JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
WORLD 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)
We want to learn': Iraqi girls back at school after years under Islamic State-[Reuters]-By Ulf Laessing-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi schoolgirl Manar Mahmoud is eager to resume classes after years of life under Islamic State in Mosul, ignoring the nearby rattle of artillery fire.The 13-year-old is back at her old school in the eastern part of the city, which Iraqi forces recaptured from the Sunni Muslim militants in January.Within earshot, fighting is still raging. Just across the River Tigris, government troops, artillery and aircraft are attacking Islamic State's last stronghold in the Old City in western Mosul.But with the first new textbooks having arrived last week, teachers are wasting no time restarting classes. The girls have years of catching-up to do: most of them stopped going to school after the militants overran Mosul in June 2014."We want to learn, we do not want to be ignorant," said Manar, assembling in the courtyard with other girls before classes.The militants had forced the teachers to continue working but most parents pulled out their children, fearing they would be brainwashed with an extreme version of Sunni Islam."They were bad. They used to teach us about jihad (holy war), how to fight," said Manar, wearing the school uniform with a white veil. "Our families prevented us from coming to school."With little interest in girls' education, the militants quickly gave up, closing the school but not destroying it as they did with other public buildings.They searched the library and teachers' rooms, stripping them of valuables and removing books they disapproved of. A room full of Arabic-language teaching books survived -- the militants had tried to shoot open the lock but gave up.In another room are new books on subjects like English and Biology that were halted by IS.The pupils are keen. "I'm very happy," said 8-year old Sara Umar. "It's better to go to school in the morning instead of staying at home."-MIXED ABILITY-The biggest challenge is that the 150 girls enrolled at the school have different knowledge levels after missing almost three years of education."We have to put girls of different ages and knowledge in one class which creates many problems," said the director of the school. "We are seeking more guidance from the ministry of education but not a single official has visited us yet."With Islamic State just gone and the frontline a few blocks away, she and some other teachers asked not to be named, unsure what the future may bring.The teachers all work for free as the government has not yet resumed paying salaries."The school has no running water and electricity," said teacher Umm Mohammed, standing in front of her packed classroom."God willing, we will try to help the children and the pupils forget the suffering they have experienced."(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Mass evacuation in Syria postponed after blast kills 80 kids-[The Canadian Press]-YAHOONEWS-April 16, 2017
BEIRUT — The evacuation of more than 3,000 Syrians that was scheduled to take place Sunday from four areas as part of a population transfer has been postponed, opposition activists said, a day after a deadly blast that killed more than 120 people, many of them government supporters.The reasons for the delay were not immediately clear. It came as shells fired by the Islamic State group on government-held parts of the eastern city of Deir el-Zour wounded two members of a Russian media delegation visiting the area, according to state-run Syrian news agency SANA.Russia is a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russian journalists enjoy wide access in government-held parts of the country.Russia's Anna-News military news service, which employs the journalists, said one was wounded in the arm while the other suffered leg and stomach wounds. The news service said the two were evacuated adding that their condition was "satisfactory."The United Nations is not overseeing the transfer deal, which involves residents of the pro-government villages of Foua and Kfarya and the opposition-held towns of Madaya and Zabadani. All four have been under siege for years, their fate linked through a series of reciprocal agreements that the U.N. says have hindered aid deliveries.Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, earlier said that 3,000 people will be evacuated from Foua and Kfarya, while 200, the vast majority of them fighters, will be evacuated from Zabadani and Madaya.Abdurrahman and opposition activist Hussam Mahmoud, who is from Madaya, said the evacuation has been delayed. Abdurrahman said no permission was given for the evacuation to go ahead while Mahmoud said it has been delayed for "logistical reasons."It was not immediately clear if the evacuees feared attacks similar to Saturday's bombing.Abdurrahman said Saturday's blast —which hit an area where thousands of pro-government evacuees had been waiting for hours — killed 126. He said the dead included 109 people from Foua and Kfarya, among them 80 children and 13 women.No one has claimed the attack, but both the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida-affiliated Fatah al-Sham Front have targeted civilians in government areas in the past.A wounded girl, who said she lost her four siblings in the blast, told Al-Manar TV from her hospital bed that children who had been deprived of food for years in the two villages were approached by a man in the car who told them to come and eat potato chips. She said once many had gathered, there was an explosion that tore some of the children to pieces.Anthony Lake, UNICEF's executive director, said in a statement Sunday that after six years of war and carnage in Syria "there comes a new horror that must break the heart of anyone who has one.""We must draw from this not only anger, but renewed determination to reach all the innocent children throughout Syria with help and comfort," he said.After the blast, some 60 buses carrying 2,200 people, including 400 opposition fighters, entered areas held by rebels in the northern province of Aleppo, Abdurrahman said. More than 50 buses and 20 ambulances carrying some 5,000 Foua and Kfarya residents entered the government-held city of Aleppo, Syrian state TV said, with some of them later reaching a shelter in the village of Jibreen to the south.U.N. relief co-ordinator Stephen O'Brien said he was "horrified" by the deadly bombing, and that while the U.N. was not involved in the transfer it was ready to "scale up our support to evacuees."He called on all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, and to "facilitate safe and unimpeded access for the U.N. and its partners to bring life-saving help to those in need."Residents of Madaya and Zabadani, formerly summer resorts, joined the 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad. Both came under government siege in the ensuing civil war. Residents of Foua and Kfraya, besieged by the rebels, have lived under a steady hail of rockets and mortars for years, but were supplied with food and medicine through military airdrops.Critics say the string of evacuations, which could see some 30,000 people moved across battle lines over the next 60 days, amounts to forced displacement along political and sectarian lines.In eastern Syria, an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition on the village of Sukkarieh near the border with Iraq killed eight civilians who had earlier fled violence in the northern province of Aleppo, according to Deir Ezzor 24, an activist collective, and Sound and Picture Organization, which documents IS violations.Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition had killed dozens of civilians over the past several weeks as the battle against the extremists intensifies in Syria and Iraq.____Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria contributed to this report.Bassem Mroue, The Associated Press.
