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)
LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
Pentagon pushes for new, low-yield nuclear weapons-Defense chief Jim Mattis says revamp of US nuclear arsenal necessary due to Russia's 'return to Great Power competition'-By Thomas WATKINS-TOI-FEB 4,18
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US military wants to revamp its nuclear arsenal and develop new low-yield atomic weapons, largely in response to Russian actions in recent years, the Pentagon said in a policy statement released Friday.The so-called Nuclear Posture Review outlines the Pentagon’s nuclear ambitions under US President Donald Trump and is the first time since 2010 that the military has spelled out how it foresees nuclear threats in the coming decades.“The strategy develops capabilities aimed at making use of nuclear weapons less likely,” Trump said in a statement. “It enhances deterrence of strategic attacks against our Nation, and our allies and partners, that may not come in the form of nuclear weapons.”“And, importantly, it reaffirms our commitment to arms control and nuclear non-proliferation, maintains the moratorium on nuclear testing, and commits to improving efforts to prevent, detect, and respond to nuclear terrorism,” he said.The document marks a sobering break from the vision for America’s atomic future under Barack Obama, who during a famous speech in Prague in 2009 called for the elimination of nuclear weapons.While it underscores the administration’s concerns about North Korea, Iran and China, the focus falls largely on Russia.“This is a response to Russian expansion of their capability and the nature of their strategy and doctrine,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote in the introduction to the 75-page document.“These developments, coupled with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and nuclear threats against our allies, mark Moscow’s decided return to Great Power competition,” he also wrote.The Pentagon worries Russia assumes America’s regular, large-yield weapons are essentially too big to ever be detonated, as their use would likely result in large-scale retaliation and wipe much of humanity off the map.“There are strong indications that our current strategy posture and capabilities are perceived by the Russians as potentially inadequate to deter them,” Greg Weaver, the deputy director of strategic capabilities for the military’s Joint Staff, told reporters.“The US and NATO require a wider range of credible low-yield nuclear options to do a very specific thing: to convince the Russian leadership that if they initiate limited nuclear use, in a war with the alliance, our response will deny them the objective they seek and impose costs that far outweigh those benefits they can achieve,” he added.-More reliance on subs and ships-The document, an earlier version of which was leaked last month, says that by having additional smaller nukes, the Pentagon can counter adversaries’ “misperceptions” that the United States would not respond to another country using its own low-yield bomb.The new strategy calls for a continuation of the nuclear modernization program ordered by Obama that encompasses all pillars of the “triad” — ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched weapons and bombs delivered by plane.But unlike the Obama strategy, which stressed reducing the role of nuclear weapons, the new policy has a more assertive tone.Low-yield nuclear weapons, also known as “tactical” nukes, are still extremely powerful and can pack as much destructive punch as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.America already has a massive nuclear arsenal at its disposal, including 150 B-61 nukes stored across multiple European countries that can be configured for low-yield options.The new weapons envisioned by the Pentagon would be launchable from submarines or ships, so would not need to be stockpiled in Europe.They could also get around Russian air defenses more easily.The bombs would not add to America’s nuclear horde, and would instead repurpose existing warheads, but critics say the Pentagon would be going against the spirit of non-proliferation agreements.“We are on the cusp of a new era of nuclear proliferation,” warned Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan anti-nuclear proliferation think tank in Washington.“This is the great nuclear danger raised by the new” nuclear policy.Weaver disputed media accounts that the nuclear posture review lowered the threshold for America to use nuclear weapons.“The purpose of these capabilities is to make a US response to nuclear use more credible, not to make US first use more likely,” he said.
Palestinian-American brings #MeToo campaign to West Bank-Yasmeen Mjalli wants to encourage Palestinian society to confront taboo subject of sexual harassment-By Karin Laub-TOI-FEB 4,18
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A young Palestinian-American is the driving force behind a nascent #MeToo movement in this patriarchal corner of the world, selling T-shirts, hoodies and denim jackets with the slogan “Not Your Habibti (darling)” as a retort for catcalls, and writing down women’s complaints from her perch in a West Bank square.Yasmeen Mjalli wants to encourage Palestinian society to confront sexual harassment, a largely taboo subject.“What I am doing is to start a conversation that people are really afraid to have,” said Mjalli as she put her merchandise on hangers in a clothing store.The 21-year-old has faced backlash from conservatives and from some activists who say fighting Israeli occupation is the priority for Palestinians.Her parents, who grew up in a Palestinian farming town, immigrated to the United States and returned to the West Bank five years ago, weren’t pleased, either.“To be able to have peace with them, I have to check my feminism at the door, which is very difficult because that’s really who I am,” said Mjalli, who moved to the West Bank last year, after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in art history.Mjalli and other activists say that starting a conversation about sexual harassment doesn’t mean copying the #MeToo movement in the United States, where victims are speaking out in growing numbers.Cultural differences require a different approach.Women across the Arab world have made strides toward equality, outnumbering men in many universities and joining the work force in growing numbers. Yet they struggle to break free from the constraints of patriarchy.Traditional Arab societies assign rigid gender roles, with men as guardians of their female relatives’ “honor” — effectively a ban on male-female friendships or sex outside marriage. Women violating those rules risk being ostracized or — in extreme cases — being killed by male relatives, who count on leniency from the courts.Rules are looser among urban elites. But even in Ramallah — the most liberal West Bank town with many Western-educated Palestinians and foreigners — women watch their step.Women risk getting blamed if they complain, said Wafa Abdelrahman, who runs a closed Facebook group for female journalists. “The blame will be, ‘for sure, you did something wrong or you gave the wrong signal, the way you dress, the way you talk’,” she said.University student Nadine Moussa, 22, said women know the trouble spots.“I never ever walked in the city center of Ramallah without being harassed verbally, but I don’t face that in the neighborhoods,” she said, adding that her co-ed campus is relatively safe.Palestinian police receive few complaints about street harassment, said spokesman Loay Irzeqat. He believes some women fear unintended consequences, such as male relatives attacking accused harassers.Police mostly deal with online harassment, with about one-third of some 2,000 electronic crimes cases in 2017 revolving around men blackmailing women for sexual or financial gain, he said. Typically, extortionists threaten to publish photos deemed compromising, such as showing a traditional woman without her headscarf.Women lack legal protection, despite improvements such as the establishment of a police sex crimes unit, said Amal Kreishe, founder of the Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development to which Mjalli donates some of her proceeds.Reforms of the penal code have been held up by the collapse of Palestinian parliament as a result of a decade-old split between President Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank autonomy government and the Hamas group in Gaza. Abbas has ignored appeals to change the code by decree in the meantime.“All the talk about women’s equality and rights is lip service,” said Kreishe.Still, Kreishe has witnessed gradual changes. More women seek counseling from her group, which has referred about 200 complaints to police over the past two years — compared to a few dozen in previous years.Across the Arab world, the prevalence of street harassment varies.In Egypt, it remains widespread despite pushback from civil society and a 2014 law threatening up to five years in prison. Cairo has been described by some as the world’s most dangerous mega city for women.In the conservative Gulf Arab region, street harassment is relatively uncommon in smaller countries where religious and tribal codes restrict interactions between unmarried men and women.In Saudi Arabia, it has become an issue of debate, as women prepare to drive for the first time this June, following the lifting of a government ban. In recent years, several videos went viral showing Saudi women in long black robes being heckled by men. Saudi King Salman has approved legislation criminalizing sexual harassment.In the West Bank, Mjalli is pushing boundaries with what she calls “typewriter events.”On a recent day, she sat behind a table in Ramallah’s Clock Square, taking notes on a typewriter — chosen over a laptop as an attention-getter — as women sitting across from her shared stories about harassment. The event was also meant to generate support for passing laws protecting women, she said.Her idea of designing clothes with a feminist message goes back to college.At the time, she decorated her denim jacket with “Not your Habibti,” a take on the popular “Not Your Baby” slogan that reflected her Arab roots. Mjalli posted a photo of the jacket online last year for International Women’s Day, stirring interest from potential buyers.For a few months, she bought, transformed and sold second-hand jackets. In August, she launched her business, Baby-Fist, with workshops in Gaza and the West Bank making T-shirts, hoodies and jackets.Mjalli estimates she has sold close to 500 pieces, with about 70 percent of her sales in the diaspora.Skeptics expect limited impact on Palestinian society.Nader Said, a Palestinian pollster, said public discourse is crowded with issues seen as more pressing, mainly Israel’s control of the West Bank and other lands Palestinians seek for a future state. Respondents listing top concerns in a survey ranked women’s rights near the end, he said.Abdelrahman, the activist, cheered on Mjalli.“I am open to all things that will open up this dark closet that we prefer to hide in, pretending that everything is alright,” she said. “Let’s open it and see what comes out of it.”
