UN Passes Landmark Arms Treaty

The United Nations has overwhelmingly approved (154-3 with 23 abstentions) a landmark treaty regulating trade in conventional arms.

The legally binding treaty sets international standards to regulate the import, export and transfer of conventional weapons - from battle tanks, warships and attack helicopters to small arms and light weapons. Major arms exporters, such as the United States and Russia, as well as major importers like China, India and Pakistan, took part in the negotiations.

Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association, an independent research firm, said the treaty is "historic in the sense that it is the first time that there will be international standards to guide how countries authorize weapons transfers - and the first time that there will be annual reporting on those transfers by all of the state signatories of the new arms trade treaty.”

Human Rights Part of Arms Treaty

Martin Butcher, arms policy adviser with the international humanitarian organization Oxfam, said the treaty also establishes key human rights criteria.

“It’s really important that this treaty puts human rights and humanitarian law in control of the arms trade," said Butcher. "The states will now have obligations not to transfer weapons to countries where human rights are being abused, where for example civilians are being killed by a government - that’s a strong obligation.”

Paul Holtom, arms transfer expert with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), said the treaty also regulates the transfer of ammunition.

Ammunition Regulated by Treaty

“The case has been made very strongly by states from Latin America and Africa that they feel it’s one thing to control the weapons, to control items," said Holtom, "but they feel that it’s the small munitions that are a key problem in terms of the fuel for many of the conflicts.”

Daryl Kimball agreed, saying "we have to remember that AK-47s last a long, long time - these are durable weapons. But they can’t function without a fresh supply of ammunition. So these requirements on the export of ammunition are very important."

No Enforcement Mechanisms

Some experts pointed out that the treaty does not have any enforcement mechanisms. But Oxfam’s Martin Butcher said other means can be used to make states accountable for their actions.

“There will be a lot of moral pressure on countries. They will come together on a regular basis and scrutinize what each other is doing," said Butcher. "And we shouldn’t underestimate the power of that moral pressure on countries to make them change their behavior.”

The United Nations approval of the treaty brings to a close seven years of negotiations. The pact will now be open for signature and will become part of international law once 50 countries ratify it.


VOA

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Easter Revisited

The following is a re-post of an article from February 2009. It reveals the origins of Easter and its practices. I encourage everyone who aspires to walk as a disciple of Yahshua to read this information and to eschew participating in the Easter celebrations of an apostate Christian religions system. (The word "apostate" means to be divorced from truth.)

II Thessalonians 2:1-3
Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him, that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first...

I encourage you to NOT be part of the apostasy. The Spirit at this very moment is calling out:

Revelation 18:4
"Come out of [Babylon, the Great Harlot], my people, that you may not participate in her sins and that you may not receive of her plagues..."

The merging of the holy and the profane is a great sin in the eyes of Yahweh. What has the body of Messiah to do with ancient Babylonian fertility rites? Easter is named after the goddess of fertility also known as the Germanic Eostre, the Egyptian Ishtar, and to the ancient Hebrews and their neighbors as Astarte and Ashtoreth. The merging of Passover and Easter is a profane act in the eyes of Yahweh.

Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), Ash Wednesday, Lent and Easter

Joseph Herrin (02-26-09)

Revelation 18:4-5
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, that you may not participate in her sins and that you may not receive of her plagues..."

In this hour when the Spirit is testifying that great judgment is coming to the nations, a judgment that must begin at the house of God, the prudent saint should be asking what they might do to escape that which is even now at the door. The Scripture cited above from the book of Revelation provides one answer. The people of God must come out of Babylon.

The Christian religious system of this hour is marked by mixture and spiritual pollution. Doctrines of demons have been mixed in with the true gospel of Christ, and the result has become an abhorrent mixture of the holy and the profane. The Scriptures reveal that Yahweh always judged His people severely when they failed to separate that which is holy from that which is vile. The judgments that are coming to the people of God in this hour are for no different reason than those judgments of Old when Israel was given over into the hands of her enemies.

To understand how very much opposed Yahweh is to any admixture of the holy and the profane we can look at a series of laws that God delivered to His chosen people through His servant Moses. Remember that all of the laws of the Old Testament serve as types and shadows of spiritual principles and serve as instructional tools for the saints in Christ.

Deuteronomy 22:9-11
“You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or all the produce of the seed which you have sown and the increase of the vineyard will become defiled. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a material mixed of wool and linen together.”

What is the message here for the Christian in this present age? God detests mixture. The specific type of mixture that He detests is righteousness and sin, the holy and the profane, light and darkness, the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the works of the flesh. These things are shown forth in the specific laws given. For example, the priests were directed to wear linen, and to wear no wool when ministering unto God. The reason given is that wool makes men sweat while linen does not. Sweat speaks of the works of man being offered to God. Such an offering is despised by God even as God had no regard for the offering of Cain which arose from the ground from which man’s flesh was formed. God will only regard that which is initiated and performed in the power of the Holy Spirit.

