You couldn't imagine it happening here...but it is.
The sparks of dissent, misery & desperation are flying about across the industrialized world, looking for ignitable fuel in the hearts of the masses. Governments & economies are scrambling for answers, but creating more woe with every ill-conceived idea they enact.
"It is YHWH who sits upon the circle (orb) of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; He stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in: He brings the princes (rulers, governments) to nothing; he makes the judges (those who exercise law) of the earth as vanity." Is 40:22-23
"O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the end time: when many shall run back and forth, and knowledge shall be increased (accelerate)." Dan 12:4
"And of this one thing, my beloved, be not forgetful, That one day, to the Lord, is as a thousand years; and a thousand years, as one day." II Peter 3:8
Is Almighty God, YHWH, Yeshua, causing or allowing the calamity that now besets us?
Yes and No.
YHWH warns us of the consequences of our thoughts & actions, and He allows them to happen. He also allows The Adversary & the wicked to wreak war, temptation & havoc as instruments of judgment. Yet, in all of it, YHWH gives us the power of choice.
Obviously, our choices haven't been the right ones...
"And if it seems evil in your eyes to serve YHWH, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve,...But as for me and my house, we will serve YHWH." Joshua 24:15
"No one is able to serve two lords; for either he will hate the one, and he will love the other; or he will cleave to the one, and he will despise the other. You are not able to serve God and wealth." Matt 6:24
"O LORD,...: deliver my soul from the wicked, which is your sword." Ps 17:13
____________NEWS_______________
Iceland's government collapses
Protesters clash with police behind the parliament building in Reykjavik last week. REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland's coalition government collapsed Monday, leaving the island nation in political turmoil amid a financial crisis that has pummeled its economy and required an international bailout.
Prime Minister Geir Haarde said he was unwilling to meet the demands of his coalition partners, the Social Democratic Alliance Party, which insisted upon getting the post of prime minister to keep the coalition intact.
"I really regret that we could not continue with this coalition, I believe that that would have been the best result," Haarde told reporters.
Haarde, who has been prime minister since 2006, said he would officially inform the country's president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, that the government had collapsed. Grimsson, largely a figurehead, has asked Haarde's government to remain in place until a new administration is formed.
Last week, Haarde called elections for May — bringing forward a contest originally slated for 2011 after weeks of protests by Icelanders upset about soaring unemployment and rising prices.
But Haarde said he wouldn't lead his Independence Party into the new elections because he needs treatment for cancer.
Bid to form new government
Foreign Minister Ingibjorg Gisladottir, head of the Alliance party, is expected to start talks immediately with opposition parties in an attempt to form a new government that would rule until the new elections are held.
Gisladottir said Monday she won't seek to replace Haarde as Iceland's leader, proposing Social Affairs Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir — an Alliance member — instead.
The prime minister told reporters Monday that he had proposed Education Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir to be the new prime minister, but Gisladottir rejected that offer.
"It was an unreasonable demand for the smaller party to demand the premiership over the larger party," Haarde said.
He said he hoped a national government, formed from all of Iceland's main political parties, could lead the country until the elections.
The Alliance Party also has sought the ouster of central bank governor David Oddsson, Iceland's former prime minister, and sought changes to Iceland's constitution to allow it to become a full member of the European Union.
Banking collapse
Iceland has been mired in crisis since the collapse of the country's banks under the weight of debts amassed during years of rapid expansion. Inflation and unemployment have soared, and the krona currency has plummeted.
Haarde's government has nationalized banks and negotiated about $10 billion in loans from the IMF and individual countries. In addition, Iceland faces a bill likely to run to billions of dollars to repay thousands of Europeans who held accounts with subsidiaries of collapsed Icelandic banks.
The country's commerce minister, Bjorgvin Sigurdsson, quit Sunday, citing the pressures of the economic collapse.
"We are happy that the government has gone, but now we need to clean up the financial supervisory authority and the central bank," protester Svginn Rumar Hauksson said at a rally Monday outside Parliament. "The protests will continue until it becomes clear that things are really changing."
_____________________Economic woes fuel E. Europe unrest
A man argues with riot police in front of Latvia's Parliament building in Riga RIGA, Latvia - On a frigid evening this month, more than 10,000 people gathered outside a 13th-century cathedral in this Baltic capital to protest the government's handling of Latvia's economic crisis and demand early elections. The demonstration was one of the largest here since the mass rallies against Soviet rule in the late 1980s, and a sign of both the public's frustration and its faith in the political system.
But at the end of the night, as the crowd dispersed, the protest turned into a riot. Hundreds of angry young people, many drunk and recently unemployed, rampaged through the historic Old Town, smashing shop windows, throwing rocks and eggs at police, even prying cobblestones from the streets to lob at the Parliament building.
Similar outbursts of civil unrest have occurred in recent weeks across the periphery of Europe, where the global financial crisis has buffeted smaller countries with fewer resources to defend their economies. Especially in Eastern Europe, the turmoil reflects surging political discontent and threatens to topple shaky governments that have been the focus of popular resentment over corruption for years.
