January 3, 2009

Manufacturing in the USA has hit a 28 year low. 

NEWS FROM LONDON, ENGLAND: 1/3/09

The party's over: it's back to work in new year of economic reality

Francis Elliott and Gary Duncan

Snow followed by a sweeping band of rain is forecast for Monday. But those trudging back to work for the first time this year under louring skies may feel an additional chill should they pass a branch of Woolworths.

The last of the stores will close on Monday evening -a symbol of how the downturn is darkening, from going to gone, from bargain to bust.

After a Christmas holiday that was celebrated in a spirit of defiance, a bleak reality of job losses, plunging house prices and a brutal cull of businesses is waiting for millions on the other side of this weekend.

Woolworths' 27,000 workforce will join a dole queue that breached the million mark last month and is now growing at its fastest rate since 1991. Yesterday came the news that the Halifax survey of house prices recorded its biggest annual drop last year since it started keeping records in 1984.

Sensing the shift in mood, David Cameron, the Conservative leader, criticised the Government's VAT cut as "one of the most appalling wastes of money in British political history". He said that Gordon Brown's bank recapitalisation, praised by a leading economist in the autumn, had failed.

Worse than expected lending and retail figures have added to a creeping sense of ministerial impotence. Despite intense pressure, banks curbed the availability of loans to consumers and businesses further in the final quarter of last year. The Government's failure to win the battle to restore lending in particular has led many economists to downgrade their expectations.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, predicted in November that the economy would shrink by no more than 1.25 per cent this year and return to a minimum 1.5 per cent growth in 2010. But the Treasury's own survey of economists reveals the average forecast is for GDP to fall by 1.5 per cent this year, the biggest drop since 1980. The gloomiest sages predict a 2.7 per cent slump, something not seen since 1946.

What is particularly worrying is the range of sectors hit by the downturn. On Tuesday a survey of the service industries, which account for three quarters of Britain's annual output, is expected to show that the sector is contracting fast. Casualties include the telecoms giant BT, which is expected to cut 10,000 jobs before March, mainly among agency workers and subcontractors.

Manufacturing's plight is expected to have deepened during the final weeks of last year, with November data likely to show a further severe fall in industrial production at the nation's factories.

The most visible victim is the car industry. Workers at Aston Martin's plant at Gaydon, Warwickshire, will not return to work until January 19 and 600 jobs are being cut. Employees at the Crewe factory of another luxury carmaker, Bentley, will also be away from work until mid-January.

Honda is to restart production at its Swindon plant next week after a three-week stoppage but the factory is due to close again for February and March. Vauxhall, owned by GM, has invited workers at its Ellesmere Port factory to apply for a nine-month sabbatical. Jaguar Land-Rover, owned by the Indian group Tata, has introduced a four-day week and is seeking 600 voluntary redundancies.

While the car giants grab the headlines, job losses, pay cuts and short-time working await workers in smaller businesses too. About 30,000 small businesses are predicted to close this year with the loss of 150,000 jobs. Even those that survive are expected to shed 50,000 workers.

Stephen Alambritis, head of public affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses, said that small companies were doing everything they could to remain solvent and to retain staff. Among the cost-cutting measures being employed were shorter working weeks, a reduction in benefits, such as company cars and taxis, and, as a last resort, pay cuts.

Stark numbers add up to worst year for employment in Britain for 20 years

Christine Buckley, Industrial Editor

The recession will claim 600,000 jobs next year, making 2009 the worst year for job losses in two decades. Overall, job losses from the recession are expected to top one million, taking the total out of work to three million in 2010, employers' groups say today.

Fears for mounting job losses from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) come as the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is calling for a freeze in the level of the minimum wage because it says that business cannot afford any more costs. A survey by the CIPD also found that pay expectations among employees had slumped, with many fearing pay freezes and a minority expecting pay cuts.

John Philpott, the chief economist of the CIPD, said: "This time last year, in the face of some scepticism, the CIPD warned that 2008 would be the UK's worst year for jobs in a decade. It was. But, in retrospect, it will be seen as merely the slow-motion prelude to what will be the worst year for jobs in almost two decades."

He added that human resources in many businesses would feel more like "ER or Casualty" as HR departments tried to deal with the impact of job losses. On the expected contraction in pay awards, the CIPD said that employers would have to find other ways to motivate employees, including nonfinancial rewards.

Chancellor Alistair Darling on brink of second bailout for banks

Billions may be needed as lending squeeze tightens

Alistair Darling has been forced to consider a second bailout for banks as the lending drought worsens.

The Chancellor will decide within weeks whether to pump billions more into the economy as evidence mounts that the 37 billion pounds part-nationalisation last year has failed to keep credit flowing. Options include cash injections, offering banks cheaper state guarantees to raise money privately or buying up "toxic assets", The Times has learnt.

The Bank of England revealed yesterday that, despite intense pressure, the banks curbed lending in the final quarter of last year and plan even tighter restrictions in the coming months. Its findings will alarm the Treasury.

Stark numbers add up to worst year for employment in Britain for 20 years

The recession will claim 600,000 jobs next year, making 2009 the worst year for job losses in two decades. Overall, job losses from the recession are expected to top one million, taking the total out of work to three million in 2010, employers' groups say today.

US Manufacturing index drops to its lowest level since 1980 as orders fall, layoffs mount

NEW YORK (AP) -Signs grew that the economy could turn even weaker in 2009, as an index of December manufacturing activity sank to its lowest point in 28 years. Every corner of the sector was down, from bakeries to cigarette-makers to aluminum smelters.

Jacob's House Comment

In the prophecy on this website titled, "The Days of Noah are Here Again", God speaks about how He will bring down many of the nations and tribes upon this earth.  God also speaks about why He is angry at many of His children because they have refused to serve Him and they are too involved with their own families.  

Below is an excerpt from "The Days of Noah are Here Again", first given from God to Jacob on 12/10/06: 

Quote:  "I, the Lord God, am allowing many diverse tribes and tongues to go through a fire of sickness, woe, and affliction at this time.  They are going through these things because they have not reconciled their bodies, minds, and souls with Me.  I Am also allowing them to go through a time of grief, sorrows, and distress because they have shunned My commandments and My orderly straight ways of eternal life. 

Therefore, many diverse tribes and tongues on this earth today are now entering into the enemies' camp.  They are suffering with woe, disease, and madness because they have offended Me and My Son, Jesus.  They are suffering with rebuke at My hand for their refusal of My commandments and My Holy and straight ways.  I, the Lord God, know these diverse tribes are making all of the wrong decisions and choices at this time.  Therefore, they will suffer with woe, trouble, and consternation they cannot escape from.  They will suffer until the time when I, the Lord God, will decide the places of darkness they will go to. 

I, the Lord God, also know many of My milk fed children today are making poor decisions and choices in their lives.  They are looking back on their past instead of looking forward to their future life with Me and My Son.  Many of them are too involved with their families and they have refused to serve Me in the care taking ministries they were destined to do.  Therefore, the poor choices and decisions these children are making will bring them affliction, woe, and trouble in the next few years.  I, the Lord God, may have to punish some of them to make them see the error of their stiff-necked and backsliding ways.  I may have to chastise them and punish them to wake them up to the dawning light of My brand new day, servant of Mine."

January 5, 2009

ScienceDaily (Jan. 5, 2009) -Even though the most deadly form of malaria for humans, Plasmodium falciparum, has been linked to malaria found in chimpanzees, this group has been fairly isolated on the malarial family tree- until now. A new phylogenetic analysis from the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History reveals that malarial parasites found in tree-dwelling rats share a close relationship with P. falciparum and Plasmodium reichenowi. This is the first time that a relationship has been found between human and rodent malaria," says Susan Perkins, Assistant Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Museum.

Molecular Models Advance The Fight Against Malaria Research from Dartmouth Medical School, demonstrating how malaria parasites form mutations that make them stubbornly resistant to drug therapy, may hold the key to a new treatments for a disease that now afflicts more than half a billion people worldwide.

According to WHO estimates, 40% of the world's population are currently at risk of the disease and approximately 2 million people, mostly children, are killed by malaria annually worldwide. Today marks Africa Malaria Day, organized to promote awareness of the disease in a country where a child is killed every 30 seconds by malaria.

Climatologists Forecast Completely New Climates

Geographers have projected temperature increases due to greenhouse gas emissions to reach a not-so-chilling conclusion: climate zones will shift and some climates will disappear completely by 2100. Tropical highlands and polar regions may be the first to disappear, and large swaths of the tropics and subtropics will reach even hotter temperatures. The study anticipates large climate changes worldwide.  

Well, according to climate models, global warming could change our current world climate zones, which would affect where crops are grown and even drive some plant and animal species to extinction, all in the next 100 years.

Meteorologists Find That Increased Ocean Temperatures Cause Increasingly Intense Hurricanes.

January 9, 2009

Israel starts ground attack into Gaza Strip area.  Tanks and infantry destroy many homes there.  Protests around the world mount against Israel.  Human suffering in the Gaza Strip now widespread.  There are 750 Palestinians dead and 13 Israelis killed in this ongoing 14 day war. 

Five US Govenors ask government for funds to help their faltering economies to deal with budget short-falls. 

Credit crunch forcing many people to fix what they already have.  Mending and refurbishing on the rise.  People are not buying new things anymore, instead they are fixing up old items. 

Northwest Washington state has been hit with a record heavy snowfall of 80 inches so far this season.  Recent rains have caused flooding from rivers and streams.  Avalanches have also been seen in certain areas along with homes under water. 

Russia halting natural gas supplies to Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, and Macedonia. 

There has been a 31% overall decline in US car sales recently, which is the worst since 1992.

The incoming President, Obama, is talking about spending 800 billion to 1.2 trillion dollars to jumpstart the economy. 

US national budget deficit for the current year has now exceeded 1 trillion dollars.

Alcoa Aluminum is laying off 13,500 workers or 13% of their global workforce.

Heavy snow and ice contributing to power shortages and 40 roofs collapsing in Spokane, Washington, USA.  There has been 6 1/2 feet of snow there recently.  This is 2 feet more than usual.  From the Northeast to the Northwest US, a current winter storm is bringing black ice, sleet, rain, and snow to many areas.

A new report is stating commercial real estate has fallen 20% in some areas of the US.

Total US rescue plan to save the economy now amounts to 7.2 trillion dollars.  Bailouts, loans, and new guarantees are involved.  Massive spending plan to stop the dire circumstances the US is headed for.  Unemployment there could top 10%.

Eleven thousand homes have been evacuated near Bolder, Colorado, USA, because of a raging wildfire fanned by high winds. 

A new outbreak of salmonella poisoning has sickened 400 people in 42 US states. 

Rockets from Lebanon have been fired into Israel as war there worsens. 

New US President Obama is proposing 300 billion in tax cuts.  He is also proposing a 775 billion stimulus plan.           

Obama embraces $300 billion in tax cuts, predicts quick passage of huge economic rescue plan

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama declared the national economy was "bad and getting worse" Monday as he began crisis talks with congressional leaders on emergency action. He predicted lawmakers would approve hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending and tax cuts within two weeks of his taking office.

"The economy is very sick," Obama said before meeting with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. "The situation is getting worse. ... We have to act and act now to break the momentum of this recession."

Fusing Embryonic Stem Cells With Adult Cells Using Highly Efficient New Fusing System

MIT engineers have developed a new, highly efficient way to pair up cells so they can be fused together into a hybrid cell.

Researchers focus on bringing missing bees back

By GENARO C. ARMAS - Associated Press Writer

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Scientists in the field and the lab are trying to solve a mystery critical to the future of American agriculture: Why are honeybee hives failing at a disturbingly high rate?

Some researchers are studying whether pesticides and other chemicals used in fields and gardens might affect honeybees, as well as bumblebees and other insects that pollinate crops. Other research, including an experiment at Eastern Kentucky University, is focusing on building more habitat - planting trees, shrubs and flowers that pollinators prefer.

Bees are vital to U.S. agriculture because they pollinate many flowering crops, including almonds, apples and blueberries. The bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.

Honeybees, a non-native species from Europe, are the pollinators of choice because they are easier to manage and are more plentiful - a single colony can contain 20,000 workers. By comparison, a bumblebee colony may have only a couple of hundred worker bees.

The honeybees have taken a hit over the years from mites and, most recently, colony collapse disorder, in which beekeepers have found affected hives devoid of most bees. Bees that remain appear much weaker than normal.

Beekeepers in 2006 began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. Since then the annual loss rate has been roughly 33 percent, according to government estimates.

"We realize it's much more complicated than what we thought a year ago," Frazier said recently. "From what we know now, it's not something we'll figure out very, very quickly."

Native pollinators also are being monitored. The National Academy of Sciences in 2006 found declining populations of several bee species, along with other native pollinators like butterflies, hummingbirds and bats.

4.4-Magnitude Temblor Strikes Near The Geyers

A light earthquake has struck Northern California, and there are no reports of injuries or damage.

Quake rattles parts of Sonoma County

The temblor occurred 13 miles east of Cloverdale in the Mayacamas Mountains, two miles southeast of The Geysers, a geothermal development.

Tsunami alert issued after strong Indonesian quake

A strong earthquake in remote eastern Indonesia cut power lines, cracked building walls and sent panicked residents running out of their homes toward higher ground Sunday, authorities and witnesses said.

The Indonesian Meteorology and Seismology Agency warned that with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 it was strong enough to cause a tsunami. However, there were no immediate reports of giant waves and the warning was lifted within an hour.

The tremor struck at 2:43 a.m. local time, around 85 miles off the coast of Manokwari, Papua, at a depth of 6 miles.

Jacob's House Comment:

As stated by Jesus in the Bible these things must all come to pass before God's new glorious day can arrive.  Therefore, as Christians we must be prepared for distress, trouble, famine, pestilence, and travail in the next few years.    

See Luke 21:7-22:

Excerpt 9-11:

9 But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.

10 Then he said unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:

11 And great earthquakes shall be in diverse places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.   

Except 20 & 22:

20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.

22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 

The findings equate to 1.4 million residents thinking about moving away, including 500,000 who are "seriously considering or already planning to move," according to the survey by the think tank Civic Exchange.

Those most seriously thinking about fleeing the city include top earners and highly educated workers, raising questions over the southern Chinese city's ability to attract and retain top talent, the report's authors found.

"People from all sectors of society know that air pollution is making them sick," said Michael DeGolyer, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.

"Many are concerned to the point they are considering leaving Hong Kong, including local professionals."

SYDNEY (AFP) - A sharp slowdown in coral growth on Australia's Great Barrier Reef since 1990 is a warning sign that precipitous changes in the world's oceans may be imminent, scientists said Friday.

Strong evidence points to the cause being a combination of warmer seas and higher acidity from increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, Australian Institute of Marine Science researchers reported.

"The data suggest that this severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least 400 years," said Glenn De'ath, principal author of a paper published Friday in the international journal Science.

The research shows that corals on the reef have slowed their growth by more than 14 percent since the "tipping point" year of 1990 and on current trends the corals would stop growing altogether by 2050.

"It is cause for extreme concern that such changes are already evident, with the relatively modest climate changes observed to date, in the world's best protected and managed coral reef ecosystem," said co-author Janice Lough.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (CNN) -- Fourteen people have died and another 22 are missing after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake Thursday in north central Costa Rica, officials said Friday.   A strong earthquake shook Costa Rica on Thursday, shattering windows, cracking walls and sending frightened residents running into the streets.

Another earthquake has struck Southern California, with shaking felt from San Bernardino to Los Angeles 55 miles to the west and south to Orange County.

Rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, will leave half the world's population facing serious food shortages, new research shows.

By MEAD GRUVER

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Run for your lives ... Yellowstone's going to explode!

Hundreds of small earthquakes at Yellowstone National Park in recent weeks have been an unsettling reminder for some people that underneath the park's famous geysers and majestic scenery lurks one of the world's biggest volcanoes.

In the ancient past, the volcano has erupted 1,000 times more powerfully than the 1980 blast at Mount St. Helens, hurling ash as far away as Louisiana. No eruption that big has occurred while humans have walked the earth, however, and geologists say even a minor lava flow is extremely unlikely any time soon.

Some observers are nonetheless warning of imminent catastrophe.

"To those of us who have been following these events, we know that something is brewing, especially considering that Yellowstone is over 40,000 years overdue for a major eruption," warned a posting on the online disaster forum Armageddononline.org.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama's economic team is broadening the mission of the $700 billion bailout for the financial sector, aiming to unfreeze credit for homeowners, consumers, small businesses and local governments.

The overhaul is aimed at the $350 billion remaining in the Troubled Asset Relief Program and comes amid mounting criticism from lawmakers and watchdogs that the Bush administration has administered the money in an inconsistent way and has not made banks accountable for the money.

The head of a congressional panel overseeing the $700 billion bailout program said Friday that lawmakers need to "take a very hard look" at how banks have used the money and she welcomed Obama's attempts to better define the program's mission.

Unemployment reaches 7.2% as companies slash another 524,000 jobs in December.

January 11, 2009

A new report is stating in Somalia half of the people are on aid to survive.  They have known nothing but war their whole lives.

US President elect Obama calling for everyone in the nation to sacrifice in the next few years.  He is stating the country is in the worse recession since the Great Depression.  He is also stating that everyone is going to have to sacrifice in some way and warns of more job loses.

January 15, 2009

United Health Care and Oxford Health Insurance have over charged millions of dollars to their customers.  They have refused to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in customer bills, stating that these do not comply with reasonable amounts. 

.

Taxpayers in the US are demanding more transparency in government spending of the next 350 billion dollars in tarp money to save the economy.  The printing presses in the treasury have gone up by 70% since November 2007.  About 189 billion dollars have been invested in 257 banks under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.  The Bank of America is now getting 20 billion dollars more from the government to help it purchase Merrill Lynch. 

A new warning has been issued that the Mexican drug violence being seen could lead to a collapse of the Mexican government. 

Weekly jobless checks will vanish soon for many people who are now unemployed in the USA. 

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake has struck in the waters near New Caledonia. 

January 17, 2009

Toyota Motor Company has announced its first operating loss in 70 years.  It is now asking its employees to buy its cars to help out the company.

A new report is stating people in the US are canceling their doctor visits at record numbers.   They are also canceling other health care because of the lack of funds.  Therefore the bookings of patients are way down in the US. 

Circuit City has announced it is closing the last 567 stores it now owns because of bankruptcy.  Circuit City is the largest retailer of electronics in the US.           

Retail sales plunged far more than expected in December, ending a dismal holiday season with a record sixth straight monthly decline, and there's no relief in sight as consumer demand remains weak.

Blowing snow and frigid temperatures pound nation

MINNEAPOLIS - Arctic air extended its grip Wednesday with below-zero temperatures stretching from Montana to northern New England and frost nipping the Gulf Coast.

A few ski areas in Vermont and northern Minnesota closed for the day because of the cold - 38 below zero at International Falls, with the wind chill during the night estimated at 50 below.

The temperature at Bolton, Vt., was 10 below zero and operators of the Bolton Valley ski resort feared that skiers could freeze if a lift malfunctioned, said spokesman Josh Arneson. "Getting people off a lift can take time," he said.

Schools from Iowa to Pennsylvania opened late so kids would not have to be out in the coldest part of the morning. Some schools closed.

The cold wave also bulged into the Northeast, abruptly dropping temperatures in New York state into the single digits and below zero - after Tuesday's readings in the 30s, the National Weather Service said. Thermometers read 8 below at Massena, on the St. Lawrence River, with a wind chill of minus 25 degrees.

Commuters in Albany, N.Y., faced a chill of 6 degrees, with brisk wind making it feel like 15 below zero, but some people claimed they didn't mind.

Sexually Spread Diseases Up, Better Testing Cited

Sexually spread diseases - for years on the decline _ are on the rise, with reported chlamydia cases setting a record, government health officials said Tuesday.

