We know that Magog will be a strong land at the time of the Ezekiel 38-39 battle against Israel - as it will effectively launch a massive, coordinated attack against Israel.
America is not mentioned in biblical prophecy.
Those are two interesting facts to ponder as we see escalating tensions between the U.S. and Russia:
Russia has “days, not weeks” to abide by an international accord aimed at stemming the crisis in Ukraine, the top U.S. diplomat in Kiev warned Monday as Vice President Joe Biden launched a high-profile show of support for the pro-Western Ukrainian government. Russia in turn accused authorities in Kiev of flagrantly violating the pact and declared their actions would not stand.
Biden, the highest-ranking American official to visit Ukraine during its conflict with Russia, planned to meet with government officials in the capital of Kiev on Tuesday. The vice president also planned to announce new technical support to help the fledgling government with energy and economic reforms.
Biden’s trip comes days after the U.S., Russia, Ukraine and Europe signed an agreement in Geneva calling for Moscow to use its influence to get pro-Russian forces to leave the numerous government buildings they now occupy in cites throughout eastern Ukraine. The U.S. asserted on Monday that publicly available photographs from Twitter and other media show that some of the troops in eastern Ukraine are Russian special forces, and the U.S. said the photos support its case that Moscow is using its military to stir unrest in Ukraine.
There was no way to immediately verify the photographs, which were either taken from the Internet or given to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe last week by Ukraine diplomats.
In Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected charges that Moscow was behind the troubles in eastern Ukraine and failing to live up to the Geneva agreement.
“Before putting forth ultimatums to us, demanding fulfillment of something within two-three days or otherwise be threatened with sanctions, we would urgently call on our American partners to fully recognize responsibility for those whom they brought to power and whom they are trying to shield, closing their eyes to the outrages created by this regime and by the fighters on whom this regime leans,” Lavrov told a news conference.
Words and actions by Ukrainian leaders are “absolutely unacceptable,” he declared.
The U.S. has warned that it will quickly order new economic sanctions on Russian officials and entities if Moscow doesn’t follow through on the provisions in last week’s accord. Gregory Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said it was still too early to tell whether the deal would succeed, but he added, “The ball is really in Moscow’s court in terms of whether they’re going to take this diplomatic off-ramp.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to respond to Western sanctions triggered by his country’s participation in the Ukrainian crisis by dramatically expanding bilateral trade with China, particularly in providing energy to fuel China’s fast-growing economy, according to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Moscow and Beijing have developed closer bilateral ties as relations between Russia and the European Union worsen. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said cooperation with Beijing is a top priority for Moscow.
“It is the rise of the Eurasia century,” one Asian source said. “Moscow and Beijing’s interests are converging.”
China is experiencing dramatic economic growth and has become the second largest economy in the world in the past two decades, growing faster than the combined economies of the United States and the entire European Union.
Economic experts predict China’s economy will be the largest in the world by 2018.
Putin intends to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in May to conclude an energy agreement and possibly work on military and other business contracts, including a major Siberian timber deal, sources say.
At the urging of the U.S., Europe is contemplating further sanctions, but it is hampered by its dependence on Russia for vital oil and natural gas imports through Ukraine.
If the Europeans attempt further sanctions, Moscow is expected to raise the price of oil and natural gas or even arrange for a cutoff due to the billions of dollars Ukraine already owes Russia for energy sales.
Because most of the oil and natural gas pipelines for Europe go through Ukraine, a shutoff of energy to Ukraine automatically will affect European access.
Consequently, Russian officials are suggesting to the West that any further sanctions against its recent seizure and annexation of Crimea will be counter-productive.
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FORGET carrying a wallet because all you could soon need is your hand to pay for goods.
Advanced technology is being rolled out in Sweden that allows empty-handed consumers to purchase goods using a tap of their palm.
Detection of a person’s unique vein structure allows the store to verify a person’s ability to pay.
Experts believe the alternative payment method would be handy for many people, particularly the absent-minded.
While vein scanning technology is not new, the ability to use it to pay is and it has been introduced in Lund in southern Sweden.
The Australian Payments and Clearing Association’s chief executive Chris Hamilton said these new-wave of technologies were constantly evolving despite not being used in Australia just yet.
The household cleaning agent chlorine, in heavy concentration is purchased by Iran and and fitted with detonators, to provide President Bashar Assad with a vehicle for cheating on his undertaking to surrender Syria’s chemical arsenal under the year-old US-Russian chemical disarmament accord. And Assad is indeed getting away with using chlorine bombs, with crippling effect, especially on children, every few days.
Nonetheless, Sigrid Kaag of the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Saturday, April 19, that Syria had destroyed approximately 80 percent of its arsenal as agreed under the Kerry-Lavrov accord. At this rate, she said, Syria will have got rid of 100 percent of its chemical arsenal by the April 27 deadline.
The French President Francois Hollande admitted April 20, however, that the Syrian leader had continued to use chemical weapons on the front line, but he denied that definite proof had been established.
The French President Francois Hollande admitted April 20, however, that the Syrian leader had continued to use chemical weapons on the front line, but he denied that definite proof had been established.
On April 7, Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon offered chapter and verse to prove that the Syrian army had perpetrated a chemical attack on civilians in he town of Harasta on March 27, causing scores of serious injuries and lasting damage to children.
Yet although Assad continues to fight civilians with chemical weapons up to the present, neither the Obama administration, nor the Russian Kremlin or the United Nations find his actions reprehensible enough to warrant rebuke or even concern.
Indeed, the UN OPCW expressed satisfaction with the Assad regime’s compliance with the Kerry-Lavrov pact at a time that thousands of Syrians, men, women and children, were being subjected to chemical attack – many crippled for life for lack of medical attention and medication.
On April 11, Syrian planes dropped the new weapon, made of Chinese-manufactured chlorine gas canisters rigged with explosive detonators, on Kafr Zita near Hama. Since then, British and French intelligence sources have reported at least four such attacks against the northern towns of Idlib and Homs and the Harasta and Jobar districts outside Damascus.
Assad is dropping these gas bombs at the rate of one every three days.
Western, Russian and Middle East leaders have known all along that the list of chemical substances which the Kerry-Lavrov accord listed for removal covered at best 70-75 percent of Assad’s chemical arsenal. But to prove the accord was working, they have held silent on his violations.
From the Israeli perspective, the accords and pacts produced by international diplomacy have proved worth less than the paper they were written on. Iran and Syria are cheating with complete impunity. Israel has no doubt that Iran will also find away round even the most stringent nuclear accord it concludes with the world powers and willy-nilly reach its objective of a nuclear bomb.
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