Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

U.S. on Alert for Nuclear Blast Overhead
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily NewsWND
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

'Space launch vehicle' could put kill electric grid, devastate nation

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.

Sources say that sending the B-2s was in response to the recent North Korean threats to send a message – a message which Russia and China called a "provocative act."

Russia and China have asked the U.S. to continue talking to North Korea and not to take military action against North Korea.

In response to North Korea's initial bellicose rhetoric, Hagel ordered the deployment of additional Aegis anti-missile systems for the U.S. West Coast. They originally were destined for Europe. And a second anti-ballistic missile radar is to be installed in Japan.

However, the Aegis anti-missile systems won't be operational until 2017, although there are some systems already deployed along the West Coast.

North Korea's continuing threats of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against U.S. targets suggest to U.S. officials that its military is confident in the capability of its missiles and that its recent nuclear testing for miniaturization of a warhead to be placed on a missile similarly was successful.

These officials are looking at the prospect that upon launch of the missile and a potential nuclear payload, it would take a polar path, clearly out of range of U.S. Aegis anti-missile systems.

The fact that U.S.military officials are expressing quiet but increasing concern that North Korea could launch an EMP attack has raised alarms over the preservation of the U.S. national grid and such critical infrastructures as communications, energy, food and water delivery and space systems.

This concern recently has been reinforced by a little-publicized study by the U.S. Army War College that said a nuclear detonation at altitude above a U.S. city could wipe out the electrical grid for hundreds, possibly thousands of miles around.

The impact would be catastrophic.

"Preparing for months without a commercial source of clean water (city water pressure is often dependent on electric pumping to storage towers) and stoppage of sewage treatment facilities will require net methods of survival particularly in populated areas," the military study said.

The May 2011 study, titled, "In the Dark: Military Planning for a Catastrophic Critical Infrastructure Event," concluded that there is "very little" in the way of backup capability to the electric grid upon which the communications infrastructure is vitally dependent.

Analysts say that it is apparent that Kim has ignored any advice from its closest friend, China, to stop any further missile or nuclear testing suggesting, as one official described Kim, as a "loose cannon."

Kim also has been defiant of any United Nations Security Council resolutions similarly condemning the recent missile and nuclear tests. China had joined in approving those resolutions.

"The time has come to settle accounts with the U.S.," the KCNA agency declared.

"The Obama administration is either clueless or deceiving the American people with false assurances that North Korea's recent threats to destroy the United States are merely 'empty rhetoric' because they allegedly 'lack the capability,'" one former U.S. official told WND.

Some regional analysts, however, believe that Kim is seeking to leverage the U.S. for further concessions while attempting to win favor with his own military to show how tough he can be.

These analysts say that until now Kim has not had the support from the military that his father, Kim Jong-Il, had.

His war-like tone may be indicative of attempts to solidify military support within his country.

At the moment, experts are looking at efforts for preparations at known long-range missile launch sites.

Those signs may be appearing.

"North Korea's launch sites to fire off mid- and long-range missiles have recently shown increased movement of vehicles and forces," according to one South Korean official who described the activity at the sites as "brisk."

"We are closely watching possibilities of missile launches," the official said.

In this connection, officials have seen several vehicles moving to the Tongchang-ri missile site on the western coast, in what appeared to them to be preparations for testing its long-range missiles.

Some observers, however, believe the latest threats of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S. remain for now just domestic posturing and efforts to establish military credentials on Kim's part to show that he is more forceful than his father.

In other efforts to determine warnings and indications of an attack, analysts are looking for major troop movements, although none has been detected to date.

Late last week, a North Korean Mig-21 fighter jet flew near South Korea's front line airspace, known as the Tactical Action Line,but returned to base, according to a South Korean military official. In response, the South Koreans scrambled a KF-16 fighter.

The TAL is the point between 20 and 50 kilometers north of South Korean airspace that will prompt the South Korea to scramble its fighter jets.