The increase in chlamydia, a sometimes symptomless infection that can lead to infertility in women, is likely because of better screening, experts said. In 2007, there were 1.1 million cases, the most ever reported, said officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At least 15,000 women become infertile each year because of untreated chlamydia and gonorrhea infections, said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., director of the CDC's Division of STD Prevention.

Syphilis cases, which number only in the thousands, also rose modestly, while the number of gonorrhea cases remained roughly the same. Syphilis can kill, if left untreated, but chlamydia and gonorrhea are not life-threatening.

Chlamydia can infect men, but rates are nearly three times higher for women. That's at least partly due to 1993 federal recommendations that emphasize testing for sexually active women age 25 and under. That focus on screening in recent years is no doubt driving the record numbers, said Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, a professor of infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Jacob's House Comment

In the prophecy on this website from our Lord God, given to Jacob on 8/6/07 entitled, "God Speaks About The Birth Pains This World Will Soon Go Through" our God spoke about how the women of today would have to pay a price for the original sin that Eve committed long ago.  God spoke about the fact that this sin would not be rectified in heaven until now.  Therefore, now it is beginning to come to pass through infectious diseases upon women, and through other violent acts being perpetrated upon them. 

A Quote from "God Speaks About the Birth Pains This World Will Soon Go Through":

"So shall the next few years be a time of testing, writhing pain, trouble, and convulsions for the woman with her unborn child.  So shall it be that many lust laden women shall pay the price for the original sin they were a part of with Eve, long ago". 

Salmonella-Linked Peanut Butter Sickens 400 People Food Providers Urged to Throw Out King Nut Product

MINNEAPOLIS  - 

Health officials are urging nursing homes, hospitals, schools, universities and restaurants to toss out specific containers of peanut butter linked to a salmonella outbreak in 43 states.

The recalled peanut butter - distributed by king nut company of Solon, Ohio- was supplied only through food service providers and was not sold directly to consumers. King Nut challenged the finding, saying it could not be the source of the nationwide outbreak since it distributes to only seven states.

The outbreak has sickened more than 400 people and Minnesota health officials announced Monday they had found a match between samples from a King Nut container and the strains of salmonella bacteria making people sick across the country. The outbreak may have contributed to three deaths.

Jacob's House Comment

Peanuts are loaded with mold and are unhealthy for people to eat.  Therefore, God is using the Salmonella outbreak, coming from peanuts today, to show the decayed and defiled state of this sinful world today.  Therefore, there will be more food poisoning outbreaks and Salmonella scares in the next few years.  These are some of the end time events God will use to bring many fearful people to Him, through His only Son, Jesus.       

Arctic heats up more than other places

Glacier and ice-sheet melting, sea-ice retreat and coastal erosion expected as a result

Temperature change in the Arctic is happening at a greater rate than other places in the Northern Hemisphere, and this is expected to continue in the future.

As a result, glacier and ice-sheet melting, sea-ice retreat, coastal erosion and sea level rise can be expected to continue.

A new comprehensive scientific synthesis of past Arctic climates demonstrates for the first time the pervasive nature of Arctic climate amplification.

The new report also makes several conclusions about the Arctic:

Taken together, the size and speed of the summer sea-ice loss over the last few decades is highly unusual compared to events from previous thousands of years, especially considering that changes in Earth's orbit over this time have made sea-ice melting less, not more, likely.

Sustained warming of at least a few degrees (more than approximately 4 degees to 13 degrees F above average 20th century values) is likely to be sufficient to cause the nearly complete, eventual disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet, which would raise sea level by several meters.

Consumer prices fall again in December

WASHINGTON (AP) - A record plunge in gasoline prices pushed overall consumer prices down for the third straight month in December, closing out a year in which inflation rose at the slowest rate in more than a half-century.

Price pressures have eased as the recession intensified. Further evidence of the slowdown came Friday in a separate report from the Federal Reserve showing that production at the nation's factories, mines and utilities plunged 2 percent in December, capping the worst year for manufacturers since 2001. Last month's drop, double the amount analysts expected, came after a 1.3 percent decline in November, which was even sharper than initially reported.

For all of last year, industrial production declined 1.8 percent, a sharp reversal from the 1.7 percent increase logged in 2007. It marked the worst showing since a 3.4 percent decline in 2001, when the country last suffered through a recession.

For December, gasoline prices fell by 17.2 percent, the largest monthly decline on records that go back 71 years.

Overall energy prices also dropped by record 8.3 percent as home heating oil and natural gas showed declines.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Three shark attacks in Australia in two days this week sparked a global media frenzy of "Jaws" proportions, but sharks are more at risk in the ocean than humans with man killing millions of sharks each year.

Sharks are the top of the marine food chain, a powerful predator which has no match in its watery realm, until man enters the ocean.

Commercial fishing and a desire for Asian shark fin soup sees up to 100 million sharks, even protected endangered species of sharks, slaughtered around the world each year, says the Shark Research

Big chill clamps down on upper Midwest

CHICAGO - Forecasters say temperatures in the upper Midwest could be the coldest in years Friday as chilly Arctic air keeps spilling south from Canada.

The bone-numbing blast of arctic air that was also chilling the Northeast had claimed at least five lives and contributed to dozens of traffic accidents as vehicles slipped and slid on icy roads.

Scores of schools in Michigan, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois and upstate New York canceled classes for Friday as officials feared it would be dangerous for students to walk to school or wait for buses.

Protesters clash with police in Lithuania

Kubilius' center-right coalition, in power less than two months, has been criticized for tax increases the government said were needed to shore up state finances.

Liucija Mukiene, a 63-year-old retiree, said the government was arrogant and corrupt.

"We are here today because this government is mocking us," she said. "They taking away our last money and providing nothing. I am fed up with the lies, corruption and those grinning, fat faces behind the windows of Parliament."

The clash echoes violent protests this week in Latvia and Bulgaria, and recent demonstrations in Greece, as a wave of discontent over economic woes, difficult reforms and government corruption sweeps through parts of Europe.

In Latvia, police detained more than 100 people Tuesday after protesters pelted police with rocks.

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Friday defended his handling of the $700 billion financial rescue program, saying it has made real progress toward achieving financial stability.

Paulson's remarks came hours after the government reached an agreement to provide billions of dollars in additional support to Bank of America Corp., and a day after Congress turned back an effort to block release of the second half of the bailout pot.

The rescue program has come under heavy criticism from lawmakers unhappy that the administration provided billions of dollars to banks to shore up their finances, but did not impose enough restrictions to insure they would increase their lending and combat what could be the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

Many lawmakers are pushing the administration of President-elect Barack Obama to devote more of the money to halting a tidal wave of mortgage foreclosures, and to impose more restrictions on the compensation of top executives working at the banks receiving the money. The incoming administration has pledged to revamp the rescue program to meet congressional objections.

Mystery Ailment Killing Endangered Pelicans

They're a familiar sight along the California coast - birds with 6-foot wingspans gliding in a

V formation above the ocean. But something is happening to the California Brown Pelican. Hundreds are dying, and wildlife rescuers don't know why.

Symptoms Without A Cause

At the International Bird Rescue and Research Center in San Pedro, they've taken in more than 45 ailing pelicans in the past two weeks. Rehabilitation manager Julie King and her staff have been working around the clock trying to save them.

"The symptoms they've been coming in with are a general weakness," King says. "They've been starving, emaciated, dehydrated and a little bit disoriented."

In previous years, she says, the endangered pelicans have been plagued with domoic acid poisoning, a neurotoxin found in algae blooms. But that doesn't seem to be the primary cause of the current decline.

"Generally, birds that come in with domoic acid poisoning have some fairly severe neurological symptoms, which none of the birds are exhibiting - other than disorientation," King says.

Initial blood and tissue tests have shown trace amounts of domoic acid, but researchers believe it may be playing a secondary role to a larger problem. What that larger problem is, they don't yet know. Meanwhile, hundreds of birds from Baja to Washington state have been found dead or sick far from their coastal home. One pelican was found in New Mexico, wandering in the snow at an elevation of 7,000 feet.

People urged to avoid peanut butter products

FDA says people shouldn't eat peanut butter products while it investigates salmonella outbreak

January 18, 2009

Kellogg's recalls more peanut butter products

Kellogg Co. cites salmonella health risk in recalling products containing peanut butter

WASHINGTON (AP) - What began as an investigation of bulk peanut butter shipped to nursing homes and institutional cafeterias has broadened with the Kellogg Co. recalling 16 products and federal officials confirming salmonella contamination at a Georgia facility that ships peanut products to 85 food companies

Kellogg had asked stores earlier this week to pull some of its venerable Keebler crackers from shelves as a precaution. But in a statement late Friday the Battle Creek, Mich., company announced it was voluntarily recalling the crackers and other products in light of the problems in Georgia.

The nationwide salmonella outbreak has sickened hundreds of people in 43 states and killed at least six.

"The actions we are taking today are in keeping with our more than 100-year commitment to providing consumers with safe, high-quality products," said David Mackay, Kellogg's president and CEO. "We apologize for this unfortunate situation."

The recall includes Austin and Keebler branded Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, as well as some snack-size packs of Famous Amos Peanut Butter Cookies and Keebler Soft Batch Homestyle Peanut Butter Cookies.

Sandra Williams, a compliance officer with the Food and Drug Administration in Detroit, advised consumers not to eat the products and to contact a doctor if they have any symptoms. She also urged careful disposal of the tainted products to avoid the risk of homeless people finding and eating them.

Health officials in Minnesota and Virginia have linked two deaths each to the outbreak and Idaho and North Carolina have reported one. Four of those five were elderly people, and all had salmonella when they died, though their exact causes of death haven't been determined. But the CDC said the salmonella may have contributed. Federal health authorities on Saturday urged consumers tado avoid eating cookies, cakes, ice cream and other foods that contain peanut butter until authorities can learn more about a deadly outbreak of salmonella contamination.

The CDC said the bacteria behind the outbreak - typhimurium - is common and not an unusually dangerous strain but that the elderly or those with weakened immune systems are more at risk.

The salmonella outbreak is the second in two years involving peanut butter. Salmonella is the nation's leading cause of food poisoning; common symptoms include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps..

A new report states Palestinian militants have agreed Sunday to a one-week cease-fire against Israel, Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha said.

A 2-year-old girl in northern China is in critical condition after testing positive for bird flu, state media said Sunday. It is China's second confirmed case of the virus this month.

Reuters - The European economy is sliding deeper into recession and the fourth quarter of last year was "catastrophic," European Union Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen said on Sunday.

China's toy exports hit by global crisis: state media

BEIJING (AFP) - China's toy exports have taken a beating from the global financial crisis, with demand shrinking in the key US and European markets, state media reported Sunday.

In the period from January to November of last year, China's shipments of toys abroad totalled eight billion dollars, an increase of just 2.5 percent from the same period a year earlier, the People's Daily said on its website.

This compares with the first 11 months of 2007, when toy exports had increased by a blistering 20.3 percent, the paper said, citing customs authorities.

In November alone, toy exports declined 8.6 percent from the same month a year earlier, according to the paper.

Registered toy exporters plunged by nearly half last year to 4,211, the paper said, reflecting how weakening overseas demand is wreaking havoc on China's domestic economy.

The paper quoted customs officials as saying that apart from the global slowdown, toy exports had also been impacted by a series of recent product quality scandals.

For example, in mid-2007, US importers of Chinese toys issued recalls after some were found to be coated with toxic lead paint. Similar products were later banned in several countries.

The paper said that the United States and the European Union account for two thirds of China's toy exports.

Jacob's House Comment

In God's prophecy on this website given to Jacob on 8/6/07, entitled, "God Speaks About The Birth Pains This World Will Soon Go Through", God speaks about what will happen to the merchandisers of this world in the next few years.  God speaks about how their ships will be stranded in the harbors and they will not be able to sell their goods.  These things are already beginning to come to pass for China while this prophecy is being fulfilled.

Quote from our Lord God to Jacob:

"The next few years will also be a time when the horses, riders of thunder, and locusts will be seen here.  They will bring forth their smell and their stink upon this earth.  It will be a time when all of the green hills and the creature images that I despise will be dissolved by My white hot eyes.  For when many ships are stranded in the harbors, they will be unable to sell their tarnished and damaged goods.  When they are stranded without water in them to drink, then My name will become known all over this world called earth.  When the testing, writhing pain, trouble, and confusion becomes more intensified and pronounced, so shall My name be talked about in many fashionable circles and assemblies.  

I, the Lord God, will soon make a new virtuous order to flourish here by My decree.  Then by My wealth, strength, wisdom, and power, I will tear down the old order that is here now.  Measure by measure, brick by brick, it will all pass away and be no more.  Therefore, day by day, month by month, shall affliction, distress, torrential floods, rumblings, and diseases increase here.  These things will come to the defiled tribes, which I loathe.  By attrition shall I, the Lord God, tear them down and ruin their dwelling places. 

Therefore, the pleasurable things that are on this earth today will soon fade away and be no more.  If the prominent men and women here do not want to bring forth true tribute, praise, fasting, and glory to My Holy name, they will not survive My consuming and unending fire.  If they do not want to honor the name, mercy, charity, and resurrected body of My only Son, Jesus, they will perish for their sins." 

January 19, 2009

Britain announced a second rescue plan for the country's ailing banks on Monday, hoping to thaw frozen lending by offering to insure banks against large-scale losses on bad assets they already hold.

The day before President-elect Barack Obama takes office, the escalating troubles facing major banks around the world couldn't be clearer.  An 850 billion dollar US stimulus package is being proposed.  It includes tax cuts to help businesses and families. 

Shadow of vigilantes appears in Mexico drug war

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) -Shadowy vigilante groups are threatening Mexico's drug gangs near the U.S. border in retaliation for a wave of murders and kidnappings that killed 1,600 people in this city alone last year.

Ciudad Juarez, a manufacturing center in the desert across from El Paso, Texas, was the scene of the worst violence in 2008 as drug cartels fought each other as well as staging kidnappings for ransom and extorting businessmen.

MRSA rising in kids' ear, nose, throat infections

CHICAGO - Researchers say they found an "alarming increase in children's ear, nose and throat infections nationwide caused by dangerous drug-resistant staph germs. Other studies have shown rising numbers of skin infections in adults and children caused by these germs, nicknamed MRSA, but this is the first nationwide report on how common they are in deeper tissue infections in the head and neck, the study authors said. These include certain ear and sinus infections, and abcesses that can form in the tonsils and throat.  The study found a total of 21,009 pediatric head and neck infections caused by staph germs from 2001 through 2006. The percentage caused by hard-to-treat MRSA bacteria more than doubled during that time from almost 12 percent to 28 percent. "In most parts of the United States, there's been an alarming rise," said study author Dr. Steven Sobol, a children's head and neck specialist at Emory University.

A strong earthquake measuring 6. 7 on the Richter scale jolted Kermadec Islands north of New Zealand early Monday, China's Xinhua news agency quoted the U.S. Geological Survey as reporting.

Washington, January 19: A collaborative study has lent more force to the suggestion that water pollution is triggering male fertility problems.  The study involving researchers from Brunel University, the Universities of Exeter and Reading and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology has revealed that a group of testosterone-blocking chemicals is finding its way into UK rivers, affecting wildlife and potentially humans. 

Jan 21,09

  LONDON (Reuters) - Pressure on incoming U.S. President Barack Obama to act quickly on the global financial crisis was underlined on Tuesday by tumbling bank shares, a slump in Japanese consumer sentiment and a teetering car sector.  Japan has decided to launch rockets into space to catch up with the US, Russian, and European space programs.

Underscoring the dire state of the world economy, Japan reported consumer confidence plunging to a record low last month in yet another sign of deepening recession.

On Monday, Britain threw its troubled banks a second multi-billion pound lifeline in three months and gave its central bank the green light to pump cash into the ailing economy because interest rates are already close to zero.

Britain is set to confirm on Friday the world's fifth-largest economy is now in its first recession since 1992.

China, the world's main growth engine, on Tuesday reported its first rise in urban unemployment in five years. It will release Q4 GDP data on Thursday which are forecast to show annual growth at 7.0 percent, the slowest pace in nine years. After years of fast growth, the economy has been hit by a housing slump and the impact of the global slowdown. Wen Jiabao, premier, will visit Europe next week to discuss the crisis.

Japan's economy is 'worsening rapidly' amid plunging industrial production, falling exports and worries about looming large-scale lay-offs, the government declared

Jan 22, 2009

New-home construction plunged to an all-time low in December, capping the worst year for builders on records dating back to 1959.

New U. S. President Sworn In:

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in Tuesday as the 44th president of the United States, With his hand on the gilt-edged, burgundy Bible used by President Lincoln in 1861, Obama swore, " I Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God." 

Jacob's House Comment

Within a few days of the new President Obama's swearing to God that he would "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," this President has already defied some of God's laws, commandments, and rules for this world.  Below are two of the anti-God rulings this new President Obama has enacted within a few days of his rise to power.  These new bills he has signed into law will bring God's wrath and fury upon America as never before.  For this new President Obama has joined a long list of U.S. presidents who have not kept their promises and vows to God.  Therefore, God's right hand will be against him.  He has refused God's abiding love, power, and eternal glory, for the trivial and insignificant things of this corrupt and fallen world today.   

'Roe V. Wade'Anniversary Brings U. S. Policy Change

President-elect Obama has reversed the US controversial abortion policy.

This incoming president has issued an executive order to reverse policy.  This policy bans U.S. funding of international groups that promote abortion.  Reagan initiated "Mexico City policy"; Clinton reversed it; Bush reinstated it.  President Obama marked the 36th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision on Thursday by reversing some of Bush's anti-abortion policies, including the prohibition of foreign aid to family planning groups that "perform or promote" abortions around the world.

US to carry out first human stem cell trials

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US biotech firm Geron Corp. announced on Friday that the new President Obama has signed legislation to allow it to carry out the first human trials using embryonic stem cells, testing the therapy on patients paralysed by spinal-cord injury.

The Menlo Park, California firm said in a statement that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had cleared it for the first phase of trials of a novel therapy called GRNOPC1.

The goal is to inject embryonic cells into the spines of paralysed volunteers in the hope that this will prompt damaged nerve cells to regrow, enabling the patients to eventually recover feeling and movement.

They are taken from early-stage embryos, which are destroyed in the process, and this has prompted some religious groups to brand the process as unethical.

Geron's announcement came less than three days after George W. Bush - who had imposed clamps on most federal funding on embryonic stem cell research - left the White House.

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it is cutting 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, a sign of how badly even the biggest and richest companies are being stung by the recession.

Around The World the Economic Crisis and Depression Deepens:

China's economic slowdown deepened in the last quarter of 2008 as slumping exports combined with a weak housing market to sharply reduce the growth rate of the economy.  In China, as many as six million people from the countryside have lost their jobs in the cities because of the economic crisis, the National Bureau of Statistics said as it released the economic data for 2008.  Many of these rural migrants worked in factories that sold products overseas, and the bureau's announcement confirmed the growing problem facing China as export markets evaporate.  "The international financial crisis is deepening and spreading with a continuing negative impact on the domestic economy," said Ma Jiantang, the head of the statistics bureau.

Demand for United Kingdom manufactured goods has plummeted over the last three months and is weaker than at any time since July 1991, according to the CBI employers' group

South Korea said its economy was in the worst shape since the East Asian financial crisis a decade ago, following a 5.6-percent contraction quarter-on-quarter in the final three months of last year.

Japan meanwhile announced a 35 percent plunge in exports in December as consumers worldwide tightened their belts even more, driving Asia's biggest economy further into recession.  "Exports tumbled so much that you cannot believe your eyes," said Naoki Murakami, chief economist at Monex Securities in Japan.  The trade data out of Japan led analysts to predict that the economy there would suffer its worst performance since 1974 in the fourth quarter of 2008.

