GERMANY SAYS EVERY NATION CAN NAME CAPITAL-BUT NOT JERUSALEM.THE WORLD THINKS THEY CAN TELL ISRAEL WHAT TO DO WITH THEIR CAPITAL IN THEIR GOD GIVIN LAND.NUTS.

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

Germany says every state can name capital, but not Jerusalem-Replying to far-right MP's query, Berlin argues that Israel's 1980 declaration of the united city as its capital violated international law-By Raphael Ahren-TOI-APR 24,18

The German government affirmed last week that every country has the right to name its own capital, but argued that the status of Jerusalem can only be settled through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.“As a matter of principle, every state has the right to determine a city in its territory to be its capital,” Niels Annen, a minister of state in Germany’s Foreign Ministry, stated in response to a query by a lawmaker from the far-right Alternative for Germany party.Annen cited Israel’s 1980 Basic Law: Jerusalem, which declares that the “complete and united” city is the Jewish state’s capital, and added: “Since the eastern part of Jerusalem that Israel occupied in 1967 contrary to international law is not part of Israel’s sovereign territory, the international community, including Germany, has not recognized this declaration.”In his written response Friday, Annen cited United Nations Security Council Resolution 478, which in 1980 proclaimed that Israel’s declaration on united Jerusalem being its capital “constitutes a violation of international law.”Annen, a Social Democrat, also cited Article XVII of the 1995 Oslo Accords, which states that Jerusalem is one of the issues “that will be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations.” He also referred to a European Council decision from 2014 that said that a way “must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both states,” referring to Israel and a future Palestinian state.“The Federal Government shares the view that the status of Jerusalem, just like other final status issues, can only be settled through negotiations to be durable and acceptable,” Annen wrote Friday.Earlier this week, Chancellor Angela Merkel made the same argument in an interview with Israel’s Channel 10, reiterating that Berlin will not move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.Last week, Petr Bystron, one of the Alternative for Germany’s chief foreign policy spokespeople, filed a written query with the government asking it to name Israel’s capital.In a press release he later added that his faction is strongly supportive of the State of Israel and US President Donald Trump’s December 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem and move the US embassy there.“The German government’s answer was almost identical with that of the Palestinian Authority, which has been protesting US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem since December,” Byron said in a press release issued Tuesday.Bystron said he was “amazed that, even 70 years after the founding of the State of Israel, the German government has no idea what its capital is.” He was especially surprised, he said, that Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who had just visited Jerusalem and emphasized Germany’s “special responsibility for, and solidarity with, the democratic, Jewish state of Israel,” was unwilling to support Israel’s position.“Considering the special responsibility the German government keeps emphasizing it has toward Israel, it is strange they keep repeating the arguments of Israel’s enemies,” Bystron said.Official Israel boycotts the populist opposition party, known by its German acronym AfD, due to its nationalist and xenophobic policies.Similar to other far-right parties in Europe, the AfD formally rejects anti-Semitism and professes to strongly support Israel, seeing a common enemy in radical Islamism. However, the party is largely rejected by the local Jewish community, which argues that it promotes xenophobia and fails to adequately distance itself from anti-Semites within its ranks.

Liberman: Israel would destroy Syrian S-300 if it attacked our jets-As Russia threatens to sell powerful air defense system to Assad, defense minister downplays reports, stresses ties with Russia remain solid-By Judah Ari Gross-APR 24,18

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday downplayed Israeli concerns over Russia’s purported plans to outfit the Syrian military with its powerful S-300 air defense system, but stressed that Israel would retaliate if such a battery were used against its aircraft.“What’s important is that defense systems being supplied by Russia to Syria aren’t used against us,” Liberman said during a live interview with the Ynet news site.“One thing needs to be clear: If someone shoots at our planes, we will destroy them. It doesn’t matter if it’s an S-300 or an S-700,” he said.On Monday, the Russian daily Kommersant reported that Moscow was getting closer to delivering the S-300 missile defense system to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, despite Israel’s efforts to prevent it.The Russian Foreign Ministry later denied parts of the article, saying that a decision about the transfer of the S-300 had yet to be made.Liberman said he had seen the reports, but that “they don’t have a grip on reality.”The defense minister reiterated Israel’s stated policy as it relates to Syria, namely that Israel will not get involved in the country’s civil war, but will take military action to prevent advanced weaponry from reaching the Hezbollah terrorist group and to halt Iranian entrenchment in Syria.Israel’s focus is on ensuring that “Iran does not bring in a flood of advanced weapons systems aimed at Israel,” he said.Liberman denied that Israel’s relationship with Russia was in peril following an airstrike against Iranian facilities on a Syrian air base earlier this month, which Moscow claimed Israel had conducted. Israeli officials refuse to comment on the strike.“For several years, we have been coordinating with each other and succeeding in preventing direct conflict with the Russians,” Liberman said.“They understand that we won’t get involved in internal Syrian matters and that we won’t allow Iran to entrench itself [in Syria],” he said.The defense minister noted that Russia already has its own S-300 air defense system in Syria, along with the more advanced S-400 system, and that “hasn’t limited our operations.”However, defense analysts have questioned whether an S-300 system in Syrian, not Russian, hands could threaten Israel’s air power in the region and prevent it from being able to conduct strikes against targets in Syria.Israel’s former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, who currently heads the influential Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said he assumed the air force would work quickly to destroy the S-300, if it were indeed handed over to Syria.“If I know the air force well, we have already made proper plans to deal with this threat. After you remove the threat, which is basically what will be done, we’re back to square one,” Yadlin told Bloomberg news last week.Russian military sources told Kommersant that if Israel tried to destroy the anti-aircraft batteries, it would be “catastrophic for all sides.”Moscow first announced that it was considering reversing its longtime policy against supplying the S-300 system to the regime following a series of airstrikes against Syrian targets by the United States, United Kingdom and France earlier this month in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack by Assad.The apparent chemical attack against the then-rebel-held city of Douma in central Syria killed at least 40 people, including children. Western powers blame the attack on Assad’s regime.“A few years ago at the request of our partners, we decided not to supply S-300s to Syria,” Lavrov told the BBC last week. “Now that this outrageous act of aggression was undertaken by the US, France and UK, we might think how to make sure that the Syrian state is protected.”Russia had originally agreed to sell the system to Syria in 2010, but scrapped the plan at Israel’s behest.Lavrov’s comments to the BBC indicated that the impetus for Russia to reverse its decision and give Assad the S-300 was not the airstrike allegedly conducted by Israel on April 9, but the American-French-British attack on April 13.According to Kommersant’s report, Russia will not be selling Assad the S-300 system, but rather providing it at no cost as part of a military aid package in order to hasten the delivery.The Russian-made system, made up of radar arrays and missile launchers, offers long-range protection against both fighter jets and missiles. The system has been supplied by Moscow to Tehran, and deployed by the Russian army in Syria, alongside its more advanced iteration: the S-400.It was not immediately clear if Russia would bring in new S-300 systems to Syria or if it would simply give over control of the batteries already in the country.The Kommersant report noted that in any case it would take at least several months from its reception before Syrian soldiers would be fully trained on the system and capable of using it.In what many saw as a direct reaction to the looming proliferation of the S-300 and other missile defense systems throughout the Middle East — but especially in Iran — Israel purchased a fleet of F-35 stealth fighter jets from the American Lockheed-Martin defense contractor.The state-of-the-art planes are meant to offer a solution to the challenges posed by the S-300, whose radar systems can detect aircraft from some 300 kilometers (186 miles) away.Israel also worked diplomatically to attempt to stop Russia’s sale of the S-300 system to Iran, which after being halted for nearly a decade went through in 2016. Last year, Tehran announced that the system was fully functional and connected to the rest of the country’s air defenses.In addition to the American-led coalition’s strikes against Assad targets, Israel has increasingly carried out air raids in Syria, which it says are meant to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry to the Hezbollah terrorist group and halt the military entrenchment of Iran in the country.While Israeli officials acknowledge that these strikes are carried out in general, Jerusalem rarely takes responsibility for specific attacks.On April 9, Israel allegedly struck the T-4 air base in central Syria where Iran has reportedly been operating a fully functional air base of its own and where it has centered its attack drone operations. At least seven members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in the strike. The base was reportedly protected by surface-to-air missile defense systems.Satellite photographs of the base published on Sunday showed the strikes were carried out with a high degree of precision, hitting two hangars, but causing little damage to the surrounding area.While refusing to comment on whether it carried out the strike, a few days later Israel revealed for the first time that an Iranian drone dispatched from T-4 in February was an attack drone that carried explosives and was headed to an unspecified location in Israel when it was shot down 30 seconds after entering Israeli airspace.Israel lost an F-16 in retaliatory raids hours after the drone was downed on February 10, the first loss of a fighter jet in action in 35 years. The Israeli plane was hit by Syrian anti-aircraft fire, and crashed in Israel; the two pilots ejected to safety.Following the downing of the F-16, Israeli aircraft targeted Syria’s air defenses, destroying between one-third and one-half of them, according to Israeli military estimates.

