In the news:

Mosques Flourish in America; Churches Perish in Muslim World

As mosques, some of which breed radicalization and serve as terrorist bases, start dotting America’s landscape, churches are on their way to becoming extinct in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity.

As Muslims prepare to erect a mega-mosque near the site of the 9/11 atrocities, it is well to reflect that the sort of tolerance, or indifference, that allows them to do so is far from reciprocated to churches in the Muslim world.

I speak not of Islamist attacks against churches — such as the New Year’s Eve attack in Egypt that killed 21 Christians; or when jihadists stormed a church in Iraq, butchering over 50 Christians; or Christmas Eve attacks on churches in Nigeria and the Philippines. Nor am I referring to state-sanctioned hostility by Islamist regimes, such as Iran’s recent “round up” of Christians.

Rather, I refer to anti-church policy by Middle East governments deemed “moderate.” Consider: Kuwait just denied, without explanation, a request to build a church; so did Indonesia, forcing Christians to celebrate Christmas in a parking lot — even as a mob of 1,000 Muslims burned down two other churches

The best example of anti-church policy is Egypt, where the Middle East’s largest Christian minority, the Copts, lives. Even before Mubarak stepped down, “more than 1500 assaults on Copts have occurred, without any appropriate punishment given to criminals or compensation to the victims,” according to Coptic Solidarity.

Incidentally, all this was under the “secularist” Mubarak; considerate the fate of Copts should the Muslim Brotherhood assume power. As for Egypt’s current power-holders, the military, armed forces just opened fire on monastic monks while chanting “Allah Akbar!”

Such, then, is the plight of Christians and their churches in the Muslim world — and such is the irony: while mosques, some of which breed radicalization and serve as terrorist bases, start dotting America’s landscape, churches are on their way to becoming extinct in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity.

China Takes Giant Step Towards Making Yuan the World's Reserve Currency

For years, I've been writing about the long-term decline of the Dollar, and the rise of the Chinese Yuan ... and it's potential to become the world's next reserve currency.

As I pointed out in 2007, many countries have started moving out of the Dollar as the basis for international trade settlements, including:

Japan
Syria
Iran
Libya
Russia
Argentina
Brazil
Venezuela and 12 other Latin American countries as well as Cuba
Many other countries

This is all part of China’s plan for the internationalization of its currency, which may, in the decades to come, threaten the global ‘market share’ of other currencies like the US dollar.

The Chinese central bank surprised with a spectacular announcement: The would-be superpower wants to handle their entire future foreign trade in yuan, not in dollars. Beijing shakes America's claim to represent the key currency - with serious consequences for the U.S..

The announcement was inconspicuous , but it has the potential, to permanently change the balance of power on the world currency market: China strengthens the international role of the yuan. All exporters and importers will, this year, be allowed to settle their business with their foreign partners in Yuan, the central bank said on Wednesday in Beijing.

This will respond to the growing importance of the yuan as a global reserve currency.

Needless to say, should the yuan be seen increasingly as a reserve currency, all of this, and virtually everything else is about to change.

Pentagon reveal financial terrorists may have triggered economic crash

Did China or Jihadists try to bankrupt America? Pentagon report reveals financial terrorists may have triggered economic crash.

Terrorists and other ‘financial enemies’ were likely responsible for the near collapse of the U.S. financial system in 2008, a new Pentagon report has concluded.

In an astonishing conclusion, the report claims two unidentified traders deliberately devalued trillions of dollars’ worth of stocks at the height of the crisis.

The report also concludes that untraceable actors undertook a three-tiered attack beginning in 2007, and that ‘Phase III [of the attack] may be under way right now.’

‘In addition, these same actors have clearly demonstrated the means to carry out such an attack.

The report concluded that: ‘Without question, there were actors who had the motive to harm the U.S. economy.

Know Thine Enemy

But contrary to the perversely rosy assessment of America's top leadership, the Muslim Brotherhood – the shadowy, transnational Islamist parent organization of al-Qaida and Hamas – is committed not only to filling the growing leadership vacuum in the Arab world, but also, through its many proxies within the U.S, to impose the Quran and Shariah law right here in America.

Today, while America is focused on the threat of terrorist hijackers, underwear bombers and jihadist "martyrs," it is simultaneously being infiltrated and subverted by jihadists wearing coats and ties, "peacefully" insinuating themselves into our major institutions for the ultimate purpose of imposing Shariah law here.

Shariah, Islam's "sacred" 7th century legal system, is best known for chopping off the limbs of shoplifters, publicly flogging people for drinking a beer, executing those who leave Islam, stoning women to death for adultery, and even – believe it or not – lashing and imprisoning women and girls who were victims of rape.

Tehran's hands-off threat to Riyadh incites Saudi Shiites to revolt

Ahead of the first Day of Anger planned in Saudi Arabia for March 11, a senior Iranian figure close to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Riyadh Wednesday, March 2, against launching preventive security measures against, or cracking down on, the kingdom's two million Shiites who live and work in the oil regions of the east.

So now Iran is getting involved in Saudi Arabia too? This could be big news:

Saudi and other Gulf security sources called the Iranian warning unprecedented interference in the domestic affairs of Saudi Arabia and a call to the Shiite minority to rise up against the throne under the shield of Iran's protection

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came forward for the first time in the three-month wave of Arab uprisings to accuse Iran of using its Lebanese surrogate Hizballah to shape events in the Arab world. Addressing the Senate Budget Committee Wednesday, March 2, she said "They are doing everything they can to influence the outcomes in these places,"

He went on to threaten that Saudi Arabia, whose Shiite minority accounted for at least 15 percent of its population, could be the next target of the revolution engulfing the Arab world. The Iranian lawmaker went on to warn Saudi Arabia against interfering in the course of events in Bahrain and Yemen.

Debka points out the consequences of Iran's influence:

DEBKAfile's Gulf sources find three major implications in the harsh Iranian warning to Riyadh:

1. Tehran is for the first time taking an overt stand on the Arab uprisings, using their Shiite minorities as levers of manipulation.

2. Iran is flexing muscle for the first time in the role it covets of regional superpower which calls the shots for the oil states and challenges US supremacy.

3. Iran wants Riyadh to call off the preventive measures Saudi security and intelligence have been conducting for some days to offset a Shiite uprising on the Day of Anger, including the arrests of political and religious activists

Iran. One of the two major players in the battle/war of Gog-MaGog described in Ezekiel 38-39. A country as led by a leader who is obsessed with the destruction of Israel, and is now exerting a major influence in events in the Middle East; events that are lining up radical Islamic administrations who will be part of this growing anti-Israel coalition.

This is precisely what we would expect to see based upon a literal view of biblical prophecy.