If God has made such a point of differentiating between the holy and the profane, then it is vain for a Christian to reason that God does not care if they are mixing symbols of pagan rites and idolatrous worship with the worship of Christ Jesus, Yahshua the Messiah. God does care.

It is a simple matter to demonstrate Satan’s deceit in leading the saints to mix the holy and profane together. One need look no further than the name of the celebration which is called Easter. The name Easter never appears in Scripture, other than one occasion in the King James Version of the Bible. This is as follows:

Acts 12:4
And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
KJV

The KJV translators did a disservice to the church by rendering this passage in this manner, for the word being translated is “pascha,” the Greek form of the word “Passover.” This grievous error was corrected in later Bible translations, including the New KJV.

Acts 12:4
So when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people afterPassover.
NKJV

We see in this how far the influence of Satan extends. When he is able to get Bible translators to replace the name of one of God’s appointed feasts with the name of a pagan festival. These two observances are far from being equal. Passover was initiated at the leading of Yahweh and its observance communicated to Moses. Easter is a veneration of a fertility goddess that was initiated by Satan and delivered to sinful men.

The very word Easter, that the church has written on the calendar of her annual observances is the name of a goddess of fertility. According to the wikipedia website, the English name of the goddess was arrived at as follows:

The English name, "Easter", and the German, "Ostern", derive from the name of a putative Anglo-Saxon Goddess of the Dawn (thus, of spring, as the dawn of the year) — called aster, astre, and ostre in various dialects of Old English and Ostara in German.

The worship of the fertility goddess who is remembered at Easter goes much further back, however. The mystery religions had their foundations in Babylon. The Bible records the following:

Genesis 10:1-12
Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood... The sons of Ham wereCush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan. Now Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh; therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Yahweh." The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.

The mystery religions can be traced back to Nimrod. Nimrod’s father Cush married a woman named Semiramis. Semiramis gave birth to Nimrod and, when Cush died, Nimrod married his mother. Thus Semiramis was both the mother and the wife of Nimrod. It is apparent from Scripture that the genealogy of this family was under a curse. Nimrod’s grandfather was Ham, the son of Noah. It was Ham who acted wickedly in exposing the nakedness of his father Noah when Noah had gotten drunk with wine and passed out in his tent. Ham acted rebelliously toward his father, in contrast to his two brothers Shem and Japheth who covered their father’s nakedness and would not look upon him. When Noah learned what Ham had done he cursed both Ham and his offspring.

It seems apparent that the sins of the father (Ham) were passed on to the sons, for wickedness continued in this bloodline. This wickedness was manifested in Cush who is attributed with the establishment of a system of rebellious idolatry that was continued in his wife Semiramis and his son Nimrod. This idolatry became heinous, being associated with all that is profane and with many immoral sexual rites including orgies and prostitution.

Alexander Hislop, in his book “The Two Babylons,” does a remarkable job of documenting and bringing together many ancient sources that reveal the history of this wicked family and the founding of the ancient mystery religions. According to Hislop, the profane practices of Nimrod and his tyranny over many people increased until Shem, the son of Noah rose up against this “mighty one” and made war with him. Shem having defeated Nimrod then cut his body into pieces and sent it throughout the land as a warning to all who should openly partake of the profane idolatry of Nimrod.

Out of fear of punishment, those who continued in idolatry were forced to practice their rites in secret, and the most vile parts of their practices were known only to those who had passed through the rites of initiation and been admitted into the deeper teachings and practices reserved for those whose loyalty had been proven. This is the origin of the “Mystery Religions” that have their source in ancient Babylon. One had to be initiated and pass through degrees to be admitted into the mysteries, and those who were outside, or whose loyalty had not yet been proven, were restricted from the true knowledge of the mystery religion. That which had once been practiced openly under the reign of Nimrod, was forced into secrecy when Shem slew Nimrod.

This same pattern of initiation, terrifying oaths against disclosure, and the cloaking of truth to those whose loyalty is not yet proven is observed in Freemasonry, which itself is merely one of the latest incarnations of the idolatrous practices of ancient Babylon.

We also see another pattern here. Shem, the son of Noah, became father of the Shemites, or the Semitic people. It was from this family that Abraham and his descendants arose. Why did God choose a people from among the descendants of Shem to be His chosen people in the earth? Certainly Shem’s actions in standing against idolatry and removing the wicked practices from the land had great bearing in Yahweh’s choice. In the same way we find that when Yahweh chose one tribe from among Israel’s descendants to serve Him as a priestly tribe, that He made His selection based upon the fact that Levi did not join with the rest of Israel when they sacrificed before the golden calf that Aaron made. Levi alone separated themselves from idolatry, and they became priests unto Yahweh.

I hope that the Christian today can understand that Yahweh will certainly use the same standard of measure when He chooses those who will be numbered among the overcomers, and who will be granted access to His presence and to His most holy things. That He will make a division among the saints based upon their involvement in idolatrous practices is prophesied in Ezekiel 44:6-19.



Images of Semiramis and Tammuz

Idolatrous worship of Semiramis and Tammuz spread from Babylon.