WORLD POWERS IN THE LAST DAYS (END OF AGE OF GRACE NOT THE WORLD)

EUROPEAN UNION-KING OF WEST-DAN 9:26-27,DAN 7:23-24,DAN 11:40,REV 13:1-10
EGYPT-KING OF THE SOUTH-DAN 11:40
RUSSIA-KING OF THE NORTH-EZEK 38:1-2,EZEK 39:1-3
CHINA-KING OF THE EAST-DAN 11:44,REV 9:16,18
VATICAN-RELIGIOUS LEADER-REV 13:11-18,REV 17:4-5,9,18

WORLD TERRORISM

OH BY THE WAY WHEN THE MEDIA SAYS ALLU-AK-BAR MEANS GOD IS GREAT LIE. IN ISLAM ALLU-AK-BAR MEANS OUR GOD IS GREATER OR GREATEST. THIS IS HOW THE MEDIA SUCK HOLES UP TO ISLAMIC-QURANIC-MUSLIMS. BY WATERING DOWN THE REAL MEANING OF THE SEX FOR MURDER DEATH CULT ISLAM. TO MAKE IT SOUND LIKE A PEACEFUL RELIGION (CULT OF DEATH AND WORLD DOMINATION).

GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her,(HAGAR) Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(FATHER OF THE ARAB/MUSLIMS) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he (ISHMAEL-FATHER OF THE ARAB-MUSLIMS) will be a wild (DONKEY-JACKASS) man;(ISLAM IS A FAKE AND DANGEROUS SEX FOR MURDER CULT) his hand will be against every man,(ISLAM HATES EVERYONE) and every man's hand against him;(PROTECTING THEMSELVES FROM BEING BEHEADED) and he (ISHMAEL ARAB/MUSLIM) shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.(LITERAL-THE ARABS LIVE WITH THEIR BRETHERN JEWS)

ISAIAH 14:12-14
12  How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,(SATAN) son of the morning!(HEBREW-CRECENT MOON-ISLAM) how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14  I (SATAN HAS EYE TROUBLES) will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.(AND 1/3RD OF THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN FELL WITH SATAN AND BECAME DEMONS)

JOHN 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.(ISLAM MURDERS IN THE NAME OF MOON GOD ALLAH OF ISLAM)

Toronto van attack suspect faces 10 counts of first-degree murder-[The Canadian Press]-YAHOONEWS-April 24, 2018

TORONTO — A man accused of driving a van into pedestrians along a stretch of a busy Toronto street has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder.Alek Minassian, of Richmond Hill, Ont., is also facing 13 counts of attempted murder.The 25-year-old appeared in a packed Toronto courtroom this morning clad in a white jumpsuit and only spoke his name during the brief hearing.Police arrested Minassian less than half an hour after the incident, which took place at 1:30 p.m. on Monday.Authorities say 10 people died and another 15 were injured as a result of the attack.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that while the investigation into the attack is still underway, there is no evidence to suggest it was related to terrorism.The Canadian Press.

Police struggle to establish motive in deadly Toronto ramming-Suspect Alek Minassian to appear in court after killing 10 people and injuring 15 in apparently deliberate attack-By AP and TOI staff-APR 24,18

