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)
STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun,(HEATING UP-SOLAR ECLIPSES) and in the moon,(MAN ON MOON-LUNAR ECLIPSES) and in the stars;(ASTEROIDS ETC) and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear,(TORNADOES,HURRICANES,STORMS) and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth:(DESTRUCTION) for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.(FROM QUAKES,NUKES ETC)
THE FIRST JUDGEMENT OF THE EARTH STARTED WITH WATER-IT ONLY MAKES SENSE THE LAST GENERATION WILL BE HAVING FLOODING
GENESIS 7:6-12
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
GOD PROMISED BY A RAINBOW-THE EARTH WOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED TOTALLY WITH A FLOOD AGAIN.BUT FLOODIING IS A SIGN OF JUDGEMENT.
Hermine lingers off U.S. East Coast, high winds and rain expected-[Reuters]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
(Reuters) - Hermine, a storm that raked Florida with hurricane-force winds last week, lingered on Tuesday off the U.S. East Coast where it was expected to produce heavy gusts and rain over the next two days.Forecasters warned swimmers and boaters to stay out of treacherous waters and rough surf. New York City said all public beaches would be closed through Tuesday because of "life-threatening" rip currents.At 2 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Hermine's center was about 110 miles (175 km) southeast of the eastern tip of Long Island and expected to move northwest at about 9 mph (15 kph).Hermine was forecast to bring up to 2 inches (5 cm) of rain to Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts through Wednesday, the National Weather Service said.A tropical storm warning remained in effect from the eastern end of New York's Long Island and to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island off Massachusetts.On Cape Cod and its islands, high surf and wind put a crimp in the Labor Day plans of many people looking to celebrate summer's end, but some beaches farther south reopened.Hermine was classified as a Category 1 hurricane when it slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast on Friday. It became a post-tropical storm by week's end after its winds dropped below 74 miles per hour (119 kph) and it lost its tropical characteristics.The storm, which crossed northern Florida and then moved up the Georgia and the Carolina coasts, was packing sustained surface winds of up to 65 mph (100 kph) with higher gusts, the National Weather Service said."Just because it's a post-tropical cyclone doesn't mean the impact of tropical force winds, winds in general and storm surge go away," said National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen.The storm has claimed at least three lives, in Florida and in North and South Carolina. The third reported death was that of a man struck by a car on a South Carolina highway on Friday as he tried to move a fallen tree, a Colleton County fire department spokesman said.Hermine became the first hurricane to make landfall in Florida in 11 years, packing winds of 80 mph (130 kph), and knocking out power to 300,000 homes and businesses.(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee)
Hurricane Newton roars across Mexico resort-[AFP]-Pedro Juarez Mejia-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
La Paz (Mexico) (AFP) - Hurricane Newton charged across Mexico's northwestern resort of Los Cabos on Tuesday, blowing away trees and tin roofs but apparently sparing the region of major damage as thousands of tourists hunkered down.The storm packed winds of 145 kilometers (90 miles) an hour when it made landfall before dawn at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.But the region prized by American and Canadian tourists seemingly dodged a bullet, two years after a deadly Hurricane Odile killed six people and caused $1 billion damage in September 2014."According to the latest reports, #Newton only caused minor damages in infrastructure," President Enrique Pena Nieto wrote on Twitter, adding that there were no injuries.The US National Hurricane Center reported later in the afternoon that Newton's winds weakened to 120 kilometers per hour as it moved north, drenching the peninsula as well as mainland Mexico's northwest coast.Los Cabos civil protection director Marco Antonio Vazquez said Newton's winds took down trees and tin roofs from poorer neighborhoods.Newton's winds broke some hotel windows, but the 14,000 tourists in Los Cabos were "safe" in rooms made to shelter them within the facilities, said state tourism secretary Genaro Ruiz Hernandez.Power went out in parts of Los Cabos and La Paz, while phone service was disrupted."It would appear that we won't have major damage except for what we have already reported," national civil protection coordinator Luis Felipe Puente told Milenio television.- Looting attempts -Newton was 25 kilometers southwest of the Baja town of Loreto, the Miami-based hurricane center said in its latest bulletin.Newton is forecast to enter the Gulf of California and make a second landfall into the Mexican mainland on Wednesday before reaching the US state of Arizona that afternoon.The hurricane made landfall just eight kilometers from Los Cabos.Some 1,500 people took refuge in shelters in the resort town and some began to return home, Vazquez said.Police said five people were arrested for trying to loot two convenience stores in Los Cabos.Officers guarded several shops to prevent the kind of looting that was seen after Odile struck.While all highways were accessible, Puente urged "the population not to leave their homes if it is not necessary."Local airports closed late Monday, while small boats were barred from using the ports in case of a storm surge in low-lying areas areas. Schools were shut down.North of Los Cabos, in La Paz, where trees also fell, locals put tape on shop windows and 400 people were evacuated from vulnerable areas.- Second landfall -Roberto Ramirez, director of the National Water Commission, told Radio Formula that authorities had not expected Newton to make landfall or become a hurricane."It has had very erratic behavior since it emerged on Friday as a (weather) disturbance," he said.The storm is due to produce up to 30 centimeters (12 inches) of rain in Baja California Sur and as much as 25 centimeters in several Pacific coast states, which could trigger life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.The weather system caused damage in the country's south over the weekend before it became a tropical storm, flooding 1,400 homes in Guerrero state and leaving three dead in Chiapas.
NASA chasing down asteroid to scoop up, bring back samples-[Associated Press]-MARCIA DUNN-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is going after an asteroid this week like never before.It's launching a spacecraft to the exotic black rock named Bennu, vacuuming up handfuls of gravel from the surface, and then in a grand finale, delivering the pay dirt all the way back to Earth.The mission will take seven years, from Thursday night's planned liftoff from Cape Canaveral to the return of the asteroid samples in 2023, and cover an incredible 4 billion miles (6 ½ billion kilometers) through space.It promises to be the biggest cosmic bounty since the Apollo moon rocks, hand-picked and delivered by astronauts in the late 1960s and early 1970s.NASA has already brought back comet dust and specks of solar wind. And Japan already did it at an asteroid a decade ago, and is en route to a second space rock encounter. But we're talking tiny grains in these cases.NASA's robotic asteroid hunter, Osiris-Rex, is designed to scoop up pebbles and rock the size of gravel — anywhere from one to four or five handfuls."We are going out to explore an unknown world," said principal scientist Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona at Tucson. "We're going to map it in great detail. It will be the most well characterized asteroid in our solar system by the time we're through with it."Thanks to observations from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, scientists already know the roundish Bennu (BEN'-oo) is about 1,600 feet (487 meters) across at its bulging middle and the color of coal, indicative of carbon richness. It's believed to have formed 4.5 billion years ago, a remnant of the solar system's building blocks. As such, it may still hold clues as to the origin of life on Earth and, possibly, elsewhere in the solar system.The name Bennu comes from the heron of Egyptian mythology. Osiris was an Egyptian god; Osiris-Rex is an acronym for origins, spectral interpretation, resource identification, security-regolith explorer.There's also a practical side to the more than $800 million mission: planetary defense.Bennu is one of many near-Earth asteroids that occasionally cross paths with our planet. The more scientists know about these potentially hazardous rocks, the better the chance of tracking them and, worst comes to worst, bracing for them.Bennu wouldn't obliterate Earth or wipe out life, just carve out a huge crater. Lauretta said the odds of a direct hit by Bennu are low — less than one-tenth of 1 percent — and not until about 150 years from now."So I like to say, 'Don't run out and buy asteroid insurance tonight, you're not going to need it,' " Lauretta said.You can, however, mark your calendars for the Osiris-Rex flight plan:—Thursday: Launch of Osiris-Rex spacecraft atop an unmanned Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Forecasters on Tuesday said good weather was expected for Thursday's 7:05 p.m. EDT launch. NASA has until mid-October to send the SUV-size spacecraft on its way. With its twin solar wings, it resembles a boxy bird.—Sept. 22, 2017: Osiris-Rex swings by Earth for a gravity assist toward Bennu, putting it in the same orbital plane. Onboard cameras will snap and send pictures of the home planet. The spacecraft will come within 10,000 miles (16,100 kilometers) to 17,000 miles (27,400 kilometers) of Earth.—August 2018: Osiris-Rex arrives at Bennu. The spacecraft will fly in formation with the asteroid, as well as orbit it from an altitude of less than a half mile — roughly 700 meters — in search of the best real estate for the sample grab. Lauretta said it will be the smallest body ever orbited by a spacecraft.—July 2020: Osiris-Rex goes for the cosmic gold, flying close to the surface and reaching out with its 10-foot (3-meter) robotic arm. It will fire nitrogen gas to stir up the surface, and like a vacuum, suck in the loosened dirt and gravel. Scientists want at least 2 ounces (60 grams). If they get less, they'll try again. In all, the spacecraft can try three times to gather samples before it runs out of nitrogen gas. Testing on Earth has yielded as much as 14 to 18 ounces (400 to 500 grams).—March 2021: Osiris-Rex leaves Bennu and heads back to Earth. This is when the asteroid and our planet are best aligned in space for the trip home. The samples will come back in the same kind of container as the comet dust from NASA's Stardust mission in 2006. "The big prize," as NASA program scientist Jeff Grossman calls it, will be free of contamination. Incoming chunks of asteroids are altered as they plunge through the atmosphere and smash into Earth, and it's impossible to know where these pieces come from.—Sept. 24, 2023: Finally free of Osiris-Rex, which will continue to orbit the sun, the sample container re-enters the atmosphere at more than 27,000 mph (43,450 kph). Parachutes will slow the descent as the container comes in for a touchdown at Utah Test and Training Range, west of Salt Lake City. The container will end up at Johnson Space Center in Houston, its final destination."It really is a great adventure ... we are bringing back scientific treasure," Lauretta said.___Online:NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex
EPA to shut some Oklahoma wastewater wells after quake-[Reuters]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
HOUSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will order wastewater disposal wells shut near the epicenter of a 5.6 magnitude earthquake that struck on Saturday around Pawnee, Oklahoma, local media reported on Tuesday.The quake was one of the strongest ever to hit the state and prompted its oil and gas regulator, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, to order 37 disposal wells shut in a 725-square-mile (1,878-sq-km) area around Pawnee.It also asked the EPA to help shut disposal wells in a 211 square-mile (546.49-sq-km) area of Osage County because the OCC lacked jurisdiction there.Local news website NewsOK reported that the EPA told the OCC in a letter on Sunday that it would order Osage County wastewater wells to be shut, but did not specify how many would be affected.The EPA was not immediately available for comment.Oklahoma has seen a massive spike in earthquakes in the past few years, registering 2-1/2 earthquakes daily of magnitude 3 or greater - a seismicity rate 600 times greater than before 2008, according to the Oklahoma Geological Survey.Scientists have tied the quakes to the injection of saltwater, a normal byproduct of oil and gas drilling, into deep disposal wells and underground caverns.Oklahoma has been putting new restrictions on some of its thousands of disposal wells for more than a year to curb seismic activity.(Reporting by Terry Wade; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Arsonists blamed for Spanish wildfires-[AFP]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
Jávea (Spain) (AFP) - Spanish authorities on Tuesday blamed arsonists and record temperatures for wildfires ravaging the eastern coast near the popular resort of Benidorm that have forced 1,400 people to flee.Hundreds of firefighters backed by water-dropping aircraft were battling the largest of several fires which began Sunday near the resort of Javea, up the coast from Benidorm on Spain's Costa Blanca.Another blaze was raging near the mountain town of Bolulla, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Javea, while emergency services faced a third one on the Mediterranean island of Menorca, also popular with holidaymakers.More than two dozen stations registered record high temperatures across the country on Monday in what Spain's weather agency said was a "historic day for heat".Most of Spain has faced an "extreme risk" of wildfires since Sunday due to the heatwave, with temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in some parts.However, authorities also said that gasoline cans had been found and that there were "three or four" separate outbreaks of fire."There is one or several arsonists," Jose Maria Angel Batalla, an emergency services chief in the Costa Blanca area, told the Cope radio station, referring to the fire near Javea.- Difficult to control -The main blaze roared through scrubland near residential areas around Javea, sending thick plumes of grey smoke into the air.It has razed more than 800 hectares (1,900 acres) of land, according to the regional government, and charred several buildings in an area popular with British and German holidaymakers.Spanish television showed a wall of flames moving towards a row of white-washed villas."It's an area with a lot of villas and country homes with old pines. It is a very difficult area to control a fire," Juan Carlos Moragues, who represents the Spanish government in the eastern region of Valencia, told Onda Cero radio.Officials have evacuated around 1,400 people, including tourists, with many spending the night in schools or at local residents' homes.- 'They gave us their bed' -Many said they fled with just the clothes they were wearing.Tessa Wells, a 99-year-old British retiree who is confined to a wheelchair, had to be helped by two neighbours down the stairs of her home, according to her caregiver, Rosa Serra.She was then taken by ambulance to a shelter set up at a high school where a couple who live nearby offered to put her up in their home, Serra told local newspaper Las Provincias."They not only took us to their home, they gave us their bed and Tessa was able to sleep. That is solidarity," Serra said.Firefighters said the intense heat, combined with low humidity levels and strong winds which changed direction, had fuelled the fire on the Costa Blanca but that they were starting to gain the upper hand.The wildfire on the island of Menorca broke out on Monday, and so far has destroyed around 50 hectares of land, a local emergency services official said.Around 600 people were either evacuated, or ordered to stay in their home or hotels because of the blaze, which firefighters said was now "stable".- Portugal blazes -Intense heat was also fuelling wildfires in neighbouring Portugal, forcing authorities to evacuate several villages as well as a luxury hotel in Setubal, near Lisbon, which about 60 tourists had to flee.Nearly 3,800 firefighters battled about 100 blazes raging across Portugal on Tuesday, including one particularly devastating blaze in the Peneda Geres national park."Several residents had to be helped by doctors for breathing problems. The fire was approaching the houses," a fire service spokesman said. "We lack the means to fight the fire."The nearby town of Arcos de Valdevez activated its emergency plan on Tuesday night, shortly after a couple were hospitalised with burns.