Israel carrying out secret airstrike campaign in Sinai to help Egypt — report-Unmarked IAF drones, fighter jets, and gunships are conducting attacks against jihadist insurgents at the behest of Sissi, The New York Times reports-By TOI staff-FEB 4,18
Israeli drones, fighter jets, and helicopter gunships have carried out more than 100 airstrikes against Islamist terrorists in the Sinai, in a bid to help Egypt deal with the jihadist insurgency in the peninsula, the New York Times reported Saturday.Israel was forced to take action, with the blessing of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, as Egypt struggled to deal with the violent uprising that has killed hundreds of Egyptian security forces and civilians, the report said.While security coordination between Jerusalem and Cairo is known to be close, the ties are still unpopular in Egypt, despite nearly three decades of peace. In order to keep the cooperation quiet, the Israeli aircraft are often unmarked and sometimes use indirect routes in a bid to cover up the origin of the strikes, the report said.The report said Sissi had kept the Israeli strikes secret, only letting a small group of military and intelligence officials in on the cooperation, and has kept northern Sinai a closed military area, barring reporters from the region.Israeli and Egyptian officials refused to confirm or comment on the report, which the paper said was based on interviews with seven current or former British and American officials involved in Middle East policy, all speaking on condition of anonymity.The report quoted American officials as saying that Israel’s air campaign has played a decisive role in enabling the Egyptian armed forces to gain an upper hand against the jihadists.According to the US sources, Israel began its airstrikes following the capture of a north Sinai town by the Islamists and the downing of a Russian charter jet over Sinai in October 2014 that killed 224 people. They said Israel has had a string of successes in killing the terrorist leaders.In the wake of the Israeli strikes, the Islamists slowed their advance and switched their attention to softer targets like attacking mosques and churches, the report said.However, Israel has complained to the US that Egypt is not upholding its end of the agreement, and that Cairo was supposed to follow up on the airstrikes by sending ground forces into the region.
Syria rebels down Russian fighter jet, capture pilot: monitor-Pilot parachutes from downed aircraft, no word on his condition or which faction is holding him-By AFP-FEB 4,18
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Rebel fighters shot down a Russian plane over Syria’s northwest Idlib province on Saturday and captured its pilot, a monitor said.“Rebel factions shot down a Sukhoi 25. The Russian pilot came down in a parachute, before being captured,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.He could not immediately confirm which faction had downed the plane but hardline opposition groups and the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) are active in Idlib.No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.Syrian troops launched a fierce offensive on Idlib in late December, with backing by Russian warplanes.“There have been dozens of Russian air strikes in the area over the past 24 hours. This plane was also carrying out raids there,” said Abdel Rahman.Opposition factions have shot Syrian regime planes in the past, but downing Russian warplanes is much rarer.In August 2016, a Russian military helicopter was shot down over Syria and all five people on board were killed.Moscow began conducting air strikes in Syria in September 2015.Two months later, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane, leading to the worst crisis in ties between the two countries since the end of the Cold War.
Trump taking tougher stance on Russia nuclear threat-Nuclear review also outlines North Korea and China as potential atomic adversaries; no plans to increase size of arsenal-By Robert Burns-FEB 4,18
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday announced it will continue much of the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons policy, but take a more aggressive stance toward Russia. It said Russia must be convinced it would face “unacceptably dire costs” if it were to threaten even a limited nuclear attack in Europe.The sweeping review of US nuclear policy does not call for any net increase in strategic nuclear weapons — a position that stands in contrast to President Donald Trump’s statement, in a tweet shortly before he took office, that the US “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” In his State of the Union address Tuesday, he made no mention of expansion, though he said the arsenal must deter acts of aggression.A 74-page report summarizing the review’s findings calls North Korea a “clear and grave threat” to the US and its allies. It asserts that any North Korean nuclear attack against the US or its allies will result in “the end of that regime.”It also cast China as a potential nuclear adversary, saying the US arsenal is tailored to “prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding” that it could gain advantage by using its nuclear weapons in Asia, or that “any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, is acceptable.”The Pentagon-led review of the US nuclear arsenal and the policies that govern it was ordered by Trump a year ago. In a written statement, Trump said US strategy is designed to make use of nuclear weapons less likely. In an apparent reference to the threat of catastrophic cyberattack, he said the US aims to strengthen deterrence of major attacks against the US and its allies, including those that “may not come in the form of nuclear weapons.”Known officially as a nuclear posture review, and customarily done at the outset of a new administration, the report drew blistering criticism from arms control groups.“President Trump is embarking on a reckless path — one that will reduce US security both now and in the longer term,” said Lisbeth Gronlund, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She said the administration is blurring the line between nuclear and conventional war-fighting.The Trump administration concluded that the US should largely follow its predecessor’s blueprint for modernizing the nuclear arsenal, including new bomber aircraft, submarines, and land-based missiles. It also endorsed adhering to existing arms control agreements, including the New START treaty that limits the United States and Russia each to 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads on a maximum of 700 deployed launchers.The treaty, negotiated under President Barack Obama, entered into force on Feb. 5, 2011, and its weapons limits must be met by Monday. The US says it has been in compliance with the limits since August and it expects the Russians to comply by Monday’s deadline. As of Sept. 1, the last date for which official figures are available, Russia was below the launcher limit but slightly above the warhead limit, at 1,561.“Moscow has repeatedly stated its intention to meet those limits on time, and we have no reason to believe that that won’t be the case,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Thursday.The Pentagon’s nuclear review concluded that while arms control can advance American interests, “further progress is difficult to envision,” in light of what the US considers Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and violations of existing arms deals. Administration officials briefed Russian and Chinese officials Friday prior to the review’s public release.The Trump nuclear doctrine breaks with Obama’s in ending his push to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US defense policy. Like Obama, Trump would consider using nuclear weapons only in “extreme circumstances,” while maintaining a degree of ambiguity about what that means. But Trump sees a fuller deterrent role for these weapons, as reflected in the plan to develop new capabilities to counter Russia in Europe.The administration’s view is that Russian policies and actions are fraught with potential for miscalculation leading to an uncontrolled escalation of conflict in Europe. It specifically points to a Russian doctrine known as “escalate to de-escalate,” in which Moscow would use or threaten to use smaller-yield nuclear weapons in a limited, conventional conflict in Europe, in the belief that doing so would compel the US and NATO to back down.“Recent Russian statements on this evolving nuclear weapons doctrine appear to lower the threshold for Moscow’s first-use of nuclear weapons,” the review said.The administration proposes a two-step solution.First, it would modify “a small number” of existing long-range ballistic missiles carried by Trident strategic submarines to fit them with smaller-yield nuclear warheads. John Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy, declined to provide an estimate of the cost, saying it would be partially included in the 2019 budget that will be submitted to Congress later this month. He said the missile would be fielded “in the near term,” but he refused to be more specific.Second, “in the longer term,” the administration would develop a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile — re-establishing a weapon that existed during the Cold War but was retired in 2011 by the Obama administration.Robert Soofer, a senior nuclear policy official at the Pentagon who helped direct the policy review, said Moscow is likely to push back on the U.S. plan for fielding those two additional weapons.“I’m sure they won’t respond well,” Soofer said Thursday.The press secretary at the Russian Embassy in Washington, Nikolay Lakhonin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russian delegation ‘sought to stop Israeli strikes in Syria, Lebanon’-Arabic daily says high-level team visiting from Moscow came to Jerusalem to discourage action against Iran and Hezbollah-By TOI staff-FEB 4,18
A delegation of senior Russian security officials visiting Israel this week reportedly sought to dissuade Jerusalem from striking Iranian and Hezbollah weapons facilities in Syria and Lebanon.According to the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat, quoted by Israel’s Channel 10 news, the purpose of Wednesday’s visit, headed by Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, was Moscow’s desire to discourage Israeli intervention across the border, Channel 10 news reported.The Russian delegation, which also included deputy ministers, army generals and intelligence officers, held talks with Israel’s National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat as well as heads of Israel’s National Security Council and top military, defense and intelligence officials.Patrushev himself met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Israel has been negotiating with the United States and Russia, the main brokers in Syria, to keep Iran-backed Shiite militias and the Hezbollah terrorist group away from the border.Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and others have all said that Israel’s policy is to target shipments of advanced weaponry, including accurate long-range missiles, that are heading to or in the possession of Hezbollah. Foreign media reports have attributed dozens of airstrikes on Iranian-linked targets in Syria to Israel.Last week’s visit by the Russian officials came on the heels of Netanyahu’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss Iranian military entrenchment in the region.Netanyahu said his meeting with Putin focused on Iran, with the prime minister saying if Tehran continues to try and deepen its influence in Syria, Israel would work to “stop it.”“The question is: Does Iran entrench itself in Syria, or will this process be stopped. If it doesn’t stop by itself, we will stop it,” Netanyahu told Israeli reporters during a telephone briefing.“We also spoke about Lebanon, which is becoming a factory for precision-guided missiles that threaten Israel. These missiles pose a grave threat to Israel, and we will not accept this threat,” he added.Netanyahu said that the weapons factories are currently “in the process of being built” by Iran. Israel is determined to do whatever is necessary to prevent those two developments, Netanyahu said.Last month, Israel’s envoy to the United Nations said there are 3,000 soldiers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps currently fighting in Syria, and accused Tehran of seeking to turn the country “into the largest military base in the world.”Danny Danon told the Security Council that Iran controls 82,000 fighters in Syria, including 9,000 members of Hezbollah, 10,000 Shiite militiamen from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and another 60,000 Syrians.Danon urged member states not to “allow Iran to continue funding worldwide terror, pursue its dangerous internal arms buildup, and grow its military presence abroad.”
