too much option in terms of treatment.

"We're beginning to see that in some hospitals, patients coming in with this infection with no antibiotic that can be used to treat them."

Dame Sally's warning coincides with the publication of the second volume of her annual report which details the burden posed by infectious diseases.

Death rates for infectious diseases have declined in developed countries in

recent decades due to improvements in hygiene and sanitation, widespread immunisation and effective drug treatments.

But the report says they still account for 7% of all deaths in England and account for one in five days off work.

It says in decades to come we risk "losing the war" against microbes - and standard surgical procedures such as hip replacements could become riskier, as would treatments that suppress the immune system such as chemotherapy or organ transplant.

She also said the over-use of antibiotics was an issue in animal husbandry, agriculture and fish farming.

She urged politicians to treat the threat as seriously as the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA.

Cases have fallen by 80% since 2003 through improved hygiene measures in hospitals.

Health officials say other infections have now overtaken MRSA as major sources of healthcare-acquired infections.

In particular, cases of E.coli and Klebsiella bacteria have increased by two-thirds in recent years and are now the most frequent cause of hospital acquired infection.

Both types of bacteria - known as Gram negative - are commonly found in the gut but can cause blood infections.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland 99,000 cases of blood stream infections were reported in 2011-12. E.coli alone accounted for 36% of cases compared with just 1.6% due to MRSA.

The report estimates that up to 5,000 patients a a year die from Gram-negative blood poisoning each year, half with an antibiotic-resistant organism.

Dame Sally said no new classes of antibiotics had been introduced since 1987 whereas new pathogens were emerging every year, and existing bugs were developing resistance to current treatments.

A five-year UK Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy will be published shortly which will advocate the responsible use of antibiotics and strengthened surveillance.

The Chief Medical Officer said antimicrobial resistance would be put on the government's national risk register of civil emergencies - which provides guidance on potential threats such as terrorist attacks, pandemic flu and major flooding.

Dame Sally said she was shocked by the "woeful education" in antimicrobial resistance given to many medical students and doctors; she wanted to ensure fewer antibiotics were prescribed, so that they are used only when needed.

Dame Sally is not the first chief medical officer to warn of the dangers of antibiotic overuse.

In 2008 her predecessor, Liam Donaldson, urged doctors not to use antibiotics to treat colds and coughs as these are caused by viruses and do not respond to antibiotics.

In 1999, Sir Kenneth Calman made a similar plea, saying the public had a responsibility not to demand antibiotics.

BBC