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.(EITHER THE EUROPEAN UNION DICTATOR BOOTS 3 COUNTRIES FROM THE EU OR THE DICTATOR TAKES OVER THE WORLD ECONOMY BY CONTROLLING 3 WORLD TRADE BLOCS)
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.
EU leaders to define new priorities in Bratislava By Eszter Zalan-sept 6,16-euobserver
BRUSSELS, Today, 17:39-EU officials are toning down expectations ahead of an informal summit of EU leaders in Bratislava on 16 September, where the 27 remaining leaders are expected to show unity and a way ahead for the bloc after the UK's decision to leave.“Our expectation [for Bratislava] is not much. Leaders will try to show unity also as 27 that we have future, we can do things, we are not paralysed, we are moving ahead together,” one official said.“That in itself would be quite an achievement,” the official quipped.The leaders are going to spend a full day in the Bratislava castle to “brainstorm”, as one EU official put it, but not many concrete solutions can be expected already in September, as the soul-searching exercise will continue for months.After weeks of shuttle diplomacy led by German chancellor Angela Merkel and EU council president Donald Tusk to listen to various national leaders, finding that new momentum is proving to be difficult, although some key issues seem to have emerged.-“Protection” -seems to be the common denominator among the 27, as well as a determination to show citizens that "this is not business as usual", that the EU is going to respond better to their concerns.“People in Slovakia, Poland, Belgium, all over Europe expect that the EU after Bratislava will be a guarantee of stability, security and protection. Protection in the widest meaning including social and economic protection,” Tusk said last Friday.One issue where leaders will try to find common ground is beefing up internal security to fight terrorism, and external security with strengthened border protection.Another topic will be economic security, a definition whose actual meaning the leaders will have to decide on. “It tackles how the EU should project itself in time of globalisation,” one EU official, with knowledge of the summit preparations, said.“That’s a new concept which has been floated by Tusk. How far we can go with our trade policy and energy security. Perhaps the debate in Bratislava will also shape this concept, what leaders mean by that,” the official added.The official said he does not expect contagious trade issues like negotiations on the US-EU deal (TTIP), or the agreement with Canada (CETA) to come up specifically.But the clarification of the EU vision is not going to be easy: leaders will try to define the level of their common ambition from security and defence cooperation to tackling the negative effects of globalisation.France, for instance, would like to see increased European cooperation in defence, an "autonomous" EU defence that is separate from Nato and the US, and a beefed up EU investment fund to boost growth and create jobs in Europe, a diplomat told this website.According to the first EU official, some countries are seeking more protectionist trade policies, while others emphasise the need for better competitiveness.“There is this philosophical and political clash on the issue, how we are going to face globalisation pressures,” the official added.The official also thought that strengthening and streamlining of the economic and monetary union, a previous ambition of mainly the eurozone countries, has now been put aside.There is a likely consensus around the table on extending the Juncker fund - named after the EU Commission president - to boost growth, something Juncker is expected to include in his state of the union address next week in the European Parliament.Migration will be tackled under security and increased border controls. Other possibly controversial issues, like reform of the EU’s asylum policy, the so-called Dublin law, is not expected to be on the menu.-‘Christmas tree’-European citizens looking for clear-cut answers on what to expect from the EU might be let down.Officials say the informal meeting, to which over 1,200 journalists have been accredited, but who will be kept away from the meeting, should end with a statement from Tusk, not an official conclusion of the 27.According to one EU official, the statement could end up as a “Christmas tree”, on which leaders attempt to hang all kinds of issues dear to them, resulting in lacking a clear focus. For instance, France is keen on youth unemployment, while Germany would like a reference to the digital single market.Tusk however would want to avoid drafting at the summit and focus on the discussion. Leaders’ EU advisors will meet on the 12 September to hammer out a text.-Bratislava Process-“Bratislava is the start of the process, which should culminate in Rome in March,” said an EU official, adding that the leaders would set up a “roadmap” in Bratislava on what to achieve in the coming months, prior the 60th anniversary of the Rome treaty, with a possible summit in Malta in February.Leaders will not discuss EU competencies, although officials admit some rebalancing might be needed among institutions and member states, something the countries of the Visegrad group (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia) have been calling for.-Brexit on the margins-Also not on the table: Brexit. “It is a big question mark if Brexit will be discussed at all. If so, it will be a low profile discussion with leaders comparing notes on a their bilateral meetings with the new UK prime minister Theresa May,” said an EU official.“It is not possible to go into details at this point, since there is no clear idea from British side what they would like to see as outcome of negotiations,” the source said.“Bratislava should not be about Brexit, but about the 27,” he added.Commission officials say leaders will be looking at the EU executive to bring concrete ideas, some of which will feature in president Juncker’s state of the union address next week in Strasbourg.Juncker will meet with EU ambassadors this Friday to listen to their suggestions on the speech.
Roaming exceptions are necessary evil in imperfect EU By Peter Teffer-sept 6,16-euobserver
Brussels, Today, 17:20-The centre-left socialist group in the European Parliament on Tuesday (6 September) appeared to accuse the European Commission on reneging on its promise to abolish mobile roaming surcharges.In a message sent out a social media, they called a commission proposal, saying that roaming will be limited to 90 days a year, “complete nonsense”.The truth however is somewhat more nuanced.-What happened?-In June 2015, EU officials from the commission, parliament, and member states, announced that they had reached a deal that would end roaming fees, something which they had promised years before.However, the deal also included the possibility for telecommunications operators to introduce “fair use policies”, to prevent people from abusing the roam-like-at-home principle. Those consumers that go beyond a mobile subscription's fair use, could face additional costs.On Monday, the commission published a proposal that contained the details of what such policies may look like.“What we have done is fix some rules to avoid abuses,” commission spokeswoman Nathalie Vandystadt told journalists on Tuesday. The rules theoretically can still be vetoed by the EU parliament or member states.She explained that 90 days is the “minimum … during which users fully benefit from the end of roaming charges”.Consumers that use roaming beyond that period may face additional costs, which critics call roaming by another name.But commission deputy chief spokesman Alexander Winterstein was quick to say the EU had fulfilled its promise on roaming.“What we have promised is that when we travel across borders, they can take their phone with them and as of June next year they will not pay roaming fees anymore. This is a key message and this is what we have delivered, and this is what counts,” Winterstein said.The GSM Association, the pan-European organisation set up in the 1980s to create standards for mobile communication, never defined roaming as having a limited duration.But for the commission, it is understandable why it would want to make that distinction.With the end of roaming fees a tangible example of the benefits of the EU, the commission is, not surprisingly, eager to hail it as a success story.And as Vandystadt noted, most Europeans do not travel abroad to other EU countries for more than 90 days a year - or even half of that.“Operators are not obliged to impose this 90 days minimum. They can offer unlimited packages including roaming,” Vandystadt added.But some operators may not want to offer unlimited roaming, out of fear of going out of business.The problem which the 90-days clause aims to address, goes far beyond the simple frame of whether the EU broke a political promise.-Digital single market?-It showed that the EU is still very far from a digital single market.When you buy a book in another EU country, your one-time purchase does not greatly affect the local economy. But when you buy a mobile phone subscription in another EU country with the idea of using it in your home country, you may have a more lasting effect.The text accompanying the fair use rules noted that there are “different pricing and consumption patterns” across EU member states.“In such cases, the incentive to use very large volumes of traffic at domestic price levels while roaming on a permanent basis may increase, as the price differential vis-à-vis limited domestic offers may turn out to be greater than average.”Put simply, citizens living in a rich member state may choose to buy a SIM card in a member state where the cost of products is much lower.Let's take, as an example, Lithuania and the United Kingdom. According to Eurostat, communication is most expensive in the UK, and cheapest in Lithuania.If substantial numbers of British consumers were all to buy SIM cards in much smaller Lithuania, and then go home to the UK demanding to use the cheaper subscription plan there, the mobile operators in Lithuania may decide to increase their prices, which would mostly affect Lithuanians.-European integration-It is one of the key challenges in European integration.Politicians have started opening up markets for all EU citizens, before differences between the economies of EU member states and purchasing power have dissolved.The option for mobile operators to apply an exception to the roaming ban, is a way to protect businesses in EU member states with lower purchase power.It is not “complete nonsense”, but an unavoidable stopgap for the much bigger, systemic tasks policymakers face during the messy process of European integration.