4,400-year-old tomb discovered outside Cairo-Antiquities Ministry believes burial site found near pyramids belonged to a high-ranking official known as Hetpet during 5th Dynasty-By AP and AFP-TOI-FEB 4,18
CAIRO — Archaeologists in Egypt say they have discovered a 4,400-year-old tomb near the pyramids outside Cairo.Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry announced the discovery Saturday and said the tomb likely belonged to Hetpet, a priestess to Hathor, the goddess of fertility, who assisted women in childbirth.The tomb includes wall paintings depicting Hetpet observing different hunting and fishing scenes.Mostafa Al-Waziri, leader of the archaeological mission, said the scenes depict a monkey — at the time commonly kept as domestic animals — reaping fruit and another dancing before an orchestra.It's always special, entering tomb and then seeing these drawings, dating back 4400yrs #Egypt pic.twitter.com/Mz7fZlXQzb— Eduard Cousin (@EduardCousin) February 3, 2018-The tomb was found during excavation work in Giza’s western cemetery by a team of Egyptian archaeologists led by Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.The antiquities ministry said the cemetery houses tombs of top officials from the Old Kingdom’s Fifth Dynasty (2465-2323 BC), and that several have already been dug up since 1842.Waziri said the paintings were unusual.“Such scenes are rare… and have only been found previously in the tomb of ‘Ka-Iber’ where a painting shows a monkey dancing in front of a guitarist, not an orchestra,” he said.That tomb is located in Saqqara, a necropolis about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Cairo.Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Enany told reporters the new tomb includes “a purification basin on which are engraved the name of the tomb’s owner and her titles.”“A German expedition had found in 1909 a collection of antiquities carrying this lady’s name, or a lady who has the same name, and these antiquities were moved to the Berlin museum at the time,” he said. “And 109 years later, we find this tomb that carries Hetpet’s name.”Waziri said archaeologists will continue to excavate the site and hope to make new discoveries.
Troops said besieging homes in W. Bank village in hunt for Havat Gilad terrorist-Soldiers reportedly threaten to demolish buildings if suspect, Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, believed to be behind murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, does not surrender-By Jacob Magid-FEB 4,18
Israeli security forces surrounded two houses in the West Bank village of Burqin on Saturday as they continued the hunt for the terrorist suspected of the killing of an Israeli rabbi last month, Palestinian media reported.Footage shared widely on Palestinian social media showed a convoy of IDF bulldozers and other demolition vehicles driving into the village west of Jenin.A IDF spokeswoman said the army army was looking into the reports.Palestinian media outlets reported that Israeli forces were threatening to demolish the homes if the owners did not turn over Ahmad Nassar Jarrar — the suspected leader of the terror cell that shot and killed 35-year-old father of six Rabbi Raziel Shevach on January 9, as he drove on a highway near his home in the Havat Gilad outpost.When the IDF troops arrived at the village they were confronted with Palestinian youths throwing stones at them. Several of the youths were injured in subsequant clashes, Palestinian media reported, adding that the IDF had placed a curfew on the village.The raid on Burquin comes hours after troops surrounded a different home in the nearby city of Jenin. There too, the soldiers were searching for Jarar.Palestinian residents reported heavy military presence and said soldiers, using loudspeakers, called for Jarrar’s surrender.The Ynet news site reported that troops arrested four people during the raid, including two members of the Jarrar family. On January 23, Israeli troops arrested Jarrar’s brother Suhaib Nassar Jarrar.Ynet also then reported military activity and raids in several nearby villages as part of the operation.Then as well, the military declined to comment on the operation.Jarrar himself is believed to have evaded capture during a January 18 operation to arrest him in Jenin. In an operation led by the Israel Police’s counterterrorism unit, security forces used a technique known as “pressure cooker,” in which troops use a number of high-intensity weapons and tools to disorient the suspects inside a house, before knocking down a wall and entering the structure in full force.A firefight broke out during the arrest raid. One suspect was killed and another was taken into custody. Two police officers were wounded, one of them seriously.However, Jarrar apparently succeeded in fleeing the scene. Israeli forces have been in pursuit of him ever since, with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman saying that he is “living on borrowed time.”Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.
Suspect arrested after gun attack on foreigners in Italy-6 people wounded days after the gruesome killing of a young Italian woman, allegedly at the hands of a Nigerian immigrant-By Colleen Barry-FEB 4,18
MILAN (AP) — A lone gunman opened fire on foreigners in drive-by shootings in a central Italian city, wounding six people Saturday morning before being arrested, police said.The suspect’s motive wasn’t immediately clear, but the city of Macerata is still reeling from the gruesome killing of a young Italian woman this week, allegedly at the hands of a Nigerian immigrant.Police said all those wounded were foreigners and they later confirmed the arrest of the unidentified suspect about two hours after the shooting erupted in the city of Macerata.Mayor Romano Carancini told Sky TG24 that the victims were five men and one woman.Video posted by the newspaper il Resto di Carlino showed what appeared to be a body on the ground on a shopping street.The shooting spree came days after the murder of 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro and amid a heated electoral campaign in Italy where anti-foreigner sentiment has become a key theme.The head of the anti-migrant Northern League, Matteo Salvini, has capitalized on the killing in campaign appearances, and is pledging to deport 150,000 migrants in his first year in office if his party wins control of parliament and he is named premier.The teen’s dismembered remains were found Wednesday in two suitcases, two days after she walked away from a drug rehab community.Police haven’t said how many people have been wounded in Saturday’s shootings. The news agency ANSA said two of the injured were black, and that witnesses reported that the car was seen in the area where the woman’s body was found and also near where the suspect lived.Police had warned people to stay inside while the shootings were ongoing. Authorities ordered public transport halted and that students be kept inside schools, which are open on Saturdays.Italians vote in the general election on March 4.
WWII bunker discovered under Paris train station-Luggage storage room at the bustling Gare de l'Est was repurposed into underground shelter to protect staff running trains toward Germany-By Jean LIOU-TOI-FEB 4,18
PARIS, France (AFP) — It lies hidden deep beneath Paris’s bustling Gare de l’Est railway station, its sprawling subterranean rooms and sparse furniture pristinely preserved if a little dusty.Originally built a few years before World War II for luggage storage, the underground bunker was repurposed after war broke out.French railway historian Clive Lamming said its 1939 overhaul was to provide “a place to retreat in case of an air attack” so staff could keep the trains running east towards Germany.Leading this AFP reporter through a concrete air lock and heavy door to the shelter, he said: “The concern was gas.”“We remembered World War I — a perfectly airtight place was needed,” he added.With its three-meter (10-foot) thick concrete ceiling, it was designed for about 70 people to be able to take refuge in the small rooms of the 120-square-meter (1,300-square-foot) shelter.But, in the end, the bunker never really saw any action — Paris was largely spared from air attacks during WWII, and there was little danger of poison gas.After France’s defeat in 1940 and Nazi occupation, the bunker was requisitioned by the Germans and traces of their presence remain, including a sign that reads “Notausgang” (emergency exit).“In my opinion, it hasn’t been finished,” said Lamming, as a high-speed TGV train loudly rumbled overhead.-‘Sleeping Beauty’-Today, few of the thousands of travelers passing through the busy central Paris station will likely have any inkling of the time capsule under their feet.Just a discreet trapdoor on the platform opens up to reveal a staircase leading down to the bunker, which is not publicly accessible except on certain occasions.“For 80 years, it has been ‘Sleeping Beauty,'” Lamming said. “Everything is in mint condition from 1939.”Entering the machine room is like stepping back into the 1930s, with the old contraptions, dials, copper piping and Bakelite handles only in need of a good polish.The room also has two bicycles. If the power went out, ventilation would have been provided by batteries — if they failed, anyone sheltering in the bunker was to hop on the bikes and pedal to circulate fresh air.Other rooms also feel frozen in time, like the telephone exchange with its tangle of wires, but most are more spartan, furnished with a few period tables and chairs where staff could have directed the train traffic above.The shelter was designed to host 72 workstations, and some yellowing documents remain. There is even a bed.Post-war, with its purpose now passed, it gradually took on an almost mythic status among employees of SNCF, France’s national train operator.“The aim is to preserve it,” especially as the shelters built in other stations at the time have all disappeared, said the SNCF branch in charge of stations.Chances to visit are rare as the bunker was not built for large crowds but it does open up for annual Heritage Days events.
Syrian Kurds outraged over mutilated body of female fighter-Female Kurdish militia commander vows atrocity, blamed on Turkish-backed rebels, will 'reinforce our determination to resist until victory'-By AFP-TOI-FEB 4,18
AFRIN, Syria — Syrian Kurds on Friday accused Turkey-backed rebels fighting them of mutilating then filming the body of one of their female fighters, after a video emerged of her corpse.Turkey and allied Syrian rebels have since January 20 pressed an offensive against the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, whose Kurdish fighters Ankara views as terrorists.A Kurdish official identified the young woman as Barin Kobani, who took part in a US-backed campaign to drive the Islamic State terror group from the northern town of Kobane.The Kurds in a statement blamed the “terrorist allies of the enemy Turkish state” for mutilating the body of Kobani, who was a member of the all-female Kurdish Women’s Protection Units.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said it received the video from a Syrian rebel fighting with Turkish forces in the Afrin offensive.The rebel told the Observatory the footage was filmed on Tuesday after rebels found the young woman’s corpse in the village of Qurna near the Turkish border in the north of the enclave.In the footage, a dozen men, some armed, gather around the badly mutilated body of a woman lying on the ground.The Kurdish community reacted with outrage and social media users shared online a portrait of Kobani smiling next to another shot of her brutalised body.“Barin did not surrender, she fought to the death,” said Amad Kandal, an official with the Women’s Protection Units, vowing to avenge her comrade’s brutal murder.“This kind of behavior will only serve to reinforce our determination to resist until victory,” said Kandal.YPG male and female fighters have taken part in the battle by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to expel IS from large parts of Syria.SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said the video of the fighter’s body was reason to continue fighting back against Turkey and its allies.“Imagine the savagery of these invaders with the bodies of our daughters. How would they behave if they took control of our neighborhoods?” he wrote on Facebook.“All this hatred and barbarity leaves us with a single option: to continue the resistance,” he said.Afrin resident Hussein Cheikho, 65, said he was “deeply pained” when he saw pictures of Kobani’s mutilated body but said her death will not be in vain.“The death of a young man or a young woman will not weaken us. Out strength will be bolstered every day,” he said.In a statement, the Syrian National Council, the main opposition body in exile, condemned the “criminal acts” and called for “the opening of an immediate investigation” to punish those responsible.
