The big freeze has caused traffic problems throughout Europe, blocking roads and shutting down airports.

Schools were closed in Rome as Italy struggled to cope with unusually heavy snowfalls.

Ten deaths in Italy have been linked to the extreme winter weather, including two people who were crushed under a collapsed roof south of Rome, and a 91-year-old woman in the northeast port of Trieste.

In the north, stranded people had to be rescued from their homes, with deep snow reaching 3m (10ft) in some areas.

Europe has struggled to cope with a week of bitter cold weather in which the number of dead, most of them homeless, continues to rise every day.

Temperatures have been recorded at -36C in Ukraine, the hardest hit country.

Ukraine’s Emergency Situation Ministry said the country’s death toll had now risen to 135.

Some 2,000 people have been hospitalised suffering from frostbite or hypothermia.

Drivers are being urged to watch out for icy conditions and freezing fog on the roads with temperatures forecast to drop to as low as -10C in parts of Britain later.

Luke 21:16-17, “You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me.”

 “A former member of an Islamic extremist group in Uganda who converted to Christianity after claiming to see visions of Jesus is hiding in Kenya, his movements severely restricted following threats to kill him.

Hassan Sharif Lubenga, 54, was a sheikh and said to be member of Buk Haram, a violent group of Islamists whose name suggests the Bible is corrupt and therefore forbidden (not to be confused with the more well-known Boko Haram extremist group). Originally from Chengera, seven kilometers from Kampala, the husband to four wives began his conversion process four years ago; in June 2011, he said, after various dreams and visions in which Jesus appeared to him, he made a full commitment to follow Christ.

Lubenga fled to Kenya last July 10 after hostilities peaked, and upon returning to Uganda in September he received messages on his cell phone from mujahidin – Islamic fighters – threatening to kill him, he said. He reported the threats to Chengera police, who told him they would investigate, but in October a friend told him that he’d heard in a Chengera mosque that his former colleagues were enraged and planning to kill him.

‘My heart got troubled, but the voice of Jesus continued whispering to me to witness for Jesus without fear,’ Lubenga said.

When Lubenga felt like giving up on his new faith, he said, he received a call from Bishop Umar Mulinde, his former pastor at Gospel Life Church International who was scarred in a Christmas Eve acid attack by Muslim extremists. Mulinde told him the church was praying for him, and Lubenga was deeply heartened, he said.

‘All my family members have deserted me,’ he said by telephone. ‘The Muslims are looking to kill me. I need protection and help.’

The Islamic extremists who had declared war on ‘infidels’ such as Lubenga had been threatening him since 2007, when he first began to speak of dreams and visions of Christ. Dangers peaked in 2010, when he was seen visiting a church in Uganda. By April 2010, one of his four wives had poisoned him because of his budding faith in Christ, leaving him unconscious, he said. After his recovery, he fled Chengera to a village 25 kilometers from Kampala, Kiwangala.

In 2007, he said, he told his jihadist friends that he had seen Jesus in a dream. He said they had warned him, ‘Do not make such a mistake again – we are ready to help you. If you continue with this move, then we will destroy you. You know that you are a sheikh.’”

Alot of earthquake activity over the last 7 days. And in diverse or different places. Keep looking up!

Update time = Fri Jan 27 16:02:39 UTC 2012

Here is a collection of stories showing just how close we really are to the return of Jesus! All the signs He tells us in Scripture, the Birth Pains, are happening all around us. Keep looking up!

25 Volcanoes Showing Abnormal Activity: Presidential Aide
January 15, 2012

Padang, West Sumatra. Twenty-five volcanoes in Indonesia are now showing abnormal activity or have been put on alert or watch status, presidential special aide Andi Arief said here on Saturday.

“According to official data, 25 volcanoes are now under alert or watch status and they must be given priority with regard to disaster mitigation planning at district or city levels,” he said at a workshop on journalists’ role in disaster management.

He said in West Sumatra there were two volcanoes that need to be closely watched, namely Mount Marapi and Mount Talang, as they are still under alert status.

