By Jack Kinsella
The Western media had a brief flirtation with the disturbing news coming out of Burma, or Myanmar, but since nobody could make up there minds whether it was really supposed to be called 'Myanmar' or 'Burma' they quickly lost interest in the story.
Burma officially changed its name to "Myanmar" at the UN in 1989, but neither the US nor the UK recognized the name change. So before going forward, let's agree to call the place "Burma" for the sake of clarity.
First off, where the heck is it? Burma is nestled in a corner of Southeast Asia bordered by China, Laos, Thailand, Bangladesh and India.
Burma achieved independence from British colonial rule in January, 1948 marking the end of the era in which 'the sun never set on the British flag' and the end of the European Colonial Era.
Burma has been ruled since 1962 by a military junta that has turned the country into an international criminal enterprise run by Senior General Than Shwe. Than Shwe is cut from the Kim Jong il mold; a superstitious nutbar who keeps astrologers on staff to advise him.
In Burma, everything from poetry to films is censored through state control of all media, including the internet. The Burmese are kept as much in the dark about the outside world as the North Koreans.
The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has placed Burma among the bottom 10 countries in its world press freedom ranking. It says the press is subject to "relentless advance censorship".
Internet access is tightly controlled by the government. It is further hampered by a poor telephone infrastructure and an unreliable supply of electricity.
Reporters Without Borders calls Burma a "black hole" whose system "increasingly resembles an intranet as more and more foreign electronic services have been cut".
But that's how things have been in Burma for forty-five years. So how come I had to tell you where it is? Put another way, how come I had to look it up before I could tell you?
(Burma gets so little international attention that the best I could say until I looked it up was that it was somewhere near India)
But all that is about to change.
According to recent intelligence information, Burma is planning to join the new 2nd-tier nuclear club that now includes Pakistan, India, North Korea, and soon, Iran.
The military junta decided in January 2002 to build a nuclear reactor and the government controlled news in Burma has reported that Burma's pending new constitution will place the development of “nuclear energy” under the control of the “Defense and security industries” along with production of “arms and ammunition and explosives including biological and chemical weapons.”
Officials said the sites for the reactor include a region known as the Mandalay Division of the country, which is near the new capital called Nay Pyi taw. A second locations is the nearby Magwe Division.
Both locations have been identified as probable locations for either an existing or planned nuclear facility. Burma is getting help with the covert nuclear project from technicians from Russia and North Korea.
The reported North Korea connection to the nuclear project, if confirmed, would trigger another major crisis with the North Koreans -- and with China.
Beijing is helping with a huge underground hydro-power plant in Mandalay, raising concerns that China is proliferating nuclear technology to Burma like it did to Pakistan in the 1980s.
Russian involvement included a joint project led by Burmese and Russian specialists from the Atomstroy Export Group to build a 10 megawatt pool-type nuclear research reactor in Kyaukse Mandalay Division.
According to intelligence sources, some 300 Burmese military officers have been study nuclear science in Russia and one source stated that a North Korean ship carrying senior Korean nuclear technology specialist, Maj. Hon Kil Dong was sent to Rangoon in July 2006.
This information comes via the subscription intel website, Geo-Strategy Direct, compiled by Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz, one of the most plugged-in reporters in Washington and an extremely credible source.
"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. . . And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. . . And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. . . And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." (Revelation 16:12,16,21)
When you consider that the Apostle John was attempting to describe something that did not exist in a language that had no words to describe it, John did an excellent job of describing the effects of a nuclear explosion -- right down to the hailstones.
When a nuke goes off, the water vapor that rises to the top freezes in the upper atmosphere and comes back down in hundred pound chunks of nuclear 'hail'.
The Scriptures identify four spheres of global power in the last days by region as seen from the perspective of Jerusalem: the kings of the south, the antichrist's government to the west, the Gog-Magog alliance to the uttermost north of Israel, and the kings of the east.
The Scriptures don't tell us much about the Kings of the East, other than their location, their numbers (200 million soldiers) and that the battlefield will be marked by voices, and thunders, and lightnings, an earthquake of indescribable proportions, and giant hailstones.
But as we get closer to the time appointed, the picture begins to come into focus. The People's Republic of China , the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, India, North Korea, and now Burma.
Asia is arming itself for Armageddon.
Note this, as well. We've noted in previous briefings that every modern event related to Bible prophecy can trace itself in someway to the birth of Israel in 1948.
The government of antichrist rests on his control of three central pillars of Western society -- a centralized global government, a centralized global economy and a centralized global religious system.
The revived Roman Empire was born out of the 1948 Benelux Treaty. The UN Constitution, "the Universal Declaration of Civil and Political Rights, was signed in 1948.
The World Trade Organization was created out of the 1948 GATT Treaty, which also spawned the IMF and World Bank. The World Council of Churches was created in Amsterdam under UN auspices in 1948.
The invention of the transistor led to the official 'birth of the computer age' -- making centralized control of all these things possible, -- in 1948.
Finally, the Cold War, which set the stage for the Gog-Magog Alliance, officially began with the Berlin Airlift standoff between the US and Soviet Union in 1948.
Look up these nations in your encyclopedia: The People's Republic of China declared its existence in 1947. Pakistan declared independence in 1947. India declared independence in 1947. North Korea split from South Korea in 1948.
And Burma declared its independence in 1948.
"Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." (Matthew 24:34-36)