Trump, Democrats spar over implications of GOP memo-US president says document's findings prove Russia probe is biased, while critics say they were 'cherry-picked' by Republicans-By Eric Tucker, MARY CLARE JALONICK and CHAD DAY-TOI-FEB 4,18
WASHINGTON (AP) — US President Donald Trump declassified a top-secret congressional memo Friday and suggested it proved the investigation of his presidential campaign and Russia was fatally flawed from the start. Democrats said the document did nothing to clear him or his campaign, and the FBI called the memo inaccurate and incomplete.Butting heads just as they had before the memo’s release, Trump and his critics stuck to the positions they had staked out in the weeks leading up to the hotly disputed release of the memo prepared by Republicans on the House intelligence committee. The memo makes their case — and Trump’s — that politically motivated abuses in the early stages of the FBI’s investigation made it worse than worthless.The Democrats, having none of it, said the four-page memo merely cherry-picks Republican talking points in an effort to smear law enforcement and undercut the current federal investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. California Representative Adam Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, said the GOP document “mischaracterizes highly sensitive classified information” and its release “will do long-term damage to the intelligence community and our law enforcement agencies.”The memo’s central premise is that the FBI relied excessively on anti-Trump research funded by Democrats in seeking a warrant to monitor the communications of a Trump campaign associate and that federal authorities concealed the full details of who was paying for the information.The disclosure of the document is extraordinary since it involves details about surveillance of Americans, national security information the government regards as among its most highly classified. Its release is likely to further escalate an intra-government conflict that has divided the White House and Trump’s hand-picked law enforcement leaders.Trump, who lashed out at the FBI and Justice Department Friday morning, refused to express confidence in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and is mentioned by name in the memo.Asked if he was more likely to fire Rosenstein, and if he still had confidence in him, Trump retorted, “You figure that one out.”A senior White House official said later the administration expects Rosenstein to remain in his job.Trump has been telling confidants he believed the memo would validate his concerns that the FBI and Justice Department conspired against him. Though the document had been classified since it deals with warrants obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the White House declassified it Friday and sent it to the intelligence committee chairman, Republican Representative Devin Nunes of California, for immediate release.The development also comes amid an ongoing effort by Trump and congressional Republicans to discredit the investigation by Mueller that focuses not only on whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia but also on whether the president sought to obstruct justice. Republicans seized on the memo’s allegations to argue that the FBI’s investigation was politically biased.The memo does not address obstruction questions that have led Mueller to express interest in interviewing Trump. But it does reveal the FBI investigation actually began in July 2016, months before the warrant was even sought, based on information involving a separate Trump aide, George Papadopoulos, who has already pleaded guilty to federal charges.Mueller inherited the probe in May 2017. Four people have so far been charged in his investigation.Trump said Friday of the information in the memo: “I think it’s a disgrace. What’s going on in this country, I think it’s a disgrace.”Earlier in the day, he tweeted: “The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans – something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people.”The memo offered the first government confirmation that the FBI in October 2016 obtained a secret surveillance warrant on a Trump campaign associate, Carter Page, on the basis that agents believed he might be an agent of a foreign power —Russia. That warrant was signed off on multiple times, including by Rosenstein.In a statement, Page, who served as a foreign policy adviser and came on the FBI radar in 2013 as part of a separate counterintelligence probe, said, “The brave and assiduous oversight by Congressional leaders in discovering this unprecedented abuse of process represents a giant, historic leap in the repair of America’s democracy.”The memo asserts that opposition research conducted by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, “formed an essential part” of the initial application to receive the warrant. It’s unclear how much or what information Steele collected was included in the application, or how much has been corroborated. Steele’s research into Trump and Russia was compiled into a series of memos, or a dossier, containing salacious allegations.The FBI routinely relies on multiple sources of information when it obtains surveillance warrants. And the memo makes clear that the FBI believed there was probable cause that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power and a judge agreed — four times over.The Republicans argue that top Justice and FBI officials concealed relevant information from the court, namely the full details of Steele’s motivations and funding.Steele’s opposition research effort was initially funded by the conservative Washington Free Beacon. It was later picked up by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through a Washington law firm. The memo says the FBI cut ties with Steele, a longtime source, for an improper disclosure to the media about his relationship with the bureau.Democrats pushed back on multiple assertions from the memo, saying it was not accurate that the FBI had withheld from the court information about Steele’s potential political motivations or those of the people who hired him. They say the memo ignores the fact the investigation did not begin with Steele.Schiff, the top Democrat, said the memo had “cherry-picked” information from Andrew McCabe, who stepped down as FBI deputy director this week. The memo describes him as having told the committee that no surveillance warrant would have been sought without the dossier.The memo release escalates a clash with the man Trump picked to lead the FBI, Christopher Wray, after firing James Comey as agency director. Wray had warned the White House that the declassification and release could set a dangerous precedent.Comey weighed in on Twitter, calling the memo “dishonest and misleading” and saying it had “inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what? DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.”
COMPLETE MEMO REALESED BY NUNES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_iXk7nQe1Q
THE CRY BABY-THAROPY NEEDERS-BUTTER MELTER LIBERAL-DEMOCRATS ARE COOKED.THEIR TRUMP HATE-CLINTON SUCK HOLING BIAS IS REVEALED. HOW THE FEDERAL BIAS INVESTIGATIONS AND THE DEPARTMENT OF JUDAS AND HITLER 2ND AND THE DNC. ALL COLLUDED TOGETHER WITH A MADE UP FAKE DOSSIER. COLLUDED BY NEWS SORCES TO MAKE THE FAKE DOSSIER SEEM LEGIT. THEN THEY ALL USED THAT DOSSIER TO GET A FISA SPY ON TRUMPS CAMPAIGN. AND FROM THAT SPYING. THIS CRUE OF DESPICABLE CRIMINALS STARTED THE FAKE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION TO KEEP TRUMP FROM BEING PRESIDENT. AND TO GET THEIR PUPPET HITLER 2ND IN THERE AS PRESIDENT. THIS IS THE WORST CORRUPTION-WORST THEN WATERGATE IN AMERICAN HISTORY. JUST LIKE SEAN HANNITY SAYS.
James Comey slams GOP memo: ‘That’s it?’-Ex-FBI director calls declassified document alleging surveillance abuse 'dishonest and misleading,' says it destroyed trust with US intelligence agencies-By Eric Tucker and CHAD DAY-TOI-FEB 4,18
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI director James Comey scorned the memo that was released by House Republicans after being declassified Friday by US President Donald Trump, saying it doesn’t add up to much. “That’s it?” Comey said on Twitter.“Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what?” Comey wrote, adding: “DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.”The tweet was the latest in a series from Comey this week as Trump clashed with the FBI over the release of the GOP-written memo. On Thursday, Comey stood up for the bureau’s position against the document’s disclosure and took aim at unnamed people he calls “weasels and liars.”“All should appreciate the FBI speaking up. I wish more of our leaders would,” Comey tweeted Thursday night amid news that the FBI had lobbied the White House to block the release of a partisan memo on the Russia investigation.On Friday morning, the president continued his verbal attacks against the FBI, writing on Twitter, “The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans — something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!”Trump and congressional Republicans have been attacking the FBI for its investigation of potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump and Republicans on the House intelligence committee followed up on those attacks through the publication Friday of a GOP-authored memo that they say shows improper use of surveillance by the FBI in the initial stages of the investigation.The FBI, Justice Department and Democrats furiously lobbied Trump to stop the release, saying it could harm national security and mislead the public.On Twitter, Comey urged his former colleagues to “take heart: American history shows that, in the long run, weasels and liars never hold the field, so long as good people stand up.”He concluded, “Not a lot of schools or streets named for Joe McCarthy” — a reference to the senator who, in the 1950s, conducted hearings aimed at rooting out Communists in the US government.Since his firing last May, Comey has made his personal feelings about Trump known, testifying in detail about personal interactions he says troubled him.He also authorized a close friend to share with reporters details from a memo he produced documenting one such encounter — a February conversation in the Oval Office in which he said Trump encouraged him to drop an FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. That revelation prompted the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel to run the Russia investigation.Comey has also used language about “weasels” before, most notably in a September 2016 congressional hearing when he defended the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.“You can call us wrong, but don’t call us weasels,” Comey said. “We are not weasels. We are honest people and we did this in that way.”