Mount Marapi is located in Agam and Tanahdatar districts and rises 2891 meters above sea level, and Mount Talang (2597 meters above sea level) in Solok district was located around 40 kilometers from the provincial capital Padang.

Apart from the two volcanoes, the government and regional disaster management agencies were also giving priority attention to Mount Papandayan in West Java, Mount Karangetan and Lokon in North Sulawesi, Mount Ijen in East Java, Mount Gamalama in North Maluku, Mount Krakatau in Banten and Lampung and Mount Lewoloto in East Nusa Tenggara.

He said “it is not impossible that volcanoes that are now still normal could change to become abnormal due to earthquakes that have happened to trigger magma in the mountains to increase their activity, and therefore alertness and readiness of the people must continue to be maintained.”

Andi said earthquakes below five on the Richter Scale could trigger magma in the volcanoes to rise and so people must not only be alert over big but also small tremors.

The 4.4 magnitude earthquake like the one in Singkawang, West Kalimantan, is one of the examples, where people had never predicted before that it could happen there, he said.

“The small magnitude quake is now being studied by researchers with regard to minimizing the damage in case an eruption happens in the country as there are a lot of volcanoes in Indonesia,” he said.

“Totally drug-resistant” tuberculosis strain worries Indian doctors

(CBS/AP) Totally drug-resistant tuberculosis? That’s what doctors are calling the long-feared and virtually untreatable form of the killer lung disease that’s striking people in India.

It’s not the first time highly resistant cases like this have been seen. Since 2003, patients have been documented in Italy and Iran. It has mostly been limited to impoverished areas, and has not spread widely. But experts believe there could be many undocumented cases.

The airborne disease is mainly transmitted through close personal contact and isn’t nearly as contagious as the flu. Most cases of this “drug-resistant” TB have not been from person-to-person infection but mutations that have occurred in poorly treated patients. No one expects the Indian TB strains to rapidly spread elsewhere.

Is this particular disease actually drug-resistant? There is still debate within the public health community – the World Health Organization hasn’t accepted the term, calling the cases “extensively drug-resistant TB,” or XDR. But Dr. Paul Nunn, a coordinator at the WHO’s Stop TB Department in Geneva, said there is ample proof that these virtually untreatable cases do exist.

“It is concerning,” said Dr. Kenneth Castro, director of the CDC’s Division of Tuberculosis Elimination. “Anytime we see something like this, we better get on top of it before it becomes a more widespread problem.”

Ordinary TB is cured easily with six to nine months of antibiotics. But if that treatment is interrupted or if the dose is cut down, the stubborn bacteria battle back and mutate into a tougher strain that can no longer be killed by standard drugs, making the disease both more difficult and more expensive to treat.

Doctors in Mumbai have reported a total of 12 patients who failed initial treatment and also didn’t respond to other medication given over an average of two to three years. One doctor, Zarir Udwadia, said in a phone interview that there is little hope for the surviving nine patients, all poor slum dwellers living in the community. He criticized the testing and treatment methods of the Indian government’s TB program, saying, “It was a given that this would happen. They have had no help from the Indian TB system. They are the untouchables, so no one is making a fuss. They don’t have the power to vocalize. There’s going to be more family contacts. It’s going to spread for sure.”

India’s Health Ministry did not respond to phone calls and written requests for comment Monday and last week.

“For there to be another report coming out from India is no surprise at all. Indeed, in a sense, it’s surprising it’s taken so long,” said WHO’s Nunn. This is “yet another alarm call for countries and others engaged in TB control to do their jobs properly.”

In 2003, two Italian women died of  highly resistant tuberculosis and there were 15 cases reported from Iran in 2009. That same year, The Associated Press reported on a case of a Peruvian teenager who was infected at home but diagnosed while visiting Florida. He was successfully treated for a year and a half with experimental high doses of medicines not typically used for TB, costing about $500,000.

Tuberculosis is an age-old scourge that lies dormant in an estimated 1 in 3 people. About 10 percent of those people eventually develop active TB, which kills roughly 2 million a year, according to WHO. Each victim infects an average of 10 to 15 others every year, typically through sneezing or coughing.