WORLD POWERS IN THE LAST DAYS (END OF AGE OF GRACE NOT THE WORLD)
EUROPEAN UNION-KING OF WEST-DAN 9:26-27,DAN 7:23-24,DAN 11:40,REV 13:1-10
EGYPT-KING OF THE SOUTH-DAN 11:40
RUSSIA-KING OF THE NORTH-EZEK 38:1-2,EZEK 39:1-3
CHINA-KING OF THE EAST-DAN 11:44,REV 9:16,18
VATICAN-RELIGIOUS LEADER-REV 13:11-18,REV 17:4-5,9,18
WORLD TERRORISM
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)
Government to stop using ISIL, will refer instead to Daesh-[The Canadian Press]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
OTTAWA — The Liberal government will no longer refer to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and will instead call the group by a different, potentially insulting name: Daesh.Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale revealed the change in a report on terrorism released last month, saying ISIL is neither Islamic nor a state and that the report would instead use the group's Arabic acronym.Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence also say they are both adopting Daesh to refer to the group.The decision continues a trend that has been sweeping through western governments.France and the United Kingdom are among those that have adopted the term in recent years.But while the term has long been used by Arabic speakers and comes from the group's Arabic acronym, it can also be considered an insult, with some translations meaning to tread underfoot or crush.The group has forbidden use of the term Daesh within its territory.There has long been a great deal of confusion and debate over what to call the militant group.Canada and many other countries used its original name, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, for years. Others referred to it as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS.The Canadian Press.
OPP say Labour Day long weekend was deadliest in 20 years-[CBC]-CBCSeptember 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
Ontario Provincial Police said 12 people were killed on the roads during the Labour Day weekend and warned distracted driving could be a major part of the problem.Police said 12 people died on OPP-patrolled roads during the long weekend, while one person died on the water and another died while using an off-road vehicle."That is the deadliest weekend we've seen in 20 years," said Sgt. Kerry Schmidt in a video posted on Twitter.In one crash in northwestern Ontario, the OPP said four people were killed when their vehicle crashed. Meanwhile in Toronto, a 24-year-old man was charged with impaired driving following a crash that left a 28-year-old man dead.The OPP, while warning drivers that it launching a blitz on distracted driving during the long weekend, still issued more than 800 distracted or inattentive driving charges."It's just far too many," Schmidt said.Schmidt said the OPP is hoping that passengers and motorists will start condemning distracted driving whenever they see it."We need to have people understand that their own personal safety is at risk if the driver isn't paying attention to the roads," he said.Before this weekend, the OPP had already laid some 8,000 distracted driving charges for the year.Schmidt said the force will continue to enforce the rules even though the blitz has ended.
Edmonton spent $9.4M helping Fort McMurray wildfire evacuees-[CBC]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
Relief efforts for evacuees of the Fort McMurray wildfire cost the city of Edmonton $9.4 million, new figures released by the city Tuesday show.Northlands incurred another $1.9 million in costs, bringing the Edmonton total to $11.3 million. The city has reimbursed Northlands $1.2 million of its costs.Northlands housed thousands of fire evacuees at the Expo Centre in the spring, which forced the convention centre to cancel or move events. About 25,000 people visited the reception centre at Northlands, with 2,000 staying overnight at the peak of the evacuation.The city expects to recover most of its costs from the province, Mayor Don Iveson said.But $500,000 in staff costs might not be recoverable due to eligibility issues. Northlands may face the same situation for the remaining $700,000 of its costs. Still, Iveson said he's holding out hope most of the money will be recovered."I had personal assurances from the premier and from [Municipal Affairs] Minister (Danielle) Larivee ... that the city would be treated fairly and that Northlands would be treated fairly through this process," Iveson said."So I'm reasonably confident from those assurances that, once all of the paperwork has gone through, that the city will more or less be whole."The Fort McMurray numbers were released as part of the city's mid-year financial update, which covers the period up to June 30.-City budget in the black overall-The city is ahead by $35.3 million overall thanks to last winter's lack of snow, unfilled job vacancies and lower fuel costs.A couple of items tilted the balance the other way. Edmonton Transit is seeing a drop in monthly pass sales and in cash fares, a change attributed to the poor economy-More people are contesting traffic tickets issued by Edmonton police to avoid earning demerit points, meaning less money is flowing into city coffers.Administrators reminded city councillors that a heavy snowfall could yet dramatically change the city's financial position.Council was also given an update on project delays. Out of 98 capital projects,16 are considered code "red," meaning they are either more than 10 per cent over budget and/or more than 10 per cent behind schedule.The list includes the Metro Line LRT, the Walterdale Bridge, and the 102nd Avenue Bridge over Groat Road.
Chinese coast guard involved in most South China Sea clashes - research-[By Greg Torode]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Increasingly assertive action by China's coast guard ships in the South China Sea risks destabilising the region, according to the authors of new research tracking maritime law enforcement incidents across the vital trade route.While the risks of full-blown naval conflict dominates strategic fears over the disputed waterway, the danger of incidents involving coast guards should not be underestimated, said Bonnie Glaser, a regional security expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.CSIS researchers have detailed some 45 clashes and standoffs in the South China Sea since 2010 in a survey due to be published week on its ChinaPower website and seen by Reuters.While the research includes clashes between a variety of regional states and types of vessels, the actions of China's coast guard dominates the picture. China's coast guard has been involved in 30 of the cases logged, two-thirds of the total. Four other incidents involved a Chinese naval vessel operating in a law enforcement capacity."The evidence is clear that there is a pattern of behavior from China that is contrary to what law enforcement usually involves," Glaser told Reuters."We're seeing bullying, harassment and ramming of vessels from countries whose coast guard and fishing vessels are much smaller, often to assert sovereignty throughout the South China Sea."The research includes the violent maritime stand-off between Beijing and Hanoi over the placement of a Chinese oil exploration rig off the Vietnamese coast in 2014, as well as tensions that led up to China's occupation of the Scarborough Shoal off the Philippines in 2012.It is being published as Chinese coast guard and other vessels return to Scarborough, sparking formal diplomatic protests from Manila.China's State Oceanic Administration, which oversees the coast guard did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the research.The research defines an incident where a nation's coast guard or navy has used coercive measures beyond routine law enforcement action.In the short term, Glaser said she believed the risk of injury or death could be worse in civilian clashes than among navies patrolling the South China Sea, given the frequency and intensity of incidents in recent years.Encounters by rival coast guards are not yet covered by expanding communications arrangements that are geared to preventing clashes between the region's naval forces.The survey cites research showing the unifying of China's civilian maritime fleets in 2013, coupled with on-going budget increases, has given it the world's largest coast guard.It now deploys some 205 vessels, including 95 ships over 1,000 tonnes, according to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence - a far larger fleet than other regional countries, including Japan.China claims much of the South China Sea, which carries the bulk of Northeast Asia's trade with the rest of the world. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims in the area.(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
Iran vessel 'harasses,' sails close to U.S. Navy ship in Gulf-U.S. officials-[Reuters]-By Idrees Ali-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship changed course after a fast-attack craft from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps came within 100 yards (91 metres) of it in the central Gulf on Sunday, U.S. Defense Department officials said on Tuesday.It was at least the fourth such incident in less than a month. U.S. officials are concerned that these actions by Iran could lead to mistakes.Years of mutual animosity eased when Washington lifted sanctions on Tehran in January after a deal to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions. But serious differences still remain over Iran's ballistic missile program, and over conflicts in Syria and Iraq.Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the Iranian vessel sailed directly in front of the USS Firebolt, forcing the 174-foot (53-metre) U.S. ship to change course.The incident began when seven Iranian ships "harassed" the Firebolt, Davis said.A U.S. Defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the interaction was "unsafe and unprofessional due to lack of communications and the close-range harassing manoeuvring," adding that uncovered and manned weapons were seen on the Iranian vessel.The U.S. ship tried to communicate with the Iranian ship by radio three times but received no response.The U.S. official said there have been 31 similar interactions with Iranian ships this year, almost double the amount from the same period last year."We don't see this type of unsafe and unprofessional activity from any other nation," the defence official added.In late August, a U.S. Navy patrol craft fired warning shots toward an Iranian fast-attack vessel that approached two U.S. ships.At the time, Iran's defence minister said Iranian vessels were just doing their job.Last week, the head of U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, said unsafe manoeuvres in the Gulf were part of the Iranian regime trying to exert its influence in the region.Kenneth Pollack, a former top CIA and White House official, said that one or two incidents could have been explained “as being the work of an over-zealous commander” within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.But the number of such incidents in recent weeks make it “very hard for me to believe these are not sanctioned by higher authority” within Iran, said Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.If that is the case, Iranian authorities may be using the incidents to stir up popular anger against the United States, he said.(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Warren Strobel; Editing by James Dalgleish and Jonathan Oatis)
Turkey working with Council of Europe on post-coup prosecutions-[Reuters]-By Andrea Shalal-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
BERLIN (Reuters) - A delegation from Turkey's justice ministry has met with the Council of Europe to review European human rights standards and conventions as Ankara prepares to prosecute those it holds responsible for a failed July 15 coup, the head of the CoE said.Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will also meet with other ministers from the 47-nation rights body in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday, Thorbjorn Jagland, general secretary of the CoE, told Reuters on Tuesday on the sidelines of a conference hosted by the German foreign ministry."We have been working with them. We want to see to it that the judicial safeguards are in place," Jagland said. "They have in mind that if they don't put this in place that many of these cases will land in court in Strasbourg."The meeting with the Turkish justice ministry delegation took place last Friday, Jagland said.Turkey's discussions with the CoE come amid efforts by European leaders to ease tensions that flared after the coup and loud criticism by several European Union leaders of President Tayyip Erdogan's post-coup crackdown,Strasbourg is home to the European Court of Human Rights, which rules on individual or state allegations of violations of civil and political rights. Turkey ratified the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in 1954.Unlike the European Union, the CoE cannot make binding laws, but it has the power to enforce select international agreements reached by its members, which include Turkey. The court, a body of the council, enforces the ECHR.The court's website said it dealt with more than 3,200 applications concerning Turkey in 2015, of which 3,060 were declared inadmissible. Of the 87 judgments it delivered, 79 found at least one violation of the human rights convention."We have thousands of cases already. We shouldn't have any more cases," Jagland said.The EU, which Turkey aspires to join, is concerned that Ankara applies its anti-terrorism laws too broadly in order to prosecute critics of Erdogan and has made easing them a precondition for granting Turks visa-free travel to the bloc.Jagland said the CoE was working with Turkey to address cases where the court had found violations of European rights to freedom of expression due to the application of Turkey's laws, and in some cases, perhaps even the laws themselves.The CoE's discussions with Ankara are separate from Turkey's visa liberalization talks with the 28-member EU, but could help Ankara better understand which laws it needs to revise, he said.(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Gareth Jones)