National Australia Bank group chief economist Alan Oster described Asia's economic health as "in a word, poor - and decelerating quickly.  "One of the big problems is when we look at industrial production and GDP across the region, we see quite rapid declines," Oster told AFP. 

Singapore reported on Wednesday it was facing its worst-ever recession after the economy contracted by 16.9 percent in the final quarter, its biggest fall on record.

In South Korea, the government could not hide its shock at how quickly its economy was falling apart. 

The trade data out of Japan led analysts to predict that the economy there would suffer its worst performance since 1974 in the fourth quarter of 2008.  "It's inevitable that we will see a 10 percent or steeper drop," said Hiroshi Watanabe, an economist at Daiwa Institute of Research.

LONDON (AFP) - Britain is in recession for the first time since 1991 after its economy shrank during the final two quarters of last year as a global financial crisis raged, official data showed on Friday.  The Royal Bank of Scotland is facing 41.3 billion dollar loss.  This is the largest in UK history.

Britain joins the United States, the eurozone and Japan in recession as the global economy struggles to recover from the credit crisis fallout.

A woman in China has died from the H5NI strain of bird flu.  This is the second death this year there.  Another woman has contracted a case of bird flu in Northeast India.   

Five people have been killed in avalanches in the US and Canada recently. 

Over 100 product recall continue for the Salmonella peanut products outbreak in the US which has sickened close to 500 people.  Now pet foods are on this recall.

January 26, 2009

US home building has fallen 50 percent from 2007.  This is the worse showing in 50 years. 

Brazilian beauty's tragic end

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - One month ago, 20-year-old beauty queen Mariana Bridi was living the dream of many young Brazilian women, trading her striking good looks for a modeling career that promised to lift her family out of poverty.

Then she contracted a seemingly ordinary urinary tract infection. The bacteria spread quickly and inexorably through her body, proving to be extremely drug resistant. In a desperate bid to save her life, doctors amputated her hands and feet. However by Saturday she was dead.

The course of her illness was swift.  In late December, she fell ill and doctors in her native state of Espirito Santo northeast of Rio de Janeiro initially diagnosed as having kidney stones.  She returned to a hospital on Jan. 3 in septic shock life-threatening low blood pressure from the infection that would force doctors to amputate first her feet, then her hands. Doctors said there was little they could do but pump drugs into her and hope for the best.  It was a nightmare scenario for anyone with an infection: Her body did not react to the latest and most potent drugs while the bacteria in her veins spread from head to toe.

In Bridi's case, the culprit was the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is known to be drug resistant.  According to the January 2008 book "Pseudomonas: Genomics and Molecular Biology," edited by Pierre Cornelis, a researcher at the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology in Brussels, the bacteria has the "worrisome characteristic" of "low antibiotic susceptibility." It also easily mutates to develop resistance to new drugs.

Deaths from infections caused by the bacteria are relatively rare, but not unheard of: In late 2006, an outbreak of the bacteria at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles sickened five infants leading to the deaths of two of them.  This bacteria causes about 10 percent of the roughly two million hospital-acquired infections each year in the U.S., according to health officials.  A short statement from the Espirito Santo State Health Secretariat announced her death on Saturday "despite all the commitment of the hospital team."

Jacob's House Comment

More unusual deaths like this one will follow soon as our God shows this world how sinful, filthy, and corrupt many people have become. Diseases will mutate and no cure will be found for them. These diseases and troubles will bring many people to God, through His only Son, Jesus.

Car dealers try to survive as economy, sales drop

Auto dealers' convention focuses on survival as sales drop and economy keeps buyers home.  At this year's version of the National Automobile Dealers Association convention, survival has passed maximizing profits as the focus of the annual event.

Climate shift 'killing US trees

Old growth trees in western parts of the US are probably being killed as a result of regional changes to the climate, a study has suggested.

Analysis of undisturbed forests showed that the trees' mortality rate had doubled since 1955, researchers said.  They warned that the loss of old growth trees could have implications for the areas' ecology and for the amount of carbon that the forests could store.  The findings have been published in the journal Science.

"Data from unmanaged old forests in the western US showed that background mortality rates have increased rapidly in recent decades," the team of US and Canadian scientists wrote.  "Because mortality increased in small trees, the overall increase in mortality rates cannot be attributed to ageing of large trees," they added.

"Regional warming and consequent increases in water deficits are likely contributors to the increase in tree mortality rates." "This regional warming has contributed to widespread hydrological changes, such as declining fraction of precipitation falling as snow, declining snowpack water content, earlier spring snowmelt and a consequent lengthening of summer drought."

Over the study period, which stretched back to 1955, more than 11,000 trees died.  The researchers reported that the increased mortality rate affected a range of species, different sized trees, and all elevations.  Warmer temperatures might also increase the number and prevalence of insects and diseases that attack trees, the team added.  They used the example of recent outbreaks of tree-killing bark beetles in the US, which have been linked to a rise in temperatures.

Another member of the team, Dr Nate Stephenson, said increasing tree deaths could indicate a forest that was vulnerable to sudden, widespread die-back. "That may be our biggest concern," he warned.  "Is the trend we're seeing a prelude to bigger, more abrupt changes to our forests."

In another release of news this week some of the nation's largest US largest farming cooperatives are planning cutbacks and less plantings this spring.  They are concerned that their water supplies will drop off because of drought conditions in California, USA.  They are also concerned that the Federal Government water supplies will not be adequate to meet their needs.      

Jacob's House Comments

In God's prophecy on this website entitled, "GOD EXPLAINS HIS OVERWHELMING AND CONSUMING POWER" our Lord God spoke to Jacob about what would happen here in the next few years.  God spoke about the fact that He would destroy the evil areas of this world that were still full of weeds, decay, lust, slavery, oppression, evil behavior, and violence.  God spoke about the fact that He would turn over the fallow and rocky ground that exists in many nations today. 

God spoke in this prophecy about how He would discard all of the waste and wilderness places He despises and has a controversy with.  These things are already coming to pass as God shifts to His new spiritual day, and discards this dead and dying one we are experiencing now. 

Below are some of the words from God, given to Jacob on 1/15/06.  These words are from the prophecy, "God Explains His Overwhelming and Consuming Power":

"I, the Lord God, know many nations today are full of oppression, evil behavior, slavery, and the wanton desires of the flesh.  Therefore, in the coming hours of this earth age My water from the heavens will not flow to them anymore, or help them in any way.  These idolatrous nations will not have My purified water to refresh them in their times of distress, need, and trouble. 

I, the Lord God, will soon turn the fallow and rocky ground that exists in many nations today into rich and fertile fields.  Then My elegance and beauty will be seen in them again.  I will soon come to rule a new earth with My Son, Jesus at My side.  My new earth will be free of the weeds, decay, and brambles that are here now, watchman. 

So shall I discard all of the waste and wilderness places, which I despise.  So shall I make them into profitable fields once more where My words can be heard and strictly enforced.  So shall My lovely cedar trees be able to grow strong and mighty for Me upon all of My mountaintops.  For I, the Lord God, have the power to lay all of the mountains and high places of this earth low.  I can also rearrange the desert and decayed places and make them into rich and fertile fields of beautiful pastureland.  I can make them elegant and desirable once again for Me and My Son, Jesus.  I can make them into fruitful gardens of elegance where joyful hearts can be seen worshipping and praising My Holy name, watchman." 

ATHENS  "The Italians, the Spaniards, the Greeks, we all have been living in happy land, spending what we did not have," said George Economou, a Greek shipping magnate, contemplating his country's economic troubles and others' from his spacious boardroom. "It was a fantasy world."

For some of the countries on the periphery of the 16-member euro currency zone, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain this debt-fired dream of endless consumption has turned into the rudest of nightmares, raising the risk that a euro country may be forced to declare bankruptcy or abandon the currency.

Bad Times Spur a Flight to Jobs Viewed as Safe.  After years of struggling to get their wages up, the nation's workers are trying to find jobs that will simply last, at least through the deep recession.

January 29, 2009

Up to 110 mph winds have killed more than 12 people in Portugal, France, and Spain. 

An avalanche has killed 10 people at a Turkish ski resort. 

China is confirming 6 new cases of bird flu this month. 

Child abuse is on the rise in the nation of Jamaica. 

From the Rockies to the Mid Atlantic United States snow and ice has prompted winter storm worries.  More than 1 million people are without power in their homes and businesses across the US because of the ice and snow storms stretching from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania.  Driving conditions have been treacherous in Dallas, Texas, Kentucky, Indiana, and Oklahoma, USA.   

Twenty people are now dead as avalanches caused havoc across Europe. 

People in Myanmar are facing food shortages because of last year's cyclone.  They are also facing a destruction of their crops because an infestation of rats. 

A new report is stating 2 million Chinese are now out of work because of the global slowdown.

The USA's richest charitable foundations are saying they are going to give 100 million dollars in funds to help people with home foreclosures and to help food banks to stock their shelves.

It has been reported that a 93 year old US war veteran man from Michigan, USA, froze to death because he could not pay his power bills and his electricity was shut off.  The power company there limited the electricity to his home.  The temperature outside was in the 20's when he froze to death.  The man had 4 layers of clothing on and blankets were over him.  He died with frost bitten feet.

A new US bill is in the works to increase checking plants in the USA for Salmonella Disease.

January 29, 2009

NEW YORK - Caution has returned to Wall Street as unemployment claims reached a record high and new home sales hit a record low. The reports were two more glaring signs that the economy is still slumping.

Officials: Army suicides at 3-decade high

WASHINGTON - Suicides among U.S. soldiers rose last year to the highest level in decades, the Army announced Thursday. At least 128 soldiers killed themselves in 2008. But the final count is likely to be considerably higher because 15 more suspicious deaths are still being investigated and could also turn out to be self-inflicted, the Army said.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama issued a withering critique Thursday of Wall Street corporate behavior, calling it "the height of irresponsibility" for Wall Street employees to be paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year while their financial sector was crumbling.  "It is shameful," Obama said from the Oval Office. "And part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility."

Mount Redoubt, the Alaskan volcano expected to erupt at any time, is getting a bit more edgy. The Alaska Volcano Observatory said in a statement Friday "volcanic tremor" has increased in "amplitude."   Volcanic tremor" increasing in "amplitude," observatory says

The 10,200-foot Mount Redoubt is about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska

Volcano last erupted in December 1989.  Eruption could spawn huge mudflows, disrupt flights with ash.

A Florida beach has been shut down as 1,000 sharks gather near shore.

The number of people receiving unemployment benefits has reached the highest level on records that go back more than 40 years, the government said Thursday, and more layoffs are spreading throughout the U.S.A.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The US economy shrank at a 3.8 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, as the deepening recession forced consumers and businesses to throttle back spending.  American consumers and businesses cut back everywhere in the final three months of 2008. Shoppers chopped spending on cars, furniture, appliances, clothes and other items. Businesses dropped the ax on equipment and software, home building and commercial construction. And overseas sales of U.S.-made goods and services tanked as foreign buyers grappled with their own economic woes.

Tainted Peanut Product Recalls, Illnesses Grow.  More companies are recalling products containing peanuts since the government linked peanuts to an outbreak of salmonella that is tied to the deaths of eight people so far.  More than 430 products have been pulled from shelves amid an outbreak that, so far, has been linked to nearly 500 illnesses, half of those in children. Eight deaths are reported so far from the outbreak.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia announced a crackdown on pollution of the Great Barrier Reef Thursday as the World Heritage-listed site comes under increasing threat from toxic chemicals and climate change.  Farmers who allow pesticides and fertilizers to run off into the seas around the reef - described as the world's largest living organism- will be fined under new conservation laws, officials said.

South-eastern Australia is experiencing its worst heat wave in decades, with temperatures in excess of 43C (109F).  Health officials in South Australia say the searing heat may be to blame for an apparent increase in the number of sudden deaths among the elderly.  In neighboring Victoria state, bush fires have destroyed at least 10 homes.  Nearly 500,000 people in the state are reported to have lost their power supplies, following severe pressure on the electricity grid.

Jacob's House Comment

When will Australia and the other nations of this world realize that God is in control of all of their nations today?  For our Father in Heaven is taking out the stabilizers that these nations have relied upon for so long.  God is bringing about famine, disease, pestilence, plagues, fire storms, and trouble to the people of this world who do not know Him, which he has a controversy with today.  Therefore, they had better get on their hands and knees and beg their Creator to forgive them before they perish in their own iniquity.  They had better repent of their mistakes and give allegiance and praise to the one true God who can save them, the Lord God of Heaven and earth. 

President Obama has called the contraction of the US economy in the final quarter of 2008 a "continuing disaster" for the US. The US economic output fell 3.8%, the worst quarterly contraction in more than 26 years, official figures have shown.

Jacob's House Comment

The USA is headed for famine, diseases, bad judgment, and more weather disasters, for the leaders there have defied and disobeyed the Commandments and laws given to them by the Lord of Hosts, and the King of kings of this world.  Therefore, now the USA must pay for all of the corruption, seeds of darkness, and filthiness it has promoted in recent years.  It must pay for all of the rotten seeds it has sowed, all over this world.  Soon justice and fairness will prevail once again when our Lord God brings about Beulah Land to this earthen world. 

Acid oceans 'need urgent action'

The world's marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists.

More than 150 top marine researchers have voiced their concerns through the "Monaco Declaration", which warns that changes in acidity are accelerating. It says pH levels are changing 100 times faster than natural variability. "We scientists who met in Monaco to review what is known about ocean acidification declare that we are deeply concerned by recent, rapid changes in ocean chemistry and their potential, within decades, to severely affect marine organisms, food webs, biodiversity and fisheries."

Eurozone jobless at two-year high

The eurozone unemployment rate totaled 8% in December, according to the latest official European Union data, up from a revised 7.9% in November. Unemployment was highest in Spain, which recorded a 14.4% figure. Meanwhile, eurozone inflation fell in January to 1.1%, its lowest level in almost 10 years, from 1.6% in December. 

World growth 'worst for 60 years'

World economic growth is set to fall to just 0.5% this year, its lowest rate since World War II, warns the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

February 1, 2009

Four hundred acres of grass fires are burning in Oklahoma, USA.  High winds are fanning the flames.  There is also fire danger being reported in Florida.

The US gross national product fell at the fastest rate in 27 years as the US sunk deeper into a recession, the commerce department has said. 

February 2, 2009

Commission gets grim report on wartime spending

WASHINGTON - A new commission examining waste and corruption in wartime contracts is getting a grim report from government watchdogs who say poor planning, weak oversight and greed combined to soak U.S. taxpayers and undermine American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, says U.S. taxpayers have paid nearly $51 billion for a wide array of projects in Iraq -from training the Iraqi army and police to rebuilding the country's oil, electric, health, justice, and transportation sectors.  Some of these projects succeeded, Bowen informed the Wartime Contracting Commission at its first public hearing, according to his written testimony, but many did not. Violence in Iraq along with constant friction between U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad were also major factors that undercut progress.

The U.S. government "was neither prepared for nor able to respond quickly to the ever-changing demands" of stabilizing Iraq and then rebuilding it, Bowen said in his written testimony.  Overall, the Pentagon, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have paid contractors more than $100 billion since 2003 for goods and services to support war operations and rebuilding projects in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There are 154 open criminal investigations into allegations of bribery, conflicts of interest, defective products, bid rigging, and theft stemming from the wars.

February 5, 2009

A new report in the US is stating that acreage burned by wild fires there has jumped 6 fold in the last 17 years.  Most of this burned acreage is occurring in the Western part of the US.

Heavy snow is disrupting flights in Britain at London's airports.  It is the worse snow there in many years. 

The US stock market is experiencing the worst decline ever in January 2009. 

The state of Kentucky, USA is still recovering from an ice storm that happened a week ago.

Thirty-one million people from the USA are now collecting food stamps.  This is up 14% in the last year and at a record high. 

The US credit card debt in 2008 has reached $950 billion. 

A new report is stating greed has been rampant in the US in the last few years.  Consumer spending was down 3% for Christmas 2008.  New tax free holidays are being planned by many US states to get their consumers to spend.  Another report is stating that now only 33% of Americans trust their banks.  Only 24% of them trust their Mutual Funds.  Only 12% trust big business.  Only 11% of Americans trust the Stock Market today.  Over 50.5% of Americans today now believe that greed and bad governance caused the US crisis they are now facing.  About 31.6% of them believe a lack of oversight caused the US crisis.  About 11.2% of them believe that too much government caused the crisis.  About 80.2% of them are less confident in the US government to help them out of the crisis they are facing.  Only 10.4% are confident in the US today.  Most Americans believe that managerial greed, and bad management are to blame for the problems in the US economy today.       

Over 1000 auto dealers have closed their doors in the last year in the US.  About 50,000 jobs have also been lost in this industry.     

Jacob's House Comment

The reason the USA is facing all of these problems and woes today, is because they have denied the living God who made them great in the beginning.  They have rejected God's righteous ways and commandments, which would have brought them security, safety, and great physical, as well as eternal wealth.  Instead, in recent years the leaders of the US have now decided to break any vows and promises that were made to God long ago.  However, these vows and promises are recorded in heaven and cannot be broken at any time, or by anyone.  Now God's rejection of America's evil and self-centered ways is becoming clear to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.  Therefore, America's woes, travail, and troubles, are going to continue indefinitely.  Adverse weather from God will be seen here, and it will also be seen in the other nations around the world that have rejected their Creator.  God's curse will become more evident and apparent in the next few years as America is threshed, burned, and torn apart by God's jealousy and anger.  Many other nations will also feel God's wrath and anger upon them for their rejection of His commandments, His Son, Jesus, and His straight and narrow ways. 

See these following verses from God's words in the Bible, and you will know how God is going to punish America, and the other nations that have refused Him today.

Isaiah 1: 16-25

16.  Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

 17.  Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

 18.  Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

 19.  If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

 20.  But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

 21.  How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

 22.  Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:

 23.  Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

 24.  Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:

 25.  And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

TOKYO -  A volcano near Tokyo erupted Monday, shooting up billowing smoke and showering parts of the capital with a fine ash that sent some city residents to the car wash and left others puzzled over the white powder they initially mistook for snow.

Mount Asama erupted in the early hours of Monday, belching out a plume that rose about a mile (1.6 kilometers) high, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

There were no reports of injuries or damage from the eruption of the volcano, 90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of Tokyo. It last erupted in August, 2008, causing no major damage.

Heavy snow has fallen across large parts of the UK, disrupting travel and closing thousands of schools.

South-east England has the worst snow it has seen for 18 years, causing all London buses to be pulled from service and the closure of Heathrow's runways.

The Met Office has issued an extreme weather warning for England, Wales and parts of eastern Scotland. By late Monday, the South East could be under a foot (30cm) of snow and the North East under 20 inches (50cm).

China says 20 million migrant workers have lost their jobs during the economic downturn - three times greater than had been suggested previously.

A survey carried out in 15 provinces suggests around 15% of the total migrant labour pool is now unemployed. "If we put these figures together, we have roughly 25 to 26 million rural migrant workers who are now coming under pressure for employment," said Chen Xiwen, the director of the Central Rural Work Leading Group. 

The fear, of course, is that large numbers of unhappy unemployed workers in rural areas could cause trouble.

More than 3,000 people have died from the worst outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe's history, which has infected more than 60,000 people.

The epidemic has been fuelled by the country's economic meltdown, which has led to the collapse of the country's water, health and sanitation systems.

Freeze warnings have been issued for Florida where much of the US strawberry crop and food supplies come from.  

Iceland is experiencing the worst economic crash of any country in peacetime in October last year.