Europeans have compared the unrest to events of the 1960s and even the 1930s, when the Great Depression fueled political upheaval across the continent and gave rise to isolationism and fascism. But no ideology has tapped into public anger and challenged the basic dominance of free-market economics and democratic politics in these countries. Instead, protesters appear united primarily by dashed economic hopes and hostility against the ruling authorities.
"The politicians never think about the country, about the ordinary people," said Nikolai Tikhomirov, 23, an electronics salesman who participated in the Jan. 13 protest in Riga. "They only think of themselves."
Days after the riot, a demonstration by 7,000 protesters in neighboring Lithuania turned violent, leading police to respond with rubber bullets. Fifteen people were injured. Smaller protests and clashes have erupted in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Hungary, following weeks of street violence in Greece last month. On Thursday, police in Iceland used tear gas for the first time in half a century to disperse a crowd of 2,000 protesting outside Parliament in Reykjavik. The next day, Prime Minister Geir Haarde agreed to call early elections and said he would step down.
'The situation is really, really serious'
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, said the financial crisis could cause further turmoil "almost everywhere," listing Latvia, Hungary, Belarus and Ukraine as among the most vulnerable nations. "It may worsen in the coming months," he told the BBC. "The situation is really, really serious."
There is particular concern about the relatively young and sometimes dysfunctional democracies that emerged after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, where societies that endured severe hardship in the 1990s in the hope that capitalism and integration with the West would bring prosperity now face further pain.
"The political systems in all these countries are fragile," said Jonathan Eyal, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, a research group in London. "There's a long history of unfulfilled promises and frustration with the political elites going back to the Communist era."
Eyal warned of a revival of ethnic conflict in the region, where most countries have large minority populations, adding that tensions could rise after workers who have lost jobs in Western Europe return home. But he noted that extreme nationalist movements have won only limited support in Eastern Europe in recent years.
"People here instinctively know the idea of a strongman who imposes order doesn't work," he said, arguing that the region's history with Communist rule, its integration with the European Union and its anxiety about Russia's intentions make a turn toward authoritarianism unlikely. "They have seen the past, and a return to previous populist schemes isn't very persuasive. At the end of the day, they know there's no alternative to the market economy."
Significant change possible
That assessment rings true in Latvia, where the government's approval ratings have fallen as low as 10 percent -- the worst in the European Union, and lower than at any other time in the nation's post-Soviet history -- but where people scoff when asked if they want to abandon markets and political freedoms.
"If some politician said, 'Let's leave the E.U., give up democracy and free markets,' you can be sure that nobody would vote for him," said Aigars Freimanis, director of Latvia's largest polling firm. The memory of Soviet occupation makes it difficult even for mildly left-wing parties to win elections, he said.
But Freimanis said public anger could bring significant political change, noting that the crisis has renewed debate on constitutional reforms, including measures to give citizens the right to dismiss Parliament and to vote for individual lawmakers instead of only political parties.
"We want more democracy, not less," said Renata Kalivod, 28, a social worker who attended the protest in Riga. She said that her father, who recently lost his job, had given up on elections but that she still believed it was possible for the public to have an impact. "If I gave up, I would leave the country like other young people. But I'm still here," she said.
After enjoying double-digit growth rates that were among the highest in the E.U., Latvia is now struggling to defend its currency and survive a sharp slowdown. The economy is forecast to shrink by 5 percent this year, after a 2 percent drop last year. Unemployment has doubled in the last six months to 8 percent, with the rate three times as high among young people.
Forced to accept a $10.5 billion bailout from the IMF, the European Union and other sources -- including neighboring Estonia, a fact some considered humiliating -- the government has embarked on an austerity program involving 25 percent budget cuts, 15 percent wage reductions for civil servants and large-scale layoffs.
Aigars Stokenbergs, an opposition leader in Parliament who quit the ruling coalition and helped organize this month's protest, said the public was as upset about corruption as economic mismanagement. The same conservative parties have dominated the government for years, he said, and many believe they serve a handful of billionaires who struck it rich in the privatization schemes of the 1990s.
"People don't want this government anymore. They don't trust it," he said, criticizing Parliament for firing the nation's anti-corruption chief in June and adopting the IMF reforms in a single day without consulting unions, businesses or other groups.
But Andris Berzins, a leader in the ruling coalition and former prime minister, said the public's anger is misplaced because the country's problems are rooted in decisions by previous administrations to expand spending instead of building up reserves. "The government needs to take some very serious economic reforms, but it hasn't been able to build public support for them," he said.
'Nothing special'
Public anger intensified in December when the finance minister, Atis Slakteris, badly fumbled an interview on Bloomberg Television. Asked what had caused Latvia's economic crisis, he replied, "Nothing special." The words were soon emblazoned on T-shirts and shop windows as parodies proliferated on the Internet.
The riots, which left about 25 people injured and resulted in 106 arrests, have unnerved people in part because Latvia has practically no history of such violence. Some are worried the crisis will exacerbate tensions between ethnic Latvians and the nation's Russian-speaking minorities, who make up more than a third of the population.