After Nimrod was killed by Shem the mystery religions teach that he ascended into the heavens and became the Sun god. Semiramis is herself associated as the Moon goddess. Semiramis continued to be sexually active, and when she became pregnant she claimed to have conceived without intercourse. Satan, as the great deceiver, sought to bring forth a false belief in a counterfeit virgin birth that was sufficiently corrupted to suit his ends. Semiramis gave birth to a son named Tammuz, and it was declared that Tammuz was the reincarnation of Nimrod.

In this we see attributes of Yahweh’s plan of salvation. There is a child born of a virgin, supposedly the offspring of deity, yet a clear departure from Scripture is that the mother assumes a more prominent role than the son. This emphasis on the mother is continued to this day through the Catholic Church which teaches things about the mother of Yahshua that are nowhere found in Scripture, but which do find agreement with the Babylonian mystery religions. When God confused the languages of the people at Babylon and scattered mankind throughout the earth, its idolatrous religion centered around the trinity of Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz was already pervasive and it was carried throughout the world where the main characters took on many different names while maintaining much of the central element of the original mystery religion.

Alexander Hislop writes:

The Babylonians in their popular religion supremely worshiped a goddess mother and a son who was represented in pictures and images as an infant or a child in his mother’s arms. From Babylon this worship of mother and child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the mother and child were worshiped under the names Isis and Osiris. In India, even to this day, as Isi and Iswara; in Asia as Cybele and Deoius; in pagan Rome as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer “Jupiter the boy”; in Greece as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms, and even in Thibet, in China and Japan...

Other manifestations of these same characters are seen as Aphrodite/Cupid and Ashtoreth/Orion. Some of these characters are mentioned in the Bible.

Ezekiel 8:14-16
Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of Yahweh’s house which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. He said to me, "Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater abominations than these." Then He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of Yahweh and their faces toward the east; and they were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun.

Worshiping the Sun (Nimrod) and worshiping Tammuz were abominable acts in the sight of God. Yahweh judged the people for this idolatry. The church is in great peril of not recognizing the consequences of embracing similar rites and symbols today. It was an offense to God that these pagan rites were being conducted in the temple of God. Today the saints are the temple of God, and God is equally offended when abominable practices are observed by those who constitute this living temple of the Holy Spirit.

I Kings 11:4-6
When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to Yawheh his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians... Solomon did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and did not follow Yahweh fully, as David his father had done.

How did the high places become established in Israel? We read that Solomon’s heart was turned aside by his wives whom he loved. These wives were idolaters, many of them foreigners, and they wanted to continue to worship the gods and goddesses they had known from childhood. Their rites and symbols to them were just as dear as the rites and symbols of Christmas and Easter are to many Christians today. Solomon acquiesced to the pressure of his wives’ desires and built high places of worship for them.

Lest we condemn Solomon out of hand, the Christian should consider that the same pressure is exerted upon the saint today to maintain the celebration of pagan festivals. Our children and spouses may love the traditions that they have grown up with, and they may express their desires very passionately to maintain an observance of the things they love. How many saints are willing to stand fast and choose a course other than the one Solomon chose? When Yahweh reveals the truth of these practices and makes His will known, then the Christian is brought to the test. Do they love Yahweh more than all others? Will they choose obedience to God over satisfying the desires, and even demands of their family?

Luke 14:26-27
"If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”

Christianity, as it is practiced widely today, costs individuals very little. The reason is that there is so much compromise. The church has embraced the world, and has even adopted the practices of pagan religions. True Christianity, however, is very costly. As the Scriptures declare:

II Timothy 3:12
Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

The reason there is so little persecution and so little cost to being a professing Christian today is that men and women are not living godly lives. They have not come out of the world and out of Babylon. Solomon found it easy to get along with the members of his family if he accepted their idolatry. Even so, the world has no problem accepting Christians who will accept their values and practices. But should a Christian begin to differentiate between the holy and profane, then he or she will know the disapproval of those who have embraced that which is not holy.




Sacred Egg of Heliopolis



Mystic Egg of Astarte
(Ishtar Egg)

This same goddess Ashtoreth, for whom Solomon built a high place, is also called Ishtar, from which we get our word Easter. The church also has a high place erected to her. Every year the church celebrates a holy day that bears the name of the pagan goddess of fertility whose original was Semiramis, and who is known by a profusion of names throughout the various cultures of the world. Heliopolis is a city of Egypt where Semiramis was known by the name Isis. As mentioned, Semiramis was a moon goddess, and therefore we see an image of the moon atop her sacred egg.

The mystery religions teach that Semiramis was herself immaculately conceived and was lowered from the heavens to the earth in a giant egg. This egg came to rest in the waters of the Euphrates river. Eggs are also symbols of fertility, and as Semiramis was also a fertility goddess the symbol of the egg became thoroughly associated with her worship. Those who knew Semiramis under the name of Ishtar spoke of Ishtar’s egg, from which we get our current Easter egg.