Turkish PM says people's message clear, referendum has ended all arguments-[Reuters]-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Monday that the people's message was clear after a referendum which will hand President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, and said the vote had ended all arguments.Election authorities said preliminary results showed 51.4 percent of voters had backed the biggest overhaul of Turkish politics since the founding of the modern republic in Sunday's referendum. European monitors said the vote did not live up to international standards.(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Nick Tattersall)
Syrian envoy slams U.S. airfield attack 'message' to North Korea-[Reuters]-By Sue-Lin Wong-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
PYONGYANG (Reuters) - Syria's ambassador to North Korea denounced what he called U.S. aggression and its "history of interventions" on Monday and said that it sending a "message" to North Korea with an attack on a Syrian airfield was irresponsible.North Korea has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions and has said it has developed a missile that can strike the U.S. mainland. Its latest missile test on Sunday failed a few seconds after launch.U.S. Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea on Monday that recent U.S. strikes in Syria, one of North Korea's few close allies, and Afghanistan showed that the resolve of President Donald Trump should not be tested.The U.S. Navy this month struck a Syrian airfield with 59 Tomahawk missiles after a chemical weapons attack. On Thursday, the U.S. military said it had dropped the largest non-nuclear device it had unleashed in combat on a network of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State in Afghanistan.Syrian Ambassador to North Korea Tammam Sulaiman said the United States was wrong to send messages with attacks on other countries."Whatever they do, this is clear aggression. If they want to mention this they ought to do this as a message or whatever, it has no sense to talk about this," he told Reuters, in English."Because what is sense is to see whether the U.S. is really serious in finding solutions, whether in Syria or Korea. If they want to keep sending messages, then you are not talking with a responsible state or a responsible administration. It is not about giving messages, it is about taking a position."A high-level government official at North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Reuters in a separate interview on Monday that North Korea would have been attacked a long time ago like other countries if it did not have strong military capabilities."The Syrian incident proves that our policy to bolster our national defence capabilities by tightening our belts is the correct policy," said Kim Son Gyong, Director General of the European Department at North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Asked whether he thought the U.S. was sending Pyongyang a message by striking Syria, he said: "We are not startled or surprised in the slightest by this kind of act. If the U.S. thinks this kind of thing will startle us, then they have misjudged us."North Korea's KCNA news agency on Monday carried a letter from leader Kim Jong Un to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad marking the 70th anniversary of Syria’s independence."I express again a strong support and alliance to the Syrian government and its people for its work of justice, condemning the United States’ recent violent invasive act against your country," Kim said.Asked to what extent North Korea supported the Syrian military in its fight against rebel forces, Sulaiman said there was "nothing of military cooperation".North Korea in 2013 denied it was sending military aid to the Syrian government after media reports said that Pyongyang had sent advisers and helicopter pilots.Kim Son Gyong declined to comment when asked about the kind of military aid North Korea currently provides Syria.Sulaiman said the "acquisition of nuclear weapons should not be a goal" for any country."But I can understand in the case of North Korea, I can understand why (it) is building its nuclear capabilities to face the American aggression, clear aggression."(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Alison Williams and Hugh Lawson)
Instead of a wall, an open door: Why Ethiopia welcomes an enemy's refugees-[Christian Science Monitor]-James Jeffrey-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
When Yordanos and her two young children slipped safely across the Mereb riverbed between Eritrea and Ethiopia late one recent night, they thought the worst of their journey into exile was over. The smuggler had done his job, and they were safely over the border.Then they heard the hyenas.Yordanos and her children began to yell for help, their panicked calls fading into the solid darkness. Suddenly, she saw a group of Ethiopian soldiers coming towards them. The men comforted the young families, and then escorted them to the nearby town of Badme. “They were like brothers to us,” says Yordanos, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of reprisals from the Eritrean government against her relatives at home.In some regards, Ethiopia – and in particular this sliver of Ethiopia’s arid north – is the last place you might expect an Eritrean refugee like Yordanos to receive a warm welcome. In 1998, after all, an Eritrean invasion of this sleepy border town touched off a two-year war between the two countries that cost tens of thousands of lives and more than $4.5 billion, along with destroying most of the then-flourishing network of trade between the two countries. And before that conflict, Eritreans fought a 30-year civil war for independence from Ethiopia, which ended only in 1991.Even today, the ashes of those conflicts still smolder. The internationally-brokered peace settlement ending the 1998-2000 war decreed that Ethiopia should give this region of the country back to Eritrea, which claims it as historical land. But Ethiopia never did, and border clashes between the two countries’ militaries continue into the present.Still, Yordanos’ story is not uncommon. Fleeing enforced, indefinite military service, illegal imprisonment, and torture, about 165,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers currently live in Ethiopia, according to the United Nations. Upon arrival and registration, they are automatically granted refugee status, and the country continues to welcome more. In February of this year alone, 3,367 new Eritrean refugees arrived in the country, according to Ethiopia’s Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA).“We differentiate between the government and its people,” says Estifanos Gebremedhin, the head of the legal and protection department at ARRA. “We are the same people, we share the same blood, even the same grandfathers.”The reasons for that openness, indeed, owe much to shared history. As in many parts of Africa, colonialism sliced much of this region apart in illogical ways (though Ethiopia itself was never colonized), sowing political conflicts between members of the same community that have persisted to the present day. For much of the roughly 600-mile Ethiopian-Eritrean border, people on both sides share the same language – Tigrinya – as well as Orthodox religion and cultural traditions.“It’s only the Eritrean government creating problems, not the people,” says Benyamin, a resident of Axum, a town in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, who didn’t give his last name. “I haven’t got relatives in Eritrea but many people here do. Some from the refugee camps go to the university here.”But there may also be more strategic reasons for Ethiopia’s open-door policy, experts say.“Ethiopia strongly believes that generous hosting of refugees will be good for regional relationships down the road,” says Jennifer Riggan, an associate professor of international studies at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania, who studies Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia.There’s also an increasing amount of money in hosting refugees, some highlight, as the international community tries to block secondary migration to Europe. One recent example was the joint initiative announced by Britain, the European Union, and the World Bank to fund the building of two industrial parks in Ethiopia to generate about 100,000 jobs, at a cost of $500 million, with Ethiopia required to grant employment rights to 30,000 refugees as part of the deal.It might also be a way of countering international controversy about the Oromo protests and shoring up Ethiopia’s standing in the world, according to Milena Belloni, a researcher in the Department of Sociology at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, who is currently writing a book about Eritrean refugees. The protests, which roiled the country's largest region throughout 2016, have prompted a government crackdown that left hundreds of Ethiopians dead and sharply curtailed basic freedoms, according to human rights groups.Either way, Ethiopia’s approach is in marked contrast to the strategies of reducing migrant flows that are being adopted in much of the West, Dr. Riggan says.“Ethiopia's response is to manage the gate, and figure out how it can benefit from these inevitable flows of people,” she notes. “I definitely think Ethiopia's approach is the wiser and more realistic one.”After Yordanos, her children, and another mother and her two children who crossed with them were collected by the soldiers near Badme, they were taken into town and left at a so-called “entry point,” a cluster of disheveled government buildings. From there, refugees join the bureaucratic and logistic conveyor belt that assigns them asylum status and moves them to one of four refugee camps in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.There, relationships between refugees and locals do sometimes grow strained, particularly as both groups compete for scarce shared resources like firewood and cattle pastures. And many Eritrean refugees regard Ethiopia as only a stopover point on their journey to the West. In 2013, there was unrest in all four camps, with riots in two camps, Adi Harush and Mai Aini, when refugees demanded more opportunities for international resettlement and protested authorities' alleged corruption.“People recognize the shared culture and ethnic background, and that helps for many things, but there’s still distrust because of the 30-year-war [for independence], and mostly due to 1998-2000 border conflict and related mass displacement,” says Dr. Belloni. “There’s a double narrative.”In addition to the camps, meanwhile, thousands more Eritreans live in Ethiopia outside the asylum system, both legally and illegally. About 650 miles south of the border, in the capital Addis Ababa, whole neighborhoods function as Eritrean enclaves, where the distinctive, guttural sounds of Tigrinya pour out of cafes with Italian-sounding names like Lattria Piccolo, a nod to Eritrea’s history as an Italian colony.But even here, homesickness sometimes creeps in.“Life is difficult here, it’s expensive, and people’s behavior changes here,” says Yonathon, an Eritrean former journalist living in the Mebrat Hail suburb of Addis Ababa, an Eritrean area. “You can’t replicate home.”
