JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
DRUG PUSHERS AND ADDICTS
1 PET 5:8
8 Be sober,(NOT DRUGED UP OR ALCOHOLICED) be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
REVELATION 18:23
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries (DRUGS) were all nations deceived.
REVELATION 9:21
21 Neither repented they of their murders,(KILLING) nor of their sorceries (DRUG ADDICTS AND DRUG PUSHERS), nor of their fornication,(SEX OUTSIDE MARRIAGE OR PROSTITUTION FOR MONEY) nor of their thefts.(STEALING)
15 arrested, 220 kg of cocaine seized in organized crime sweep-[CBC]-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
RCMP say 15 people are facing charges in connection with an organized crime network based in Montreal that used contacts in the transportation industry to import cocaine into Canada.Authorities seized 220 kilograms of cocaine and $2 million in cash they say was going to be used to purchase drugs.Police say the drug ring planned to import 1.4 tonnes of cocaine in total."The network imported cocaine into Canada from the United States through its contacts with commercial land carriers," the RCMP said in a statement on Wednesday.This is the third and final phase of an operation known as Clemenza, which was launched in 2010.The Mounties say Montreal police, Laval police, the Sûreté du Québec, the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canada Border Services Agency all assisted in the investigation."The impact of these arrests on organized crime is significant and will affect drug importation operations in the greater Montreal area," the RCMP said.Thirteen of the accused appeared at the Montreal courthouse today via video conference. Liborio Cuntrera is in Italy and is expected to turn himself in, police say. A 15th man, Riccardo Preteroti, 48, is still sought by police.A list of the accused:- Franco Albanese, 49, Saint-Léonard- Martino Caputo, 42, incarcerated in Kingston- Antonio Ciavaglia, 56, Kirkland- Erasmo Crivello, 36, Laval- Liborio Cuntrera, 47, Laval- Claude Ducharme, 58, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu- Antonio Guido, 40, Ottawa- Franck Iaconetti, 48, Repentigny- Hansley Joseph, 36, Montreal- Michele Lanni, 62, L'Île-Bizard- Carmelo Marsala, 37, Montreal- Roberto Olaciregui-Martinez, 37, Montreal- Marco Pizzi, 46, Montreal-Nord- Andreas Tasci, 44, Laval- Riccardo Preteroti, 48, unknown address.
Alberta says life-saving fentanyl antidote available without prescription-[The Canadian Press]-John Cotter, The Canadian Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
EDMONTON - Alberta is making a life-saving drug available without a prescription to curb fentanyl overdose deaths.The government says it is making naloxone easier to get as an antidote to the powerful synthetic opioid, which has been linked to 69 deaths in the province this year and 274 in 2015."Too many lives have been cut short by fentanyl and too many have lost loved ones," Brandy Payne, associate minister of health said Wednesday."Our hope is that removing the prescription requirement will encourage more people to access these potentially life-saving kits."Naloxone works by blocking the effects of fentanyl such as extreme drowsiness or loss of consciousness before a person overdoses, giving them time to seek medical help.Earlier this year Health Canada cleared the way, following a scientific review, for provinces to make naloxone available without a prescription.The injectable antidote can already be obtained at some Alberta pharmacies for free and at community health clinics.Payne said about 600 of Alberta's 1,100 pharmacies are taking part in the program so far, which includes training for pharmacists on how to teach people to safely use it.Fentanyl is about 100 times stronger than morphine. The drug, produced offshore, can be deadly because people often don't know if it has been cut into street drugs such as fake oxycodone or heroin.Payne said Alberta will also bolster drug counselling services and expand access to programs designed to wean people off of opioids.The province already allows paramedics to distribute naloxone and emergency medical technicians and emergency medical responders to administer and distribute the drug.Naloxone has been available in British Columbia without a prescription since March.The College of Pharmacists of B.C. has said it is essential that anyone administering naloxone call 911 immediately. The regulator also warns that the effects of naloxone wears off after 30-75 minutes, which means an overdose can return.Last month B.C.'s provincial health officer declared a public health emergency due to a dramatic increase in the number of overdose deaths. The province was projecting up to 800 fentanyl-related deaths this year.Payne said it is not necessary for Alberta to declare a similar emergency to deal with the situation.She said the province has a supply of 9,000 naloxone kits and plans to bolster treatment services in southern Alberta to help communities hard hit by fentanyl, including the Blood Tribe reserve.
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
Passengers recount 'disappointment' aboard cruise ship hit by virus-[The Canadian Press]-Alison Auld, The Canadian Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
HALIFAX - Dozens of passengers wandered off a British cruise ship in Halifax on Wednesday, weary from a virulent gastrointestinal illness that sickened hundreds of people on board and kept some in their cabins for days.The group of mostly elderly British passengers disembarked the Balmoral at a waterfront port facility, as staff wiped down handrails and screens with sanitizer to try to prevent the spread of the suspected norovirus.Jean Butcher from Harrow, England, said she was asked by crew to remain in her cabin after getting ill twice. She said it wasn't clear it if was norovirus or something she ate, but had to stay in her cabin for three days."Being confined is not nice, but it's best to keep away and make sure nobody else gets sick," she said after meeting her sister at the port reception area that had containers of sanitizing wipes and cleaners on hand.Her travelling companion, Marj Robinson, said she also had stomach upset, but did not experience vomiting or diarrhea — the typical symptoms of the highly contagious virus.She said the outbreak, which started soon after they boarded in England on April 16, cast a slight pall on the cruise that went from Southampton to the Caribbean, along the eastern seaboard and onto New Brunswick."It's been a very quiet cruise, there's nobody much about at night," she said. "I think the whole atmosphere has not been cruise like. I think it's put a little bit of a shadow over what should be a nice experience."Molly Kehoe, a spokeswoman with Health Canada, said there was only one passenger who remained under medical supervision as of Wednesday. She said people who are ill are not allowed to disembark without being cleared by the medical staff on board.The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention in the United States said Monday that 277 of 915 passengers on the Balmoral had reported being ill. It said nine of the 520 crew members had indicated they had a gastrointestinal illness.Rachael Jackson, a spokeswoman with the ship's owner Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, said nearly all the 1,434 passengers and crew have recovered."There is currently only one guest and no crew members required to remain in their cabins, and we have had no reported sickness in the last 36 hours," Jackson said in an e-mail Wednesday afternoon.Jackson said officials increased cleaning and disinfection procedures, began collecting stool samples for testing and sent a public health and sanitation manager to oversee the outbreak response.Lane Farguson of the Halifax Port Authority said staff would do extra cleaning of the port buildings, paying special attention to surfaces and objects that most people routinely touch."We're making sure we have increased cleaning going on at our facilities and certainly encouraging everyone to pay extra attention to handwashing today," he said as the 218-metre long ship pulled into port."This isn't completely unusual...Typically, we'll see one or two cases like this over the course of a year."Many passengers coming off the ship downplayed the effects of the outbreak, with one man who didn't want his name used saying, "it's just a little virus and it's been cleared up."Linda and David Aldred of Hatfield, England, said two of their six dinner companions had been hit by the illness but that the bug hadn't disrupted their trip that much, other than hearing steady reminders from crew to wash their hands and being urged to use sanitizer whenever they entered a restaurant.She said a scheduled visit to Bermuda had also been cancelled."It was a ship of disappointment after that," she said. "But I can't fault the ship, they're doing as much as they can."