Police in Toronto on Tuesday were still piecing together witness accounts and surveillance video in an attempt to determine why a driver plowed a rented van along a crowded sidewalk, killing 10 people and injuring 15 in what authorities said was a deliberate attack.Twenty-five-year-old suspect Alek Minassian was quickly captured in a tense but brief confrontation with officers a few blocks away from where his van jumped the sidewalk Monday and continued for a mile (one and a half kilometers), leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. But authorities so far have not disclosed a possible motive or cause even as the police chief agreed with witnesses that it seemed intentional.“The incident definitely looked deliberate,” Police Chief Mark Saunders told reporters at a late-night news conference.Saunders said Minassian, who lives in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill, had not been known to police previously. An online social media profile described him as a college student.Canadian media outlet CBC News reports that in a Facebook post, Minassian appears to praise Elliot Rodger, a California man who stabbed and killed three people and shot dead another three individuals in a 2014 rampage. However, CBC was unable to verify that the Facebook profile belonged to the suspect in Monday’s attack, and on Tuesday the page appeared to have been removed from the social media network.Shereen Chami, a former classmate of Minassian, told Reuters that he had attended an education program for students with special needs. She told the news agency that Minassian was not violent, but that she remembered him walking the corridors with his head down and making meowing sounds.Officials would not comment on Minassian’s possible motive except to play down a possible connection to terrorism. Asked if there was any evidence of a terrorist link, the chief said, “Based on what we have there’s nothing that has it to compromise the national security at this time.”A senior national government official said earlier that authorities had not turned over the investigation to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a sign that investigators believed it was unlikely that terrorism was the motive. The official agreed to reveal that information only if not quoted by name.Authorities released few details in the case, saying the investigation was still underway, with witnesses being interviewed and surveillance video being examined.“I can assure the public all our available resources have been brought in to investigate this tragic situation,” Toronto Police Services Deputy Chief Peter Yuen said earlier.Police said the suspect was scheduled to appear in court at 10 a.m. Tuesday, and that information on the charges against him would be released at that time.The driver was heading south on busy Yonge Street around 1:30 p.m. and the streets were crowded with people enjoying an unseasonably warm day when the van jumped onto the sidewalk.Ali Shaker, who was driving near the van at the time, told Canadian broadcast outlet CP24 that the driver appeared to be moving deliberately through the crowd at more than 30 miles per hour.“He just went on the sidewalk,” a distraught Shaker said. “He just started hitting everybody, man. He hit every single person on the sidewalk. Anybody in his way he would hit.”Witness Peter Kang told CTV News that the driver did not seem to make any effort to stop.“If it was an accident he would have stopped,” Kang said. “But the person just went through the sidewalk. He could have stopped.”Video broadcast on several Canadian outlets showed police arresting the driver, dressed in dark clothes, after officers surrounded him and his rental Ryder van several blocks from where the incident occurred in the North York neighborhood of northern Toronto. He appeared to make some sort of gesture at the police with an object in his hand just before they ordered him to lie down on the ground and took him away.Witness Phil Zullo told Canadian Press that he saw police arresting the suspect and people “strewn all over the road” where the incident occurred.“I must have seen about five, six people being resuscitated by bystanders and by ambulance drivers,” Zullo said. “It was awful. Brutal.”Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his sympathies for those involved.“We should all feel safe walking in our cities and communities,” he said. “We are monitoring this situation closely, and will continue working with our law enforcement partners around the country to ensure the safety and security of all Canadians.”

What do we know about Alek Minassian, arrested after Toronto van attack?-[The Telegraph]-Rob Crilly-YAHOONEWS-April 24, 2018

The Toronto van attack suspect is a socially awkward student who graduated from college last week, his former classmates say. Alek Minassian, a 25-year-old student, was arrested after 10 people were killed by a van in northern Toronto on Monday evening. He was taken into custody after the rented vehicle ploughed into a crowd, leaving a further 15 people hospitalised.Video footage showed a suspect being handcuffed after a tense stand-off with armed police. Authorities are still attempting to establish a motive for the attack.The Globe and Mail spoke to three of Minassian's former classmates who described him as being socially awkward, believing he may have suffered from a social or mental disability.Police now inside home of Toronto van suspect. Alek Minassian lives in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto. (Picture by CBC's Natalie Nanowski). pic.twitter.com/DGPAB8VfZa— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) April 23, 2018-Minassian lives in nearby Richmond Hill and has been a student at Seneca College, according to his LinkedIn page. One classmate said he graduated from the college only last week.Another student, who worked with Minassian on a school project in 2015, expressed his surprise that the suspect was even capable of hiring and driving a vehicle, adding he didn’t know how a steering wheel worked when he knew him. Other classmates suggested he had never exhibited any indication of possessing extremist views or violent tendencies and was described by one couple as being “friendly”.One student said Minassian did not interact particularly well with other students, but would not describe him as a loner.Ari Bluff, who went to secondary school with Minassian, recalled that “he wasn’t overly social” when she knew him.“I'm not sure if he had any very, very close friends, at least publicly,” he told CBC News. “I never saw him with a group of friends, generally. But whenever we would see him in the hallways, we'd always speak to him or say hi to him or whatnot.“I remember seeing him probably just walking down the halls, usually by himself, or in the cafeteria by himself.”Minassian was also regarded as an IT expert with comprehensive knowledge of computers chips, according to his former classmates.  His name is listed as a developer on a number of apps, including one that found parking spots in the Toronto area.He is believed to have attended the college for seven years while also working in several software development jobs. Officers were searching his home on Monday night.Mark Saunders, Toronto police chief, said the suspect had not been known to police previously."Based on what we have there's nothing that has it to compromise the national security at this time," he told a news briefing after being asked if there was any like to international terrorism.Investigators are still working to establish a motive for the van rampage, Mr Saunders declined to speculate but said the driver’s actions “definitely looked deliberate”.“We are looking very strongly to what the exact motivation was for this particular incident to take place,” he told a press conference. “At the end of the day, we will have a fulsome answer, and we will have a fulsome account as to what the conclusion of this is.”Witness Ali Shaker, who was driving near the van at the time, told Canadian broadcast outlet CP24 that the driver appeared to be moving deliberately through the crowd.“He just went on the sidewalk,” he said. “He just started hitting everybody, man. He hit every single person on the sidewalk. Anybody in his way he would hit.”Witness Peter Kang told CTV News that the driver did not seem to make any effort to stop.“If it was an accident he would have stopped. But the person just went through the sidewalk. He could have stopped.”NBC news cited American and Canadian law enforcement officials saying that mental illness was the leading theory for a motive, rather than terrorism.They also said the suspect had been involved in an online discussion about Elliot Rodger, the man accused of carrying out a 2014 shooting rampage, near Santa Barbara, California, that killed six people.A Facebook post by a man with the same name and the same photo as the one that appears on the LinkedIn profile refers to the "Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger".In a video posted before the attack, Rodger had ranted about women turning down his advances, turning him into an "incel" - an abbreviation for "involuntarily celibate".Minassian is due to appear in court at 10am local time on Tuesday.