Rescue on the Mediterranean: suffering, death and hope-[Reuters]-By Darrin Zammit Lupi-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
ABOARD THE PHOENIX, OFF THE LIBYAN COAST (Reuters) - Reuters photographer Darrin Zammit Lupi has been on the Phoenix, a migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean operated by MOAS, a Malta-based NGO, since April 1. This past weekend, he witnessed some of the most dramatic scenes of his career. Below is the account of his experience.They were three days of suffering, death and, most importantly, hope. From Good Friday to Easter Sunday, I experienced those raw emotions aboard a migrant rescue ship.We saved thousands of migrants, counted the dead, and covered the shivering. All in a day's work for the crew of the Phoenix, one of the rescue ships plying the waters of the southern Mediterranean trying to make the sea less of a cemetery.I started working on the migration story almost 19 years ago. In all this time, I've never experienced anything remotely close to what this Easter holiday weekend has been like.From the Phoenix, rescuers use Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs) to reach rubber dinghies or rickety wooden boats packed with migrants, usually from sub-Saharan Africa.In one episode, on Good Friday, a group of migrants were issued with life jackets and lined up on the edge of their dinghy, ready to transfer to an RHIB. Suddenly one of them slipped and fell into the sea, taking 10 others with him.Through my lens I saw two people going under. One stretched out a hand towards me from about 4 meters (yards) away. The rescuers jumped in and saved both. I put down my cameras and helped pull some on board.The next day was intense in a different way.Hundreds more people were taken on from rubber dinghies that surrounded the Phoenix, seeming at times like black beads of a large floating rosary.By nightfall, Phoenix was already packed to capacity but we had to take another 70 people off one of the boats because it risked going under.It was all hands on deck at this point. No time for photos. Cameras down, I was assigned to the rescue zone/embarkation doorway.One crew member called it the "doorway to life". Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta called the "Door of Mercy", when he visited the ship before we set sail.My job was to clasp the hands of migrants who were on the rescue RHIBs and pull them up onto the Phoenix. I spent much of the rest of the night helping keep an eye on the new arrivals out on the bow, which is very rarely used for migrants as it's highly exposed to wind and water.On Easter Sunday, although overloaded with 450 migrants, we headed to the scene of another rescue operation. We passed several empty life jackets and one dead migrant floating face down in the water. We would have to try and retrieve the body later. We needed to concentrate on the living.At the scene, we helped the rescuers of another NGO ship, the Sea-Eye, take bodies off a flooded dinghy. Those migrants had died waiting to be rescued. I covered the face of a dead woman with a discarded shirt and said a silent prayer.We took on seven bodies. Others may still be out there.As we sail towards Sicily to bring our human cargo to dry land, we are moving slowly. We are overloaded. The sea is not merciful today. If we move any faster, waves will break over the migrants, huddled and exhausted, on the bow.For many, Easter Monday is a day of hope. For me, that hope was incarnated in the smile of a Somali mother when we rescued her and her 12-day-old baby.(Writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Arrests highlight Pakistan's struggle with extremism-[Associated Press]-ASIF SHAHZAD-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani authorities said Monday they have arrested 22 people involved in the lynching of a university student who was accused of blasphemy and detained a teenage woman who had been recruited by the Islamic State group for a foiled attack on a church.Word of the arrests came as U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser arrived for talks on combatting militants in South Asia, highlighting Pakistan's struggle with Islamic extremism.The 16 students and six university employees are believed to have incited or taken part in the mob that killed 23-year-old Mohammad Mashal Khan, provincial police chief Salahuddin Mehsud said. The student was beaten and shot to death at a university in the northwestern city of Mardan on Thursday.Mehsud said no evidence has been found to indicate Khan committed blasphemy against Islam, which is punishable by death in Pakistan. The mere suspicion of blasphemy is enough to incite deadly riots in the deeply conservative country.Pakistan had recently vowed to combat the sharing of blasphemous material on social media, and has tried to enlist Facebook and Twitter in the campaign.A military spokesman meanwhile said authorities detained a teenage woman earlier this month who had been recruited by the Islamic State group to carry out a suicide attack against a church on Easter.Noreen Leghari, 19, was detained after a previously reported shootout on April 14, the day before Easter, in which another militant was killed, said Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor.The new details on the raid were released as H.R. McMaster, the U.S. national security adviser, arrived on his first visit since the United States dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State tunnel complex in neighboring Afghanistan.McMaster arrived in Islamabad after holding talks in Afghanistan on efforts to combat the Taliban and the IS group's Afghan affiliate. The U.S. dropped the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, on an Islamic State tunnel complex carved into a mountain in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, reportedly killing 95 militants.McMaster met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other senior officials. Pakistan's foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz said Islamabad remained committed to working for peace and reconciliation in neighboring Afghanistan, and that officials meeting with McMaster had discussed efforts to secure the border.The U.S. Embassy said McMaster "expressed appreciation for Pakistan's democratic and economic development, and stressed the need to confront terrorism in all its forms."Pakistan has long sought to downplay the growing presence of Islamic State militants, who have claimed a number of attacks in recent months. Monday's announcement marked the first time Pakistani officials have acknowledged that the extremist group based in Syria and Iraq is recruiting within the South Asian country.Pakistan has been struggling to combat the much larger and more well-established Pakistani Taliban, which emerged after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and have carried out attacks that have killed tens of thousands of people.The Islamic State group is believed to have recruited disgruntled Taliban fighters in both Pakistan and Afghanistan with its promise of building a worldwide Islamic caliphate.Leghari was recruited via Facebook, and went missing in February, later marrying an Islamic State fighter who was killed in the April 14 raid, a Pakistani security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters. He said the woman had fought alongside her husband during the raid and shot at security forces.Ghafoor suggested she had fallen prey to the group's online propaganda. He portrayed her detention as a rescue and said "we will rehabilitate her."___Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan and Zaheer Babar in Lahore, Pakistan contributed to this report.
Mosul operation has displaced nearly half a million: UN-[AFP]-Jean-Marc MOJON-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
Baghdad (AFP) - Nearly half a million people have fled their homes since Iraqi forces launched an operation to wrest Mosul back from jihadists exactly six months ago, the United Nations said Monday.Iraqi forces began the country's biggest military operation in years on October 17 last year and recaptured the east side of the city in January.But an assault launched the following month on the part of Mosul that lies west of the Tigris river has seen a sharp rise in displacement."The sheer volume of civilians still fleeing Mosul city is staggering," Lise Grande, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement."Our worst case scenario when the fighting started was that up to one million civilians may flee Mosul. Already, more than 493,000 people have left, leaving almost everything behind," she said.Iraqi forces have been making significant gains in west Mosul over the past two months but the toughest battles could yet lie ahead, with diehard Islamic State group jihadists hunkering down in the treacherous streets of the Old City.The UN estimated that another half million civilians were still in IS-controlled areas of west Mosul."Mosul has pushed us to our operational limits," said Grande.UN chief Antonio Guterres said on March 31 during a visit to a displacement camp near Mosul that the aid effort was woefully underfunded and called for greater international solidarity.Around two thirds of the overall number of displaced people fled their homes in west Mosul over the past two months alone.- Children exposed -Grande said the fighting there was tougher than on the east bank, which may explain why some residents who had planned to weather the fighting and stay eventually had to escape."There are more trauma injuries, homes are being destroyed, food stocks are dwindling quickly and families are at serious risk because there isn't enough drinking water," she said.The UN has been expanding the capacity of some of the camps scattered around Mosul but the aid community could yet have to deal with an unprecedented exodus if and when the remaining civilians flee the city.More than half of those who have fled Mosul and its surroundings are children and the UN voiced concern that those still in IS-controlled areas would be more exposed than ever before."We have seen children with signs of psychological distress while others have been injured in the fighting, or used as human shields," the UN Children's Fund said.Heavy rain swept one of the main floating bridges across the Tigris south of Mosul and forced the security forces to close another over the weekend, further complicating the military and humanitarian effort.The Joint Operations Command coordinating the fight against IS said engineering teams were deployed and hoping to reopen the bridges in the coming days.People were allowed to cross the bridge near Hammam al-Alil on foot Monday but vehicles were still stuck.All five bridges across the Tigris inside Mosul itself have been destroyed in air strikes or by the jihadists.In east Mosul, many of those displaced in the early stages of the operation have returned.Life has yet to return to normal however, since people and goods cannot yet move freely and key infrastructure was damaged in the fighting.
