Terror at the Boston Marathon!
CNN reported on April 18, 2013:
“Two bombs struck near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, turning a celebration into a bloody scene of destruction.
“Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said Monday night that the death toll had risen to three. Scores were injured at the scene.
“One of the dead was an 8-year-old boy, according to a state law enforcement source.
“Hospitals reported at least 144 people are being treated, with at least 17 of them in critical condition and 25 in serious condition. At least eight of the patients are children.
“At least 10 people injured had limbs amputated, according to a terrorism expert briefed on the investigation.
“Several of the patients treated at Massachusetts General Hospital suffered injuries to lower limbs that will require ‘serial operations’ in the coming days, trauma surgeon Peter Fagenholz said Monday night. Some injuries were so severe amputations were necessary, Fagenholz added.
Some believe that this is the newest war with Al-Qaida, while others think that this is just the times in which we live! The fact remains that terror has now infiltrated into the daily lives of Americans in a way that seems much different! As the next article also shows, personal safety is at risk for everyone. Why? Why has terror become part of our daily lives? The Bible addresses these questions, and you can understand what prophecy reveals for our time–especially, the immediate future–please read our free booklet: “The Fall and Rise of Britain and America.”
Terror Srikes Texas
The Wall Street Journal reported on April 18, 2013:
“Rescue workers on Thursday began scouring the blast zone of a massive fertilizer-plant explosion that has left up to 15 people dead or missing, including emergency workers who responded to the initial fire, officials said.
“Law-enforcement officials said the death toll could rise, even as they looked for people still trapped in debris. As a heavy rain fell in this small town north of Waco, fire crews combed through the adjacent neighborhood. ‘We’re still searching for survivors,’ Waco Police Sgt. William Patrick Swanton said Thursday morning.
“The incident began with a fire at the West Fertilizer Co. that began around 6 p.m. Central time on Wednesday night. Volunteer firefighters in the town of about 2,800 people roughly 80 miles south of Dallas tried to extinguish the fire at the industrial facility.
“About two hours later, a thunderous explosion ripped through the plant, registering as strong as a magnitude 2.1 earthquake, according to federal seismologists. It sent a column of smoke hundreds of feet into the air and damaged more than 50 homes in a five-block radius of the facility.
“The facility stored and blended anhydrous ammonia that it distributed as fertilizer to local businesses, according to a 2011 safety plan filed with the federal government in 2011. According to this plan, it didn’t have an automatic shutoff system or firewalls installed. It was located across the street from a park and within 1,000 feet of a school, homes and an apartment complex, where many of the injuries occurred.
“More than 150 people have been treated for injuries relating to the fire and explosion, according to local hospitals. There is an assisted-living facility close by, but more than 130 people had been evacuated from it after the fire broke out but before the explosion, said Texas state police…
“A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, D.L. Wilson, said the blast heavily damaged 50 to 75 homes, as well as an apartment building with roughly 50 units near the site.
“‘We have a tremendous number of injuries,’ Mr. Wilson said in a televised news briefing shortly after midnight. He described the scene at the West Fertilizer plant and nearby neighborhood as looking ‘just like Iraq, just like the Murrah building,’ referring to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, where 168 people died after a truck filled with fertilizer was detonated in a domestic terrorist attack in 1995.
Iran and North Korea’s Deadly Cooperation
Newsmax reported on April 12, 2013:
“Analysts fear a dramatic advance in North Korea’s nuclear missile technology, revealed inadvertently during a Congressional hearing Thursday, will quickly find its way to Iran — forcing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fast-track a long-contemplated attack against Tehran’s nuclear-enrichment facilities.
“Pentagon officials are playing down a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that North Korea probably has the ability to miniaturize a nuclear weapon and place it on an ICBM. U.S. officials say that miniaturization capability, if it exists, is untested and unreliable.
“In February, North Korea detonated what is described as a ‘lighter, miniaturized atomic bomb.’ At the time, there was speculation this could signal the Hermit Kingdom had developed a nuclear warhead that it could place on its long-range missiles. Pentagon officials, however, continued to insist North Korea was at least a year away from developing that capability.
“Jerusalem Post defense analyst Yaakov Katz, author of ‘Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War,’ tells Newsmax that U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials have generally agreed that it would take Iran six to 12 months to build a nuclear device once it tried to break out and enrich its material from the 20-percent to the 90-percent level required. Beyond that, intelligence experts have projected, it would then take Iran another year or two to produce a miniaturized warhead that could be installed on a missile.