Three Qassams Aimed At Israel from Gaza. West Bank Stone - Throwing
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Of the three Qassam rockets fired at Israel Sunday night, one exploded on empty ground in the Eshkol region, two inside the Gazan border. On the West Bank, several Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets fired by Israeli troops under hail of rocks. At the Hawara checkpoint east of Nablus, a Palestinian was detained carrying three pipe bombs and a quantity of bottle bombs.

The Untold Story of How Egypt's Christians Suffer
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily NewsIsrael Today - Ashraf Ramelah
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

The following is a press release by Voice of the Copts, an organization trying to shine a light on the incredible persecution faced by Egyptian Christians today. Sadly, the devastating details of how unbearable life has become for Egyptians Christans under that country's Islamic regime are being all but ignored by the mainstream media and Western leaders.

On Sunday afternoon, Egyptian police surrounded Saint Mark’s Coptic Cathedral of Cairo, the headquarters of the Coptic Pope, to protect it from a Muslim mob that had been assailing the Christian place of worship with stones, firebombs and gunfire for hours on end.

Inside, a liturgy was being held for eight Christians who had been brutally murdered during a Muslim rampage three days earlier, when Muslims took revenge upon an entire Christian neighborhood after a Christian man dared to protect a young Christian girl from being raped at the hands of a Muslim.

This sequence of bloody events took place in the Cairo suburb of Al Khosous, a town of about three million with a Christian majority. It started when a Christian man got into a fistfight with a Muslim who was trying to kidnap and rape a Christian girl. In his fierce defense of the innocent girl, who was likely to never be seen again by her family, the Christian man fatally wounded the Musim assailant.

Within hours of this horrible incident, revenge stirred in Muslim neighborhoods. A general state of panic and terror ensued. Groups of Muslims attacked a Baptist Church setting it on fire. With firebombs (Molotov cocktails) and other weapons, Muslims destroyed the homes and businesses of Christians and looted the contents.

Both Muslim and Coptic citizens who witnessed the tragic eruption phoned Cairo radio and TV stations desperately appealing to them to broadcast a request for the police to come to the scene of the crime.

The Muslim rampage claimed the lives of eight Christians and one Muslim. Only after the situation began to calm down did the police arrive, which is customary procedure in Egypt's more recent history.

Voice of the Copts calls on Europe and the United States to attach stated conditions to the taxpayers’ funds promised to the regime of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi demanding true evidence that Egypt guarantees human rights and equality under the law for all citizens.

We ask that leaders of the Western church, as participants in interfaith dialogue, request of Muslim leaders to publicly voice their opposition to the mistreatment of Christians and non-Muslims in general in Egypt and elsewhere where Islam is practiced and remains the dominant ideology.

Tel Aviv: March for Shoah Survivors
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily NewsINN
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

An NGO called "Spring for Holocaust Survivors" organized a march Sunday dedicated to Holocaust survivors, in order to let them "know we have not forgotten them."

The organizers said that this was a march "for the living." The annual memorial march in Poland is called the March of the Living.

The march included MKs past and present and some local celebrities as well.

Putin: Chernobyl Would be Child’s Play If “Something Happened” in Korea
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

Russian President Vladimir Putin said:  "I would make no secret about it, we are worried about the escalation on the Korean peninsula, because we are neighbors." He spoke at a joint news conference Monday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a trade fair in Germany.

"And if, God forbid, something happens, Chernobyl which we all know a lot about, may seem like a child's fairy tale. Is there such a threat or not? I think there is... I would urge everyone to calm down...” the Russian president concuded, praising the US decision to delay its next ICBM test.

N. Korea Preparing Fourth Nuclear Test: South
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

North Korea appears to be preparing a fourth nuclear test as well as a provocative missile launch, South Korea said on Monday, despite an unusually blunt call from China for restraint.

Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-Jae told lawmakers there were "signs" that another test was in the pipeline, with intelligence reports showing heightened activity at the North's Punggye-ri atomic test site, according to AFP.

"We are trying to figure out whether it is a genuine preparation for a nuclear test or just a ploy to heap more pressure on us and the US," the JoongAng Ilbo daily cited a senior South Korean government official as saying.

It was the North's third nuclear test in February and subsequent UN sanctions that kick-started the cycle of escalating military tensions on the Korean peninsula.

While North Korea has made no secret of the fact that it intends to carry out further nuclear tests, most analysts believe a detonation in the current climate would be a provocative step too far, even for Pyongyang.

Intelligence reports suggest Pyongyang has readied two mid-range missiles on mobile launchers on its east coast, and is aiming at a test-firing before the April 15 birthday of late founding leader Kim Il-Sung.

Japan has ordered its armed forces to shoot down any North Korean missile headed towards its territory, a defense ministry spokesman in Tokyo said Monday.

A missile launch would be highly provocative, especially in light of the recent rebuke by its sole ally China and a U.S. concession to delay its own planned missile test.

"No one should be allowed to throw a region, even the whole world, into chaos for selfish gains," Chinese President Xi Jinping told an international forum on Sunday.

Although he did not mention North Korea by name, Xi's remarks were taken as a clear warning to the regime in Pyongyang, which is hugely dependent on China's economic and diplomatic support.

On Saturday Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had told UN chief Ban Ki-moon that Beijing would "not allow troublemaking on China's doorstep".

The United States, which has met the North's threats with some military muscle-flexing of its own, offered a calibrated concession Saturday by delaying a planned inter-continental ballistic missile test.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel postponed the Minuteman 3 test because it "might be misconstrued by some as suggesting that we were intending to exacerbate the current crisis with North Korea".

The New York Times reported that the US and South Korea have drawn up plans for a measured tit-for-tat response to North Korean actions, which will be limited in order to prevent an escalation to broader war.

Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said the new "counter-provocation" strategy calls for an immediate but proportional "response in kind" if the North decides to launch a missile attack or ground attack.

North Korea's bellicose rhetoric has reached fever pitch in recent weeks, with near-daily threats of attacks on US military bases and South Korea in response to ongoing South Korea-US military exercises.

The mid-range missiles mobilized by the North are reported to be untested Musudan models with an estimated range of around 1,860 miles (3,000km) that could theoretically be pushed to 2,485 miles with a light payload.

That would cover any target in South Korea and Japan, and possibly even American military bases on the Pacific island of Guam.

The North has no proven inter-continental ballistic missile capability that would enable it to strike more distant US targets, and many experts say it is unlikely it can even mount a nuclear warhead on a mid-range missile.

Let the Headlines Speak
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Margaret Thatcher Dies After Stroke
Baroness Thatcher, Britain's Iron Lady, has died after suffering a stroke at the age of 87. Her children Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother had died peacefully following a stroke this morning. Speaking to Sky News, spokesman and friend Lord Bell, who announced her death, said: "We’ll never see the like of her again. She was one of the great prime ministers of all time and transformed people's lives."  

De Facto ‘Debtors’ Prison’ Freezes Economic Mobility, Favors Plutocrats In Eroding U.S. Legal System
Increasingly, private debt collection has come to put pressure on law enforcement to aggressively pursue available legal opportunities to arrest those who don’t pay their bills — such as when a civil judgment has been issued against an already-delinquent borrower and that person subsequently is found to be in contempt of the judgment because he still can’t pay.  

East Texas stores ration ammo as shortage affects law enforcement
Like Gregg County, law enforcement agencies nationwide are feeling the squeeze as ammunition flies off the shelves across the country. A spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol said the agency was waiting on rifle and shotgun ammunition ordered in November.  

Over 270 detained in Montreal over freedom of assembly rally
At least 279 protesters have been detained and fined in central Montreal during a rally against police tactics and the controversial bylaw that puts limitations on peaceful demonstrations. “What we are talking about is here is our constitutional right to peaceful assembly which is being encroached upon.”  

