Market crash ‘could hit within weeks’, warn bankers
By Harry Wilson, and Philip Aldrick:
Insurance on the debt of several major European banks has now hit historic levels, higher even than those recorded during financial crisis caused by the US financial group’s implosion nearly three years ago.
Credit default swaps on the bonds of Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Intesa Sanpaolo, among others, flashed warning signals on Wednesday. Credit default swaps (CDS) on RBS were trading at 343.54 basis points, meaning the annual cost to insure £10m of the state-backed lender’s bonds against default is now £343,540.
The cost of insuring RBS bonds is now higher than before the taxpayer was forced to step in and rescue the bank in October 2008, and shows the recent dramatic downturn in sentiment among credit investors towards banks.
“The problem is a shortage of liquidity – that is what is causing the problems with the banks. It feels exactly as it felt in 2008,” said one senior London-based bank executive.
“I think we are heading for a market shock in September or October that will match anything we have ever seen before,” said a senior credit banker at a major European bank.
[...]
If we close our eyes, then our blindfolds will become our chains
Daniel Greenfield:
Let’s not pretend that the right is any more immune to leader worship and cults of personality than the zombie hordes on the left. The cult of personality as a means of power predates political orientation, it dates back to the first men who understood that leadership is not about doing what the tribe wants, but about elevating yourself above the tribe.
Reasoned political involvement is about fixing toilets. When your toilet is broken, you look through the listings, find a plumber who seems to have a good track record, look at his rates and decide if you want to bring him in to do the job.
Leader worship is about ignoring the broken toilet and reveling in the greatness of the plumber who doesn’t actually fix your toilet, but spends hours talking tough about fixing all the toilets or movingly about the broken toilet inside each and every one of us.
[...]
China’s repression continues without a peep from WH
China: Writer Released from Prison Refuses To Be Deprived of Political Rights
One Million Israelis Under Missile Fire
by Noam Bedein:
It took me 20 minutes to drive to Ashdod from Tel-Aviv on Sunday morning, August 21st, 2 days after Ashdod, the fifth biggest city in Israel, was hit by seven Grad missiles fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza. According the IDF Spokesperson’s Office, over 100 rockets and mortars were fired towards Israel since Friday, August 19th.
[...]
Arab Spring for Dummies
by Daniel Greenfield:
Last year, Israel had three stable borders and one unstable border. Now that the Arab Spring has turned into Terror Summer, those numbers have flipped around. Israel’s border with Egypt has become as troubled as the Lebanese border. And the Syrian border is following close behind.
Obama had thought to use the Arab Spring as the linchpin of his reelection campaign, tying the unrest that brought down Mubarak to his Cairo speech. But the ugly turn of events in the region has him distancing himself from events instead.
The Arab Spring did not become the Soft Power alternative to the Bush Doctrine that his advisers expected it to be. Instead the economic protests exploited by State Department backed activists are sliding formerly pro-American countries into the Islamist camp.
The regional instability is most visible as its fracture points on the Israeli border.
[...]
This president and his sponsors have brought chaos and a coming war upon us.
The Persecution & Prayer Alert
The Persecution & Prayer Alert
The Voice of the Martyrs, Canada
http://www.persecution.net
Thursday, August 25, 2011
“The tests of life are to make, not break us. Trouble may demolish a
man’s business
but build up his character. The blow at the outward man may be the
greatest blessing
to the inner man. If God, then, puts or permits anything hard in our
lives,
be sure that the real peril, the real trouble, is that we shall lose
if we flinch or rebel.”
- Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Sign up now to receive our free Monthly Newsletter at
http://www.persecution.net/nlorder.htm
.
***********************************
In this week’s edition: reports from Sudan, China, Vietnam and Iraq.
***********************************
1. Church building in ruins; hostilities grow in Sudan
(Source: Compass Direct)
More than seven months after Muslim extremists burned its church
building, a Presbyterian Church of the Sudan (PCOS) congregation is
still afraid to meet for worship. The Rev. Maubark Hamad said his
church in Wad Madani has not been able to rebuild since the January 15
devastation due to the congregation’s meagre resources. Christian
sources said they are increasingly fearful as Muslim extremists pose
more threats against Christians in an attempt to rid what they call
Dar al Islam, the “Land of Islam,” of Christianity. The congregation’s
building was burned after a series of threats against its members by
Muslims extremists. When church leaders reported the case to police,
they were surprised to find officers reluctant to investigate.
