As we pray for the peace of
Jerusalem
Prophetic News and
Commentary
Reporting on Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Jeremiah 6:17 Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet….
Isaiah 62:6 I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O
Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make
mention of the LORD, keep not silence,
V:7 And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise
in the earth.
Psalms
122:6 Pray for the peace of
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The following articles are compiled
by:
Leo Wong
UK Foreign Office supports Saudi Bible ban
Source: jnewswire.com
January 3, 2007 -- The British Foreign Office has backed the decision of an English airline to forbid one of its flight attendants from carrying her personal Bible to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi’s regime is notorious for bragging about having “an open mind” and saying it “accepts Christianity and Judaism.”
In fact, not a single church exists in the desert country; foreign diplomats may not even hold Bible studies in their homes and Bibles discovered on tourists have been confiscated, with some allegedly even shredded.
Instead of taking the opportunity to expose the Saudi’s hypocrisy, the Foreign Office concurred. "The importation [to Saudi Arabia] and use of narcotics, alcohol, pork products and religious books, apart from the Koran, and artifacts are forbidden," it declared.
Comments: Hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing another. People in general loathe hypocrites. The Saudis are not viewed as being the main defender of the Islamic faith. The oil rich Saudi sheiks have been lambasted by fundamental Islamics for living luxuriously and hedonistically which is contrary to what Islam teaches. Also, Saudi Arabia’s coziness with the U.S. Government is a sore sticking point among Muslims. This Arab nation has one of the most oppressive autocratic regimes in the region. Women have very few rights. Breaking the law means swift punishment for the perpetrators, e.g. you get your right hand chopped off for stealing and if you are caught committing adultery, you lose your head.
Iran, as hostile it is against the Western nations and Israel, at least allows Christians to own and read their Bibles. Jews in Iran number in the thousands and although they are viewed as second class citizens, so far, they haven’t been severely persecuted. (In fact, many Jews living there would like to continue living there.) On the other hand, foreign workers in Saudi Arabia have to walk on eggshells so as not to break any Saudi laws that they’re not aware off.
This female flight attendant lost her Bible, but that can be replaced. She pleased her Lord by toting around His Word. For that, she will be rewarded. As for the Saudis and the kowtowing UK officials, they’ll get their just desserts in an upcoming day.
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Source: mirror.co.uk
January 3, 2007 -- Fumbling for coins in your pocket will be a thing of the past as the latest technology lets you load up your phone with credit and pay by simply pointing it at the till.
It's further proof that new technology is killing off hard cash.
In the coming year, even the smallest purchases will be paid for electronically after credit card giants Visa and Barclaycard struck a deal to create the next generation of "wave and pay" cards for purchases of less than £10.
Users will simply wave the card across a scanner to pay for small items for which they would normally use coins, such as their Daily Mirror or a pint of beer.
But the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona has taken the technology one step further by having tiny data chips implanted surgically under customers' skin.
The VeriChip then allows clubbers to pay for drinks by waving their arm across the counter.
Already more purchases are made on plastic than in cash, and a study by retail analyst Datamonitor suggests that cards could replace cash altogether within 10 years.
Mark Bowerman, from the Association of Payment Clearing Services, says: "People use cards more than cash, but the data on a card can be stored anywhere.
"There's no reason why it can't be kept on your mobile phone, or even underneath the skin on your wrist."
Consumer groups are suspicious of moves to abolish cash transactions. Janice Allen, from the National Consumer Council, says: "One of the most worrying aspects of replacing cash is the reliance on making our personal information widely available."
Comments: Yes, cash’s days are numbered like the hairs on David Lettermen’s receding hairline. Cash is too easy to steal and it can’t be traced back to the thieves. Paper money can be counterfeited. It can be laundered by drug kingpins. Unscrupulous “cash only” businesses (including ordinary citizens who moonlight) have reported far less income to the IRS. Waiters and waitresses have become wealthy by reporting only a portion of their tips. Innocent storekeepers and bank tellers have been senselessly killed during botched up robberies. Paper and coin currency tends to weigh down our wallets and purses. Finally, the cost to produce hard currency goes up and up.