Malaysia finds motorbike allegedly used in Hamas drone expert’s killing-Local police chief announces development in investigation of drive-by shooting of Fadi al-Batsh, blamed on Israel-By AFP and TOI staff-APR 24,18

Malaysian police have found the motorbike allegedly used in the drive-by shooting of a Hamas rocket and drone expert in Kuala Lumpur, the national police chief said Tuesday.Fadi Mohammad al-Batsh, 35, was killed on Saturday in the country’s capital as he walked to a mosque for dawn prayers, according to Malaysian authorities. His family and the Hamas terror group have blamed the hit on Israel’s Mossad spy agency. Israel has denied the claim.National police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said that the motorbike allegedly used by the assailants had been found in the Setapak area of Kuala Lumpur.“The motorcycle is in good condition,” he told reporters, without giving further details-Police previously said they believed either a BMW or a Kawasaki was used in the attack.Earlier Tuesday, the Palestinian envoy to Malaysia said Batsh’s body will be flown to the Gaza Strip through Egypt within 24 hours. His family said the body would be flown to Egypt and enter the Palestinian enclave Wednesday at 2 p.m. through the Rafah crossing. His wife and three children would also be granted access, according to the claim.On Sunday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman had said Israel was asking the Egyptian government not to allow Batsh’s body to be returned to his family in the Gaza Strip until Hamas returns to Israel the bodies of two IDF soldiers, as well as two mentally ill Israeli citizens, it is holding in the enclave.The bodies of the two soldiers — Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul — are currently being held by Hamas, along with two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who entered Gaza of their own volition in 2014 and 2015, respectively.Malaysian police on Monday issued facial composites of two suspects in the shooting.Harun said Sunday the suspects were male, around 1.80 meters tall, well-built, had fair complexions, and were believed to be of Middle Eastern or Western descent.Harun said the composite images were based on eyewitness descriptions.The Palestinian envoy said he trusts Malaysian authorities in investigating the killing, calling them “very professional.”“We have full confidence in them and are ready to give our full commitment,” he said. “Our embassy officer is also in contact with the Malaysian authorities involved and has been getting updated about the investigation.”Harun said 14 bullets were recovered from the body of the victim after an autopsy and had been sent for forensic examination.Hamas on Saturday threatened retaliation against Israel for the killing of Batsh, an electrical engineer it said was a commander in its military wing. Israeli reports said the dead man was an expert on attack drones and rocket systems.Batsh was walking from his high-rise apartment to dawn prayers at a local mosque in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Gombak when he was shot by two gunmen riding motorcycles, officials have said. Police said closed-circuit television footage showed the suspects had waited for him for almost 20 minutes.Later Saturday the armed wing of Hamas opened a mourning tent in Gaza for Batsh. A main banner at the entrance to the tent described Batsh as a member of the terror group’s military wing and “a commander.”At the mourning tent Hamas’s leader Ismail Haniyeh vowed revenge, saying that Mossad “is not far from this disgraceful, terrible crime. There will be an unsettled account between us and it. We cannot forfeit the blood of our sons, youths, and scholars.”Hamas said Batsh was a “loyal” member and a “scientist of Palestine’s youth scholars.” It said he had made “important contributions” and participated in international forums in the field of energy.Hebrew media reports said Batsh was deeply involved in Hamas’s efforts to improve the accuracy of its rockets and to develop drones. The Gaza-born scientist had reportedly published material recently on drone development, and on transmitters for controlling drones.In a statement from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the victim’s family said, “We accuse the Mossad of being behind the assassination.” Batsh left behind a wife and three young children. He had lived in Malaysia for the past 10 years.Hadashot TV news said Hamas has sent numerous young Gazans for technical training in Malaysia. The country has proved a “paradise” for Hamas in recent years, Channel 10 news reported.The Mossad has been accused in the past of eliminating those who supply Palestinian and Lebanese terror groups with advanced technology, as well as having assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists.The most high-profile case was the death of Hassan Lakkis, who was the head of Hezbollah’s weapons research and development. He was shot and killed south of Beirut in 2013. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel, but Jerusalem denied any involvement.In Dubai, in 2010, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a key Hamas missile purchaser and importer, was assassinated in his hotel room in a killing widely attributed to Mossad.Hamas also accused Mossad of assassinating one of its drone experts, Mohamed Zouari, in Tunisia in 2016.Agencies contributed to this report.

Senior Iranian official warns Tehran could pull out of non-proliferation treaty-Secretary of Supreme National Security Council says option on table if Trump follows through on threats to change or abrogate 2015 nuclear deal-By TOI staff and Agencies-APR 24,18

The secretary of the Iran’s Supreme National Security Council signaled Tuesday that Tehran could quit the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons if the US scraps a landmark nuclear deal signed between Iran and world powers.“Signatory countries have right to quit [the NPT] if they feel their national interests are not safeguarded,” Ali Shamkhani said before leaving for a visit to Moscow. “This is one of the choices Iran has.”US President Donald Trump is threatening to tear up the 2015 agreement aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear efforts unless European capitals agree to supplement it with tougher controls on Tehran’s missile program and future ability to return to nuclear fuel enrichment.Shamkhani said that Tehran would consider any move by the US to pull out of the accord or attempts to modify it as a “collapse” of the deal.Earlier Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the US would face “grave” consequences if Washington decides to withdraw from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement that curbed Iran’s controversial nuclear enrichment program in exchange for lifting international sanctions on the Mideast nation.“If someone wants to betray our nation and the deal, grave consequences will affect them,” Rouhani told supporters in the city of Tabriz during a visit to the area. State TV broadcast the speech.The Iranian nation and government will “strongly resist” any plots by those who sit in the White House, he added but did not elaborate, only saying that Iran has prepared for “various scenarios” while it abided by its commitments under the deal.Iran has been upping the rhetoric over a possible US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warning Saturday that Tehran was ready to “vigorously” resume uranium enrichment if the US ditched the accord.Zarif told reporters in New York that Iran is not seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb, but that its “probable” response to a US withdrawal would be to restart production of enriched uranium – a key bomb-making ingredient.Trump has set a May 12 deadline for the Europeans to “fix” the agreement, which provided for curbs to Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from financial sanctions.The fate of the deal was to be a key issue during French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Washington that began Monday, which is to be followed by talks between the US president and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday.European officials say Trump’s demand to reopen the deal are impossible, and are scrambling to address his concerns on Tehran’s missile testing, inspections and the regime’s behavior in the region.On Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that he had agreed with his Chinese counterpart that the two countries would “obstruct” any attempt by Trump to “sabotage” the nuclear deal with Iran.

