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)
WORLD TERRORISM
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)
India teen gang-raped, shot, dumped in well-AFP-January 10, 2016 4:01 AM-YAHOONEWS
An Indian teenager held captive for two weeks by a gang of men said in an interview broadcast Sunday that she was repeatedly raped before being shot twice and dumped in a well on the outskirts of New Delhi.The victim, reportedly aged 14, was allegedly abducted on November 22 while walking to a market in western Delhi, in the latest case of sexual violence in the Indian capital.Speaking of her ordeal to the NDTV news network, the teenager said she was held in a "dark room" where three attackers took turns to rape her over a two-week period."After a fortnight of repeated abuse, one night they said they will let me go. They put me in the car and drove to a store to buy alcohol and then parked the car near a well," the girl said in the interview."They told me they will let me go but as I took a few steps back, they fired two shots. The first bullet hit my bone. I didn't feel a thing, my body just went numb. But after the second one I fainted."She woke shivering and wet inside the well where she said she had been left for dead."When I regained consciousness... I could see a bullet in my chest, so I just yanked it out," she said, showing a wound on her chest.Nearby villagers pulled her out on December 6 after hearing her screams, before she was rushed to hospital.Several men have been arrested over the attack, according to local media reports."I want the rapists to be hanged. No one should go through what I did," she said.The fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in Delhi in 2012 shone a global spotlight on frightening levels of violence against women.It also led to major reform of India's rape laws including speeding up of trials and increasing penalties for offenders, but high numbers of assaults persist.
Air strike in Iraq's Mosul targets 'millions' in IS cash: US official-AFP-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
Washington (AFP) - A US-led coalition air strike has destroyed a cash storage facility used by Islamic State jihadists in the Iraqi city of Mosul, a US defense official said Monday.Two 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs struck the facility, destroying "millions" of dollars worth of cash, the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity."We estimate in the millions of dollars... from all their illicit stuff: oil, looting, extortion," the official said. The strike came early Monday.CNN, which first reported the strike, said the US military believed between five and seven civilians had been killed.The US-led coalition carrying out plane and drone strikes against the IS group in Iraq and Syria has been increasingly targeting the jihadists' money-making capabilities, including by bombing trucks that ferry illicit oil across Syria.Under pressure from critics who say the campaign is moving too slowly, the Pentagon has indicated it would consider a wider array of targets even if these might cause civilian deaths, provided these attacks yield significant gains against the jihadists.The defense official said the coalition had targeted cash-holding facilities once or twice in the past year, but the most recent action was "probably" the biggest to date.It was not immediately clear if the money had been in US dollars, some other foreign currency, or local dinars, the official added.
Assault Allegations in Europe Are Changing the Debate About Refugees-By Jennifer Swann | Takepart.com-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
The attacks that sent at least two people to the hospital came less than two weeks after hundreds of reported sexual assaults that officials allege were carried out by Arab and North African men, heightening national concerns about the 1 million refugees Germany took in last year. About 40 percent of the 516 criminal complaints filed in relation to the New Year's Eve attacks were sexual allegations, while the other half involved theft or physical assault, police told reporters. Witnesses describe a harrowing scene in which police lost control as roughly 1,000 men in and around the Cologne train station launched firecrackers into a crowd and allegedly grabbed at women's bodies, tearing off their clothes and belongings. At least one woman alleges she was raped. It's not clear that those who carried out the attacks in Cologne were refugees.In her first public comments about the attacks, Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker on Tuesday drew criticism and ridicule online for suggesting that women can guard against assault by keeping "an arm's length" away from men on the street. Both she and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door policy toward refugees seeking asylum has come under scrutiny in the wake of the attacks, have urged Germans not to jump to hateful conclusions about refugees because of the attacks.In a statement also released Tuesday, Merkel urged swift investigations to punish those responsible, "regardless of how they look, where they come from or what their background is." But as tensions continue to escalate and criminal complaints flood in, Merkel cautioned that deportations from Germany might be necessary "to send clear signals to those who are not prepared to abide by our legal order."More than 5.9 million Syrians have fled war and persecution and at least an additional 7.6 million are displaced within their country since war broke out in Syria nearly five years ago, marking the worst crisis in nearly a quarter of a century, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.The New Year's Eve crimes have shifted public opinion in Germany about admitting people from other countries, including the millions who are seeking asylum after fleeing war-torn countries. Thirty-seven percent of Germans said their view of foreigners had worsened after the attacks, according to a poll conducted by the Berlin-based research firm Forsa Institute. A similar debate about refugees is unfolding in Sweden, which until November boasted a liberal, open-door policy toward refugees. On Tuesday, Swedish newspapers accused the police of covering up alleged sexual assaults by refugees at a music festival in Stockholm last summer as a means of quelling anti-refugee backlash.
EU urges Turkey to do more, amid fresh talk of mini-Schengen By Nikolaj Nielsen-EUOBSERVER
BRUSSELS, 11. Jan, 18:34-EU commission vice-president Frans Timmermans has urged Ankara to do more to stop migrants, as the Netherlands revives talk of mini-Schengen.“The numbers are still way too high in Greece, between 2,000 to 3,000 people [arriving] every day. We cannot be satisfied at this stage,” he told reporters on Monday (11 January) following a meeting with Turkey's EU affairs minister, Volkan Bozkir.The two sides spoke about Turkey's recent decision to introduce visa reguirements for Syrians as well as work permits for those who remain inside Turkey.Timmermans pressed Ankara to speed up projects which could lead to more educational and medical facilities for Syrians.He also asked Turkey for more details on their crack down on smuggling networks.Last November, the EU offered Turkey €3 billion to improve the lives of refugees in a bid to mak more people stay there.Some €500 million will come from the EU budget, with the remaining €2.5 billion pooled from member states. But the money hasn’t been paid yet.Earlier last week, a contact at Turkey's foreign ministry told EUobserver the money transfer would take place once an assessment has been completed."Currently, there’s an ongoing needs assessment. The transfer of the funds would take place once that work is completed,” the source said.The contact could not give a date when such an assessment would be completed.Also last week, German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere complained that bad weather was the primary reason behind a drop in the number of people seeking international protection and not Turkey's efforts.Up to 10,000 had been entering Germany on a daily basis. That number dropped to a daily average of some 3,200.The refugee crisis has dominated political debate in Europe since last summer.Bulagaria and Hungary have built razor fances on their external borders.Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Slovakia, and Sweden have also reintroduced checks on EU internal borders, in the so-called Schengen passport-free zone.Mini-Schengen?-Dutch ministers, last Thursday, denied The Netherlands is formally considering plans to create a mini-Schengen wit Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Luxembourg.But on Monday, the Dutch migration minister, Klaas Dijkhof, told MEPs in the civil liberties committee that it could be implemented as a last resort."We won't push it because we like the other solution [full Schengen] much better but we also have to be fair that if we don't come to a solution, I don't expect governments to say 'plan A wasn't available and now we do nothing', and that is also not realistic,” he said.He added: "If we don't come to a solution carried by all member states or all Schengen member states, then it will eventually put the Schengen agreement we have at risk.”-Border force-The next EU step will be to create a border and coast guard force by the end of July.The border force would have the "right to intervene" should a member state, like Greece, fail to protect the bloc's frontiers.Slovakia, for its part, will take over the EU presidency in July.Last Friday, Slovakia's prime minister Robert Fico said the EU border agency should be fast tracked and is sending a letter to EU council chief Donald Tusk to dedicate an EU summit to the proposal.But Slovakia is opposed to an EU scheme to distribute 160,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece to other member states.Like te €3 billion Turkey plan, the redistrubtion scheme has so far failed to deliver. As of last week, only around 0.17 percent of the proposed relocations had taken place.
Opinion-EU refugee crisis: History repeating By Quincy R. Cloet-EUOBSERVER
ABERYSTWYTH, UK, 11. Jan, 17:13-From the rising number of refugees trying to reach Europe’s frontiers, it appears as if European member states and the European Union are trying to cope with a crisis of unprecedented scale.Other emergencies have seized the headlines - terrorism, Greece’s bail-out, and climate change - yet, no subject has been so prevalent as the refugee crisis.Warning signs have gone up in some of the European states, both in the Union’s periphery but also in the core. Hungary has built a fence, to protect its national borders, and others are quickly following suit.Even Germany and Sweden, ever so welcoming, seem more and more ambivalent as regards the staggering number of people that will reach Europe now and in the New Year.Europe has a large capacity and the resilience to receive large numbers of refugees, but will it continue to cope? The Syrian civil war has been one of the biggest tests so far for European solidarity and inter-state cooperation.But it is far from unprecedented.-Nothing new under the sun-The Yugoslav wars also led to sudden flows of up to 1 million individuals, fleeing their homes and seeking refuge in other European states. Going further in time, the two World Wars perhaps brought about the biggest flows of refugees and displaced persons in modern times.The inter-war period has sometimes been hailed as an era of refugees. What can we take way from these past episodes? One of the major lessons is that refugee crises always start as a temporary phenomenon but tend to last.The work is never finished. Inter-war Europe was hit by several refugee crises involving a high number of people, the result of the Russian revolution and civil war (over 1 million), and tensions between Turkey and Greece (up to 2 million).The rise of Nazi Germany also pushed German citizens toward emigration (around 600,000).Throughout this period, Europe was also coping with other problems, often similar to those of today: financial and economic havoc; worries about gaping budget deficits; and continued conflicts at the fringes of the continent.Refugee crises confront societies with many questions at the same time. Not only in terms of capacity and security, but also with regard to the long-term effects of refugee settlement.Politicians of the inter-war period grappled with questions over the employment, education, and integration of newcomers.Hostility among the public and media was there as well, despite palpable evidence that refugees had been through situations of terror and threat to reach their destinations. Then and now, national governments showed great reluctance to welcome newcomers and spend additional money on refugee settlement. Similar to the European Union today, the League of Nations was tasked with finding a solution.-Fridtjof Nansen-It called for the help of a Norwegian statesman, Fridtjof Nansen, to come up with effective solutions.Nansen’s story is often overlooked, yet there is much to learn from his personal commitment to the refugee matter. The League was in no position to offer much financial support, so Nansen relied upon private aid, his negotiation skills, and a great dose of creativity to tackle successive waves of refugees.It is estimated that the League and Nansen’s Refugee Organisation may easily have helped more than 1 million individuals, often directly, in finding refuge in a European country.Many were transported by boats or trains across the continent, coming from far way, in such an efficient way it cost no more than one English pound per refugee.He poked host countries into creating opportunities for employment and education. He also devised a passport which gave legal protection for refugees and ensured a safe passage across borders.Why? Because every anonymous mass of refugees consists of individuals, each one with a name, a family, and a story to tell. For his work, Nansen received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.Today, there is definitely no lack of committed individuals and original ideas, often connected to smaller projects dealing with the refugees crisis on the ground.But creative solutions should also come from the top. The European Asylum Support Office does little more than collecting information and enhancing cooperation. National governments worry over quotas rather than putting thought into structural solutions.There are simple but effective instruments available.What made the difference during the inter-war years was the facilitation of refugee transport, the effective dispersal of refugees within countries, employment schemes to get people into work, temporary housing, and accessible schooling for the young.The costs were far from insurmountable. As the story of Nansen shows, humanitarianism has often been a story of trial and uncertain outcomes. It requires experiments, and some pay off while others don’t.-EU fit for purpose? Do we still have that creative edge? Perhaps we have become fearful of the other reaching our European shores, all too often neglecting their hazardous journey to get there.Fear will prevail, unless we show a collective capacity to cope with this and the next crisis.Rather than ignoring the problem, building fences, or propping up neighbouring states with money to halt the tide of refugees, there is another path to be taken.One which involves commitment and a broad coalition of European communities, small and large. Remember, this era of refugees is not new, it is not unprecedented, it has all happened before.Quincy R. Cloet is a historian affiliated with the College of Europe Natolin Campus, Warsaw. He is currently writing a PhD on the League of Nations and inter-war international co-operation at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales
