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)
OZONE DEPLETION JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH DUE TO SIN
ISAIAH 30:26-27
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold,(7X OR 7-DEGREES HOTTER) as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people,(ISRAEL) and healeth the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:
MATTHEW 24:21-22,29
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened,(DAY LIGHT HOURS SHORTENED) there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake (ISRAELS SAKE) those days shall be shortened (Daylight hours shortened)(THE ASTEROID HITS EARTH HERE)
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
REVELATION 16:7-9
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
Earth smashes yet another heat record; 16th month in a row-[The Canadian Press]-September 20, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON — Another month, another global heat record smashed.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday said August's temperature of 61.74 degrees (16.52 Celsius) was .09 degrees (.05 Celsius) warmer than the old August record set last year, and was the 16th consecutive month of record-breaking heat. NOAA monitoring chief Deke Arndt said it was also the hottest summer, with 2016 on pace to smash last year's record for the hottest year.August 2016 was also 1.66 degrees (0.92 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average. It was the fifth hottest month of any kind recorded, going back to 1880. Six of the 17 hottest months on record have been the summer months of 2015 and 2016.The June-through-August summer was 2.18 degrees (1.21 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average and beat the old summer heat record, set last year, by one-fifth of a degree (0.11 Celsius), NOAA said."The needle has been shoved all the way over into the red by greenhouse gases," Arndt said.NOAA's announcement came on a day when 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including Stephen Hawking and 30 Nobel laureates, released an open letter urging American leaders not to pull out of an international agreement to curb global warming.Organizer and MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said the scientists wrote the letter in response to the Republican party platform that rejects the Paris climate agreement reached last December. The letter said presidential nominee Donald Trump's advocacy of withdrawing from that agreement would "send a clear signal to the rest of the world: The United States does not care about the global problem of human-caused climate change."Pulling out of the Paris accord, Emanuel said, "will accelerate our head-long plunge into a riskier and riskier climate.""Everywhere we look we see signs that the climate really is changing," Emanuel said. "We're getting wake-up calls more frequently and we really have to do something about this."Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
Teleportation across Calgary marks 'major step' toward creation of 'quantum internet'-[CBC]-September 20, 2016-YAHOONEWS
In a "major step" toward practical quantum networking, researchers at the University of Calgary have successfully demonstrated the teleportation of a light particle's properties between their lab and the city's downtown area, six kilometres away."What is remarkable about this is that this information transfer happens in what we call a disembodied manner," said physics professor Wolfgang Tittel, whose team's work was published this week in the journal Nature Photonics."Our transfer happens without any need for an object to move between these two particles."Their research relies on advanced lasers, a dedicated fibre-optic line, and light-detecting sensors that must be kept incredibly cold because they won't work at temperatures above –272 C.It also relies on the increasingly well-known but still baffling phenomenon of quantum entanglement.The concept is so bizarre that a dubious Albert Einstein famously dubbed it "spooky action at a distance" in the 1940s, as he described what he saw as flaws in the emerging theory of quantum mechanics.But today, an increasing body of evidence has confirmed the most counterintuitive predictions of quantum theory, including the strange behaviour of "entangled" particles.These are pairs of particles that are fundamentally linked, such that the properties of each one is intrinsically tied up in the other and actions affecting one particle have an immediate effect on the other, no matter how far apart the particles are.For their demonstration, the U of C team used a specialized laser to create a pair of entangled photons — elementary particles of light — and sent one to Calgary City Hall via a dedicated fibre-optic line while keeping the other in their lab at the university in the city's northwest.At the same time, a third photon was sent to city hall from another location (a data centre in the southeast community of Manchester) so that it would meet and interact with the entangled photon."We had to make sure it arrived at the same time at city hall as the photon that was created at the data centre," said Tittel."And that's pretty tricky, because 'the same' in our case means with a provision of a few picoseconds."