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
Pentagon pushes for new, low-yield nuclear weapons-Defense chief Jim Mattis says revamp of US nuclear arsenal necessary due to Russia's 'return to Great Power competition'-By Thomas WATKINS-TOI-FEB 4,18
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US military wants to revamp its nuclear arsenal and develop new low-yield atomic weapons, largely in response to Russian actions in recent years, the Pentagon said in a policy statement released Friday.The so-called Nuclear Posture Review outlines the Pentagon’s nuclear ambitions under US President Donald Trump and is the first time since 2010 that the military has spelled out how it foresees nuclear threats in the coming decades.“The strategy develops capabilities aimed at making use of nuclear weapons less likely,” Trump said in a statement. “It enhances deterrence of strategic attacks against our Nation, and our allies and partners, that may not come in the form of nuclear weapons.”“And, importantly, it reaffirms our commitment to arms control and nuclear non-proliferation, maintains the moratorium on nuclear testing, and commits to improving efforts to prevent, detect, and respond to nuclear terrorism,” he said.The document marks a sobering break from the vision for America’s atomic future under Barack Obama, who during a famous speech in Prague in 2009 called for the elimination of nuclear weapons.While it underscores the administration’s concerns about North Korea, Iran and China, the focus falls largely on Russia.“This is a response to Russian expansion of their capability and the nature of their strategy and doctrine,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote in the introduction to the 75-page document.“These developments, coupled with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and nuclear threats against our allies, mark Moscow’s decided return to Great Power competition,” he also wrote.The Pentagon worries Russia assumes America’s regular, large-yield weapons are essentially too big to ever be detonated, as their use would likely result in large-scale retaliation and wipe much of humanity off the map.“There are strong indications that our current strategy posture and capabilities are perceived by the Russians as potentially inadequate to deter them,” Greg Weaver, the deputy director of strategic capabilities for the military’s Joint Staff, told reporters.“The US and NATO require a wider range of credible low-yield nuclear options to do a very specific thing: to convince the Russian leadership that if they initiate limited nuclear use, in a war with the alliance, our response will deny them the objective they seek and impose costs that far outweigh those benefits they can achieve,” he added.-More reliance on subs and ships-The document, an earlier version of which was leaked last month, says that by having additional smaller nukes, the Pentagon can counter adversaries’ “misperceptions” that the United States would not respond to another country using its own low-yield bomb.The new strategy calls for a continuation of the nuclear modernization program ordered by Obama that encompasses all pillars of the “triad” — ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched weapons and bombs delivered by plane.But unlike the Obama strategy, which stressed reducing the role of nuclear weapons, the new policy has a more assertive tone.Low-yield nuclear weapons, also known as “tactical” nukes, are still extremely powerful and can pack as much destructive punch as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.America already has a massive nuclear arsenal at its disposal, including 150 B-61 nukes stored across multiple European countries that can be configured for low-yield options.The new weapons envisioned by the Pentagon would be launchable from submarines or ships, so would not need to be stockpiled in Europe.They could also get around Russian air defenses more easily.The bombs would not add to America’s nuclear horde, and would instead repurpose existing warheads, but critics say the Pentagon would be going against the spirit of non-proliferation agreements.“We are on the cusp of a new era of nuclear proliferation,” warned Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan anti-nuclear proliferation think tank in Washington.“This is the great nuclear danger raised by the new” nuclear policy.Weaver disputed media accounts that the nuclear posture review lowered the threshold for America to use nuclear weapons.“The purpose of these capabilities is to make a US response to nuclear use more credible, not to make US first use more likely,” he said.
Palestinian-American brings #MeToo campaign to West Bank-Yasmeen Mjalli wants to encourage Palestinian society to confront taboo subject of sexual harassment-By Karin Laub-TOI-FEB 4,18
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A young Palestinian-American is the driving force behind a nascent #MeToo movement in this patriarchal corner of the world, selling T-shirts, hoodies and denim jackets with the slogan “Not Your Habibti (darling)” as a retort for catcalls, and writing down women’s complaints from her perch in a West Bank square.Yasmeen Mjalli wants to encourage Palestinian society to confront sexual harassment, a largely taboo subject.“What I am doing is to start a conversation that people are really afraid to have,” said Mjalli as she put her merchandise on hangers in a clothing store.The 21-year-old has faced backlash from conservatives and from some activists who say fighting Israeli occupation is the priority for Palestinians.Her parents, who grew up in a Palestinian farming town, immigrated to the United States and returned to the West Bank five years ago, weren’t pleased, either.“To be able to have peace with them, I have to check my feminism at the door, which is very difficult because that’s really who I am,” said Mjalli, who moved to the West Bank last year, after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in art history.Mjalli and other activists say that starting a conversation about sexual harassment doesn’t mean copying the #MeToo movement in the United States, where victims are speaking out in growing numbers.Cultural differences require a different approach.Women across the Arab world have made strides toward equality, outnumbering men in many universities and joining the work force in growing numbers. Yet they struggle to break free from the constraints of patriarchy.Traditional Arab societies assign rigid gender roles, with men as guardians of their female relatives’ “honor” — effectively a ban on male-female friendships or sex outside marriage. Women violating those rules risk being ostracized or — in extreme cases — being killed by male relatives, who count on leniency from the courts.Rules are looser among urban elites. But even in Ramallah — the most liberal West Bank town with many Western-educated Palestinians and foreigners — women watch their step.Women risk getting blamed if they complain, said Wafa Abdelrahman, who runs a closed Facebook group for female journalists. “The blame will be, ‘for sure, you did something wrong or you gave the wrong signal, the way you dress, the way you talk’,” she said.University student Nadine Moussa, 22, said women know the trouble spots.“I never ever walked in the city center of Ramallah without being harassed verbally, but I don’t face that in the neighborhoods,” she said, adding that her co-ed campus is relatively safe.Palestinian police receive few complaints about street harassment, said spokesman Loay Irzeqat. He believes some women fear unintended consequences, such as male relatives attacking accused harassers.Police mostly deal with online harassment, with about one-third of some 2,000 electronic crimes cases in 2017 revolving around men blackmailing women for sexual or financial gain, he said. Typically, extortionists threaten to publish photos deemed compromising, such as showing a traditional woman without her headscarf.Women lack legal protection, despite improvements such as the establishment of a police sex crimes unit, said Amal Kreishe, founder of the Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development to which Mjalli donates some of her proceeds.Reforms of the penal code have been held up by the collapse of Palestinian parliament as a result of a decade-old split between President Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank autonomy government and the Hamas group in Gaza. Abbas has ignored appeals to change the code by decree in the meantime.“All the talk about women’s equality and rights is lip service,” said Kreishe.Still, Kreishe has witnessed gradual changes. More women seek counseling from her group, which has referred about 200 complaints to police over the past two years — compared to a few dozen in previous years.Across the Arab world, the prevalence of street harassment varies.In Egypt, it remains widespread despite pushback from civil society and a 2014 law threatening up to five years in prison. Cairo has been described by some as the world’s most dangerous mega city for women.In the conservative Gulf Arab region, street harassment is relatively uncommon in smaller countries where religious and tribal codes restrict interactions between unmarried men and women.In Saudi Arabia, it has become an issue of debate, as women prepare to drive for the first time this June, following the lifting of a government ban. In recent years, several videos went viral showing Saudi women in long black robes being heckled by men. Saudi King Salman has approved legislation criminalizing sexual harassment.In the West Bank, Mjalli is pushing boundaries with what she calls “typewriter events.”On a recent day, she sat behind a table in Ramallah’s Clock Square, taking notes on a typewriter — chosen over a laptop as an attention-getter — as women sitting across from her shared stories about harassment. The event was also meant to generate support for passing laws protecting women, she said.Her idea of designing clothes with a feminist message goes back to college.At the time, she decorated her denim jacket with “Not your Habibti,” a take on the popular “Not Your Baby” slogan that reflected her Arab roots. Mjalli posted a photo of the jacket online last year for International Women’s Day, stirring interest from potential buyers.For a few months, she bought, transformed and sold second-hand jackets. In August, she launched her business, Baby-Fist, with workshops in Gaza and the West Bank making T-shirts, hoodies and jackets.Mjalli estimates she has sold close to 500 pieces, with about 70 percent of her sales in the diaspora.Skeptics expect limited impact on Palestinian society.Nader Said, a Palestinian pollster, said public discourse is crowded with issues seen as more pressing, mainly Israel’s control of the West Bank and other lands Palestinians seek for a future state. Respondents listing top concerns in a survey ranked women’s rights near the end, he said.Abdelrahman, the activist, cheered on Mjalli.“I am open to all things that will open up this dark closet that we prefer to hide in, pretending that everything is alright,” she said. “Let’s open it and see what comes out of it.”