With Syria 'safe zone' plan, Turkey faces diplomatic balancing act-[Reuters]-By Orhan Coskun and Ercan Gurses-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey will have to strike a balance between the conflicting goals of Russia and the United States if it is to achieve its ambition of a "safe zone" in northern Syria and build on an incursion which gave it control of a thin strip of the border.Turkey has for several years called for world powers to help create a zone to protect civilians in its war-torn southern neighbor, with the dual aim of clearing its border of Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters and of stemming a wave of migration that has caused tensions with Europe.Western allies have so far balked at the idea, saying it would require a significant ground force and planes to patrol a "no-fly zone", a major commitment in such a crowded and messy battlefield. Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has meanwhile argued in the past that any foreign incursion would be illegal.But Turkey's offensive into northern Syria, launched with its Syrian rebel allies two weeks ago, has created what officials in Ankara are already calling a "de facto safe zone", driving Islamic State militants from the last 90-km (55-mile) strip of border territory they still controlled.Turkey now wants international support for a deeper operation to take control of a rectangle of territory stretching about 40 km into Syria, a buffer between two Kurdish-held cantons to the east and west and against Islamic State to the south."The first phase of the plan has been achieved. Turkey no longer has borders with Islamic State. But this area is still very thin and vulnerable to attacks from the other side," said a senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to discuss the strategy more freely."What will be done now will depend on coordination with coalition powers and the support they will provide," he said, adding an improvement in relations with Russia had "eased Turkey's hand" operationally.The Turkish-backed rebels, mainly Syrian Arabs and Turkmen fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, took charge of the frontier between the towns of Azaz and Jarablus on Sunday after seizing 20 villages from the ultra-hardline Islamists.Ahmed Osman, commander of the Sultan Murad rebel group, one of the Turkish-backed forces, told Reuters he would like to see a permanent "safe zone" but that this would require an agreement between Turkey, the United States and Russia.-CONFLICTING INTERESTS-Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, his hand strengthened by Turkey's incursion, said on Monday he had raised the issue of a "safe zone" again with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama at the G20 summit in China.Neither commented directly on the Turkish proposal, though both said they wanted to build cooperation in fighting terrorism in Syria. Erdogan's spokesman said there were neither objections nor clear signs of support in the meetings.A second senior Turkish official acknowledged both Washington and Russia "had their hesitations" but that a "de facto safe zone" had now become a reality on the ground and that their support, particularly in establishing a no-fly zone, was crucial.Metin Gurcan, a former major in the Turkish military and an analyst for the Al Monitor online journal, said Washington and Moscow's divergent agendas in Syria raised serious questions about the viability of the Turkish plans."We are talking about two superpowers with great stakes in Syria. They have contradicting strategic interests about the end goal in Syria," he said.More than five years of civil war have cut Syria into a patchwork of territories held by the government and an often competing array of armed factions, including Kurdish militia fighters, a loose coalition of rebels groups, and Islamic State.The priority for Washington, which backs rebel factions fighting Assad in the civil war, is destroying Islamic State and it has been at odds with Turkey over the role of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. The United States has backed the Kurdish fighters against the jihadists, but Turkey sees them as a hostile force linked to Kurdish militants on its own soil.The two NATO allies have reached an uneasy agreement under which YPG fighters are meant to remain east of the Euphrates river, just outside Turkey's proposed buffer zone, although Ankara has said it has yet to verify that they are doing so.Turkey meanwhile appears to be navigating Russian concerns more smoothly since restoring relations with Moscow in August, nine months after ties were broken when it shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border.Erdogan's spokesman said on Tuesday that Russia had voiced full support for Turkey's operation to clear the border of Islamic State. For its part, Turkey has been less insistent on Assad's immediate exit."They appear to be lessening their demands for the ouster of Assad in deference to their new relationship with Russia," said James Stavridis, former NATO supreme commander and dean at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.-'ARMAGEDDON'-Aside from the diplomatic challenges, a push deeper into Syria by the Turkish-backed Arab and Turkmen rebels poses significant military risks.The Turkish-backed forces have been advancing toward Manbij, a city around 30 km south of Jarablus that was captured last month from Islamic State by a U.S.-backed coalition that includes the YPG. The Kurdish fighters are since supposed to have pulled back east of the Euphrates."We know there are de facto YPG factions still there. If they don't retreat, Turkey will be determined and return Manbij to its owners," said Yasin Aktay, a spokesman for Turkey's ruling AK Party, referring to Arab and Turkmen communities who lived there before civil war broke out in 2011.The Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab, west of Manbij, is another a key strategic target for both Turkish-backed and Kurdish forces where Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, one of Islamic State's most prominent leaders, is thought to have been killed in a U.S. air strike last week.To its northwest is the village of Dabiq - the site, according to Islamic prophecy, of a final battle between Muslims and infidels, an event in Islamic State propaganda that will herald the apocalypse."The fight for the Turkish-backed rebels is going to get tougher as they proceed south," said a former Turkish soldier and security analyst Abdullah Agar. "According to Islamic State's beliefs, they will face Armageddon here."(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara and Humeyra Pamuk, Edmund Blair and Akin Aytekin in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Pravin Char)
U.S. sees progress in Syria talks with Russia, expects meeting soon-[Reuters]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it was making progress with Russia on how to achieve a cessation of hostilities in Syria and held out the possibility a nationwide ceasefire need not begin immediately.The United States had hoped over the weekend to announce an agreement to halt the fighting in the 5-1/2-year-old Syrian civil war but failed to strike an agreement with Russia.The two powers support opposite sides in the conflict, with Moscow using its military to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Washington taking the position that Assad must go and supporting some opposition groups seeking to oust him."We continue to feel like we are making progress, and believe we are making progress, on some of the remaining issues, but we are not going to settle," U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at his daily briefing in Washington.He said Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were expected to meet "very soon" but that he did not have a time or place to announce.Toner said any agreement had to chart a clear path on how it would be implemented, and suggested that a nationwide cessation of hostilities did not have to start right away."What we are looking at is ... is a clear path forward to a nationwide cessation of hostilities," Toner said. "Now whether that’s going to happen overnight or whether that’s going to happen over a period of days, that’s a question to be resolved."(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Writing by David Alexander; Editing by Eric Walsh and Peter Cooney)
80 million unexploded bombs: Obama pledges US help for Laos-[Associated Press]-JOSH LEDERMAN and KATHLEEN HENNESSEY-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) — Declaring a "moral obligation" to heal the wounds of a secret war, President Barack Obama on Tuesday pledged help to clear away the 80 million unexploded bombs the U.S. dropped on Laos a generation ago — more than 10 for every one of the country's 7 million people.Half a century ago, the United States turned Laos into history's most heavily bombed country, raining down some two million tons of ordnance in a covert, nine-year chapter of the Vietnam War. The first U.S. president to set foot in Laos while in office, Obama lamented that many Americans remain unaware of the "painful legacy" left behind by a bombardment that claims lives and limbs to this day."The remnants of war continue to shatter lives here in Laos," Obama said before an audience of students, businessmen and orange-robed Buddhist monks who held up cellphones to snap photos of the American president. "Even as we continue to deal with the past, our new partnership is focused on the future," he said.To that end, Obama announced the U.S. would double its spending on bomb-clearing efforts to $90 million over three years — a relatively small sum for the U.S. but a significant investment for a small country in one of the poorer corners of the world. Obama plans to put a human face on the issue when he meets Wednesday in Vientiane with survivors of bombs that America dropped.The president did not come to apologize. Instead, he called the conflict a reminder that "whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a terrible toll — especially on innocent men, women and children."Thanks to global cleanup efforts, casualties from tennis ball-sized "bombies" that still litter the Laotian countryside have plummeted from hundreds to dozens per year. But aid groups say far more help is needed. Of all the provinces in landlocked Laos, only one has a comprehensive system to care for bomb survivors."We're incredibly proud of the progress the sector has made over the last five years in terms of the decline in casualties and new victims," said Channapha Khamvongsa of the nonprofit Legacies of War. "But we are concerned about the upwards of 15,000 survivors around the country that are still in need of support."The $90 million to clean up bombs joins another $100 million the U.S. has committed in the past 20 years. The Lao government, meanwhile, says it will boost efforts to recover remains and account for Americans missing since the war.The punishing air campaign on Laos was an effort to cut off communist forces in neighboring Vietnam. American warplanes dropped more explosives on this Southeast Asian nation than on Germany and Japan combined in World War II, a stunning statistic that Obama noted during his first day in Vientiane.Obama was one of several world leaders visiting Laos to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Taking its turn as chair of the regional forum, Laos' communist government is seizing a rare moment in the spotlight.For Obama, the visit serves as a capstone to his yearslong effort to bolster relations with Southeast Asian countries long overlooked by the United States. The outreach is a core element of his attempt to shift U.S. diplomatic and military resources away from the Middle East and into Asia in order to counter China in the region and ensure a U.S. foothold in growing markets.Yet Obama's outreach took an uncomfortable turn just as he headed to Laos from another summit in China. The White House called off a scheduled meeting Tuesday with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippine — a U.S. treaty ally — after the brash new leader referred to Obama as a "son of a bitch."Duterte, who had been expecting Obama to criticize his deadly, extrajudicial crackdown on drug dealers, later said he regretted the personal attack on the president.Obama filled the hole in his schedule by meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye in a display of unity a day after North Korea fired three ballistic missiles. Obama vowed to work with the United Nations to tighten sanctions against Pyongyang, but said the door wasn't closed to a more functional relationship.Obama's Asia project — dubbed his pivot or rebalance — has yielded uneven results, as conflict in the Middle East has continued to demand attention and China has bristled at what it views as meddling in its backyard.So with just four months left in office, Obama used his historic trip to Laos to reassert his aims. He touted new military aid and U.S. support for regional cooperation in addressing maritime disputes and made a plug for the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, the policy's central economic component that is now stuck in Congress.___Daniel Malloy in Luang Prabang, Laos, contributed to this report.
U.S. strikes in Yemen kill 13 al Qaeda operatives: U.S. military-[Reuters]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States killed 13 al Qaeda operatives in three counterterrorism strikes in Yemen from Aug. 24 to Sept. 4, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.All three of the strikes against the al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula targets were conducted in central Yemen's Shabwah Governorate, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. It did not specify how the strikes were carried out or the identities of those killed.(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Eric Walsh)
U.N. Security Council condemns North Korea's latest missile launches-[Reuters]-By Rodrigo Campos-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council strongly on Tuesday condemned North Korea's latest ballistic missile launches, saying they contributed to Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons capability.North Korea fired three ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Monday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries said, as the leaders of the Group of 20 major economies held a summit in China, the North's main diplomatic ally.The missiles likely landed in the sea 200 to 250 km (120 to 160 miles) west of Hokkaido, Japan's northern-most main island."The members of the Security Council deplore all Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ballistic missile activities, including these launches," the U.N. body said in a statement, using North Korea's official name."Such activities contribute to (North Korea's) development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and increase tension."Earlier, the United States called for action to enforce Security Council resolutions on North Korea prohibiting ballistic missile-related activities."The Security Council must remain unequivocal and united in the condemnation of these tests and we must take action to enforce the words we put on paper, to enforce our resolutions," said U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, after a Security Council meeting.Power, who spoke along with her Japanese and South Korean counterparts, refrained from elaborating on what further action the Security Council could take.Hahn Choong Hee, South Korea's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said Pyongyang was spending "a considerable amount" of its resources in developing weapons of mass destruction while sacrificing the living conditions of North Koreans.Monday's missile launches were the latest in a series by North Korea this year in violation of Security Council resolutions that were supported by China banning ballistic missile-related activities by Pyongyang.North Korea rejects the ban as infringing its sovereign right to pursue a space program and self defense.Asked whether China agreed more significant measures needed to be taken, permanent British representative to the United Nations, Matthew Rycroft, said: "We're talking to all of our council colleagues."North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006. The 15-member Security Council toughened the sanctions in March in response to North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket in February.The statement from the Security Council said members would closely monitor the situation and "take further significant measures in line with the Council's previously expressed determination" without elaborating further.(Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Alistair Bell)
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun,(HEATING UP-SOLAR ECLIPSES) and in the moon,(MAN ON MOON-LUNAR ECLIPSES) and in the stars;(ASTEROIDS ETC) and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear,(TORNADOES,HURRICANES,STORMS) and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth:(DESTRUCTION) for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.(FROM QUAKES,NUKES ETC)
THE FIRST JUDGEMENT OF THE EARTH STARTED WITH WATER-IT ONLY MAKES SENSE THE LAST GENERATION WILL BE HAVING FLOODING
GENESIS 7:6-12
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
GOD PROMISED BY A RAINBOW-THE EARTH WOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED TOTALLY WITH A FLOOD AGAIN.BUT FLOODIING IS A SIGN OF JUDGEMENT.