Congress returns to try to reach final deals on major issues of immigration, gun control
Though the Senate has been working on both issues only since the new Congress began in January, Washington lawmakers have tried for years to draft comprehensive immigration reform, while the issue of gun-control was thrust upon them after 20 first-graders were killed in a December 2012 mass shooting.  

Israel demands Iran ultimatum
Israel has demanded that Iran be given an ultimatum to end its nuclear programme within weeks or face military action after declaring that sanctions and diplomacy had failed to work. Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli strategic affairs minister, said Iran's Islamic leaders were "talking and laughing their way to a bomb" after two days of talks between the world powers and Iranian diplomats finished without an accord.  

Killer bird flu has mutated and may now spread around globe, scientists warn
But health officials in Shanghai, who have studied its genetic sequence, believe it has now mutated into a different strain, is spreading much more easily between different animals and may have entered the wider food chain.  

Most U.S. troops ‘would die’ in N. Korean onslaught
If North Korea were to launch an attack, U.S. intelligence analysts tell WND the barrage of hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds and missiles would destroy not only South Korea’s capital, Seoul, but also most of the U.S. troops stationed primarily around the capital and near the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries.  

ATF Seeks 'Massive' Database of Personal Info: 'Assets, Relatives, Associates and More'
A recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) reveals that the agency is seeking a "massive" online database capable of pulling up individuals' personal information, connections and associates. ...The document says that the system will be utilized by staff "to provide rapid searches on...names, telephone numbers, utility data and reverse phone look-ups...  

Pope Francis officially made Rome's bishop
Pope Frances' installation Sunday in the seat of St. John Lateran Basilica signaled his official start as bishop of Rome, church officials said. A first activity of the pope when he arrived at the basilica was to take part in renaming the square outside the church from St. John Lateran to Blessed John Paul II Square,  

Researchers Uncover Significant Evidence Of The 17th Dynasty Of Ancient Egypt
The individuals would have lived approximately 3,550 years ago, and their gravesites were discovered on the hill of Dra Abu el-Naga in what is now Luxor but what was formerly the ancient settlement of Thebes.  

Ten children and US diplomat killed in weekend of Afghanistan violence
A suicide attack claimed six lives, including the first US state department officer to die in Afghanistan since the 1970s, and Nato air attacks killed 10 children over a weekend that was a bloody reminder of the scale of the country's conflict.  

Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina rejects blasphemy law
Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina has firmly rejected demands by Islamists for a new anti-blasphemy law to punish those who defame Islam and Prophet Muhammad. In a BBC interview, she said existing laws were sufficient to punish anyone who attempted to insult religion. Her comments came just days after hundreds of thousands of supporters of an umbrella organisation of Islamists held a massive rally in Dhaka.  

North Korea: US Deploys Spy Plane To Japan
Tensions remain high on the Korean Peninsula amid reports the US has deployed an unmanned spy plane to Japan to boost its surveillance after North Korea readied missile launchers on its east coast.  

Toll rises in Cairo clashes at Coptic Cathedral
Two people were killed in clashes outside Cairo's main cathedral on Sunday, Egyptian officials now say. Calm returned to central Abbassiya area where police deployed heavily outside St Mark's Cathedral. Several Coptic demonstrators were still gathered there on Monday morning. Sunday's violence followed the funerals of four Coptic Christians killed in religious violence on Saturday.  

SPOTTED SUN:
With nine sunspot groups peppering the solar disk, the sunspot number is surging. Three of the sunspots, AR1713, AR1718 and AR1719, have 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields that harbor energy for M-class solar flares.  

Earthquake: 3.1 quake strikes near Joshua Tree
According to the USGS, the epicenter was 41 miles from Twentynine Palms, 41 miles from Yucca Valley, 43 miles from Barstow and 256 miles from Phoenix.  