At least 20 dolphins found dead in Cape Cod area

By Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley, CNN

January 17, 2012 — Updated 0626 GMT (1426 HKT)

 Between 40 and 50 dolphins have been found stranded close to shore near Cape Cod since Thursday.

 (CNN) — At least 20 dolphins have died after washing up near several Cape Cod towns, an International Fund for Animal Welfare spokeswoman said Monday.

Between 40 and 50 common and Atlantic white-sided dolphins have been found stranded close to the shore since Thursday, and the number will likely rise, said IFAW spokeswoman Kerry Branon. Some animals were released Monday near Provincetown, bringing the total number of animals saved to 19.

“It may not sound like a high success rate, but when you consider that 27 were alive when they washed up, I think we’re doing pretty well.” The remaining eight that were stranded alive died.

Stranded living animals are given full health assessments, including ultrasounds and hearing tests; dead animals are given CT scans and necropsies, Branon said. Five released dolphins have been equipped with satellite tags on their dorsal fins to track their location and to see if they’re surviving.

Despite January-April being “high season” for dolphin stranding near Cape Cod, IFAW experts aren’t exactly sure why so many dolphins are appearing now.

One theory is that the animals get caught in currents when they come close to land to feed. Another theory is that, as social animals, if one dolphin is sick or injured, the whole group will stay with that animal. Finally, the topography of Cape Cod may create areas where the dolphins can get stuck.

Katie Moore, a Cape Cod dolphin rescue veteran of 15 years, says that this is only the second time she has seen this many dolphins washing ashore.

“Sometimes they come up one at a time, other times we see them 10 at a time,” said Moore, manager of IFAW’s rescue team.

The six-member rescue team is on-call 24/7 and will continue searching this week.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis generally affects a patient’s lungs but it can be found in other organs as well.

Three years after the first reports in the world of a totally drug-resistant (TDR) form of tuberculosis (TB) in Iran, at least 12 cases of TDR-TB have been confirmed in India over the last few months.

According to the Times of India, cases began emerging in October 2011, making it the second country find this deadliest strain of TB among patients. The U.S. Center for Disease Control categorizes resistance levels of TB as multi-drug resistant or extremely drug resistant. TDR is not even classified yet on the CDC’s website and there has been no reported cures for such a strain of this bacterium yet.

What’s worrying, according to the Times of India, is that 10 of the 12 cases were of city dwellers:

“The TB bacilli have obviously mutated. The emergence of TDR-TB has grave implications for public health,” said Hinduja Hospital’s Dr. Zarir Udwadia, whose observations have been published in the latest issue of the US-based Clinical Infectious Diseases (CID) peer review journal.

[...]

Dr. Amita Athawale, who heads KEM Hospital’s chest department, said TDR-TB was a reality in India. “The cases we clinically isolate are just the tip of the iceberg,” she said. TB is one of the biggest killers in India, along with heart attack.

So far, the Times of India reports, one of the 12 patients has died. Worldwide, there are 8.8 million incidents of TB and 1.45 million deaths occurred in 2010, according to the World Health Organization.

Wired referrers to the first outbreak of TDR-TB in 2009 in Iran as “underreported” in the media. It notes that while only 15 cases of this strain were reported then, 146 of the multi-drug resistant version were cited with a high percentage of those cases being among traveling immigrants.

According to Wired, only two-thirds of countries with forms of drug-resistant TB have labs capable of diagnosing the bacterium as resistant. This means that only about one in every 10 patients with multiple drug-resistant TB gets treated. The likelihood of treatment leading to a cure ranges widely. Estimates state that for every one person with TB, 15 others could get infected.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency has warned that seven volcanoes located across the archipelago are on alert statuses. The agency said it has prepared measures for the worst-case scenarios and officials met on Saturday to discuss the measures, said agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugrowo.