(For the non-physics crowd: A picosecond is one-trillionth of a second, or 0.000000000001 seconds — which means not much room for error.) Tittel said the team had to create feedback mechanisms in the experimental setup to ensure "very precise timing" of the photons' arrivals at city hall, as small changes in outdoor temperature that cause the fibre-optic cables to expand or contract by minuscule amounts could throw off the timing.-Success from kilometres away-In the end, though, the system worked and the transfer of properties between the photon at city hall and the photon at the university — 6.2 kilometres away, as the crow flies — was confirmed."It's fascinating to see that, not only teleportation exists, but that you can … transfer the state without transferring the photon over a large distance," Tittel said."From a fundamental point of view, that is fascinating. From a practical point of view, we used a standard fibre network to do so, which of course moves this whole demonstration into the realm of something that will be practical and useful."The team's article in Nature Photonics says the demonstration "constitutes a milestone towards a global quantum internet," as it is one of the longest distances over which quantum teleportation has been achieved using a fibre-optic network in this way."The way we localized all the different stations within the city of Calgary reflects what needs to be done in a future quantum repeater that will allow us to send quantum information, in principle, over arbitrarily long distances," Tittel said."So, it's a major step forward toward that goal."Coincidentally, in the same edition of the same journal, an independent team of Chinese researchers published the results of their own demonstration — one that used a slightly different setup but employed the same principles and confirmed quantum teleportation using a fibre-optic network over a span of 12 kilometres."Our experiment marks a critical step towards the realization of a global 'quantum internet' in the real world," the Chinese team wrote.What is the 'quantum internet,' anyway? It doesn't exist yet, but the dream of a "quantum internet" involves taking advantage of a key element of quantum mechanics — the fact that observing a particle's quantum state changes that particle's quantum state.This creates the opportunity to communicate with a degree of security never before possible, because no one can intercept a communication without the intended receiver of the information knowing about it."If you encode keys into quantum states and send them from person to another — for instance, through teleportation — then it turns out that you can verify at the receiver's side … if an eavesdropper has acquired any information about that key," Tittel said."If you find out that nobody has tampered with this transmission, you know that you share a perfectly secure key and then you can use it to encrypt some sensitive data."-Partnership between university, municipality-The development of functional quantum networks is still a long time off, but Sylvain Mayer, an information architecture engineer with the City of Calgary, said the city plans to continue working with the university to speed up the process.The fibre-optic network the U of C team used normally carries information between various city departments, but a dedicated portion of it was made available to the researchers through the Urban Alliance, a partnership developed in 2007."We're happy that part of our fibre infrastructure can be used by these fellows to be able to research cutting-edge technology," Mayer said."The city just wants to be able to continue to be able to help educational institutions in their pursuit of next-generation types of services that will eventually be able to help everyone around the world."
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.
Brexit: preparing for a bitter divorce By Benjamin Fox-sept 21,16-euobserver
London, Today, 15:31-So we have a tentative date: Brexit talks are "quite likely" to start in January or February, says Donald Tusk.Let’s not get too excited.Even if, as Tusk stated, Theresa May triggers Article 50 at the start of 2017, the UK government will still be in no position to hold substantive talks.The government’s new Brexit department is in the process of launching around 30 EU-related policy reviews. If the government works at break-neck pace, these reviews, and policy "red lines" for each, will have been completed by mid-2017. Only then will Britain be able to negotiate on detail, just at the time when Germany gears up for elections to the Bundestag.Nonetheless, the pre-Article 50 "phoney war" is well under way, and neither side is leaving much room to manoeuvre.The ideal arrangement for Theresa May would involve unfettered single market access and "passporting rights" (the right for British-based financial firms to do business in the eurozone), free movement for Britons to live and work across the EU, and, of course, strict limits on EU migration.-Shaky wisdom-The assumption (or wishful thinking) among Remain supporters is that either the negotiations will be so protracted that the UK will still be an EU member in 2020, leaving open a slim prospect of reversing the referendum result; or that the will of Theresa May and the Treasury will ensure that Britain at least retains single market membership.This perceived wisdom is now looking increasingly shaky. It underestimates just how powerful and emboldened the eurosceptic wing of the Conservatives is. An increasingly large faction of the party is prepared to double down its bet by advocating a "hard Brexit" - leaving the single market, and taking its chances with the WTO.In its launch report published on Sunday (18 September), the Leave Means Leave group (which is obviously insufficiently convinced by May’s "Brexit means Brexit" mantra) backed by a group of Conservative MPs, describes remaining in the single market as the “‘no say, low growth, regulatory burden, sovereignty illusion’ option locking in perpetual trade deficits”.