Its authorities have denied responsibility, but widespread protests eventually forced the government to resign on 26 January, the first government to do so because of the global crisis. Johanna Sigurdardottir, named as Iceland's prime minister on Sunday, is the first openly lesbian head of government in Europe, if not the world - at least in modern times.

Riddle of Liberian insect plague

A devastating plague of caterpillars ravaging part of West Africa is not armyworms, as previously believed, but an unidentified species, experts say.

A UN emergency co-ordinator told the BBC the insects in Liberia and Guinea were very different from armyworms. He said experts had noted the insect has distinct feeding patterns, life cycle, habits, movement and appearance. Specialists are studying the pest to find a way of controlling the swarm, which has affected 400,000 residents. As well as devouring crops, the infestation has polluted water sources with feces.

The plague of armyworm caterpillars in Liberia has affected some 400,000 people and the UN warns of a second wave of infestations.

Farmer and village chief Richard Kerkula from Larwoi, in Bong county near the Guinean border, describes how the worms invaded his fields.

It was early in the morning three weeks ago. As usual, I went out to inspect the crop on my land where I grow cocoa beans and banana. I was met by a horrible sight. The leaves of my banana plants and the cocoa trees were covered in black caterpillars. They were moving around, eating the leaves. There were thousands of them. There was no smell but their munching was making an unpleasant rustling sound. These type of caterpillar are foreign to our area. I had heard of armyworms attacking Liberian crops many years ago, but never seen anything like this before. Even though they weren't eating the bananas and the cocoa beans, I knew that my crops would be destroyed. If the leaves go, the plant cannot yield good crops.

Rain-battered Australian state on snake alert

SYDNEY - Rain-battered residents in northeastern Australia were on alert Wednesday for snakes in their bathrooms and crocodiles in the road following repeated storms that have sent local wildlife in search of dry land or a safe haven.

More than half of Queensland state was declared a disaster area Tuesday because of the rains that started in late December and are expected to continue.

In Queensland's hardest-hit town of Ingham, David Harkin was preparing Wednesday to evacuate after watching floods wash through his two-level home. He said he's seen several snakes around his home since the latest storm hit Sunday.

"That's why I keep the broom here (at the front door) to chase the snakes away," he told reporters. Some 2,900 homes have been damaged in Ingham and hundreds of people evacuated to a temporary shelter.

In the coastal city of Townsville, floods were blamed for washing a freshwater crocodile into the street where it got run over.

The 5.25-foot-long (1.6-meter-long) crocodile survived and was being treated for an injured eye and several broken teeth, the Townsville Bulletin newspaper reported Wednesday.

Ingham had received 14.41 inches (366 millimeters) of rain in 24 hours Wednesday morning, on top of more than 15.75 inches (400 millimeters) dumped in the previous days.

The state government said Tuesday that the storms had caused an estimated 109 million Australian dollars ($69.5 million) in damage since late December and that more than 56 percent of the state  376,755 square miles (975,794 square kilometers)  is eligible for disaster relief. About 17 rivers are flooded and dams are overflowing.

Some coastal areas are completely cut off by flooding and authorities fear the stagnant water could worsen an outbreak of dengue fever.

The United Nations says that 52 civilians have been killed in the past day of fighting in Sri Lanka.

A UN spokesman also said that cluster bombs had hit a hospital, which has been subject to several attacks.

February 7, 2009

Ice Storm deaths in Kentucky USA have risen to 28 people.  Many counties are now being declared disaster areas because of the storms. 

Staggering job losses in the USA continue to mount.  Over 2 million people have lost their jobs in the last four months.  The US job losses are the worst in 34 years. 

China declares drought emergency

China has declared an emergency in eight northern and central drought-hit regions, where nearly four million people are suffering water shortages.

Nearly half of China's winter crop, some 10m hectares (24m acres) of wheat and rape seed - are also under threat.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao ordered all-out efforts to fight the drought, allocating 400m yuan ($58m, or 40mpounds) in relief assistance.

China's drought relief office called it an event "rarely seen in history".

China faces droughts and floods annually but has seen a recent increase in extreme weather conditions.

A new report is stating snow and ice are causing travel havoc across the UK

Snow has caused major disruption to schools and on the roads, and forecasters have warned more heavy snowfall is on the way.

Severe weather warnings are in place and two walkers have died in freezing conditions in the Lake District.

Councils say they are running out of road salt and the AA warned shortages have created a "road safety crisis".

The M4, M5 and M1 have been badly affected and thousands of schools have had to close.

'Eight inches' of snow

The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings for heavy snow in much of southern and central England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. 

BBC weather forecasters are now warning that similar quantities of snow to Monday could fall on London and parts of southern England on Friday.

Zimbabwe diary: Fighting cholera

More than 3,300 people have died from the worst outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe's history, which has infected nearly 66,000 people.

The epidemic has been fuelled by the country's economic meltdown, which has led to the collapse of the country's water, health and sanitation systems.

Snow brings another day of chaos

Heavy snow has brought a fifth day of chaos to the UK, with severe weather warnings issued to much of the country.

Road, rail and air transport is again badly affected, while hundreds of schools have again been closed.

The West Country and south Wales were worst-hit, with Okehampton in west Devon seeing 22in (55cm) of snow.

The Severn crossings were closed after ice began falling onto cars and smashing windscreens, but the M48 crossing has since reopened.

The US unemployment rate rose to 7.6% in January, up from 7.2% in December, according to official figures.

The rise puts the unemployment rate at the highest level since 1992.

According to the US Labor Department, the economy lost 598,000 non-farm jobs for the month, and it also revised upwards the job losses for December.

February 8, 2009

It is now being reported that the Salmonella outbreak in the USA was due to poor oversight.

Consumer credit in the USA has dropped for 3 straight months in a row. 

Many areas of Australia are seeing dozens of fires, which have burned many structures down.  So far 84 people are dead from these various brush fires which are now out of control.

February 10, 2009

Three more US banks need to be bailed out by government officials. 

Consumer credit in the USA has dropped for 3 straight months in a row. 

Dozens of zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums are having financial problems.  They may have to close some of their exhibits and sell some of their animals.  

February 11, 2009

A new earthquake has jolted northern Peru. 

Nissan Corporation to cut 20,000 jobs worldwide.

Australia police target arsonists, one arrested so far.

The bushfires raging across large areas of south-eastern Australia have destroyed entire towns and devastated local communities. Many people perished in their cars as they tried to drive to safety. 180 people known dead.

Parts of Britain have been hit by flooding in the wake of a severe storm which unleashed heavy rain, strong winds and snow.  The Environment Agency has issued 90 flood warnings, mostly in southern England, while police and firefighters handled hundreds of 999 calls.  In Somerset 20 people stranded in flood water were rescued from their cars.  In Gloucestershire, 350 homes were left without electricity after heavy snow blanketed the Midlands and east Wales.  Craig Woolhouse, head of flood defenses at the Environment Agency, told the BBC a combination of weather conditions - including heavy rain, snow melt and "tide-locking" of rivers caused by high tides - was causing the flooding in southern England.

Bad debt leads to big loss at UBS

UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, has reported a loss of 19.7bn Swiss francs ($16.8bn; pounds 11.3bn) for 2008, due to write-downs at its investment unit.  The firm got a 6bn-Swiss franc bail-out from the Swiss government in October.  UBS was also told at the time that it could transfer up to $60bn of distressed assets to a fund supported by the Swiss central bank.

Deadly gun fights in north Mexico

Gun battles between suspected drug gang members and troops have left 21 dead in northern Mexico, police say.  Drug-related violence kills thousands every year in Mexico and more than doubled this year to nearly 5,400.  The violence is likely to worsen in 2009, the nation's top prosecutor said. Rising violence occurring because of internal power struggles as drug gangs split and fight for turf.  The Mexican government has deployed some 40,000 troops and police since December 2006 against the cartels.

China's exports see sharp decline

China's exports fell more than expected in January, down 17.5% from a year earlier, marking the biggest drop in more than 10 years, figures have shown.   Imports were down 43.1% in the month compared with a year ago, as China's economy continued to be hit by the global economic slowdown.  Analysts say the slowdown could prompt more factory closures and job losses.  World bank to loan China money to help recent earthquake victims rebuild

 February 14, 2009

The collision between a US and Russian satellite in space highlights the growing importance of monitoring objects in orbit.  There are about 17,000 man-made objects above 10cm in size that orbit Earth - and the tally is constantly increasing. This in turn raises the risk of collisions between objects.  The commercial Iridium satellites comprised a network of 66 spacecraft up until the accident.  This group also occupies "a very crowded altitude of low- Earth orbit".

Jacob's House Comment:

Many men today are not only polluting this world called earth, they are trying to pollute God's heavenly realm.  This will bring upon them God's wrath and fury as their entire households are consumed and punished in the next few years. 

A new government report is stating that it may take up to 2 trillion dollars in federal government dollars to save the banking system in the USA.  

The Peanut Corporation of America is filing for Chapter Seven bankruptcy to avoid lawsuits from their Salmonella contaminated products.  At least 1800 products are now being recalled.  Rodents, poor oversight, and filth were to blame for this disaster.   

A new report is stating that 3.6 million people have lost their jobs in the US since the recession started. 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A shark attacked a surfer at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach Thursday, seriously injuring the man's left hand and arm, Australian police said.  The attack comes one day after a navy diver was attacked by a shark in Sydney Harbor. The diver lost a hand and has severe leg injuries.  There have been at least four other shark attacks so far this Australian summer, one of them fatal, sparking a global media frenzy of "Jaws" proportions.  Last month, there were three shark attacks in Australian waters in just two days.

Jacob's House Comment

As we have stated here before on this website, animals will become more ferocious and vicious in the next few years.  They will attack man in increasing numbers and devour him as the second coming of our Lord Jesus draws near. 

A chicken housing crisis has cropped up in the U.S., and it's producing some of the same bleak results as the human one - foreclosures, lawsuits and devastated homeowners.  In the wake of last year's bankruptcy filing by poultry giant Pilgrim's Pride Corp., hundreds of farmers suddenly find themselves unable to make mortgage payments on their pricey chicken coops.  To cut costs, Pilgrim's, the nation's second-largest chicken company, has terminated contracts with at least 300 farms in Arkansas, Florida, and North Carolina.

As the credit crisis ripples around the globe, more consumers are postponing extravagant purchases like mink coats and chinchilla stoles, squeezing the global fur business.  Pelt prices are down about 30% from a year ago.

MEXICO CITY - As drug violence continues to spiral out of control in Mexico, a commission led by three former Latin American heads of state blasted the U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point.

A new Federal Reserve report is stating the recession has cut many Americans' net worth by about 20 percent as the value of their homes, stock portfolios, and businesses have plummeted.

Powerful earthquake hits Indonesia, 42 injured

A powerful earthquake off eastern Indonesia briefly triggered a tsunami warning Thursday, causing a stampede of residents to higher ground. Hundreds of buildings were damaged and at least 42 people were injured, some seriously.  The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.2-magnitude quake struck at 1:34 a.m. (1734 GMT; 2:34 p.m. Wednesday EST) and was followed by nearly a dozen aftershocks.

February 15, 2009

WHITTLESEA, Australia - Australians mourning the lives lost in horrific wildfires last week sought comfort at churches Sunday even as firefighters continued to battle a dozen blazes still burning in the state.  Thousands of people are now homeless there.

Fire engines raced past the small, 140-year-old Christ Church in Whittlesea while the Archbishop of Melbourne was leading a service, their sirens briefly drowning out a song.

More than 180 people were killed and 1,800 homes destroyed when some 400 blazes - some thought to have been deliberately set, tore across Victoria state on Feb. 7 in Australia's worst-ever wildfire disaster.

Across the 1,500-square mile (3,900-square kilometer) fire zone, residents and friends gathered at church services to pray for the dead. The scene was repeated at churches across the country.

Jacob's House Comment

God is punishing Australia with fanning winds, drought, fires, and a lack of water, for her reluctance to love Him and His Son, Jesus, today.  He is also punishing Australia for her lack of faith, trust, and belief in His sound words of prophecy and judgment. 

See Deuteronomy 28:15-24.

Global warming 'underestimated.

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted. The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said.  He said warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than forecast.

The crash of two satellites has generated an estimated tens of thousands of pieces of space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years, space experts said recently.

Beaches may harbor staph bacteria: U.S. study

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Swimmers at crowded public beaches are likely to bring home more than a bit of sand in their bathing suits, according to U.S. researchers, who said as many as one in three swimmers may be exposed to contagious staph bacteria.

They said people who swim in subtropical marine waters have a 37 percent higher risk of being exposed to staph bacteria, including an antibiotic resistant staph known as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. "We think that people are the instruments for bringing their organisms into the water and leaving it behind," Dr. Lisa Plano of the University of Miami told reporters at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago on Friday.  "I don't know if that is the only source. The bacteria may still be in the sand left over from other people, but we haven't studied that. These are things we plan to do in the future."

Jacob's House Comment

The Lord has told Jacob that diseases will become more commonplace in the next few years.  They will be harder to treat and harder to cure as God brings his judgment to this earth. 

Reuters - The euro zone suffered its deepest contraction on record in the last quarter of 2008 with its main constituents -- Germany, France and Italy -- all faring badly, casting severe doubt on any recovery soon.

WASHINGTON - Economic stimulus legislation at the heart of President Barack Obama's 789 billion dollar recovery plan is on track to be signed into law in the next few days.   President saying it will "save or create more than 3.5 million jobs and get the U.S. economy back on track".

February 17,2009

A report is stating mental illness is on the rise among youths and the costs is going up to treat them.

In Narimo, Northern Columbia a volcano there is erupting.

US Federal money is now being used to forward stem cell research. 

There is talk in the US that the government may have to nationalize several of their largest banks.

Japan's economy has contracted the most in 25 years. 

Budget woes in the state of Kansas, USA are so bad they have had to suspend some of their tax refunds.  They may not be able to pay their own state employees. 

A new report is stating that one in 3 people in the US could be exposed to staph infections on US beaches. 

Oil slips below $35 as global markets slump. A new batch of lousy economic news dragged oil prices down nearly 8 percent Tuesday, as signs from across the globe pointed to a prolonged and painful recession.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is poised to sign into law the most sweeping economic package in decades, a rescue plan designed to create millions of jobs, spur consumer spending and revive the nation's outlook. Capping the biggest victory of his month-old administration, Obama will sign the economic legislation Tuesday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) -Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc, the casino operator named for Donald Trump, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday as recession and declining gambling revenues battered the company and its rivals.  The Chapter 11 filing marks the third plunge into bankruptcy for the company, which was created out of a restructuring in 2005. This now underscores the struggles facing the casino business as recession squeezes casino gambling.  Trump Entertainment owns and operates three casino hotels in hard-hit Atlantic City, New Jersey, including the Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza, and Trump Marina.

Barter Fits the Bill for Strapped Firms

Small businesses, squeezed for cash and unable to get loans, are turning to an ancient payment system: barter. As small businesses find it impossible to borrow money and customers are slower to pay bills, the barter economy is becoming a crucial way for many companies to find the cash they need to keep operating.  "It's really of value to small businesses because it helps them to survive through the recession,"

A fireball that blazed across the Texas sky and sparked numerous calls to law enforcement agencies can now can be considered an identified flying object, US officials have claimed.

Hartford, Conn- A 200-pound domesticated chimpanzee who once starred in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola was shot dead by police after a violent rampage that left a friend of its owner badly mauled.  Sandra Herold, who owned the 15-year-old chimp named Travis, wrestled with the animal after it inexplicably attacked her friend Charla Nash, 55.  Nash had gone to Herold's home in Stamford, Connecticut, USA on Monday to help her coax the chimp back into the house after he got out, police said. After the animal lunged at Nash when she got out of her car, Herold ran inside to call 911 and returned armed,  "She retrieved a large butcher knife and stabbed her longtime pet numerous time in an effort to save her friend from being brutally attacked.  Nash is in critical condition.   

Jacob's House Comment

On this website our Lord God spoke through Jacob and said that animals of all kinds would become more vicious and aggressive in the next few years.  God spoke about the fact that man would lose his dominion here and it would revert back to God and His only Son, Jesus.  This is already beginning to happen all over this world as more and more animals become aggressive and hurt the other people around them.  See the prophecy, "GOD SPEAKS ABOUT HIS NEW DAY AND THE END OF THE OLD ORDER, WHICH IS HERE NOW" given to Jacob from God on 12/28/07.

Two excerpts from the above prophecy:

"I, the Lord God, will soon remove man off the face of My precious earth.  Then I will truly show him the power and might that I possess.  Therefore, in the coming hours, things shall no longer be the same as they once were on this earth, servant Jacob.  Though I, the Lord God, will leave a remnant of My servants and My handmaidens here to serve Me and minister to My desires, sinful man will soon be gone.  In the coming hours I, the Lord God will make him to lose all of the dominion and power he has over this world called earth.  He will also lose his soul in a great and mighty consuming fire that I will engulf him with."

"Therefore, many animals will soon become more aggressive, violent, and ferocious in their eating habits.  They will become more vicious in their defenses and their desires to eat their precious meat.  They will become more and more separated far away from man's control and dominance over them in the coming hours.  When My visitation to this earth draws perilously near in the next few years, many animals, horses, and beasts of the night will attack man in his own dwelling places.  They will attack him more and more often before My Son's second coming." 

European economies contracted in the fourth quarter of last year, with some countries registering the worst figures in decades, official data shows.

Chinese migrant job losses mount

The human cost of the global recession 20 million workers in the China countryside are trying to find employment because they have lost their jobs.  Unrest may follow soon. 

Obama throws $75 billion lifeline to homeowners

 MESA, Ariz. - President Barack Obama threw a $75 billion lifeline to millions of Americans on the brink of foreclosure Wednesday, declaring an urgent need for drastic action -not only to save their homes but to keep the housing crisis "from wreaking even greater havoc" on the broader national economy.  It has been reported that 3 million people cannot pay their home loans now and 9 million homes will have to be foreclosed on soon. 

WASHINGTON - As the economy continues to struggle, the public is growing increasingly concerned about losing jobs, not having enough money to pay the bills and seeing their retirement accounts shrink. 

Nearly half of those surveyed said they worry about becoming unemployed - almost double the percentage at this time last year.

President Barack Obama will soon issue an executive order lifting an eight-year ban embryonic stem cell research imposed by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, a senior adviser said on Sunday.

Jacob's House Comment

Signing this law will bring great havoc, dissention, and travail to America in the next few years.  Those that have ears to hear will hear what the Spirit of the Living God is telling them.  Those that have eyes to see will know that God is bringing these things to pass for the USA's foolish laws, judgments, and corrupt ideas.  

The head of the International Monetary Fund has told the BBC that it expects more countries to request financial aid to survive the global slowdown.  Iceland, Hungary and Ukraine were forced last year to appeal to the organization for aid.

Chile's Chaiten volcano, which erupted spectacularly last year, spewed a vast cloud of ash as well as gas and molten rock this week in a partial collapse of its cone, prompting a fresh evacuation.

A U.S. spacecraft toting the biggest camera ever sent into space will be launched next month to scour our region of the Milky Way galaxy for warm, rocky planets like Earth that may host life, NASA said.

Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research

Biotechnology companies are keeping university scientists from fully researching the effectiveness and environmental impact of the industry's genetically modified crops, according to an unusual complaint issued by a group of those scientists.

The statement will probably give support to critics of biotech crops, like environmental groups, who have long complained that the crops have not been studied thoroughly enough and could have unintended health and environmental consequences. The problem, the scientists say, is that farmers and other buyers of genetically engineered seeds have to sign an agreement meant to ensure that growers honor company patent rights and environmental regulations. But the agreements also prohibit growing the crops for research.