Hermine lingers off U.S. East Coast, high winds and rain expected-[Reuters]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
(Reuters) - Hermine, a storm that raked Florida with hurricane-force winds last week, lingered on Tuesday off the U.S. East Coast where it was expected to produce heavy gusts and rain over the next two days.Forecasters warned swimmers and boaters to stay out of treacherous waters and rough surf. New York City said all public beaches would be closed through Tuesday because of "life-threatening" rip currents.At 2 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Hermine's center was about 110 miles (175 km) southeast of the eastern tip of Long Island and expected to move northwest at about 9 mph (15 kph).Hermine was forecast to bring up to 2 inches (5 cm) of rain to Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts through Wednesday, the National Weather Service said.A tropical storm warning remained in effect from the eastern end of New York's Long Island and to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island off Massachusetts.On Cape Cod and its islands, high surf and wind put a crimp in the Labor Day plans of many people looking to celebrate summer's end, but some beaches farther south reopened.Hermine was classified as a Category 1 hurricane when it slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast on Friday. It became a post-tropical storm by week's end after its winds dropped below 74 miles per hour (119 kph) and it lost its tropical characteristics.The storm, which crossed northern Florida and then moved up the Georgia and the Carolina coasts, was packing sustained surface winds of up to 65 mph (100 kph) with higher gusts, the National Weather Service said."Just because it's a post-tropical cyclone doesn't mean the impact of tropical force winds, winds in general and storm surge go away," said National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen.The storm has claimed at least three lives, in Florida and in North and South Carolina. The third reported death was that of a man struck by a car on a South Carolina highway on Friday as he tried to move a fallen tree, a Colleton County fire department spokesman said.Hermine became the first hurricane to make landfall in Florida in 11 years, packing winds of 80 mph (130 kph), and knocking out power to 300,000 homes and businesses.(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee)
Hurricane Newton roars across Mexico resort-[AFP]-Pedro Juarez Mejia-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
La Paz (Mexico) (AFP) - Hurricane Newton charged across Mexico's northwestern resort of Los Cabos on Tuesday, blowing away trees and tin roofs but apparently sparing the region of major damage as thousands of tourists hunkered down.The storm packed winds of 145 kilometers (90 miles) an hour when it made landfall before dawn at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.But the region prized by American and Canadian tourists seemingly dodged a bullet, two years after a deadly Hurricane Odile killed six people and caused $1 billion damage in September 2014."According to the latest reports, #Newton only caused minor damages in infrastructure," President Enrique Pena Nieto wrote on Twitter, adding that there were no injuries.The US National Hurricane Center reported later in the afternoon that Newton's winds weakened to 120 kilometers per hour as it moved north, drenching the peninsula as well as mainland Mexico's northwest coast.Los Cabos civil protection director Marco Antonio Vazquez said Newton's winds took down trees and tin roofs from poorer neighborhoods.Newton's winds broke some hotel windows, but the 14,000 tourists in Los Cabos were "safe" in rooms made to shelter them within the facilities, said state tourism secretary Genaro Ruiz Hernandez.Power went out in parts of Los Cabos and La Paz, while phone service was disrupted."It would appear that we won't have major damage except for what we have already reported," national civil protection coordinator Luis Felipe Puente told Milenio television.- Looting attempts -Newton was 25 kilometers southwest of the Baja town of Loreto, the Miami-based hurricane center said in its latest bulletin.Newton is forecast to enter the Gulf of California and make a second landfall into the Mexican mainland on Wednesday before reaching the US state of Arizona that afternoon.The hurricane made landfall just eight kilometers from Los Cabos.Some 1,500 people took refuge in shelters in the resort town and some began to return home, Vazquez said.Police said five people were arrested for trying to loot two convenience stores in Los Cabos.Officers guarded several shops to prevent the kind of looting that was seen after Odile struck.While all highways were accessible, Puente urged "the population not to leave their homes if it is not necessary."Local airports closed late Monday, while small boats were barred from using the ports in case of a storm surge in low-lying areas areas. Schools were shut down.North of Los Cabos, in La Paz, where trees also fell, locals put tape on shop windows and 400 people were evacuated from vulnerable areas.- Second landfall -Roberto Ramirez, director of the National Water Commission, told Radio Formula that authorities had not expected Newton to make landfall or become a hurricane."It has had very erratic behavior since it emerged on Friday as a (weather) disturbance," he said.The storm is due to produce up to 30 centimeters (12 inches) of rain in Baja California Sur and as much as 25 centimeters in several Pacific coast states, which could trigger life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.The weather system caused damage in the country's south over the weekend before it became a tropical storm, flooding 1,400 homes in Guerrero state and leaving three dead in Chiapas.
NASA chasing down asteroid to scoop up, bring back samples-[Associated Press]-MARCIA DUNN-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is going after an asteroid this week like never before.It's launching a spacecraft to the exotic black rock named Bennu, vacuuming up handfuls of gravel from the surface, and then in a grand finale, delivering the pay dirt all the way back to Earth.The mission will take seven years, from Thursday night's planned liftoff from Cape Canaveral to the return of the asteroid samples in 2023, and cover an incredible 4 billion miles (6 ½ billion kilometers) through space.It promises to be the biggest cosmic bounty since the Apollo moon rocks, hand-picked and delivered by astronauts in the late 1960s and early 1970s.NASA has already brought back comet dust and specks of solar wind. And Japan already did it at an asteroid a decade ago, and is en route to a second space rock encounter. But we're talking tiny grains in these cases.NASA's robotic asteroid hunter, Osiris-Rex, is designed to scoop up pebbles and rock the size of gravel — anywhere from one to four or five handfuls."We are going out to explore an unknown world," said principal scientist Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona at Tucson. "We're going to map it in great detail. It will be the most well characterized asteroid in our solar system by the time we're through with it."Thanks to observations from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, scientists already know the roundish Bennu (BEN'-oo) is about 1,600 feet (487 meters) across at its bulging middle and the color of coal, indicative of carbon richness. It's believed to have formed 4.5 billion years ago, a remnant of the solar system's building blocks. As such, it may still hold clues as to the origin of life on Earth and, possibly, elsewhere in the solar system.The name Bennu comes from the heron of Egyptian mythology. Osiris was an Egyptian god; Osiris-Rex is an acronym for origins, spectral interpretation, resource identification, security-regolith explorer.There's also a practical side to the more than $800 million mission: planetary defense.Bennu is one of many near-Earth asteroids that occasionally cross paths with our planet. The more scientists know about these potentially hazardous rocks, the better the chance of tracking them and, worst comes to worst, bracing for them.Bennu wouldn't obliterate Earth or wipe out life, just carve out a huge crater. Lauretta said the odds of a direct hit by Bennu are low — less than one-tenth of 1 percent — and not until about 150 years from now."So I like to say, 'Don't run out and buy asteroid insurance tonight, you're not going to need it,' " Lauretta said.You can, however, mark your calendars for the Osiris-Rex flight plan:—Thursday: Launch of Osiris-Rex spacecraft atop an unmanned Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Forecasters on Tuesday said good weather was expected for Thursday's 7:05 p.m. EDT launch. NASA has until mid-October to send the SUV-size spacecraft on its way. With its twin solar wings, it resembles a boxy bird.—Sept. 22, 2017: Osiris-Rex swings by Earth for a gravity assist toward Bennu, putting it in the same orbital plane. Onboard cameras will snap and send pictures of the home planet. The spacecraft will come within 10,000 miles (16,100 kilometers) to 17,000 miles (27,400 kilometers) of Earth.—August 2018: Osiris-Rex arrives at Bennu. The spacecraft will fly in formation with the asteroid, as well as orbit it from an altitude of less than a half mile — roughly 700 meters — in search of the best real estate for the sample grab. Lauretta said it will be the smallest body ever orbited by a spacecraft.—July 2020: Osiris-Rex goes for the cosmic gold, flying close to the surface and reaching out with its 10-foot (3-meter) robotic arm. It will fire nitrogen gas to stir up the surface, and like a vacuum, suck in the loosened dirt and gravel. Scientists want at least 2 ounces (60 grams). If they get less, they'll try again. In all, the spacecraft can try three times to gather samples before it runs out of nitrogen gas. Testing on Earth has yielded as much as 14 to 18 ounces (400 to 500 grams).—March 2021: Osiris-Rex leaves Bennu and heads back to Earth. This is when the asteroid and our planet are best aligned in space for the trip home. The samples will come back in the same kind of container as the comet dust from NASA's Stardust mission in 2006. "The big prize," as NASA program scientist Jeff Grossman calls it, will be free of contamination. Incoming chunks of asteroids are altered as they plunge through the atmosphere and smash into Earth, and it's impossible to know where these pieces come from.—Sept. 24, 2023: Finally free of Osiris-Rex, which will continue to orbit the sun, the sample container re-enters the atmosphere at more than 27,000 mph (43,450 kph). Parachutes will slow the descent as the container comes in for a touchdown at Utah Test and Training Range, west of Salt Lake City. The container will end up at Johnson Space Center in Houston, its final destination."It really is a great adventure ... we are bringing back scientific treasure," Lauretta said.___Online:NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex
EPA to shut some Oklahoma wastewater wells after quake-[Reuters]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
HOUSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will order wastewater disposal wells shut near the epicenter of a 5.6 magnitude earthquake that struck on Saturday around Pawnee, Oklahoma, local media reported on Tuesday.The quake was one of the strongest ever to hit the state and prompted its oil and gas regulator, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, to order 37 disposal wells shut in a 725-square-mile (1,878-sq-km) area around Pawnee.It also asked the EPA to help shut disposal wells in a 211 square-mile (546.49-sq-km) area of Osage County because the OCC lacked jurisdiction there.Local news website NewsOK reported that the EPA told the OCC in a letter on Sunday that it would order Osage County wastewater wells to be shut, but did not specify how many would be affected.The EPA was not immediately available for comment.Oklahoma has seen a massive spike in earthquakes in the past few years, registering 2-1/2 earthquakes daily of magnitude 3 or greater - a seismicity rate 600 times greater than before 2008, according to the Oklahoma Geological Survey.Scientists have tied the quakes to the injection of saltwater, a normal byproduct of oil and gas drilling, into deep disposal wells and underground caverns.Oklahoma has been putting new restrictions on some of its thousands of disposal wells for more than a year to curb seismic activity.(Reporting by Terry Wade; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Arsonists blamed for Spanish wildfires-[AFP]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
Jávea (Spain) (AFP) - Spanish authorities on Tuesday blamed arsonists and record temperatures for wildfires ravaging the eastern coast near the popular resort of Benidorm that have forced 1,400 people to flee.Hundreds of firefighters backed by water-dropping aircraft were battling the largest of several fires which began Sunday near the resort of Javea, up the coast from Benidorm on Spain's Costa Blanca.Another blaze was raging near the mountain town of Bolulla, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Javea, while emergency services faced a third one on the Mediterranean island of Menorca, also popular with holidaymakers.More than two dozen stations registered record high temperatures across the country on Monday in what Spain's weather agency said was a "historic day for heat".Most of Spain has faced an "extreme risk" of wildfires since Sunday due to the heatwave, with temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in some parts.However, authorities also said that gasoline cans had been found and that there were "three or four" separate outbreaks of fire."There is one or several arsonists," Jose Maria Angel Batalla, an emergency services chief in the Costa Blanca area, told the Cope radio station, referring to the fire near Javea.- Difficult to control -The main blaze roared through scrubland near residential areas around Javea, sending thick plumes of grey smoke into the air.It has razed more than 800 hectares (1,900 acres) of land, according to the regional government, and charred several buildings in an area popular with British and German holidaymakers.Spanish television showed a wall of flames moving towards a row of white-washed villas."It's an area with a lot of villas and country homes with old pines. It is a very difficult area to control a fire," Juan Carlos Moragues, who represents the Spanish government in the eastern region of Valencia, told Onda Cero radio.Officials have evacuated around 1,400 people, including tourists, with many spending the night in schools or at local residents' homes.- 'They gave us their bed' -Many said they fled with just the clothes they were wearing.Tessa Wells, a 99-year-old British retiree who is confined to a wheelchair, had to be helped by two neighbours down the stairs of her home, according to her caregiver, Rosa Serra.She was then taken by ambulance to a shelter set up at a high school where a couple who live nearby offered to put her up in their home, Serra told local newspaper Las Provincias."They not only took us to their home, they gave us their bed and Tessa was able to sleep. That is solidarity," Serra said.Firefighters said the intense heat, combined with low humidity levels and strong winds which changed direction, had fuelled the fire on the Costa Blanca but that they were starting to gain the upper hand.The wildfire on the island of Menorca broke out on Monday, and so far has destroyed around 50 hectares of land, a local emergency services official said.Around 600 people were either evacuated, or ordered to stay in their home or hotels because of the blaze, which firefighters said was now "stable".- Portugal blazes -Intense heat was also fuelling wildfires in neighbouring Portugal, forcing authorities to evacuate several villages as well as a luxury hotel in Setubal, near Lisbon, which about 60 tourists had to flee.Nearly 3,800 firefighters battled about 100 blazes raging across Portugal on Tuesday, including one particularly devastating blaze in the Peneda Geres national park."Several residents had to be helped by doctors for breathing problems. The fire was approaching the houses," a fire service spokesman said. "We lack the means to fight the fire."The nearby town of Arcos de Valdevez activated its emergency plan on Tuesday night, shortly after a couple were hospitalised with burns.