Israel carrying out secret airstrike campaign in Sinai to help Egypt — report-Unmarked IAF drones, fighter jets, and gunships are conducting attacks against jihadist insurgents at the behest of Sissi, The New York Times reports-By TOI staff-FEB 4,18
Israeli drones, fighter jets, and helicopter gunships have carried out more than 100 airstrikes against Islamist terrorists in the Sinai, in a bid to help Egypt deal with the jihadist insurgency in the peninsula, the New York Times reported Saturday.Israel was forced to take action, with the blessing of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, as Egypt struggled to deal with the violent uprising that has killed hundreds of Egyptian security forces and civilians, the report said.While security coordination between Jerusalem and Cairo is known to be close, the ties are still unpopular in Egypt, despite nearly three decades of peace. In order to keep the cooperation quiet, the Israeli aircraft are often unmarked and sometimes use indirect routes in a bid to cover up the origin of the strikes, the report said.The report said Sissi had kept the Israeli strikes secret, only letting a small group of military and intelligence officials in on the cooperation, and has kept northern Sinai a closed military area, barring reporters from the region.Israeli and Egyptian officials refused to confirm or comment on the report, which the paper said was based on interviews with seven current or former British and American officials involved in Middle East policy, all speaking on condition of anonymity.The report quoted American officials as saying that Israel’s air campaign has played a decisive role in enabling the Egyptian armed forces to gain an upper hand against the jihadists.According to the US sources, Israel began its airstrikes following the capture of a north Sinai town by the Islamists and the downing of a Russian charter jet over Sinai in October 2014 that killed 224 people. They said Israel has had a string of successes in killing the terrorist leaders.In the wake of the Israeli strikes, the Islamists slowed their advance and switched their attention to softer targets like attacking mosques and churches, the report said.However, Israel has complained to the US that Egypt is not upholding its end of the agreement, and that Cairo was supposed to follow up on the airstrikes by sending ground forces into the region.
Syria rebels down Russian fighter jet, capture pilot: monitor-Pilot parachutes from downed aircraft, no word on his condition or which faction is holding him-By AFP-FEB 4,18
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Rebel fighters shot down a Russian plane over Syria’s northwest Idlib province on Saturday and captured its pilot, a monitor said.“Rebel factions shot down a Sukhoi 25. The Russian pilot came down in a parachute, before being captured,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.He could not immediately confirm which faction had downed the plane but hardline opposition groups and the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) are active in Idlib.No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.Syrian troops launched a fierce offensive on Idlib in late December, with backing by Russian warplanes.“There have been dozens of Russian air strikes in the area over the past 24 hours. This plane was also carrying out raids there,” said Abdel Rahman.Opposition factions have shot Syrian regime planes in the past, but downing Russian warplanes is much rarer.In August 2016, a Russian military helicopter was shot down over Syria and all five people on board were killed.Moscow began conducting air strikes in Syria in September 2015.Two months later, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane, leading to the worst crisis in ties between the two countries since the end of the Cold War.
Trump taking tougher stance on Russia nuclear threat-Nuclear review also outlines North Korea and China as potential atomic adversaries; no plans to increase size of arsenal-By Robert Burns-FEB 4,18
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday announced it will continue much of the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons policy, but take a more aggressive stance toward Russia. It said Russia must be convinced it would face “unacceptably dire costs” if it were to threaten even a limited nuclear attack in Europe.The sweeping review of US nuclear policy does not call for any net increase in strategic nuclear weapons — a position that stands in contrast to President Donald Trump’s statement, in a tweet shortly before he took office, that the US “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” In his State of the Union address Tuesday, he made no mention of expansion, though he said the arsenal must deter acts of aggression.A 74-page report summarizing the review’s findings calls North Korea a “clear and grave threat” to the US and its allies. It asserts that any North Korean nuclear attack against the US or its allies will result in “the end of that regime.”It also cast China as a potential nuclear adversary, saying the US arsenal is tailored to “prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding” that it could gain advantage by using its nuclear weapons in Asia, or that “any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, is acceptable.”The Pentagon-led review of the US nuclear arsenal and the policies that govern it was ordered by Trump a year ago. In a written statement, Trump said US strategy is designed to make use of nuclear weapons less likely. In an apparent reference to the threat of catastrophic cyberattack, he said the US aims to strengthen deterrence of major attacks against the US and its allies, including those that “may not come in the form of nuclear weapons.”Known officially as a nuclear posture review, and customarily done at the outset of a new administration, the report drew blistering criticism from arms control groups.“President Trump is embarking on a reckless path — one that will reduce US security both now and in the longer term,” said Lisbeth Gronlund, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She said the administration is blurring the line between nuclear and conventional war-fighting.The Trump administration concluded that the US should largely follow its predecessor’s blueprint for modernizing the nuclear arsenal, including new bomber aircraft, submarines, and land-based missiles. It also endorsed adhering to existing arms control agreements, including the New START treaty that limits the United States and Russia each to 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads on a maximum of 700 deployed launchers.The treaty, negotiated under President Barack Obama, entered into force on Feb. 5, 2011, and its weapons limits must be met by Monday. The US says it has been in compliance with the limits since August and it expects the Russians to comply by Monday’s deadline. As of Sept. 1, the last date for which official figures are available, Russia was below the launcher limit but slightly above the warhead limit, at 1,561.“Moscow has repeatedly stated its intention to meet those limits on time, and we have no reason to believe that that won’t be the case,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Thursday.The Pentagon’s nuclear review concluded that while arms control can advance American interests, “further progress is difficult to envision,” in light of what the US considers Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and violations of existing arms deals. Administration officials briefed Russian and Chinese officials Friday prior to the review’s public release.The Trump nuclear doctrine breaks with Obama’s in ending his push to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US defense policy. Like Obama, Trump would consider using nuclear weapons only in “extreme circumstances,” while maintaining a degree of ambiguity about what that means. But Trump sees a fuller deterrent role for these weapons, as reflected in the plan to develop new capabilities to counter Russia in Europe.The administration’s view is that Russian policies and actions are fraught with potential for miscalculation leading to an uncontrolled escalation of conflict in Europe. It specifically points to a Russian doctrine known as “escalate to de-escalate,” in which Moscow would use or threaten to use smaller-yield nuclear weapons in a limited, conventional conflict in Europe, in the belief that doing so would compel the US and NATO to back down.“Recent Russian statements on this evolving nuclear weapons doctrine appear to lower the threshold for Moscow’s first-use of nuclear weapons,” the review said.The administration proposes a two-step solution.First, it would modify “a small number” of existing long-range ballistic missiles carried by Trident strategic submarines to fit them with smaller-yield nuclear warheads. John Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy, declined to provide an estimate of the cost, saying it would be partially included in the 2019 budget that will be submitted to Congress later this month. He said the missile would be fielded “in the near term,” but he refused to be more specific.Second, “in the longer term,” the administration would develop a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile — re-establishing a weapon that existed during the Cold War but was retired in 2011 by the Obama administration.Robert Soofer, a senior nuclear policy official at the Pentagon who helped direct the policy review, said Moscow is likely to push back on the U.S. plan for fielding those two additional weapons.“I’m sure they won’t respond well,” Soofer said Thursday.The press secretary at the Russian Embassy in Washington, Nikolay Lakhonin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russian delegation ‘sought to stop Israeli strikes in Syria, Lebanon’-Arabic daily says high-level team visiting from Moscow came to Jerusalem to discourage action against Iran and Hezbollah-By TOI staff-FEB 4,18
A delegation of senior Russian security officials visiting Israel this week reportedly sought to dissuade Jerusalem from striking Iranian and Hezbollah weapons facilities in Syria and Lebanon.According to the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat, quoted by Israel’s Channel 10 news, the purpose of Wednesday’s visit, headed by Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, was Moscow’s desire to discourage Israeli intervention across the border, Channel 10 news reported.The Russian delegation, which also included deputy ministers, army generals and intelligence officers, held talks with Israel’s National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat as well as heads of Israel’s National Security Council and top military, defense and intelligence officials.Patrushev himself met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Israel has been negotiating with the United States and Russia, the main brokers in Syria, to keep Iran-backed Shiite militias and the Hezbollah terrorist group away from the border.Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and others have all said that Israel’s policy is to target shipments of advanced weaponry, including accurate long-range missiles, that are heading to or in the possession of Hezbollah. Foreign media reports have attributed dozens of airstrikes on Iranian-linked targets in Syria to Israel.Last week’s visit by the Russian officials came on the heels of Netanyahu’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss Iranian military entrenchment in the region.Netanyahu said his meeting with Putin focused on Iran, with the prime minister saying if Tehran continues to try and deepen its influence in Syria, Israel would work to “stop it.”“The question is: Does Iran entrench itself in Syria, or will this process be stopped. If it doesn’t stop by itself, we will stop it,” Netanyahu told Israeli reporters during a telephone briefing.“We also spoke about Lebanon, which is becoming a factory for precision-guided missiles that threaten Israel. These missiles pose a grave threat to Israel, and we will not accept this threat,” he added.Netanyahu said that the weapons factories are currently “in the process of being built” by Iran. Israel is determined to do whatever is necessary to prevent those two developments, Netanyahu said.Last month, Israel’s envoy to the United Nations said there are 3,000 soldiers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps currently fighting in Syria, and accused Tehran of seeking to turn the country “into the largest military base in the world.”Danny Danon told the Security Council that Iran controls 82,000 fighters in Syria, including 9,000 members of Hezbollah, 10,000 Shiite militiamen from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and another 60,000 Syrians.Danon urged member states not to “allow Iran to continue funding worldwide terror, pursue its dangerous internal arms buildup, and grow its military presence abroad.”