Iran’s president warns US of ‘severe consequences’ if it pulls out of nuke deal-Rouhani says Tehran will 'react firmly' should Trump follow through on his threats to change or abrogate the 2015 agreement-By TOI staff and Agencies-APR 24,18

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday warned the US that it will face serious consequences should it pull out of a landmark nuclear deal that Washington says falls short of preventing Iran from producing atomic weapons.“I am telling those in the White House that if they do not live up to their commitments, the Iranian government will react firmly,” Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state television, according to Reuters.“If anyone betrays the deal, they should know that they would face severe consequences,” he added.US President Donald Trump is threatening to tear up the 2015 agreement aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear efforts unless European capitals agree to supplement it with tougher controls on Tehran’s missile program and future ability to return to nuclear fuel enrichment.Iran has been upping the rhetoric in return, with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warning Saturday that Tehran was ready to “vigorously” resume uranium enrichment if the US ditched the accord.Zarif told reporters in New York that Iran is not seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb, but that its “probable” response to a US withdrawal would be to restart production of enriched uranium – a key bomb-making ingredient.Trump has set a May 12 deadline for the Europeans to “fix” the agreement, which provided for curbs to Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from financial sanctions.The fate of the deal was to be a key issue during French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Washington that began Monday, which is to be followed by talks between the US president and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday.European officials say Trump’s demand to reopen the deal are impossible, and are scrambling to address his concerns on Tehran’s missile testing, inspections and the regime’s behavior in the region.On Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that he had agreed with his Chinese counterpart that the two countries would “obstruct” any attempt by Trump to “sabotage” the nuclear deal with Iran.

2 armed Gazans cross into Israel, are arrested-Suspects enter Israeli territory from southern Strip with grenade, knife; are picked up after getting past security fence-By Judah Ari Gross-TOI-APR 24,18

IDF soldiers arrested two Palestinian men who crossed into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip, armed with a grenade and a knife, on Tuesday morning, the army said.The military said the suspects were picked up shortly after they entered Israeli territory.They were handed over to the Shin Bet security service for further questioning, the army said.It was not immediately clear what the suspects’ intentions were in Israel. There have been multiple cases of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip entering Israel with weapons with the goal of being arrested and sent to prison, seeing incarceration in Israel as preferable to life in the coastal enclave.The security situation along the Gaza border has been tense over the past month. Thousands of Palestinians have gathered regularly along the border for demonstrations that have included attempts to damage the security fence around the Strip, as well as violent actions against Israel, notably the sending of kites bearing burning containers over the border in order to set fire to farmland.IDF troops have responded to the riots with live fire, killing 40 Gazans since March 30, according to the Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry.On Monday, four unarmed Palestinians who infiltrated into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip were also arrested by IDF soldiers. The four suspects got past the security fence near the Israeli community of Kibbutz Kissufim, before they were picked up. The suspects were also handed over to the Shin Bet for interrogation.Such infiltrations are a relative routine occurrence, especially as of late. Generally, the suspects are monitored by Israeli soldiers through surveillance cameras as they make their way toward the border fence and are arrested shortly after they enter Israeli territory.However, in the most serious recent infiltration incident, on March 27, a group of three Palestinian men walked more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the country, over the course of several hours, before they were arrested outside the Tzeelim army base.They were found to be in possession of grenades and knives.While initially their intentions were unclear, the army later determined that the men were not looking to carry out a terror attack, but to get caught and arrested.The army’s failure to immediately realize that there’d been a breach — signs of the infiltration were only found hours after it had happened — prompted Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman to call for a full investigation of the incident.

Strong suspicion' of corruption in Council of Europe assembly By Peter Teffer-EUOBSERVER

Brussels, 23. Apr, 09:29-An independent body investigating the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has concluded there was "strong suspicion" that some former and current members were engaged "in activity of a corruptive nature", related to Azerbaijan.The damning report comes after ten months of research looking into the conduct of members of the assembly, which consist of MPs from 47 European and Central Asian countries who are all members of the Council of Europe – an international organisation which pre-dates the EU and deals mostly with human rights, democracy and rule of law.The investigation concluded that there was a lack of transparency in the assembly, and that there were conflicts of interests of some members and former members of PACE who dealt with Azerbaijan.The report, published on Sunday evening (22 April), said that there was "strong suspicion" that the assembly's former president, Pedro Agramunt, was "party to activity of a corruptive nature".Agramunt already had to leave his post last year, after a vote of no-confidence following a scandal involving his meeting of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.The report said that Agrumunt's appointments to the position of president of the European People's Party and then the position of assembly president "were marked with controversy and with suspicions that corrupt activities supported by Azerbaijan had played a role in the appointments".Other members and former members also acted against the ethical standards of the assembly and broke the relevant code of conduct, the report said.Among them is Spanish politician Agustin Conde, current state secretary of defence in Spain.The report focused mainly on corruption and lobbying activities related to Azerbaijan, which had been a member of the Council of Europe since 2001.But it hinted that much more could be wrong in the assembly.The report listed allegations that surfaced during the investigation, involving Armenia, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine.The authors of the report suggested that others investigate those allegations."Due to the organisational, temporal and operational limitations of the investigation body's mandate, the investigation body has been unable to conduct a thorough investigation into all those allegations," they wrote.While the Council of Europe's assembly is not as important as EU institutions, the authors noted that its activities have high symbolic value."It would be wrong to assume that, since PACE activities might not have direct financial consequences within the member states, this risk is less real," it said."Indeed, membership of PACE, and of the COE in general, is important for the image that the authorities of a particular state wish to project in the international community."

France tightens immigration law, sparking division By Nikolaj Nielsen-EUOBSERVER

BRUSSELS, 23. Apr, 09:09-The National Assembly in France has passed new immigration laws that toughen up asylum rules by speeding up the application procedure and making it easier to deport people.The controversial law has brought widespread criticism from human right defenders and sown rare divisions within French president Emmanuel Macron's own Republic on the Move (LRM) centrist party.French lawmakers passed the bill 228 votes to 139, with 24 abstentions on Sunday (22 April) following a marathon debate that lasted 61 hours and attracted around 1,000 amendments.Some 14 members of the LRM party abstained with another voting against the bill. The Senate is now set to debate it in June."I am not sure we're sending to world citizens the universal message that has always been ours," said LRM party member Jean-Michel Clement, who voted against the bill, in a statement.Macron's party introduced the bill in February as part of a wider presidential campaign effort to wrestle support away from defeated far-right and anti-immigrant candidate, Marine Le Pen.It allows authorities to keep child asylum seekers in detention for up to 90 days as they await deportation. The tough stace is not unique to France. Hungary keeps children as young as 14 in shipping containers along its border with Serbia.Early last year, the European Commission told reporters that locking up children is a means to protect them from smugglers and traffickers. EU law allows detention to last for up 18 months. A few weeks later, it then issued recommendations on how best to protect children.But the French bill also reduces the asylum application filing period from 120 days to 90 days and shortens the deadline to launch appeals from one month to 15 days.Such measures render the application process much more onerous for the asylum seeker and risks unjustly sending home people who require international protection, according to Human Rights Watch.In 2017, the French national court of asylum granted protection to over 8,000 people who had appealed their negative decision. Around 100,000 applied for asylum last year.Those given refugee status under the new law will be granted easier access to work.The move also comes amid a greater push at the EU level to ensure that people denied the right to asylum are sent home, given that only around 36 percent actually leave."We need to significantly increase our number of returns, all member states must streamline the return process. Return decisions should not just be given but also enforced," said EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos last September.