White House tries to end bank nationalization talk

WASHINGTON -The White House on Friday insisted it's not trying to take over two ailing financial institutions, even as stocks tumbled again. On Wall Street, talk of nationalization of Citigroup Inc., and Bank of America Corp., prompted investors to continue to balk, worried that the government would have to take control and wipe out shareholders in the process.  Citigroup fell 20 percent, while Bank of America fell 12 percent in afternoon trading but also came off their lowest levels.

"This administration continues to strongly believe that a privately held banking system is the correct way to go, ensuring that they are regulated sufficiently by this government," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said when asked about nationalizing the banks.  "That's been our belief for quite some time, and we continue to have that," Gibbs said.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Amnesty International and a pro-Tibet group voiced shock Friday after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed not to let human rights concerns hinder cooperation with China.

GM shares hit a low of $1.52 in early afternoon trading, before rebounding somewhat to close down 23 cents, or 11.5 percent, at $1.77. The low matched a record set on July 26, 1934, according to the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago.  On Tuesday, GM said it would need a total of $30 billion in federal aid in order to avoid filing for bankruptcy protection, up from a previous estimate of $18 billion and including $13.4 billion it has already received. It also said it would need to cut 47,000 jobs worldwide and close five more U.S. factories.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said the cost of rebuilding his country's economy and keep it from collapsing could run as high as $5bn U.S., or (3.5bn pounds).  The UN said more than 80,000 people had now been infected by Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak.  At least 3,759 people had died from the disease, the World Health Organization said.

Argentine farmers and cattle ranchers have begun four days of demonstrations and stoppages.  They also want to be allowed to export more meat, milk and wheat.  Their demands come as Argentina begins to feel the full force of the global downturn and the drop in demand for its agricultural products.  Vast swathes of Argentina's agricultural land have been affected by severe drought this year.  Wheat, soya and beef have been particularly badly hit.

February 22, 2009

Huge protest over Irish economy

About 100,000 people have taken part in protests in Dublin city centre to vent their anger at the Irish government's handling of the country's recession.  They oppose plans to impose a pension levy on 350,000 public sector workers. Reports say the plan could cost the 350,000 public sector workers between 1,500 euros and 2,800 euros (2,500 pounds) a year.  The government said it reflected the reality that we are not in a position to continue to meet the public service pay bill in the circumstances of declining revenue.

The Perilous State of Mexico

Mexico is waging a do-or-die battle with the world's most powerful drug cartels. Last year, some 6,000 people died in drug-related violence here, more than twice the number killed the previous year.  The dead included several dozen who were beheaded.  In growing parts of the country, drug gangs now extort businesses, setting up a parallel tax system that threatens the government monopoly on raising tax money.  In Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, handwritten signs pasted on schools warned teachers to hand over their Christmas bonuses or die.  The U.S. Justice Department said recently that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States," operating in at least 230 cities and towns.  Crimes connected to Mexican cartels are spreading across the Southwest. Phoenix had more than 370 kidnapping cases last year, turning it into the kidnapping capital of the U.S.  Most of the victims were illegal aliens or linked to the drugs trade.

Nineteen people are dead from a hepatitis outbreak in India.

February 24, 2009

Los Angeles, California, USA sheriff could free 4,000 inmates due to tight budget shortfall in that state. 

Two fires continue to burn near Melbourne, Australia.  Scores of people have fled their homes. 

Two feet of snow has fallen in many areas of New England leaving 80,000 homes without power.

AIG Insurance is asking the US government for another 150 billion dollars saying they need the money to survive.

Another report is stating the US government may have to nationalize some of its larger banks. 

LOS ANGELES Calif. U.S.A.  The head of the nation's largest sheriff's department is warning that nearly 4,000 jail inmates might be released early and about 600 deputy and professional positions could be eliminated to meet budget cuts.  Owing to the economic crisis, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department faces a $71 million cut to its $2.5 billion budget in the coming fiscal year.  Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca told The Associated Press on Monday it looks as if he'll have to close two jails.

Renewed financial concerns hit world markets.

LONDON: World stock markets fell Tuesday as hopes of a speedy fix for the US banking sector dissipated and pushed Wall Street to 12-year lows. Renewed fears about the capital position of some of the world's leading financial firms also weighed on sentiment.  Asian stocks fell sharply on Tuesday amid renewed fears over the health of the global financial sector and after US stocks hit a near 12-year low.

Lawmakers seek new U. S. gov't agency for food safety.  President Barack Obama's new agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, said he supports creating a single, combined food safety agency. It's a major break from his predecessors. "You can't have two systems and be able to reassure people you've got the job covered," Vilsack said.  Such a radical overhaul would be difficult. Many in the food industry have long opposed any changes, fearing increased oversight could cut into profits. Allies in Congress have resisted new laws.

(CNN) - Law enforcement officials arrested more than 500 people, and took custody of 48 juveniles in a coordinated 29-city weekend sweep aimed at combating child prostitution, the FBI announced Monday.  Task forces made up largely of state and local police officers arrested and booked what authorities said were 464 adult prostitutes, 55 pimps and 55 customers on state charges.  The four dozen juveniles were recovered in the third phase of Operation Cross Country, an initiative that seeks to help child prostitutes and crack down on people who control them and patronize them.  In the previous coordinated operations, authorities recovered 21 alleged child prostitutes last June and 47 in October.

Japan's exports plunged 45.7% in January compared with a year ago to hit the lowest figure in 10 years, official figures have shown.  Demand for Japanese cars in particular dropped by 69%. Trade in electronics and other goods has also slumped as global economies and consumer spending contract, pushing Japan deeper into recession.

Determined Obama vows to renew US, signs $787bn stimulus plan.  Speaking at a signing ceremony he said it was "the most sweeping recovery package in our history".  Obama's budget projects $1.75 trillion deficit this year.    

Some of the US's best-known retailers have reported slumps in profits for the three months to the end of January, as the recession begins to bite.  Thousands of retail stores and malls are expected to close by the end of 2009.  

The largest stingray ever found is dragged onboard a boat by 13 men.

General Motors posts $9.6B 4Q loss, burns through $6.2B of cash while seeking more government loans.

Scientists are stating America's Antarctica's western ice sheet is pushing ever faster into the sea.  They are saying they know an even greater long-term threat and damage to this world lies here in the vast, little-explored whiteness of east Antarctica.

667K new jobless claims; continuing claims top 5M.  WASHINGTON: New jobless claims rose more than expected last week and the number of laid-off Americans continuing to receive unemployment benefits topped 5.1 million, fresh evidence the recession is increasingly forcing employers to shed jobs.

February 27, 2009

India Hepatitis toll now stands at 45 people.

A new report is stating that even moderate amounts of alcohol in women can increase their chances of getting liver and other cancers.

A 3.3 earthquake has shaken part of Eastern Oklahoma, USA.

Economy shrinks at fastest pace in 26 years.

AP - The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, as consumers and businesses ratcheted back spending, plunging the country deeper into recession.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 13% place more trust in the judgment of the politicians. When it comes to important national issues, 73% of adults nationwide trust the judgment of the American people more than that of America's political leaders.

NEW YORK : The U.S. government will exchange up to $25 billion in emergency bailout money it provided Citigroup Inc. for as much as a 36 percent equity stake in the struggling bank.  The deal announced Friday - the third attempt at a rescue plan for Citigroup in the past five months is contingent on private investors also agreeing to a similar swap. The aim is to keep the New York bank holding company alive and bolster its capital as it faces growing losses amid the intensifying global recession.

WASHINGTON:  U. S. President Barack Obama delivered a $3.6 trillion budget blueprint to Congress Thursday that aims to "break from a troubled past," with expanded government activism, tax increases on affluent families and businesses, and spending cuts targeted at those he says profited from "an era of profound irresponsibility."

Jacob's House Comment,

The failed government system and policies of the USA will be revealed by God as being faulty and corrupt in the next few years.  Therefore, America will not be revived any time soon.  God is taking down America today before many multitudes of people's eyes.  Therefore, the leaders of America will continue to stumble and fall as they make more and more poor decisions in regards to the many problems they will be facing.  

AKARTA (AFP)-  Indonesian villagers have trapped and killed a fourth endangered Sumatran tiger amid a spate of tiger attacks blamed on illegal logging, according to environmental group WWF.  Four tigers and six people have been killed on Sumatra island this month, it said. "We learned on February 24 that another Sumatran tiger had been trapped and killed by villagers after it attacked two farmers on Sunday," WWF spokeswoman Syamsidar told AFP.  "This is the fourth tiger killed this month and we are concerned because it is a protected animal and an endangered species."

There are fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild and their increasing contact with people is a result of habitat loss due to deforestation, according to the wildlife group.

It said about 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of forest on Sumatra had been cleared in the past 22 years, a loss of nearly 50 percent island wide. The incidents in Riau occurred in an area dotted with pulp and oil palm plantations and recently subjected to burning to clear forests.

More than 200 schools have been closed in south-eastern Australia as the government warned of an intensified fire risk ahead of the weekend.  A lack of rain and a predicted change in wind has made conditions the most dangerous in recent weeks. Some people have already chosen to leave their homes.  More than 3,000 firefighters are still fighting major blazes following the 7 February firestorm that killed 210 people and left thousands homeless.  Temperatures are predicted to rise towards 40C (104F), accompanied by high winds and low humidity.

March 1, 2009

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -A mile-long avalanche near the Wyoming-Idaho state line swept three snowmobile riders to their deaths, authorities said Saturday.

China has passed a strict new food safety law, after a series of scandals involving food processing companies which killed several people.  At least 70 people have fallen ill in China after eating pork products contaminated with an illegal animal feed additive, state media report.  The tainted pig organs contained the drug clenbuterol, which is used to prevent animals gaining fat.  It is the latest in a series of food poisoning cases in China.

California U. S. A. declares drought emergency

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday declared a state emergency due to drought and said he would consider mandatory water rationing in the face of nearly $3 billion in economic losses from below-normal rainfall this year.  As many as 95,000 agricultural jobs will be lost, communities will be devastated and some growers in the most economically productive farm state simply are not able to plant, state officials said, calling the current drought the most expensive ever.

Schwarzenegger, eager to build controversial dams as well as more widely backed water recycling programs, called on cities to cut back water use or face the first ever mandatory state restrictions as soon as the end of the month.  "California faces its third consecutive year of drought and we must prepare for the worst. 

Free trade or protectionism?

An EU summit on the economy on 1 March will focus on the issue of protectionism dividing EU members. Does the economic crisis justify protectionist policies?  

EU leaders have begun an emergency summit in Brussels aimed at preventing the economic crisis from opening up a new east-west rift.  The summit was called after French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to bail out France's car industry if it pledged to keep jobs in France.

The US economy shrank by 6.2% in the last three months of 2008, official figures have shown, a far sharper fall than had previously been reported.  Plunging exports and the biggest fall in consumer spending in 28 years dragged the annualized figure down from an earlier estimate of 3.8%.

Jacob's House Comment

God recently told Jacob that the USA's problems could be solved within a few months if the US government would truly desire to completely close off its open borders.  God said if the US government would send all of the illegal immigrants that are now on American soil home, the country would experience a great revival and a surplus.  God told Jacob that many of the illegal immigrants that are on American soil today are heathens that do not know Him or His Son, Jesus.  They believe in false gods and practice evil and wickedness at every crooked turn in the road.  They are a burden to the states that take care of them with free welfare, free health care, free education, free hospitalization, and free places to live. They help to keep repentance silenced and a crying out for Him from occuring. 

However, God said the U. S. Government will never do these things because it is an oligarchy today.  For those who do not know what an oligarchy is it is a government where the ruling power belongs to a few persons who run a nation for their own profit, purpose, power, and gain.  Many nations around the world today are oligarchies with only the semblance of freedom.

See also our Lord God's Bible, Nehemiah 13:23-30, regarding strangers in the land.     

An Australian surfer has been attacked by a shark at a northern Sydney beach - the third such attack in as many weeks.  The teenager was said to be in a stable condition after suffering severe lacerations to his leg when surfing with his father at Avalon.

Fears of anarchy in Madagascar: The recent outbreak of political violence has left the people of Madagascar traumatized. Times here are tense, as Malagasy politics have spilled onto the streets of Antananarivo - and turned deadly - claiming the lives of more than 100 people since late January. 

The rioting and looting that has come with the latest outbreak has left most people shocked.  Many say no good can come of a popular movement that has disintegrated into a bungled coup attempt that could unleash anarchy on the streets of the capital.  Now, almost every day thousands of anti-government protesters gather to demand the removal of President Marc Ravalomanana. 

Zimbabwe Africa struggles with the world's highest inflation, food shortages and a cholera epidemic, which the World Health Organization says has killed 3,894 people since August last year.  There have been more than 84,000 reported cases, says the WHO.  More than half the population is believed to need food aid, while just 10% of adults have a regular job.  The country is close to systemic collapse as food shortages and hyperinflation continue to take their toll.  Mr. Mugabe marked his birthday with a cake reportedly weighing 85kg (187lb) Speaking at a rally to celebrate his 85th birthday, he also promised to push for majority Zimbabwean ownership of companies operating in the country.  Mugabe supporters raised $250,000 (176,000 pounds) for a lavish birthday party in Chinhoyi, north-west of Harare. Zimbabwe asked African states for $2bn (1.4bn pounds) in economic aid just days ago.

Jacob's House Comment

On this website our Lord God commented about the polarization that is already occurring between people today.  In the prophecy,"GOD TALKS ON POLARIZATION".

What follows are two paragraphs from this prophecy dated 5/18/08:

"Therefore, as I have shown you in My records of time and remembrance, a great polarization will continue to occur all over this world today.  It is already beginning to occur between the halves and the have-nots, and the rich and the poor.  This polarization will also occur between the hungry ones who have nothing, and the wealthy, rich and powerful ones, who are starving them out of existence today.  It will occur between the ones who have food on their tables and the ones who have no food at their disposal to eat.  This polarization will occur at a more rapid pace in the next few years of dread and drought. 

Therefore, soon a revolting stream of violence will take place in the inner cities that do not desire to speak My true words and faithfully mention My name.  For as I, the Lord God, have stated many times before, messenger and watchman Jacob, I have desired charity and brotherly love to take place all over this world.  However, I do not appreciate it when certain rich men try to use extortion, usury, corruption, bribery, and robbery to further their own gains.  I do not appreciate it when they try to pillage and destroy the poor and destitute ones who are under their care." 

British people have been "careless" with their civil liberties, but that is beginning to change, former shadow home affairs Minister David Davis has said. Speaking at the Convention on Modern Liberty on Saturday, Mr. Davis said people were growing increasingly angry at government intrusion in their lives.  More than 1,000 people joined the event in London and at venues across the UK.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered the army to take control of all rice processing plants in the country. Mr. Chavez accused some firms of overcharging by refusing to produce rice at prices set by the government.  He warned that some companies could be nationalized if they tried to interfere with supplies of the grain.

March 5, 2009

A thousand mile snowstorm across the US causes white out conditions in New England and many other Eastern states. 

UK Prime Minister and the US President are trying to team up to get the world back on track.  They are embracing free markets and trying to sort out the banking and housing mess in both countries. 

World Stock Markets are reeling from a US plunge recently.  The US stock market is at the lowest level in 12 years.  Unemployment could reach 10% soon. 

A woman in the US has lived for 50 hours, a record without having a functional liver. She finally received a transplant..

Ban on a type of prayer in school allowed to stand

WASHINGTON - Coach Marcus Borden used to bow his head and drop to one knee when his football team prayed. But the Supreme Court on Monday ended the practice when it refused to hear the high school coach's appeal of a school district ban on employees joining a student-led prayer.  The decision on the case from New Jersey could add another restriction on prayer in schools, advocates said.

"We've become so politically correct in terms of how we deal with religion that it's being pretty severely limited in schools right now, and individuals suffer," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties organization that focuses on First Amendment and religious freedom issues.

Toyota, the world's biggest carmaker has said it is seeking a state loan to help its car financing unit.  The company said Toyota Financial Services was in talks with the government-backed Japan Bank for International Co-operation.

Strong winds are ripping through the Australian state of Victoria, where four major bushfires are still burning.  Three thousand firefighters are battling the blazes and 2,000 more are on stand-by in case the gusts open up new fire fronts.  Almost 400 schools have been closed in the state and millions of text messages sent out warning of the fire danger.

Hopes of a sustained bounce in European stocks following Monday's heavy falls were dashed as markets fell away in mid-morning, wiping out early gains.

Insurance giant AIG has reported a loss of $61.7bn U.S. or (43bn pounds) in the final three months of 2008 - the largest quarterly loss in corporate history.

India's economy grew by less than expected in the last three months of 2008, official figures have shown.  The global recession has cut demand for exports, and economists are calling for further measures to boost growth.

President Barack Obama is sending his Treasury secretary and budget director to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to defend his proposed tax increases, which are being met with misgivings by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.  Lawmakers in both parties question Obama's call to reduce high-income earners' tax deductions for the interest on their house payments and for charitable contributions. Also drawing fire is his proposal to start taxing industries on their greenhouse gas pollution, a move sure to raise consumers' electric rates.

Feds unveil new plan to help 9 million U.S. borrowers stay in homes.

Now 1 in 5 American homeowners owe more than their homes are worth. 

U.S. private sector cuts 697,000 jobs in February.  It was the biggest job loss since the report's launch in 2001 and showed the misery of declining employment spreading broadly and evenly throughout the economy.

Jacob's House Comment,

 On this website our Lord God spoke about the birth pains this world would soon go through.  Our Lord God spoke about how He would decimate and destroy the evil, sin, and iniquity that He despised here before He would bring about His new and glorious day.  God spoke about the travail, misery, and trouble this world would go through in the next few seasons of time.  Therefore, God's recent words of prophecy to Jacob are already coming to pass today.

 See the Prophecy on this website called, "God Speaks About The Birth Pains This World Will Soon Go Through", words from God given to Jacob on 8/6/07.

 Excerpt from this prophecy:

This is also the time that I, the Lord God, have made for many rulers, judges, and princes to make many costly and deadly mistakes, servant of Mine.  Therefore, in the coming hours they will not be able to find their way out of the night visions and predetermined darkness that will come upon them in their thoughts and minds.  Instead, fearful contemplation, mismanagement, bad memories, and worry shall be their constant companion and bedfellow.  Order will not be seen in their hearts and minds.  Order will also not be heard in their dwelling places, or in the protected areas of their sanctuaries.  For as this present earth age begins to crumble and unravel before them, so shall they have no rock of the ages to stand upon, servant of Mine.  Instead, the safety and security I, the Lord God, have provided them with in the past will be gone. 

Soon many foolish men's and women's eyes will become as dim as the night windows that opened up their corrupt and damaged souls to total darkness.  For it is not unlike Me to challenge and remake this world called earth, servant of Mine.  In the past when it became too defiled I found a way to improve it and make it better from within.  When the time was right I also found someone like you to speak for Me.  I, the Lord God, then used this servant to tell this world how I would destroy it for its iniquity and take it down.   

Therefore, today I Am showing this world again how powerful I can be.  I Am showing this world I Am the Father, Creator, and Supreme God over everything I have made here. I Am showing this world I can change the stabilizers that support this earth.  Soon they will all fall away at My counsel and command.  Soon I, the Lord God, will show this world that I have the power to suspend time and motion here until My final work can be done."

Space rock makes close approach.  An asteroid which may be as big as a ten-storey building has passed close by the Earth, astronomers say. The gap was just 72,000 km (44,750 miles); a fifth of the distance between our planet and the Moon.  It is in the same size range as a rock which exploded over Siberia in 1908 with the force of 1,000 atomic bombs.

Jacob's House Comment,

God's signs and wonders abound to anyone who has eyes to see them today.  Our Father in heaven is closing down this earth age day by day and month by month. 

