Pat Robertson on natural disasters

End is nigh, US preacher predicts
October 11, 2005Washington: The high-profile American preacher Pat Robertson says recent natural disasters around the globe point to the end of the world and the imminent return of Jesus Christ."These things are starting to hit with amazing regularity," Mr Robertson told CNN on Sunday, remarking on the coincidence of the devastating earthquake that killed tens of thousands in Pakistan and India at the weekend and the recent hurricanes that tore through the southern United States and Central America.These disasters had come less than a year after a massive tsunami levelled huge areas of South Asia, killing more than 31,000 people and leaving about 1 million homeless.Devout Christians believe the "last days" will be marked by political and geological upheaval, and Mr Robertson said recent events showed those days might have arrived.Quoting the Bible, the conservative Christian broadcaster said the latter days would be marked by "the birth pangs of a new order, and for anybody who knows what it's like to have a wife going in labour, you know how these labour pains begin to hit."What was called the blessed hope of the Bible is that one day Jesus Christ would come back again, start a whole new era, that this world order that we know would change into something that would be wonderful that we'd call the millennium," Mr Robertson said. "And before that good time comes there will be some difficult days and they will be likened to what a woman goes through in labour just before she brings forth a child."Asked if the world was reaching this moment, he replied: "It's possible. I don't have any special revelation to say it is but the Bible does indicate such a time will happen in the end of time. And could this be it? It might be."More than 1200 people died in Hurricane Katrina in the US and Hurricane Stan has caused up to 1000 deaths. Nearly 20,000 people died in the weekend's earthquake.