The seven volcanoes are Papandayan Mountain in West Java, Karangetang and Lokon in North Sulawesi, Ijen in East Java, Gamalama in North Maluku, Anak Krakatau in Lampung and Lewotolo in East Nusa Tenggara.

Sutopo said the agency was closely monitoring each volcano, and that mitigation measures varied in each region because of the different characteristics of the volcanos and the territories.

However, he said, in general, the agency has planned evacuation routes, sites for refugees, logistics supplies, machinery and volunteer mapping.

“The plan is standardized, but we keep renewing it to adjust to current conditions. For Papandayan, we have a done dry-run three times so the people could get used to the measures,” he said.

On Friday, Lokon Mountain erupted, spewing volcanic ash up to 1,500 meters high, but it had calmed down by Saturday morning and people living near the mountain were not evacuated. In North Maluku, some 296 people remain in refugee shelters in Dufa-Dufa following Mount Gamalama’s last eruption in early December. 

Interesting take on 2011 as a major year that we as believers can see the birth pangs increasing in intensity as our Lord’s return nears. Enjoy and keep looking up!

The Year That was 2011

At the end of each year, Terry or I will write a review of what has occurred over the last twelve months, and how these events have impacted Bible prophecy. We do this to refresh everyone on how end-time events are progressing.

It amazes me how natural disasters are always able to top the previous year. At the end of last year, I wrote in one of my articles, “The year 2010 was the deadliest in more than a generation. Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides, and droughts killed more than 260,000 people. Last year only saw 15,000 deaths from natural disasters.”

We had the same list of natural disasters for this year. In March, Japan was hit by a massive earthquake, measuring 9.0 in magnitude. It was the most powerful earthquake in the nation’s recorded history. The earthquake is currently ranked as the fifth most powerful seismic event to hit the world in the past century. The World Bank puts the economic cost of the quake at $235 billion, making it the most expensive natural disaster in world history.

The United States has more tornadoes than any other place on planet earth. From April to June,we had an endless series of tornadic outbreaks. I’ve studied weather all my life, and am stunned to see the 1974 record fall by such a huge gap. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there were 312 tornadoes during the Super Outbreak from the 27th and 28th of April. The previous record occurred from April 3-4, 1974, with 148 tornadoes.

We had historic floods on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The Missouri flooded from South Dakota to Kansas City. I lived in Omaha for 20 years, so I’m familiar with the area. I don’t ever recall the interstate being closed by a flood. The flooding on the Mississippi River broke several records set by the great 1937 Mississippi River flood. As the flood reached Louisiana, it created the most memorable sight. Farms in that state had already been suffering from a severe drought; some of them had crops that were bone dry right next to fields that were under water.

This year continued the trend of government intrusion into our lives. The flying public has ceased all opposition to the Transportation Safety Administration’s sexual patdowns and naked image body scans at our nation’s airports. The feds now have the power to arrest anyone they so desire under name of terrorism. In just the past few days, Congress has given the green light to funding for a massive expansion of TSA checkpoints. It’s disturbing enough that America is starting to look like the world imagined by George Orwell, but what troubles me the most is that few people care about what is happening.

The global financial system managed to survive another year, but I don’t give it much hope for a turnaround in 2012. The European banking system is so insolvent that the only solution people have been able to come up with is new ways to hide the problem. Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson has issued a sober warning against optimism for the next year: “Think of 2012 as the ‘payback’ year….when many of the extraordinary things that happened over the past three years go in reverse.”

On a positive note, 2011 was a bad year for tyrants and God haters. In May, Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy Seals. In October, Muammar Gaddafi was shot dead by rebel forces. This month, Kim Jong-Il dropped dead of a heart attack. During this same month, Christopher Hitchens, the well-known atheist who penned the book God Is Not Great, died of cancer.

I think the most important take away from 2011 is a realization that world events are following the birth-pang guidelines that Jesus gave us as a warning of His return. Because the past two years have shown a dramatic acceleration of the unfolding of Bible prophecy, I’m looking forward to what 2012 has to offer. If we continue on this exponential curve, it would seem obvious to me that the Rapture is very near.

“Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book” (Revelation 22:7).