US car sales plunge in February.  Ford, General Motors, Toyota and Nissan have reported sharp drops in US vehicle sales as consumers remain reluctant to make expensive purchases. GM's sales plummeted 53% in February from a year earlier, Ford's fell 48%, Toyota's dropped 40% and Nissan's declined 37%.

Japan's parliament has passed legislation to give a cash hand-out to every resident in attempt to boost the recession-hit economy. Most people will get at least 12,000 yen ($121; or 86 pounds) under the $20bn plan.

AIG reports record $61.7bn loss.  The firm will receive an extra $30bn from the US government as part of a revamped rescue package.  AIG has already received $150bn in financial support - the biggest bail-out by far of any US company.

Climate change is already having an impact on European bird species, according to British scientists.  Some birds are expected to do well as temperatures rise, but these are in the minority, the researchers write. "Overall, the trend is towards net loss," said a spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which contributed to the study.

More than 1,500 Mexican troops have moved into a city on the US border being fought over by rival drug gangs.  Soldiers moved into Ciudad Juarez to try to regain control of a city in which more than 2,000 people have been murdered over the past year.

March 6, 2009

WASHINGTON - The nation's unemployment rate bolted to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs amid a deepening recession. Both figures were worse than analysts expected and the Labor Department's report shows America's workers being clobbered by a wave of layoffs unlikely to ease in the coming months.

The UK is seeing an explosion of diabetes linked to growing obesity rates, experts are warning.  From 1997 to 2003 there was a 74% rise in new cases of diabetes.  And by 2005, more than 4% of the population was classed as having diabetes - nearly double the rate of 10 years earlier.  The bulk of cases are type 2 diabetes which is linked to being overweight or obese. The findings suggest that rates of diabetes are increasing at a faster rate in the UK than they are in the US, where prevalence of the disease is already one of the highest in the world.

NEW YORK (AP) - General Motors Corp. shares fell to their lowest point in more than 75 years Friday, as investors fretted that the ailing automaker may be forced to file for bankruptcy protection despite government help. GM shares hit a low of $1.27 in late morning trading before rebounding to $1.49 in the afternoon.

President Barack Obama's $75 billion to homeowners goes into effect today, and not a moment too soon: More than 8.3 million U.S. mortgage holders are underwater, and another 2.2 million will similarly owe more on their mortgage than their homes are worth if prices fall another 5%.

As politicos bandy about the issue of banning bisphenol A (BPA), the hard-plastic additive that's been linked to a host of health problems, several companies have recently announced that they will banish it from their baby products.  Canada banned baby bottles with BPA last year and consumer advocates are pushing the U.S. to do the same in the wake of research that has linked the compound to heightened risks of heart disease, diabetes, and other ills.  BPA is a common ingredient in both food and household plastics as well as lining for canned goods and bottle caps. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not declared the chemical a health risk, but numerous studies have found evidence to the contrary.  Products are not required to list BPA as an ingredient, but current wisdom among concerned consumers is to avoid hard plastics when possible and to not heat them up (in a microwave or dishwasher), which increases the possibility that the chemical will leach into food or beverages.

(CNN) - The entire population of Taloga, Oklahoma, was evacuated Thursday because of a raging fire that has burned tens of thousands of acres, officials said Friday. ll of the residents, about 400, left the Dewey County town, but have been allowed back in, said Bill Challis with the fire department in Clinton, Oklahoma, south of Taloga. Clinton is among dozens of fire departments helping battle the blaze. Wildfires have been burning in northwest and central Oklahoma since Thursday, according to the state Department of Emergency Management.

 March 8, 2009

Obama to reverse stem cell policy.

U. S. President Obama will sign an executive order Monday lifting restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, which was banned by former President Bush for the last eight years.

Jacob's House Comment,

Our Lord God despises anyone who tries to come against His orderly realm of life and breath.  This signing by President Obama concerning stem-cell research is an abomination in God's eyes.  It will bring the United States more trouble, erratic weather, and travail that it has never experienced before. 

See God's Bible; Isaiah 59: 1-14 and Matthew 18: 5-7

An art exhibition opening in the Netherlands will allow people to call a telephone number designated for God - but they will have to leave a message.  Dubbed God's Hotline, it aims to focus attention on changes to the ways Dutch people perceive religion. Dutch artist Johan van der Dong chose a mobile phone number to show that God was available anywhere and anytime, Radio Netherlands reported.  Critics say the project mocks those with religious beliefs. Forming part of an art installation in the town of Groningen, the voicemail message says: "This is the voice of God, I am not able to speak to you at the moment, but please leave a message."

Jacob's House Comment,

This is another abomination that is devil inspired.  It has no relationship to the love, mercy, and beauty of our Lord God or His Son, Jesus.  Instead, it signifies man's impatience to believe and have faith in his own Creator.  It signifies man's self-centered and faulty nature, and the foolish desires of the heart he always craves.   

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military has announced that 12,000 American and 4,000 British troops will leave Iraq by September.  Maj. Gen. David Perkins says that will reduce U.S. combat power from 14 brigades to 12 brigades. He also said Sunday that the U.S. is turning over more facilities to the Iraqi military as part of the drawdown.

A senior US envoy involved in the first high-level contact between the US and Syria since 2005 has said the talks were "very constructive".  US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cited Syria's regional role.  Speaking in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Saturday, Mrs Clinton said that the importance of the Syrian-Israeli peace track "cannot be overstated".

March 11, 2009

Widespread damage is being reported from tornadoes and severe storms in 5 plains and Midwestern states in the US. 

The World bank is stating the global economy will shrink this year for the first time since World War II.

The Japanese Stock Market has fallen to 26 year lows. 

Indiana, USA has seen 2 dozen homes destroyed and dozens of others damaged by storms. 

Tent cities are now springing up all over America filled by homeless people who have lost their own homes and jobs.

Fifteen million new jobless people are being reported in China.  China cannot provide for all of its workers anymore. 

A new report is stating that 1 in 50 children in the US are now homeless.  This equals a total of about 1.5 million children today. 

Birds Unlimited bird seed is being recalled because of Salmonella poisoning found in it.

The USA Dakotas have seen 30 degree below zero temperatures.  Major flooding is also being seen in the Midwest US as many rivers are at flood stage.  The worst flooding in decades is being seen in Michigan and Indiana where evacuations have recently taken place. 

A new report is stating trace amounts of cancer causing chemicals are now being found in certain baby shampoos and lotions.  These chemicals are a probable cause of cancer, however, the US FDA say they are still safe.       

 The U. S. massive 410 billion spending measure supporting federal agencies through the fall contains nearly 8,000 pet projects, earmarked by sponsors though denounced by critics.

Jacob's House Comment,

The world's governments are filled with debt, corruption, bribes, and dishonesty.  They will not survive God's wrath and fury upon them in the next few years. 

Teen gunman kills self after slaying 15 in Germany.

WINNENDEN, Germany - A black-clad teenager opened fire at his former high school in southwestern Germany on Wednesday, gunning down students and teachers with a large-caliber pistol in a rampage that ended with 16 people, including the gunman, dead.  Nine of the dead were school children.

WASHINGTON - Warning that the global recession is deepening, the Obama administration on Wednesday.  He called on major U. S. allies to do their part and support strong stimulus programs to fight the downturn.  Secretary Timothy Geithner outlined an ambitious agenda, including a tenfold increase in the size of an emergency fund the International Monetary Fund uses to help countries in trouble to as much as $500 billion.

ATLANTA - A showdown is shaping up in some of the nation's most conservative states over embryonic stem cell research, as opponents draw language and tactics from the battle over abortion to counter President Barack Obama's plan to ease research restrictions.

Abortion opponents believe embryonic stem cell research is an assault on life in its earliest form. Fertilized embryos are destroyed when stem cells are extracted from them for research. "No one's right for a cure supersedes someone else's right to life," said Dan Becker, president of Georgia Right to Life.  Abortion opponents believe embryonic stem cell research is an assault on life in its earliest form. Fertilized embryos are destroyed when stem cells are extracted from them for research.

Civil war looms' in Madagascar.  The US ambassador to Madagascar has warned the country is heading for civil war after pro-opposition soldiers forced the army chief to resign.

Four people have been killed following an avalanche in the Savoie region of the French Alps, French media say.

A man who killed 10 people in a series of shootings in the US state of Alabama before killing himself, had drawn up a "hit list", officials have revealed. Michael McLendon, 28, burned down his house, before firing on homes, shops and vehicles in the towns of Samson and Kinston near the Florida border.  McLendon's victims included several members of his family and the wife and daughter of a local police officer.  "We found a list of people he worked with, people who had done him wrong," said Coffee County District Attorney Gary McAliley.

Jacob's House Comment,

In a prophesy, on this website, dated 8/2/07, our Lord God spoke to Jacob about what He was going to do to the nations.  Our God also spoke about how He was going to punish the Eagle and the other unruly nations that have truly offended Him today.  God spoke about the fact that violence, crime, diseases, and murders would increase sevenfold in the next few years.  Below is a paragraph from the Lord God's prophecy, entitled, GOD SPEAKS ABOUT HIS PLANS FOR THE EAGLE AND THE UNRULY NATIONS OF THIS WORLD.

Excerpt:

As this putrid eagle has truly offended Me today, so have many other unruly nations truly offended Me today.  They have refused the outstretched hands of My only Son, Jesus, servant Jacob.  Like the eagle they have taken a proud stance against Me, My commandments, and My straight ways of old.  Therefore, has their violence, crime, and their trouble increased.  Because they have decided to follow the eagle's mischievous and vile paths, now diseases, crime, and murders have increased seven fold within their borders.

Manufacturers in the UK cut jobs and output at a record pace in February, according to the latest Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI).  The PMI showed employment and output levels at their lowest since the survey began in 1992.

Chinese exports plunged by more than a quarter in February from a year ago as the world's third-largest economy was hit by a drop in demand for its goods.

 The world's youngest billionaires have lost nearly a third of their wealth, according to Forbes rich list.

March 13, 2009

China "worried" about US Treasury holdings. BEIJING -China's premier didn't say it in so many words, but the implied warning to Washington was blunt: Don't devalue the dollar through reckless spending.  China already is Washington's biggest foreign creditor, with an estimated $1 trillion in U.S. government debt. A weaker dollar would erode the value of those assets.

China is ready to introduce new economic stimulus measures "at any time", Premier Wen Jiabao has said.  Opening the annual session of the National People's Congress nine days ago, Mr Wen had said that this year would be the most difficult China has faced this century.

Austria smashes child porn ring

Austrian police say they have broken an internet child porn ring that spanned 170 countries and involved nearly 1,000 people, including teachers and doctors.  Police say they have charged nearly 190 men in Austria and confiscated 14,000 computers, drives and disks. The images showed naked children aged nine to 12 from the US and Paraguay.

March 15, 2009

A new report is stating that many people are putting their children in more daycare centers as they try to work longer hours and have two jobs. 

It is reported that 28% of people interviewed said they would do dishonest things to keep their current jobs. 

Obama to unveil proposals to help small businesses.

WASHINGTON - Amid misgivings over his spending blueprint, President Barack Obama has decided to provide billions of dollars in federal lending aid aimed at struggling small business owners.  The broad package of measures to be announced Monday includes $730 million from the stimulus plan that will immediately reduce small-business lending fees and increase the government guarantee on some Small Business Administration loans to 90 percent. The government also will take aggressive steps to boost bank liquidity with more than $10 billion aimed at unfreezing the secondary credit market.

US job prospects hit 27-year low.  US companies' expectations for hiring staff are at their lowest since the recession of 1982, a new survey says. More US workers lost jobs last year than in any year since World War II, with employers axing 2.6 million posts.

 President Barack Obama has said the US food safety system is a "public health hazard" and in need of an overhaul. Mr Obama cited a string of recent food safety scandals including a salmonella outbreak in peanut products this year that has been linked to nine deaths.

IS Deflation Possibly Near.

The last time deflation appeared was in the Depression. U.S. prices slid 32% from 1929 to 1933. Suddenly, many observers these days fear that the popping of the housing bubble, along with the financial crisis, could be pushing the U.S. toward a new deflationary era. The consumer-price index including food and energy dropped 0.8% for December, year over year, and was flat for January. When the February CPI is reported on Wednesday, many expect it to be flat or negative again. There are many economists who think deflation may be on the way, notably New York University's Nouriel Roubini and Merrill Lynch's David Rosenberg.  Of course, others such as Northern Trust's Paul Kasriel, argue that heavy federal spending by the Obama administration to jump-start the economy risks just the opposite, a vexing inflation. 

Deflation in the Depression was truly baleful because it fostered a falloff in demand, since consumers were leery to buy what would be cheaper in the future. And it punished debt holders, who had to pay fixed amounts even as the value of the underlying asset sunk. The same condition bedeviled Japan in the 1990s said Gary Shilling, an economist.

German factory output fell by a record 7.5% in January, its biggest drop since reunification in 1990. The world economy is likely to shrink for the first time in decades this year, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.

March 18, 2009

AIG Corporation is spending $165 million in bonuses for executives even after receiving $170 billion in bailout money from US taxpayers.  AIG is now 80% owned by the US taxpayers.

The AMA has said recently that 1 out of 10 Americans are now stressed out because of the poor US economy.  Many of them are not sleeping at night and fearful about their future.   They are popping prescription drug pills to cope with the times.

A new report is stating $600 billion was spent on the war in Iraq in the last 6 years since the USA declared war there.   Approximately 4,200 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the last 6 years, even though the US war with that nation was only supposed to last a few months.

Sri Lanka children 'being killed'

The conflict in Sri Lanka has killed hundreds of children and left many more injured, the United Nations' children's agency, Unicef, has said.  Moreover, thousands of children are at risk because of "a critical lack of food, water and medicines", the agency says.

Chernobyl 'shows insect decline'

Two decades after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, radiation is still causing a reduction in the numbers of insects and spiders.  According to researchers working in the exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl, there is a "strong signal of decline associated with the contamination". The team found that bumblebees, butterflies, grasshoppers, dragonflies and spiders were affected.

WASHINGTON - Under intense pressure from the Obama administration and Congress, the head of bailed-out insurance giant AIG declared Wednesday that some of the firm's executives have begun returning all or part of bonuses totaling $165 million.

Fed launches bold $1.2T effort to revive economy

WASHINGTON - With the country sinking deeper into recession, the Federal Reserve launched a bold $1.2 trillion effort Wednesday to lower rates on mortgages and other consumer debt, spur spending, and revive the economy. To do so, the Fed will spend up to $300 billion to buy long-term government bonds and an additional $750 billion in mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Strong quake near Tonga prompts tsunami warning.  NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga -A strong 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck Friday near Tonga, generating a tsunami with the potential of striking coastlines in the South Pacific, officials said. There were no immediate reports of damage.

WASHINGTON - Mortgage rates tumbled to historic lows Thursday after the Federal Reserve's sudden decision to print $1.2 trillion and pump it into the economy, a move that also triggered warning signs of inflation - a weaker dollar and the highest oil prices of the year.  The Fed announced Wednesday it would buy $750 billion in mortgage-backed securities  It will also double its purchases of debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to $200 billion.  Because spending that kind of money requires the Fed essentially to print money, it meant risking inflation - and on Thursday there were early indicators that was exactly what was happening.

The world economy is set to shrink by between 0.5% and 1.0% in 2009, the first global contraction in 60 years. In its gloomiest forecast yet, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that developed countries will suffer a "deep recession". The global economic body says "the prolonged financial crisis has battered global economic activity beyond what was previously anticipated". Just two months ago, the IMF predicted world output would increase by 0.5%.

Water - another global 'crisis'? If you look at the numbers, it is hard to see how many East African communities made it through the long drought of 2005 and 2006. Among people who study human development, it is a widely-held view that each person needs about 20 litres of water each day for the basics - to drink, cook and wash sufficiently to avoid disease transmission. Yet at the height of the East African drought, people were getting by on less than five litres a day - in some cases, less than one litre a day, enough for just three glasses of drinking water and nothing left over.

Volcano's dramatic blastAn undersea volcano is shooting smoke and ash thousands of feet into the air over the South Pacific.

LONDON - Chef Heston Blumenthal says a virus may have caused an outbreak of illness among diners at his Michelin-starred Fat Duck Restaurant, an Australian magazine reported Friday.  The restaurant near London was closed for more than two weeks after scores of diners reported bouts of diarrhea and vomiting.  It reopened last week after health inspectors ruled it was safe to do so. Several members of staff and customers had tested positive for norovirus, an easily transmitted bug known as "winter vomiting" disease.

A new report is stating over half of the US auto part suppliers could file for bankruptcy this year.  These suppliers are being strangled by production cuts from US auto makers.   

March 22, 2009

Police: Fourth Oakland police officer has died

OAKLAND, Calif. - An Oakland police officer shot during a traffic stop died Sunday, bringing to four the number of officers killed on the deadliest day in the department's history, police said.  Officer John Hege, 41, died at Highland Hospital after being gravely wounded in the first of two shootings on Saturday, Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason  A 26-year-old parolee wanted on a parole violation opened fire on Hege and 40-year-old Sgt. Mark Dunakin after they pulled him over Saturday afternoon, police said. Dunakin died that day. Hege was hospitalized with a major brain injury and survived through the night, his family said.  Suspect Lovelle Mixon was slain later Saturday afternoon in a gunfight with police that left two more officers dead. Thomason identified those officers as Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35. said.

Jacob's House Comment,

On this website in the prophecy entitled,"GOD EXPLAINS HIS OVERWHELMING AND CONSUMING POWER" dated 1/15/06, our Lord God spoke to Jacob about what would happen in the next few years.  God spoke about the new violence, woe, and travail that would be seen in the nations that have forgotten Him and His Son, Jesus.  This prophecy is already coming to pass as well as many more on this website.  Those who have eyes to see will see.  Those who have ears to hear will hear what our Living God is saying to them today.  For the time of judgment, trouble and trial is now upon the nations and cities of this world called earth. 

Excerpt from God's Consuming Power, dated 1/15/06:

Soon I will bring the low base people here a cup of worry, travail, woe, consternation, and grief they have never experienced before.  The overseers and governors who rule over them will also be perplexed and distressed as to My coming and My Son's second coming to this earth.  If they have not followed My truthful and righteous rules and laws, then they will not survive.  Instead, damaging earthquakes, whirlwinds, firestorms, disease, floods, and pestilence will overtake them.  It will enter into the dwelling places that are not covered by My Son's blood.  Soon travail, violence, and woe will become commonplace in the nations that have forgotten Me and My Son, Jesus.  Confusion and faintness of heart will become established in the roots of the family trees, which I abhor. 

Treasury's toxic asset plan could cost $1 trillion

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration's latest attempt to tackle the banking crisis and get loans flowing to families and businesses will create a new government entity, the Public-Private Investment Program, to help purchase as much as $1 trillion in toxic assets on banks' books.

Alert level raised for Alaska volcano

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Increased earthquake activity has prompted scientists to raise the alert level for Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano.  Geologists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory said Sunday that seismic activity had increased over the past two days. On Sunday morning, 40 to 50 earthquakes were being recorded every hour.  Scientists said conditions may evolve rapidly and culminated in an eruption within days to weeks at the volcano roughly 100 miles southwest of Anchorage.

March 24, 2009

WASHINGTON - Pointing with dismay to the AIG debacle, the nation's top economic officials argued Tuesday for unprecedented powers to regulate and even take over financial goliaths whose collapse could imperil the entire economy. President Barack Obama agreed and said he hoped "it doesn't take too long to convince Congress."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a rare joint appearance before a House committee, said the messy federal intervention into American International Group, an insurance giant, demonstrated a need to regulate complex nonbank financial institutions just as banks are now regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

New tremors at Alaska volcano spewing ash into sky

The state of Vermont is now legalizing same sex marriages.  This is the only state in the US to use the legislature instead of the courts to do this.