What Would a Saudi-Iran War Look Like? Don’t look now, but it is already here-Foreign Policy Magazine By Thomas E. Ricks-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS-By Michael Knights
When asked to address the question of what a Saudi-Iran war would look like, my first instinct is to ask the reader to look around because it is already happening. As the futurist William Gibson noted, “the future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Already, Saudi Arabia and Iran are killing each other’s proxies, and indirectly are killing each other’s advisors and troops, in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia’s Shiite Eastern Province.The future is likely to look similar. The existing pattern will intensify, eventually spill over in a short, sharp direct clash, and then sink back down again to the level of proxy wars in other people’s territories.The preferred method of conflict between these states has for a long time been proxy warfare. Since its devastating eight-year war against Iraq, the leadership in Tehran has demonstrated a strong preference for acting through proxies like Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shiite militias, and Hamas. Lacking a strong military for most of its existence, the state of Saudi Arabia has likewise used proxy warfare to strike painful blows against its enemies, notably against Egypt’s occupation forces in the 1962-1970 Yemeni civil war and against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Both these players try to get others to do most of their fighting and dying for them.Iran’s powerful support for Shiite militias is well-documented. Lebanese Hezbollah has evolved into a central pillar of Iran’s retaliatory capability against Israel, and more recently has answered Iran’s call to provide reliable ground forces to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. Lebanese Hezbollah is no militia: it has Zelzal-1 missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Hezbollah has large stocks of advanced anti-tank guided missiles and Explosively-Formed Penetrator (EFP) roadside bombs capable of penetrating any Israeli tank. Iran as also supplied Hezbollah with advanced C-802 anti-shipping missiles, which crippled an Israeli warship in 2006, and most recently with even more advanced Yakhont anti-ship missiles.Now Iran seems to have provided its Shiite Houthi allies with C-802 missiles, which have been used in a number of attacks on United Arab Emirates (UAE) warships in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The Houthis are inflicting heavy damage on the Saudi military, destroying scores of U.S.-supplied main battle tanks and other armoured vehicles using Iranian-provided anti-tank guided missiles. Iran’s proxies are seizing terrain in southern Saudi Arabia and lobbing Scud missiles at military bases deep within the kingdom.In Iraq the Iranian-backed militias have been provided with Iranian air support, artillery, electronic warfare equipment and medical support. Badr, the main Shiite militia in Iraq, fought as a military division in the Iranian order of battle during the Iran-Iraq War. Badr now leads Iraq’s largest security institution, the half-million Ministry of Interior, and the Shia militias are being formed into a proto-ministry that resembles their patron, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC).The “Hezbollah-ization” of two key regional states is well-underway.Most worryingly for Saudi Arabia the Iranian bloc is demonstrating a disregard for long-lasting “red lines” over Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, which has a majority Shiite population. In 2011 Saudi Arabia and the UAE deployed scores of main battle tanks and armoured personnel carriers to directly safeguard the Bahraini royal family in the face of Arab spring uprisings. This robust move seemed to deeply shake Tehran, triggering the hapless Iranian plot to assassinate Adel Jubeir, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. In the last year Iran seems to have been acting increasoingly recklessly in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Iraqi Shiite militias like Badr spin-off Kataib Hezbollah have worked with Iranian-backed cells in Bahrain and Eastern Province to import advanced EFP munitions in large numbers with the evident intent of giving Shia communities the ability to self-defend against future Saudi military crackdowns. This kind of game-changing behaviour by Tehran is undoubtedly one reason the Saudi government chose to recently execute Eastern Province Shia dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.Long before the current hullabaloo Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Gulf States have been slowly cultivating their own network of military proxies. The first major recipient of Gulf military support was the Saudi-supported Lebanese government. The UAE sent nine fully-armed and crewed SA-342L Gazelle helicopters to help the Lebanese government crush Al-Qaeda-linked Fatah al-Islam at Tripoli’s Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in May 2007. In 2009, a year after Saudi’s King Abdullah called for the U.S. to “cut the head off the snake” by bombing Iran, Riyadh launched a nine-week military campaign against the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen, losing 137 troops. This triggered a major intensification of Saudi Arabian, Jordanian and UAE provision of training, salaries, armored vehicles, and weapons to anti-Houthi militias in northern Yemen. Now the Gulf States and other allies like Pakistan and Somalia are building up new proxy forces in Yemen to assist in the Saudi-led military campaign against the Houthis.So what happens next? Saudi and Iran will want to test and hurt each other, signal limits, but not suffer mutual destruction.Iran will begin to stir violence in Eastern Province and Bahrain, and it may try harder to fight supplies through to Yemen by sea by bolstering Houthi coastal missile batteries.The next stage in the Saudi Arabian war with Iran will be an intensification of the proxy war in Syria. This is where Riyadh plans to fight its main battle against Iran. Then Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal signaled as far back as March 2012 that “the arming of the [Syrian] opposition is a duty.” Already Saudi, Qatari and Turkish support has allowed rebels in northwestern Syria to inflict severe armor losses on pro-Assad forces using anti-tank guided missiles. The provision of anti-aircraft missiles may be next. The U.S.-led coalition seems to be backing away from the morally-ambiguous war west of the Euphrates in Syria, where the main opposition to the Islamic State and Assad are radical Salafists that Western nations cannot engage. But Saudi Arabia and its allies have been doing exactly this in Yemen for half a decade and are now likely to take over the war west of the Euphrates in Syria. Riyadh now seems to view Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as a lesser evil to the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen: how soon before it views “moderate splinters” of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra the same way in western Syria? Though neither Saudi Arabian nor Iran envisage an open conventional war between them — a result that Saudi Arabia’s crown price and defence minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently terms “a major catastrophe” — there is always the potential for frontier skirmishes on their shared littoral borders and in the neutral space of the Gulf. Shared gas fields and disputed islands are obvious touchpoints. Iran might test missiles closer and closer to Gulf sea-lanes and coasts. Aerial patrols might begin to test each other: this happened during the Iran-Iraq War along the so-called “Fahd Line” until a Saudi interceptor shot down two Iranian fighter aircraft in 1984. Iran (or the Gulf States) could undertake tit-for-tat harassment, boarding or even deniable use of naval mines against each other’s trade routes. (Iran also used this tactic in the 1980s). Cyberwarfare is a likely deniable weapon of choice for both sides also.At some point in the coming years we are likely to see both sides miscalculate and unleash a very short, very sharp burst of military force against each other. This will be a wake-up call. Both Iran and the Gulf States are far more powerfully armed than they were during the Iran-Iraq War. The advanced air forces of the Saudis and their key ally the UAE are now capable of destroying practically all Iran’s port facilities, oil loading terminals and key industries using stand-off precision-guided munitions. Iran can shower the Gulf coastline with multitudinous unguided rockets and a higher concentration of guided long-range missiles than ever before. In 1988 the Iranian navy was destroyed by the United States in a single day of combat — Operation Praying Mantis. Even a day or two of such “push-button warfare” would serve as a reminder to both sides of their overriding imperative to avoid direct conflict and to keep their conflict limited to the territories of unfortunate third-parties.Michael Knights is the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has worked on the military balance between Iran and the Gulf States for over twenty years.
Russia Bombs Offices of American NGO in Syria, Says Group-Foreign Policy Magazine By John Hudson-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
The Russian military is coming under fresh criticism that it bombed a humanitarian field office Saturday in the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib. The claim, by an American advocacy organization, follows previous reports that Russia’s bombing campaign continues to hit territory controlled by Syrian rebel groups not linked to the Islamic State — the ostensible target of Moscow’s months-long military intervention.In a statement Monday to Foreign Policy, the Syrian Emergency Task Force said Russian planes bombed one of its offices in central Idlib province in a strike that “completely destroyed” the facility and equipment. The staff — which host civil society workshops, helps distribute U.S. humanitarian aid, and documents atrocities — was not present during the incident, and no one was killed, according to SETF.“This attack on a humanitarian field office and surrounding civilian areas is yet another in a string of despicable violations of international law,” said SETF Executive Director Mouaz Moustafa.The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. Moscow has long denied it targets civilians in the conflict.A Pentagon official could not immediately confirm the accusation but said it was not “unusual or hard to believe.”“They have struck there in the past,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They fly in Idlib and they don’t use precision weaponry, so the idea that they could hit a non-military target is legitimate.”Evan Barrett, a spokesman for the group, provided photographs of the office following the alleged bombing.The new claim by SETF follows a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that at least 12 Syrian school children were killed Monday when suspected Russian jets bombed a classroom in the rebel-controlled town of Injara in Aleppo province.The new allegations threatened to derail the United Nations-brokered peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25. Syrian opposition coordinator Riad Hijab cited the alleged school bombing as evidence that the opposition could not negotiate with the Assad regime.“We want to negotiate, but to do that the conditions have to be there,” Hijab said. “We cannot negotiate with the regime when there are foreign forces bombing the Syrian people.”In his remarks, following a meeting in Paris with French President Francois Hollande, Hijab said the Syrian opposition will need to see a goodwill effort by the Assad regime to justify its attendance at the talks.“We do not want to go to negotiations that are condemned to failure before they start. We need to create the right climate,” he said.Speaking to the bombing allegations, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius implored Moscow and Damascus to halt “inadmissible” attacks on civilians.
Iraq Turkmens alarmed by Kurdish trench-AFP-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
Baghdad (AFP) - Iraqi Turkmen leaders on Monday accused the country's Kurds of exploiting the war on jihadists to dig a trench that would strengthen their grip on expanded territory.Officials from the Turkmen minority said the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was digging the trench roughly following conflict lines between the Islamic State group and Kurdish forces across northern Iraq.Kurdish officials insisted the trench was not a political act but rather a purely defensive measure aimed at preventing attacks by IS suicide car bombers."We see this move to dig a trench as suspicious," Arshad al-Salehi, the head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, told AFP."It starts in Rabia... and ends in Khanaqin," he said.Rabia is a northwestern town on the Syrian border and Khanaqin lies 400 kilometres (250 miles) to the southeast, near the Iranian border.The Turkmens are one of Iraq's largest ethnic minorities and many of their hubs are in disputed areas, which are just beyond the KRG borders but claimed by the Kurds.The Kurdish peshmerga took over many of those areas on the back of the June 2014 IS offensive that saw the Iraqi federal security forces collapse completely.Salehi said he wanted Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to clarify his position on the trench and said he would bring up the issue in parliament."We see it as the beginning of the division of Iraq. It gives reality on the ground to a redrawn geopolitical map," he said.Jassem Mohammed Jaafar, a Turkmen MP, also accused the Kurds of using the war against IS as a pretext to further the expansion, and ultimately the secession, of their region.- 'Fait accompli' -"It is against international conventions, it violates the rights of the people who end up on one or the other side of it," he told AFP."There is little doubt that this trench is part of a project to divide Iraq," Jaafar said.The KRG acknowledged it had recently stepped up the fortification of its frontline with IS but it denied any political motive."The purpose of the trench is to build a defensive system against vehicles used by Daesh (IS) terrorists who blow up car bombs," peshmerga spokesman Jabar Yawar said."It is two metres deep and three wide. It is not everywhere, some areas don't need it. It is the military leadership that makes this decision," he said.Turkmen officials said their information showed that the planned path of the trench would include the town of Tuz Khurmatu in the Kurdish region and leave that of Amerli out.The trench has not been dug there yet but work has begun in areas around the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and in the Jalawla region near the Iranian border, they said.Mehdi Saadoun, an activist from the Turkmen Rescue Foundation, said the trench was being used to further Kurdish nationalist ambitions."Seventy to 80 percent of the areas to be included on the KRG side are Turkmen areas," he said."They will include Tal Afar, Kirkuk (and) Tuz Khurmatu if the government does not enforce the law on preserving the unity of Iraq," Saadoun said."Daesh is the excuse the Kurdish forces are using to impose a fait accompli by digging this trench," he said.The governor of Kirkuk province, Najmeddin Karim, said he supported any measure making the area safer."We support the decisions and measures taken by the peshmerga because they guarantee the security and stability of all the people of Kirkuk, without any discrimination," he said."They have the right to dig a trench to protect the people and the cities from terrorists and prevent any infiltration by Daesh," the governor told AFP.