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.(EITHER THE EUROPEAN UNION DICTATOR BOOTS 3 COUNTRIES FROM THE EU OR THE DICTATOR TAKES OVER THE WORLD ECONOMY BY CONTROLLING 3 WORLD TRADE BLOCS)
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.
EU leaders to define new priorities in Bratislava By Eszter Zalan-sept 6,16-euobserver
BRUSSELS, Today, 17:39-EU officials are toning down expectations ahead of an informal summit of EU leaders in Bratislava on 16 September, where the 27 remaining leaders are expected to show unity and a way ahead for the bloc after the UK's decision to leave.“Our expectation [for Bratislava] is not much. Leaders will try to show unity also as 27 that we have future, we can do things, we are not paralysed, we are moving ahead together,” one official said.“That in itself would be quite an achievement,” the official quipped.The leaders are going to spend a full day in the Bratislava castle to “brainstorm”, as one EU official put it, but not many concrete solutions can be expected already in September, as the soul-searching exercise will continue for months.After weeks of shuttle diplomacy led by German chancellor Angela Merkel and EU council president Donald Tusk to listen to various national leaders, finding that new momentum is proving to be difficult, although some key issues seem to have emerged.-“Protection” -seems to be the common denominator among the 27, as well as a determination to show citizens that "this is not business as usual", that the EU is going to respond better to their concerns.“People in Slovakia, Poland, Belgium, all over Europe expect that the EU after Bratislava will be a guarantee of stability, security and protection. Protection in the widest meaning including social and economic protection,” Tusk said last Friday.One issue where leaders will try to find common ground is beefing up internal security to fight terrorism, and external security with strengthened border protection.Another topic will be economic security, a definition whose actual meaning the leaders will have to decide on. “It tackles how the EU should project itself in time of globalisation,” one EU official, with knowledge of the summit preparations, said.“That’s a new concept which has been floated by Tusk. How far we can go with our trade policy and energy security. Perhaps the debate in Bratislava will also shape this concept, what leaders mean by that,” the official added.The official said he does not expect contagious trade issues like negotiations on the US-EU deal (TTIP), or the agreement with Canada (CETA) to come up specifically.But the clarification of the EU vision is not going to be easy: leaders will try to define the level of their common ambition from security and defence cooperation to tackling the negative effects of globalisation.France, for instance, would like to see increased European cooperation in defence, an "autonomous" EU defence that is separate from Nato and the US, and a beefed up EU investment fund to boost growth and create jobs in Europe, a diplomat told this website.According to the first EU official, some countries are seeking more protectionist trade policies, while others emphasise the need for better competitiveness.“There is this philosophical and political clash on the issue, how we are going to face globalisation pressures,” the official added.The official also thought that strengthening and streamlining of the economic and monetary union, a previous ambition of mainly the eurozone countries, has now been put aside.There is a likely consensus around the table on extending the Juncker fund - named after the EU Commission president - to boost growth, something Juncker is expected to include in his state of the union address next week in the European Parliament.Migration will be tackled under security and increased border controls. Other possibly controversial issues, like reform of the EU’s asylum policy, the so-called Dublin law, is not expected to be on the menu.-‘Christmas tree’-European citizens looking for clear-cut answers on what to expect from the EU might be let down.Officials say the informal meeting, to which over 1,200 journalists have been accredited, but who will be kept away from the meeting, should end with a statement from Tusk, not an official conclusion of the 27.According to one EU official, the statement could end up as a “Christmas tree”, on which leaders attempt to hang all kinds of issues dear to them, resulting in lacking a clear focus. For instance, France is keen on youth unemployment, while Germany would like a reference to the digital single market.Tusk however would want to avoid drafting at the summit and focus on the discussion. Leaders’ EU advisors will meet on the 12 September to hammer out a text.-Bratislava Process-“Bratislava is the start of the process, which should culminate in Rome in March,” said an EU official, adding that the leaders would set up a “roadmap” in Bratislava on what to achieve in the coming months, prior the 60th anniversary of the Rome treaty, with a possible summit in Malta in February.Leaders will not discuss EU competencies, although officials admit some rebalancing might be needed among institutions and member states, something the countries of the Visegrad group (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia) have been calling for.-Brexit on the margins-Also not on the table: Brexit. “It is a big question mark if Brexit will be discussed at all. If so, it will be a low profile discussion with leaders comparing notes on a their bilateral meetings with the new UK prime minister Theresa May,” said an EU official.“It is not possible to go into details at this point, since there is no clear idea from British side what they would like to see as outcome of negotiations,” the source said.“Bratislava should not be about Brexit, but about the 27,” he added.Commission officials say leaders will be looking at the EU executive to bring concrete ideas, some of which will feature in president Juncker’s state of the union address next week in Strasbourg.Juncker will meet with EU ambassadors this Friday to listen to their suggestions on the speech.
Roaming exceptions are necessary evil in imperfect EU By Peter Teffer-sept 6,16-euobserver
Brussels, Today, 17:20-The centre-left socialist group in the European Parliament on Tuesday (6 September) appeared to accuse the European Commission on reneging on its promise to abolish mobile roaming surcharges.In a message sent out a social media, they called a commission proposal, saying that roaming will be limited to 90 days a year, “complete nonsense”.The truth however is somewhat more nuanced.-What happened?-In June 2015, EU officials from the commission, parliament, and member states, announced that they had reached a deal that would end roaming fees, something which they had promised years before.However, the deal also included the possibility for telecommunications operators to introduce “fair use policies”, to prevent people from abusing the roam-like-at-home principle. Those consumers that go beyond a mobile subscription's fair use, could face additional costs.On Monday, the commission published a proposal that contained the details of what such policies may look like.“What we have done is fix some rules to avoid abuses,” commission spokeswoman Nathalie Vandystadt told journalists on Tuesday. The rules theoretically can still be vetoed by the EU parliament or member states.She explained that 90 days is the “minimum … during which users fully benefit from the end of roaming charges”.Consumers that use roaming beyond that period may face additional costs, which critics call roaming by another name.But commission deputy chief spokesman Alexander Winterstein was quick to say the EU had fulfilled its promise on roaming.“What we have promised is that when we travel across borders, they can take their phone with them and as of June next year they will not pay roaming fees anymore. This is a key message and this is what we have delivered, and this is what counts,” Winterstein said.The GSM Association, the pan-European organisation set up in the 1980s to create standards for mobile communication, never defined roaming as having a limited duration.But for the commission, it is understandable why it would want to make that distinction.With the end of roaming fees a tangible example of the benefits of the EU, the commission is, not surprisingly, eager to hail it as a success story.And as Vandystadt noted, most Europeans do not travel abroad to other EU countries for more than 90 days a year - or even half of that.“Operators are not obliged to impose this 90 days minimum. They can offer unlimited packages including roaming,” Vandystadt added.But some operators may not want to offer unlimited roaming, out of fear of going out of business.The problem which the 90-days clause aims to address, goes far beyond the simple frame of whether the EU broke a political promise.-Digital single market?-It showed that the EU is still very far from a digital single market.When you buy a book in another EU country, your one-time purchase does not greatly affect the local economy. But when you buy a mobile phone subscription in another EU country with the idea of using it in your home country, you may have a more lasting effect.The text accompanying the fair use rules noted that there are “different pricing and consumption patterns” across EU member states.“In such cases, the incentive to use very large volumes of traffic at domestic price levels while roaming on a permanent basis may increase, as the price differential vis-à-vis limited domestic offers may turn out to be greater than average.”Put simply, citizens living in a rich member state may choose to buy a SIM card in a member state where the cost of products is much lower.Let's take, as an example, Lithuania and the United Kingdom. According to Eurostat, communication is most expensive in the UK, and cheapest in Lithuania.If substantial numbers of British consumers were all to buy SIM cards in much smaller Lithuania, and then go home to the UK demanding to use the cheaper subscription plan there, the mobile operators in Lithuania may decide to increase their prices, which would mostly affect Lithuanians.-European integration-It is one of the key challenges in European integration.Politicians have started opening up markets for all EU citizens, before differences between the economies of EU member states and purchasing power have dissolved.The option for mobile operators to apply an exception to the roaming ban, is a way to protect businesses in EU member states with lower purchase power.It is not “complete nonsense”, but an unavoidable stopgap for the much bigger, systemic tasks policymakers face during the messy process of European integration.