A new report is stating there is a 16% downturn in home sales in the southern US.

Another report is stating that melanoma skin cancer has risen 50% in recent years.  It is also being reported that computers at night are emitting carbon dioxide equivalent to 4 million cars.  

People are keeping their used cars longer than ever in the US.  They are now keeping them 4 years on average and there are more older cars on the road. 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - New tremors at Alaska's Mount Redoubt are prompting speculation that the volcano could be in a phase that will lead to more instability. The 10,200-foot volcano erupted six times Sunday and Monday, spewing clouds of gritty ash high into the sky.

US to boost Mexico border defense The US government is to increase security at the country's border with Mexico in an attempt to combat drug cartels, the White House has announced. Immigration, customs and anti-drug agents and gun law enforcement officers will be reinforced as part of a $700m (475m pounds) undertaking. Some 8,000 people have died in Mexico over the past two years amid bitter turf wars between rival drugs gangs. The south-west US has also seen rising violence and kidnappings.

Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, has cautioned against further significant government spending to stimulate the economy.

However there is now an average of 10 jobseekers for every vacancy advertised in UK jobcentres.

UK unemployment has risen above two million for the first time since 1997, official figures have shown. UK property sales between December and February remained at their lowest level in at least 31 years, the country's surveyors have reported.

China suggests switch from dollar

China's central bank has called for a new global reserve currency run by the International Monetary Fund to replace the US dollar.  Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan did not explicitly mention the dollar, but said the crisis showed the dangers of relying on one currency. With the world's largest currency reserves of $2tn, China is the biggest holder of dollar assets. Its leaders have often complained about the dollar's volatility. China has long been uneasy about relying on the dollar for trade and to store its reserves and recently expressed concerns that Washington's efforts to rescue the US economy could erode the value of the currency.

In race against river, Fargo pulls together

FARGO, N.D. - As the swelling Red River lapped within 30 feet of his back door, Carlis Kramer's property resembled nothing so much as a bustling construction site. In a well-ordered ballet, four people loaded sandbags, four others hauled them to the house and another person stacked them into a dike. This is how Fargo responds to the threat of record flooding: Hundreds of people from all walks of life have joined forces to shield the community from the rising river, racing to fill 2 million sandbags.

Call for Help: Postal chief says agency crashing

WASHINGTON - The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service will run out of money this year without help from Congress, Postmaster General John Potter warned on Wednesday. "We are facing losses of historic proportion. Our situation is critical," Potter told a House subcommittee.  The agency lost $2.8 billion last year and is looking at much larger losses this year said Potter, who is seeking congressional permission to reduce mail delivery from six days to five days a week.

EU presidency: US economic plans 'a road to hell

STRASBOURG, France -  The president of the European Union on Wednesday slammed U.S. plans to spend its way out of recession as "a road to hell." Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, told the European Parliament that President Barack Obama's massive stimulus package and banking bailout "will undermine the liquidity of the global financial market." A day after his government collapsed because of a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, Topolanek took the EU presidency on a collision course with Washington over how to deal with the global economic recession. Most European leaders say the focus should be on tighter financial regulation, while the U.S. is pushing for larger economic stimulus plans-  but nobody has so far escalated the rhetoric to such strident levels.  Topolanek's words are the strongest criticism so far from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from recent U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand.  he United States plans to spend heavily to try and lift its economy out of recession with a $787 billion economic stimulus plan of tax rebates, health and welfare benefits, as well as extra energy and infrastructure spending. To encourage banks to lend again, the government will also pump $1 trillion into the financial system by buying up treasury bonds and mortgage securities in an effort to clear some of the "toxic assets" devalued and untradeable assets from banks' balance sheets.  Topolanek, who will remain EU president until a new Czech government is established, bluntly said that "the United States did not take the right path.".

Jobless claims set new record; GDP down more in 4Q WASHINGTON.  For a 10th straight week, the number of people who are continuing to claim jobless benefits increased, fresh evidence that the labor market remains weak despite other hopeful signs that the recession may have bottomed out. New claims for unemployment benefits last week rose to a seasonally adjusted 652,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 644,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The total number of people claiming benefits jumped to 5.56 million, worse than economists' projections of 5.48 million, a ninth straight record and the highest total on records dating back to 1967.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is outlining far-reaching plans to reign in wall street and strengthen government authority over the US financial system.

Meantime a leading British economist has warned that the world could face five years of economic slowdown and a 10% decline in output.  DeAnne Julius, chairman of think tank Chatham House, said there was a 40% chance of such a lengthy slowdown.

Drug violence: Views from Mexico.  Drug involved gang killings in Mexico claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people last year and around 1,000 so far this year. The drug cartels are fighting both one another for control of trafficking routes into the US, and the police and troops sent to.

Japan's exports saw a record plunge in February, falling by nearly half compared with a year earlier, according to the country's finance ministry. hrink by 9% during 2009, according to a forecast by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Hardest hit will be developed nations, where trade is set to fall 10%. Poorer countries will see exports fall 2-3%.

March 28, 2009

"Small tsunami" kills 52 after Indonesia dam breaks

A new report is stating that 1 in 7 Americans will have Alzheimer's disease by the time they reach the age of 65.

Seven states in the US are reporting double digit unemployment rates.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A wall of water from a burst dam killed 52 people on the outskirts of the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Friday, crashing into hundreds of homes while many residents slept, officials said.  While landslides and floods are common during the rainy season in Indonesia, the latest disaster was probably caused by torrential rain and poor maintenance, some officials said, reflecting years of under-investment in much of the country's crucial infrastructure.

CHICAGO - The lights are going down from the Great Pyramids to the Acropolis, the Eiffel Tower to Sears Tower, as more than 2,800 municipalities in 84 countries plan Saturday to mark the second worldwide Earth Hour.  McDonald's will even soften the yellow glow from some Golden Arches as part of the time zone-by-time zone plan to dim nonessential lights between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. to highlight global climate change. "Earth Hour makes a powerful statement that the world is going to solve this problem," said Carter Roberts, chief executive of the World Wildlife Fund, which sponsors Earth Hour. "Everyone is realizing the enormous effect that climate change will have on them."

March 29, 2009

FARGO, N.D. - The Red River rose to a 112-year high early Friday, breaching a dike south of downtown and forcing authorities to order the evacuations of about 150 homes.  The river had risen to 40.32 feet early Friday, more than 22 feet above flood stage and inches more than the previous high water mark of 40.1 feet set April 7, 1897.

 FARGO, N.D. - The bloated Red River briefly breached a dike early Sunday, pouring water into a school campus and the mayor called it a "wakeup call" for a city that needs to be vigilant for weaknesses in levees that could give way at any time. Crews managed to largely contain the flooding to the campus of Oak Grove Lutheran, preventing more widespread damage in nearby areas. "The campus is basically devastated. They fought the good fight. They lost and there's nothing wrong with that," Mayor Dennis Walaker said. By early Sunday, the Red River had dropped to 40.15 feet, still more than 22 feet above flood stage. Water already has forced hundreds of residents in the Fargo area from their homes and submerged basements and yards in an untold number of houses along the river.  Emergency crews using boats had to rescue about 150 people from their homes in neighboring communities in Minnesota, where about 20 percent of households in Moorhead had been urged to leave.

Bands of spring storms also lashed the Southeast with thunderstorms, baseball-sized hail, flash floods and tornado watches and warnings.  The region was still reeling from twisters over the past two days. On Thursday, nearly 30 people were hurt when a tornado destroyed dozens of homes and businesses across south-central Mississippi. On Friday, tornadoes struck Louisiana, Alabama and North Carolina, damaging homes and toppling trees.  Strong winds Saturday damaged roofs and windows and sent debris flying in Murfreesboro, Tenn., the state emergency management agency said. Three people were injured and treated at the scene.  Severe thunderstorms tore off roofs and downed trees and power lines in Corydon in western Kentucky.  About 100 roads in southern Mississippi were impassable at the height of the bad weather because of flooding, including the main route into Biloxi, Harrison County Emergency Management  More than 200 homes in the Biloxi area sustained flood damage and two roads sustained major pavement washouts, Lacy said. Director Rupert Lacy said. Some residents had to be rescued from stalled cars in flood waters.

 A new report is stating Texas teachers will no longer have to discuss weaknesses in the evolution theory.  Many scientists are saying that the discussion of the weaknesses in evolution has helped Creationists.  They say this should no longer be allowed in teachers' classrooms. 

U.S. President Obama to meet bank CEOs to discuss economic crisis

WASHINGTON (Reuters)- President Barack Obama will quiz top U.S. bankers on Friday about developments in the economy and their businesses as his administration seeks broader authority to regulate the financial system.  Obama, who will pitch his plans to combat global recession and reform regulation at next week's G20 meeting of major economies, is set to host leaders of the biggest U.S. financial institutions at the White House around noon EDT.  The meeting will come just days after the U.S. Treasury Department provided details on a government plan to cleanse banks' balance sheets of up to $1 trillion in distressed loans and securities.

Storms sow snow, thunder from Plains to South

KANSAS CITY, Mo.-  Storms spread misery Saturday from the Great Plains to the Gulf Coast, dumping spring snow that cut power to thousands of Kansas utility customers and spawning tornado warnings and heavy rain across the South. Bands of spring storms also lashed the Southeast with thunderstorms, baseball-sized hail, flash floods and tornado watches and warnings. The region was still reeling from twisters over the past two days. On Thursday, nearly 30 people were hurt when a tornado destroyed dozens of homes and businesses across south-central Mississippi. On Friday, tornadoes struck Louisiana, Alabama and North Carolina, damaging homes and toppling trees. Strong winds Saturday damaged roofs and windows and sent debris flying in Murfreesboro, Tenn., the state emergency management agency said. Three people were injured and treated at the scene. Severe thunderstorms tore off roofs and downed trees and power lines in Corydon in western Kentucky. About 100 roads in southern Mississippi were impassable at the height of the bad weather because of flooding, including the main route into Biloxi, Harrison County Emergency Management Director Rupert Lacy said. Some residents had to be rescued from stalled cars in flood waters. More than 200 homes in the Biloxi area sustained flood damage and two roads sustained major pavement washouts, Lacy said.

Jacob's House Comments,

As good Christians we should be aware of the fact that God is now in the process of closing down this filthy and corrupt earth age.  The following Bible verses from our Lord tell us what we should try to accomplish in these trying and troubling times. 

KJV 1 Thessalonians 5:1-23

1.  But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

2.  For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

 3.  For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

 4.  But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

 5.  Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

 6.  Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

 7.  For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

 8.  But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

 9.  For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

 10.  Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

 11.  Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.

 12.  And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;

 13.  And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves.

 14.  Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.

 15.  See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.

 16.  Rejoice evermore.

 17.  Pray without ceasing.

 18.  In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

 19.  Quench not the Spirit.

 20.  Despise not prophesyings.

 21.  Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

 22.  Abstain from all appearance of evil.

 23.  And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

March 30, 2009

Flooding in Fargo eases but winter storm moves in.

FARGO, N.D. - Just as the Red River began retreating from Fargo's hastily fortified sandbag levees, the city's tired residents stared down a winter storm Monday expected to bring a half-foot of snow, powerful gusts and wind-whipped waves.  The snowfall itself was not expected to worsen the flooding, but engineers were worried waves could crash against the levees, further weakening them. The snow is more of a concern in the southern part of the state, where some towns could have blizzard conditions and receive up to 14 inches.

A powerful storm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania reduces several homes to rubble. 

Police: Gunman's ex-wife worked at nursing home.  CARTHAGE, N.C. - Police are looking into whether a gunman accused of killing eight people in a North Carolina nursing home may have targeted the facility because his estranged wife worked there. Police say 45-year-old Robert Stewart killed seven residents and a nurse at the Pinelake Health and Rehab center and wounded three other people.

U. S. White House questions viability of GM and Chrysler. WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is sending a blunt message to Detroit automakers: To survive - and win more government help- they must remake themselves top to bottom. Driving home the point, the White House ousted the General Motors chairman as it rejected GM and Chrysler's restructuring plans.

A tornado has killed 10 people in India. 

Moody's has reported uncollected credit card debt has now reached 8.8%, a new record.

Evolution study focuses on snail.  Members of the public across Europe are being asked to look in their gardens or local green spaces for banded snails as part of a UK-led evolutionary study. Scientists believe the research could show how the creatures have evolved in the past 40 years to reflect changes in temperature and their predators.

 Life: A medical condition. Ten per cent of British children are regarded as having a clinically recognizable mental disorder, 34 million prescriptions for anti-depressants were written in the UK in 2007, while it is estimated that 10% of US children take Ritalin to combat behavior problems.  Dr Tim Kendall, Joint Director of the National Collaboration Centre for Mental Health and a key government adviser is deeply concerned at what he sees as a medicalisation of a vast swathe of society.

Defaults on home mortgages insured by the FHA in February climbed from a year earlier, while 7.5% of FHA loans were seriously delinquent, up from 6.2%

April 1, 2009

US home price drops set records in Jan.WASHINGTON- Home prices sank by the sharpest annual rate on record in January, and the pace continues to accelerate, but there were a handful battered metro areas where price declines slowed, according to data released Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 major cities tumbled by a record 19 percent from January 2008. It was the largest decline since the index started in 2000. The 10-city index dropped 19.4 percent, also a new record. All 20 cities in the report showed monthly and annual price declines, with 13 posting new annual records. Prices dropped by more than 10 percent in 14 cities.

FDA says to avoid pistachios amid salmonella scare.  FRESNO, Calif. - Federal food officials are warning people not to eat any food containing pistachios because of possible contamination by salmonella, in another food scare sure to rattle consumers already upset by the contamination of peanuts with the same bacteria.  The Food and Drug Administration said central California-based Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., the nation's second-largest pistachio processor, was voluntarily recalling more than 2 million pounds of its roasted nuts shipped since last fall.

DETROIT - General Motors Corp.'s new chief executive said Tuesday that more of the automaker's plants could close as part of GM's effort to meet new, tougher requirements for government aid World Bank warns of deep slowdown.

The World Bank says the world economy will contract by 1.7% this year, the first decline since World War II.  The Bank says that the world's richest countries will contract by 3%, while world trade will fall by 6.8%.  Developing countries will grow by 2.1%, half the forecast six months ago, and some areas will fall into recession.

Public 'backs economic reforms'.  More than 70% of people in 29 countries think major changes are needed in the way the global economy is run.  Nearly two thirds - 62% - of the public say the downturn has negatively affected them, and half say the downturn will last more than two years.  There is also broad support for reform of domestic economic policy.  The survey was conducted by GlobeScan along with the University of Maryland.

U.S. private sector axes 742,000 jobs in March.  "It's a terrible number. It is almost a loss of three quarters of a million jobs which is possibly the highest we have seen so far over the length of this crisis," said Matt Esteve, foreign exchange trader with Tempus Consulting in Washington.

Earth population 'exceeds limits'.  There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government. Nina Fedoroff told the BBC One Planet programmer that humans had exceeded the Earth's "limits of sustainability". "We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people." She stressed the need for humans to become much better at managing "wild lands", and in particular water supplies. Current world population - 6.8bn

Net growth per day - 218,030, Forecast made for 2040 - 9bn

The forest fires that flared unusually viciously in many of Nepal's national parks and conserved areas this dry season have left conservationists worrying if climate change played a role.  At least four protected areas were on fire for an unusually long time until just a few days ago.  Nasa's satellite imagery showed most of the big fires were in and around the national parks along the country's northern areas bordering Tibet.

Unemployment across the eurozone rose to its highest level in almost three years in February as the economic downturn continues to tighten its grip. The jobless rate across the 16 nations that share the euro rose to 8.5%, or 13.47 million, up from 8.3% in January, official figures show.  The rate across the wider European Union rose to 7.9% from 7.7%, which equates to 19.16 million unemployed.

Japan's February exports halved. The world's second-largest economy is suffering in the downturn as demand for its products has collapsed.

 April 3, 2009

Jobless rate bolts to 8.5 percent, 663K jobs lost. If part-time and discouraged workers are factored in, the unemployment rate would have been 15.6 percent in March, the highest on record dating to 1994, according to Labor Department data released Friday. The average work week in March dropped to 33.2 hours, a new record low. Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 5.1 million jobs, with almost two-thirds of the losses occurring in the last five months.

A record 32 million Americans are now on food stamps in the US.

DES MOINES, Iowa - Iowa's Supreme Court unanimously struck down the state's gay marriage ban on Friday, making Iowa the third state where same-sex couples can tie the knot.  In its decision, the court upheld a 2007 district court judge's ruling that the law violates the state constitution. It strikes the language from Iowa code limiting marriage to only between a man a woman.

Scientists have created an ideal colleague - a robot that performs hundreds of repetitive experiments. The UK-based team that built Adam at Aberystwyth University describes the breakthrough in the journal Science. "Adam is a prototype but, in 10-20 years, I think machines like this could be commonly used in laboratories," said Professor King. The same team is developing another, more advanced robot scientist called Eve, which is designed to screen new drugs.

One in 10 Americans now getting government help to buy food. WASHINGTON (Reuters)- A record 32.2 million people - one in every 10 Americans - received food stamps at the latest count, the government said on Thursday, a reflection of the recession now in its 16th month. Food stamp enrollment rose in 46 of the 50 states during January as the national total rose by 580,000 people.

April 5, 2009

Families of NY shooting victims begin to bury dead. BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -People will begin to bury their loved ones Sunday, two days after a gunman burst into an immigrant center and murdered 13 people before killing himself.  Police are still reaching around the globe to notify families of those killed by 41-year-old Jiverly Wong, who was apparently upset about losing his job at a vacuum plant and about people picking on him for his limited English.

Murder of 5 children shocks Wash. trailer park. GRAHAM, Wash. - A quiet mobile home park nestled among towering evergreens reeled Sunday in the aftermath of an unthinkable crime: five children slain in their own home, apparently by their father, who took his own life with a gun, miles away.  "How could something like this happen?" asked Mary Ripplinger, whose kids were playmates of the slain children. "Everyone's asking: Why did he do it? It's not right."

Gunman kills 3 Pittsburgh officers in shootout. PITTSBURGH- A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and armed with an assault rifle held police at bay for hours as their fallen officers were left bleeding nearby, their colleagues unable to reach them.  When it was over four hours later, three officers were dead and more than 100 rounds had been fired by SWAT teams and the gunman on the quiet Pittsburgh street, police said.  Saturday's slayings occurred just two weeks after four police officers were fatally shot in Oakland, Calif., in the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001.

Jacob's House Comment

The violence and murders you are seeing today in the USA and other nations today are because the leaders in these nations have forgotten the principles, commandments, and laws of God.  Therefore, only by repenting can the people of the USA and other nations be saved from the devastation, violence, disease, evil, and murders to come.  Forsaking God will bring the USA and other nations today misery and turmoil they have never experienced before.  These things are already beginning to occur all over this world.  See Revelation chapter 9, verses 15-21. 

Excerpt 20-21 from Revelation 9:

20 And the rest of the men that were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood; which neither can see, or hear, nor walk:

21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.   

Roman police find sewer children.  Italian police have found more than 100 immigrants, including 24 Afghan children, living in the sewer system beneath railway stations in Rome. The children range in age from 10 to 15 years and are now being looked after by the city's social services.  They were found when the railway police followed up reports of children living near the city's stations.  The police say they do not speak Italian and broke into the sewers by removing manhole covers.  The charity Save the Children Italy says that more than 1,000 unaccompanied children arrived in Rome last year from various countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Walt Disney has announced it is laying off 1900 people at its theme parks because it is bracing for a long economic downturn. 