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS-10 WORLD REGIONS/TRADE BLOCS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS-10 WORLD DIVISION WORLD GOVERNMENT) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(THE EU (EUROPEAN UNION) TAKES OVER IRAQ WHICH HAS SPLIT INTO 3-SUNNI-KURD-SHIA PARTS-AND THE REVIVED ROMAN EMPIRE IS BROUGHT BACK TOGETHER-THE TWO LEGS OF DANIEL WESTERN LEG AND THE ISLAMIC LEG COMBINED AS 1)
LUKE 2:1-3
1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
Opinion-Brussels shares responsibility for Poland’s rule-of-law crisis By Lydia Gall-JAN 11,16-EUOBSERVER
BRUSSELS, Today, 09:22-For the first time, the European Commission has threatened to activate the 2014 rule of law mechanism allowing it to monitor and act on “systemic threats” to rule of law in EU member states.The reason for the commission’s toughened stance is the new Polish government’s moves to undermine judicial independence and media freedom.In late December, two months after the nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS) won elections in Poland, the government rushed a law through parliament that risks undermining the effectiveness of the Constitutional Tribunal as a check on the executive.The new law, signed by president Andrzej Duda of PiS on 31 December, requires a two-thirds majority in the 15-member court, instead of a simple majority, to block legislation.The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, a leading nongovernmental organization in Poland, has commented that the changes will mean that “operations of Poland’s constitutional court will be blocked.”President Duda also refused to swear in three judges appointed by the outgoing parliament, instead swearing in five judges appointed by the new PiS-controlled parliament.The new government has also sought to bring the media under its control, pushing through a law in parliament on 31 December allowing a government minister to appoint and dismiss the supervisory and management boards of public television and radio, thereby undermining guarantees for their independence.Brussels’ response to the unfolding constitutional crisis in the EU’s sixth-largest member has been robust.Frans Timmermans, the European Commission vice-president who leads on rule of law issues, wrote twice to the Polish government in late December, calling for a halt to the changes to the court until their impact has been “fully and properly assessed” and stressing the importance of media freedom and pluralism to the “common values on which the union is founded.”The commissioner responsible for the media, Guenther Oettinger, has called for Poland to be subject to supervision under the rule of law mechanism.The state of the rule of the law in Poland is to be discussed when the entire college of commissioners meets on 13 January.The Polish government has rejected Brussels’ concerns, with foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski defending the media law as necessary to “heal our state of some diseases.”The Council of Europe and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have also raised concern about the risks to media freedom from Poland’s new law.Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, expressed concern with the lack of public debate and scrutiny of the media law on 5 January, saying that arrangements giving government officials the power to appoint and dismiss the boards that oversee public broadcasters “contradict Council of Europe standards,” and calling on Poland’s president not to sign it.Thorbjorn Jagland, the Council of Europe secretary-general, on January 5 sent a letter to president Duda, stating worries about the impact of the new law on public service broadcasting on the integrity and independence of public service media and asking the president to consult with Council of Europe freedom of expression experts before taking any action on the law.The OSCE representative on media freedom, Dunja Mijatovic, expressed deep concern about the media law on 30 December, saying that she feared it “will endanger the basic conditions of independence, objectivity and impartiality of public service broadcasters.”President Duda signed the media law on 7 January, notwithstanding those concerns.The hardened line from the European Commission is in stark contrast with its weak approach toward similar problems in Hungary.Prime minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz government, which until 2014 had a supermajority in parliament, has led the way in undermining the rule of law and media freedom since it came into power in 2010 - measures that met with minimal action at best by the commission.PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczinski, an admirer of Orban’s self-styled “illiberal democracy,” in October 2011 publicly stated that he wants to “bring Budapest to Warsaw.”Observers in Warsaw will be well aware that Hungary’s ongoing authoritarian slide has met with few consequences in Brussels, setting a dangerous precedent for other EU member states (notwithstanding the commission’s recent actions over Hungary’s asylum abuses).Commission scrutiny of Poland is imperative to safeguard the European Union’s basic values, but it shouldn’t stop there.The commission should consider activating its rule of law mechanism against Hungary as the European Parliament called for in December, to send a clear signal that member states that undermine the rule of law and media freedom will be held to account.Lydia Gall is a researcher on eastern Europe and the Western Balkans at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based NGO.
Riots in Pristina over EU-backed deal By Nikolaj Nielsen-JAN 11,16-EUOBSERVER
BRUSSELS, Today, 09:25-An EU-brokered agreement to give ethnic Serbs more autonomy in Kosovo sparked protests and rioting in its capital Pristina over the weekend.Thousands demonstrated on Saturday (9 January) in opposition to recent agreements with Serbia and Montenegro, designed to normalise relations between the Balkan country and its former masters in Belgrade.The protests were, for the large part, peaceful but turned ugly when a small group launched molotov cocktails and set fire to the main government seat in Pristina.Signed in August, the so-called Association of Serb Communities (ASM) pact has riled Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority and led to the biggest political crisis since Kosovo declared its independence in 2008.The deal gives Kosovo's ethnic Serb minority more say in local governance in a move opposition leaders in Pristina say will dismantle its hard-fought for sovereignty-A separate pact, which reliquishes some terrority to its western neighbor was also signed with Montenegro.Led by the Vetevendosje (meaning “self-determination”) party, the opposition group has blocked parliament activity since October over the EU-mediated agreements and wants the current government to resign.Last November, Veteven dosje's 40-year old founder Albin Kurti was arrested after setting off tear gas in parliament in protest over the EU-brokered pact.Kosovo’s constitutional court has also ruled that parts of the August ASM deal are against basic law.But a Vice News journalist, who spoke to some of the demonstrators on Saturday, reported that widespread grievances over lack of jobs for young people and high-level corruption are feeding the ASM dispute."The government is guilty [for the riots], it is their corruption that causes this. The police are not our target, it's the government," said one 15-year old demonstrator.Another EU-mediated effort to create a special court to try crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is also set for launch early this year.The Hague-based court is set to indict former KLA commanders, including, possibly, Kosovo's foreign minister Hashim Thaci.Kosovo's statehood is recognised by 111 nations, but not Serbia. Officials from Belgrade and Pristina are to meet in Brussels at the end of the month to continue the EU mediated talks.In an interview last week with the RFE/RL's Balkan Service, Serbia's prime minister Aleksandar Vucic, a former spokesman for the late Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic, said mending ties would be the "hardest thing to achieve.”"I do not want us to have blockades, confirmations, papers [that] we issue at the administrative line, as we call it, or the border, as Albanians are calling it," he said.Vucic said it could take up to four years before relations return to normal.The EU says normal relations must be achieved before either can join the bloc of 28 member states.
Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina cut from main GOP debate lineup-Associated Press By STEVE PEOPLES-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former technology executive Carly Fiorina will not appear on the primetime debate stage when the Republican Party's 2016 presidential class faces off later this week in South Carolina.Debate host Fox Business Network announced the debate lineup Monday evening, dealing a blow to both candidates three weeks before Iowa's leadoff presidential caucuses. Just seven candidates — the smallest Republican group so far — will be featured in Thursday's 9 p.m. ET main event, based on criteria established by the network that relied on recent polls.Real estate mogul Donald Trump, the leader in most recent polls, will again appear center stage in the debate. He'll be joined on stage by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Gov. Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.Paul and Fiorina were invited to participate in a 6 p.m. ET "undercard" debate, although Paul said he would skip the second-tier faceoff."An artificial designation as being in the second tier is something we can't accept," he told CNN on Monday. "I won't participate in anything that's not the first tier."Before the lineup was announced, Paul strategist Doug Stafford said: "This race is hitting its final stretch and Rand Paul is a serious contender for the nomination. He expects to be on the stage this week because he has qualified to do so and because he has a top-tier campaign." Stafford noted that Paul has qualified for primary ballots in every state, has more than 1,000 precinct captains in Iowa, and has a 500-person leadership team in New Hampshire.Fox Business Network said the primetime lineup would include the top six candidates in the five most recent national polls in addition to any candidate in the top five in either Iowa or New Hampshire.Others invited to the undercard event include former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
FBI expanding investigation of Clinton private email use: Fox-Reuters-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI is widening its investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account while she was U.S. secretary of state to determine whether any public corruption laws were violated, Fox News reported on Monday.The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into whether classified material was mishandled during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department from 2009-2013. It will expand its probe by examining possible overlap of the Clinton Foundation charity with State Department business, Fox reported, citing three unidentified intelligence officials. “The (FBI) agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,” Fox quoted one of its unidentified sources as saying. The FBI and the State Department had no immediate comment on the report. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus issued a statement calling the Fox News report “a very troubling development.” Clinton, the front-runner to be the Democratic candidate in November’s presidential election, has been criticized for using the private email account hosted on a private computer in her home while secretary of state. Clinton has said she used communication practices that were widespread across the government. She has said there has been no evidence that she broke the law. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Arshad Mohammed; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Did Planned Parenthood go wrong in endorsing Hillary Clinton?-The advocacy arm of the social welfare organization broke with tradition over the weekend with its public support of the former secretary of State before the first presidential primary.-Christian Science Monitor By Lisa Suhay-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
Sort of. It all hinges on a distinction between the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the 501(c)(3) service organization that provides reproductive health services and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that serves as the group's political arm.The endorsement was made via the advocacy arm, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF), which launched a new website in November, in the wake of campaigns to defund the parent organization and in support of abortion, Planned Parenthood itself, Obamacare, sex education, health equity for the LGBT community, and birth control.“The Planned Parenthood Action Fund is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization formed as the advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America,” according to the PPAF website.“The Action Fund engages in educational and electoral activity, including legislative advocacy, voter education, and grassroots organizing. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund Political Action Committee (Planned Parenthood Federal PAC) is a nonpartisan political action committee committed to supporting pro-choice, pro-family planning candidates for federal office.”But most at issue is the $20 million donation to Mrs. Clinton's campaign, which has prompted some Planned Parenthood supporters to express their displeasure on Twitter:Of course I'm disappointed in Planned Parenthood's official endorsement of Hillary, but that does not discredit the amazing work they do.— ✨ TayCif ✨ (@TayCif) January 9, 2016-Disappointed in Planned Parenthood's endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Such an honorable organization should not work for the elite. (@PPact)— John Ross (@_jonathanross) January 8, 2016-Donor to Planned Parenthood disappointed in @PPact's endorsement considering Bernie Sanders has a 100% NARAL rating. pic.twitter.com/OUNlfTDkjL— Mimzy (@Mimzy122) January 8, 2016-@PPact Im terribly disappointed with Planned Parenthood endorsement of Clinton, all women should be too Premature, Misguided, and Backwards— Jonathan Michael Gow (@jonny_gow) January 8, 2016-#PPact4HillaryNice. The coveted Planned Parenthood endorsement ranks right up there with a Hamas or Al-Shabaab endorsement.— Victor Nikki (@hapkid obigdad) January 10, 2016-The problem, according to Elizabeth Boris, director of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at The Urban Institute, is a misunderstanding of the differences between the group's service arm, the advocacy arm, and a third sub-group, Planned Parenthood's federal political action committee. "The $20 million pledged to the Clinton campaign is not permitted to come out of revenues designated for services to women," says Boris in an interview with the Monitor, "but are likely coming from either or both of the similarly named Planned Parenthood Political Action Fund and from the Planned Parenthood Federal PACCommittees [PACs].”“It gives them (opponents) the ability to shade the truth because it’s very easy to tar a 501(c)(3) service organization with the political brush,” Boris says. “I understand why Planned Parenthood decided to do it in the long run because they’re under such attack. But the way the public understands a non-profit organization makes the endorsement fraught with difficulty for the overall organization.”Boris adds, “The problem is the umbrella name is the same, they’re linked for the same goals. The misunderstanding is that people are thinking that Planned Parenthood is giving $20 million to Hillary Clinton’s political campaign out of service revenues. That’s not correct. They think money that should be spent on women is part of this money and it’s not. It’s not permitted.”“The misunderstandings about how these organizations are connected and how they’re separate is creating the backlash,” Boris says. “The advocacy part of the organization is not the same part that provides services.”While Internal Revenue codes prohibit 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from engaging in political activity, it’s commonplace for non- profits to have a companion 501(c)(4) arm that is kept separate in funding and name for the purpose of taking political action. The 501(c)(4) or "social welfare" organization is allowed to engage in political activities, as long as those activities don’t become their primary purpose.There are also political action committees for the express purpose of using "hard" money contributions to elect or defeat candidates and 527 Groups (under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code) which raise money for political activities such as parties, candidates, committees, or associations organized for the purpose of influencing an issue, policy, appointment, or election.“I think the backlash and my own personal experience with this is that there’s sort of an increased need for transparency and actually articulating the differences between the different entities,” says Michael Thatcher, CEO of Charity Navigator in an interview. “Being better able to better articulate the difference between these different entities is the problem. That is a transparency issue.”Mr. Thatcher adds, “That’s what’s interesting me more on a personal level than on a Charity Navigator level is to see how all this will play out with other entities that have similar structures because it is new. It is a new move.”