Closing arguments to begin in Cosby's sexual assault trial-[Reuters]-By David DeKok-YAHOONEWS-April 24, 2018

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (Reuters) - The prosecution and Bill Cosby's defense team are expected to begin closing arguments on Tuesday in the retrial of the entertainer, who is accused of drugging and raping a one-time friend more than a decade ago.Cosby, 80, faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault of Andrea Constand, 45, a former administrator of the Temple University women's basketball team, at his Philadelphia home in January 2004.Cosby, who declined to testify on his own behalf on Monday, has denied wrongdoing, saying any sexual contact he had was consensual.He also did not testify at his first trial on the same charges last year, when the deadlocked jury was unable to reach a verdict, leading prosecutors to try him again. The current trial, now in its third week, began on April 9.About 50 women have accused Cosby of sexual assault, sometimes after drugging them, going back decades. All the accusations, apart from Constand's, were too old to be the subject of criminal prosecution.If convicted of all three counts, he would probably face at most 10 years in prison as a first offender under state sentencing guidelines, although Pennsylvania law allows for a maximum penalty of three consecutive 10-year sentences, a prosecution spokeswoman said.Earlier on Monday, Cosby's lawyers used phone and flight records from January 2004 to try again to convince the jury that he was not at his Philadelphia home at the time of the alleged crime.The timing is crucial, since Cosby was not criminally charged until December 2015, just days before the 12-year Pennsylvania statute of limitations would have expired. The defense has sought to show that a consensual encounter occurred earlier than January 2004.Douglas Moss, an expert on aviation record keeping, said Cosby's trips around the United States in January 2004 were accurately reflected in flight logs kept by his private jet pilot, who now suffers from dementia.District Attorney Kevin Steele sought to show that Cosby could have used other modes of transport to travel to Philadelphia.(Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Waffle House shooting suspect arrested in Nashville woods-[Reuters]-By Tim Ghianni-YAHOONEWS-April 23, 2018
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - Police on Monday arrested the man suspected of fatally shooting four people at a Waffle House restaurant, ending a 36-hour manhunt after tips from the public led police to search secluded woods nearby.Photos posted online by Nashville police showed Travis Reinking, a 29-year-old construction worker, in custody. He was suspected of opening fire with an assault rifle at the restaurant early Sunday then fleeing the scene naked.Photographed in the back of a police car, he looked disheveled and was wearing a torn red shirt and dirty blue jeans. He had scratches on his shoulder.No motive was known for the attack that sent shudders through one of the biggest cities in the U.S. South and stoked a simmering national debate on gun control.Reinking, who had a pistol and ammunition in a backpack when he was arrested, was not talking to police. He will be booked on four counts of criminal homicide, authorities said.More than 150 city, state and local law enforcement agents searched for the gunman, who has had a history of bizarre behavior, delusions and multiple encounters with authorities, including an episode in Washington in July 2017 when he was arrested for trying to get into the White House, according to police records."We need to move on as a community and do what we can to curb this violence," Nashville Mayor David Briley told a news conference near the Waffle House, describing the attack as a tragedy.Tips from people in the neighborhood helped lead police to search through the woods about two miles (3 km) from the restaurant using sniffer dogs on the ground and aircraft overhead.Metropolitan Nashville police Lieutenant Carlos Lara said as soon as a detective saw Reinking and ordered him to get on the ground, the suspect cooperated."He did not try to run," Lara said at the same news conference.In addition to the four deaths, two people were injured in the attack.Police said they planned to take the suspect to a hospital for evaluation before he is booked.Reinking was from Illinois before moving to Nashville. After the White House incident, Illinois authorities revoked his license to carry concealed weapons.After that, Reinking's father had told police he would lock up his son's guns, which they said included the rifle used in the Waffle House shooting. But the father returned the weapons to his son, Nashville police said on Sunday.Marcus Watson, an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said Reinking's father, Jeffrey, could face federal charges if he knowingly transferred weapons to a person who was prohibited from owning them. The father was not immediately available for comment.The killings in Tennessee's capital were the latest in a string of high-profile U.S. mass shootings in which a gunman used an AR-15 style rifle. These include a Feb. 14 mass shooting when a former student killed 17 people with an AR-15 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.In the area near the Nashville Waffle House, local resident Sheryl Friend, a woman in her 60s, said there was a sense of relief. "Everybody was taking precautions," she said. "You never knew which direction he was going to go and what was going to happen."Reinking is accused of shooting two people to death outside the restaurant around 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, and killing two inside. The suspect fled after a 29-year-old diner, James Shaw Jr., wrestled the rifle from him.Shaw, grazed by a bullet during the attack, was praised for his courage, but on Sunday he denied he was a hero. "I just wanted to live," he said.David Hogg, a Marjory Stoneman student and leader in a student movement for gun control that has emerged from the Parkland, Florida, attack, used Shaw's example to taunt the National Rifle Association, which lobbies for gun rights, on Twitter."So only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun?" Hogg wrote in a message directed at the NRA.An NRA representative could not immediately be reached to comment.(Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Ben Klayman in Detroit and Jon Herskovitz in Austin; Editing by Frank McGurty, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)

PROOF HALF ON EARTH DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD (8 BILLION ON EARTH)

REVELATION 6:7-8 (8 BILLION- 2 BILLION = 6 BILLION)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 BILLION) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).

REVELATION 9:15,18 (6 BILLION - 2 BILLION = 4 BILLION)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,
18 By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMBS)

HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)

LUKE 17:34-37 (8 TOTAL BILLION - 4 BILLION DEAD IN TRIB = 4 BILLION TO JESUS KINGDOM) (HALF DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD JUST LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS)(GOD DOES NOT LIE)(AND NOTICE MOST DIE IN WAR AND DISEASES-NOT COMETS-ASTEROIDS-QUAKES OR TSUNAMIS)
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other shall be left.(half earths population 4 billion die in the 7 yr trib)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES.BECAUSE NOT HALF OF PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE CHRISTIANS.AND THE CONTEXT IN LUKE 17 IS THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION OR 7 YR TREATY PERIOD.WHICH IS JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH.NOT 50% RAPTURED TO HEAVEN.

MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

Russian rocket stage with toxic fuel to fall in Canadian Arctic-[The Canadian Press]-YAHOONEWS-April 24, 2018

Another Russian rocket stage likely to be holding highly toxic fuel is slated to splash down in environmentally sensitive waters of the Canadian Arctic on Wednesday.Documents on the website of the European Space Agency say the Cold-War-era missile repurposed for satellites is to lift off from a Russian launching pad. It will drop its second stage into Baffin Bay, outside Canada's territorial waters, but within ocean it claims to regulate and control.The launch vessel, a former SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile, is powered by hydrazine — a fuel so toxic and carcinogenic that almost every space program in the world, including Russia's, no longer uses it.The spent rocket stage is expected to contain up to a tonne of unused hydrazine.It is expected to fall into the North Water Polynya, one of the most productive and biodiverse areas of the Arctic and heavily used by Inuit hunters. The waters are considered so important to mammals such as walrus and whales that Inuit from Canada and Greenland seek to manage it as a protected area.Eleven such splashdowns have taken place over the last 15 years, said Michael Byers, a professor of international law at the University of British Columbia.Although the rocket is Russian, the launch is a commercial service paid for by the European Space Agency."The ESA prides itself on being the most environmentally friendly space agency in the world," said Byers."One of the ironies here is that the satellite is a cutting-edge climate- change monitoring satellite. It's of central importance for environmental monitoring."Agency officials have said that unused fuel is burned up on re-entry, but studies done at launch sites in Russia suggest some fuel does reach the surface.Previous launches have drawn wide protests. The federal government has filed diplomatic protests with Russia and the government of Nunavut has argued the launches put Inuit at needless risk.The Inuit Circumpolar Commission has also objected in the past to possible contamination of pristine waters.The federal government did not immediately say if it has filed a protest over the upcoming launch.Byers points out that while Canada may have little influence over Russia, it is an associate member of the European Space Agency."We have, or should have, considerable influence over the ESA," he said. "I see no evidence that it was exercised."— Follow @row1960 on Twitter-Bob Weber, The Canadian Press.

Nuclear threat warning broadcast in Winnipeg neighbourhood a prank: police-[The Canadian Press]-YAHOONEWS-April 24, 2018
WINNIPEG — Police say a warning of a nuclear threat that was broadcast in a downtown Winnipeg neighbourhood was a prank.The audio recording blasted through Osborne Village around 9:20 p.m. on Sunday and warned that a nuclear attack was occurring against Canada and the United States. It said six missiles were expected to strike in the next 15 to 25 minutes."All Canadian residents should seek out a fallout centre immediately," the recording said in a mechanical-sounding voice.It warned people to stay away from windows and to put together survival kits.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would address the public shortly, it added.Const. Jay Murray said police received four calls about the recording before officers arrived and the broadcast stopped.An investigation determined the audio was from an online video played through a home speaker system."This is some jokester who probably thought it would be funny to play this audio and it's unfortunate," Murray said. "I don't think they probably realized the amount of fear and panic they put into some people and the stress on, not only the police system, but other systems as well."Ron Schuler, minister responsible for emergency measures, said emergency alerts in Manitoba would be broadcast on radio and television or through a message on mobile phones."It is done by proper channels. It's not done by a rusty van with speakers hanging out the side. It's not the van down by the river making these announcements," he said.There have been false alerts around the world as U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have exchanged words over the testing of nuclear weapons.In January, panic ensued in Hawaii after a false ballistic missile alert was sent out warning people to seek shelter. The employee who sent it was fired from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.Only a few days later, Japan's public broadcaster NHK sent a false emergency alert to subscribers of its mobile app that stated North Korea had launched a missile. The broadcaster quickly sent a retraction and apologized.On the weekend, the BBC had to issue a statement saying a video that went viral of a BBC journalist warning of thermonuclear war was false.Murray said Winnipeg police have not encountered a prank like this before, but he predicted it isn't likely to be the last. There would be serious ramifications for anyone considering a similar stunt, he said-"I can't imagine if you have someone who thinks this is imminent, what is going thorough their mind, so it's a matter we take very seriously."Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press.

America's nuclear headache: old plutonium with nowhere to go-[Reuters]-By Scot J. Paltrow-YAHOONEWS-April 23, 2018