Christians in Sudan are living beneath a blanket of fear since South
Sudan seceded on July 9 (for more information, go to
http://www.persecution.net/sd-2011-07-21.htm
). Just one month after the south voted for independence from the
predominantly Islamic north, pressures on churches and Christians have
increased, with Muslim groups threatening to destroy churches, kill
Christians and purge the country of Christianity.
Please pray the Lord will strengthen His Church in Sudan. May He
protect believers from harm and grow the Church in faithfulness and in
number. Ask Him to give them the grace to overcome their loss and
their current fears. Pray they will have the desire to meet with one
another for mutual encouragement and to act as witnesses for the
gospel.
For more information on persecution in Sudan, please visit
http://www.persecution.net/sudan.htm
.
***********************************
2. Investigation requested for missing human rights lawyer in China
(Source: ChinaAid Association)
VOM partner ChinaAid formally requested a special UN investigation
into the torture of missing Christian lawyer Gao Zhisheng on August
15, the five-year anniversary of his first kidnapping by police. The
request was submitted by ChinaAid’s legal counsel and was filed with
the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.
Human rights lawyer Gao was taken by police on August 15, 2006, from
his sister’s home and held incommunicado until the Chinese government
announced on September 21 that he was being charged with inciting
subversion (for more information, go to
http://www.persecution.net/cn-2011-01-13.htm
).
In March 2010, a group of human rights specialists filed a petition
before the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which resulted in
the discovery of serious wrongdoing by the Chinese government.
However, Chinese authorities failed to even reply to the UN enquiry.
Those involved were told that Gao’s case is a matter of China’s
internal affairs, adding that the country is under rule of law.
ChinaAid founder and president, Bob Fu, and the organization’s legal
counsel, David E. Taylor, expect that China is likely to respond
similarly to this request for a special UN investigation.
“Nonetheless, we believe it is important for the international
community to see again how the Chinese Communist Party responds with
arrogance and recalcitrance to the UN, and to show the world,
especially Gao’s family and the Chinese government, that Gao has not
been forgotten for even one second and never will be,” Taylor said.
Please pray for Gao and his family; may they remain steadfast in the
faith (1 Peter 5:8-10). Ask the Lord to use this current investigation
request for His glory and for the benefit of Gao and other Chinese
believers who are currently in prison for their faith.
To learn more about China’s suffering Christians, please visit
http://www.persecution.net/china.htm
.
***********************************
3. Christian worshippers brutally beaten by police in Vietnam
(Source: International Christian Concern)
A violent attack against minority Degar Montagnard Christians in the
central highlands of Vietnam took place in July, leaving 16 Christians
severely injured. One Christian man remains under arrest, his
condition unknown.
On July 7, at approximately 8 p.m., Vietnamese security forces and
police descended upon a worship service in the village of Buon Kret
Krot, Gai Lai Province, and began kicking and beating the attendees.
Security forces threatened the villagers, stating: “If anyone worships
like this way, we will return to arrest you all and put you in prison
for five years.” Of the Christians attacked, 10 men and two women were
beaten to the point of unconsciousness.
Pray the Lord will bring swift and complete healing to those who were
injured. Pray for the release of the believer who was arrested. Ask
the Lord to strengthen these believers. Pray Christians in Vietnam
will continue to meet together in spite of the opposition. Pray for
the perpetrators of this attack. To post a prayer for these suffering
believers, please visit our Persecuted Church Prayer Wall at
http://www.persecution.net/prayerwall
.
For more on persecution in Vietnam, go to
http://www.persecution.net/vietnam.htm
.
***********************************
4. Church building bombed in Iraq
(Source: Compass Direct)
A wave of violence hit 17 cities in Iraq recently, claiming around 70
lives. Included in the attacks was the bombing of a church building in
Kirkuk, marking the second round of assaults against the city’s
Christian community in recent weeks. On August 15 at 1:20 a.m., a bomb
tore through one of the walls of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Mar
Afram. Thankfully, no Christians were killed in the attack, but police
have announced higher protective measures for Kirkuk’s churches.
Earlier in the month, three other churches were targeted by
insurgents. While police were able to disarm bombs near two of the
churches, a third bomb detonated in front of the Holy Family Syriac
Catholic Church.
About 334,000 Christians remain in Iraq, less than half of their
number in 1991. The violence has caused hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
people, both Muslim and Christian, to leave the country, and many more
are displaced inside Iraq, particularly in Kurdistan.
Pray for the church in Iraq. Pray they will keep their eyes on Jesus,
persevere in their faith, and not grow weary or lose heart (Hebrews
10:32-39; 12:1-3). Pray He will comfort and strengthen the many who
are grieving. Ask him to intervene in the lives of Christians in Iraq
to protect and preserve them.