Egg Roll on White House Lawn, Easter 2006

The above picture was taken in April 2006 during the annual White House Easter celebration. An egg roll has been held on the South Lawn since 1878. There was some controversy on this particular year as 200 gay and lesbian families planned to attend this event. Some saw this as an attack on Christian values, not understanding the true origins of the Easter celebration.

In the presentation “Freemasonry, the Spirit of Babylon” it was demonstrated that America serves as the seat of Babylon at this time, even occupying the country of Iraq in which the ancient city of Babylon was located. It should give Christians something to consider when they realize that the United States government has banned all Christian symbols from government spaces, even to the recent order to remove the ten commandments from all courthouses, yet this same government has no complaint about the annual observance of an Easter Egg roll on the White House lawn. Why is this? It is because Easter Eggs have no association with Christianity. They are clearly pagan in their origin and can be traced directly back to Babylon.

When one looks into the sexually immoral practices of the worship of the fertility goddess, it is actually more appropriate that gay and lesbian couples attend this event than that Christians attend.




Hot Cross Buns

Another tradition of Easter that is clearly pagan is that of hot cross buns. These buns were initially made in memory of Tammuz, the son of Semiramis, who suffered an early death from being injured by the tusk of a boar. There were forty days of weeping for Tammuz leading up to the Ishtar celebration, which now finds its correspondence in the Catholic Church’s forty days of Lent, which is a time of mourning.

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. Millions of people who profess to be Christians went to their churches to participate in a ceremony that began in Babylon.




Ashes applied to the forehead on Ash Wednesday

You will not find the people of God in either the Old or New Testament being commanded to observe such a practice as this, but we do find that pagan practices entered into Israel where the women of the nation mourned for Tammuz. The symbol of Tammuz was the Tau, or the cross. It is the same symbol seen on hot crossed buns. It is this symbol of mourning for Tammuz that is practiced among millions of Christians on Ash Wednesday.



The women involved with the mystery religions would bake buns for Tammuz (originally called bouns). These were either marked with the sign of a horn, or possibly a tusk, or with the letter T for Tammuz. The sign of the cross, where a Catholic uses his fingers and marks the sign of the cross on their chest is derived from the worship of Tammuz. It is this same symbol that the priest makes on the forehead of professing Christians on Ash Wednesday.

Jeremiah 7:18
"The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me.”

Another name for Nimrod, whom Tammuz is said to be a reincarnation of, is Woden. The day of the week we call Wednesday is named after Woden. It was handed down to us as Woden's Day, and in English it became Wednesday. It is on Woden's day, as one commemorates the death of Tammuz, killed by a wild boar, that ashes are applied to the forehead as a symbol of mourning for this pagan deity. The practice of eating ham at Christmas and Easter also derives back to the veneration of Nimrod and Tammuz. As it was a boar that killed Tammuz, people would slay a boar and serve this meat during these "holy day" seasons.



Even if done in ignorance, is it not an offense to God to carry on traditions that are steeped in idolatrous worship and profane practices? We read in Ezekiel that the women of Israel were weeping for Tammuz. The Israelites also offered oblations to the Queen of Heaven (Semiramis) and her son Tammuz, as is seen in the above verse from Jeremiah, and elsewhere.

Jeremiah 44:16-19
"As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of Yahweh, we are not going to listen to you! But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune. But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine. And," said the women,"when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and were pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?"

The pagan traditions of the mystery religions have even been passed down to our children as they sing the little song that speaks of hot cross buns.

Hot cross buns
Hot cross buns
One a penny
Two a penny
Hot cross buns

If you have no daughters
Give them to your sons
One a penny
Two a penny
Hot cross buns

What does this mean “if you have no daughters, give them to your sons?” Remember, this was the celebration of the goddess of fertility and her son. By offering oblations of liquid and foods to Semiramis and Tammuz the people were asking for the gift of fertility. This fertility was petitioned from the goddess by offering drinks and cakes in order that their crops, livestock, and their own families might be blessed with abundance. Many a tradition that seems innocent today has found its origin in practices that are detestable to Yahweh.

This past week in New Orleans as the Mardi Gras celebrations began. Mardi Gras means "Fat Tuesday." It is a day of feasting and celebration just before the forty days of fasting and mourning begin on Ash Wednesday. This celebration is observed with much debauchery. There are homosexual events. There is a surfeit of sexually impure behavior. During Mardi Gras bead necklaces will be exchanged in return for sexual favors such as a woman exposing her breasts to any man (or woman) who would present the beads to them. It was out of this debauchery surrounding Mardi Gras that the x-rated videos Girls Gone Wild had their beginning.

The impure fruit of these celebrations are readily apparent, yet millions of Christians continue to participate in these celebrations which create a detestable mixture of the holy and the profane.

Tuesday, as the Mardi Gras parades were being held in New Orleans, seven people were shot along the parade route.

7 wounded by gunfire on Mardi Gras parade route
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 25, 6:52 am ET

NEW ORLEANS – The shootings of seven people, including a toddler, marred Fat Tuesday partying as ear-piercing gunfire sent revelers ducking for cover and brought Mardi Gras' final stream of truck floats to a horrifying halt.