“Now, Katz says, the time lag between reaching nuclear capability and Iran’s ability to arm a missile with a nuclear warhead appears to have vanished. That means Thursday’s revelation could reduce Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nonmilitary options against Iran, forcing the Jewish state to step up its timetable for attacking the Persian nation should it acquire enough enriched uranium to be a significant threat.
“’If the North Koreans are much more advanced than we assumed, then that could mean that when the Iranians surge to move forward, that the whole time frame would change also,’ Katz tells Newsmax. ‘It would mean Israel and the West would have to revisit the time frames that they’ve put in for the Iranians, and that could be much shorter now — which means your window of opportunity [to attack] is also becoming smaller.’
“Experts say Israel would have to assume that any North Korean miniaturization technology would soon find its way into the hands of Iran’s mullahs. In fact, it is possible Iranian technology enabled North Korea’s push to miniaturize its warheads — the step that makes them capable of being installed on an ICBM. There is widespread agreement in the intelligence community that the two embattled nations routinely exchange technology, and sometimes military hardware as well…
“The news that one U.S. intelligence agency believes North Korea already has achieved the ability to design nuclear-missile warheads was inadvertently disclosed by GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado on Thursday during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. He was reading a portion of a classified document that had been erroneously marked declassified.
“That disclosure means Israeli leaders must now assume the window between the moment Iran acquires nuclear capability, and the horrific moment when it could launch an attack on a major Israeli city such as Tel Aviv, would be a matter of months or weeks rather than years, experts say.
“That North Korea has helped Iran bolster its missile technology is well established. In recent years, as Iranian technology surpassed that of North Korea, the technical assistance flowed the other way as well, sources say.”
Iran’s Nuclear Quest
The Washington Post wrote on April 15, 2013:
“For years, mystery surrounded an Iranian-controlled factory tucked away in this town of 70,000 in Germany’s industrial west.
“The plant manufactured high-pressure gas tanks, but its managers seemed uninterested in making a profit. Potential investors were turned away. An expensive piece of machinery — precise enough to produce components for centrifuges and missiles — sat idle after a failed attempt to ship it to Iran. Finally, the factory, MCS Technologies, closed its doors late last month.
“Since then, the mystery has taken another turn. European security officials and former workers have raised questions about whether the high-tech equipment and material at MCS could have been part of a scheme to aid Iran’s rogue nuclear program…
“With the United States, Germany and other Western countries trying to tighten sanctions on Iran to slow its nuclear program, the MCS mystery demonstrates the difficulty of tracking the flow of technology and material that have civilian and military applications.”
Israel’s Military Prepares…
The Washington Times reported on April 16, 2013:
“Israeli military and political heads are holding intense discussions on how best to launch an independent attack on Iran, should the need arise, the nation’s defense force chief said Tuesday.
“’The Iranian challenge is very significant and we must approach it with a responsible long-term strategy,’ IDF chief Benny Gantz said, The Times of Israel reported. ‘We will do what is necessary when it is necessary.’
“Mr. Gantz specified that Israel had the ability to hit Iran’s nuclear targets on its own — absent aid from any other country, including the United States. And ongoing military-political talks were focusing on that scenario, he said, in The Times of Israel.”
A Warning From Prime Minister Netanyahu
The Jerusalem Post wrote on April 18, 2013:
“Iran needs only 80 kilograms more of 20% enriched uranium before it can produce a nuclear bomb, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Thursday afternoon.
“’It takes 250 kilos of 20% enriched uranium to manufacture a nuclear bomb. They [Iran] have gone up from 110 to 170 kilos,’ Netanyahu said…
“The threat of a North Korean nuclear strike has underscored the danger of Iran’s nuclear program, Netanyahu said.
“’The entire world is paralyzed, shattered, destabilized by this rogue state [North Korea] that has nuclear weapons,’ Netanyahu said.
“’Iran is many times fold stronger than North Korea both in GDP and aggressive tendencies and the world wide web of terror that they have,’ Netanyahu said.
“Tehran has armed terrorists with rockets and has the ability to shut down the world’s oil supply, he said. If they have a nuclear weapons, it would spark a nuclear arms race in the region.