“No deal is better than a bad deal,” says the new group’s chair, Leave campaigner and businessman Richard Tice.-'A la carte' approach-The British left is also edging towards demanding a UK specific deal on single market access. Speaking in London last Thursday (15 September), Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn described the referendum as “the end of a failed economic model”, arguing that any new settlement with the EU would need to allow more government intervention in the economy.“The state aid rules of the EU are no longer valid,” he said, adding that “governments across the world are choosing intervention”.It was, in many ways, the sort of speech that European social democrats used to make 30 years ago, emphasising the need for stronger trade union rights and protection. If you had added some nationalist rhetoric on refugees and migrants it could have been Marine Le Pen speaking.Corbyn’s party is bitterly divided and, at present, bordering on irrelevance. Even so, the fact that Labour is also moving towards an "a la carte" approach to single market membership suggests that Open Britain, the pro-single market pressure group formed from the ashes of the Remain campaign, will only be able to rely on the tiny rump of Liberal Democrat MPs for unconditional support.If British politicians are edging away from a Norwegian or Swiss-style arrangement with the EU, the EU seems scarcely in a position to offer any better.The Visegrad group made clear in Bratislava that freedom of movement is non-negotiable.-Playing ‘deal or no deal’-Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte may be in denial about the referendum, complaining that the UK is “still in the EU”. “I don’t think it’s good to have summits without them,” he said. As it was, May’s government behaved like an annoying ex by threatening to veto any attempts at EU harmonisation in defence policy.In a break up, both parties usually want to keep the house, the car and the family pet. Compromise is needed to reach an amicable settlement.Self-interest, not to mention sanity, may ultimately ensure that a deal can be struck. “The 27 will sign up to a deal with us,” May insisted on Monday (19 September), adding that “this is not just about us, it’s actually about their relationships and trading within that European arena”.For the moment, however, if Britain is planning to play "deal or no deal", and the EU is unwilling or unable to offer much to sweeten the departure terms, Brexit looks increasingly like a bitter divorce.Benjamin Fox, a former reporter for EUobserver, is a consultant with Sovereign Strategy, a London-based PR firm, and a freelance writer.
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)
New York bomb squad clears suspicious package in Times Square-[Reuters]-By Laila Kearney-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's bomb squad responded to a suspicious piece of luggage abandoned on a sidewalk in the Times Square neighborhood on Wednesday that was later determined to be harmless, police said.Police blocked off a stretch of the tourist destination as investigators worked to determine the contents and owner of the luggage left outside a McDonald's restaurant, a police spokesman said.After more than an hour of investigating, police said they discovered the rolling suitcase was empty.Last Saturday, a pressure-cooker bomb exploded in Manhattan, injuring 31 people. Additional bombs were found in a second location in the city and in Elizabeth, New Jersey shortly after the explosion.Police have charged 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Afghanistan, for the explosion.(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Grant McCool)
Bomb suspect vowed 'death to your oppression,' feds say-[The Canadian Press]-The Canadian PressSeptember 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
NEW YORK — He bought bomb ingredients on eBay and recorded a mirthful video of himself igniting a blast in a backyard. In a handwritten journal, he warned that bombs would resound in the streets and prayed he'd be martyred rather than caught, authorities say.Ahmad Khan Rahami's jihad journal ended with a stark message, according to court papers:"Death to your oppression."-Federal court complaints filed Tuesday gave a chilling glimpse into what authorities say motivated the Afghan-born U.S. citizen to set off explosives last weekend in New York City and New Jersey, including a bomb that injured 31 people in Manhattan. The blasts came two years after the FBI looked into him but came up with nothing tying him to terrorism.Rahami remains hospitalized with gunshot wounds from a shootout with police that led to his capture Monday outside a bar in Linden, New Jersey. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had a lawyer who could comment on the charges against him, but a federal public defender told a judge Tuesday night that Rahami has not had access to a lawyer since his arrest.The charges against him include federal terror crimes and state charges of attempting to murder police officers.Rahami ordered citric acid, ball bearings and electronic igniters on eBay and had them delivered to a Perth Amboy, New Jersey, business where he worked until Sept. 12, the court complaints said. San Jose, California-based eBay Inc. noted that the products are legal and widely available and said the company had worked with law enforcement on the investigation.Just two days before Saturday's bombings, a relative's cellphone recorded Rahami igniting incendiary material in a cylinder buried in a backyard, the fuse being lighted, a loud noise and flames, "followed by billowing smoke and laughter," the complaints said.And the complaints said in his bloodied journal — damaged by shots from his gun battle with police — he fumed that the U.S. government was slaughtering Muslim holy warriors and alluded to plans for revenge.One portion expressed concern at the prospect of being caught before being able to carry out a suicide attack and the desire to be a martyr. Another section included a reference to "pipe bombs" and a "pressure cooker bomb" and declared: "In the streets they plan to run a mile," an apparent reference to one of the blast sites, a charity run in Seaside Park, New Jersey."The sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets," the journal declared.There also were laudatory references to Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki — the American-born Muslim cleric who was killed in a 2011 drone strike and whose preaching has inspired other acts of violence — and Nidal Hasan, the former Army officer who went on a deadly shooting rampage in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas, the complaints said.Rahami is accused of setting three bombs, one in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and two in Manhattan. One of the New York City bombs didn't explode, and the FBI on Wednesday issued a poster showing two men who investigators want to talk to. The agency says the men were seen Saturday night removing the bomb that failed to explode from a piece of luggage, then leaving the device behind while taking the suitcase. Investigators have said the two men are being sought as witnesses, not suspects.The FBI has said Rahami apparently was not on its radar at the time of the bombing. But he was in 2014, when the FBI opened up an "assessment" — its least intrusive form of inquiry — based on comments from his father after a domestic dispute, the bureau said in a statement."The FBI conducted internal database reviews, interagency checks and multiple interviews, none of which revealed ties to terrorism," the bureau said.A law enforcement official said the FBI spoke with Rahami's father in 2014 after agents learned of his concerns that the son could be a terrorist. During the inquiry, the father backed away from talk of terrorism and told investigators that he simply meant his son was hanging out with the wrong crowd, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.Rahami's father, Mohammad, told reporters Tuesday he called the FBI at the time because Rahami "was doing real bad," having stabbed his brother and hit his mother. Rahami was not prosecuted in the stabbing; a grand jury declined to indict him."But they checked, almost two months, and they say, 'He's OK, he's clear, he's not terrorist.' Now they say he's a terrorist," the father said outside the family's fried-chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Asked whether he thought his son was a terrorist, he said: "No. And the FBI, they know that."The FBI has faced questions before about whether it could have done more ahead of time to determine whether attackers had terrorist aspirations. The issue arose after the Orlando massacre in June, for instance, when FBI Director James Comey said agents a few years earlier had looked into the gunman, Omar Mateen, but did not find enough information to pursue charges or keep him under investigation.White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama was confident the bureau would review Rahami's interactions with law enforcement "to determine if there's something different that could have been done or should have been done to prevent the violence."Meanwhile, investigators are looking into Rahami's overseas travel, including a visit to Pakistan a few years ago, and want to know whether he received any money or training from extremist organizations.Rahami's wife is thought to be a Pakistani national. On a trip to Pakistan in 2014, Rahami emailed his local congressman seeking help because his pregnant wife had an expired passport.David Duerden, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi, was unable to confirm or deny reports that Rahami's wife had been questioned in the United Arab Emirates, which is home to a large expatriate Pakistani population and has airports that offer daily flights to Pakistan."We're aware of the reports but don't have any comment at this time," he told the AP.Emirati officials in Dubai and the federal capital Abu Dhabi said they had no information on her.Federal agents would like to question Rahami. But Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., who received a classified briefing from the FBI, said Rahami was not co-operating ; that could also be a reflection of his injuries.Rahami, who came to the U.S. as a child, studied criminal justice for a time at a community college, and he worked as an unarmed night guard for two months in 2011 at an AP administrative technology office in Cranbury, New Jersey. At the time, he was employed by Summit Security, a private contractor.AP global security chief Danny Spriggs said he learned this week that Rahami worked there and often engaged colleagues in long political discussions, expressing sympathy for the Taliban and disdain for U.S. military action in Afghanistan. Rahami left that job in 2011 because he wanted to take a trip to Afghanistan, Spriggs said.AP spokesman Paul Colford said the news co-operative told law enforcement officials about Rahami's work at the Cranbury facility.Summit's vice-president of security services, Daniel Sepulveda, said Rahami last worked for the company in 2011. Sepulveda said he was unaware of any complaints about Rahami's conduct.___Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jake Pearson in New York; Michael Balsamo, Michael Catalini and Dake Kang in Elizabeth, New Jersey; Josh Cornfield in Pennsylvania; Adam Schreck in Dubai; and Alicia A. Caldwell, Kevin Freking and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.Eric Tucker, Larry Neumeister And Jennifer Peltz, The Associated Press
Defense lawyer seeking access to accused New York bomber-[Reuters]-By David Ingram and Laila Kearney-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawyer for an Afghan-born U.S. citizen charged with bombings last weekend in New York and New Jersey asked to see his client on Wednesday and suggested the man's first court appearance could occur in his hospital bed.Police in New York City also said they had not yet been cleared to speak to Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, who was arrested on Monday after a gunfight with police in Linden, New Jersey. He is now receiving treatment for his wounds at a hospital in Newark, New Jersey, where he could formally face his charges if he cannot travel to the U.S. District Court in Manhattan."He has been held and questioned by federal law enforcement agents since his arrest," David Patton, head of the New York City federal public defenders office, said in a court filing. "The Sixth Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution) requires that he be given access to counsel on the federal charges, and that he be presented without delay."Patton also asked to meet with Rahami on Wednesday."He's not yet medically cleared so that we can speak to him just yet," New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill told a news conference. "That may happen in the next 24 hours, pending the doctors' approval."Federal prosecutors said Rahami injured 31 people in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood with a homemade bomb that detonated on Saturday night in a case that law enforcement authorities now regard as terrorism.Rahami is also charged with planting bombs that went off in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and his hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, but did not injure anyone. He faces charges from federal prosecutors in both states.Rahami's wife met with U.S. law enforcement officials while in the United Arab Emirates and voluntarily gave a statement, a law enforcement official said. She was not in custody, the official said. A New Jersey U.S. congressman previously said Rahami had emailed his office in 2014 for help in getting her a visa to enter the United States from Pakistan when she was pregnant.The FBI said on Wednesday that it wanted to speak with two men seen in surveillance footage picking up a second bag containing a pressure-cooker bomb believed to be planted by Rahami in Chelsea on Saturday night. The two left the device on the street and took the bag.Officials said they regard the men as potential witnesses, not suspects.-PRAISE FOR BIN LADEN-Federal prosecutors portrayed Rahami, who came to the United States at age 7 and became a naturalized citizen, as embracing militant Islamic views, begging for martyrdom and expressing outrage at the U.S. "slaughter" of Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine."Inshallah (God willing), the sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets," Rahami wrote in a journal that he was carrying when arrested, according to prosecutors."Gun shots to your police. Death to your oppression," read the journal, stained with blood following Monday's gun battle.Rahami, in other parts of his journal, praised "Brother" Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader slain in a 2011 U.S. raid in Pakistan; Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric and leading al Qaeda propagandist who was killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike in Yemen; and Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.The attacks in New York and New Jersey were the latest in a series in the United States inspired by Islamic militant groups including al Qaeda and Islamic State. A pair of ethnic Chechen brothers killed three people and injured more than 260 at the 2013 Boston Marathon with homemade pressure-cooker bombs similar to those used in this weekend's attacks.In the past year, an Orlando gunman and a married couple in San Bernardino killed dozens in mass shootings inspired by Islamic State.Federal investigators were probing Rahami's history of travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and looking for any evidence that he may have picked up radical views or trained in bomb-making on those trips. They still are trying to find out whether he received any help in planning his attack or building the bombs.The charging documents lay out a wide swath of evidence pointing to Rahami as the bomber. Surveillance video places him in the area, and his fingerprints were on unexploded devices including a pressure-cooker bomb found blocks away from the blast.If Rahami's first court appearance occurs in the hospital bed, he would not be the first U.S. terrorism suspect to be charged in such a venue.Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted last year for his role in the Boston Marathon attacks and sentenced to death, also first faced charges in his hospital bed while he was still recovering from injuries sustained in a gunfight with police.(Additional reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Will Dunham)