Electronic money, on the other hand, is just a bunch of weightless bits and bytes. Come rain, snow or sleet, our electronic paychecks get deposited into our savings/checking accounts. Consumers love credit and debit cards. Smart cards and gift cards are handy to use. Despite all this, all these cards make our purses and wallets bulge. Also, the need to memorize various PINs taxes our brains and patience. Then there’s the possibility of the theft of the cards and the resultant abuse and identity and privacy issues. The next step in the cashless evolution would be the implanting of a smart chip just under one’s right hand or if you’re an amputee, just under your forehead (everyone has a head). Are we not yet into the realm of the Mark of the Beast as foretold in Revelation 13:[16] And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: [17] And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
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In dorms, young men and women now room together
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
January 3, 2007 -- Janet Dewar and Matt Danzig met as college freshmen and hit it off so well they now are roommates. They share two on-campus rooms with only one doorway into the hall. That they don't share a gender doesn't give them a second thought.
"At first when I told [my parents] they said, 'We're going to have to talk to you about this,' " says Ms. Dewar, a sophomore at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. "I told them that there were two rooms, that there's nothing sexual going on between us, and that it wasn't really a big deal."
Some 20 universities and colleges have decided to allow undergraduates of the opposite sex to share an on-campus room. Most quietly made the move in the past five years, with Clark University in Worcester, Mass., deciding this month. It's the final frontier in the decades-long march away from gender separation in college dorms, hallways, and even bathrooms.
While sharing a room comes unnervingly close in the minds of many parents to sharing a bed, advocates for the new arrangements say sexual intimacy rarely plays a role with those who sign up. Instead, for a younger generation it is increasingly common for men and women to just be friends. And some gay and transgendered students welcome the chance to avoid same-sex roommates whom they may not be comfortable around, or who may not accept them.
"Men and women are becoming just as good friends as if they were with their same-sex friends. The dynamics have changed. I think the opposite sex is no longer really such a mystery as it was before," says Jeffrey Chang, a sophomore at Clark University, a school of about 2,800 students.
Comments: The Devil is slyer than a fox. He has pulled the wool over the eyes of young people who think they know better than their parents and grandparents. Sex has saturated the minds of people so much that it’s no longer a mystery. Young people in various stages of disrobement have become a blasé thing. The youth of today has seen it all, i.e. hardcore porn on the Internet, that they’re no longer titillated by nudity. Young attractive people can room together and behave like platonic friends. Yeah, right!
I know a co-worker, a handsome dude, who told me that attractive women don’t faze him one bit. He never gets tempted. It’s perhaps because he’s an unbeliever and the Devil has him in his grip already so why bother arousing him? Instead, Satan targets Christian young people in colleges that now allow co-ed dorms. Needless to say, if former President Jimmy Carter, an upright Christian can commit adultery in his mind when he lusted after attractive women, so can impressible young Christians who share a room with a student of the opposite gender. What started off as casual friendship can end up in bed together as lovers. The affairs of the heart are nothing to truffle with. Satan knows our flesh’s weaknesses. Our flesh wars against the Holy Spirit who indwells every Christian. We might think we’re confident that we can steel our mind against thoughts of fornication, but we can’t. Satan will bombard us with one temptation after another and we will give in due time. 1 Thessalonians 5[22] Abstain from all appearance of evil. Mark.14:[38] Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.
The following articles are compiled by:
Rick Allinson
Three new languages added to the official EU list
Source: EU Observer
03 January 2006 – Having just rung in the new year, the European Union has not only become bigger but it has also become three languages richer, bringing the Cyrillic alphabet, another Latin language and the first Gaelic one as an EU official language, into the 27-nation bloc.
Bulgarian, Irish and Romanian on Monday (1 January) became the three
new official languages of the EU - raising the number to 23.