Trump appointee Gorsuch energetic in first U.S. high court arguments-[Reuters]-By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's appointee Neil Gorsuch on Monday showed himself to be a frequent and energetic questioner during U.S. Supreme Court arguments in his first day hearing cases as a justice, at one point even apologising for talking too much.Gorsuch, whose confirmation to the lifetime job restored the court's conservative majority, exhibited composure and confidence, sitting on the far right of the bench in the ornate courtroom, alongside Justice Sonia Sotomayor.The first of the three one-hour arguments before the justices on Monday involved an employment dispute. Gorsuch grilled lawyer Christopher Landau, who represented a man claiming he was discriminated against by the U.S. Census Bureau, over the fine points of a law governing civil service employees.The justices, with the exception of the usually silent Clarence Thomas, are known for their aggressive questioning, and Gorsuch showed no qualms about jumping right in."I apologise for taking up so much time," the black-robed Gorsuch said, sitting back in his high-backed chair and smiling.Chief Justice John Roberts welcomed Gorsuch to the court before oral arguments began. "Justice Gorsuch, we wish you a long and happy career in our common calling," Roberts said.Gorsuch responded by thanking his new colleagues for their "warm welcome."In total, Gorsuch stepped in three times during the first one-hour argument, on each occasion asking a string of questions about the complicated federal law at issue. As he indicated during his Senate confirmation hearing last month, his line of inquiry focused on the text of the statute, an approach also embraced by the man he replaced on the court, Antonin Scalia, and other conservative jurists.Citing a section of the Civil Service Reform Act, Gorsuch asked Landau where in the statute does it say federal district courts may hear cases involving both discrimination and civil service claims."Looking at the plain language of the statute, just help me with that," Gorsuch said.-A FULL COMPLEMENT-The court had its full complement of nine justices, five conservatives and four liberals, for arguments for the first time since Scalia's death in February 2016.The second case he heard involved a property dispute. One of the lawyers in the case, Neal Katyal, was a familiar face to Gorsuch, having heartily endorsed his nomination to the high court, even testifying at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.The third case, to be argued later in the day, involved a dispute over whether certain securities class-action lawsuits can be barred because they were filed too late.Gorsuch formally joined the Supreme Court on April 10 after being confirmed three days earlier by the Republican-led Senate over broad Democratic opposition.Gorsuch, at 49 the youngest new justice in a quarter century, served for a decade on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before Trump nominated him in January. Trump was able to fill Scalia's vacancy only because Senate Republicans last year refused to consider Democratic former President Barack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland.The second case involved whether a developer can intervene in a lawsuit brought by a property owner against the town of Chester, New York over its refusal to give him permission to build on his land. Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general in Obama's Justice Department, represented the town.Republicans backing Gorsuch's confirmation often cited liberal Katyal's endorsement as evidence that the judge enjoyed support across the political spectrum.Katyal, who regularly argues cases in the court, is also scheduled to argue before the justices on April 25 on behalf of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co in a case over out-of-state injury claims.(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
U.S. says notes concerns of European monitors in Turkey referendum-[Reuters]-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Monday it had taken note of concerns by European monitors of Turkey's referendum and looked forward to a final report, suggesting it will withhold comment until a full assessment was completed.An initial assessment by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Sunday's referendum, which granted Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, did not meet democratic norms."We look forward to OSCE/ODIHR's final report, which we understand will take several weeks," acting spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
EXODUS 20:13
13 Thou shalt not kill.(Murder)(THAT INCLUDES ABORTION)
EXODUS 21:12
12 He that smiteth (MURDER)a man,(OR BABY) so that he die, shall be surely put to death.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY PEOPLE)
IF POLICE SEE AND CATCH THIS COLD BLOODED MURDERER. THEY SHOULD INSTANTLY SEND HIM TO HELL TO BURN IN TORMENTS FOREVER BECAUSE OF HIS SIN OF MURDERING AN INNOCENT PERSON.
Five state manhunt for suspected Facebook killer-[AFP]-Nova SAFO, Jim MANNION-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
Chicago (AFP) - US police widened a manhunt on Monday for a gunman who shot and killed an elderly man on Facebook Live in a seemingly random Easter Sunday attack, and then vowed to continue killing.Police in Cleveland, Ohio said they believe the suspect, 37-year-old Steve Stephens, is armed and dangerous, and have alerted authorities in four neighboring states to be on the lookout for him.Robert Godwin Sr, 74, was shot and killed on Sunday, apparently picked out at random as he walked home after an Easter dinner, police and local media reported."We know that Steve is still out there someplace," said Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams. "We don't know his condition and, of course, right now we don't know his location. We're asking the public to remain vigilant."Police issued an arrest warrant for aggravated homicide against Stephens, described as a six-foot one-inch, 244-pound black man with a full beard who was last seen in a white Ford Fusion with temporary license plates.In a video uploaded to Stephens's Facebook page, a man resembling him is seen exiting a vehicle and approaching his victim, who is shown with a gun to his head and then falling to the ground after a shot is fired."I killed 13, so I'm working on 14 as we speak," the suspect says in a second video clip.The videos were subsequently taken down by Facebook.- 'Mad with his girlfriend' -Police said Stephens broadcast the killing on Facebook Live but said they have not verified his claim to have committed other murders.Stephens' mother told CNN she called him on Sunday after learning about the video and he told her he was shooting people because he was "mad with his girlfriend."Police said the woman he alluded to was in a safe place.Cleveland detectives also made contact with Stephens by phone early in the investigation, Williams said."They tried to, of course, convince him to turn himself in and, of course, that hasn't happened to date so again, we're asking the public's help in finding this guy. We know he's out there someplace," he said.The last "ping" from Stephens's cellphone was from Eerie, Pennsylvania, about 100 miles east of Cleveland.Cleveland police have asked the states of Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana and Michigan to be on alert.- Dozens of searches -The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Marshals Service have joined the hunt."This man is dangerous and he could be nearby, he could be far away, anywhere in between," said Stephen Anthony, the FBI special agent in charge."We're going to make this individual's world very, very, very small, so I'm very optimistic," said Peter Elliot, the marshal on the case. "I think things are going to happen, and I believe things are going to happen pretty quickly."But Williams said police had searched dozens of locations overnight "to no avail.""If there's somebody who is helping Steve or think you're helping Steve, you're really not. You're going to get yourself in trouble, along with him," he warned.Stephens worked for Beech Brook, a behavioral health agency serving children through mental health services, foster care and adoption, at-risk youth and other programs.In his video, Stephens displayed his Beech Brook badge."We are shocked and horrified like everyone else," Nancy Kortemeyer, a spokeswoman for the facility told CNN. "To think that one of our employees could do this is awful."
Prince Harry shares emotional struggles after Diana's death-[Associated Press]-GREGORY KATZ-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
LONDON (AP) — It is an image those who saw it will never forget: Prince William and Prince Harry — just boys, really — walking silently behind their mother's cortege as the world mourned Princess Diana's death in 1997.Now Harry has revealed for the first time that losing his mother when he was only 12 left him in emotional turmoil for 20 years, filling him with grief and rage he could only manage after he sought counseling.Breaking sharply with the royal tradition of maintaining a stoic silence about mental health, the 32-year-old prince told The Daily Telegraph in an interview published Monday that he had nearly suffered multiple breakdowns since his mother's death.It was by far the most frank interview of Harry's life and gives the public a much fuller view of Harry and the inner turmoil he suffered growing up in the public eye after losing his mother.He told the newspaper he "shut down all his emotions" for nearly 20 years and had been "very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions."He describes a long, painful process of refusing to face his sense of loss that only came to an end when he was in his late 20s and sought professional counseling to cope with the pressures and unhappiness."My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help?" he said of his teens and 20s, a period in which he embarked on a successful military career but also occasionally attracted unwanted headlines, notably for being photographed playing "strip billiards" in Las Vegas.In the interview, Harry said he had at times felt "on the verge of punching someone" and had taken up boxing as an outlet for the aggression he felt.He said the long suppression of his grief eventually led to "two years of total chaos."He said he was pretending that life was great until he started counseling and faced his problems head on."All of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the forefront and I was like, there is actually a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with," he said.Along with his brother Prince William and sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge, Harry has worked with a charity that promotes mental health. They have argued that mental health problems must be given the same priority as other illnesses and should be spoken about openly and without stigma.Harry has also worked extensively with wounded veterans and has organized the Invictus Games to foster international sporting competition for injured or ill service personnel and veterans.Harry told interviewer Bryony Gordon, who has written extensively about her own struggles with depression and other issues, that he is in a "good place" now, and praised William for helping him seek help after many years of suffering in silence.He credited counseling with helping him recover."I've now been able to take my work seriously, been able to take my private life seriously as well, and been able to put blood, sweat and tears into the things that really make a difference and things that I think will make a difference to everybody else," he said.Harry has also formed a romantic relationship with American actress Meghan Markle and in November took the unusual step of chastising the press for harassing her.Harry and William have both been wary of press coverage, in part because of the way photographers shadowed their mother's every move.