4,400-year-old tomb discovered outside Cairo-Antiquities Ministry believes burial site found near pyramids belonged to a high-ranking official known as Hetpet during 5th Dynasty-By AP and AFP-TOI-FEB 4,18
CAIRO — Archaeologists in Egypt say they have discovered a 4,400-year-old tomb near the pyramids outside Cairo.Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry announced the discovery Saturday and said the tomb likely belonged to Hetpet, a priestess to Hathor, the goddess of fertility, who assisted women in childbirth.The tomb includes wall paintings depicting Hetpet observing different hunting and fishing scenes.Mostafa Al-Waziri, leader of the archaeological mission, said the scenes depict a monkey — at the time commonly kept as domestic animals — reaping fruit and another dancing before an orchestra.It's always special, entering tomb and then seeing these drawings, dating back 4400yrs #Egypt pic.twitter.com/Mz7fZlXQzb— Eduard Cousin (@EduardCousin) February 3, 2018-The tomb was found during excavation work in Giza’s western cemetery by a team of Egyptian archaeologists led by Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.The antiquities ministry said the cemetery houses tombs of top officials from the Old Kingdom’s Fifth Dynasty (2465-2323 BC), and that several have already been dug up since 1842.Waziri said the paintings were unusual.“Such scenes are rare… and have only been found previously in the tomb of ‘Ka-Iber’ where a painting shows a monkey dancing in front of a guitarist, not an orchestra,” he said.That tomb is located in Saqqara, a necropolis about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Cairo.Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Enany told reporters the new tomb includes “a purification basin on which are engraved the name of the tomb’s owner and her titles.”“A German expedition had found in 1909 a collection of antiquities carrying this lady’s name, or a lady who has the same name, and these antiquities were moved to the Berlin museum at the time,” he said. “And 109 years later, we find this tomb that carries Hetpet’s name.”Waziri said archaeologists will continue to excavate the site and hope to make new discoveries.
Troops said besieging homes in W. Bank village in hunt for Havat Gilad terrorist-Soldiers reportedly threaten to demolish buildings if suspect, Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, believed to be behind murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, does not surrender-By Jacob Magid-FEB 4,18
Israeli security forces surrounded two houses in the West Bank village of Burqin on Saturday as they continued the hunt for the terrorist suspected of the killing of an Israeli rabbi last month, Palestinian media reported.Footage shared widely on Palestinian social media showed a convoy of IDF bulldozers and other demolition vehicles driving into the village west of Jenin.A IDF spokeswoman said the army army was looking into the reports.Palestinian media outlets reported that Israeli forces were threatening to demolish the homes if the owners did not turn over Ahmad Nassar Jarrar — the suspected leader of the terror cell that shot and killed 35-year-old father of six Rabbi Raziel Shevach on January 9, as he drove on a highway near his home in the Havat Gilad outpost.When the IDF troops arrived at the village they were confronted with Palestinian youths throwing stones at them. Several of the youths were injured in subsequant clashes, Palestinian media reported, adding that the IDF had placed a curfew on the village.The raid on Burquin comes hours after troops surrounded a different home in the nearby city of Jenin. There too, the soldiers were searching for Jarar.Palestinian residents reported heavy military presence and said soldiers, using loudspeakers, called for Jarrar’s surrender.The Ynet news site reported that troops arrested four people during the raid, including two members of the Jarrar family. On January 23, Israeli troops arrested Jarrar’s brother Suhaib Nassar Jarrar.Ynet also then reported military activity and raids in several nearby villages as part of the operation.Then as well, the military declined to comment on the operation.Jarrar himself is believed to have evaded capture during a January 18 operation to arrest him in Jenin. In an operation led by the Israel Police’s counterterrorism unit, security forces used a technique known as “pressure cooker,” in which troops use a number of high-intensity weapons and tools to disorient the suspects inside a house, before knocking down a wall and entering the structure in full force.A firefight broke out during the arrest raid. One suspect was killed and another was taken into custody. Two police officers were wounded, one of them seriously.However, Jarrar apparently succeeded in fleeing the scene. Israeli forces have been in pursuit of him ever since, with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman saying that he is “living on borrowed time.”Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.
Suspect arrested after gun attack on foreigners in Italy-6 people wounded days after the gruesome killing of a young Italian woman, allegedly at the hands of a Nigerian immigrant-By Colleen Barry-FEB 4,18
MILAN (AP) — A lone gunman opened fire on foreigners in drive-by shootings in a central Italian city, wounding six people Saturday morning before being arrested, police said.The suspect’s motive wasn’t immediately clear, but the city of Macerata is still reeling from the gruesome killing of a young Italian woman this week, allegedly at the hands of a Nigerian immigrant.Police said all those wounded were foreigners and they later confirmed the arrest of the unidentified suspect about two hours after the shooting erupted in the city of Macerata.Mayor Romano Carancini told Sky TG24 that the victims were five men and one woman.Video posted by the newspaper il Resto di Carlino showed what appeared to be a body on the ground on a shopping street.The shooting spree came days after the murder of 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro and amid a heated electoral campaign in Italy where anti-foreigner sentiment has become a key theme.The head of the anti-migrant Northern League, Matteo Salvini, has capitalized on the killing in campaign appearances, and is pledging to deport 150,000 migrants in his first year in office if his party wins control of parliament and he is named premier.The teen’s dismembered remains were found Wednesday in two suitcases, two days after she walked away from a drug rehab community.Police haven’t said how many people have been wounded in Saturday’s shootings. The news agency ANSA said two of the injured were black, and that witnesses reported that the car was seen in the area where the woman’s body was found and also near where the suspect lived.Police had warned people to stay inside while the shootings were ongoing. Authorities ordered public transport halted and that students be kept inside schools, which are open on Saturdays.Italians vote in the general election on March 4.
WWII bunker discovered under Paris train station-Luggage storage room at the bustling Gare de l'Est was repurposed into underground shelter to protect staff running trains toward Germany-By Jean LIOU-TOI-FEB 4,18
PARIS, France (AFP) — It lies hidden deep beneath Paris’s bustling Gare de l’Est railway station, its sprawling subterranean rooms and sparse furniture pristinely preserved if a little dusty.Originally built a few years before World War II for luggage storage, the underground bunker was repurposed after war broke out.French railway historian Clive Lamming said its 1939 overhaul was to provide “a place to retreat in case of an air attack” so staff could keep the trains running east towards Germany.Leading this AFP reporter through a concrete air lock and heavy door to the shelter, he said: “The concern was gas.”“We remembered World War I — a perfectly airtight place was needed,” he added.With its three-meter (10-foot) thick concrete ceiling, it was designed for about 70 people to be able to take refuge in the small rooms of the 120-square-meter (1,300-square-foot) shelter.But, in the end, the bunker never really saw any action — Paris was largely spared from air attacks during WWII, and there was little danger of poison gas.After France’s defeat in 1940 and Nazi occupation, the bunker was requisitioned by the Germans and traces of their presence remain, including a sign that reads “Notausgang” (emergency exit).“In my opinion, it hasn’t been finished,” said Lamming, as a high-speed TGV train loudly rumbled overhead.-‘Sleeping Beauty’-Today, few of the thousands of travelers passing through the busy central Paris station will likely have any inkling of the time capsule under their feet.Just a discreet trapdoor on the platform opens up to reveal a staircase leading down to the bunker, which is not publicly accessible except on certain occasions.“For 80 years, it has been ‘Sleeping Beauty,'” Lamming said. “Everything is in mint condition from 1939.”Entering the machine room is like stepping back into the 1930s, with the old contraptions, dials, copper piping and Bakelite handles only in need of a good polish.The room also has two bicycles. If the power went out, ventilation would have been provided by batteries — if they failed, anyone sheltering in the bunker was to hop on the bikes and pedal to circulate fresh air.Other rooms also feel frozen in time, like the telephone exchange with its tangle of wires, but most are more spartan, furnished with a few period tables and chairs where staff could have directed the train traffic above.The shelter was designed to host 72 workstations, and some yellowing documents remain. There is even a bed.Post-war, with its purpose now passed, it gradually took on an almost mythic status among employees of SNCF, France’s national train operator.“The aim is to preserve it,” especially as the shelters built in other stations at the time have all disappeared, said the SNCF branch in charge of stations.Chances to visit are rare as the bunker was not built for large crowds but it does open up for annual Heritage Days events.
Syrian Kurds outraged over mutilated body of female fighter-Female Kurdish militia commander vows atrocity, blamed on Turkish-backed rebels, will 'reinforce our determination to resist until victory'-By AFP-TOI-FEB 4,18
AFRIN, Syria — Syrian Kurds on Friday accused Turkey-backed rebels fighting them of mutilating then filming the body of one of their female fighters, after a video emerged of her corpse.Turkey and allied Syrian rebels have since January 20 pressed an offensive against the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, whose Kurdish fighters Ankara views as terrorists.A Kurdish official identified the young woman as Barin Kobani, who took part in a US-backed campaign to drive the Islamic State terror group from the northern town of Kobane.The Kurds in a statement blamed the “terrorist allies of the enemy Turkish state” for mutilating the body of Kobani, who was a member of the all-female Kurdish Women’s Protection Units.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said it received the video from a Syrian rebel fighting with Turkish forces in the Afrin offensive.The rebel told the Observatory the footage was filmed on Tuesday after rebels found the young woman’s corpse in the village of Qurna near the Turkish border in the north of the enclave.In the footage, a dozen men, some armed, gather around the badly mutilated body of a woman lying on the ground.The Kurdish community reacted with outrage and social media users shared online a portrait of Kobani smiling next to another shot of her brutalised body.“Barin did not surrender, she fought to the death,” said Amad Kandal, an official with the Women’s Protection Units, vowing to avenge her comrade’s brutal murder.“This kind of behavior will only serve to reinforce our determination to resist until victory,” said Kandal.YPG male and female fighters have taken part in the battle by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to expel IS from large parts of Syria.SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said the video of the fighter’s body was reason to continue fighting back against Turkey and its allies.“Imagine the savagery of these invaders with the bodies of our daughters. How would they behave if they took control of our neighborhoods?” he wrote on Facebook.“All this hatred and barbarity leaves us with a single option: to continue the resistance,” he said.Afrin resident Hussein Cheikho, 65, said he was “deeply pained” when he saw pictures of Kobani’s mutilated body but said her death will not be in vain.“The death of a young man or a young woman will not weaken us. Out strength will be bolstered every day,” he said.In a statement, the Syrian National Council, the main opposition body in exile, condemned the “criminal acts” and called for “the opening of an immediate investigation” to punish those responsible.