"The
diversity of languages is our common richness," said EU culture
commissioner Jan Figel in one of his last statements in December
before handing over part of his portfolio to the new EU
multilingualism commissioner from Romania, Leonard Orban.
The union annually spends some €1.1 billion on translation and
interpretation – around 1 percent of the EU budget a year – with
only a slight increase in cost expected for the three new languages.
This pays for almost 3,000 staff to interpret around 11,000 meetings
a year and to translate more than 1.3 million pages of text.
Comments: The EU kind of reminds us of Babel where there is such a diversity of languages but no one can understand each other. The European Parliament Building in Strasbourg resembles a 1563 Tower of Babel painting by Pieter Breuegel which in turn resembles the "Many Tongues, One Voice" poster that portrays the European Union today. The European Union has tried to build an Empire with many countries and languages but spends billions of dollars each year to be able to speak with one voice and understand what each other is saying. According to the Bible the tower of Babel was the native name of the city called Babylon. In Revelation 17:5 we learn that Mystery Babylon the Great will sit on just such an Empire as the one the EU has created with many nations and tongues.
She also sits on seven heads and ten horns which many believe is the Revived Roman Empire, the European Union. Its all coming together.
Re 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
Re 17:4 And the woman was (pic) arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and (pic) decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having (pic) a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Re 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Re 17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
Ge 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
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Egypt proposes possible four-way regional summit
Source: Haaretz
03 January 2006 – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the Sharm al-Sheikh resort in Sinai Thursday, and Egypt has already floated the possibility of holding a subsequent regional summit with the participation of the leaders of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
The Prime Minister's Office said that it views this idea favorably. "We have no fundamental problem with a summit, and if they raise the idea during the Olmert-Mubarak meeting, we will discuss it and consider it," a source in the Prime Minister's office told Haaretz Wednesday night.
The Olmert-Mubarak metting is taking place at a time when ties between the two countries have grown warmer following the prime minister's meeting with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas onDecember 16 in Jerusalem. Egypt sees itself an important partner in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and it considers the idea of a summit meeting a good opportunity for furthering the diplomatic process. Mubarak hosted a summit at Sharm al-Sheikh two years ago that was attended by Abbas and then prime minister Ariel Sharon.
A spokesman for Mubarak, Suleiman Awad, said
Wednesday that a summit would to help break the impasse in the
diplomatic process between Israel and the PA. Egyptian sources also
told the Saudi Arabian daily Al-Watan that a four-party summit would
offer new ideas for reviving negotiations on a permanent
Israeli-Palestinian settlement and achieving a formula that would
ensure the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Comments: Another proposed peace summit has surfaced and this one looks like it may have some teeth. Remember it was only two weeks ago that Olmert went to the Jordanian capital, Amman, and held a secret meeting with King Abdullah. King Abdullah at that meeting warned that in the absence of a prompt resolution to the longstanding Middle East conflict, everyone in the region will lose. Now Olmert is off to Sharm al-Sheikh to meet Hosni Mubarak and the idea of a regional summit is looking more and more likely. It’s interesting to note that while Olmert is off drumming peace proposals, in Israel Olmert's approval rating dips to a low 23 %.
Isa 28:14 ¶ Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
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US: EU FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF TO DISCUSS IRAN, MIDEAST
Source: GIG
03 January 2006 – European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana began on Wednesday a week-long visit to the United States where he will discuss with US officials international issues including the situation in the Middle East and relations with Iran, his office said in a statement. Solana is scheduled to hold talks Thursday in Washington with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. He is also expected to meet the new secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon next Tuesday in New York .
Comments: Right out of the gate and into 2007, Javier Solana is of to the United States to visit Washington and New York. As he spends the entire week rubbing shoulders with the elite, the Middle East and Iran will be the hot topics of discussion. Reports indicate that US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will be visiting the Middle East soon and you can bet that if a summit is in the works, Javier Solana will be on his way there too. With Javier Solana in Washington and New York, this will be an interesting week to see what transpires. Lots of activity in Egypt and the U.S. that we need to keep an eye on.
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