The 20-month-old child was grazed by a bullet and wasn't seriously injured. Two suspects were in custody, police said.

Gunshots erupted near the Garden District about 1:40 p.m. as a stream of truck floats passed by after the last major parade, Rex, had ended. Thousands of people partied in the streets on the last day of Carnival before the violence broke out along the oak-lined Uptown streetcar line.
[End Excerpt]

Fat Tuesday is the last day of Carnival. The word carnival literally means "flesh rising." Seven is the number of finality. The Spirit is testifying that this nation is truly at the end of its carnival season. The hour of judgment is at hand. If you would escape the judgment, then heed the words of the Spirit of Christ. Come out of the sinful and corrupt practices of a religious system that has embraced all the mixture of Babylon. Come out of confusion, and be separate, for we serve a holy God.

II Corinthians 6:17
Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate ," says the Lord. "And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you."

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





Joseph Herrin

US Needs 5-7 GBIs to Intercept One Topol ICBM

MOSCOW, April 2 (RIA Novosti) – The United States will need between five and seven Ground Based Interceptors (GBI) to intercept one Russian Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile, a Russian military expert said on Tuesday.

“From my contacts with the director of the [US Department of Defense’s] Missile Defense Agency, I have learned that the Americans will need five to seven interceptors to engage one Topol-M missile,” retired Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, former chief of staff at Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (1994-1996), told a news conference hosted by RIA Novosti.

He did not elaborate on the nature of his contacts with the MDA head or when he had received the information.

The US has deployed 30 GBIs, Yesin said – “26 in Alaska and four in California,” adding that the effectiveness of the US countermissiles is “somewhat limited.”

He also said missile defense negotiations with the United States will produce no positive results, and that development in that area will continue.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced in mid-March that plans for the final stage ofCentral European-based missile shields are to be scrapped and that interceptors will instead be placed in Alaska.

The US change to the program has come in response to increasingly confrontational rhetoric from North Korea, which said Tuesday that it would restart its nuclear reactor.

The US says that the positioning of interceptors in Alaska and an additional radar station in Japan are designed to provide further coverage from any possible missiles launched from North Korea, but Russia worries that any missile defense program undermines the integrity of its own military strategy.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said two weeks ago that security officials from Russia and the United States will meet in the coming months to discuss the impact of recent developments. Antonov said talks could be held at a security conference in Moscow due to take place on May 23-24.

Russia says it is pressing for “legally binding agreements guaranteeing that US missile defense elements are not aimed against Russia’s strategic nuclear forces."

RIA Novosti

Tom Horn & Cris Putnam on It's Supernatural with Sid Roth

China reports four more bird flu infections

Chinese authorities say four more people have been infected with a new strain of bird flu after two Shanghai male citizens died on Sunday from a bird flu strain not seen before in humans.


PressTV

China on High alert, mobilizing troops near North Korea

China has placed military forces on heightened alert in the northeastern part of the country as tensions mount on the Korean peninsula following recent threats by Pyongyang to attack, U.S. officials said.

Reports from the region reveal the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently increased its military posture in response to the heightened tensions, specifically North Korea’s declaration of a “state of war” and threats to conduct missile attacks against the United States and South Korea.

According to the officials, the PLA has stepped up military mobilization in the border region with North Korea since mid-March, including troop movements and warplane activity.

China’s navy also conducted live-firing naval drills by warships in the Yellow Sea that were set to end Monday near the Korean peninsula, in apparent support of North Korea, which was angered by ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills that are set to continue throughout April.

North Korea, meanwhile, is mobilizing missile forces, including road-mobile short- and medium-range missiles, according to officials familiar with satellite imagery of missile bases.

The missile activity is believed to be North Korea’s response to the ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises that last week included highly publicized flights by two B-2 strategic nuclear bombers near North Korean territory as part of annual military exercises.

North Korea’s government announced last week that since March 26 its missile and artillery forces have been placed on the highest alert status.

Specifically, Nodong medium-range missiles and their mobile launchers were spotted in satellite imagery, the officials said.

There are also indications North Korea will soon conduct a flight test of its new KN-08 road-mobile ICBM or its intermediate-range Musudan mobile missile. Test preparations had been detected in the past, the officials said.

A military provocation by North Korean forces against the South is not expected while the current war games are underway in South Korea, officials said.

However, the situation remains dangerous as hostilities could break out as a result of a miscalculation. South Korea’s government has said it would respond to any North Korean military provocation with force.

The Chinese military activities near North Korea were detected in Jilin Province, and intelligence reports from the area on March 19 indicated that PLA forces were ordered to go to “Level One” alert status, the highest level of readiness.

Large groups of soldiers were seen on the streets in Ji’an, a city in Jilin, amid reports that the PLA had been ordered to combat readiness status.

PLA heavy armored vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, were reported moving near the Yalu River that separates China from North Korea.

The troops were part of the 190th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, stationed in Benxi, in Liaoning Province. The movements are believed to be related to increased tensions in Korea.