SpaceX Dragon returns to Earth with precious science load-[The Canadian Press]-Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A SpaceX capsule returned to Earth on Wednesday with precious science samples from NASA's one-year space station resident.Less than six hours after leaving the International Space Station, the Dragon cargo carrier plopped into the Pacific, a few hundred miles off the Southern California coast. SpaceX reported a good splashdown, with three red-and-white striped parachutes slowing the final descent.The Dragon had been at the station for a month, dropping off supplies as well as an experimental, inflatable room that will pop open in two weeks. It was set free by the station's big robot arm.British astronaut Timothy Peake bid farewell to Dragon on behalf of the station's entire six-man crew."Dragon spacecraft has served us well, and it's good to see it departing full of science," Peake radioed from 250 miles up. "We wish it a safe recovery back to Planet Earth."Nearly 4,000 pounds of items fill the Dragon, including blood and urine samples from astronaut Scott Kelly's one-year mission. Kelly returned to Earth in March and has since retired from NASA. Researchers will use the medical specimens to study how the body withstands long journeys in space, in preparation for an eventual mission to Mars in the 2030s.Also on board: a spacesuit that leaked water into an astronaut's helmet in January, forcing an early end to a spacewalk. Engineers want to examine the suit to see what might have gone wrong.It is SpaceX's first return trip for NASA in a year. A launch accident last summer grounded the California-based company for months.SpaceX's Dragon is the only station supply ship that returns to Earth. The other capsules — Orbital ATK's Cygnus and Russia's Progress — are filled with trash and burn up on re-entry.It's the company's eighth return flight from the station since 2012.The Falcon rocket that launched this Dragon back on April 8 is now in a hangar at Cape Canaveral, Florida — awaiting another flight.Rather than getting dumped in the ocean as is customary for launch companies, the Falcon's first-stage booster flipped around after performing its job and flew to a vertical landing on a barge floating in the Atlantic. It was the first successful rocket touchdown at sea. A second booster touched down safely at sea last Friday following a satellite delivery.SpaceX chief Elon Musk wants to recover and reuse his rockets to drive down costs.___Online:SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/ NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Scientists map biodiversity of deep oceans, find surprising varieties of life-[The Canadian Press]-Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
HALIFAX - A humble, star-shaped creature that crawls across the floors of the seabed has helped a group of scientists that includes two Nova Scotian researchers come up with a map predicting surprising amounts of life in some of the world's deepest, darkest oceans.The maps linking biodiversity to thousands of samples of the brittle star from around the globe came out on Wednesday in the journal Nature.They suggest that deep waters such as those off of Canada's continental shelves - once thought to be barren deeps - can have a greater density of some species than shallower and warmer waters.Derek Tittensor, a biologist at Halifax's Dalhousie University, says the team collected 165,000 records from museums around the world over a 15-year period.The findings were fed into a database that he and fellow Dalhousie biologist Boris Worm helped analyze, with the involvement of six other scientists, including lead author Skipton Woolley, a doctoral candidate at the University of Melbourne."It was a huge effort compiling this information from sources dating back to a century or so and putting it together," said Tittensor in a telephone interview from his office at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre.The database is a compilation of each variety of the brittle star, where it was found, the latitude and longitude and the depth where it was located.Tittensor said co-author Tim O'Hara telephoned, emailed and visited museums where the samples were stored away after being scooped up off the ocean floor by methods such as trawls or deepsea submersibles.The team compiled the data to look for hotspots where there was a wide variety of brittle stars, as one indicator of biodiversity, said Tittensor."This is the only group at present for which we have enough information to put these distributions together," he said.The biologist explained that on land and in shallow oceans, biodiversity tends to peak in the tropics, but for the brittle stars, they found dense concentrations in areas such as the deep and frigid oceans off Canada's east coast."You tended to get the highest number of species at the mid latitudes," he explained. "Places like the central and North Atlantic or New Zealand, places quite far from the equator."The density of the brittle stars thriving in the lightless waters of the deeps may be linked to areas where plankton production is raining chemical energy into the ecosystem, says the biologist."This is the first test as to how well those hypotheses explain biodiversity in the deep ocean," he said.The scientists say the seasonal cycles in the northern and southern hemispheres spark natural cycles that produce large-scale algal blooms in the spring and fall.During the process, the plankton produced on the surface clump together and the energy-rich particles then cascade to the bottom of the oceans like marine snowfall, providing nutrients to the sea life that may be over two kilometres deep.Tittensor says the science team is hoping that as more data from around the world is collected, global maps of seafloor diversity will continue to become more detailed and cover a wider range of marine life.The data may also provide further support for protecting the ocean floors as governments plan to manage and conserve ocean areas, said the biologist."The implication ... in terms of planning to conserve an area is we'll need to take into account not just the shallow oceans but also the deep sea floors."
Liberal MP’s push to make ‘O Canada’ gender neutral back on track-[Canada Politics]-Carl Meyer-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
[A Liberal MP has kindly swapped positions with ailing MP Mauril Bélanger on the order of precedence, allowing his private member’s bill to make the national anthem gender neutral to be voted likely on June 1. A bill that will change Canada’s national anthem will get another chance to move forward this month, following an emotional day in Parliament last week.The private member’s bill by Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger would make O Canada gender neutral, by amending the National Anthem Act to swap out two words in the English version.The line “true patriot love, in all thy sons command” would become “true patriot love, in all of us command.”The C-210 bill was supposed to have finished its current stage and sent to the Canadian Heritage committee on Friday. But instead a series of speeches mostly by Conservative MPs ran out the clock, and the House couldn’t come to a consensus on extending debate before it had to adjourn for the day. That meant that the bill wouldn’t be heard again until Sept. 19.Changing the anthem is already a controversial topic, and has been for many years. But the moment was made especially impassioned because Bélanger has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He now must use text-to-speech software, as he cannot speak. His colleagues, who made him honourary Speaker in March, are unsure how long he will live.“There’s no guarantee he’s going to be here on Sept. 19,” Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Greg Fergus told the Globe and Mail on Friday.Conservative speeches ate up the majority of the hour set for debate on the bill, leading BuzzFeed Canada to accuse the Conservatives of filibustering, or deliberately stalling. The Conservatives denied this.But now Liberal MP Linda Lapointe has swapped positions with Bélanger, allowing him to take her spot on May 30, her office confirmed to Yahoo News Canada. A vote is expected for June 1.Meanwhile, Lapointe’s own private member’s bill on credit card acceptance fees will now get its first hour of second-reading debate in the anthem bill’s old spot of Sept. 19.“I want to give him the chance to get it through,” Lapointe told the Ottawa Citizen, which first reported the news of the swap. Lapointe’s office told Yahoo News Canada she is travelling with the international trade committee.Anthem change a passionate debate-Over the years, various efforts to change Canada’s anthem have led to passionate debate on the issue.In 2013, author Margaret Atwood and other Canadians launched the website restoreouranthem.ca to do the same thing as Bélanger’s bill.Yahoo Canada commenters overwhelmingly rejected the idea at the time.But Liberal and NDP MPs have picked up on the issue.“Canada is all of us, not some of us,” Bélanger told the House on Friday, when justifying the change. Part of his argument is that the anthem has already been altered. In 1908, he said, the original English version of the anthem had the line “thou dost in us command,” but it was changed in 1913 to “all thy sons command.”He also says that since Canada has changed its national flag, the anthem can also be changed without disrespecting Canada’s roots.NDP MP Sheila Malcolmson, who spoke in favour of the bill that day, told the House that her party supports efforts toward gender equality in Canada.“A national symbol’s value is tied to its ability to reflect every one of us and bring us together,” she said.The Conservatives see the issue differently.MP Larry Maguire, while thanking Bélanger for his “dedication and commitment” to his constituents, Parliament and Canada, said, “rewriting the lyrics of our national anthem in the name of political correctness would go too far.” He argued that it would set a precedent for “future changes on other issues of Canadian identity.”Maguire and his Conservative colleagues, Kelly Block and Harold Albrecht, who also spoke that day, touched on that slippery slope theme, pointing out that there are many other Canadian symbols, like the beaver.
Christian flag at Confederation Building violated government policy, documents show-[CBC]-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
The raising of the Christian flag in front of Confederation building during Holy Week went against the government's own policy on the use of the courtesy flag pole outside the building, internal documents show.A letter written by David Brown, director of protocol and corporate affairs, and sent to the premier's office before the flag raising, said in order for a flag to fly on the pole the event must be "non-commercial, non-religious and non-political in nature."That letter was released April 21 through access to information.Despite that policy, documents show the premier's chief of staff Kelvin Parsons instructed the flag be raised for Holy Week in response to a request by Tolson Chapman, a member of the St. Stephen the Martyr Church in St. John's.Chapman said in his request that it would recognize the persecution of Christians, during the lead up to Easter.The flag raising created a backlash from many who demanded it be taken down.St. John's Centre MHA Gerry Rogers said at the time the flag "represents a very divisive approach to Christianity, that it's homophobic, that it's against choice for women."In the House of Assembly Wednesday, Opposition Leader Paul Davis asked about the decision to raise the flag."The director of protocol wrote you and said it cannot be religious, but you said there was no policy and you went ahead and raised the flag," Davis said. "Tell the people why you went against your own policy."Premier says policy was just 'draft'-At the time, Ball defended how the flag had been raised, saying there was a "lack of clear policy."Responding to Davis Wednesday, Ball said, "That is shameful what the former premier is talking about. It was clear, clear draft policy — he knows this."Ball added, "It's now in the hands of the Speaker to put clear policy." The flag was taken down after the March 22 bombings in Brussels and was never put back up.The Christian flag was also raised outside the city halls of St. John's and Mount Pearl, but both took the flag down after complaints.Under the previous PC government, Chapman's request to put up the flag had been rejected as a violation of policy. The documents show when he was opposition leader Ball told Chapman he'd be more open to flying the flag."Our society must be tolerant and respectful of all groups, regardless of their religious, racial, gender based or other origins," Ball wrote in March 2015."A Liberal Government would operate based on a policy of tolerance and strive to accommodate as many requests as reasonably possible to raise a flag at Confederation Building."