“’The Middle East will become a tinderbox. The threat of Iran’s getting nuclear weapons is a direct threat to the existence of Israel, but I think that it is a supreme pivot of history. It threatens the peace of the world,’ Netanyahu said.”
China Invests in Europe
Spiegel Online International wrote on April 16, 2013:
“Europe has become the world’s largest recipient of foreign investment by Chinese firms. While North America largely views them with suspicion, China’s state-owned corporations have been largely welcomed in a continent plagued by recession and in desperate need of cash.
“Chinese state-owned companies are expanding their influence in Europe, investing more than $12.6 billion (€9.6 billion) in the Continent last year, according to a study by the Hong Kong-based private equity firm A Capital.
Germany Doesn’t Need U.S. Fix!
The euobserver.com reported on April 13, 2013:
“US treasury secretary Jack Lew on Tuesday (9 April) hinted that Germany should boost its internal demand to help Europe get out of the crisis.
“But German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Berlin has no need for US tutelage.
“‘We need to balance policies of growth and fiscal consolidation. The driving force behind any recovery is consumer demand, so any policies to help encourage consumer demand in countries that have the capacity would be helpful,’ Lew said during a joint press conference with Schaeuble in Berlin.
“Germany has a policy of keeping down wages in order to make it a more attractive location for manufacturers and exporters.
“But the low pay stymies growth in German domestic consumption.
“At the same time, its firm policy on avoiding inflation has kept the euro relatively strong on currency markets, hampering efforts by crisis-hit eurozone states, such as Greece or Spain, to export their way out of trouble.
“For his part, Schaeuble, while welcoming the new US minister on his first visit to Berlin, said there is no need for Germany or the US to give ‘lessons’ or ‘grades’ to each other.
“‘We need to understand each other. The situation in the US is completely different than the one in Europe and I was trying to explain that,’ he told press.
“‘I tried to explain to him the complicated structures we have here in Europe. We are on the right way [out of the crisis], but we have complex decision making structures,’ he added.
“Both officials tried to downplay their differences on how to balance austerity with growth-spurring measures.”
Obama’s Snub… Again!
MailOnline reported on April 15, 2013:
“Friends and allies of Baroness Thatcher expressed ‘surprise and disappointment’ last night as it emerged President Obama is not planning to send any serving member of his administration to her funeral.
“Whitehall sources have revealed that the US delegation at tomorrow’s service in St Paul’s Cathedral will be led by two Reagan era secretaries of state: James Baker and George Shultz.
“Though President Obama himself had not been expected to attend, there had been speculation that he would be represented either by Vice President Joe Biden or wife Michelle. However, the Obama administration had said it would not be attending Thatcher’s funeral before the Boston bombings
“The Queen’s decision to attend Lady Thatcher’s funeral has effectively elevated it to a state occasion unprecedented for a political figure in Britain since the death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965.
“Other world leaders, including Canada’s Stephen Harper, Mario Monti of Italy and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, are attending the service in person.
“President Obama paid tribute to Lady Thatcher’s towering achievements when her death was announced last week.
“But a US embassy spokesman confirmed that no serving member of his administration would be present to pay their last respects, citing a busy week in US domestic politics.”
Newsmax also noted on April 18, 2013:
“President Barack Obama’s decision not to attend the funeral of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Wednesday was blasted by a former Reagan administration official and Fox News analyst who called it shameful, ‘cheap, small and petty.’
“Writing on Fox News.com, Fox National Security Analyst Kathleen Troia ‘K.T.’ McFarland said the administration’s official excuse that the president and vice president were consumed with a busy week — which included the Boston Marathon bombing tragedy — rang hollow.
“It does — after all — take a mere 24 hours to fly to London and back for a state funeral, she noted.
“’It is standard operating procedure for the Vice President or First Lady or, at a minimum the Secretary of State, to attend funerals of foreign leaders, even those from lesser nations,’ McFarland wrote. ‘Shame on you, Mr. President. You and your administration look cheap, small and petty.
“’It goes without saying that when one of the longest serving leaders of America’s closest and most enduring ally dies, the United States should send a large and distinguished delegation of America’s leaders, past and present,’ added McFarland, who is a Distinguished Adviser to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations.
“She wasn’t the only one criticizing the president for his handling of the funeral. Obama was slammed in the British tabloids, as well.
“They reported that the government of Prime Minister David Cameron was incensed, especially since former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair was sitting in the front row of the service.