Crime-plagued Chicago to add nearly 1,000 police officers: newspaper-[Reuters]-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago's police department plans to hire nearly 1,000 officers over the next two years in a bid to combat a surge of violence in the third-largest U.S. city including more than 500 murders this year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Wednesday.The department will add 970 officers to its force including 516 patrol officers, 92 field-training officers, 112 sergeants, 50 lieutenants and 200 detectives, police Chief Eddie Johnson told the newspaper.The city currently has around 12,000 officers, the newspaper reported.Chicago is struggling with a wave of violence that has included 509 murders in the city already this year, according to Chicago Police Department statistics, a 46 percent increase from last year.Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had been reluctant to hire more officers, relying instead on existing officers to work overtime. He is scheduled to give a speech on the city's crime problem on Thursday night.(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin; Editing by Will Dunham)
Chicken shacks' are lifeline for New Jersey's Afghan immigrants-[Reuters]-By Joseph Ax and Mica Rosenberg-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
ELIZABETH, N.J. (Reuters) - They dot the landscape in this working-class New Jersey city, popping up every few blocks with names like U.S. Fried Chicken, Royal Fried Chicken and New York Fried Chicken and Burger and giving immigrants a foothold in a new country.One of these fried chicken restaurants, First American Fried Chicken, was thrust into the international spotlight on Monday when authorities arrested the owner's son, Ahmad Rahami, after a shootout with police.Rahami is suspected of planting several explosives in New York City and New Jersey, including one that blew up on Saturday night in Manhattan and injured 29 people and two in New Jersey that exploded over the weekend but did not hurt anyone.Local restaurant owners in Elizabeth said on Tuesday that many of the fried chicken restaurants are operated by Afghan owners like Mohammad Rahami, who employed his sons including Ahmad, at his eatery.Joshua Sanchez, an Elizabeth resident who frequented Rahami's restaurant, said "chicken shacks" are part of daily life in the city. And Flee Jones, a rapper and producer who has known Ahmad Rahami since they were teenagers, helped write a song praising Rahami's shack and its friendly service.In many immigrant communities, the success of a few individuals in a particular business may inspire others to follow the same path."A lot of immigrants feel that if my old neighbor in Turkey or Afghanistan is able to do it, I can do the same thing," said Aisha Wahab, a board member of the California-based Afghan Coalition, which helps Afghan immigrants and refugees in the United States.That was the case for Ali, owner of a nearby chicken shack in Elizabeth, who opened his business in the early 1990s after coming to the United States as a 15-year-old war refugee."There were people from my country doing this business," said Ali, 43, who declined to give his last name for fear he might face harassment after the bombing.Ali said the business was a good fit for recent immigrants with limited English and a lack of professional skills.Another chicken shack owned by an Afghan family flanks the Elizabeth train station, where Rahami is suspected of leaving up to half a dozen explosive devices on Sunday.Mohammad Hassan, 23, the owner's son, said his father has been in the fried chicken business for many years, first in neighboring Union and now in Elizabeth.Elizabeth has a sizable and well established Muslim population with a wide range of professions, according to religious and community leaders.Afghans, however, make up only a small portion of that group, though their numbers have been rising.Census data showed approximately 200 Afghans living in the city, according to the federal government's latest five-year survey that covered 2010 to 2014.Hassen Abdellah, president of the Dar-Ul-Islam mosque, said Elizabeth was a first stop for many immigrants, including Muslims seeking a town with a large and active community."We're a seaport town. You get off the plane, and you're in Elizabeth," he said in a telephone interview. The mosque has been in Elizabeth for 75 years and typically has about 500 to 700 people at Friday prayer, he said."If there's tension, I haven't heard about it," he said. "The beauty of what we have going on in Elizabeth is the Muslim community here is no stranger to other people."The Rahamis clashed with some neighbors, though others described them