North Carolina students sue U.S. over stance on bathroom access-[Reuters]-By Colleen Jenkins-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - A group of North Carolina public school students and their parents is asking a U.S. court to block two federal agencies from withholding education funding in a dispute over a state law mandating bathroom access according to birth sex.The conservative Alliance Defending Freedom filed the complaint on Tuesday on behalf of a group called "North Carolinians for Privacy." It is the fifth lawsuit to seek judicial input on the law enacted in March.The group said the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education had improperly held that provisions of federal law banning discrimination in education settings on the basis of sex apply to gender identity."The agencies must stop using falsehoods about what federal law requires to threaten student access to educational opportunities and financial assistance," Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel for the alliance, said in a statement on Wednesday.A spokeswoman for the Education Department referred questions to the Justice Department, which said it was reviewing the complaint.The Alliance Defending Freedom, which opposes allowing transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities, filed a similar lawsuit last week against the same federal agencies and a suburban Chicago school district over such a policy.The issue of whether transgender people deserve the same federal protections extended to blacks and religious minorities is already before courts in North Carolina.The Justice Department sued the state on Monday, asking a federal district court to rule that North Carolina was violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act and order it to stop enforcing the ban.Attorney General Loretta Lynch threatened to withhold federal funding to the 17-campus University of North Carolina system, which was named as a defendant in the lawsuit, while the legal case proceeds.North Carolina stands to lose $4.8 billion in funds, mainly educational grants, if it does not back down, according to an analysis by lawyers at the University of California, Los Angeles Law School.North Carolina's Republican governor and two legislative leaders also sued the U.S. government on Monday over the issue.UNC President Margaret Spellings has said schools are caught in the middle."We intend to remain in close communication with state and federal officials to underscore our shared interest in resolving these difficult issues as quickly as possible so that we can refocus our efforts on educating students," she said in a statement on Tuesday.(Additional reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney, Bernard Orr)
MURDER
JEREMIAH 1:5
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee;(GOD ORDAINED OR LIVES BEFORE WE WERE EVEN CREATED IN A WOMANS BODY)(GOD NEVER CREATED ANYONE HOMOSEXUAL)(AND THIS TELLS US ABORTION IS MURDER) and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
GENESIS 6:11-13 (EARTH DESTROYED BECAUSE OF TERRORISM,MURDERS)
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
JOHN 8:44
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
EXODUS 20:13
13 Thou shalt not kill.(Murder)(THAT INCLUDES ABORTION)
MATTHEW 18:6
6 But whoso shall offend (HURT) one of these little ones (CHILDREN) which believe in me,(JESUS) it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY FOLKS)
EXODUS 21:12
12 He that smiteth (MURDER)a man,(OR BABY) so that he die, shall be surely put to death.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY PEOPLE)
Abortion rate steady in poor nations, plunging in rich ones-[The Canadian Press]-Maria Cheng, The Associated Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
LONDON - The rate of abortions in the developed world has dropped to an all-time low while remaining steady in poorer regions, where nearly 90 per cent of the abortions worldwide occur, researchers say in a new study published Wednesday in the journal Lancet.In the first analysis of global abortion trends since 2008, scientists found that 56 million abortions are performed globally every year among women aged 15 to 44, and that about one in four pregnancies ends in abortion. Nearly three-quarters of abortions are obtained by married women.The researchers used government data and modeling techniques to calculate their estimates.The rate in rich countries fell to an all-time low between 1990 and 2014, from about 46 abortions per 1,000 women in 1990 to 27 abortions per 1,000 women in 2014.But in the developing world, the rate remained virtually unchanged, at about 37 abortions per 1,000 women."Family planning services do not seem to be keeping pace with the increasing desire for smaller families," said Gilda Sedgh of the Guttmacher Institute, a U.S. research group that supports abortion rights and the paper's lead author.The world's highest rate of abortions was in the Caribbean, at about 65 abortions per 1,000 women. The lowest rate was in North America, at 17. The biggest drop was in Eastern Europe, where the abortion rate fell to 42 abortions per 1,000 women from 88.There was no difference in the incidence of abortion in countries where the procedure is legal versus where it is heavily restricted or outlawed."The obvious interpretation is that criminalizing abortion does not prevent it but rather drives women to seek illegal services or methods," wrote Diana Greene Foster of the University of California in San Francisco, in an accompanying commentary. She said the new estimates could help researchers predict the consequences of policies including expanding family planning programs, liberalizing abortion laws and developing new birth control methods.Researchers also said about 225 million women in the developing world aren't able to access birth control.Women in other studies have said that was because they feared the side effects of contraception methods or were worried about the stigma of not being married when seeking birth control.The study was paid for by governments including Britain, the Netherlands and Norway, several U.N. agencies and others.___Online:www.lancet.com
When Zika hits, a push for birth control and abortion?-[The Canadian Press]-Mike Stobbe, The Associated Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
NEW YORK, N.Y. - There's little doubt: Zika is coming to the continental United States, bringing frightening birth defects — and, most likely, newly urgent discussions about abortion and contraception.Fearful they might bear children who suffer from brain-damaging birth defects caused by Zika, more women are expected to look for ways to prevent or end pregnancies. But the highest risk of Zika spreading is in Southern states where long-lasting birth control and abortions are harder to procure, and where a mosquito that transmits the virus already is plentiful."I think it's really important, facing this potential for Zika transmission in the U.S., to be thoughtful and prepared to have straightforward conversations about reproductive health services," said Dr. Christine Curry, a University of Miami obstetrician who has been treating women concerned about Zika infection.The issues already have been raised in Latin America, epicenter of the Zika epidemic and home to numerous countries where abortion is illegal.Zika is mainly spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, but that kind of transmission has not yet been seen in the U.S. mainland. Most of the 472 reported infections in the 50 states have been seen in people who travelled to — and were infected in — Zika outbreak countries. Mosquitoes have already been spreading the virus in Puerto Rico and two other subtropical U.S. territories.Experts think that will happen elsewhere in the U.S. in the months ahead, when hot weather hits and mosquito populations boom.It would be the first time the nation faced a mosquito-borne germ that causes birth defects. But some experts said a chapter in U.S. history from the mid-20th century may offer some lessons.It involved rubella — also known as German measles, a disease spread not by mosquitoes but by people. Like Zika, rubella was long thought to cause only mild disease, but became a menace when doctors linked rubella infections in pregnant women to terrible birth defects. As is the case with Zika, it took years to develop a vaccine against rubella, and families were faced with hard decisions in the interim.In the early 1960s, a huge rubella epidemic infected more than 12 million Americans. Thousands of babies born to infected moms died soon after birth, and doctors calculated that 85 per cent of women infected with rubella early in their pregnancy would have babies severely harmed by the virus."Most women, with that information, chose to end their pregnancy," said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine researcher and medical historian. Indeed, 5,000 infected women had abortions during that epidemic, he said.Experts don't expect Zika to sweep the U.S. mainland the way it spread through some Latin American and Caribbean countries. A colder climate limits the range of Aedes aegypti, and the greater use of air conditioning and window screens will probably lessen its impact even in the Southern states where transmission is most likely.A second, more cold-hardy mosquito — the Aedes albopictus, or "Asian tiger" — is also capable of spreading Zika and is more widespread across the United States. But experts have considered the Asian tiger less of a threat to spark outbreaks than the Aedes aegypti.So the betting money is on clusters of cases limited to a few states — most likely Florida, Texas or Hawaii. That would be a small impact compared with the nationwide rubella epidemic.And it's not yet clear that a Zika infection during pregnancy will be as likely to mean death or severe damage for the fetus as rubella did."That's one of the most important questions for us to answer" right now, said the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat at a White House briefing last month.A couple of small, early reviews of cases in other countries suggest that somewhere between 1 and 29 per cent of women infected with Zika during pregnancy might have fetuses or babies with birth defects.If the risk is 1 per cent, a pregnant woman may well want to carry through the pregnancy, Offit said. As the risk gets larger, at some point more women may think about abortion, he said.Complicating their decision: Even in cases when women are infected early in their pregnancy, ultrasound exams of fetuses have not shown signs of Zika-related birth defects until after 20 weeks — a point at which destruction of the fetus would be considered a "late-term abortion."Late-term abortions are more expensive, can be riskier for the mother, and involve a more developed fetus. About 20 states prohibit abortions past a certain number of weeks, in some cases making exceptions to save the life or health of the woman. In 12 of the states, the prohibitions kick in at 20 to 22 weeks.Serious birth defects "may not be picked up until well after the termination cut-off in a specific state. Termination may not be an option for these women," said Dr. Jeanne Sheffield, a Johns Hopkins University obstetrician who has advised the CDC on Zika-related pregnancy issues.The spectre of any Zika-driven abortions is alarming, said the Rev. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life."Naturally the Zika virus is a cause for concern, and we call upon governments and medical professionals to continue to develop appropriate treatments and interventions," Pavone said, in a prepared statement."But in no way does this justify recourse to abortion. The child in the womb is a patient too, and killing one's patient is never an appropriate response," he said.Though the U.S. Supreme Court famously ruled abortion is legal in 1973, the last decade has seen state legislatures pass a wave of abortion limitations and restrictions, including when during a pregnancy abortions can be done and what techniques can be used. The number of clinics, hospitals and doctors' offices that perform abortions has been shrinking, with notable declines in some of the states most likely to see Zika outbreaks.A closely related topic is access to birth control, because nearly half of women who have abortions were not using contraception.Condoms are often discussed because — when used effectively — they are a barrier to the Zika virus being spread to a woman through semen. But they are less than perfect at preventing pregnancy. Over one year, the probability of having an unintended pregnancy for a couple that uses only condoms is 17 per cent, according to the CDC. It drops to 9 per cent for couples that rely on the pill, to 7 per cent for injections like Depo-Provera, and to less than 1 per cent for implants and IUDs.For a couple trying to avoid pregnancy during a lasting Zika outbreak, "I would not recommend a condom exclusively," said Carol Hogue, an Emory University expert on birth trends.The Affordable Care Act covers contraception, and experts believe it's helped more working women get birth control. State Medicaid programs cover at least some forms of birth control, too. But not every method of birth control is always available, experts say.In fact, there are no good estimates of how many U.S. women need contraception — particularly the more effective types of contraception — and can't get it, said Adam Sonfield, a Guttmacher Institute researcher.There has been a push in some states to keep contraception funding away from groups that might refer women to abortion clinics.In 2013, the Texas legislature cut Planned Parenthood from the program that funds birth control and other family planning services for low-income women. In a medical journal article published this year, researchers looked at the effect of that change. They reported significant declines in women using long-acting forms of birth control, and a significant increase in births to low-income women.Florida's legislature recently adopted a similar measure, cutting Planned Parenthood clinics out of Medicaid funding.Nearly half of U.S. pregnancies are unintended, meaning a couple failed to properly use effective forms of contraception. In Texas, it's more than half. And in Florida, it's nearly 60 per cent, according to Guttmacher estimates from 2010.The national figure "indicates to me there is a large unmet need for contraception in the United States, and that we need to look for ways to make contraception more available for women who want it," said Dr. Denise Jamieson, leader of a CDC team looking at Zika and unintended pregnancy.The CDC is recommending that when a woman is pregnant, a couple should abstain from sex or use condoms during the entire pregnancy if the man may have been infected with Zika.More recently, the CDC said couples who are trying to conceive should always use condoms or abstain from sex for six months if the man had confirmed illness or Zika symptoms and was in an outbreak area.CDC officials have declined to discuss the issue of abortion services. Nor have they followed the lead of some officials in Latin America who have advised women to postpone starting families until a threat of local infection subsides.