Senate confirms Restrepo as other nominees languish-Associated Press By ANDREW TAYLOR-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Monday confirmed President Barack Obama's last remaining nominee to a U.S. appeals court, seating Judge Luis Felipe Restrepo after a wait of more than 400 days.The 82-6 vote confirming Restrepo makes him the first Hispanic federal judge from Pennsylvania on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. It also highlights the lengthy wait many of Obama's nominees have faced and the slow pace of confirmations since Republicans retook control of the Senate last year.Restrepo, 55, was born in Colombia and was brought to the U.S. at the age of 2. He has served as a district judge since 2013, but his elevation to the appeals court has been delayed after Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., withheld his approval and GOP leaders subsequently delayed a floor vote."Judge Restrepo exemplifies the kind of consensus nominee that should have been easily confirmed," said Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who reminded his colleagues that he moved 40 of former President George W. Bush's nominees when chairing the Judiciary Committee in 2007-2008. "This highly qualified Hispanic judge was told to go to the back of the line, wait 14 months. It's wrong. It's absolutely wrong."Nine appeals court vacancies remain, but Obama has yet to nominate people for those posts. Dozens of district judgeship are open as well. Thirty of Obama's nominees for those posts are awaiting-The vacancy rate for the federal judiciary remains above levels experienced under Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, but it's dropped below the number in Obama's first term.But don't give credit to Republicans, who now control the Senate. Chalk it up to a burst of confirmations in 2014 after majority Democrats rewrote filibuster rules and rammed through 89 judges, almost double the number of the previous year and the most since President Bill Clinton's second year in office. When 2015 opened, there were just 40 vacancies out of 852 authorized federal appeals and trial judges.Last year, the GOP-led chamber confirmed just 11 federal judges, the least in recent memory. That has Democrats crying foul, suggesting the pace is dictated by electoral politics."It's glacial," says New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, one of the Democrats' point men on judges. "It's for the partisan purpose of hoping for a Republican president."It is true that the number of vacancies has risen, but it is still below the situation confronting Obama in his first year in office in 2009. Vacancies spiked that year as more judges stepped down after Democrats retook the White House and as the Obama White House moved slowly on nominating replacements.Confirmations to lifetime appointments to the federal courts have long been a flashpoint in an increasingly polarized Washington. The current situation pales in comparison with the 2014 struggle that divided the Senate over new rules to accelerate the process. Almost a decade prior, after a spate of Democratic filibusters of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees, GOP leaders explored the same "nuclear option" to get nominees confirmed, but a bipartisan compromise diffused the fight.When Democrats controlled the Senate, Republicans were less likely to filibuster outright, though they were often stingy in permitting votes. In December 2014, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, now a Republican presidential contender, created an opening that Democrats exploited, allowing 11 new judges to be confirmed in an end-of-session burst just before Republicans retook control of the Senate.Democrats note that they confirmed many more judges — 40 — in the seventh year of Bush's presidency in 2007 than Republicans confirmed last year."The analogy is the last two years of the Bush administration," Schumer said. "And we confirmed many more."There's little doubt that the hardball tactics employed by Democrats in 2014 are part of the reason confirmations dropped last year. The process typically requires the Senate to agree unanimously to schedule a vote if a confirmation is to occur, and the chamber is stocked with Republicans opposed to Obama.In the final year of Obama's presidency, Senate leaders have agreed that four more judges will be confirmed over the next few weeks. Since more than two-thirds of the vacancies are in states with at least one GOP senator, it's likely that at least a few more nominees will get a vote before the process virtually shuts down in an election year.___This story has corrected the spelling of the Pennsylvania judge's name to Restrepo, not Restropo.
CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL 2ND WAVE OF WW3 (200 MILLION MAN ARMY)
REVELATION 16:12-16
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates;(WERE WW3 STARTS IN IRAQ OR SYRIA OR TURKEY) and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.(THE TURKEY ATATURK DAM ON THE EUPHRATES CAN BE SHUT AND DRIED UP ALREADY BY TURKEY)
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon,(SATAN) and out of the mouth of the beast,(WORLD DICTATOR) and out of the mouth of the false prophet.(FALSE POPE)
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.(WERE 2 BILLION DIE FROM NUKE WAR)
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.(ITS AT THIS TIME I BELIEVE WHEN AMERICA GETS NUKED BY RUSSIA ON THE WAY TO THE MIDEAST)
DANIEL 11:44 (2ND WAVE OF WW3)
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
REVELATION 9:12-18
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.(WORLDWIDE WAR)(TURKEY-IRAQ-SYRIA)(EUPHRATES RIVER CONSISTS OF 760 MILES IN TURKEY,440 MILES IN SYRIA AND 660 MILES IN IRAQ)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,(WORLDWIDE WAR) which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(1/3 Earths Population die in WW 3 2ND WAVE-2 billion)
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand:(200 MILLION MAN ARMY FROM CHINA AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST) and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
U.S. may send strategic assets, but not warheads, to South Korea-Reuters By Ju-min Park, Jee Heun Kahng and Arshad Mohammed-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and South Korea are discussing deploying more U.S. "strategic assets" to the region after North Korea's atomic test last week but not restoring U.S. nuclear arms to the South, a U.S. official said on Monday.North Korea said it tested a hydrogen bomb on Wednesday, displeasing China, its main ally, and the United States, which said it believed the blast was an ordinary atomic test rather than a much more powerful hydrogen bomb.In a show of force and support for allies in the region following North Korea's nuclear test, its fourth since 2006, the United States on Sunday sent a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber based in Guam on a flight over South Korea.North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party, said the United States was bringing the situation to the brink of war.South Korean media said the United States may send to South Korea B-2 bombers, nuclear-powered submarines and F-22 stealth fighter jets.A South Koran defense ministry spokesman declined to give details."The United States and South Korea are continuously and closely having discussions on additional deployment of strategic assets," the spokesman, Kim Min-seok, said.In Washington, the U.S. official said they were discussing deploying "the whole range" of such assets but this meant such things as nuclear-capable bombers rather than restoring U.S. nuclear weapons to South Korea for the first time in about a quarter century.Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush decided in 1991 to remove U.S. nuclear weapons from South Korea."It could quickly escalate into an arms race, a very dangerous arms race, in the region," said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Asked if such a step might spur North Korea to move more aggressively on its atomic weapons program, the official replied: "That's a distinct possibility."Putting U.S. nuclear arms back in South Korea, he said, "would embolden the North Korean leadership to be more committed to pursuing their (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities and in fact it would give them a very convenient excuse to do so."China called for all sides to avoid raising tensions."We hope all parties can maintain restraint, proceed cautiously, and avoid successively escalating tensions," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei when asked about the U.S. B-52 flight.-'HIGHEST LEVEL READINESS'-The chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that North Korea was likely to carry out further "sudden provocations", a South Korean defense ministry official said.The commander of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, General Curtis Scaparrotti, urged them to be vigilant.On the diplomatic front, South Korea said its chief nuclear negotiator planned to meet his U.S. and Japanese counterparts on Wednesday to discuss a response to North Korea, and the next day, he would meet China's nuclear envoy in Beijing.South Korea and Japan used a military hotline for the first time after North Korea's test, South Korea's defense ministry said, in a sign the North is pushing the two old rivals closer together.South Korea also said it would restrict access to the jointly run Kaesong industrial complex just north of the heavily militarized inter-Korean border to the "minimum necessary level" from Tuesday.The complex, where South Korean factories employ North Korean workers, is an important source of revenue for the impoverished North.(Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel and Lisa Shumaker)
Beijing asserts right to flights to South China Sea-AFP-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
China has been building artifical islands in disputed parts of the South China Sea, putting it at odds with regional neighbours the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, which also stake partial claimsVietnam accused Beijing of threatening regional safety by conducting "unannounced" flights through its airspace to a newly built runway on the Fiery Cross reef, which is claimed by both countries.China has conducted several flights this year to the airstrip, one of several it has built on artificial islands is has constructed as its asserts its claim to nearly all of the disputed waterway.China's foreign ministry said it had not been required to notify Vietnam, as the flights were "state aviation activities".The trips "are not bound by the Convention on International Civil Aviation and relevant regulations of the ICAO, are within sovereign states' independent hands to operate," spokesman Hong Lei told a regular briefing, referring to the UN body.Hong added that in any case China's aviation administration had notified Vietnamese authorities of the flight, but "received no response".Vietnam this year logged at least 46 incidents of Chinese planes flying without warning through airspace monitored by air traffic control in the southern metropolis Ho Chi Minh City, according to authorities cited by local media.State media also reported that Vietnam sent a protest letter about the flights to Beijing, as well as the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).Beijing began work in 2014 on a 3,000-metre (9,800-foot) runway on Fiery Cross reef in the disputed Spratly island group, around 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from China's island province of Hainan.China assertion over most of the South China Sea puts it at odds with regional neighbours the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, which also stake partial claims.
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
After Ebola, two other tropical diseases pose new threats-Reuters By Kate Kelland-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
LONDON (Reuters) - A little-known bacterial disease may be killing as many people worldwide as measles, scientists said on Monday, while a mosquito-borne virus known as Zika is also raising global alarm.The spread of Ebola in West Africa last year shows how poorly-understood diseases can emerge and grow rapidly while researchers race to design and conduct the scientific studies needed to combat them.Researchers in the journal Nature Microbiology called for a bacterial infection called meliodosis, which is resistant to a wide range of antibiotics, to be given a higher priority by international health organizations and policy makers.At the same time, scientists at Britain's Oxford University warned that a virus known as Zika, which is carried by mosquitoes and has caused a major outbreak in Brazil, has "the potential of rapid spread to new areas".Zika was first detected in Africa in the 1940s and was unknown in the Americas until last year, but has now been confirmed in Brazil, Panama, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico, Suriname, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Guatemala and Paraguay, according to public health officials.It is carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which thrives in tropical climates and can also carry other diseases such as yellow fever, dengue fever and chikungunya.Thousands of people in Brazil have been infected by Zika. While the virus is not thought to kill, health authorities there last year linked it to a surge in babies born with microcephaly, restricted head growth that seriously limits a child's mental and physical abilities.Trudie Lang, professor of Global Health Research at Oxford University, said Zika - for which there are currently no known treatments - was a cause for concern."It's definitely becoming an issue, but there is so little research that we just don't know the size of the potential threat," she told Reuters.She urged the international research community to act now to learn more about the virus, about how it is spread, and about how scientists might develop a treatment or vaccine against it."We need to learn from what happened with Ebola," Lang said, referring to the devastating epidemic of that viral fever that swept through three countries in West Africa last year and caused more than 28,600 cases globally.The vast majority of Ebola cases and deaths were in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where more than 11,000 people were killed, according to data from the World Health Organization."We need to galvanize the research community now and move as quickly as we can from doing observational work (on Zika) to carrying out proper scientific research," Lang said.In the Nature study on melioidosis, scientists said the bacteria that causes it, Burkholderia pseudomallei, is commonly found in soils in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia, but can be spread to non-endemic areas via imports of infected animals."Melioidosis is a great mimicker of other diseases and you need a good microbiology laboratory for bacterial culture and identification to make an accurate diagnosis," said Direk Limmathurotsakul, a micro biologist and assistant professor at Thailand's Mahidol University, who co-led the study."It especially affects the rural poor in the tropics, who often do not have access to microbiology labs, which means that it has been greatly under-estimated as an important public health problem across the world," he added.The researchers estimate there are 165,000 melioidosis cases a year in people, of which 89,000 will be fatal. These tolls are similar to those caused by measles - a viral infection that can be prevented with a vaccine - and far greater than dengue fever.The study found that the highest melioidosis risk zones are in South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, including all countries in Southeast Asia and tropical Australia, sub-Saharan Africa and South America. There are also risk zones of varying sizes in Central America, southern Africa and the Middle East.(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Philippa Fletcher)
WORLD TERRORISM
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)
India teen gang-raped, shot, dumped in well-AFP-January 10, 2016 4:01 AM-YAHOONEWS
An Indian teenager held captive for two weeks by a gang of men said in an interview broadcast Sunday that she was repeatedly raped before being shot twice and dumped in a well on the outskirts of New Delhi.The victim, reportedly aged 14, was allegedly abducted on November 22 while walking to a market in western Delhi, in the latest case of sexual violence in the Indian capital.Speaking of her ordeal to the NDTV news network, the teenager said she was held in a "dark room" where three attackers took turns to rape her over a two-week period."After a fortnight of repeated abuse, one night they said they will let me go. They put me in the car and drove to a store to buy alcohol and then parked the car near a well," the girl said in the interview."They told me they will let me go but as I took a few steps back, they fired two shots. The first bullet hit my bone. I didn't feel a thing, my body just went numb. But after the second one I fainted."She woke shivering and wet inside the well where she said she had been left for dead."When I regained consciousness... I could see a bullet in my chest, so I just yanked it out," she said, showing a wound on her chest.Nearby villagers pulled her out on December 6 after hearing her screams, before she was rushed to hospital.Several men have been arrested over the attack, according to local media reports."I want the rapists to be hanged. No one should go through what I did," she said.The fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in Delhi in 2012 shone a global spotlight on frightening levels of violence against women.It also led to major reform of India's rape laws including speeding up of trials and increasing penalties for offenders, but high numbers of assaults persist.