as friendly and sociable. The suspect's family engaged in a protracted battle with the city after numerous complaints from local residents about noise and late hours at First American Fried Chicken, and Mohammad Rahami filed an unsuccessful federal lawsuit against the city claiming religious discrimination.U.S. authorities are still investigating what possible motives Ahmad Rahami may have had for placing bombs in New York and New Jersey and if he was radicalized during trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan.Several local Muslim leaders told a news conference on Tuesday that the acts Rahami is suspected of committing were not representative of their religion."This individual perpetrator, these terrorist acts do not represent Islam or Muslims in any sense," said Ali Chaudry, the president of the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge.But Ali, the chicken shack owner, said he was worried about retaliation, even though he has rarely faced discrimination in diverse Elizabeth."It's very scary," he said. "Who knows who's going to walk into the store?"(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Mica Rosenberg; Additional reporting by Chris Prentice and Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
Police in riot-hit Charlotte say shooting victim was armed-[Reuters]-By Greg Lacour and Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CHARLOTTE, N.C./TULSA,Okla. (Reuters) - A black man killed by police in a Charlotte, North Carolina, parking lot had ignored commands to drop a handgun that officers said he was holding, authorities said on Wednesday hours after 16 officers were injured in protests sparked by the shooting.The trouble in Charlotte unfolded as demonstrators in Tulsa, Oklahoma, demanded the arrest of a police officer there who was seen on video shooting to death an unarmed black man who had his hands in clear view at the time.The two deaths were the latest to raise questions of racial bias in U.S. law enforcement and have stoked a national debate on policing ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.Police shootings in cities such as New York, Baltimore, Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri, have triggered more than two years of largely peaceful street protests punctuated by days of rioting and arson and given rise to the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement.U.S. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton called for an end to these types of shootings. Her Republican rival, Donald Trump, questioned what the Tulsa officer was thinking in shooting a man he said seemed to pose no imminent threat.Criminal investigations have been opened in both cities after the shootings, and the U.S. Justice Department has started a separate probe into the Oklahoma incident to see if officers' use of force amounted to a civil rights violation.Bracing for the possibility of more unrest Wednesday night, Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts called for calm and dialogue and urged people to have patience with the investigation.The city's police chief, Kerr Putney, said 43-year-old Keith Scott was seen on Tuesday getting into a vehicle holding a handgun. Police surrounded the car, Putney said, and Scott was shot by a black police officer after he exited the car and did not obey orders to drop his weapon."He stepped out, posing a threat to the officers," Putney told a news conference, adding that police acted heroically in trying to stem the protests that followed.Scott's family said he was reading in his car and was unarmed, but the police chief disputed that."I can also tell you we did not find a book," Putney said. "We did find a weapon."North Carolina allows for the open carry of handguns, including having a pistol in a vehicle.One protester was arrested and several were injured in demonstrations that blocked an interstate highway. Rioters set fires and stoned police cars, Putney said, and officers used tear gas to disperse the crowd.-'SICK AND TIRED'-U.S. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the protests were embarrassing and caused "utter chaos.""Charlotte is better than this," Tillis said in a statement.On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina said police should release body and dash camera footage from the scene, and black activists and pastors called for an economic boycott of Charlotte."We're sick and tired of being sick and tired," civil rights activist John Barnett told reporters near where Scott died.Protesters in Oklahoma, meanwhile, have called for the arrest of Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby, who is white, for the killing on Friday of Terence Crutcher, 40, whose sport utility vehicle broke down and was blocking a road.Shelby's lawyer has said she feared for her life, believing Crutcher was reaching into his vehicle for a weapon. Lawyers for the Crutcher family released still images from police videos showing the car window was shut and said the use of force was not justified.Two police videos, one taken from a helicopter and one from a patrol car dashcam, show Shelby with her weapon drawn following Crutcher as he walked slowly to his vehicle with his hand in the air. Shelby shoots him as he puts his hands on the vehicle, and he falls to the ground.Speaking in Cleveland, Trump said it appeared Crutcher had been doing what he was supposed to do: "This officer, I don't know what she was thinking. ... Was she scared? Did she choke?"In a tweet on Wednesday, Clinton said: "Keith Lamont Scott. Terence Crutcher. Too many others. This has got to end."(Additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Emily Flitter in Cleveland; Writing by Jon Herskovitz and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and James Dalgleish)