Additionally, PLA troops and military vehicles were seen near Baishan, in Jilin province, around March 21.

Low-flying PLA air force jets, believed to be fighters, also were heard and seen at several border locations in China, including Yanji and Yanbian in Jilin, Kuancheng, in Hebei province, and Dandong, in Liaoning province.

Chinese forces along the border responded to some unknown event in North Korea near Siniju on March 21 that involved Chinese fighter jets flying over the area.

The officials said the Chinese military activities appear to be based on concerns about a new outbreak of conflict between North Korea and South Korea and the United States.

China’s military maintains a long-standing defense treaty with the North that obligates China to defend North Korea in the event it is attacked. The last time Chinese forces backed Pyongyang was during the Korean War when tens of thousands of Chinese “volunteers” drove south into the peninsula.

Chinese military spokesmen frequently refer to their relations with the Korean People’s Army, as the North Korean military is called, as ties “as close as lips and teeth.”

Other reports from China indicate that the heightened tensions have led to a disruption of trade between China and North Korea along the border between the two countries.

One sign of slowed commerce between China and North Korea was a Chinese Internet report from a restaurant owner in Dandong, China, a border city, who said commerce between the two countries was disrupted following North Korea’s Feb. 12 underground nuclear test.

Since that time, it has been more difficult for the goods from North Korea to reach China because the North Korean Customs Office closed frequently as a result of increased Chinese inspections of North Korean goods.

U.S. officials and private analysts said the slowdown may be a sign of Beijing’s displeasure at the North Korean nuclear test.

China also held up exports of crude oil to North Korea in February, according to customs data reviewed by Reuters news agency. The agency said in a report that it was the first time deliveries of oil were cut since early 2007.

However, in a sign of continuing close relations, the government of Jilin province announced March 27 that it plans to modernize railway links to North Korea to bolster cross-border economic and trade ties.

The China Tumen-North Korea Rajin Railway and China Tumen-North Korea Chongjin Railway will be upgraded under the Jilin government plan, China’s official Global Times reported.

Additionally, the Chinese plan to set up a special highway passenger line to connect Tumen to North Korea over the next several years.

Other reports from the region stated that North Korean cities in the northern part of the country were placed on “combat” alert and have conducted evacuation drills, officials said.

The drills have been carried out in three-day to five-day intervals when power and water supplies were suspended as part of the exercises.

Chinese citizens living in border cities in China also reported hearing air-raid sirens as part of the exercises, officials said.

U.S. officials say China’s main fear for its fraternal communist client regime in North Korea is a collapse of order that leads to large-scale refugee flows into China.

Reports from inside North Korea also revealed that North Korean soldiers have been issued bread, instant noodles, sausages, milk, and dried fish that appeared to be supplied by the United Nations as aid meant for the civilian population.

The Feb. 12 underground blast, North Korea’s third, is credited by analysts with setting off the latest round of belligerence by the Pyongyang regime.

After the test, the U.S. government continued to refuse to acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

That prompted the regime of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to issue unprecedented threats to fire nuclear missiles at the United States.

The Pentagon responded by using annual military exercises with South Korea to fly B-52 strategic bombers and later B-2s near North Korea.

Frontline F-22 fighter-bombers, the Air Force’s most advanced jets, were sent on Sunday to take part in the military drills.

North Korea’s latest threats included announcing a state of war and cutting off military and other communications.

North Korea’s ruling communist Korean Workers Party announced on Sunday that the nuclear arsenal is the “nation’s life” and would not be given up even if offered “billions of dollars,” the Associated Press reports.

Washington Free Beacon

U.S. on alert for nuclear blast

WASHINGTON – U.S. officials quietly are expressing concern that North Korea could use its “space launch vehicle” to explode a high-altitude nuclear device over the United States, creating an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy major portions of the U.S. electrical grid system as well as the nation’s critical infrastructures.

The concern is so great that U.S. officials who watch North Korea closely are continually monitoring the status of the North Korean “space launch vehicle,” whose status could suggest a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States.

They are aware of the three-stage missile North Korea launched last December that also orbited a “package,” which experts say could be a test to orbit a nuclear weapon that then would be deorbited on command anywhere over the U.S. and exploded at a high altitude, creating an EMP effect.

This concern is in addition to North Korea’s latest threat to strike targets in Hawaii and the continental U.S., as well as possible attacks against U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan.

The 28-year-old North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has signed an order for North Korea’s strategic rocket forces to be on standby to fire at U.S. targets.

The signing was against a photo backdrop following an emergency meeting of his senior military leaders showing large maps that were labeled “U.S. mainland strike plan, specifically at Hawaii, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.”

One WND reader who traced the targeting to Texas said that it really was aimed at the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

The latest North Korean threats occurred after the U.S. sent two B-2 stealth bombers to strike targets with inert bombs during joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which Kim considered a major provocation.

“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets, ordering them to be on standby to fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in South Korea,” according to a statement by the North Korean news agency, KCNA.

The statement added that the B-2 flights showed Washington’s “hostile” intent, and the “reckless” act had gone “beyond the phase of threat and blackmail.”

