End-Times Update (U.S. only): After analyzing and interpreting various Koranic verses, Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi has published a study currently circulating in many Muslim countries that claims the United States will “cease to exist” sometime in 2007, when Allah will send a tsunami larger than last December’s as retribution for America’s sins against mankind, notably its enslavement of blacks, its treatment of Native Americans, and its use of nuclear weapons during World War II. Silwadi said that, when international law is incapable of punishing crimes, Allah can still step in, and, according to Silwadi’s interpretation of the numbers and letters mentioned in “suras hinting at U.S. sins,” that day is coming soon. Silwadi says he published his study “‘out of a sense of responsibility'” about the prediction, and the fear that the collapse of the United States would devastate the world economy.