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)
We want to learn': Iraqi girls back at school after years under Islamic State-[Reuters]-By Ulf Laessing-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi schoolgirl Manar Mahmoud is eager to resume classes after years of life under Islamic State in Mosul, ignoring the nearby rattle of artillery fire.The 13-year-old is back at her old school in the eastern part of the city, which Iraqi forces recaptured from the Sunni Muslim militants in January.Within earshot, fighting is still raging. Just across the River Tigris, government troops, artillery and aircraft are attacking Islamic State's last stronghold in the Old City in western Mosul.But with the first new textbooks having arrived last week, teachers are wasting no time restarting classes. The girls have years of catching-up to do: most of them stopped going to school after the militants overran Mosul in June 2014."We want to learn, we do not want to be ignorant," said Manar, assembling in the courtyard with other girls before classes.The militants had forced the teachers to continue working but most parents pulled out their children, fearing they would be brainwashed with an extreme version of Sunni Islam."They were bad. They used to teach us about jihad (holy war), how to fight," said Manar, wearing the school uniform with a white veil. "Our families prevented us from coming to school."With little interest in girls' education, the militants quickly gave up, closing the school but not destroying it as they did with other public buildings.They searched the library and teachers' rooms, stripping them of valuables and removing books they disapproved of. A room full of Arabic-language teaching books survived -- the militants had tried to shoot open the lock but gave up.In another room are new books on subjects like English and Biology that were halted by IS.The pupils are keen. "I'm very happy," said 8-year old Sara Umar. "It's better to go to school in the morning instead of staying at home."-MIXED ABILITY-The biggest challenge is that the 150 girls enrolled at the school have different knowledge levels after missing almost three years of education."We have to put girls of different ages and knowledge in one class which creates many problems," said the director of the school. "We are seeking more guidance from the ministry of education but not a single official has visited us yet."With Islamic State just gone and the frontline a few blocks away, she and some other teachers asked not to be named, unsure what the future may bring.The teachers all work for free as the government has not yet resumed paying salaries."The school has no running water and electricity," said teacher Umm Mohammed, standing in front of her packed classroom."God willing, we will try to help the children and the pupils forget the suffering they have experienced."(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Mass evacuation in Syria postponed after blast kills 80 kids-[The Canadian Press]-YAHOONEWS-April 16, 2017
BEIRUT — The evacuation of more than 3,000 Syrians that was scheduled to take place Sunday from four areas as part of a population transfer has been postponed, opposition activists said, a day after a deadly blast that killed more than 120 people, many of them government supporters.The reasons for the delay were not immediately clear. It came as shells fired by the Islamic State group on government-held parts of the eastern city of Deir el-Zour wounded two members of a Russian media delegation visiting the area, according to state-run Syrian news agency SANA.Russia is a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russian journalists enjoy wide access in government-held parts of the country.Russia's Anna-News military news service, which employs the journalists, said one was wounded in the arm while the other suffered leg and stomach wounds. The news service said the two were evacuated adding that their condition was "satisfactory."The United Nations is not overseeing the transfer deal, which involves residents of the pro-government villages of Foua and Kfarya and the opposition-held towns of Madaya and Zabadani. All four have been under siege for years, their fate linked through a series of reciprocal agreements that the U.N. says have hindered aid deliveries.Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, earlier said that 3,000 people will be evacuated from Foua and Kfarya, while 200, the vast majority of them fighters, will be evacuated from Zabadani and Madaya.Abdurrahman and opposition activist Hussam Mahmoud, who is from Madaya, said the evacuation has been delayed. Abdurrahman said no permission was given for the evacuation to go ahead while Mahmoud said it has been delayed for "logistical reasons."It was not immediately clear if the evacuees feared attacks similar to Saturday's bombing.Abdurrahman said Saturday's blast —which hit an area where thousands of pro-government evacuees had been waiting for hours — killed 126. He said the dead included 109 people from Foua and Kfarya, among them 80 children and 13 women.No one has claimed the attack, but both the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida-affiliated Fatah al-Sham Front have targeted civilians in government areas in the past.A wounded girl, who said she lost her four siblings in the blast, told Al-Manar TV from her hospital bed that children who had been deprived of food for years in the two villages were approached by a man in the car who told them to come and eat potato chips. She said once many had gathered, there was an explosion that tore some of the children to pieces.Anthony Lake, UNICEF's executive director, said in a statement Sunday that after six years of war and carnage in Syria "there comes a new horror that must break the heart of anyone who has one.""We must draw from this not only anger, but renewed determination to reach all the innocent children throughout Syria with help and comfort," he said.After the blast, some 60 buses carrying 2,200 people, including 400 opposition fighters, entered areas held by rebels in the northern province of Aleppo, Abdurrahman said. More than 50 buses and 20 ambulances carrying some 5,000 Foua and Kfarya residents entered the government-held city of Aleppo, Syrian state TV said, with some of them later reaching a shelter in the village of Jibreen to the south.U.N. relief co-ordinator Stephen O'Brien said he was "horrified" by the deadly bombing, and that while the U.N. was not involved in the transfer it was ready to "scale up our support to evacuees."He called on all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, and to "facilitate safe and unimpeded access for the U.N. and its partners to bring life-saving help to those in need."Residents of Madaya and Zabadani, formerly summer resorts, joined the 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad. Both came under government siege in the ensuing civil war. Residents of Foua and Kfraya, besieged by the rebels, have lived under a steady hail of rockets and mortars for years, but were supplied with food and medicine through military airdrops.Critics say the string of evacuations, which could see some 30,000 people moved across battle lines over the next 60 days, amounts to forced displacement along political and sectarian lines.In eastern Syria, an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition on the village of Sukkarieh near the border with Iraq killed eight civilians who had earlier fled violence in the northern province of Aleppo, according to Deir Ezzor 24, an activist collective, and Sound and Picture Organization, which documents IS violations.Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition had killed dozens of civilians over the past several weeks as the battle against the extremists intensifies in Syria and Iraq.____Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria contributed to this report.Bassem Mroue, The Associated Press.