WORLD POWERS IN THE LAST DAYS (END OF AGE OF GRACE NOT THE WORLD)
EUROPEAN UNION-KING OF WEST-DAN 9:26-27,DAN 7:23-24,DAN 11:40,REV 13:1-10
EGYPT-KING OF THE SOUTH-DAN 11:40
RUSSIA-KING OF THE NORTH-EZEK 38:1-2,EZEK 39:1-3
CHINA-KING OF THE EAST-DAN 11:44,REV 9:16,18
VATICAN-RELIGIOUS LEADER-REV 13:11-18,REV 17:4-5,9,18
WORLD TERRORISM
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)
Government to stop using ISIL, will refer instead to Daesh-[The Canadian Press]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
OTTAWA — The Liberal government will no longer refer to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and will instead call the group by a different, potentially insulting name: Daesh.Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale revealed the change in a report on terrorism released last month, saying ISIL is neither Islamic nor a state and that the report would instead use the group's Arabic acronym.Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence also say they are both adopting Daesh to refer to the group.The decision continues a trend that has been sweeping through western governments.France and the United Kingdom are among those that have adopted the term in recent years.But while the term has long been used by Arabic speakers and comes from the group's Arabic acronym, it can also be considered an insult, with some translations meaning to tread underfoot or crush.The group has forbidden use of the term Daesh within its territory.There has long been a great deal of confusion and debate over what to call the militant group.Canada and many other countries used its original name, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, for years. Others referred to it as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS.The Canadian Press.
OPP say Labour Day long weekend was deadliest in 20 years-[CBC]-CBCSeptember 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
Ontario Provincial Police said 12 people were killed on the roads during the Labour Day weekend and warned distracted driving could be a major part of the problem.Police said 12 people died on OPP-patrolled roads during the long weekend, while one person died on the water and another died while using an off-road vehicle."That is the deadliest weekend we've seen in 20 years," said Sgt. Kerry Schmidt in a video posted on Twitter.In one crash in northwestern Ontario, the OPP said four people were killed when their vehicle crashed. Meanwhile in Toronto, a 24-year-old man was charged with impaired driving following a crash that left a 28-year-old man dead.The OPP, while warning drivers that it launching a blitz on distracted driving during the long weekend, still issued more than 800 distracted or inattentive driving charges."It's just far too many," Schmidt said.Schmidt said the OPP is hoping that passengers and motorists will start condemning distracted driving whenever they see it."We need to have people understand that their own personal safety is at risk if the driver isn't paying attention to the roads," he said.Before this weekend, the OPP had already laid some 8,000 distracted driving charges for the year.Schmidt said the force will continue to enforce the rules even though the blitz has ended.
Edmonton spent $9.4M helping Fort McMurray wildfire evacuees-[CBC]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
Relief efforts for evacuees of the Fort McMurray wildfire cost the city of Edmonton $9.4 million, new figures released by the city Tuesday show.Northlands incurred another $1.9 million in costs, bringing the Edmonton total to $11.3 million. The city has reimbursed Northlands $1.2 million of its costs.Northlands housed thousands of fire evacuees at the Expo Centre in the spring, which forced the convention centre to cancel or move events. About 25,000 people visited the reception centre at Northlands, with 2,000 staying overnight at the peak of the evacuation.The city expects to recover most of its costs from the province, Mayor Don Iveson said.But $500,000 in staff costs might not be recoverable due to eligibility issues. Northlands may face the same situation for the remaining $700,000 of its costs. Still, Iveson said he's holding out hope most of the money will be recovered."I had personal assurances from the premier and from [Municipal Affairs] Minister (Danielle) Larivee ... that the city would be treated fairly and that Northlands would be treated fairly through this process," Iveson said."So I'm reasonably confident from those assurances that, once all of the paperwork has gone through, that the city will more or less be whole."The Fort McMurray numbers were released as part of the city's mid-year financial update, which covers the period up to June 30.-City budget in the black overall-The city is ahead by $35.3 million overall thanks to last winter's lack of snow, unfilled job vacancies and lower fuel costs.A couple of items tilted the balance the other way. Edmonton Transit is seeing a drop in monthly pass sales and in cash fares, a change attributed to the poor economy-More people are contesting traffic tickets issued by Edmonton police to avoid earning demerit points, meaning less money is flowing into city coffers.Administrators reminded city councillors that a heavy snowfall could yet dramatically change the city's financial position.Council was also given an update on project delays. Out of 98 capital projects,16 are considered code "red," meaning they are either more than 10 per cent over budget and/or more than 10 per cent behind schedule.The list includes the Metro Line LRT, the Walterdale Bridge, and the 102nd Avenue Bridge over Groat Road.
Chinese coast guard involved in most South China Sea clashes - research-[By Greg Torode]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Increasingly assertive action by China's coast guard ships in the South China Sea risks destabilising the region, according to the authors of new research tracking maritime law enforcement incidents across the vital trade route.While the risks of full-blown naval conflict dominates strategic fears over the disputed waterway, the danger of incidents involving coast guards should not be underestimated, said Bonnie Glaser, a regional security expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.CSIS researchers have detailed some 45 clashes and standoffs in the South China Sea since 2010 in a survey due to be published week on its ChinaPower website and seen by Reuters.While the research includes clashes between a variety of regional states and types of vessels, the actions of China's coast guard dominates the picture. China's coast guard has been involved in 30 of the cases logged, two-thirds of the total. Four other incidents involved a Chinese naval vessel operating in a law enforcement capacity."The evidence is clear that there is a pattern of behavior from China that is contrary to what law enforcement usually involves," Glaser told Reuters."We're seeing bullying, harassment and ramming of vessels from countries whose coast guard and fishing vessels are much smaller, often to assert sovereignty throughout the South China Sea."The research includes the violent maritime stand-off between Beijing and Hanoi over the placement of a Chinese oil exploration rig off the Vietnamese coast in 2014, as well as tensions that led up to China's occupation of the Scarborough Shoal off the Philippines in 2012.It is being published as Chinese coast guard and other vessels return to Scarborough, sparking formal diplomatic protests from Manila.China's State Oceanic Administration, which oversees the coast guard did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the research.The research defines an incident where a nation's coast guard or navy has used coercive measures beyond routine law enforcement action.In the short term, Glaser said she believed the risk of injury or death could be worse in civilian clashes than among navies patrolling the South China Sea, given the frequency and intensity of incidents in recent years.Encounters by rival coast guards are not yet covered by expanding communications arrangements that are geared to preventing clashes between the region's naval forces.The survey cites research showing the unifying of China's civilian maritime fleets in 2013, coupled with on-going budget increases, has given it the world's largest coast guard.It now deploys some 205 vessels, including 95 ships over 1,000 tonnes, according to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence - a far larger fleet than other regional countries, including Japan.China claims much of the South China Sea, which carries the bulk of Northeast Asia's trade with the rest of the world. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims in the area.(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
Iran vessel 'harasses,' sails close to U.S. Navy ship in Gulf-U.S. officials-[Reuters]-By Idrees Ali-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship changed course after a fast-attack craft from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps came within 100 yards (91 metres) of it in the central Gulf on Sunday, U.S. Defense Department officials said on Tuesday.It was at least the fourth such incident in less than a month. U.S. officials are concerned that these actions by Iran could lead to mistakes.Years of mutual animosity eased when Washington lifted sanctions on Tehran in January after a deal to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions. But serious differences still remain over Iran's ballistic missile program, and over conflicts in Syria and Iraq.Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the Iranian vessel sailed directly in front of the USS Firebolt, forcing the 174-foot (53-metre) U.S. ship to change course.The incident began when seven Iranian ships "harassed" the Firebolt, Davis said.A U.S. Defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the interaction was "unsafe and unprofessional due to lack of communications and the close-range harassing manoeuvring," adding that uncovered and manned weapons were seen on the Iranian vessel.The U.S. ship tried to communicate with the Iranian ship by radio three times but received no response.The U.S. official said there have been 31 similar interactions with Iranian ships this year, almost double the amount from the same period last year."We don't see this type of unsafe and unprofessional activity from any other nation," the defence official added.In late August, a U.S. Navy patrol craft fired warning shots toward an Iranian fast-attack vessel that approached two U.S. ships.At the time, Iran's defence minister said Iranian vessels were just doing their job.Last week, the head of U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, said unsafe manoeuvres in the Gulf were part of the Iranian regime trying to exert its influence in the region.Kenneth Pollack, a former top CIA and White House official, said that one or two incidents could have been explained “as being the work of an over-zealous commander” within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.But the number of such incidents in recent weeks make it “very hard for me to believe these are not sanctioned by higher authority” within Iran, said Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.If that is the case, Iranian authorities may be using the incidents to stir up popular anger against the United States, he said.(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Warren Strobel; Editing by James Dalgleish and Jonathan Oatis)
Turkey working with Council of Europe on post-coup prosecutions-[Reuters]-By Andrea Shalal-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
BERLIN (Reuters) - A delegation from Turkey's justice ministry has met with the Council of Europe to review European human rights standards and conventions as Ankara prepares to prosecute those it holds responsible for a failed July 15 coup, the head of the CoE said.Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will also meet with other ministers from the 47-nation rights body in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday, Thorbjorn Jagland, general secretary of the CoE, told Reuters on Tuesday on the sidelines of a conference hosted by the German foreign ministry."We have been working with them. We want to see to it that the judicial safeguards are in place," Jagland said. "They have in mind that if they don't put this in place that many of these cases will land in court in Strasbourg."The meeting with the Turkish justice ministry delegation took place last Friday, Jagland said.Turkey's discussions with the CoE come amid efforts by European leaders to ease tensions that flared after the coup and loud criticism by several European Union leaders of President Tayyip Erdogan's post-coup crackdown,Strasbourg is home to the European Court of Human Rights, which rules on individual or state allegations of violations of civil and political rights. Turkey ratified the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in 1954.Unlike the European Union, the CoE cannot make binding laws, but it has the power to enforce select international agreements reached by its members, which include Turkey. The court, a body of the council, enforces the ECHR.The court's website said it dealt with more than 3,200 applications concerning Turkey in 2015, of which 3,060 were declared inadmissible. Of the 87 judgments it delivered, 79 found at least one violation of the human rights convention."We have thousands of cases already. We shouldn't have any more cases," Jagland said.The EU, which Turkey aspires to join, is concerned that Ankara applies its anti-terrorism laws too broadly in order to prosecute critics of Erdogan and has made easing them a precondition for granting Turks visa-free travel to the bloc.Jagland said the CoE was working with Turkey to address cases where the court had found violations of European rights to freedom of expression due to the application of Turkey's laws, and in some cases, perhaps even the laws themselves.The CoE's discussions with Ankara are separate from Turkey's visa liberalization talks with the 28-member EU, but could help Ankara better understand which laws it needs to revise, he said.(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Gareth Jones)