Air strike in Iraq's Mosul targets 'millions' in IS cash: US official-AFP-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
Washington (AFP) - A US-led coalition air strike has destroyed a cash storage facility used by Islamic State jihadists in the Iraqi city of Mosul, a US defense official said Monday.Two 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs struck the facility, destroying "millions" of dollars worth of cash, the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity."We estimate in the millions of dollars... from all their illicit stuff: oil, looting, extortion," the official said. The strike came early Monday.CNN, which first reported the strike, said the US military believed between five and seven civilians had been killed.The US-led coalition carrying out plane and drone strikes against the IS group in Iraq and Syria has been increasingly targeting the jihadists' money-making capabilities, including by bombing trucks that ferry illicit oil across Syria.Under pressure from critics who say the campaign is moving too slowly, the Pentagon has indicated it would consider a wider array of targets even if these might cause civilian deaths, provided these attacks yield significant gains against the jihadists.The defense official said the coalition had targeted cash-holding facilities once or twice in the past year, but the most recent action was "probably" the biggest to date.It was not immediately clear if the money had been in US dollars, some other foreign currency, or local dinars, the official added.
Assault Allegations in Europe Are Changing the Debate About Refugees-By Jennifer Swann | Takepart.com-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
The attacks that sent at least two people to the hospital came less than two weeks after hundreds of reported sexual assaults that officials allege were carried out by Arab and North African men, heightening national concerns about the 1 million refugees Germany took in last year. About 40 percent of the 516 criminal complaints filed in relation to the New Year's Eve attacks were sexual allegations, while the other half involved theft or physical assault, police told reporters. Witnesses describe a harrowing scene in which police lost control as roughly 1,000 men in and around the Cologne train station launched firecrackers into a crowd and allegedly grabbed at women's bodies, tearing off their clothes and belongings. At least one woman alleges she was raped. It's not clear that those who carried out the attacks in Cologne were refugees.In her first public comments about the attacks, Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker on Tuesday drew criticism and ridicule online for suggesting that women can guard against assault by keeping "an arm's length" away from men on the street. Both she and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door policy toward refugees seeking asylum has come under scrutiny in the wake of the attacks, have urged Germans not to jump to hateful conclusions about refugees because of the attacks.In a statement also released Tuesday, Merkel urged swift investigations to punish those responsible, "regardless of how they look, where they come from or what their background is." But as tensions continue to escalate and criminal complaints flood in, Merkel cautioned that deportations from Germany might be necessary "to send clear signals to those who are not prepared to abide by our legal order."More than 5.9 million Syrians have fled war and persecution and at least an additional 7.6 million are displaced within their country since war broke out in Syria nearly five years ago, marking the worst crisis in nearly a quarter of a century, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.The New Year's Eve crimes have shifted public opinion in Germany about admitting people from other countries, including the millions who are seeking asylum after fleeing war-torn countries. Thirty-seven percent of Germans said their view of foreigners had worsened after the attacks, according to a poll conducted by the Berlin-based research firm Forsa Institute. A similar debate about refugees is unfolding in Sweden, which until November boasted a liberal, open-door policy toward refugees. On Tuesday, Swedish newspapers accused the police of covering up alleged sexual assaults by refugees at a music festival in Stockholm last summer as a means of quelling anti-refugee backlash.
EU urges Turkey to do more, amid fresh talk of mini-Schengen By Nikolaj Nielsen-EUOBSERVER
BRUSSELS, 11. Jan, 18:34-EU commission vice-president Frans Timmermans has urged Ankara to do more to stop migrants, as the Netherlands revives talk of mini-Schengen.“The numbers are still way too high in Greece, between 2,000 to 3,000 people [arriving] every day. We cannot be satisfied at this stage,” he told reporters on Monday (11 January) following a meeting with Turkey's EU affairs minister, Volkan Bozkir.The two sides spoke about Turkey's recent decision to introduce visa reguirements for Syrians as well as work permits for those who remain inside Turkey.Timmermans pressed Ankara to speed up projects which could lead to more educational and medical facilities for Syrians.He also asked Turkey for more details on their crack down on smuggling networks.Last November, the EU offered Turkey €3 billion to improve the lives of refugees in a bid to mak more people stay there.Some €500 million will come from the EU budget, with the remaining €2.5 billion pooled from member states. But the money hasn’t been paid yet.Earlier last week, a contact at Turkey's foreign ministry told EUobserver the money transfer would take place once an assessment has been completed."Currently, there’s an ongoing needs assessment. The transfer of the funds would take place once that work is completed,” the source said.The contact could not give a date when such an assessment would be completed.Also last week, German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere complained that bad weather was the primary reason behind a drop in the number of people seeking international protection and not Turkey's efforts.Up to 10,000 had been entering Germany on a daily basis. That number dropped to a daily average of some 3,200.The refugee crisis has dominated political debate in Europe since last summer.Bulagaria and Hungary have built razor fances on their external borders.Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Slovakia, and Sweden have also reintroduced checks on EU internal borders, in the so-called Schengen passport-free zone.Mini-Schengen?-Dutch ministers, last Thursday, denied The Netherlands is formally considering plans to create a mini-Schengen wit Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Luxembourg.But on Monday, the Dutch migration minister, Klaas Dijkhof, told MEPs in the civil liberties committee that it could be implemented as a last resort."We won't push it because we like the other solution [full Schengen] much better but we also have to be fair that if we don't come to a solution, I don't expect governments to say 'plan A wasn't available and now we do nothing', and that is also not realistic,” he said.He added: "If we don't come to a solution carried by all member states or all Schengen member states, then it will eventually put the Schengen agreement we have at risk.”-Border force-The next EU step will be to create a border and coast guard force by the end of July.The border force would have the "right to intervene" should a member state, like Greece, fail to protect the bloc's frontiers.Slovakia, for its part, will take over the EU presidency in July.Last Friday, Slovakia's prime minister Robert Fico said the EU border agency should be fast tracked and is sending a letter to EU council chief Donald Tusk to dedicate an EU summit to the proposal.But Slovakia is opposed to an EU scheme to distribute 160,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece to other member states.Like te €3 billion Turkey plan, the redistrubtion scheme has so far failed to deliver. As of last week, only around 0.17 percent of the proposed relocations had taken place.
Opinion-EU refugee crisis: History repeating By Quincy R. Cloet-EUOBSERVER
ABERYSTWYTH, UK, 11. Jan, 17:13-From the rising number of refugees trying to reach Europe’s frontiers, it appears as if European member states and the European Union are trying to cope with a crisis of unprecedented scale.Other emergencies have seized the headlines - terrorism, Greece’s bail-out, and climate change - yet, no subject has been so prevalent as the refugee crisis.Warning signs have gone up in some of the European states, both in the Union’s periphery but also in the core. Hungary has built a fence, to protect its national borders, and others are quickly following suit.Even Germany and Sweden, ever so welcoming, seem more and more ambivalent as regards the staggering number of people that will reach Europe now and in the New Year.Europe has a large capacity and the resilience to receive large numbers of refugees, but will it continue to cope? The Syrian civil war has been one of the biggest tests so far for European solidarity and inter-state cooperation.But it is far from unprecedented.-Nothing new under the sun-The Yugoslav wars also led to sudden flows of up to 1 million individuals, fleeing their homes and seeking refuge in other European states. Going further in time, the two World Wars perhaps brought about the biggest flows of refugees and displaced persons in modern times.The inter-war period has sometimes been hailed as an era of refugees. What can we take way from these past episodes? One of the major lessons is that refugee crises always start as a temporary phenomenon but tend to last.The work is never finished. Inter-war Europe was hit by several refugee crises involving a high number of people, the result of the Russian revolution and civil war (over 1 million), and tensions between Turkey and Greece (up to 2 million).The rise of Nazi Germany also pushed German citizens toward emigration (around 600,000).Throughout this period, Europe was also coping with other problems, often similar to those of today: financial and economic havoc; worries about gaping budget deficits; and continued conflicts at the fringes of the continent.Refugee crises confront societies with many questions at the same time. Not only in terms of capacity and security, but also with regard to the long-term effects of refugee settlement.Politicians of the inter-war period grappled with questions over the employment, education, and integration of newcomers.Hostility among the public and media was there as well, despite palpable evidence that refugees had been through situations of terror and threat to reach their destinations. Then and now, national governments showed great reluctance to welcome newcomers and spend additional money on refugee settlement. Similar to the European Union today, the League of Nations was tasked with finding a solution.-Fridtjof Nansen-It called for the help of a Norwegian statesman, Fridtjof Nansen, to come up with effective solutions.Nansen’s story is often overlooked, yet there is much to learn from his personal commitment to the refugee matter. The League was in no position to offer much financial support, so Nansen relied upon private aid, his negotiation skills, and a great dose of creativity to tackle successive waves of refugees.It is estimated that the League and Nansen’s Refugee Organisation may easily have helped more than 1 million individuals, often directly, in finding refuge in a European country.Many were transported by boats or trains across the continent, coming from far way, in such an efficient way it cost no more than one English pound per refugee.He poked host countries into creating opportunities for employment and education. He also devised a passport which gave legal protection for refugees and ensured a safe passage across borders.Why? Because every anonymous mass of refugees consists of individuals, each one with a name, a family, and a story to tell. For his work, Nansen received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.Today, there is definitely no lack of committed individuals and original ideas, often connected to smaller projects dealing with the refugees crisis on the ground.But creative solutions should also come from the top. The European Asylum Support Office does little more than collecting information and enhancing cooperation. National governments worry over quotas rather than putting thought into structural solutions.There are simple but effective instruments available.What made the difference during the inter-war years was the facilitation of refugee transport, the effective dispersal of refugees within countries, employment schemes to get people into work, temporary housing, and accessible schooling for the young.The costs were far from insurmountable. As the story of Nansen shows, humanitarianism has often been a story of trial and uncertain outcomes. It requires experiments, and some pay off while others don’t.-EU fit for purpose? Do we still have that creative edge? Perhaps we have become fearful of the other reaching our European shores, all too often neglecting their hazardous journey to get there.Fear will prevail, unless we show a collective capacity to cope with this and the next crisis.Rather than ignoring the problem, building fences, or propping up neighbouring states with money to halt the tide of refugees, there is another path to be taken.One which involves commitment and a broad coalition of European communities, small and large. Remember, this era of refugees is not new, it is not unprecedented, it has all happened before.Quincy R. Cloet is a historian affiliated with the College of Europe Natolin Campus, Warsaw. He is currently writing a PhD on the League of Nations and inter-war international co-operation at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales
What Would a Saudi-Iran War Look Like? Don’t look now, but it is already here-Foreign Policy Magazine By Thomas E. Ricks-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS-By Michael Knights