Turkish PM says people's message clear, referendum has ended all arguments-[Reuters]-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Monday that the people's message was clear after a referendum which will hand President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, and said the vote had ended all arguments.Election authorities said preliminary results showed 51.4 percent of voters had backed the biggest overhaul of Turkish politics since the founding of the modern republic in Sunday's referendum. European monitors said the vote did not live up to international standards.(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Nick Tattersall)
Syrian envoy slams U.S. airfield attack 'message' to North Korea-[Reuters]-By Sue-Lin Wong-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
PYONGYANG (Reuters) - Syria's ambassador to North Korea denounced what he called U.S. aggression and its "history of interventions" on Monday and said that it sending a "message" to North Korea with an attack on a Syrian airfield was irresponsible.North Korea has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions and has said it has developed a missile that can strike the U.S. mainland. Its latest missile test on Sunday failed a few seconds after launch.U.S. Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea on Monday that recent U.S. strikes in Syria, one of North Korea's few close allies, and Afghanistan showed that the resolve of President Donald Trump should not be tested.The U.S. Navy this month struck a Syrian airfield with 59 Tomahawk missiles after a chemical weapons attack. On Thursday, the U.S. military said it had dropped the largest non-nuclear device it had unleashed in combat on a network of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State in Afghanistan.Syrian Ambassador to North Korea Tammam Sulaiman said the United States was wrong to send messages with attacks on other countries."Whatever they do, this is clear aggression. If they want to mention this they ought to do this as a message or whatever, it has no sense to talk about this," he told Reuters, in English."Because what is sense is to see whether the U.S. is really serious in finding solutions, whether in Syria or Korea. If they want to keep sending messages, then you are not talking with a responsible state or a responsible administration. It is not about giving messages, it is about taking a position."A high-level government official at North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Reuters in a separate interview on Monday that North Korea would have been attacked a long time ago like other countries if it did not have strong military capabilities."The Syrian incident proves that our policy to bolster our national defence capabilities by tightening our belts is the correct policy," said Kim Son Gyong, Director General of the European Department at North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Asked whether he thought the U.S. was sending Pyongyang a message by striking Syria, he said: "We are not startled or surprised in the slightest by this kind of act. If the U.S. thinks this kind of thing will startle us, then they have misjudged us."North Korea's KCNA news agency on Monday carried a letter from leader Kim Jong Un to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad marking the 70th anniversary of Syria’s independence."I express again a strong support and alliance to the Syrian government and its people for its work of justice, condemning the United States’ recent violent invasive act against your country," Kim said.Asked to what extent North Korea supported the Syrian military in its fight against rebel forces, Sulaiman said there was "nothing of military cooperation".North Korea in 2013 denied it was sending military aid to the Syrian government after media reports said that Pyongyang had sent advisers and helicopter pilots.Kim Son Gyong declined to comment when asked about the kind of military aid North Korea currently provides Syria.Sulaiman said the "acquisition of nuclear weapons should not be a goal" for any country."But I can understand in the case of North Korea, I can understand why (it) is building its nuclear capabilities to face the American aggression, clear aggression."(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Alison Williams and Hugh Lawson)
Instead of a wall, an open door: Why Ethiopia welcomes an enemy's refugees-[Christian Science Monitor]-James Jeffrey-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
When Yordanos and her two young children slipped safely across the Mereb riverbed between Eritrea and Ethiopia late one recent night, they thought the worst of their journey into exile was over. The smuggler had done his job, and they were safely over the border.Then they heard the hyenas.Yordanos and her children began to yell for help, their panicked calls fading into the solid darkness. Suddenly, she saw a group of Ethiopian soldiers coming towards them. The men comforted the young families, and then escorted them to the nearby town of Badme. “They were like brothers to us,” says Yordanos, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of reprisals from the Eritrean government against her relatives at home.In some regards, Ethiopia – and in particular this sliver of Ethiopia’s arid north – is the last place you might expect an Eritrean refugee like Yordanos to receive a warm welcome. In 1998, after all, an Eritrean invasion of this sleepy border town touched off a two-year war between the two countries that cost tens of thousands of lives and more than $4.5 billion, along with destroying most of the then-flourishing network of trade between the two countries. And before that conflict, Eritreans fought a 30-year civil war for independence from Ethiopia, which ended only in 1991.Even today, the ashes of those conflicts still smolder. The internationally-brokered peace settlement ending the 1998-2000 war decreed that Ethiopia should give this region of the country back to Eritrea, which claims it as historical land. But Ethiopia never did, and border clashes between the two countries’ militaries continue into the present.Still, Yordanos’ story is not uncommon. Fleeing enforced, indefinite military service, illegal imprisonment, and torture, about 165,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers currently live in Ethiopia, according to the United Nations. Upon arrival and registration, they are automatically granted refugee status, and the country continues to welcome more. In February of this year alone, 3,367 new Eritrean refugees arrived in the country, according to Ethiopia’s Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA).“We differentiate between the government and its people,” says Estifanos Gebremedhin, the head of the legal and protection department at ARRA. “We are the same people, we share the same blood, even the same grandfathers.”The reasons for that openness, indeed, owe much to shared history. As in many parts of Africa, colonialism sliced much of this region apart in illogical ways (though Ethiopia itself was never colonized), sowing political conflicts between members of the same community that have persisted to the present day. For much of the roughly 600-mile Ethiopian-Eritrean border, people on both sides share the same language – Tigrinya – as well as Orthodox religion and cultural traditions.“It’s only the Eritrean government creating problems, not the people,” says Benyamin, a resident of Axum, a town in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, who didn’t give his last name. “I haven’t got relatives in Eritrea but many people here do. Some from the refugee camps go to the university here.”But there may also be more strategic reasons for Ethiopia’s open-door policy, experts say.“Ethiopia strongly believes that generous hosting of refugees will be good for regional relationships down the road,” says Jennifer Riggan, an associate professor of international studies at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania, who studies Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia.There’s also an increasing amount of money in hosting refugees, some highlight, as the international community tries to block secondary migration to Europe. One recent example was the joint initiative announced by Britain, the European Union, and the World Bank to fund the building of two industrial parks in Ethiopia to generate about 100,000 jobs, at a cost of $500 million, with Ethiopia required to grant employment rights to 30,000 refugees as part of the deal.It might also be a way of countering international controversy about the Oromo protests and shoring up Ethiopia’s standing in the world, according to Milena Belloni, a researcher in the Department of Sociology at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, who is currently writing a book about Eritrean refugees. The protests, which roiled the country's largest region throughout 2016, have prompted a government crackdown that left hundreds of Ethiopians dead and sharply curtailed basic freedoms, according to human rights groups.Either way, Ethiopia’s approach is in marked contrast to the strategies of reducing migrant flows that are being adopted in much of the West, Dr. Riggan says.“Ethiopia's response is to manage the gate, and figure out how it can benefit from these inevitable flows of people,” she notes. “I definitely think Ethiopia's approach is the wiser and more realistic one.”After Yordanos, her children, and another mother and her two children who crossed with them were collected by the soldiers near Badme, they were taken into town and left at a so-called “entry point,” a cluster of disheveled government buildings. From there, refugees join the bureaucratic and logistic conveyor belt that assigns them asylum status and moves them to one of four refugee camps in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.There, relationships between refugees and locals do sometimes grow strained, particularly as both groups compete for scarce shared resources like firewood and cattle pastures. And many Eritrean refugees regard Ethiopia as only a stopover point on their journey to the West. In 2013, there was unrest in all four camps, with riots in two camps, Adi Harush and Mai Aini, when refugees demanded more opportunities for international resettlement and protested authorities' alleged corruption.“People recognize the shared culture and ethnic background, and that helps for many things, but there’s still distrust because of the 30-year-war [for independence], and mostly due to 1998-2000 border conflict and related mass displacement,” says Dr. Belloni. “There’s a double narrative.”In addition to the camps, meanwhile, thousands more Eritreans live in Ethiopia outside the asylum system, both legally and illegally. About 650 miles south of the border, in the capital Addis Ababa, whole neighborhoods function as Eritrean enclaves, where the distinctive, guttural sounds of Tigrinya pour out of cafes with Italian-sounding names like Lattria Piccolo, a nod to Eritrea’s history as an Italian colony.But even here, homesickness sometimes creeps in.“Life is difficult here, it’s expensive, and people’s behavior changes here,” says Yonathon, an Eritrean former journalist living in the Mebrat Hail suburb of Addis Ababa, an Eritrean area. “You can’t replicate home.”