Portuguese PM speaks of 'national emergency' after court ruling
Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has warned that Portugal risks "collapse," a euro exit or a second bailout after a court ruling which deleted €1.3 billion of austerity measures in this year's budget. Speaking in a TV address on Sunday (7 April), he used the term "national emergency" three times to describe Portugal's economic situation.  

4.8-magnitude earthquake shakes Egypt's south Sinai Peninsula
A 4.8-magnitude earthquake rattled Egypt's south Sinai Peninsula on Sunday. The tremor lasted some seven seconds without causing any damage.  

Yes, that was an earthquake – near Key Center
There was a 3.5 earthquake in the South Sound (centered west of Key Center) just before 2 am. Here’s its infopage. Not major by any measure, but also, on the stronger side of “small” earthquakes.  

Earthquake: 3.1 quake strikes near Lone Pine, California
According to the USGS, the epicenter was 54 miles from Ridgecrest, California, 69 miles from Porterville, California, 70 miles from Lindsay, California and 217 miles from Carson City, Nevada.  

'Huge shift in Syrian troops from Golan'
Syria has withdrawn at least several thousand of its troops from the Golan Heights western diplomats said, according to a report in The Guardian on Sunday. The redeployments near the Golan ceasefire line were the most significant in 40 years and the soldiers were moved to fronts closer to the capital Damascus, according to the report.  

Latest Iran Nuclear Talks Exposed Deeper Rifts Than Ever
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Officials on both sides reported that the latest round of nuclear talks between Iran and the six powers last week in Kazakhstan not only failed to narrow the gaps between the two sides but exposed their depth and scale. The powers counted on Iran agreeing to suspend 20-percent uranium enrichment and disable the Fordo enrichment site for some months in return for the partial easing of sanctions as a first step towards a broader deal. Instead, a senior US official reported that the Iranian delegation led by Saeed Jalili responded with “very, very tiny steps, but wanted a lot of return.”

Even a direct 30-minute conversation  between Jalili and the senior US negotiator Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman failed to narrow the gulf. The meeting broke up Saturday, April 6, without setting a date for another round.

All the same,  a senior US official who refused to be identified said, “"There was no breakthrough but also no breakdown.Our intention is to proceed."

Israel Marks Holocaust Remembrance Day
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Official memorial ceremonies from Sunday evening through Monday are dedicated this year to the 70^th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and other episodes of heroic Jewish resistance to the Nazis in World War II. President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu led the main ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center in Jerusalem Sunday night. Holocaust survivors attended by their grandchildren and an Israeli military honor guard lit torches in memory of the six million slain victims.

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, at the head of an IDF delegation to Poland, addressed the memorial ceremony at the site of the Auschwitz death camp. He said: "The State of Israel is the guarantee for the non-repetition ever again of this horror and its defense forces are the bulwark for the Jewish people’s national home and safe refuge.

'Sometimes the Loudest Response is Silence'
Apr 8th, 2013
Daily NewsIsrael Today - Ryan Jones
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Israel on Monday morning came to a complete standstill for two minutes as nearly every citizen solemnly marked the Nazi Holocaust and the six million Jewish lives it claimed.

As air raid sirens wailed across the country, motorists stopped their cars, school children ceased their studies and everyone everywhere stood in reverent silence.

Immediately after the sirens, official state ceremonies were held at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, while the chief of Israel's army led a march of Israeli soldiers, Holocaust survivors and other Jewish participants through the most infamous of Nazi death camps - Auschwitz.

Israeli army spokesman Eytan Buchman posted the following to his Twitter account:

"Sometimes the loudest response is pure silence. Today a country stood still to say Never Again. Proud to be an IDF officer today."

No matter how many times one hears those sirens, the experience is never less powerful. An entire nation blanketed in the sound of mournful sirens, an entire population halting all activity to stand in solemn silence. It is a commemorative act likely unprecedented in history.