North Korea sings praises of 'motherly' ruling party after congress-[AFP]-Simon Martin-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
North Korea Wednesday sang the praises of the ruling party in a two-hour concert extolling its achievements and those of the Kim dynasty that has ruled the country for its entire history.The show entitled "Always follow our party" was staged to celebrate a Workers' Party congress, the first for 36 years, which ended Monday.That meeting was widely seen as a coronation for current leader Kim Jong-Un, who took power after the sudden death of his father Kim Jong-Il in December 2011 and has been working to claw back power from the military.The concert featured the country's first all-women group, the Moranbong Band, whose members -- clad in white outfits ending above the knee and matching hats -- were said to have been chosen by the leader himself.Also featured in the event at a 10,000-seat Pyongyang stadium were the Chongbong Band, formed in 2015, and the military's State-Merited Chorus.While the Moranbong Band made nods to Western popular musical influences, songs about love referred to love of the party, the country or the ruling family -- which are taken to be one and the same.A song entitled "Mother Party" described its love for the people as "higher than the sky, deeper than the sea".The concert echoed the North's historical narrative -- that it won the 1950-53 Korean War and went on to build a thriving economy in the teeth of adversity.Archive film or computer-generated images projected behind the performers showed smiling Stakhanovite workers achieving miracles of production in industry and construction, or heroic soldiers struggling through snowdrifts.- 'Nothing to envy' -There was also footage of recent achievements such as the launch of a rocket which put a satellite in space -- an exercise seen in the West as a disguised ballistic missile test.The overarching theme of the performance was the good life the party had given its people, played out in numbers such as "We have nothing to envy in the world" and "Glory to the Workers' Party of Korea".Images of golden wheatfields and bountiful rice crops suggested a theme of plenty at odds with the North's history of famine in the 1990s and the serious food shortages international agencies say continue today.While praising the "motherly party", the concert also paid tribute to all three members of the ruling dynasty: national founder Kim Il-Sung, his son and successor Kim Jong-Il and the current ruler, whose smiling portrait closed out the event."We only follow you, no others," was the title of one song, referring to Kim Jong-Un.Western analysts say the party congress delivered little of political substance, restating Pyongyang's continued foreign policy of belligerent defiance backed by an expanding nuclear arsenal.But the North has spared no effort to celebrate the event, staging a parade in Kim Il-Sung Square Tuesday, followed the same day by a mass dance and torchlight parade.Party delegates, including several members of the politburo standing committee, made up most of Wednesday's audience in the auditorium, which was decked out in the party colours of red and gold.
US gears up missile defense system in Europe to Russia's ire-[Associated Press]-VANESSA GERA-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A U.S. missile defense system aimed at protecting Europe from ballistic missile threats is moving into higher gear this week, with a site in Romania becoming operational on Thursday and officials breaking ground at another site in Poland a day later.The system has been under development for years and is, NATO and U.S. officials say, aimed against potential long-range threats from the Middle East, mainly with Iran in mind. Yet Russia is adamantly opposed to having the advanced military system on its doorstep and the development is certain to further exacerbate tensions between Russia and the West that are more strained than at any time since the Cold War.The United States and NATO say the missile shield — which is able to track and shoot down incoming missiles — is purely defensive and is, in any case, powerless against Russia's large stockpile of intercontinental ballistic missiles."We have had very, very difficult challenges," dealing with Russia, said Frank Rose, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in Bucharest, Romania on Wednesday. "Russia has been building an advanced system for a long time and they do it very well. We don't have the technical capability to deal with that threat."While the Kremlin doesn't view the NATO missile defense system as a threat to its nuclear forces in its current limited shape, it fears that the U.S.-led missile shield may eventually erode the deterrent potential of Russian nuclear forces when it grows more powerful in the future.Russian officials have shrugged off the claim that the planned missile shield is intended to fend off missile threats from Iran, and President Vladimir Putin has pointed at the determination of the U.S. and NATO to pursue the project even after a nuclear deal with Iran as a proof that it's aimed against Russia.Western officials deny that."Ballistic missile proliferation is a growing threat," said NATO deputy spokeswoman Carmen Romero. "More and more countries are trying to develop or acquire ballistic missiles. Moreover, missile technology is becoming more sophisticated, lethal and accurate, and increasing in range.""For us to discount or ignore that very real missile threat would be irresponsible," Romero said.Russia has threatened to react to the planned site in Poland by deploying Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, the Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania that is the most militarized zone in Europe.The Iskanders, which can be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads, have a range of up to about 500 kilometers (300 miles), putting much of Poland in reach. They were temporarily deployed to Kaliningrad during military maneuvers last year to demonstrate Russia's quick deployment capabilities. Polish defense officials are convinced some are still there."What the Russians are protesting against are forces that are unable to threaten them," said Michal Baranowski, the Warsaw office director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, an institute devoted to trans-Atlantic affairs."Their protests are disingenuous," Baranowski added. "We know — and they know — that these are defense forces that are at a level that could be easily overwhelmed."U.S., NATO and Romanian officials will hold a ceremony Thursday to mark the start of operations of the site in Deveselu, a village in southern Romania, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg due to deliver a speech. A day later Polish and U.S. officials will take shovels in hand to break ground at a planned site in the Polish village of Redzikowo, near the Baltic Sea. It is set to go online in 2018.Both sites will be part of a system dubbed the European Phased Adaptive Approach, nomenclature indicating that its capabilities will grow as different elements become operational. For now the system also includes radar in Turkey and four naval destroyers with a home port in Spain. With only interim capabilities, it is now under command of the U.S. Navy but will be transferred to NATO once fully operational.The program was launched by former President George W. Bush but adapted significantly by President Barack Obama, who eliminated a component intended to be in the Czech Republic. Prague saw its own relationship with Moscow strained by agreeing to take part, leaving some lingering bitterness toward the U.S.In the initial years of planning, Russia and NATO were still working on what they called a "strategic partnership." Today the relationship is in a more confrontational phase, something on display recently in close encounters between the U.S. and Russian militaries in the Baltic Sea.Russia buzzed a U.S. warship last month, coming within 30 feet (9 meters) from the destroyer in what the U.S. Navy called a "simulated attack," while a Russian jet barrel-rolled a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane. U.S. officials have denounced those maneuvers as unprofessional and dangerous, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying that under U.S. military rules of engagement, the Navy ship could have opened fire.The Russians have downplayed the incidents, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying the warplanes took a look at the ship "from a safe distance."Ties between Russia and NATO took a sharp turn for the worse when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and began supporting a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. That led NATO to ratchet up military exercises in Central and Eastern Europe to reassure allies who threw off Moscow's control a quarter century ago and fear that they could be targeted next.A large-scale war game involving some 25,000 troops, Anakonda 16, is due to take place in Poland next month, one of the largest in recent years.NATO is also discussing a plan to deploy a continuous rotation of about 4,000 troops to the Baltic states and possibly Poland to reassure the nervous allies. NATO defense ministers are expected to discuss that in June, with a final decision on deployment to be taken the following month by Obama and other NATO leaders at a NATO summit in Warsaw.Baranowski, the analyst, said even with that expected build-up, NATO will still only have about one-tenth of the forces that Russia has deployed along its front."That's peanuts compared to what Russia already has there," he said.____Associated Press writers Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels and Alison Mutler in Bucharest, Romania contributed to this report.