AMARILLO, Texas (Reuters) - In a sprawling plant near Amarillo, Texas, rows of workers perform by hand one of the most dangerous jobs in American industry. Contract workers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pantex facility gingerly remove the plutonium cores from retired nuclear warheads.Although many safety rules are in place, a slip of the hand could mean disaster.In Energy Department facilities around the country, there are 54 metric tons of surplus plutonium. Pantex, the plant near Amarillo, holds so much plutonium that it has exceeded the 20,000 cores, called “pits,” regulations allow it to hold in its temporary storage facility. There are enough cores there to cause thousands of megatons of nuclear explosions. More are added each day.The delicate, potentially deadly dismantling of nuclear warheads at Pantex, while little noticed, has grown increasingly urgent to keep the United States from exceeding a limit of 1,550 warheads permitted under a 2010 treaty with Russia. The United States wants to dismantle older warheads so that it can substitute some of them with newer, more lethal weapons. Russia, too, is building new, dangerous weapons.The United States has a vast amount of deadly plutonium, which terrorists would love to get their hands on. Under another agreement, Washington and Moscow each are required to render unusable for weapons 34 metric tons of plutonium. The purpose is twofold: keep the material out of the hands of bad guys, and eliminate the possibility of the two countries themselves using it again for weapons. An Energy Department website says the two countries combined have 68 metric tons designated for destruction - enough to make 17,000 nuclear weapons. But the United States has no permanent plan for what to do with its share.Plutonium must be made permanently inaccessible because it has a radioactive half-life of 24,000 years."A MUCH MORE DANGEROUS SITUATION" Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy group based in Washington, says solving the problem of plutonium storage is urgent. In an increasingly unstable world, with terrorism, heightened international tensions and non-nuclear countries coveting the bomb, he says, the risk is that this metal of mass annihilation will be used again. William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told Reuters: “We are in a much more dangerous situation today than we were in the Cold War.”Washington has not even begun to take the steps needed to acquire additional space for burying plutonium more than 2,000 feet below ground - the depth considered safe. Much of America’s plutonium currently is stored in a building at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina - like Pantex, an Energy Department site. Savannah River used to house a reactor. Local opponents of the storage, such as Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch, contend the facility was never built for holding plutonium and say there is a risk of leakage and accidents in which large amounts of radioactivity are released.The Energy Department has a small experimental storage site underground in New Mexico. The department controls the radioactive materials - plutonium, uranium and tritium - used in America’s nuclear weapons and in the reactors of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. In a Senate hearing in June 2017, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said the Energy Department has been in talks with New Mexico officials to enlarge the site. Environmental groups there have strongly opposed expansion.Under an agreement with Russia, the United States was to convert 34 metric tons of plutonium into fuel for civilian reactors that generate electricity. The fuel is known as MOX, for “mixed oxide fuel.” Plutonium and uranium are converted into chemical compounds called oxides, and mixed together in fuel rods for civilian nuclear power plants. The two metals are converted into oxides because these can’t cause nuclear explosions. But the U.S. effort has run into severe delays and cost overruns.The alternative method is known as dilute-and-dispose. It involves blending plutonium with an inert material and storing it in casks. The casks, however, are projected to last only 50 years before beginning to leak, and so would need to be buried permanently deep underground.THE MOX MESS-President Donald Trump has sided with the Energy Department in wanting to kill the MOX project because of the extreme cost overruns and delays. The Energy Department, beginning in the Obama administration, favored closing down the MOX project for the same reason, but Congress overruled it. The federal budget adopted in February, however, specifies a means for ending the project, if a study shows that dilute-and-dispose would be at least 50 percent cheaper than making MOX.The National Nuclear Security Administration, the part of the Energy Department that oversees the nuclear sites and materials, favors switching to the dilute-and-dispose method. In recent testimony before a House of Representatives subcommittee, Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the new NNSA administrator, said that method would “cost billions less” than completing the MOX plant.Plutonium is a versatile nuclear bomb material. Terrorists would need only 11 pounds (5 kg) or less to make a bomb, Lyman says.Its ordinarily limited radioactivity makes plutonium safe for terrorists or other thieves to transport with little risk of radiation injury. It goes undetected by most sensors. It radiates alpha particles, relatively large on an atomic scale, which means the thin glass of a test tube, the leather of a briefcase, or even air or skin stop them. The danger from handling small amounts is inhaling plutonium dust. In that case, the dust spreads from the lungs throughout the body, causing multiple kinds of cancer.The federal government now has no solution in sight to dispose of the plutonium permanently. Its one effort to make it unusable for bombs has turned into what the White House and Energy Department say is a costly failure. The MOX project, at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, has been kept on life support by Congress thanks to the influence of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and other lawmakers. The MOX plant employs about 2,000 people in Graham’s state.Graham and other Congressional backers say MOX is the best way to keep plutonium out of the hands of terrorists. They note too that the pact with Russia requires the United States to use MOX as the method for disposal.A spokeswoman for Graham declined to comment on his behalf but sent a link to a YouTube video of a Senate hearing in March. In the hearing, Graham, referring to steps already taken to limit work on the MOX plant, said: “What I think we’ve done is ended the biggest non-proliferation program in the world, and I’m going to try and fix that.”Today’s plutonium glut mainly is a legacy of the Cold War. The quantities now seem surreal. By 1967 the U.S. nuclear arsenal reached its apex, with 37,000 warheads. The Soviet Union’s peak came in the 1970s, with approximately 45,000. These were enough to destroy life on Earth thousands of times over.A RADIOACTIVE PEACE DIVIDEND-Amid the terror and aggressiveness then of government and military leaders on both sides, little or no thought was given what to do with the warheads should the risk of mass annihilation ebb.Daniel Ellsberg, best known for leaking in 1971 the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam war, in the early 1960s was an adviser to the Air Force and White House on nuclear policy. He recently published a book detailing and criticizing the nuclear policy debates and decisions of that era. In a phone interview, he said disposal of weapons was never considered at the time.“I don’t think one person gave one moment of thought to that,” Ellsberg said. “No one thought that the Cold War would end.”Treaties that dramatically reduced U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals were signed soon after the Soviet Union fell. It was then that the magnitude of the problem – disposing of the surplus plutonium – dawned on the two countries.Scientists proffered ideas, nearly all involving making the plutonium forbiddingly dangerous for malefactors to transport and burying it deep underground.Instead, under a 2000 treaty, the United States agreed to transform the 34 metric tons of plutonium into MOX, unusable for bombs. Russia agreed to destroy the same quantity using a special type of reactor. But the United States had never before built a MOX plant. No U.S. civilian reactor had ever used MOX as fuel.This misplaced optimism led to one of the costliest snafus ever in U.S. government construction. Work began in 2007 to build a MOX plant that was to be operational by November 2016. The Energy Department now estimates that, if allowed to proceed, it will not be finished until 2048. In 2007 the Energy Department said the total cost would be $4.8 billion. Now it estimates the cost at more than $17 billion.Building of the plant began when detailed designs were between 20 percent and 40 percent complete. But once initial construction finished, the contractor, under instructions from the Energy Department, breezed ahead without architectural plans.Reports from the Union of Concerned Scientists said rooms were built for laboratories and offices where none were needed. Ventilation ducts and electrical wiring were in the wrong places. Plumbing was a maze of misplaced pipes. The contractor later had to rip out much of its work and start over.The contractor is a consortium of companies, CB&I Areva MOX Services. It includes CB&I (formerly Chicago Bridge and Iron), based in the Netherlands, and Areva, which specializes in nuclear-related and alternative power projects, majority owned by the French government.GIVING IT AWAY-In an e-mailed statement to Reuters, the consortium said it expects to finish the facility. It said “the project is over 70 percent physically complete.”But Gordon-Hagerty, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s new chief, testified in March before a House Appropriations Subcommittee that it is “nowhere near” 50% complete. Government Accountability Office reports (https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/688369.pdf and https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-17-651T ) criticized the Energy Department for awarding a “cost plus” contract, which guarantees a profit regardless of how much work is done.In an emailed response to questions for this article, Lindsey Geisler, a spokesperson for the NNSA, said that in 2011, after the contract had been awarded, “NNSA recognized the need to institute project management reforms.” She said the NNSA established a new office to better oversee contracting and acquisition, and that practices have improved significantly.Echoing other critics, Frank von Hippel, a Princeton University professor who researches nuclear arms control and policymaking, said weak oversight continues. “The problem at DOE is that the quality of managers, with some exceptions, is quite low,” he said. “Contractors just milk them for money.”An Energy Department panel reported in 2016 that there is no US market for MOX. To use MOX fuel rods, civilian power plants would have to modify their reactors, requiring lengthy relicensing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The report said the best the Energy Department could hope for was to give the stuff away.(Edited by Michael Williams)