Trump, Democrats spar over implications of GOP memo-US president says document's findings prove Russia probe is biased, while critics say they were 'cherry-picked' by Republicans-By Eric Tucker, MARY CLARE JALONICK and CHAD DAY-TOI-FEB 4,18
WASHINGTON (AP) — US President Donald Trump declassified a top-secret congressional memo Friday and suggested it proved the investigation of his presidential campaign and Russia was fatally flawed from the start. Democrats said the document did nothing to clear him or his campaign, and the FBI called the memo inaccurate and incomplete.Butting heads just as they had before the memo’s release, Trump and his critics stuck to the positions they had staked out in the weeks leading up to the hotly disputed release of the memo prepared by Republicans on the House intelligence committee. The memo makes their case — and Trump’s — that politically motivated abuses in the early stages of the FBI’s investigation made it worse than worthless.The Democrats, having none of it, said the four-page memo merely cherry-picks Republican talking points in an effort to smear law enforcement and undercut the current federal investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. California Representative Adam Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, said the GOP document “mischaracterizes highly sensitive classified information” and its release “will do long-term damage to the intelligence community and our law enforcement agencies.”The memo’s central premise is that the FBI relied excessively on anti-Trump research funded by Democrats in seeking a warrant to monitor the communications of a Trump campaign associate and that federal authorities concealed the full details of who was paying for the information.The disclosure of the document is extraordinary since it involves details about surveillance of Americans, national security information the government regards as among its most highly classified. Its release is likely to further escalate an intra-government conflict that has divided the White House and Trump’s hand-picked law enforcement leaders.Trump, who lashed out at the FBI and Justice Department Friday morning, refused to express confidence in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and is mentioned by name in the memo.Asked if he was more likely to fire Rosenstein, and if he still had confidence in him, Trump retorted, “You figure that one out.”A senior White House official said later the administration expects Rosenstein to remain in his job.Trump has been telling confidants he believed the memo would validate his concerns that the FBI and Justice Department conspired against him. Though the document had been classified since it deals with warrants obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the White House declassified it Friday and sent it to the intelligence committee chairman, Republican Representative Devin Nunes of California, for immediate release.The development also comes amid an ongoing effort by Trump and congressional Republicans to discredit the investigation by Mueller that focuses not only on whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia but also on whether the president sought to obstruct justice. Republicans seized on the memo’s allegations to argue that the FBI’s investigation was politically biased.The memo does not address obstruction questions that have led Mueller to express interest in interviewing Trump. But it does reveal the FBI investigation actually began in July 2016, months before the warrant was even sought, based on information involving a separate Trump aide, George Papadopoulos, who has already pleaded guilty to federal charges.Mueller inherited the probe in May 2017. Four people have so far been charged in his investigation.Trump said Friday of the information in the memo: “I think it’s a disgrace. What’s going on in this country, I think it’s a disgrace.”Earlier in the day, he tweeted: “The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans – something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people.”The memo offered the first government confirmation that the FBI in October 2016 obtained a secret surveillance warrant on a Trump campaign associate, Carter Page, on the basis that agents believed he might be an agent of a foreign power —Russia. That warrant was signed off on multiple times, including by Rosenstein.In a statement, Page, who served as a foreign policy adviser and came on the FBI radar in 2013 as part of a separate counterintelligence probe, said, “The brave and assiduous oversight by Congressional leaders in discovering this unprecedented abuse of process represents a giant, historic leap in the repair of America’s democracy.”The memo asserts that opposition research conducted by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, “formed an essential part” of the initial application to receive the warrant. It’s unclear how much or what information Steele collected was included in the application, or how much has been corroborated. Steele’s research into Trump and Russia was compiled into a series of memos, or a dossier, containing salacious allegations.The FBI routinely relies on multiple sources of information when it obtains surveillance warrants. And the memo makes clear that the FBI believed there was probable cause that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power and a judge agreed — four times over.The Republicans argue that top Justice and FBI officials concealed relevant information from the court, namely the full details of Steele’s motivations and funding.Steele’s opposition research effort was initially funded by the conservative Washington Free Beacon. It was later picked up by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through a Washington law firm. The memo says the FBI cut ties with Steele, a longtime source, for an improper disclosure to the media about his relationship with the bureau.Democrats pushed back on multiple assertions from the memo, saying it was not accurate that the FBI had withheld from the court information about Steele’s potential political motivations or those of the people who hired him. They say the memo ignores the fact the investigation did not begin with Steele.Schiff, the top Democrat, said the memo had “cherry-picked” information from Andrew McCabe, who stepped down as FBI deputy director this week. The memo describes him as having told the committee that no surveillance warrant would have been sought without the dossier.The memo release escalates a clash with the man Trump picked to lead the FBI, Christopher Wray, after firing James Comey as agency director. Wray had warned the White House that the declassification and release could set a dangerous precedent.Comey weighed in on Twitter, calling the memo “dishonest and misleading” and saying it had “inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what? DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.”
COMPLETE MEMO REALESED BY NUNES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_iXk7nQe1Q
THE CRY BABY-THAROPY NEEDERS-BUTTER MELTER LIBERAL-DEMOCRATS ARE COOKED.THEIR TRUMP HATE-CLINTON SUCK HOLING BIAS IS REVEALED. HOW THE FEDERAL BIAS INVESTIGATIONS AND THE DEPARTMENT OF JUDAS AND HITLER 2ND AND THE DNC. ALL COLLUDED TOGETHER WITH A MADE UP FAKE DOSSIER. COLLUDED BY NEWS SORCES TO MAKE THE FAKE DOSSIER SEEM LEGIT. THEN THEY ALL USED THAT DOSSIER TO GET A FISA SPY ON TRUMPS CAMPAIGN. AND FROM THAT SPYING. THIS CRUE OF DESPICABLE CRIMINALS STARTED THE FAKE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION TO KEEP TRUMP FROM BEING PRESIDENT. AND TO GET THEIR PUPPET HITLER 2ND IN THERE AS PRESIDENT. THIS IS THE WORST CORRUPTION-WORST THEN WATERGATE IN AMERICAN HISTORY. JUST LIKE SEAN HANNITY SAYS.
James Comey slams GOP memo: ‘That’s it?’-Ex-FBI director calls declassified document alleging surveillance abuse 'dishonest and misleading,' says it destroyed trust with US intelligence agencies-By Eric Tucker and CHAD DAY-TOI-FEB 4,18
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI director James Comey scorned the memo that was released by House Republicans after being declassified Friday by US President Donald Trump, saying it doesn’t add up to much. “That’s it?” Comey said on Twitter.“Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what?” Comey wrote, adding: “DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.”The tweet was the latest in a series from Comey this week as Trump clashed with the FBI over the release of the GOP-written memo. On Thursday, Comey stood up for the bureau’s position against the document’s disclosure and took aim at unnamed people he calls “weasels and liars.”“All should appreciate the FBI speaking up. I wish more of our leaders would,” Comey tweeted Thursday night amid news that the FBI had lobbied the White House to block the release of a partisan memo on the Russia investigation.On Friday morning, the president continued his verbal attacks against the FBI, writing on Twitter, “The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans — something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!”Trump and congressional Republicans have been attacking the FBI for its investigation of potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump and Republicans on the House intelligence committee followed up on those attacks through the publication Friday of a GOP-authored memo that they say shows improper use of surveillance by the FBI in the initial stages of the investigation.The FBI, Justice Department and Democrats furiously lobbied Trump to stop the release, saying it could harm national security and mislead the public.On Twitter, Comey urged his former colleagues to “take heart: American history shows that, in the long run, weasels and liars never hold the field, so long as good people stand up.”He concluded, “Not a lot of schools or streets named for Joe McCarthy” — a reference to the senator who, in the 1950s, conducted hearings aimed at rooting out Communists in the US government.Since his firing last May, Comey has made his personal feelings about Trump known, testifying in detail about personal interactions he says troubled him.He also authorized a close friend to share with reporters details from a memo he produced documenting one such encounter — a February conversation in the Oval Office in which he said Trump encouraged him to drop an FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. That revelation prompted the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel to run the Russia investigation.Comey has also used language about “weasels” before, most notably in a September 2016 congressional hearing when he defended the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.“You can call us wrong, but don’t call us weasels,” Comey said. “We are not weasels. We are honest people and we did this in that way.”