With Syria 'safe zone' plan, Turkey faces diplomatic balancing act-[Reuters]-By Orhan Coskun and Ercan Gurses-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey will have to strike a balance between the conflicting goals of Russia and the United States if it is to achieve its ambition of a "safe zone" in northern Syria and build on an incursion which gave it control of a thin strip of the border.Turkey has for several years called for world powers to help create a zone to protect civilians in its war-torn southern neighbor, with the dual aim of clearing its border of Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters and of stemming a wave of migration that has caused tensions with Europe.Western allies have so far balked at the idea, saying it would require a significant ground force and planes to patrol a "no-fly zone", a major commitment in such a crowded and messy battlefield. Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has meanwhile argued in the past that any foreign incursion would be illegal.But Turkey's offensive into northern Syria, launched with its Syrian rebel allies two weeks ago, has created what officials in Ankara are already calling a "de facto safe zone", driving Islamic State militants from the last 90-km (55-mile) strip of border territory they still controlled.Turkey now wants international support for a deeper operation to take control of a rectangle of territory stretching about 40 km into Syria, a buffer between two Kurdish-held cantons to the east and west and against Islamic State to the south."The first phase of the plan has been achieved. Turkey no longer has borders with Islamic State. But this area is still very thin and vulnerable to attacks from the other side," said a senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to discuss the strategy more freely."What will be done now will depend on coordination with coalition powers and the support they will provide," he said, adding an improvement in relations with Russia had "eased Turkey's hand" operationally.The Turkish-backed rebels, mainly Syrian Arabs and Turkmen fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, took charge of the frontier between the towns of Azaz and Jarablus on Sunday after seizing 20 villages from the ultra-hardline Islamists.Ahmed Osman, commander of the Sultan Murad rebel group, one of the Turkish-backed forces, told Reuters he would like to see a permanent "safe zone" but that this would require an agreement between Turkey, the United States and Russia.-CONFLICTING INTERESTS-Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, his hand strengthened by Turkey's incursion, said on Monday he had raised the issue of a "safe zone" again with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama at the G20 summit in China.Neither commented directly on the Turkish proposal, though both said they wanted to build cooperation in fighting terrorism in Syria. Erdogan's spokesman said there were neither objections nor clear signs of support in the meetings.A second senior Turkish official acknowledged both Washington and Russia "had their hesitations" but that a "de facto safe zone" had now become a reality on the ground and that their support, particularly in establishing a no-fly zone, was crucial.Metin Gurcan, a former major in the Turkish military and an analyst for the Al Monitor online journal, said Washington and Moscow's divergent agendas in Syria raised serious questions about the viability of the Turkish plans."We are talking about two superpowers with great stakes in Syria. They have contradicting strategic interests about the end goal in Syria," he said.More than five years of civil war have cut Syria into a patchwork of territories held by the government and an often competing array of armed factions, including Kurdish militia fighters, a loose coalition of rebels groups, and Islamic State.The priority for Washington, which backs rebel factions fighting Assad in the civil war, is destroying Islamic State and it has been at odds with Turkey over the role of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. The United States has backed the Kurdish fighters against the jihadists, but Turkey sees them as a hostile force linked to Kurdish militants on its own soil.The two NATO allies have reached an uneasy agreement under which YPG fighters are meant to remain east of the Euphrates river, just outside Turkey's proposed buffer zone, although Ankara has said it has yet to verify that they are doing so.Turkey meanwhile appears to be navigating Russian concerns more smoothly since restoring relations with Moscow in August, nine months after ties were broken when it shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border.Erdogan's spokesman said on Tuesday that Russia had voiced full support for Turkey's operation to clear the border of Islamic State. For its part, Turkey has been less insistent on Assad's immediate exit."They appear to be lessening their demands for the ouster of Assad in deference to their new relationship with Russia," said James Stavridis, former NATO supreme commander and dean at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.-'ARMAGEDDON'-Aside from the diplomatic challenges, a push deeper into Syria by the Turkish-backed Arab and Turkmen rebels poses significant military risks.The Turkish-backed forces have been advancing toward Manbij, a city around 30 km south of Jarablus that was captured last month from Islamic State by a U.S.-backed coalition that includes the YPG. The Kurdish fighters are since supposed to have pulled back east of the Euphrates."We know there are de facto YPG factions still there. If they don't retreat, Turkey will be determined and return Manbij to its owners," said Yasin Aktay, a spokesman for Turkey's ruling AK Party, referring to Arab and Turkmen communities who lived there before civil war broke out in 2011.The Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab, west of Manbij, is another a key strategic target for both Turkish-backed and Kurdish forces where Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, one of Islamic State's most prominent leaders, is thought to have been killed in a U.S. air strike last week.To its northwest is the village of Dabiq - the site, according to Islamic prophecy, of a final battle between Muslims and infidels, an event in Islamic State propaganda that will herald the apocalypse."The fight for the Turkish-backed rebels is going to get tougher as they proceed south," said a former Turkish soldier and security analyst Abdullah Agar. "According to Islamic State's beliefs, they will face Armageddon here."(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara and Humeyra Pamuk, Edmund Blair and Akin Aytekin in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Pravin Char)
U.S. sees progress in Syria talks with Russia, expects meeting soon-[Reuters]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it was making progress with Russia on how to achieve a cessation of hostilities in Syria and held out the possibility a nationwide ceasefire need not begin immediately.The United States had hoped over the weekend to announce an agreement to halt the fighting in the 5-1/2-year-old Syrian civil war but failed to strike an agreement with Russia.The two powers support opposite sides in the conflict, with Moscow using its military to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Washington taking the position that Assad must go and supporting some opposition groups seeking to oust him."We continue to feel like we are making progress, and believe we are making progress, on some of the remaining issues, but we are not going to settle," U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at his daily briefing in Washington.He said Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were expected to meet "very soon" but that he did not have a time or place to announce.Toner said any agreement had to chart a clear path on how it would be implemented, and suggested that a nationwide cessation of hostilities did not have to start right away."What we are looking at is ... is a clear path forward to a nationwide cessation of hostilities," Toner said. "Now whether that’s going to happen overnight or whether that’s going to happen over a period of days, that’s a question to be resolved."(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Writing by David Alexander; Editing by Eric Walsh and Peter Cooney)
80 million unexploded bombs: Obama pledges US help for Laos-[Associated Press]-JOSH LEDERMAN and KATHLEEN HENNESSEY-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) — Declaring a "moral obligation" to heal the wounds of a secret war, President Barack Obama on Tuesday pledged help to clear away the 80 million unexploded bombs the U.S. dropped on Laos a generation ago — more than 10 for every one of the country's 7 million people.Half a century ago, the United States turned Laos into history's most heavily bombed country, raining down some two million tons of ordnance in a covert, nine-year chapter of the Vietnam War. The first U.S. president to set foot in Laos while in office, Obama lamented that many Americans remain unaware of the "painful legacy" left behind by a bombardment that claims lives and limbs to this day."The remnants of war continue to shatter lives here in Laos," Obama said before an audience of students, businessmen and orange-robed Buddhist monks who held up cellphones to snap photos of the American president. "Even as we continue to deal with the past, our new partnership is focused on the future," he said.To that end, Obama announced the U.S. would double its spending on bomb-clearing efforts to $90 million over three years — a relatively small sum for the U.S. but a significant investment for a small country in one of the poorer corners of the world. Obama plans to put a human face on the issue when he meets Wednesday in Vientiane with survivors of bombs that America dropped.The president did not come to apologize. Instead, he called the conflict a reminder that "whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a terrible toll — especially on innocent men, women and children."Thanks to global cleanup efforts, casualties from tennis ball-sized "bombies" that still litter the Laotian countryside have plummeted from hundreds to dozens per year. But aid groups say far more help is needed. Of all the provinces in landlocked Laos, only one has a comprehensive system to care for bomb survivors."We're incredibly proud of the progress the sector has made over the last five years in terms of the decline in casualties and new victims," said Channapha Khamvongsa of the nonprofit Legacies of War. "But we are concerned about the upwards of 15,000 survivors around the country that are still in need of support."The $90 million to clean up bombs joins another $100 million the U.S. has committed in the past 20 years. The Lao government, meanwhile, says it will boost efforts to recover remains and account for Americans missing since the war.The punishing air campaign on Laos was an effort to cut off communist forces in neighboring Vietnam. American warplanes dropped more explosives on this Southeast Asian nation than on Germany and Japan combined in World War II, a stunning statistic that Obama noted during his first day in Vientiane.Obama was one of several world leaders visiting Laos to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Taking its turn as chair of the regional forum, Laos' communist government is seizing a rare moment in the spotlight.For Obama, the visit serves as a capstone to his yearslong effort to bolster relations with Southeast Asian countries long overlooked by the United States. The outreach is a core element of his attempt to shift U.S. diplomatic and military resources away from the Middle East and into Asia in order to counter China in the region and ensure a U.S. foothold in growing markets.Yet Obama's outreach took an uncomfortable turn just as he headed to Laos from another summit in China. The White House called off a scheduled meeting Tuesday with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippine — a U.S. treaty ally — after the brash new leader referred to Obama as a "son of a bitch."Duterte, who had been expecting Obama to criticize his deadly, extrajudicial crackdown on drug dealers, later said he regretted the personal attack on the president.Obama filled the hole in his schedule by meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye in a display of unity a day after North Korea fired three ballistic missiles. Obama vowed to work with the United Nations to tighten sanctions against Pyongyang, but said the door wasn't closed to a more functional relationship.Obama's Asia project — dubbed his pivot or rebalance — has yielded uneven results, as conflict in the Middle East has continued to demand attention and China has bristled at what it views as meddling in its backyard.So with just four months left in office, Obama used his historic trip to Laos to reassert his aims. He touted new military aid and U.S. support for regional cooperation in addressing maritime disputes and made a plug for the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, the policy's central economic component that is now stuck in Congress.___Daniel Malloy in Luang Prabang, Laos, contributed to this report.
U.S. strikes in Yemen kill 13 al Qaeda operatives: U.S. military-[Reuters]-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States killed 13 al Qaeda operatives in three counterterrorism strikes in Yemen from Aug. 24 to Sept. 4, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.All three of the strikes against the al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula targets were conducted in central Yemen's Shabwah Governorate, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. It did not specify how the strikes were carried out or the identities of those killed.(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Eric Walsh)
U.N. Security Council condemns North Korea's latest missile launches-[Reuters]-By Rodrigo Campos-September 6, 2016-YAHOONEWS
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council strongly on Tuesday condemned North Korea's latest ballistic missile launches, saying they contributed to Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons capability.North Korea fired three ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Monday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries said, as the leaders of the Group of 20 major economies held a summit in China, the North's main diplomatic ally.The missiles likely landed in the sea 200 to 250 km (120 to 160 miles) west of Hokkaido, Japan's northern-most main island."The members of the Security Council deplore all Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ballistic missile activities, including these launches," the U.N. body said in a statement, using North Korea's official name."Such activities contribute to (North Korea's) development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and increase tension."Earlier, the United States called for action to enforce Security Council resolutions on North Korea prohibiting ballistic missile-related activities."The Security Council must remain unequivocal and united in the condemnation of these tests and we must take action to enforce the words we put on paper, to enforce our resolutions," said U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, after a Security Council meeting.Power, who spoke along with her Japanese and South Korean counterparts, refrained from elaborating on what further action the Security Council could take.Hahn Choong Hee, South Korea's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said Pyongyang was spending "a considerable amount" of its resources in developing weapons of mass destruction while sacrificing the living conditions of North Koreans.Monday's missile launches were the latest in a series by North Korea this year in violation of Security Council resolutions that were supported by China banning ballistic missile-related activities by Pyongyang.North Korea rejects the ban as infringing its sovereign right to pursue a space program and self defense.Asked whether China agreed more significant measures needed to be taken, permanent British representative to the United Nations, Matthew Rycroft, said: "We're talking to all of our council colleagues."North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006. The 15-member Security Council toughened the sanctions in March in response to North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket in February.The statement from the Security Council said members would closely monitor the situation and "take further significant measures in line with the Council's previously expressed determination" without elaborating further.(Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Alistair Bell)