Rescue on the Mediterranean: suffering, death and hope-[Reuters]-By Darrin Zammit Lupi-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
ABOARD THE PHOENIX, OFF THE LIBYAN COAST (Reuters) - Reuters photographer Darrin Zammit Lupi has been on the Phoenix, a migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean operated by MOAS, a Malta-based NGO, since April 1. This past weekend, he witnessed some of the most dramatic scenes of his career. Below is the account of his experience.They were three days of suffering, death and, most importantly, hope. From Good Friday to Easter Sunday, I experienced those raw emotions aboard a migrant rescue ship.We saved thousands of migrants, counted the dead, and covered the shivering. All in a day's work for the crew of the Phoenix, one of the rescue ships plying the waters of the southern Mediterranean trying to make the sea less of a cemetery.I started working on the migration story almost 19 years ago. In all this time, I've never experienced anything remotely close to what this Easter holiday weekend has been like.From the Phoenix, rescuers use Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs) to reach rubber dinghies or rickety wooden boats packed with migrants, usually from sub-Saharan Africa.In one episode, on Good Friday, a group of migrants were issued with life jackets and lined up on the edge of their dinghy, ready to transfer to an RHIB. Suddenly one of them slipped and fell into the sea, taking 10 others with him.Through my lens I saw two people going under. One stretched out a hand towards me from about 4 meters (yards) away. The rescuers jumped in and saved both. I put down my cameras and helped pull some on board.The next day was intense in a different way.Hundreds more people were taken on from rubber dinghies that surrounded the Phoenix, seeming at times like black beads of a large floating rosary.By nightfall, Phoenix was already packed to capacity but we had to take another 70 people off one of the boats because it risked going under.It was all hands on deck at this point. No time for photos. Cameras down, I was assigned to the rescue zone/embarkation doorway.One crew member called it the "doorway to life". Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta called the "Door of Mercy", when he visited the ship before we set sail.My job was to clasp the hands of migrants who were on the rescue RHIBs and pull them up onto the Phoenix. I spent much of the rest of the night helping keep an eye on the new arrivals out on the bow, which is very rarely used for migrants as it's highly exposed to wind and water.On Easter Sunday, although overloaded with 450 migrants, we headed to the scene of another rescue operation. We passed several empty life jackets and one dead migrant floating face down in the water. We would have to try and retrieve the body later. We needed to concentrate on the living.At the scene, we helped the rescuers of another NGO ship, the Sea-Eye, take bodies off a flooded dinghy. Those migrants had died waiting to be rescued. I covered the face of a dead woman with a discarded shirt and said a silent prayer.We took on seven bodies. Others may still be out there.As we sail towards Sicily to bring our human cargo to dry land, we are moving slowly. We are overloaded. The sea is not merciful today. If we move any faster, waves will break over the migrants, huddled and exhausted, on the bow.For many, Easter Monday is a day of hope. For me, that hope was incarnated in the smile of a Somali mother when we rescued her and her 12-day-old baby.(Writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Arrests highlight Pakistan's struggle with extremism-[Associated Press]-ASIF SHAHZAD-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani authorities said Monday they have arrested 22 people involved in the lynching of a university student who was accused of blasphemy and detained a teenage woman who had been recruited by the Islamic State group for a foiled attack on a church.Word of the arrests came as U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser arrived for talks on combatting militants in South Asia, highlighting Pakistan's struggle with Islamic extremism.The 16 students and six university employees are believed to have incited or taken part in the mob that killed 23-year-old Mohammad Mashal Khan, provincial police chief Salahuddin Mehsud said. The student was beaten and shot to death at a university in the northwestern city of Mardan on Thursday.Mehsud said no evidence has been found to indicate Khan committed blasphemy against Islam, which is punishable by death in Pakistan. The mere suspicion of blasphemy is enough to incite deadly riots in the deeply conservative country.Pakistan had recently vowed to combat the sharing of blasphemous material on social media, and has tried to enlist Facebook and Twitter in the campaign.A military spokesman meanwhile said authorities detained a teenage woman earlier this month who had been recruited by the Islamic State group to carry out a suicide attack against a church on Easter.Noreen Leghari, 19, was detained after a previously reported shootout on April 14, the day before Easter, in which another militant was killed, said Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor.The new details on the raid were released as H.R. McMaster, the U.S. national security adviser, arrived on his first visit since the United States dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State tunnel complex in neighboring Afghanistan.McMaster arrived in Islamabad after holding talks in Afghanistan on efforts to combat the Taliban and the IS group's Afghan affiliate. The U.S. dropped the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, on an Islamic State tunnel complex carved into a mountain in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, reportedly killing 95 militants.McMaster met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other senior officials. Pakistan's foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz said Islamabad remained committed to working for peace and reconciliation in neighboring Afghanistan, and that officials meeting with McMaster had discussed efforts to secure the border.The U.S. Embassy said McMaster "expressed appreciation for Pakistan's democratic and economic development, and stressed the need to confront terrorism in all its forms."Pakistan has long sought to downplay the growing presence of Islamic State militants, who have claimed a number of attacks in recent months. Monday's announcement marked the first time Pakistani officials have acknowledged that the extremist group based in Syria and Iraq is recruiting within the South Asian country.Pakistan has been struggling to combat the much larger and more well-established Pakistani Taliban, which emerged after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and have carried out attacks that have killed tens of thousands of people.The Islamic State group is believed to have recruited disgruntled Taliban fighters in both Pakistan and Afghanistan with its promise of building a worldwide Islamic caliphate.Leghari was recruited via Facebook, and went missing in February, later marrying an Islamic State fighter who was killed in the April 14 raid, a Pakistani security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters. He said the woman had fought alongside her husband during the raid and shot at security forces.Ghafoor suggested she had fallen prey to the group's online propaganda. He portrayed her detention as a rescue and said "we will rehabilitate her."___Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan and Zaheer Babar in Lahore, Pakistan contributed to this report.
Mosul operation has displaced nearly half a million: UN-[AFP]-Jean-Marc MOJON-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
Baghdad (AFP) - Nearly half a million people have fled their homes since Iraqi forces launched an operation to wrest Mosul back from jihadists exactly six months ago, the United Nations said Monday.Iraqi forces began the country's biggest military operation in years on October 17 last year and recaptured the east side of the city in January.But an assault launched the following month on the part of Mosul that lies west of the Tigris river has seen a sharp rise in displacement."The sheer volume of civilians still fleeing Mosul city is staggering," Lise Grande, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement."Our worst case scenario when the fighting started was that up to one million civilians may flee Mosul. Already, more than 493,000 people have left, leaving almost everything behind," she said.Iraqi forces have been making significant gains in west Mosul over the past two months but the toughest battles could yet lie ahead, with diehard Islamic State group jihadists hunkering down in the treacherous streets of the Old City.The UN estimated that another half million civilians were still in IS-controlled areas of west Mosul."Mosul has pushed us to our operational limits," said Grande.UN chief Antonio Guterres said on March 31 during a visit to a displacement camp near Mosul that the aid effort was woefully underfunded and called for greater international solidarity.Around two thirds of the overall number of displaced people fled their homes in west Mosul over the past two months alone.- Children exposed -Grande said the fighting there was tougher than on the east bank, which may explain why some residents who had planned to weather the fighting and stay eventually had to escape."There are more trauma injuries, homes are being destroyed, food stocks are dwindling quickly and families are at serious risk because there isn't enough drinking water," she said.The UN has been expanding the capacity of some of the camps scattered around Mosul but the aid community could yet have to deal with an unprecedented exodus if and when the remaining civilians flee the city.More than half of those who have fled Mosul and its surroundings are children and the UN voiced concern that those still in IS-controlled areas would be more exposed than ever before."We have seen children with signs of psychological distress while others have been injured in the fighting, or used as human shields," the UN Children's Fund said.Heavy rain swept one of the main floating bridges across the Tigris south of Mosul and forced the security forces to close another over the weekend, further complicating the military and humanitarian effort.The Joint Operations Command coordinating the fight against IS said engineering teams were deployed and hoping to reopen the bridges in the coming days.People were allowed to cross the bridge near Hammam al-Alil on foot Monday but vehicles were still stuck.All five bridges across the Tigris inside Mosul itself have been destroyed in air strikes or by the jihadists.In east Mosul, many of those displaced in the early stages of the operation have returned.Life has yet to return to normal however, since people and goods cannot yet move freely and key infrastructure was damaged in the fighting.