1 PET 5:8
8 Be sober,(NOT DRUGED UP OR ALCOHOLICED) be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
REVELATION 18:23
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries (DRUGS) were all nations deceived.
REVELATION 9:21
21 Neither repented they of their murders,(KILLING) nor of their sorceries (DRUG ADDICTS AND DRUG PUSHERS), nor of their fornication,(SEX OUTSIDE MARRIAGE OR PROSTITUTION FOR MONEY) nor of their thefts.(STEALING)
15 arrested, 220 kg of cocaine seized in organized crime sweep-[CBC]-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
RCMP say 15 people are facing charges in connection with an organized crime network based in Montreal that used contacts in the transportation industry to import cocaine into Canada.Authorities seized 220 kilograms of cocaine and $2 million in cash they say was going to be used to purchase drugs.Police say the drug ring planned to import 1.4 tonnes of cocaine in total."The network imported cocaine into Canada from the United States through its contacts with commercial land carriers," the RCMP said in a statement on Wednesday.This is the third and final phase of an operation known as Clemenza, which was launched in 2010.The Mounties say Montreal police, Laval police, the Sûreté du Québec, the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canada Border Services Agency all assisted in the investigation."The impact of these arrests on organized crime is significant and will affect drug importation operations in the greater Montreal area," the RCMP said.Thirteen of the accused appeared at the Montreal courthouse today via video conference. Liborio Cuntrera is in Italy and is expected to turn himself in, police say. A 15th man, Riccardo Preteroti, 48, is still sought by police.A list of the accused:- Franco Albanese, 49, Saint-Léonard- Martino Caputo, 42, incarcerated in Kingston- Antonio Ciavaglia, 56, Kirkland- Erasmo Crivello, 36, Laval- Liborio Cuntrera, 47, Laval- Claude Ducharme, 58, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu- Antonio Guido, 40, Ottawa- Franck Iaconetti, 48, Repentigny- Hansley Joseph, 36, Montreal- Michele Lanni, 62, L'Île-Bizard- Carmelo Marsala, 37, Montreal- Roberto Olaciregui-Martinez, 37, Montreal- Marco Pizzi, 46, Montreal-Nord- Andreas Tasci, 44, Laval- Riccardo Preteroti, 48, unknown address.
Alberta says life-saving fentanyl antidote available without prescription-[The Canadian Press]-John Cotter, The Canadian Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
EDMONTON - Alberta is making a life-saving drug available without a prescription to curb fentanyl overdose deaths.The government says it is making naloxone easier to get as an antidote to the powerful synthetic opioid, which has been linked to 69 deaths in the province this year and 274 in 2015."Too many lives have been cut short by fentanyl and too many have lost loved ones," Brandy Payne, associate minister of health said Wednesday."Our hope is that removing the prescription requirement will encourage more people to access these potentially life-saving kits."Naloxone works by blocking the effects of fentanyl such as extreme drowsiness or loss of consciousness before a person overdoses, giving them time to seek medical help.Earlier this year Health Canada cleared the way, following a scientific review, for provinces to make naloxone available without a prescription.The injectable antidote can already be obtained at some Alberta pharmacies for free and at community health clinics.Payne said about 600 of Alberta's 1,100 pharmacies are taking part in the program so far, which includes training for pharmacists on how to teach people to safely use it.Fentanyl is about 100 times stronger than morphine. The drug, produced offshore, can be deadly because people often don't know if it has been cut into street drugs such as fake oxycodone or heroin.Payne said Alberta will also bolster drug counselling services and expand access to programs designed to wean people off of opioids.The province already allows paramedics to distribute naloxone and emergency medical technicians and emergency medical responders to administer and distribute the drug.Naloxone has been available in British Columbia without a prescription since March.The College of Pharmacists of B.C. has said it is essential that anyone administering naloxone call 911 immediately. The regulator also warns that the effects of naloxone wears off after 30-75 minutes, which means an overdose can return.Last month B.C.'s provincial health officer declared a public health emergency due to a dramatic increase in the number of overdose deaths. The province was projecting up to 800 fentanyl-related deaths this year.Payne said it is not necessary for Alberta to declare a similar emergency to deal with the situation.She said the province has a supply of 9,000 naloxone kits and plans to bolster treatment services in southern Alberta to help communities hard hit by fentanyl, including the Blood Tribe reserve.
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
Passengers recount 'disappointment' aboard cruise ship hit by virus-[The Canadian Press]-Alison Auld, The Canadian Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
HALIFAX - Dozens of passengers wandered off a British cruise ship in Halifax on Wednesday, weary from a virulent gastrointestinal illness that sickened hundreds of people on board and kept some in their cabins for days.The group of mostly elderly British passengers disembarked the Balmoral at a waterfront port facility, as staff wiped down handrails and screens with sanitizer to try to prevent the spread of the suspected norovirus.Jean Butcher from Harrow, England, said she was asked by crew to remain in her cabin after getting ill twice. She said it wasn't clear it if was norovirus or something she ate, but had to stay in her cabin for three days."Being confined is not nice, but it's best to keep away and make sure nobody else gets sick," she said after meeting her sister at the port reception area that had containers of sanitizing wipes and cleaners on hand.Her travelling companion, Marj Robinson, said she also had stomach upset, but did not experience vomiting or diarrhea — the typical symptoms of the highly contagious virus.She said the outbreak, which started soon after they boarded in England on April 16, cast a slight pall on the cruise that went from Southampton to the Caribbean, along the eastern seaboard and onto New Brunswick."It's been a very quiet cruise, there's nobody much about at night," she said. "I think the whole atmosphere has not been cruise like. I think it's put a little bit of a shadow over what should be a nice experience."Molly Kehoe, a spokeswoman with Health Canada, said there was only one passenger who remained under medical supervision as of Wednesday. She said people who are ill are not allowed to disembark without being cleared by the medical staff on board.The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention in the United States said Monday that 277 of 915 passengers on the Balmoral had reported being ill. It said nine of the 520 crew members had indicated they had a gastrointestinal illness.Rachael Jackson, a spokeswoman with the ship's owner Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, said nearly all the 1,434 passengers and crew have recovered."There is currently only one guest and no crew members required to remain in their cabins, and we have had no reported sickness in the last 36 hours," Jackson said in an e-mail Wednesday afternoon.Jackson said officials increased cleaning and disinfection procedures, began collecting stool samples for testing and sent a public health and sanitation manager to oversee the outbreak response.Lane Farguson of the Halifax Port Authority said staff would do extra cleaning of the port buildings, paying special attention to surfaces and objects that most people routinely touch."We're making sure we have increased cleaning going on at our facilities and certainly encouraging everyone to pay extra attention to handwashing today," he said as the 218-metre long ship pulled into port."This isn't completely unusual...Typically, we'll see one or two cases like this over the course of a year."Many passengers coming off the ship downplayed the effects of the outbreak, with one man who didn't want his name used saying, "it's just a little virus and it's been cleared up."Linda and David Aldred of Hatfield, England, said two of their six dinner companions had been hit by the illness but that the bug hadn't disrupted their trip that much, other than hearing steady reminders from crew to wash their hands and being urged to use sanitizer whenever they entered a restaurant.She said a scheduled visit to Bermuda had also been cancelled."It was a ship of disappointment after that," she said. "But I can't fault the ship, they're doing as much as they can."