“'[Downing] Street is most angered by rejections from Obama, First Lady Michelle and Vice-President Joe Biden. And none of the four surviving ex-U.S. leaders — Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr, Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr — is coming either,’ The Sun reported, according to Politico.
“The Sun continued: ‘The response contrasts with glowing U.S. tributes on the day Lady Thatcher died. A No 10 source said last night: “We are a little surprised by the White House’s reaction as we were expecting a high-profile attendance.” The “snub” came ahead of the Boston marathon ‘bomb outrage.'”‘”
It appears that President Obama’s insensitivites toward the British are all too obvious. Early in his first term, the president removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the White House and had it returned to England. Now, his latest actions are drawing pointed criticism from our closest ally. Mr. Obama’s less than diplomatic treatment has eroded the bond so characterized by the former British Prime Minister Thatcher and U.S. President Reagan.
Hypocrisy of Catholic Priests at Issue
Reuters wrote on April 14, 2013:
“Pope Francis on Sunday said clergy and Christians must not betray the word of God with their actions or they undermine the credibility of the Catholic Church.
“Francis, elected a month ago, inherited a Church struggling to restore credibility after a series of scandals, including the sexual abuse of children by priests.
“The pope spoke at the Papal Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, where he celebrated Mass. He also greeted pilgrims and local Church members earlier in St. Peter’s square.
“‘Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the Church’s credibility,’ the pontiff said in his homily.
“‘Those who listen to us and observe us must be able to see in our actions what they hear from our lips, and so give glory to God!’
“In his first major decision on Saturday, Francis set up an advisory board of cardinals to help him govern the Church and reform its troubled central administration, which was riddled by infighting and alleged corruption under Pope Benedict.”
Vatican Remains Unyeilding
Los Angeles Times reported on April 15, 2013:
“Pope Francis has backed the Vatican’s doctrinal crackdown on a major group of American nuns, reasserting the Roman Catholic Church’s conservative approach to various social issues in a move that could cool the warm reception he has received from some liberal Catholics since taking office last month.
“The Vatican said in a statement Monday that Francis had reaffirmed the doctrinal evaluation and criticism of U.S. nuns made last year by the Holy See under his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. The assessment accused the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents most U.S. female Catholic orders, of promoting “radical feminist themes” and ignoring the Vatican’s hard line on same-sex marriage and abortion.
“At the time, the Vatican dispatched an archbishop to rewrite the group’s statutes and set up reeducation programs to bring nuns back into line, alleging that leaders of U.S. orders had challenged the church’s teachings on women’s ordination and ministry to homosexuals.”
Earthquakes…
The Associated Press reported on April 18, 2013:
“Iran’s state TV says a moderate, magnitude 5.2 earthquake rattled a small town in the country’s northwest…
“It’s the third quake in Iran in the past 10 days. A magnitude 7.5 quake shook a sparsely populated area near the Pakistani border on Tuesday. A week before that, a magnitude 6.1 quake struck another part of the south, killing 37 people and injuring hundreds.
“Iran lies on seismic fault lines and experiences one slight quake a day on average.”
9News from Oklahoma City reported on April 16, 2013:
“Several earthquakes shook central Oklahoma in the early morning hours of Tuesday, including one that hit while News 9 was on the air.
“News 9 received hundreds of phone calls, emails, Facebook and Twitter messages soon after the first earthquake hit.
“The first quake was reported around 1:45 a.m. about three miles west of Chandler. The United State Geological Survey says it had a magnitude of 3.0.
“Fifteen minutes later, the strongest earthquake of the morning hit the Oklahoma City metro area. The 4.3 quake was centered near Luther, 29 miles east and northeast of Oklahoma City. This earthquake awakened many residents and shook buildings from Oklahoma City to Stillwater.
“The USGS reported a third quake at 2:15 a.m. near Boley, Oklahoma. This one had a magnitude of 2.8. One minute later, a fourth early-morning quake shook the area of Luther and Choctaw. The USGS says this one had a magnitude of 3.3.
“At 5:16 a.m., a fifth earthquake measuring 4.2 was recorded four miles east northeast of Luther. This one struck while News 9 Meteorologist Jed Castles was on the air sharing the forecast, but he was so focused Stan Miller and Bobbie Miller had to interrupt him and point out the lights in the studio were swinging because of the latest earthquake.”