Please visit http://www.persecution.net/iraq.htm
for more on the trials facing believers in Iraq.
***********************************
The Persecution & Prayer Alert is a ministry of The Voice of the
Martyrs, Canada. (Mailing address: P.O. Box 608, Streetsville,
Ontario, L5M 2C1)
Tel. (905) 670.9721. Website: http://www.persecution.net
‘Nonsense’: Pro-Beck Jewish Academic Makes Forceful Stand Against Hostile Questions Outside ‘Restoring Courage’ Event
by Scott Baker:
While Glenn Beck was giving his main address at Restoring Courage, I could hear the chants of the anti-Beck protesters on the other side of the Old City wall.
I’m not sure how she picked out the sound, but at one point Israeli-based journalist Sharona Schwartz, who was sitting near me, turned quickly and said, “There is another group singing an Israeli anthem — I bet they are supporting Beck.”
We rapidly decamped and found that she was right.
[...]
With Glenn Beck by the Temple’s Walls
by Barry Rubin:
Glenn Beck’s program in Israel went off without a hitch, ending in a rally on the southern side of the Old City of Jerusalem. About 1000 people were in attendance, mostly Americans (contrary to the media coverage, a number of the Americans were Jews not Evangelicals) who’d come to Jerusalem at Beck’s urging, but with a sprinkling of Israelis, including a fair proportion of Orthodox Jews.
With the Old City walls to his right and in front of him, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque looming quite close, Beck handled himself with a mixture of audaciousness toward his enemies and sensitivity toward his friends. He announced a global movement, to be headquartered in Texas, to encourage average people to act against injustice, though the details of its scope and goals weren’t clear. Since you won’t get any real coverage in the media, here is the full text of the speech.
While many fulminated against Beck and his Israel project it was hard to find something, he specifically said or did that should provoke such feelings.
[...]
Israeli Ambassador Confirms: Erdogan ‘Hates Us Religiously’
Andrew G. Bostom:
The progressive dismantling of Turkey’s experiment in Westernization/ secularization — which began within a decade of Ataturk’s death — came to popular, if ugly, fruition with the election of the Necmettin Erbakan government in the early 1990s.
Erbakan was a full-throated, unapologetic promulgator of mainstream, “sacralized” Islamic Jew` hatred.
[...]
Mass arrests of Christians continue in Eritrea
VOM Canada:
Eritrean officials have arrested at least 90 Christians in recent months, including many college students, reports Release Eritrea and our sister missions, VOM USA and Release International.
[..]
Don’t expect ‘Christian’ Obama to do or say anything about this. He’s too busy playing golf, kissing the Saudi king’s ring (a gesture of muslim obeisance), regulating American business and citizenry to death, running guns to drug cartels, piling up U.S. debt, demagoguing his political opponents, funding abortion pushing Planned Parenthood, unionizing the entire U.S. work force (or at least what’s left of it), undermining our allies whilst empowering our enemies, destroying the military, betraying Israel (the Jewish homeland) and eliminating the U.S. energy industry.
Perry and Global Warming
Jim Lacey:
Last week Rick Perry questioned the prevailing orthodoxy on global warming. There was, as is easy to imagine, no shortage of warmists waiting to pounce. Remarkably, one of the first questions later put to Governor Perry was whether he accepted the correctness of evolution — as if the science behind global warming was supported by even a tenth as much evidence as we have for evolution. What is troubling, however, is that some of the other candidates for the Republican nomination still accept the theory of man-made warming. Worse, they are apparently prepared to act on their beliefs if elected president.
[...]
Evolution is utter bunk, too. And before all you darwinists start bombarding me let me be clear. Microevolution, which more accurately is described as ‘change within a species with fixed limits’ is not evidence of vertical macroevolution.
Bloomberg Bans Clergy From 9/11 Ceremony but Ground Zero Mosque OK
Bloomberg Bans Clergy From 9/11 Ceremony but Ground Zero Mosque OK
This is a national event and Bloomberg has absolutely no right to do this. What a bigot.
The False WWII Analogy
Victor Davis Hanson:
For decades the liberal argument was that the New Deal cured the Depression. But in a new twist, the war has suddenly been reinvented to support the current arguments of the new Keynesians — despite the irony in the embrace of the old right-wing argument that it was the World War II defense spending, not FDR’s New Deal, that finally got America out of a near-decade-long depression.