SpaceX Dragon returns to Earth with precious science load-[The Canadian Press]-Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A SpaceX capsule returned to Earth on Wednesday with precious science samples from NASA's one-year space station resident.Less than six hours after leaving the International Space Station, the Dragon cargo carrier plopped into the Pacific, a few hundred miles off the Southern California coast. SpaceX reported a good splashdown, with three red-and-white striped parachutes slowing the final descent.The Dragon had been at the station for a month, dropping off supplies as well as an experimental, inflatable room that will pop open in two weeks. It was set free by the station's big robot arm.British astronaut Timothy Peake bid farewell to Dragon on behalf of the station's entire six-man crew."Dragon spacecraft has served us well, and it's good to see it departing full of science," Peake radioed from 250 miles up. "We wish it a safe recovery back to Planet Earth."Nearly 4,000 pounds of items fill the Dragon, including blood and urine samples from astronaut Scott Kelly's one-year mission. Kelly returned to Earth in March and has since retired from NASA. Researchers will use the medical specimens to study how the body withstands long journeys in space, in preparation for an eventual mission to Mars in the 2030s.Also on board: a spacesuit that leaked water into an astronaut's helmet in January, forcing an early end to a spacewalk. Engineers want to examine the suit to see what might have gone wrong.It is SpaceX's first return trip for NASA in a year. A launch accident last summer grounded the California-based company for months.SpaceX's Dragon is the only station supply ship that returns to Earth. The other capsules — Orbital ATK's Cygnus and Russia's Progress — are filled with trash and burn up on re-entry.It's the company's eighth return flight from the station since 2012.The Falcon rocket that launched this Dragon back on April 8 is now in a hangar at Cape Canaveral, Florida — awaiting another flight.Rather than getting dumped in the ocean as is customary for launch companies, the Falcon's first-stage booster flipped around after performing its job and flew to a vertical landing on a barge floating in the Atlantic. It was the first successful rocket touchdown at sea. A second booster touched down safely at sea last Friday following a satellite delivery.SpaceX chief Elon Musk wants to recover and reuse his rockets to drive down costs.___Online:SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/ NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Scientists map biodiversity of deep oceans, find surprising varieties of life-[The Canadian Press]-Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
HALIFAX - A humble, star-shaped creature that crawls across the floors of the seabed has helped a group of scientists that includes two Nova Scotian researchers come up with a map predicting surprising amounts of life in some of the world's deepest, darkest oceans.The maps linking biodiversity to thousands of samples of the brittle star from around the globe came out on Wednesday in the journal Nature.They suggest that deep waters such as those off of Canada's continental shelves - once thought to be barren deeps - can have a greater density of some species than shallower and warmer waters.Derek Tittensor, a biologist at Halifax's Dalhousie University, says the team collected 165,000 records from museums around the world over a 15-year period.The findings were fed into a database that he and fellow Dalhousie biologist Boris Worm helped analyze, with the involvement of six other scientists, including lead author Skipton Woolley, a doctoral candidate at the University of Melbourne."It was a huge effort compiling this information from sources dating back to a century or so and putting it together," said Tittensor in a telephone interview from his office at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre.The database is a compilation of each variety of the brittle star, where it was found, the latitude and longitude and the depth where it was located.Tittensor said co-author Tim O'Hara telephoned, emailed and visited museums where the samples were stored away after being scooped up off the ocean floor by methods such as trawls or deepsea submersibles.The team compiled the data to look for hotspots where there was a wide variety of brittle stars, as one indicator of biodiversity, said Tittensor."This is the only group at present for which we have enough information to put these distributions together," he said.The biologist explained that on land and in shallow oceans, biodiversity tends to peak in the tropics, but for the brittle stars, they found dense concentrations in areas such as the deep and frigid oceans off Canada's east coast."You tended to get the highest number of species at the mid latitudes," he explained. "Places like the central and North Atlantic or New Zealand, places quite far from the equator."The density of the brittle stars thriving in the lightless waters of the deeps may be linked to areas where plankton production is raining chemical energy into the ecosystem, says the biologist."This is the first test as to how well those hypotheses explain biodiversity in the deep ocean," he said.The scientists say the seasonal cycles in the northern and southern hemispheres spark natural cycles that produce large-scale algal blooms in the spring and fall.During the process, the plankton produced on the surface clump together and the energy-rich particles then cascade to the bottom of the oceans like marine snowfall, providing nutrients to the sea life that may be over two kilometres deep.Tittensor says the science team is hoping that as more data from around the world is collected, global maps of seafloor diversity will continue to become more detailed and cover a wider range of marine life.The data may also provide further support for protecting the ocean floors as governments plan to manage and conserve ocean areas, said the biologist."The implication ... in terms of planning to conserve an area is we'll need to take into account not just the shallow oceans but also the deep sea floors."
Liberal MP’s push to make ‘O Canada’ gender neutral back on track-[Canada Politics]-Carl Meyer-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
[A Liberal MP has kindly swapped positions with ailing MP Mauril Bélanger on the order of precedence, allowing his private member’s bill to make the national anthem gender neutral to be voted likely on June 1. A bill that will change Canada’s national anthem will get another chance to move forward this month, following an emotional day in Parliament last week.The private member’s bill by Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger would make O Canada gender neutral, by amending the National Anthem Act to swap out two words in the English version.The line “true patriot love, in all thy sons command” would become “true patriot love, in all of us command.”The C-210 bill was supposed to have finished its current stage and sent to the Canadian Heritage committee on Friday. But instead a series of speeches mostly by Conservative MPs ran out the clock, and the House couldn’t come to a consensus on extending debate before it had to adjourn for the day. That meant that the bill wouldn’t be heard again until Sept. 19.Changing the anthem is already a controversial topic, and has been for many years. But the moment was made especially impassioned because Bélanger has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He now must use text-to-speech software, as he cannot speak. His colleagues, who made him honourary Speaker in March, are unsure how long he will live.“There’s no guarantee he’s going to be here on Sept. 19,” Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Greg Fergus told the Globe and Mail on Friday.Conservative speeches ate up the majority of the hour set for debate on the bill, leading BuzzFeed Canada to accuse the Conservatives of filibustering, or deliberately stalling. The Conservatives denied this.But now Liberal MP Linda Lapointe has swapped positions with Bélanger, allowing him to take her spot on May 30, her office confirmed to Yahoo News Canada. A vote is expected for June 1.Meanwhile, Lapointe’s own private member’s bill on credit card acceptance fees will now get its first hour of second-reading debate in the anthem bill’s old spot of Sept. 19.“I want to give him the chance to get it through,” Lapointe told the Ottawa Citizen, which first reported the news of the swap. Lapointe’s office told Yahoo News Canada she is travelling with the international trade committee.Anthem change a passionate debate-Over the years, various efforts to change Canada’s anthem have led to passionate debate on the issue.In 2013, author Margaret Atwood and other Canadians launched the website restoreouranthem.ca to do the same thing as Bélanger’s bill.Yahoo Canada commenters overwhelmingly rejected the idea at the time.But Liberal and NDP MPs have picked up on the issue.“Canada is all of us, not some of us,” Bélanger told the House on Friday, when justifying the change. Part of his argument is that the anthem has already been altered. In 1908, he said, the original English version of the anthem had the line “thou dost in us command,” but it was changed in 1913 to “all thy sons command.”He also says that since Canada has changed its national flag, the anthem can also be changed without disrespecting Canada’s roots.NDP MP Sheila Malcolmson, who spoke in favour of the bill that day, told the House that her party supports efforts toward gender equality in Canada.“A national symbol’s value is tied to its ability to reflect every one of us and bring us together,” she said.The Conservatives see the issue differently.MP Larry Maguire, while thanking Bélanger for his “dedication and commitment” to his constituents, Parliament and Canada, said, “rewriting the lyrics of our national anthem in the name of political correctness would go too far.” He argued that it would set a precedent for “future changes on other issues of Canadian identity.”Maguire and his Conservative colleagues, Kelly Block and Harold Albrecht, who also spoke that day, touched on that slippery slope theme, pointing out that there are many other Canadian symbols, like the beaver.
Christian flag at Confederation Building violated government policy, documents show-[CBC]-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
The raising of the Christian flag in front of Confederation building during Holy Week went against the government's own policy on the use of the courtesy flag pole outside the building, internal documents show.A letter written by David Brown, director of protocol and corporate affairs, and sent to the premier's office before the flag raising, said in order for a flag to fly on the pole the event must be "non-commercial, non-religious and non-political in nature."That letter was released April 21 through access to information.Despite that policy, documents show the premier's chief of staff Kelvin Parsons instructed the flag be raised for Holy Week in response to a request by Tolson Chapman, a member of the St. Stephen the Martyr Church in St. John's.Chapman said in his request that it would recognize the persecution of Christians, during the lead up to Easter.The flag raising created a backlash from many who demanded it be taken down.St. John's Centre MHA Gerry Rogers said at the time the flag "represents a very divisive approach to Christianity, that it's homophobic, that it's against choice for women."In the House of Assembly Wednesday, Opposition Leader Paul Davis asked about the decision to raise the flag."The director of protocol wrote you and said it cannot be religious, but you said there was no policy and you went ahead and raised the flag," Davis said. "Tell the people why you went against your own policy."Premier says policy was just 'draft'-At the time, Ball defended how the flag had been raised, saying there was a "lack of clear policy."Responding to Davis Wednesday, Ball said, "That is shameful what the former premier is talking about. It was clear, clear draft policy — he knows this."Ball added, "It's now in the hands of the Speaker to put clear policy." The flag was taken down after the March 22 bombings in Brussels and was never put back up.The Christian flag was also raised outside the city halls of St. John's and Mount Pearl, but both took the flag down after complaints.Under the previous PC government, Chapman's request to put up the flag had been rejected as a violation of policy. The documents show when he was opposition leader Ball told Chapman he'd be more open to flying the flag."Our society must be tolerant and respectful of all groups, regardless of their religious, racial, gender based or other origins," Ball wrote in March 2015."A Liberal Government would operate based on a policy of tolerance and strive to accommodate as many requests as reasonably possible to raise a flag at Confederation Building."