In response, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel condemned North Korea’s actions which to date have included dissolving the 1953 armistice between North and South Korea, severing the military hotline with South Korea and putting its artillery forces on high alert and threatening, once again, nuclear strikes against the U.S.

In recent weeks, North Korea also had released three videos showing a nuclear strike on the U.S.

“We’ve made very clear that we have the capability and willingness to protect our interests and our allies in the region,” according to deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest. He said that the U.S. military exercises with South Korea should offer “pretty clear evidence” that the U.S. can defend its interests and those of its allies in the region.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/u-s-on-alert-for-overhead-nuclear-blast/#B57rXvzulpk688qa.99

Severe sandstorm slams Israel

HAIFA, Israel, April 1 (UPI) -- Israeli environmental officials said the country was experiencing its worst sandstorm in four years, with air pollution levels 40 times higher than usual.

Conditions halted some air travel Monday and limited visibility to less than 1 mile.

Air pollution was particularly severe in the coastal city Haifa, Haaretz reported. Health ministers advised people with medical problems and pregnant women to remain indoors.

Forecasters said the large amount of desert sand blew in from Egypt and Libya. The sandstorm affected Cairo, as well, officials said.

Cooler weather Monday night and Tuesday was expected to cause the storm to abate.




Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/04/01/Severe-sandstorm-slams-Israel/UPI-35291364845387/#ixzz2PJYwbWOp

Will Globalists Use North Korea To Trigger Catastrophe?

Whenever discussion over North Korea arises in Western circles, it always seems to be accompanied by a strange mixture of sensationalism and indifference. The mainstream media consistently presents the communist nation as an immediate threat to U.S. national security, conjuring an endless number of hypothetical scenarios as to how they could join forces with al-Qaida and attack with a terroristic strategy. At the same time, the chest puffing of the late Kim Jong Il and the standard fare of hyper-militant rhetoric on the part of the North Korean government in general seem to have lulled the American public into a trance of non-concern.

In the midst of the latest tensions with the North Koreans, I have found that most people are barely tracking developments and that, when confronted by the idea of war, they shrug it off as if it is a laughable concept. “Surely” they claim, “The North is just posturing as they always have.”

The high-focus propaganda attacking North Korea on our side and the puffer fish methodology on their side have created a social and political atmosphere surrounding our relations with the Asian nation that I believe places both sides of the Pacific in great danger. North Korea has the potential to become a trigger point for multiple economic catastrophes, and there are people in this world who would be happy to use such crises to serve their own interests.

The mainstream view being espoused by globalist-minded politicians and corporate oligarchs with an agenda is that North Korea is a nuclear armed monstrosity ready to use any subversive means necessary to strike the United States. The idea that the North is working closely with al-Qaida has been suggested in everything from White House briefings to cable news to movies and television. The concept of pan-global terrorist collusion and the cartoon-land “axis of evil” has been prominent in our culture since the Administration of George W. Bush. It has even been making a resurgence lately in the MSM, which presented countries like Iran, Syria And North Korea as the primary culprits behind the failure of the U.N. Small Arms Treaty.

Of course, what remains less talked about in the mainstream is the fact that these nations refuse to adhere to the treaty because carefully placed loopholes still allow major powers like the United States to feed arms into engineered insurgencies. Why would Syria or any other targeted nation sign a treaty that restricts its own sovereign ability to trade while giving teeth to internal enemies trained and funded by foreign intelligence agencies?

The establishment brushes aside such facts and consistently admonishes these countries as the last holdouts standing in the way of a new world order, a worldwide socioeconomic cooperative and pseudo-Utopia. The path to this wonderful global village is always presented as a battle against stubborn isolationists, non-progressives who lack vision and cling desperately to the archaic past. The values of personal and national sovereignty are painted as outdated, decrepit and even threatening to the newly born world structure. The image of North Korea is used by globalists as a kind of straw man argument against sovereignty. North Koreans’ vices and imbalances as a culture are many; but this is due in far larger part to their communist insanity, rather than any values of national independence. It is their domestic hive-mind collectivism we should disdain, not their wish to maintain a comfortable distance as a society from the global game.

As far as being an imminent physical threat to the United States, it really depends on the scenario. The North Koreans have almost no logistical capability to support an invasion of any kind. The nation has been suffering from epidemic famine for well more than a decade.

To initiate a war outright has never been in the best interests of the North Koreans, simply because their domestic infrastructure would not be able to handle the strain. However, there is indeed a scenario in which North Korea could be influenced to use military force despite apprehension.

With the ever looming threat of famine comes the ever looming threat of citizen revolution. When any government is faced with the possibility of being supplanted, it will almost always lash out viciously in order to maintain power and control, no matter the cost. Sanctions like those being implemented by the West against North Korea today, at the very edge of national famine, could destabilize the country entirely. I believe the North would do anything to avoid an internal insurgency scenario, including attacking South Korea to acquire food stores and energy reserves, as well as other tangible modes of wealth.