President Valdis Zatlers has responded by distancing himself from the ruling coalition that elected him and essentially siding with the opposition, threatening to dismiss Parliament if it fails by March 31 to pass a set of reforms and take other specific actions to build public trust.
But under Latvia's aging constitution, the president must call an unprecedented referendum to dismiss Parliament. Early elections would be held if it passed, followed by talks to form a new government. The entire process could take more than eight months, and some say such a prolonged period of political uncertainty would hinder Latvia's efforts to repair its economy, resulting in further unrest.
Governments across Eastern Europe face similar uncertainty, and analysts said the timing of electoral cycles could determine which ones fall. Newly elected governments in Lithuania and Romania might survive, for example, while the Bulgarian government faces elections this summer and is in trouble.
Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said it makes sense in Latvia to hold new elections because the current Parliament is "utterly discredited" and can do little for the economy in any case. "You can't have a government that has no support," he said. "It's useless."
Analysts said the E.U. serves as a bulwark against radical politics in the region, but they warned of a backlash if the developed nations that dominate policymaking ignored the problems of the smaller ones. In Latvia, politicians and business leaders complain about E.U. agricultural subsidies that benefit farmers in Western Europe and trade barriers in the service sector. But they have praised the E.U.'s swift response to the country's economic crisis so far.
Pavel Nazarov, 21, a physics student who participated in the rally, said he welcomed E.U. intervention for another reason. "They can keep an eye on our corrupt politicians," he said, "even when we can't."
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85,000 US Jobs Axed in a Single Day
NEW YORK (AFP) – At least 85,000 new job cuts were announced in a single day Monday as the rampant financial crisis hit more workers across the globe and brought down Iceland's government.
In a sign of the deepening social impact of the crisis, companies announced an avalanche of cuts, piling pressure on US President Barack Obama as he pushes a stimulus plan for the world's biggest economy.
The job cuts came from some of the biggest US corporate names including Pfizer, General Motors, Caterpiller and Sprint Nextel, and news of additional downsizing came from Japanese automakers and Dutch bank ING.
"These are not just numbers on a page," Obama said as he pressed for urgent action on an 825-billion-dollar stimulus plan.
"As with the millions of jobs lost in 2008, these are working men and women whose families have been disrupted and whose dreams have been put on hold. We owe it to each of them and to every single American to act with a sense of urgency and common purpose. We can't afford distractions and we cannot afford delays."
The financial catastrophe also claimed a scalp as Iceland's Prime Minister Geir Haarde announced the resignation of his government after months of protests over economic policies that brought the country close to bankruptcy.
US construction equipment giant Caterpillar said it planned 20,000 job cuts worldwide to cope with plunging sales.
New York-based drug maker Pfizer announced it would acquire its rival Wyeth for 68 billion dollars, the largest pharmaceutical takeover deal in nearly a decade amid a dearth of corporate dealmaking due in part to a credit squeeze.
It said it would also cut its global workforce by around 10 percent -- meaning at least 8,000 posts cut in a company that currently employs almost 82,000 people in more than 150 countries.
General Motors announced plans Monday to cut 2,000 jobs at two US plants as it prepares to submit a long-term viability plan in exchange for billions in loans from the US government.
US telecom firm Sprint Nextel announced 8,000 cuts -- 14 percent of its staff -- and top US home improvement retailer Home Depot said it would cut 7,000.
Japan's top 12 automakers expect to cut a total of 25,000 jobs between now and the end of March, a survey by Jiji Press concluded on Monday.
Dutch banking and insurance group ING announced 7,000 job cuts and a deal for the Dutch state to guarantee billions of euros' worth of troubled assets.
Dutch electronics giant Philips said it would eliminate 6,000 jobs.
The announcements by the two Dutch companies came ahead of confirmation that Europe's second-biggest steelmaker, Indian-owned Corus, said it would cut more than 3,500 jobs around the world, most of them in Britain.
Workers arriving to their job early Monday were gloomy about their prospects.
"People feel gutted. I have already had to take a 10 percent pay cut," said 45-year-old Douglas Mayhill, a worker at a Corus plant in Port Talbot, southern Wales.
"I was told on Friday I have a choice -- either accept a 10 percent pay cut or take redundancy -- that is no choice."
In Washington, International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that Group of 20 major countries have made little progress in fighting the global financial crisis since their November summit.
"We gathered here in Washington and said we would recapitalize banks, disclose their losses, implement stimulus packages," Strauss-Kahn said.
"Very little has been done. I don't say nothing has been done, but it's moving very, very slowly."
The US Congress was meanwhile due to begin debate this week on Obama's stimulus bill, designed to haul the US economy out of a paralyzing recession.
In his first presidential radio address at the weekend, Obama raised the prospect of double-digit unemployment and a massive erosion of family incomes if Congress did not act on the bill.
In Ottawa, the Canadian government urged a divided parliament to unite behind its plan to stimulate an economy in recession, at the opening of a new legislative session.
"As Canadians expect, the economy will be the focus of our government's actions and of the measures placed before parliament during the coming year," said Governor General Michaelle Jean in a throne speech outlining the administration's agenda for the coming months.
"Canadians face a difficult year -- perhaps several difficult years," she said.
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