When asked to address the question of what a Saudi-Iran war would look like, my first instinct is to ask the reader to look around because it is already happening. As the futurist William Gibson noted, “the future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Already, Saudi Arabia and Iran are killing each other’s proxies, and indirectly are killing each other’s advisors and troops, in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia’s Shiite Eastern Province.The future is likely to look similar. The existing pattern will intensify, eventually spill over in a short, sharp direct clash, and then sink back down again to the level of proxy wars in other people’s territories.The preferred method of conflict between these states has for a long time been proxy warfare. Since its devastating eight-year war against Iraq, the leadership in Tehran has demonstrated a strong preference for acting through proxies like Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shiite militias, and Hamas. Lacking a strong military for most of its existence, the state of Saudi Arabia has likewise used proxy warfare to strike painful blows against its enemies, notably against Egypt’s occupation forces in the 1962-1970 Yemeni civil war and against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Both these players try to get others to do most of their fighting and dying for them.Iran’s powerful support for Shiite militias is well-documented. Lebanese Hezbollah has evolved into a central pillar of Iran’s retaliatory capability against Israel, and more recently has answered Iran’s call to provide reliable ground forces to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. Lebanese Hezbollah is no militia: it has Zelzal-1 missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Hezbollah has large stocks of advanced anti-tank guided missiles and Explosively-Formed Penetrator (EFP) roadside bombs capable of penetrating any Israeli tank. Iran as also supplied Hezbollah with advanced C-802 anti-shipping missiles, which crippled an Israeli warship in 2006, and most recently with even more advanced Yakhont anti-ship missiles.Now Iran seems to have provided its Shiite Houthi allies with C-802 missiles, which have been used in a number of attacks on United Arab Emirates (UAE) warships in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The Houthis are inflicting heavy damage on the Saudi military, destroying scores of U.S.-supplied main battle tanks and other armoured vehicles using Iranian-provided anti-tank guided missiles. Iran’s proxies are seizing terrain in southern Saudi Arabia and lobbing Scud missiles at military bases deep within the kingdom.In Iraq the Iranian-backed militias have been provided with Iranian air support, artillery, electronic warfare equipment and medical support. Badr, the main Shiite militia in Iraq, fought as a military division in the Iranian order of battle during the Iran-Iraq War. Badr now leads Iraq’s largest security institution, the half-million Ministry of Interior, and the Shia militias are being formed into a proto-ministry that resembles their patron, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC).The “Hezbollah-ization” of two key regional states is well-underway.Most worryingly for Saudi Arabia the Iranian bloc is demonstrating a disregard for long-lasting “red lines” over Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, which has a majority Shiite population. In 2011 Saudi Arabia and the UAE deployed scores of main battle tanks and armoured personnel carriers to directly safeguard the Bahraini royal family in the face of Arab spring uprisings. This robust move seemed to deeply shake Tehran, triggering the hapless Iranian plot to assassinate Adel Jubeir, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. In the last year Iran seems to have been acting increasoingly recklessly in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Iraqi Shiite militias like Badr spin-off Kataib Hezbollah have worked with Iranian-backed cells in Bahrain and Eastern Province to import advanced EFP munitions in large numbers with the evident intent of giving Shia communities the ability to self-defend against future Saudi military crackdowns. This kind of game-changing behaviour by Tehran is undoubtedly one reason the Saudi government chose to recently execute Eastern Province Shia dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.Long before the current hullabaloo Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Gulf States have been slowly cultivating their own network of military proxies. The first major recipient of Gulf military support was the Saudi-supported Lebanese government. The UAE sent nine fully-armed and crewed SA-342L Gazelle helicopters to help the Lebanese government crush Al-Qaeda-linked Fatah al-Islam at Tripoli’s Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in May 2007. In 2009, a year after Saudi’s King Abdullah called for the U.S. to “cut the head off the snake” by bombing Iran, Riyadh launched a nine-week military campaign against the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen, losing 137 troops. This triggered a major intensification of Saudi Arabian, Jordanian and UAE provision of training, salaries, armored vehicles, and weapons to anti-Houthi militias in northern Yemen. Now the Gulf States and other allies like Pakistan and Somalia are building up new proxy forces in Yemen to assist in the Saudi-led military campaign against the Houthis.So what happens next? Saudi and Iran will want to test and hurt each other, signal limits, but not suffer mutual destruction.Iran will begin to stir violence in Eastern Province and Bahrain, and it may try harder to fight supplies through to Yemen by sea by bolstering Houthi coastal missile batteries.The next stage in the Saudi Arabian war with Iran will be an intensification of the proxy war in Syria. This is where Riyadh plans to fight its main battle against Iran. Then Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal signaled as far back as March 2012 that “the arming of the [Syrian] opposition is a duty.” Already Saudi, Qatari and Turkish support has allowed rebels in northwestern Syria to inflict severe armor losses on pro-Assad forces using anti-tank guided missiles. The provision of anti-aircraft missiles may be next. The U.S.-led coalition seems to be backing away from the morally-ambiguous war west of the Euphrates in Syria, where the main opposition to the Islamic State and Assad are radical Salafists that Western nations cannot engage. But Saudi Arabia and its allies have been doing exactly this in Yemen for half a decade and are now likely to take over the war west of the Euphrates in Syria. Riyadh now seems to view Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as a lesser evil to the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen: how soon before it views “moderate splinters” of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra the same way in western Syria? Though neither Saudi Arabian nor Iran envisage an open conventional war between them — a result that Saudi Arabia’s crown price and defence minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently terms “a major catastrophe” — there is always the potential for frontier skirmishes on their shared littoral borders and in the neutral space of the Gulf. Shared gas fields and disputed islands are obvious touchpoints. Iran might test missiles closer and closer to Gulf sea-lanes and coasts. Aerial patrols might begin to test each other: this happened during the Iran-Iraq War along the so-called “Fahd Line” until a Saudi interceptor shot down two Iranian fighter aircraft in 1984. Iran (or the Gulf States) could undertake tit-for-tat harassment, boarding or even deniable use of naval mines against each other’s trade routes. (Iran also used this tactic in the 1980s). Cyberwarfare is a likely deniable weapon of choice for both sides also.At some point in the coming years we are likely to see both sides miscalculate and unleash a very short, very sharp burst of military force against each other. This will be a wake-up call. Both Iran and the Gulf States are far more powerfully armed than they were during the Iran-Iraq War. The advanced air forces of the Saudis and their key ally the UAE are now capable of destroying practically all Iran’s port facilities, oil loading terminals and key industries using stand-off precision-guided munitions. Iran can shower the Gulf coastline with multitudinous unguided rockets and a higher concentration of guided long-range missiles than ever before. In 1988 the Iranian navy was destroyed by the United States in a single day of combat — Operation Praying Mantis. Even a day or two of such “push-button warfare” would serve as a reminder to both sides of their overriding imperative to avoid direct conflict and to keep their conflict limited to the territories of unfortunate third-parties.Michael Knights is the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has worked on the military balance between Iran and the Gulf States for over twenty years.
Russia Bombs Offices of American NGO in Syria, Says Group-Foreign Policy Magazine By John Hudson-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
The Russian military is coming under fresh criticism that it bombed a humanitarian field office Saturday in the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib. The claim, by an American advocacy organization, follows previous reports that Russia’s bombing campaign continues to hit territory controlled by Syrian rebel groups not linked to the Islamic State — the ostensible target of Moscow’s months-long military intervention.In a statement Monday to Foreign Policy, the Syrian Emergency Task Force said Russian planes bombed one of its offices in central Idlib province in a strike that “completely destroyed” the facility and equipment. The staff — which host civil society workshops, helps distribute U.S. humanitarian aid, and documents atrocities — was not present during the incident, and no one was killed, according to SETF.“This attack on a humanitarian field office and surrounding civilian areas is yet another in a string of despicable violations of international law,” said SETF Executive Director Mouaz Moustafa.The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. Moscow has long denied it targets civilians in the conflict.A Pentagon official could not immediately confirm the accusation but said it was not “unusual or hard to believe.”“They have struck there in the past,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They fly in Idlib and they don’t use precision weaponry, so the idea that they could hit a non-military target is legitimate.”Evan Barrett, a spokesman for the group, provided photographs of the office following the alleged bombing.The new claim by SETF follows a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that at least 12 Syrian school children were killed Monday when suspected Russian jets bombed a classroom in the rebel-controlled town of Injara in Aleppo province.The new allegations threatened to derail the United Nations-brokered peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25. Syrian opposition coordinator Riad Hijab cited the alleged school bombing as evidence that the opposition could not negotiate with the Assad regime.“We want to negotiate, but to do that the conditions have to be there,” Hijab said. “We cannot negotiate with the regime when there are foreign forces bombing the Syrian people.”In his remarks, following a meeting in Paris with French President Francois Hollande, Hijab said the Syrian opposition will need to see a goodwill effort by the Assad regime to justify its attendance at the talks.“We do not want to go to negotiations that are condemned to failure before they start. We need to create the right climate,” he said.Speaking to the bombing allegations, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius implored Moscow and Damascus to halt “inadmissible” attacks on civilians.
Iraq Turkmens alarmed by Kurdish trench-AFP-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
Baghdad (AFP) - Iraqi Turkmen leaders on Monday accused the country's Kurds of exploiting the war on jihadists to dig a trench that would strengthen their grip on expanded territory.Officials from the Turkmen minority said the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was digging the trench roughly following conflict lines between the Islamic State group and Kurdish forces across northern Iraq.Kurdish officials insisted the trench was not a political act but rather a purely defensive measure aimed at preventing attacks by IS suicide car bombers."We see this move to dig a trench as suspicious," Arshad al-Salehi, the head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, told AFP."It starts in Rabia... and ends in Khanaqin," he said.Rabia is a northwestern town on the Syrian border and Khanaqin lies 400 kilometres (250 miles) to the southeast, near the Iranian border.The Turkmens are one of Iraq's largest ethnic minorities and many of their hubs are in disputed areas, which are just beyond the KRG borders but claimed by the Kurds.The Kurdish peshmerga took over many of those areas on the back of the June 2014 IS offensive that saw the Iraqi federal security forces collapse completely.Salehi said he wanted Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to clarify his position on the trench and said he would bring up the issue in parliament."We see it as the beginning of the division of Iraq. It gives reality on the ground to a redrawn geopolitical map," he said.Jassem Mohammed Jaafar, a Turkmen MP, also accused the Kurds of using the war against IS as a pretext to further the expansion, and ultimately the secession, of their region.- 'Fait accompli' -"It is against international conventions, it violates the rights of the people who end up on one or the other side of it," he told AFP."There is little doubt that this trench is part of a project to divide Iraq," Jaafar said.The KRG acknowledged it had recently stepped up the fortification of its frontline with IS but it denied any political motive."The purpose of the trench is to build a defensive system against vehicles used by Daesh (IS) terrorists who blow up car bombs," peshmerga spokesman Jabar Yawar said."It is two metres deep and three wide. It is not everywhere, some areas don't need it. It is the military leadership that makes this decision," he said.Turkmen officials said their information showed that the planned path of the trench would include the town of Tuz Khurmatu in the Kurdish region and leave that of Amerli out.The trench has not been dug there yet but work has begun in areas around the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and in the Jalawla region near the Iranian border, they said.Mehdi Saadoun, an activist from the Turkmen Rescue Foundation, said the trench was being used to further Kurdish nationalist ambitions."Seventy to 80 percent of the areas to be included on the KRG side are Turkmen areas," he said."They will include Tal Afar, Kirkuk (and) Tuz Khurmatu if the government does not enforce the law on preserving the unity of Iraq," Saadoun said."Daesh is the excuse the Kurdish forces are using to impose a fait accompli by digging this trench," he said.The governor of Kirkuk province, Najmeddin Karim, said he supported any measure making the area safer."We support the decisions and measures taken by the peshmerga because they guarantee the security and stability of all the people of Kirkuk, without any discrimination," he said."They have the right to dig a trench to protect the people and the cities from terrorists and prevent any infiltration by Daesh," the governor told AFP.