North Carolina students sue U.S. over stance on bathroom access-[Reuters]-By Colleen Jenkins-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - A group of North Carolina public school students and their parents is asking a U.S. court to block two federal agencies from withholding education funding in a dispute over a state law mandating bathroom access according to birth sex.The conservative Alliance Defending Freedom filed the complaint on Tuesday on behalf of a group called "North Carolinians for Privacy." It is the fifth lawsuit to seek judicial input on the law enacted in March.The group said the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education had improperly held that provisions of federal law banning discrimination in education settings on the basis of sex apply to gender identity."The agencies must stop using falsehoods about what federal law requires to threaten student access to educational opportunities and financial assistance," Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel for the alliance, said in a statement on Wednesday.A spokeswoman for the Education Department referred questions to the Justice Department, which said it was reviewing the complaint.The Alliance Defending Freedom, which opposes allowing transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities, filed a similar lawsuit last week against the same federal agencies and a suburban Chicago school district over such a policy.The issue of whether transgender people deserve the same federal protections extended to blacks and religious minorities is already before courts in North Carolina.The Justice Department sued the state on Monday, asking a federal district court to rule that North Carolina was violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act and order it to stop enforcing the ban.Attorney General Loretta Lynch threatened to withhold federal funding to the 17-campus University of North Carolina system, which was named as a defendant in the lawsuit, while the legal case proceeds.North Carolina stands to lose $4.8 billion in funds, mainly educational grants, if it does not back down, according to an analysis by lawyers at the University of California, Los Angeles Law School.North Carolina's Republican governor and two legislative leaders also sued the U.S. government on Monday over the issue.UNC President Margaret Spellings has said schools are caught in the middle."We intend to remain in close communication with state and federal officials to underscore our shared interest in resolving these difficult issues as quickly as possible so that we can refocus our efforts on educating students," she said in a statement on Tuesday.(Additional reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney, Bernard Orr)
MURDER
JEREMIAH 1:5
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee;(GOD ORDAINED OR LIVES BEFORE WE WERE EVEN CREATED IN A WOMANS BODY)(GOD NEVER CREATED ANYONE HOMOSEXUAL)(AND THIS TELLS US ABORTION IS MURDER) and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
GENESIS 6:11-13 (EARTH DESTROYED BECAUSE OF TERRORISM,MURDERS)
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
JOHN 8:44
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
EXODUS 20:13
13 Thou shalt not kill.(Murder)(THAT INCLUDES ABORTION)
MATTHEW 18:6
6 But whoso shall offend (HURT) one of these little ones (CHILDREN) which believe in me,(JESUS) it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY FOLKS)
EXODUS 21:12
12 He that smiteth (MURDER)a man,(OR BABY) so that he die, shall be surely put to death.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY PEOPLE)
Abortion rate steady in poor nations, plunging in rich ones-[The Canadian Press]-Maria Cheng, The Associated Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
LONDON - The rate of abortions in the developed world has dropped to an all-time low while remaining steady in poorer regions, where nearly 90 per cent of the abortions worldwide occur, researchers say in a new study published Wednesday in the journal Lancet.In the first analysis of global abortion trends since 2008, scientists found that 56 million abortions are performed globally every year among women aged 15 to 44, and that about one in four pregnancies ends in abortion. Nearly three-quarters of abortions are obtained by married women.The researchers used government data and modeling techniques to calculate their estimates.The rate in rich countries fell to an all-time low between 1990 and 2014, from about 46 abortions per 1,000 women in 1990 to 27 abortions per 1,000 women in 2014.But in the developing world, the rate remained virtually unchanged, at about 37 abortions per 1,000 women."Family planning services do not seem to be keeping pace with the increasing desire for smaller families," said Gilda Sedgh of the Guttmacher Institute, a U.S. research group that supports abortion rights and the paper's lead author.The world's highest rate of abortions was in the Caribbean, at about 65 abortions per 1,000 women. The lowest rate was in North America, at 17. The biggest drop was in Eastern Europe, where the abortion rate fell to 42 abortions per 1,000 women from 88.There was no difference in the incidence of abortion in countries where the procedure is legal versus where it is heavily restricted or outlawed."The obvious interpretation is that criminalizing abortion does not prevent it but rather drives women to seek illegal services or methods," wrote Diana Greene Foster of the University of California in San Francisco, in an accompanying commentary. She said the new estimates could help researchers predict the consequences of policies including expanding family planning programs, liberalizing abortion laws and developing new birth control methods.Researchers also said about 225 million women in the developing world aren't able to access birth control.Women in other studies have said that was because they feared the side effects of contraception methods or were worried about the stigma of not being married when seeking birth control.The study was paid for by governments including Britain, the Netherlands and Norway, several U.N. agencies and others.___Online:www.lancet.com
When Zika hits, a push for birth control and abortion?-[The Canadian Press]-Mike Stobbe, The Associated Press-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
NEW YORK, N.Y. - There's little doubt: Zika is coming to the continental United States, bringing frightening birth defects — and, most likely, newly urgent discussions about abortion and contraception.Fearful they might bear children who suffer from brain-damaging birth defects caused by Zika, more women are expected to look for ways to prevent or end pregnancies. But the highest risk of Zika spreading is in Southern states where long-lasting birth control and abortions are harder to procure, and where a mosquito that transmits the virus already is plentiful."I think it's really important, facing this potential for Zika transmission in the U.S., to be thoughtful and prepared to have straightforward conversations about reproductive health services," said Dr. Christine Curry, a University of Miami obstetrician who has been treating women concerned about Zika infection.The issues already have been raised in Latin America, epicenter of the Zika epidemic and home to numerous countries where abortion is illegal.Zika is mainly spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, but that kind of transmission has not yet been seen in the U.S. mainland. Most of the 472 reported infections in the 50 states have been seen in people who travelled to — and were infected in — Zika outbreak countries. Mosquitoes have already been spreading the virus in Puerto Rico and two other subtropical U.S. territories.Experts think that will happen elsewhere in the U.S. in the months ahead, when hot weather hits and mosquito populations boom.It would be the first time the nation faced a mosquito-borne germ that causes birth defects. But some experts said a chapter in U.S. history from the mid-20th century may offer some lessons.It involved rubella — also known as German measles, a disease spread not by mosquitoes but by people. Like Zika, rubella was long thought to cause only mild disease, but became a menace when doctors linked rubella infections in pregnant women to terrible birth defects. As is the case with Zika, it took years to develop a vaccine against rubella, and families were faced with hard decisions in the interim.In the early 1960s, a huge rubella epidemic infected more than 12 million Americans. Thousands of babies born to infected moms died soon after birth, and doctors calculated that 85 per cent of women infected with rubella early in their pregnancy would have babies severely harmed by the virus."Most women, with that information, chose to end their pregnancy," said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine researcher and medical historian. Indeed, 5,000 infected women had abortions during that epidemic, he said.Experts don't expect Zika to sweep the U.S. mainland the way it spread through some Latin American and Caribbean countries. A colder climate limits the range of Aedes aegypti, and the greater use of air conditioning and window screens will probably lessen its impact even in the Southern states where transmission is most likely.A second, more cold-hardy mosquito — the Aedes albopictus, or "Asian tiger" — is also capable of spreading Zika and is more widespread across the United States. But experts have considered the Asian tiger less of a threat to spark outbreaks than the Aedes aegypti.So the betting money is on clusters of cases limited to a few states — most likely Florida, Texas or Hawaii. That would be a small impact compared with the nationwide rubella epidemic.And it's not yet clear that a Zika infection during pregnancy will be as likely to mean death or severe damage for the fetus as rubella did."That's one of the most important questions for us to answer" right now, said the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat at a White House briefing last month.A couple of small, early reviews of cases in other countries suggest that somewhere between 1 and 29 per cent of women infected with Zika during pregnancy might have fetuses or babies with birth defects.If the risk is 1 per cent, a pregnant woman may well want to carry through the pregnancy, Offit said. As the risk gets larger, at some point more women may think about abortion, he said.Complicating their decision: Even in cases when women are infected early in their pregnancy, ultrasound exams of fetuses have not shown signs of Zika-related birth defects until after 20 weeks — a point at which destruction of the fetus would be considered a "late-term abortion."Late-term abortions are more expensive, can be riskier for the mother, and involve a more developed fetus. About 20 states prohibit abortions past a certain number of weeks, in some cases making exceptions to save the life or health of the woman. In 12 of the states, the prohibitions kick in at 20 to 22 weeks.Serious birth defects "may not be picked up until well after the termination cut-off in a specific state. Termination may not be an option for these women," said Dr. Jeanne Sheffield, a Johns Hopkins University obstetrician who has advised the CDC on Zika-related pregnancy issues.The spectre of any Zika-driven abortions is alarming, said the Rev. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life."Naturally the Zika virus is a cause for concern, and we call upon governments and medical professionals to continue to develop appropriate treatments and interventions," Pavone said, in a prepared statement."But in no way does this justify recourse to abortion. The child in the womb is a patient too, and killing one's patient is never an appropriate response," he said.Though the U.S. Supreme Court famously ruled abortion is legal in 1973, the last decade has seen state legislatures pass a wave of abortion limitations and restrictions, including when during a pregnancy abortions can be done and what techniques can be used. The number of clinics, hospitals and doctors' offices that perform abortions has been shrinking, with notable declines in some of the states most likely to see Zika outbreaks.A closely related topic is access to birth control, because nearly half of women who have abortions were not using contraception.Condoms are often discussed because — when used effectively — they are a barrier to the Zika virus being spread to a woman through semen. But they are less than perfect at preventing pregnancy. Over one year, the probability of having an unintended pregnancy for a couple that uses only condoms is 17 per cent, according to the CDC. It drops to 9 per cent for couples that rely on the pill, to 7 per cent for injections like Depo-Provera, and to less than 1 per cent for implants and IUDs.For a couple trying to avoid pregnancy during a lasting Zika outbreak, "I would not recommend a condom exclusively," said Carol Hogue, an Emory University expert on birth trends.The Affordable Care Act covers contraception, and experts believe it's helped more working women get birth control. State Medicaid programs cover at least some forms of birth control, too. But not every method of birth control is always available, experts say.In fact, there are no good estimates of how many U.S. women need contraception — particularly the more effective types of contraception — and can't get it, said Adam Sonfield, a Guttmacher Institute researcher.There has been a push in some states to keep contraception funding away from groups that might refer women to abortion clinics.In 2013, the Texas legislature cut Planned Parenthood from the program that funds birth control and other family planning services for low-income women. In a medical journal article published this year, researchers looked at the effect of that change. They reported significant declines in women using long-acting forms of birth control, and a significant increase in births to low-income women.Florida's legislature recently adopted a similar measure, cutting Planned Parenthood clinics out of Medicaid funding.Nearly half of U.S. pregnancies are unintended, meaning a couple failed to properly use effective forms of contraception. In Texas, it's more than half. And in Florida, it's nearly 60 per cent, according to Guttmacher estimates from 2010.The national figure "indicates to me there is a large unmet need for contraception in the United States, and that we need to look for ways to make contraception more available for women who want it," said Dr. Denise Jamieson, leader of a CDC team looking at Zika and unintended pregnancy.The CDC is recommending that when a woman is pregnant, a couple should abstain from sex or use condoms during the entire pregnancy if the man may have been infected with Zika.More recently, the CDC said couples who are trying to conceive should always use condoms or abstain from sex for six months if the man had confirmed illness or Zika symptoms and was in an outbreak area.CDC officials have declined to discuss the issue of abortion services. Nor have they followed the lead of some officials in Latin America who have advised women to postpone starting families until a threat of local infection subsides.