In ingenious fashion, the new argument insists that the second downward spiral of 1937–38 — formerly ostensible proof that five years of the New Deal and of anti-business rhetoric had not worked — should be attributed only to FDR’s lacking the will or political muscle to stay the course and accelerate deficit spending, redistribute more income, and grow far bigger government. Then luckily the war came along. That crisis provided the necessary political landscape, which had been lacking during the supposed Keynesian backsliding of Roosevelt’s second term, to force through the long-awaited New New Deal. At last, the really big scare allowed the really big borrowing, and the result was the really big prosperity for the next half-century.
But as many have pointed out, there are all sorts of problems with this account. During World War II, the American public scrimped and saved. If household income increased, so did household savings — not surprisingly, given the rationing of many consumer goods and total unavailability of others. Washers, dryers, hot-water heaters, vacuum cleaners — all those and more were bought for the first time after the war, and often without borrowing.
[...]
Facing facts on O’s Syria miscues
John Bolton:
The end of the Khadafy regime in Libya has focused new attention on the rebels in Syria — as has last week’s belated call by President Obama for the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. But it will take a more radical Obama course correction to make a real difference. After six months of bloodshed, with thousands dead, and only mild White House responses earlier, this belated pronouncement is likely too little too late.
At the very least, the administration needs to recognize the false premises behind its mistakes..
[...]
A passing thought.
I am so old that when I grew up Saturday morning cartoons weren’t 30-minute commercials for action figures. The cartoons were masterpieces too, I might add.
The Five Most Catastrophic Hidden Costs of the Obama Presidency
by Kyle-Anne Shiver:
We well remember candidate Barack Obama’s ’08 throngs laying in breathless wait for the “Lightworker” to appear and speak as “sort of like God” from his teleprompter on high. Now, with nearly everything this president has touched lying in shambles, a shrunken Obama whines from town to town, transported in a taxpayer-purchased bus that resembles a big, fat hearse — the perfect symbol for the harbinger of economic death that Obama’s presidency has become.
It’s painfully apparent now that the American people were scammed in ’08 by Barack the Bamboozler in what will be known historically as the most audacious scheme of fraudulent branding the world has ever seen.
I would just love to see a crackerjack team of litigation attorneys put together a class action suit with a dollar amount on both the tangible and intangible “pain and suffering” costs of the Obama presidency. In fact, if I were a Republican strategist, I would commission a legal team to devise such a case and put it in a PowerPoint presentation for voters by next fall.
The all too apparent costs, of course, are those numbers economists lob forth every day, to a mouths-agape public:
[...]
Roger Cohen Discovers Antisemitism
by Ben Cohen:
For some years, the New York Times columnist Roger Cohen thrived in his role as a bete noire of pro-Israel advocates in the United States. In his writings on Iran, especially, Cohen attracted considerable ire for discounting Israel’s anxieties about the nuclear ambitions of the ruling mullahs, and for generally pushing the idea that the unresolved Palestinian question lies at the heart of the myriad conflicts in the Middle East and wider Islamic world.
And then he moved to London.
Back in the city where he grew up, Cohen has now — as his latest column announces — discovered that antisemitism is not some dastardly fabrication of the Israel lobby, but a real phenomenon experienced on many levels by many Jews. Off the back of that revelation, Cohen declares himself nostalgic for those same assertive Jews with whom he tussled back in the States.
Here, in brief, is what lay behind this sudden transformation.
[...]
‘Midnight Cowboy’ Rides Tall in Jerusalem
by Fern Sidman:
“We are facing a new Holocaust, and people of all faiths must demand that the truth be heard,” declared Oscar-winning American actor Jon Voight on Monday evening, August 22nd in Jerusalem. Voight, 72, joined former FOX News personality Glenn Beck as the featured speaker at the central train station in Jerusalem in an event commemorating the Holocaust. As a lead up to Beck’s “Restoring Courage” rally on August 24th, Monday evening’s event, which was carried on Beck’s new television network, featured a powerful film about Holocaust survivor Rudy Wolf’s visit to his childhood home in Germany. Other speakers at the event noted the significance of holding a Holocaust-themed evening at the former Jerusalem train station, which recalled the train tracks leading to Auschwitz — tracks that could have been destroyed, but weren’t.
Assuming a flinty posture on the exacerbation of terrorism aimed at Israel, Mr. Voight intoned, “The Palestinian radicals have only one prayer on their lips: To remove every Jew from Israel.” He received a standing ovation when he said, “We will not bend to terrorism in any way, shape, or form for the sake of peace.”
“How have we come to a time when blowing up babies and cutting their throats are an acceptable means to a political goal?” Voight queried his audience, referring to the barbaric murders of five members of the Fogel family in the settlement of Itamar in March of this year. “I feel complete contempt for anyone not intelligent enough to see that the media propaganda portraying the Palestinians as victims endangers the state of Israel,” he continued to rousing applause.