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS-10 WORLD REGIONS/TRADE BLOCS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS-10 WORLD DIVISION WORLD GOVERNMENT) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(THE EU (EUROPEAN UNION) TAKES OVER IRAQ WHICH HAS SPLIT INTO 3-SUNNI-KURD-SHIA PARTS-AND THE REVIVED ROMAN EMPIRE IS BROUGHT BACK TOGETHER-THE TWO LEGS OF DANIEL WESTERN LEG AND THE ISLAMIC LEG COMBINED AS 1)
LUKE 2:1-3
1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
Opinion-Brussels shares responsibility for Poland’s rule-of-law crisis By Lydia Gall-JAN 11,16-EUOBSERVER
BRUSSELS, Today, 09:22-For the first time, the European Commission has threatened to activate the 2014 rule of law mechanism allowing it to monitor and act on “systemic threats” to rule of law in EU member states.The reason for the commission’s toughened stance is the new Polish government’s moves to undermine judicial independence and media freedom.In late December, two months after the nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS) won elections in Poland, the government rushed a law through parliament that risks undermining the effectiveness of the Constitutional Tribunal as a check on the executive.The new law, signed by president Andrzej Duda of PiS on 31 December, requires a two-thirds majority in the 15-member court, instead of a simple majority, to block legislation.The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, a leading nongovernmental organization in Poland, has commented that the changes will mean that “operations of Poland’s constitutional court will be blocked.”President Duda also refused to swear in three judges appointed by the outgoing parliament, instead swearing in five judges appointed by the new PiS-controlled parliament.The new government has also sought to bring the media under its control, pushing through a law in parliament on 31 December allowing a government minister to appoint and dismiss the supervisory and management boards of public television and radio, thereby undermining guarantees for their independence.Brussels’ response to the unfolding constitutional crisis in the EU’s sixth-largest member has been robust.Frans Timmermans, the European Commission vice-president who leads on rule of law issues, wrote twice to the Polish government in late December, calling for a halt to the changes to the court until their impact has been “fully and properly assessed” and stressing the importance of media freedom and pluralism to the “common values on which the union is founded.”The commissioner responsible for the media, Guenther Oettinger, has called for Poland to be subject to supervision under the rule of law mechanism.The state of the rule of the law in Poland is to be discussed when the entire college of commissioners meets on 13 January.The Polish government has rejected Brussels’ concerns, with foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski defending the media law as necessary to “heal our state of some diseases.”The Council of Europe and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have also raised concern about the risks to media freedom from Poland’s new law.Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, expressed concern with the lack of public debate and scrutiny of the media law on 5 January, saying that arrangements giving government officials the power to appoint and dismiss the boards that oversee public broadcasters “contradict Council of Europe standards,” and calling on Poland’s president not to sign it.Thorbjorn Jagland, the Council of Europe secretary-general, on January 5 sent a letter to president Duda, stating worries about the impact of the new law on public service broadcasting on the integrity and independence of public service media and asking the president to consult with Council of Europe freedom of expression experts before taking any action on the law.The OSCE representative on media freedom, Dunja Mijatovic, expressed deep concern about the media law on 30 December, saying that she feared it “will endanger the basic conditions of independence, objectivity and impartiality of public service broadcasters.”President Duda signed the media law on 7 January, notwithstanding those concerns.The hardened line from the European Commission is in stark contrast with its weak approach toward similar problems in Hungary.Prime minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz government, which until 2014 had a supermajority in parliament, has led the way in undermining the rule of law and media freedom since it came into power in 2010 - measures that met with minimal action at best by the commission.PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczinski, an admirer of Orban’s self-styled “illiberal democracy,” in October 2011 publicly stated that he wants to “bring Budapest to Warsaw.”Observers in Warsaw will be well aware that Hungary’s ongoing authoritarian slide has met with few consequences in Brussels, setting a dangerous precedent for other EU member states (notwithstanding the commission’s recent actions over Hungary’s asylum abuses).Commission scrutiny of Poland is imperative to safeguard the European Union’s basic values, but it shouldn’t stop there.The commission should consider activating its rule of law mechanism against Hungary as the European Parliament called for in December, to send a clear signal that member states that undermine the rule of law and media freedom will be held to account.Lydia Gall is a researcher on eastern Europe and the Western Balkans at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based NGO.
Riots in Pristina over EU-backed deal By Nikolaj Nielsen-JAN 11,16-EUOBSERVER
BRUSSELS, Today, 09:25-An EU-brokered agreement to give ethnic Serbs more autonomy in Kosovo sparked protests and rioting in its capital Pristina over the weekend.Thousands demonstrated on Saturday (9 January) in opposition to recent agreements with Serbia and Montenegro, designed to normalise relations between the Balkan country and its former masters in Belgrade.The protests were, for the large part, peaceful but turned ugly when a small group launched molotov cocktails and set fire to the main government seat in Pristina.Signed in August, the so-called Association of Serb Communities (ASM) pact has riled Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority and led to the biggest political crisis since Kosovo declared its independence in 2008.The deal gives Kosovo's ethnic Serb minority more say in local governance in a move opposition leaders in Pristina say will dismantle its hard-fought for sovereignty-A separate pact, which reliquishes some terrority to its western neighbor was also signed with Montenegro.Led by the Vetevendosje (meaning “self-determination”) party, the opposition group has blocked parliament activity since October over the EU-mediated agreements and wants the current government to resign.Last November, Veteven dosje's 40-year old founder Albin Kurti was arrested after setting off tear gas in parliament in protest over the EU-brokered pact.Kosovo’s constitutional court has also ruled that parts of the August ASM deal are against basic law.But a Vice News journalist, who spoke to some of the demonstrators on Saturday, reported that widespread grievances over lack of jobs for young people and high-level corruption are feeding the ASM dispute."The government is guilty [for the riots], it is their corruption that causes this. The police are not our target, it's the government," said one 15-year old demonstrator.Another EU-mediated effort to create a special court to try crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is also set for launch early this year.The Hague-based court is set to indict former KLA commanders, including, possibly, Kosovo's foreign minister Hashim Thaci.Kosovo's statehood is recognised by 111 nations, but not Serbia. Officials from Belgrade and Pristina are to meet in Brussels at the end of the month to continue the EU mediated talks.In an interview last week with the RFE/RL's Balkan Service, Serbia's prime minister Aleksandar Vucic, a former spokesman for the late Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic, said mending ties would be the "hardest thing to achieve.”"I do not want us to have blockades, confirmations, papers [that] we issue at the administrative line, as we call it, or the border, as Albanians are calling it," he said.Vucic said it could take up to four years before relations return to normal.The EU says normal relations must be achieved before either can join the bloc of 28 member states.
Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina cut from main GOP debate lineup-Associated Press By STEVE PEOPLES-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former technology executive Carly Fiorina will not appear on the primetime debate stage when the Republican Party's 2016 presidential class faces off later this week in South Carolina.Debate host Fox Business Network announced the debate lineup Monday evening, dealing a blow to both candidates three weeks before Iowa's leadoff presidential caucuses. Just seven candidates — the smallest Republican group so far — will be featured in Thursday's 9 p.m. ET main event, based on criteria established by the network that relied on recent polls.Real estate mogul Donald Trump, the leader in most recent polls, will again appear center stage in the debate. He'll be joined on stage by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Gov. Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.Paul and Fiorina were invited to participate in a 6 p.m. ET "undercard" debate, although Paul said he would skip the second-tier faceoff."An artificial designation as being in the second tier is something we can't accept," he told CNN on Monday. "I won't participate in anything that's not the first tier."Before the lineup was announced, Paul strategist Doug Stafford said: "This race is hitting its final stretch and Rand Paul is a serious contender for the nomination. He expects to be on the stage this week because he has qualified to do so and because he has a top-tier campaign." Stafford noted that Paul has qualified for primary ballots in every state, has more than 1,000 precinct captains in Iowa, and has a 500-person leadership team in New Hampshire.Fox Business Network said the primetime lineup would include the top six candidates in the five most recent national polls in addition to any candidate in the top five in either Iowa or New Hampshire.Others invited to the undercard event include former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
FBI expanding investigation of Clinton private email use: Fox-Reuters-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI is widening its investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account while she was U.S. secretary of state to determine whether any public corruption laws were violated, Fox News reported on Monday.The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into whether classified material was mishandled during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department from 2009-2013. It will expand its probe by examining possible overlap of the Clinton Foundation charity with State Department business, Fox reported, citing three unidentified intelligence officials. “The (FBI) agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,” Fox quoted one of its unidentified sources as saying. The FBI and the State Department had no immediate comment on the report. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus issued a statement calling the Fox News report “a very troubling development.” Clinton, the front-runner to be the Democratic candidate in November’s presidential election, has been criticized for using the private email account hosted on a private computer in her home while secretary of state. Clinton has said she used communication practices that were widespread across the government. She has said there has been no evidence that she broke the law. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Arshad Mohammed; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Did Planned Parenthood go wrong in endorsing Hillary Clinton?-The advocacy arm of the social welfare organization broke with tradition over the weekend with its public support of the former secretary of State before the first presidential primary.-Christian Science Monitor By Lisa Suhay-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
Sort of. It all hinges on a distinction between the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the 501(c)(3) service organization that provides reproductive health services and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that serves as the group's political arm.The endorsement was made via the advocacy arm, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF), which launched a new website in November, in the wake of campaigns to defund the parent organization and in support of abortion, Planned Parenthood itself, Obamacare, sex education, health equity for the LGBT community, and birth control.“The Planned Parenthood Action Fund is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization formed as the advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America,” according to the PPAF website.“The Action Fund engages in educational and electoral activity, including legislative advocacy, voter education, and grassroots organizing. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund Political Action Committee (Planned Parenthood Federal PAC) is a nonpartisan political action committee committed to supporting pro-choice, pro-family planning candidates for federal office.”But most at issue is the $20 million donation to Mrs. Clinton's campaign, which has prompted some Planned Parenthood supporters to express their displeasure on Twitter:Of course I'm disappointed in Planned Parenthood's official endorsement of Hillary, but that does not discredit the amazing work they do.— ✨ TayCif ✨ (@TayCif) January 9, 2016-Disappointed in Planned Parenthood's endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Such an honorable organization should not work for the elite. (@PPact)— John Ross (@_jonathanross) January 8, 2016-Donor to Planned Parenthood disappointed in @PPact's endorsement considering Bernie Sanders has a 100% NARAL rating. pic.twitter.com/OUNlfTDkjL— Mimzy (@Mimzy122) January 8, 2016-@PPact Im terribly disappointed with Planned Parenthood endorsement of Clinton, all women should be too Premature, Misguided, and Backwards— Jonathan Michael Gow (@jonny_gow) January 8, 2016-#PPact4HillaryNice. The coveted Planned Parenthood endorsement ranks right up there with a Hamas or Al-Shabaab endorsement.— Victor Nikki (@hapkid obigdad) January 10, 2016-The problem, according to Elizabeth Boris, director of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at The Urban Institute, is a misunderstanding of the differences between the group's service arm, the advocacy arm, and a third sub-group, Planned Parenthood's federal political action committee. "The $20 million pledged to the Clinton campaign is not permitted to come out of revenues designated for services to women," says Boris in an interview with the Monitor, "but are likely coming from either or both of the similarly named Planned Parenthood Political Action Fund and from the Planned Parenthood Federal PACCommittees [PACs].”“It gives them (opponents) the ability to shade the truth because it’s very easy to tar a 501(c)(3) service organization with the political brush,” Boris says. “I understand why Planned Parenthood decided to do it in the long run because they’re under such attack. But the way the public understands a non-profit organization makes the endorsement fraught with difficulty for the overall organization.”Boris adds, “The problem is the umbrella name is the same, they’re linked for the same goals. The misunderstanding is that people are thinking that Planned Parenthood is giving $20 million to Hillary Clinton’s political campaign out of service revenues. That’s not correct. They think money that should be spent on women is part of this money and it’s not. It’s not permitted.”“The misunderstandings about how these organizations are connected and how they’re separate is creating the backlash,” Boris says. “The advocacy part of the organization is not the same part that provides services.”While Internal Revenue codes prohibit 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from engaging in political activity, it’s commonplace for non- profits to have a companion 501(c)(4) arm that is kept separate in funding and name for the purpose of taking political action. The 501(c)(4) or "social welfare" organization is allowed to engage in political activities, as long as those activities don’t become their primary purpose.There are also political action committees for the express purpose of using "hard" money contributions to elect or defeat candidates and 527 Groups (under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code) which raise money for political activities such as parties, candidates, committees, or associations organized for the purpose of influencing an issue, policy, appointment, or election.“I think the backlash and my own personal experience with this is that there’s sort of an increased need for transparency and actually articulating the differences between the different entities,” says Michael Thatcher, CEO of Charity Navigator in an interview. “Being better able to better articulate the difference between these different entities is the problem. That is a transparency issue.”Mr. Thatcher adds, “That’s what’s interesting me more on a personal level than on a Charity Navigator level is to see how all this will play out with other entities that have similar structures because it is new. It is a new move.”