North Korea sings praises of 'motherly' ruling party after congress-[AFP]-Simon Martin-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
North Korea Wednesday sang the praises of the ruling party in a two-hour concert extolling its achievements and those of the Kim dynasty that has ruled the country for its entire history.The show entitled "Always follow our party" was staged to celebrate a Workers' Party congress, the first for 36 years, which ended Monday.That meeting was widely seen as a coronation for current leader Kim Jong-Un, who took power after the sudden death of his father Kim Jong-Il in December 2011 and has been working to claw back power from the military.The concert featured the country's first all-women group, the Moranbong Band, whose members -- clad in white outfits ending above the knee and matching hats -- were said to have been chosen by the leader himself.Also featured in the event at a 10,000-seat Pyongyang stadium were the Chongbong Band, formed in 2015, and the military's State-Merited Chorus.While the Moranbong Band made nods to Western popular musical influences, songs about love referred to love of the party, the country or the ruling family -- which are taken to be one and the same.A song entitled "Mother Party" described its love for the people as "higher than the sky, deeper than the sea".The concert echoed the North's historical narrative -- that it won the 1950-53 Korean War and went on to build a thriving economy in the teeth of adversity.Archive film or computer-generated images projected behind the performers showed smiling Stakhanovite workers achieving miracles of production in industry and construction, or heroic soldiers struggling through snowdrifts.- 'Nothing to envy' -There was also footage of recent achievements such as the launch of a rocket which put a satellite in space -- an exercise seen in the West as a disguised ballistic missile test.The overarching theme of the performance was the good life the party had given its people, played out in numbers such as "We have nothing to envy in the world" and "Glory to the Workers' Party of Korea".Images of golden wheatfields and bountiful rice crops suggested a theme of plenty at odds with the North's history of famine in the 1990s and the serious food shortages international agencies say continue today.While praising the "motherly party", the concert also paid tribute to all three members of the ruling dynasty: national founder Kim Il-Sung, his son and successor Kim Jong-Il and the current ruler, whose smiling portrait closed out the event."We only follow you, no others," was the title of one song, referring to Kim Jong-Un.Western analysts say the party congress delivered little of political substance, restating Pyongyang's continued foreign policy of belligerent defiance backed by an expanding nuclear arsenal.But the North has spared no effort to celebrate the event, staging a parade in Kim Il-Sung Square Tuesday, followed the same day by a mass dance and torchlight parade.Party delegates, including several members of the politburo standing committee, made up most of Wednesday's audience in the auditorium, which was decked out in the party colours of red and gold.
US gears up missile defense system in Europe to Russia's ire-[Associated Press]-VANESSA GERA-May 11, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A U.S. missile defense system aimed at protecting Europe from ballistic missile threats is moving into higher gear this week, with a site in Romania becoming operational on Thursday and officials breaking ground at another site in Poland a day later.The system has been under development for years and is, NATO and U.S. officials say, aimed against potential long-range threats from the Middle East, mainly with Iran in mind. Yet Russia is adamantly opposed to having the advanced military system on its doorstep and the development is certain to further exacerbate tensions between Russia and the West that are more strained than at any time since the Cold War.The United States and NATO say the missile shield — which is able to track and shoot down incoming missiles — is purely defensive and is, in any case, powerless against Russia's large stockpile of intercontinental ballistic missiles."We have had very, very difficult challenges," dealing with Russia, said Frank Rose, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in Bucharest, Romania on Wednesday. "Russia has been building an advanced system for a long time and they do it very well. We don't have the technical capability to deal with that threat."While the Kremlin doesn't view the NATO missile defense system as a threat to its nuclear forces in its current limited shape, it fears that the U.S.-led missile shield may eventually erode the deterrent potential of Russian nuclear forces when it grows more powerful in the future.Russian officials have shrugged off the claim that the planned missile shield is intended to fend off missile threats from Iran, and President Vladimir Putin has pointed at the determination of the U.S. and NATO to pursue the project even after a nuclear deal with Iran as a proof that it's aimed against Russia.Western officials deny that."Ballistic missile proliferation is a growing threat," said NATO deputy spokeswoman Carmen Romero. "More and more countries are trying to develop or acquire ballistic missiles. Moreover, missile technology is becoming more sophisticated, lethal and accurate, and increasing in range.""For us to discount or ignore that very real missile threat would be irresponsible," Romero said.Russia has threatened to react to the planned site in Poland by deploying Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, the Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania that is the most militarized zone in Europe.The Iskanders, which can be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads, have a range of up to about 500 kilometers (300 miles), putting much of Poland in reach. They were temporarily deployed to Kaliningrad during military maneuvers last year to demonstrate Russia's quick deployment capabilities. Polish defense officials are convinced some are still there."What the Russians are protesting against are forces that are unable to threaten them," said Michal Baranowski, the Warsaw office director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, an institute devoted to trans-Atlantic affairs."Their protests are disingenuous," Baranowski added. "We know — and they know — that these are defense forces that are at a level that could be easily overwhelmed."U.S., NATO and Romanian officials will hold a ceremony Thursday to mark the start of operations of the site in Deveselu, a village in southern Romania, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg due to deliver a speech. A day later Polish and U.S. officials will take shovels in hand to break ground at a planned site in the Polish village of Redzikowo, near the Baltic Sea. It is set to go online in 2018.Both sites will be part of a system dubbed the European Phased Adaptive Approach, nomenclature indicating that its capabilities will grow as different elements become operational. For now the system also includes radar in Turkey and four naval destroyers with a home port in Spain. With only interim capabilities, it is now under command of the U.S. Navy but will be transferred to NATO once fully operational.The program was launched by former President George W. Bush but adapted significantly by President Barack Obama, who eliminated a component intended to be in the Czech Republic. Prague saw its own relationship with Moscow strained by agreeing to take part, leaving some lingering bitterness toward the U.S.In the initial years of planning, Russia and NATO were still working on what they called a "strategic partnership." Today the relationship is in a more confrontational phase, something on display recently in close encounters between the U.S. and Russian militaries in the Baltic Sea.Russia buzzed a U.S. warship last month, coming within 30 feet (9 meters) from the destroyer in what the U.S. Navy called a "simulated attack," while a Russian jet barrel-rolled a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane. U.S. officials have denounced those maneuvers as unprofessional and dangerous, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying that under U.S. military rules of engagement, the Navy ship could have opened fire.The Russians have downplayed the incidents, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying the warplanes took a look at the ship "from a safe distance."Ties between Russia and NATO took a sharp turn for the worse when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and began supporting a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. That led NATO to ratchet up military exercises in Central and Eastern Europe to reassure allies who threw off Moscow's control a quarter century ago and fear that they could be targeted next.A large-scale war game involving some 25,000 troops, Anakonda 16, is due to take place in Poland next month, one of the largest in recent years.NATO is also discussing a plan to deploy a continuous rotation of about 4,000 troops to the Baltic states and possibly Poland to reassure the nervous allies. NATO defense ministers are expected to discuss that in June, with a final decision on deployment to be taken the following month by Obama and other NATO leaders at a NATO summit in Warsaw.Baranowski, the analyst, said even with that expected build-up, NATO will still only have about one-tenth of the forces that Russia has deployed along its front."That's peanuts compared to what Russia already has there," he said.____Associated Press writers Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels and Alison Mutler in Bucharest, Romania contributed to this report.