[...]
Earth Moon Telescope Pointing at Comet Elenin
Yes, the title is a bit hokey but put aside your discomfort and at least watch the clip and I also recommend you read the comments beneath the clip. The end of the clip is absolutely hopeless, I’m afraid.
Iran Gets a Pass?
by Adam Daifallah:
While the world’s attention is focused squarely on Libya and Syria, and with good reason — both countries are in rapidly-changing states of crisis — this focus is allowing other rogue Middle Eastern nations to get away with things that would normally face harsher scrutiny. Case in point: Iran.
Iran recently started moving its uranium enriching centrifuges from its main atomic complex in Natanz to an underground bunker in Fordow. The bunker is reportedly impervious to air-strikes and can accommodate up to 3,000 centrifuges. The Iranian excuse of wanting to enrich uranium for “peaceful purposes” is getting more laughable all the time.
[...]
Why Obama Can’t Lead
By Michael Bargo Jr.:
For 22 years he attended the church services led by Rev. Jeremiah Wright. African-Americans who attended his and other black liberation theology church services in Chicago are taught that their options are limited by the “other,” and this other is white society. Personal choice is not the route to success; choices are limited by the overwhelmingly oppressive power of dominant white America. America is not, for Rev. Wright’s paradigm, a land of opportunity, but instead a land of oppression.
In this political culture, the black political leader does not encourage his people to move forward, but rather convinces them that they cannot move forward. Whatever choices they make, their future is determined not by personal choice, but by the restrictive confines of white society. This is why actor-comedian Bill Cosby is viciously attacked when he suggests that African-Americans take responsibility for their own choices. His comments are perceived as an existential threat to the politics of black liberation and the entire political belief system that keeps the black political elites in power.
[...]
The FDA’s Hazardous Plan to Regulate Mobile Medical Apps
By Ira Brodsky:
One of the few bright spots in the current economy is sales of smartphones, tablet computers, and e-readers. Led by three U.S. companies — Apple, Google (Android), and Amazon — the worldwide market for these gadgets is expected to reach $190 billion this year. Driving much of the growth is a rapidly expanding universe of “apps” that offer exciting new capabilities such as helping patients manage their diabetes and letting physicians pull up CT scans from any location.
Now the U.S. Food and Drug Administration wants to apply the brakes to this growth market.
[...]
An interview with former muslim Al Fadi
Mr. Al Fadi is a Christian and I recommend you watch this interview.
Krauthammer rips Biden’s one-child policy comments
by The Right Scoop:
Krauthammer says it’s not only a scandal, but that Vice President Joe Biden has betrayed our values by saying to the Chinese that he understands their one-child policy:
WATCH HERE [and more RC commentary]
We are living in strange times [Krugman dives down the rabbit hole]
NYT wackadoodle Paul Krugman wishes earthquake did more damage, or something
Mark Levin blasts demagogue Rep. Frederica Wilson
by The Right Scoop:
This is excellent, perhaps even epic. Levin blasts Rep. Frederica Wilson and her comments that the reason black people are in a ‘great recession’ is because racism, among other things. Levin asks if the leaders of North Korea are racist, considering they are all one race? His point is that statism is the problem whether it be in N. Korea, in the extreme, or whether it be here in a more moderate version. And he says this is the problem, that we must reach people with the truth by getting past demagogues like Frederica Wilson:
[...]
‘Evil’: Attendees at prominent pro-pedophilia conference horrified by sessions
by Jeremy Kryn:
(LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-family advocates who attended a controversial pro-pedophilia conference in Baltimore last week say they were profoundly shaken by what they saw and heard.
“As a former law enforcement officer I’ve dealt with situations involving suicide, homicide and other violence. That said, I’ve never felt the level of spiritual oppression and evil that I felt in that room,” Liberty Counsel Action Vice President Matt Barber told LifeSiteNews.
“These mental health ‘professionals,’ and self-described pedophile and ‘gay’ activists were inexplicably able to cavalierly discuss, in an almost dismissive way, the idea of child rape,” Barber said. “They used flowery, euphemistic psychobabble to give quasi-scientific cover to a discussion about the worst kind of perversion.”
[...]
Labor power AFL-CIO to form super PAC to engage beyond unions
Reuters:
Powerful labor group AFL-CIO is forming a super PAC to engage nonunion members ahead of the 2012 elections, the group said on Tuesday.
The move follows measures by states like Wisconsin and Ohio to curb bargaining rights of public workers in fights that are part of a broader national confrontation between Republicans and labor groups that have typically favored Democrats.
[...]
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