North Korea’s standing army, obtained through mandatory conscription, is estimated at about 1.1 million active personnel, very close to the numbers active in the U.S. armed forces. But North Korean reserves are estimated at more than 8 million, compared to only 800,000 in the United States. If made desperate by economic sanctions, the North Koreans could field a massive army that would wreak havoc in the South and be very difficult to root out on their home turf. Asian cultures have centuries of experience using asymmetric warfare (the kryptonite of the U.S. military), and I do not believe it is wise to take such a possible conflict lightly, as many Americans seem to do. It is easy to forget that the last Korean War did not work out so well for us. At best, we would be mired in on-ground operations for years (just like Iraq and Afghanistan) or perhaps even decades. Like North Korea, we also do not have the logistical economic means to enter into another such war.

The skeptics argue that we will never get to this point, though, because North Korea has brandished and blustered many times before, all resulting in nothing. I see recent events being far different and more urgent than in the past, and here’s why:
The West needs to realize that North Korea is under new leadership. The blowhard days of Kim Jung Il are over, and little is known about his son, Kim Jong Un. So far, the young dictator has followed through on everything he said he would do, including the multiple nuclear tests that the West is using as an excuse to exert sanctions. To assume that the son will be exactly like the father is folly.
Many people claimed that North Korean threats to abandon the Armistice in place since 1953 were empty, yet they dropped it exactly as they said they would at the beginning of March.
The North has begun cutting off direct communication channels to the South, including a cross-border hotline meant to help alleviate tensions through diplomatic means.
The North has officially declared a state of war against the South. This has been called mere “tough talk” by the U.S. government, but the speed at which these multiple developments have occurred should be taken into consideration.
At the beginning of this year, silver purchases by the North from China surged. For the entire year of 2012, the government purchased $77,000 worth of precious metals. In the first few months of 2013, North Korea has already purchased $600,000 in silver. The exact size of the North’s precious metals stockpile is unknown. Though seemingly small in comparison to many purported metal holdings by major powers, this sudden investment expansion would indicate a government move to protect internal finances from an exceedingly frail economic environment. Metals are also historically accumulated at a high rate by nations preparing for war or invasion in the near term.

Again, all that is needed to instigate an event on the Korean Peninsula are tightened sanctions. The establishment knows this, though another Gulf of Tonkin incident (an openly admitted false flag event) may be on the menu as well.

Given that the chances of a shooting war are high if sanctions continue, it might be wise to consider the consequences of conflagration in Korea.

Dealing with a large army steeped in asymmetric and mountain warfare will be difficult enough. In fact, an invasion of North Korea would be far more deadly than Afghanistan, if only because of the sheer number of maneuver elements (guerilla-style units) on the ground. But let’s set aside North Korea for a moment and consider the greatest threat of all: the dollar collapse.

As I have discussed in numerous articles, China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, has positioned itself to decouple from the American consumer and the dollar. This is no longer a theoretical process as it was in 2008, but a very real and nearly completed one. Mainstream analysts often claim China would never break from the dollar because it would damage their export markets and their investment holdings. The problem is, China is already dumping the dollar using bilateral trade agreements with numerous developing nations. It isn’t just talking about it; it is doing it.

The development of a decoupled China is part of a larger push by international banks to remove the dollar as the world reserve currency and replace it with a new global currency. This currency already exists. The International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) is a mechanism backed by a basket of currencies as well as gold. The introduction of the SDR on a wide scale is dependent on only two things.

First, China has been designated the replacement consumer engine in the wake of a U.S. collapse. They have already surpassed the United States as the No. 1 trading power in the world. However, they must spread their own currency, the Yuan, throughout global markets in order to aid the IMF in removing the dollar. China has recently announced a program to sell more than $6 trillion in Yuan denominated bonds to foreign investors, easily fulfilling this need.

Second, China and the IMF need a scapegoat event, a rationale for dumping the dollar that the masses would accept as logical. A U.S. invasion of North Korea could easily offer that rationale.

While China has been playing the good Samaritan in relations with the United States in dealing with North Korea and has supported (at least on paper) certain measures including sanctions, China will never be in support of Western combat actions in the Pacific so close to their territory. The kind of U.S. or NATO presence a war with North Korea would generate would be entirely unacceptable to the Chinese, who do not need to respond using arms. Rather, all they have to do to get rid of us would be to fully dump the dollar and threaten to cut off trade relations with any other country that won’t do the same. The domino effect would be devastating, causing U.S. costs to skyrocket and forcing us to pull troops out of the region. At the same time, the dollar would be labeled a “casualty of war” rather than a casualty of conspiratorial global banking designs, and the financial elites would be removed from blame.

Ultimately, we should take North Korea seriously not because of the wild-eyed propaganda of the mainstream media and not because they are “doing business with terrorists” or because they are a “violent and barbaric relic of nationalism,” but because a war in North Korea serves the more malicious interests of globalization. No matter what happens in the near future, it is important for Americans to always question the true motives behind any event and ask ourselves who, in the end, truly benefited.

–Brandon Smith

Personalliberty