Trump appointee Gorsuch energetic in first U.S. high court arguments-[Reuters]-By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's appointee Neil Gorsuch on Monday showed himself to be a frequent and energetic questioner during U.S. Supreme Court arguments in his first day hearing cases as a justice, at one point even apologising for talking too much.Gorsuch, whose confirmation to the lifetime job restored the court's conservative majority, exhibited composure and confidence, sitting on the far right of the bench in the ornate courtroom, alongside Justice Sonia Sotomayor.The first of the three one-hour arguments before the justices on Monday involved an employment dispute. Gorsuch grilled lawyer Christopher Landau, who represented a man claiming he was discriminated against by the U.S. Census Bureau, over the fine points of a law governing civil service employees.The justices, with the exception of the usually silent Clarence Thomas, are known for their aggressive questioning, and Gorsuch showed no qualms about jumping right in."I apologise for taking up so much time," the black-robed Gorsuch said, sitting back in his high-backed chair and smiling.Chief Justice John Roberts welcomed Gorsuch to the court before oral arguments began. "Justice Gorsuch, we wish you a long and happy career in our common calling," Roberts said.Gorsuch responded by thanking his new colleagues for their "warm welcome."In total, Gorsuch stepped in three times during the first one-hour argument, on each occasion asking a string of questions about the complicated federal law at issue. As he indicated during his Senate confirmation hearing last month, his line of inquiry focused on the text of the statute, an approach also embraced by the man he replaced on the court, Antonin Scalia, and other conservative jurists.Citing a section of the Civil Service Reform Act, Gorsuch asked Landau where in the statute does it say federal district courts may hear cases involving both discrimination and civil service claims."Looking at the plain language of the statute, just help me with that," Gorsuch said.-A FULL COMPLEMENT-The court had its full complement of nine justices, five conservatives and four liberals, for arguments for the first time since Scalia's death in February 2016.The second case he heard involved a property dispute. One of the lawyers in the case, Neal Katyal, was a familiar face to Gorsuch, having heartily endorsed his nomination to the high court, even testifying at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.The third case, to be argued later in the day, involved a dispute over whether certain securities class-action lawsuits can be barred because they were filed too late.Gorsuch formally joined the Supreme Court on April 10 after being confirmed three days earlier by the Republican-led Senate over broad Democratic opposition.Gorsuch, at 49 the youngest new justice in a quarter century, served for a decade on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before Trump nominated him in January. Trump was able to fill Scalia's vacancy only because Senate Republicans last year refused to consider Democratic former President Barack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland.The second case involved whether a developer can intervene in a lawsuit brought by a property owner against the town of Chester, New York over its refusal to give him permission to build on his land. Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general in Obama's Justice Department, represented the town.Republicans backing Gorsuch's confirmation often cited liberal Katyal's endorsement as evidence that the judge enjoyed support across the political spectrum.Katyal, who regularly argues cases in the court, is also scheduled to argue before the justices on April 25 on behalf of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co in a case over out-of-state injury claims.(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
U.S. says notes concerns of European monitors in Turkey referendum-[Reuters]-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Monday it had taken note of concerns by European monitors of Turkey's referendum and looked forward to a final report, suggesting it will withhold comment until a full assessment was completed.An initial assessment by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Sunday's referendum, which granted Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, did not meet democratic norms."We look forward to OSCE/ODIHR's final report, which we understand will take several weeks," acting spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
EXODUS 20:13
13 Thou shalt not kill.(Murder)(THAT INCLUDES ABORTION)
EXODUS 21:12
12 He that smiteth (MURDER)a man,(OR BABY) so that he die, shall be surely put to death.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY PEOPLE)
IF POLICE SEE AND CATCH THIS COLD BLOODED MURDERER. THEY SHOULD INSTANTLY SEND HIM TO HELL TO BURN IN TORMENTS FOREVER BECAUSE OF HIS SIN OF MURDERING AN INNOCENT PERSON.
Five state manhunt for suspected Facebook killer-[AFP]-Nova SAFO, Jim MANNION-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
Chicago (AFP) - US police widened a manhunt on Monday for a gunman who shot and killed an elderly man on Facebook Live in a seemingly random Easter Sunday attack, and then vowed to continue killing.Police in Cleveland, Ohio said they believe the suspect, 37-year-old Steve Stephens, is armed and dangerous, and have alerted authorities in four neighboring states to be on the lookout for him.Robert Godwin Sr, 74, was shot and killed on Sunday, apparently picked out at random as he walked home after an Easter dinner, police and local media reported."We know that Steve is still out there someplace," said Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams. "We don't know his condition and, of course, right now we don't know his location. We're asking the public to remain vigilant."Police issued an arrest warrant for aggravated homicide against Stephens, described as a six-foot one-inch, 244-pound black man with a full beard who was last seen in a white Ford Fusion with temporary license plates.In a video uploaded to Stephens's Facebook page, a man resembling him is seen exiting a vehicle and approaching his victim, who is shown with a gun to his head and then falling to the ground after a shot is fired."I killed 13, so I'm working on 14 as we speak," the suspect says in a second video clip.The videos were subsequently taken down by Facebook.- 'Mad with his girlfriend' -Police said Stephens broadcast the killing on Facebook Live but said they have not verified his claim to have committed other murders.Stephens' mother told CNN she called him on Sunday after learning about the video and he told her he was shooting people because he was "mad with his girlfriend."Police said the woman he alluded to was in a safe place.Cleveland detectives also made contact with Stephens by phone early in the investigation, Williams said."They tried to, of course, convince him to turn himself in and, of course, that hasn't happened to date so again, we're asking the public's help in finding this guy. We know he's out there someplace," he said.The last "ping" from Stephens's cellphone was from Eerie, Pennsylvania, about 100 miles east of Cleveland.Cleveland police have asked the states of Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana and Michigan to be on alert.- Dozens of searches -The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Marshals Service have joined the hunt."This man is dangerous and he could be nearby, he could be far away, anywhere in between," said Stephen Anthony, the FBI special agent in charge."We're going to make this individual's world very, very, very small, so I'm very optimistic," said Peter Elliot, the marshal on the case. "I think things are going to happen, and I believe things are going to happen pretty quickly."But Williams said police had searched dozens of locations overnight "to no avail.""If there's somebody who is helping Steve or think you're helping Steve, you're really not. You're going to get yourself in trouble, along with him," he warned.Stephens worked for Beech Brook, a behavioral health agency serving children through mental health services, foster care and adoption, at-risk youth and other programs.In his video, Stephens displayed his Beech Brook badge."We are shocked and horrified like everyone else," Nancy Kortemeyer, a spokeswoman for the facility told CNN. "To think that one of our employees could do this is awful."
Prince Harry shares emotional struggles after Diana's death-[Associated Press]-GREGORY KATZ-YAHOONEWS-April 17, 2017
LONDON (AP) — It is an image those who saw it will never forget: Prince William and Prince Harry — just boys, really — walking silently behind their mother's cortege as the world mourned Princess Diana's death in 1997.Now Harry has revealed for the first time that losing his mother when he was only 12 left him in emotional turmoil for 20 years, filling him with grief and rage he could only manage after he sought counseling.Breaking sharply with the royal tradition of maintaining a stoic silence about mental health, the 32-year-old prince told The Daily Telegraph in an interview published Monday that he had nearly suffered multiple breakdowns since his mother's death.It was by far the most frank interview of Harry's life and gives the public a much fuller view of Harry and the inner turmoil he suffered growing up in the public eye after losing his mother.He told the newspaper he "shut down all his emotions" for nearly 20 years and had been "very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions."He describes a long, painful process of refusing to face his sense of loss that only came to an end when he was in his late 20s and sought professional counseling to cope with the pressures and unhappiness."My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help?" he said of his teens and 20s, a period in which he embarked on a successful military career but also occasionally attracted unwanted headlines, notably for being photographed playing "strip billiards" in Las Vegas.In the interview, Harry said he had at times felt "on the verge of punching someone" and had taken up boxing as an outlet for the aggression he felt.He said the long suppression of his grief eventually led to "two years of total chaos."He said he was pretending that life was great until he started counseling and faced his problems head on."All of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the forefront and I was like, there is actually a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with," he said.Along with his brother Prince William and sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge, Harry has worked with a charity that promotes mental health. They have argued that mental health problems must be given the same priority as other illnesses and should be spoken about openly and without stigma.Harry has also worked extensively with wounded veterans and has organized the Invictus Games to foster international sporting competition for injured or ill service personnel and veterans.Harry told interviewer Bryony Gordon, who has written extensively about her own struggles with depression and other issues, that he is in a "good place" now, and praised William for helping him seek help after many years of suffering in silence.He credited counseling with helping him recover."I've now been able to take my work seriously, been able to take my private life seriously as well, and been able to put blood, sweat and tears into the things that really make a difference and things that I think will make a difference to everybody else," he said.Harry has also formed a romantic relationship with American actress Meghan Markle and in November took the unusual step of chastising the press for harassing her.Harry and William have both been wary of press coverage, in part because of the way photographers shadowed their mother's every move.