April 6, 2009

Italy quake has killed 260, about a hundred in serious condition. Some people still missing government says.  L'AQUILA, Italy - A strong aftershock sent firefighters and rescuers scrambling Tuesday morning from a collapsed dormitory where they have been working frantically to find university students trapped by the powerful earthquake that devastated this central Italian city. The magnitide-6.3 quake struck the central Italian city of L'Aquila and surrounding villages early Monday, leveling buildings and reducing entire blocks to a pile of rubble and dust. As rescue teams pressed ahead with their searches in the crumbled buildings, some of the almost 28,000 left homeless emerged from tent camps after spending a second night in chilly mountain temperatures.  Since the quake early Monday, some 430 aftershocks have rumbled through the area, including some strong ones.

A new US report is stating that 48 people have been killed in shooting rampages in the last 7 months.  These deadly shootings are appearing all over the US.    

Arctic ice shows winter thinning.  Arctic ice reached a larger maximum area this winter than in the last few years, scientists say, but the long-term trend still shows it declining.  The 30-year trend shows the maximum annual sea-ice cover, usually seen in March, is shrinking by 2.7% per decade. Only 10% of the cover consists of relatively durable ice that has formed over more than two years, a record low. Scientists from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), say the thin ice is prone to summer melting. Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'.  Meanwhile, US scientists predict arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'. Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.  One Antarctic ice shelf has quickly vanished, another is disappearing and glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought due to climate change, U.S. and British government researchers reported recently.

Police: Car bomb in Shiite area of Baghdad kills 9. BAGHDAD - A car bomb in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad killed at least nine people and wounded 18 others on Tuesday, a day after a deadly wave of bombings swept the Iraqi capital and raised concerns that Iraqi forces were ill-prepared to secure the city as U.S. troops thin out. 

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A quarter of the world's companies, and 40 percent in the United States, plan to freeze salaries this year, but employees in South America and India can look forward to robust rises, a global survey shows on Tuesday.

It is being reported in the US that 33 police officers were killed in the line of duty so far this year. 

A new report is stating all raw and roasted nuts are being recalled from a California processing plant. 

A deadly snow storm in Michigan, U.S.A. kills 4 people. 

Mortgage fraud rescue scams in the US are up 2100% in the last few months.  About 550 cases of corporate fraud from recent financial crisis. 

Tornadoes have damaged towns in Texarkana, Central Tennessee, South Central Louisiana, and Arkansas.  Mena Arkansas has seen 3 people die and dozens of people injured from tornadoes.

Trust in US banks has declined to low levels recently.  However, a slight rise in trust is being recorded in the US stock market.  The government intervention is partly to blame. 

US life insurers are now in trouble because of the toxic assets they bought a few years ago.  US government tarp money will be given to them to keep them solvent.

A new report is stating that US vacancies in strip malls are now up to 9%.   

 WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The spies came from China, RussiaU.S. electrical system and its controls, the newspaper said, citing current and former U.S. national security officials. The intruders have not sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure so far, but officials said they could try to do so during a crisis or war.

TEMECULA, Calif. - A gunman opened fire at a remote Korean Christian retreat center Tuesday night, leaving one person dead and at least three people injured, authorities said. The retreat is one of four U.S. branches of the Kkottongnae Brothers and Sisters of Jesus, a Roman Catholic organization dedicated to serving the poor and homeless. It was founded in the city of Cheongju, South Korea, by Father Oh Woong Jin in 1976.

The European Commission will unveil a new strategy later on Wednesday to revive the fish farming industry.  At a time when stocks of some species of fish in the world's oceans are dangerously low, the authorities in Brussels are concerned that Europe's aquaculture sector has stagnated.

Jacob's House Comment,

Our Lord God is showing this world with all of the dead and dying fish that very few people will be invited to attend the wedding our God is planning for His Son, Jesus, and the bride.  The dead and dying fish around this world are a sign and a symbol that very few people know our Creator and have love for Him in today's world.  Therefore, they will soon die like these fish are dying today.

Salmon farm escapes 'decreasing'. The number of salmon escaping from Scottish fish farms into the wild has halved, according to the Scottish Salmon Producers' Organization (SSPO). A ministerial group is due to be told that 157,000 fish escaped last year compared with about 300,000 in 2002.  Environmentalists and anglers have warned that wild salmon are being weakened genetically by escaped farmed fish.

New claims of poor wild salmon season in Scotland. Anglers in Lewis and Harris have been reporting one of their worst ever seasons for wild salmon. Numbers have fallen dramatically and some observers said they have never known the salmon to be so small. Former gamekeeper Donald MacDonald said the poor season could be due to a lack of food. Mr MacDonald said: "It is an extremely bad year not only here but throughout Scotland, I understand."  He said the size of the fish was causing concern. "We are talking of fish of 1lb in weight and that has never been heard of before.  "The numbers are down as well.  It looks to me personally as if it's starvation."

Americas on alert for sea level rise.  Climate change experts in North and South America are increasingly worried by the potentially devastating implications of higher estimates for possible sea level rises.  The AmericasVietnam or Bangladesh. But the increase in the ranges for anticipated sea level rises presented at a meeting of scientists in Copenhagen in March has alarmed observers in the region.  Parts of the Caribbean, Mexico, and Ecuador are seen as most at risk. New York City and southern parts of Florida are also thought to be particularly vulnerable. have until now been seen as less vulnerable than other parts of the world like low-lying Pacific islands,

An 8,000 acre wild fire in the Texas panhandle has damaged homes and killed cattle there. 

Butterflies hit by damp summers. The torrential rain of recent summers has hit the UK butterfly population hard, say conservationists.  Numbers are at a new low according to data from the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, and the miserable British weather is said to be a key factor. Wet conditions limit the insects' ability to fly and find food, and also hamper the creatures' breeding success. Butterfly Conservation says that for 12 species, 2008 was their worst year since records began in the mid-1970s.

Jacob's House Comment

Again it is evident that our Lord God is showing how defiled and sinful this world has become today.  Our God is showing us that many species of plants and animals are dying out because we have sinned and we have forsaken our Creator for the temporary and superficial riches of this world.  These things will continue to happen in ever increasing amounts as the next few seasons of time unfold.  Then shall the second coming of God's Son, Jesus, be evident in all of His glorious splendor.    

UK biodiversity still in decline. The latest update shows that many bird and bug species are still disappearing from the UK.  An abundance of farmland birds and seabirds had changed from orange to red, and that the area of sensitive habitats threatened by acid rain had moved from green to orange. The bordered gothic moth has already disappeared from the UK.   Six species on the BAP list have been lost from the UK since 1994."We urgently need a boost of resources in a new Green Deal before we cause irreversible damage to Britain's fragile habitats," said Matt Shardlow, director of Buglife.

PRICEVILLE, Ala. - A man who police say shot and killed his estranged wife, their daughter and two other relatives before burning down his house and committing suicide on the eve of their divorce trial gave no hints of the mayhem to come, police and court officials said.

APRIL 11, 2009

AP IMPACT: Chinese drywall poses potential risks.  PARKLAND, Fla. - At the height of the U.S. housing boom, when building materials were in short supply, American construction companies used millions of pounds of Chinese-made drywall because it was abundant and cheap. Now that decision is haunting hundreds of homeowners and apartment dwellers who are concerned that the wallboard gives off fumes that can corrode copper pipes, blacken jewelry and silverware, and possibly sicken people.

Shipping records reviewed by The Associated Press indicate that imports of potentially tainted Chinese building materials exceeded 500 million pounds during a four-year period of soaring home prices. The drywall may have been used in more than 100,000 homes rebuilt since Hurricane Katrina, according to some estimates. "This is a traumatic problem of extraordinary proportions," said U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat who introduced a bill in the House calling for a temporary ban on the Chinese-made imports until more is known about their chemical makeup. Similar legislation has been proposed in the Senate.  The drywall apparently causes a chemical reaction that gives off a rotten-egg stench, which grows worse with heat and humidity.

Rain hope for US wildfire states. Heavy rain this weekend could bring relief to parts of the southern US hit by wildfires, forecasters say.  The blazes have killed three people and destroyed hundreds of homes in Texas and Oklahoma since they ignited on Thursday. They were fanned by high winds, part of a storm system that has also triggered deadly tornadoes in Tennessee and Arkansas. At least five people died and about 70 were hurt in two separate tornadoes.

LA wildfire fight makes progress. Firefighters in southern California, aided by better weather conditions, have contained a number of wildfires that have been burning for two days.  However, the biggest of the blazes, in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, has spread west towards Ventura County.  The fires destroyed dozens of houses and forced thousands of people to flee. The hot winds that sweep through southern California every year at this time helped the flames spread quickly. The fires have claimed at least two lives.

Storm system ravages southern US. Tornadoes and wildfires fuelled by strong winds have caused widespread power outages and destruction in the South and Midwest, leaving at least eight people dead. The storms killed two people in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on Friday and three in the small Arkansas town of Mena on Thursday night. Wildfires in TexasOklahoma declared a state of emergency in more than 30 counties after fires destroyed more than 100 homes. However, heavy rain this weekend could bring relief to parts of the southern US hit by wildfires, forecasters say. killed at least three people.

Jacob's House Comment,

It is clear and evident that our Lord God is changing this world today.  Our God is punishing the areas of this world He dislikes with devastating weather, violence, evil, and destruction.  These things will increase as God's new day and new righteous time begins.  However, before God's new day and righteous time the curse will go door to door.  It will destroy the people inside the houses that have refused God's offer of mercy, reconciliation, and love.  It will destroy the entire house if they have refused Him and ridiculed His only Son, Jesus. 

Nigeria oil unrest 'kills 1,000'. Violence in Nigeria's oil region left 1,000 people dead and cost $24bn (16 pounds) last year, a report says, according to an official and activist.

WASHINGTON -Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials. The spies came from China, RussiaU.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

April 12, 2009

The Peanut Corporation of America has been closed after contaminants were found in the building.  Texas has imposed a $14 million fine against them.

Drug cartels from Mexico are now coming to Atlanta, Georgia to set up shop.  The USA's policy of open emigration is to blame. 

Harris Teeter Markets are recalling their brand of pistachio nuts because of Salmonella problems in them.

April 15, 2009

US government gives General Motors until June 15 to file for bankruptcy.  The government wants this carmaker to keep its most profitable assets and sell its unprofitable ones. 

Raging wild fires in Texas burn thousands of acres. 

 Italy earthquake reconstruction will cost U.S.16 billion.  ROME - The region in central Italy ravaged by an earthquake more than a week ago will need at least euro12 billion (about $16 billion) for rebuilding, the country's interior minister  As some children started going back to school, experts were assessing the damage at buildings that were still standing. Prosecutors were investigating alleged shoddy construction in the area.

US consumer prices fall in March.  March's fall meant consumer prices were down 0.4% from a year ago, the first annual decline since 1955. Some economists have expressed fears the recession could trigger a prolonged period of falling prices, known as deflation. But others worry that the measures the US government and Federal Reserve have taken to fight the financial crisis could lead to soaring inflation in the long term.

US housing starts at 50-year low.  The rate of construction of new homes in the US fell by 16.8% in January to hit a 50-year low, official statistics have shown. Starts were down 56.2% from January 2008 and permits down 50.5%. The January rate was the lowest since the Commerce Department started keeping records in 1959.

The US Federal Reserve says it will buy almost $1.2 trillion (843bn pounds) worth of mortgage related debt to help boost lending and promote an economic recovery. The Bank of England has already begun buying government debt to expand the money supply - known as quantitative easing.

Widespread die-off of pinyon pine across the southwestern United States during future droughts will occur at least five times faster if climate warms by 4 degrees Celsius, even if future droughts are no worse than droughts of the past century, scientists have discovered.

Drought threatens Iraq's `Garden of Eden'. A severe drought is threatening Iraq's southern marshes, the traditional site of the biblical Garden of Eden, just as the region was recovering from Saddam Hussein's draining of its lakes and swamps to punish a political rebellion.  Marshes that were coming back to life a few years ago with U.N. help are again little more than vast expanses of cracked earth. The area's thousands of inhabitants, known as Marsh Arabs, are victims of the debilitating drought that has ravaged much of Iraq and neighboring countries in the last two years.

Farm aid to West is depleting vital water.  FRESNO, Calif.  As drought forces families in the West to shorten their showers and let their lawns turn brown, two Depression-era government programs have been paying some of the nation's biggest farms hundreds of millions of dollars to grow water-thirsty crops in what was once desert.

Records obtained by The Associated Press show that the federal government handed out more than $687 million in subsidies over the past two years to hundreds of farmers in California and Arizona, the most seriously drought-stricken states in the West. One program pays farmers for planting water-needy crops such as cotton and rice, which are largely grown by flooding the fields. The other provides cut-rate water for irrigation.

ATWATER, Calif. - Beekeepers who are battling a mysterious ailment that led to the disappearance of millions of honeybees now fear the sting of imported Australian bees that they worry could out compete their hives and might carry a deadly parasite unseen in the United States.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed shipments of Australian bees to resume despite concerns by some of its own scientists.

Australia had been air freighting the insects across the Pacific for four years to replace hives devastated by the perplexing colony collapse disorder. But six weeks ago the Australian government abruptly stopped the shipments, saying it could no longer be certain the hives were free of a smaller, aggressive bee that has infested areas near the Great Barrier Reef, U.S.Mandan, N.D., says he fears the foreign hives could kill off his apiary. "We've got enough problems with our own bee diseases that we don't know how to treat, and they open the border to a whole new species that could carry God knows what," said Haff, a vice president of the American Honey Producers Association. "That's a total slap in the face for us."

Jacob's House Comment,

By the United States allowing heathen merchandise from godless countries, and now animals that are infected to come here, they have defiled themselves more and more in God's eyes.  Now the US is so defiled, filthy and corrupted with heathen vermin it will never again be the new Promised Land that God wanted it to be since the earliest days of its existence. 

Changing climate will lead to devastating loss of phosphorus from soil. Crop growth, drinking water and recreational water sports could all be adversely affected if predicted changes in rainfall patterns over the coming years prove true. Scientists from Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have found for the first time that the rate at which a dried soil is rewetted impacts on the amount of phosphorus lost from the soil into surface water and subsequently into the surrounding environment.  Dr Martin Blackwell, one of the project leaders said: "Our preliminary results show that despite best efforts, the changing climate may limit our ability to mitigate phosphorus losses at certain times of the year, especially summer.  "This is really worrying because high phosphorus concentrations in surface waters can lead to harmful algal blooms which can be toxic, cause lack of oxygen during their decay and disrupt food webs. This can also affect the quality of water for drinking and result in the closure of recreational water sport facilities."

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - A scientist says the world's first cloned camel has been produced in the desert emirate of Dubai. Nisar Ahmad Wani, a senior reproductive biologist at the government's Camel Reproduction Center, says the cloned camel is a six-day-old, one-humped female called Achievement or Injaz in Arabic.

TAMPA, Fla. - A strong line of storms spawned at least three tornadoes Tuesday as it tore across central Florida, scattering roof shingles, uprooting trees and forcing schools to evacuate children from trailer classrooms.

A Volcano is threatening species on the Galapagos Islands.  There is now a threat to the wildlife there including the iguanas. 

Bankruptcies in the USA are up 46% in the last month alone. Even with tighter requirements there are 80% more bankruptcies in the US than last year. 

A new report in the US is stating that 20,000 lawyers have been laid off from their jobs recently and are now looking for work. 

It has been reported that a 13 year old boy has robbed a bank in Peoria, Illinois.  He is now considered a felon for this crime. 

Fargo ND U.S.A. Flooding. Cass County 17 north of West Fargo, N.D. in front of homes surrounded by floodwaters from the Sheyenne River on Tuesday, April 14, 2009.  Rivers across North Dakota - some of them packed with ice from a wet fall, others swollen from rain and snow - have flooded since late March.

EPA looks for ways to not let the bedbugs bite. ARLINGTON, Va. - Faced with rising numbers of complaints to city information lines and increasingly frustrated landlords, hotel chains and housing authorities, the Environmental Protection Agency hosted its first-ever bedbug summit Tuesday. The tiny reddish-brown insects, last seen in great numbers before World War II, are on the rebound. They have infested college dormitories, hospital wings, homeless shelters and swanky hotels from New York City to Chicago to Washington. They live in the crevices and folds of mattresses, sofas and sheets. Then, most often before dawn, they emerge to feed on human blood.

There are grass roots uprising and tax tea parties going on all over the US to protest rising taxes.  Seven hundred cities are involved as these protesters march in carry signs on the April 15 income tax deadline. 

At least 2 tornadoes have been reported in Tampa, Florida, USA.  They knocked out power lines, tore down trees, and overturned a bus. 

A new report is stating that Australia is now going to allow the limited killing of their crocodiles.  They will also allow the gathering of crocodile eggs by people because of recent attacks on humans in Australia's northern territory.   

Scientists are saying that using the internet websites' twitter and face book could harm people's moral values.  Face book could be linked to US students receiving bad grades in school. 

A new report is stating that one in every 159 homes in the US are now in foreclosure. 

April 19, 2009

Best Buy is reporting it will now cut up to 10,000 jobs because of poor sales.  Harley Davidson will cut up to 400 jobs because their sales are off 30%. 

Parts of Colorado have received a dangerous spring snow storm.  Power lines were down there and 30,000 homes are now without power.  There are also more than 50 reports of hail and severe thunder storm damage in Texas and other Southern US states.  Four tornadoes were also reported in West Texas. 

April 22, 2009

Geithner defends bank rescue program amid warnings.

WASHINGTON-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended the bank rescue program devised by the Obama administration Tuesday as the International Monetary Fund predicted U.S. financial institutions could lose $2.7 trillion from the global credit crisis.  Geithner, testifying before the rescue plan's Congressional Oversight Panel, faced several questions about how Treasury is using the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program and how it intends to help rid financial institutions of their bad loans and securities.  His testimony came in the wake of a watchdog agency report that warned Obama administration initiatives could increasingly expose taxpayers to losses and make the government more vulnerable to fraud.

DETROIT - General Motors Corp. could get as much as $5 billion more in federal loans, while Chrysler LLC could get $500 million as they race against government-imposed deadlines to restructure, according to a government report filed Tuesday.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that potential losses from the credit crunch could reach $4 trillion (2.75tn pounds) and damage the financial system for years to come.  It says that even if urgent action is taken to clean up the banking system, the process will be "slow and painful", delaying economic recovery.  It says that banks may need $1.7 trillion in additional capital.

UK retail sales fell in March compared with a year earlier, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said.  Like-for-like sales, which do not include sales from new shops, fell 1.2% - the ninth fall in sales in the past 10 months. The BRC said continued economic uncertainty was leading consumers to tighten their belts.

Bleak forecast made on fishery stocks. The world's fish stocks will soon suffer major upheaval due to climate change, scientists have warned.  Changing ocean temperatures and currents will force thousands of species to migrate polewards, including cod, herring, plaice and prawns.  By 2050, US fishermen may see a 50% reduction in Atlantic cod populations.

California, USA has seen record high triple digit temperatures recently in several locations.  Wild fires have also been seen recently here because of the heat. 

General growth the number 2 company in the mall business in the USA has filed for bankruptcy. 

One in 5 Americans are delaying health care because of financial woes.  About 21% of Americans are saying they are having trouble paying their health insurance premiums now.  Many of them are delaying doctor visits because of a lack of money. 

US President Obama's 2010 budget now estimated to be 3.6 trillion dollars. 

A new report is stating is 81% of retirees in the US are cutting costs.  Forty-three percent of them are changing investments and 38% are working more because of retirement insecurity.   

US President Obama is warning lending companies and credit card company executives to curb abuses or face angry consumers and Congress. 

US banks now have 1.8 billion in troubled loans compared to 300 million reported last year.    

Tornado seen in Marshal County, Alabama, USA.  Winds from this tornado were assessed at between 86 and 119 miles per hour. Another tornado north of Atlanta Georgia damaged 125 homes and 12 homes there are now unlivable.