Senate confirms Restrepo as other nominees languish-Associated Press By ANDREW TAYLOR-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Monday confirmed President Barack Obama's last remaining nominee to a U.S. appeals court, seating Judge Luis Felipe Restrepo after a wait of more than 400 days.The 82-6 vote confirming Restrepo makes him the first Hispanic federal judge from Pennsylvania on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. It also highlights the lengthy wait many of Obama's nominees have faced and the slow pace of confirmations since Republicans retook control of the Senate last year.Restrepo, 55, was born in Colombia and was brought to the U.S. at the age of 2. He has served as a district judge since 2013, but his elevation to the appeals court has been delayed after Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., withheld his approval and GOP leaders subsequently delayed a floor vote."Judge Restrepo exemplifies the kind of consensus nominee that should have been easily confirmed," said Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who reminded his colleagues that he moved 40 of former President George W. Bush's nominees when chairing the Judiciary Committee in 2007-2008. "This highly qualified Hispanic judge was told to go to the back of the line, wait 14 months. It's wrong. It's absolutely wrong."Nine appeals court vacancies remain, but Obama has yet to nominate people for those posts. Dozens of district judgeship are open as well. Thirty of Obama's nominees for those posts are awaiting-The vacancy rate for the federal judiciary remains above levels experienced under Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, but it's dropped below the number in Obama's first term.But don't give credit to Republicans, who now control the Senate. Chalk it up to a burst of confirmations in 2014 after majority Democrats rewrote filibuster rules and rammed through 89 judges, almost double the number of the previous year and the most since President Bill Clinton's second year in office. When 2015 opened, there were just 40 vacancies out of 852 authorized federal appeals and trial judges.Last year, the GOP-led chamber confirmed just 11 federal judges, the least in recent memory. That has Democrats crying foul, suggesting the pace is dictated by electoral politics."It's glacial," says New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, one of the Democrats' point men on judges. "It's for the partisan purpose of hoping for a Republican president."It is true that the number of vacancies has risen, but it is still below the situation confronting Obama in his first year in office in 2009. Vacancies spiked that year as more judges stepped down after Democrats retook the White House and as the Obama White House moved slowly on nominating replacements.Confirmations to lifetime appointments to the federal courts have long been a flashpoint in an increasingly polarized Washington. The current situation pales in comparison with the 2014 struggle that divided the Senate over new rules to accelerate the process. Almost a decade prior, after a spate of Democratic filibusters of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees, GOP leaders explored the same "nuclear option" to get nominees confirmed, but a bipartisan compromise diffused the fight.When Democrats controlled the Senate, Republicans were less likely to filibuster outright, though they were often stingy in permitting votes. In December 2014, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, now a Republican presidential contender, created an opening that Democrats exploited, allowing 11 new judges to be confirmed in an end-of-session burst just before Republicans retook control of the Senate.Democrats note that they confirmed many more judges — 40 — in the seventh year of Bush's presidency in 2007 than Republicans confirmed last year."The analogy is the last two years of the Bush administration," Schumer said. "And we confirmed many more."There's little doubt that the hardball tactics employed by Democrats in 2014 are part of the reason confirmations dropped last year. The process typically requires the Senate to agree unanimously to schedule a vote if a confirmation is to occur, and the chamber is stocked with Republicans opposed to Obama.In the final year of Obama's presidency, Senate leaders have agreed that four more judges will be confirmed over the next few weeks. Since more than two-thirds of the vacancies are in states with at least one GOP senator, it's likely that at least a few more nominees will get a vote before the process virtually shuts down in an election year.___This story has corrected the spelling of the Pennsylvania judge's name to Restrepo, not Restropo.
CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL 2ND WAVE OF WW3 (200 MILLION MAN ARMY)
REVELATION 16:12-16
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates;(WERE WW3 STARTS IN IRAQ OR SYRIA OR TURKEY) and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.(THE TURKEY ATATURK DAM ON THE EUPHRATES CAN BE SHUT AND DRIED UP ALREADY BY TURKEY)
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon,(SATAN) and out of the mouth of the beast,(WORLD DICTATOR) and out of the mouth of the false prophet.(FALSE POPE)
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.(WERE 2 BILLION DIE FROM NUKE WAR)
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.(ITS AT THIS TIME I BELIEVE WHEN AMERICA GETS NUKED BY RUSSIA ON THE WAY TO THE MIDEAST)
DANIEL 11:44 (2ND WAVE OF WW3)
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
REVELATION 9:12-18
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.(WORLDWIDE WAR)(TURKEY-IRAQ-SYRIA)(EUPHRATES RIVER CONSISTS OF 760 MILES IN TURKEY,440 MILES IN SYRIA AND 660 MILES IN IRAQ)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,(WORLDWIDE WAR) which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(1/3 Earths Population die in WW 3 2ND WAVE-2 billion)
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand:(200 MILLION MAN ARMY FROM CHINA AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST) and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
U.S. may send strategic assets, but not warheads, to South Korea-Reuters By Ju-min Park, Jee Heun Kahng and Arshad Mohammed-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and South Korea are discussing deploying more U.S. "strategic assets" to the region after North Korea's atomic test last week but not restoring U.S. nuclear arms to the South, a U.S. official said on Monday.North Korea said it tested a hydrogen bomb on Wednesday, displeasing China, its main ally, and the United States, which said it believed the blast was an ordinary atomic test rather than a much more powerful hydrogen bomb.In a show of force and support for allies in the region following North Korea's nuclear test, its fourth since 2006, the United States on Sunday sent a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber based in Guam on a flight over South Korea.North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party, said the United States was bringing the situation to the brink of war.South Korean media said the United States may send to South Korea B-2 bombers, nuclear-powered submarines and F-22 stealth fighter jets.A South Koran defense ministry spokesman declined to give details."The United States and South Korea are continuously and closely having discussions on additional deployment of strategic assets," the spokesman, Kim Min-seok, said.In Washington, the U.S. official said they were discussing deploying "the whole range" of such assets but this meant such things as nuclear-capable bombers rather than restoring U.S. nuclear weapons to South Korea for the first time in about a quarter century.Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush decided in 1991 to remove U.S. nuclear weapons from South Korea."It could quickly escalate into an arms race, a very dangerous arms race, in the region," said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Asked if such a step might spur North Korea to move more aggressively on its atomic weapons program, the official replied: "That's a distinct possibility."Putting U.S. nuclear arms back in South Korea, he said, "would embolden the North Korean leadership to be more committed to pursuing their (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities and in fact it would give them a very convenient excuse to do so."China called for all sides to avoid raising tensions."We hope all parties can maintain restraint, proceed cautiously, and avoid successively escalating tensions," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei when asked about the U.S. B-52 flight.-'HIGHEST LEVEL READINESS'-The chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that North Korea was likely to carry out further "sudden provocations", a South Korean defense ministry official said.The commander of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, General Curtis Scaparrotti, urged them to be vigilant.On the diplomatic front, South Korea said its chief nuclear negotiator planned to meet his U.S. and Japanese counterparts on Wednesday to discuss a response to North Korea, and the next day, he would meet China's nuclear envoy in Beijing.South Korea and Japan used a military hotline for the first time after North Korea's test, South Korea's defense ministry said, in a sign the North is pushing the two old rivals closer together.South Korea also said it would restrict access to the jointly run Kaesong industrial complex just north of the heavily militarized inter-Korean border to the "minimum necessary level" from Tuesday.The complex, where South Korean factories employ North Korean workers, is an important source of revenue for the impoverished North.(Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel and Lisa Shumaker)
Beijing asserts right to flights to South China Sea-AFP-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
China has been building artifical islands in disputed parts of the South China Sea, putting it at odds with regional neighbours the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, which also stake partial claimsVietnam accused Beijing of threatening regional safety by conducting "unannounced" flights through its airspace to a newly built runway on the Fiery Cross reef, which is claimed by both countries.China has conducted several flights this year to the airstrip, one of several it has built on artificial islands is has constructed as its asserts its claim to nearly all of the disputed waterway.China's foreign ministry said it had not been required to notify Vietnam, as the flights were "state aviation activities".The trips "are not bound by the Convention on International Civil Aviation and relevant regulations of the ICAO, are within sovereign states' independent hands to operate," spokesman Hong Lei told a regular briefing, referring to the UN body.Hong added that in any case China's aviation administration had notified Vietnamese authorities of the flight, but "received no response".Vietnam this year logged at least 46 incidents of Chinese planes flying without warning through airspace monitored by air traffic control in the southern metropolis Ho Chi Minh City, according to authorities cited by local media.State media also reported that Vietnam sent a protest letter about the flights to Beijing, as well as the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).Beijing began work in 2014 on a 3,000-metre (9,800-foot) runway on Fiery Cross reef in the disputed Spratly island group, around 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from China's island province of Hainan.China assertion over most of the South China Sea puts it at odds with regional neighbours the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, which also stake partial claims.
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
After Ebola, two other tropical diseases pose new threats-Reuters By Kate Kelland-JAN 11,16-YAHOONEWS
LONDON (Reuters) - A little-known bacterial disease may be killing as many people worldwide as measles, scientists said on Monday, while a mosquito-borne virus known as Zika is also raising global alarm.The spread of Ebola in West Africa last year shows how poorly-understood diseases can emerge and grow rapidly while researchers race to design and conduct the scientific studies needed to combat them.Researchers in the journal Nature Microbiology called for a bacterial infection called meliodosis, which is resistant to a wide range of antibiotics, to be given a higher priority by international health organizations and policy makers.At the same time, scientists at Britain's Oxford University warned that a virus known as Zika, which is carried by mosquitoes and has caused a major outbreak in Brazil, has "the potential of rapid spread to new areas".Zika was first detected in Africa in the 1940s and was unknown in the Americas until last year, but has now been confirmed in Brazil, Panama, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico, Suriname, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Guatemala and Paraguay, according to public health officials.It is carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which thrives in tropical climates and can also carry other diseases such as yellow fever, dengue fever and chikungunya.Thousands of people in Brazil have been infected by Zika. While the virus is not thought to kill, health authorities there last year linked it to a surge in babies born with microcephaly, restricted head growth that seriously limits a child's mental and physical abilities.Trudie Lang, professor of Global Health Research at Oxford University, said Zika - for which there are currently no known treatments - was a cause for concern."It's definitely becoming an issue, but there is so little research that we just don't know the size of the potential threat," she told Reuters.She urged the international research community to act now to learn more about the virus, about how it is spread, and about how scientists might develop a treatment or vaccine against it."We need to learn from what happened with Ebola," Lang said, referring to the devastating epidemic of that viral fever that swept through three countries in West Africa last year and caused more than 28,600 cases globally.The vast majority of Ebola cases and deaths were in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where more than 11,000 people were killed, according to data from the World Health Organization."We need to galvanize the research community now and move as quickly as we can from doing observational work (on Zika) to carrying out proper scientific research," Lang said.In the Nature study on melioidosis, scientists said the bacteria that causes it, Burkholderia pseudomallei, is commonly found in soils in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia, but can be spread to non-endemic areas via imports of infected animals."Melioidosis is a great mimicker of other diseases and you need a good microbiology laboratory for bacterial culture and identification to make an accurate diagnosis," said Direk Limmathurotsakul, a micro biologist and assistant professor at Thailand's Mahidol University, who co-led the study."It especially affects the rural poor in the tropics, who often do not have access to microbiology labs, which means that it has been greatly under-estimated as an important public health problem across the world," he added.The researchers estimate there are 165,000 melioidosis cases a year in people, of which 89,000 will be fatal. These tolls are similar to those caused by measles - a viral infection that can be prevented with a vaccine - and far greater than dengue fever.The study found that the highest melioidosis risk zones are in South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, including all countries in Southeast Asia and tropical Australia, sub-Saharan Africa and South America. There are also risk zones of varying sizes in Central America, southern Africa and the Middle East.(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Philippa Fletcher)