Police chief: Officers warned black man to drop gun-[The Canadian Press]-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Police officers gave a black man multiple warnings to drop a handgun before one of the officers opened fire and killed him, Charlotte's police chief said Wednesday, hours after protesters and police clashed in unrest that saw tractor-trailers looted and set on fire.More than a dozen officers were injured, including one who was hit in the face with a rock. Authorities had to use tear gas to disperse the protests in North Carolina's largest city, which joins Milwaukee, Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, on the list of U.S. cities that erupted in violence over the death of black men at the hands of police.Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said during a news conference that 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott was shot because he was armed and posed a threat. But a woman who said she was Scott's daughter posted a video on Facebook soon after the shooting, saying that her father, who had an unspecified disability, was holding a book, not a gun."My daddy is dead," the woman says, screaming and crying on the video.The police chief said the black officer who shot Scott was a plainclothes officer wearing a vest with "Police" on it. The officer did not have a body camera, but three uniformed officers who engaged the suspect were required to wear body cameras.The North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union urged Charlotte police to release any footage of the shooting, but Putney said he couldn't because of an ongoing investigation.The ACLU noted that a new law restricting release of such footage doesn't take effect until Oct. 1. That new law says footage from police body or dashboard cameras can't be released publicly without a court order.The chief said officers were searching for a suspect when they saw Scott exit a vehicle with a handgun. He said the officers told him to drop the gun and that he got out of the vehicle a second time still carrying the gun."It's time to change the narrative, because I can tell you from the facts that the story's a little bit different as to how it's been portrayed so far, especially through social media," he said.His comments were an apparent reference to the profanity-laced, hourlong Facebook video, which was taken down Wednesday. In the video, the woman appears to be at the shooting scene, which is surrounded by yellow police tape, as she yells at officers.The woman did not respond to Facebook messages, and her claims could not immediately be verified by The Associated Press. It also was not clear if she witnessed the shooting.The black officer who shot Scott, Brently Vinson, has been placed on administrative leave as is standard procedure in such cases. Vinson has been with the department for two years.Police said the protests broke out around 7 p.m. Tuesday, about three hours after the shooting. TV footage showed dozens of protesters on Interstate 85 apparently looting semi-trucks and setting their contents on fire on the highway, shutting the highway down.The police chief said 16 officers suffered mostly minor injuries and police cars were damaged after people began throwing rocks.By 5 a.m. Wednesday, the streets were quiet and I-85 was moving again. Broken glass and rocks littered the ground where a police car had been vandalized. Less than 5 miles away, wooden pallets barricaded the entrance of a Wal-Mart that had apparently been looted.Detectives recovered a gun at the scene and were interviewing witnesses."The officers gave loud, clear verbal commands, which were also heard by many of the witnesses," the police chief said.Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts appealed for calm while B.J. Murphy, an outspoken leader of the Nation of Islam, called for an economic boycott of the city. He said if "black lives don't matter, black money shouldn't matter."The protest in Charlotte came hours after hundreds of people rallied outside Tulsa police headquarters, calling for the firing of police officer Betty Shelby, who shot 40-year-old Terence Crutcher on Friday during a confrontation in the middle of a road that was captured on police dashcam and helicopter video.Shelby's attorney has said Crutcher was not following the officers' commands and that Shelby was concerned because he kept reaching for his pocket as if he were carrying a weapon. An attorney representing Crutcher's family says Crutcher committed no crime and gave officers no reason to shoot him.Local and federal investigations into that shooting are ongoing and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Justice Department was in regular contact with Charlotte officials."These tragic incidents have once again left Americans with feelings of sorrow, anger and uncertainty," she said at the International Bar Association Conference in Washington. "They have once again highlighted - in the most vivid and painful terms - the real divisions that still persist in this nation between law enforcement and communities of colour ."___Associated Press writers Tom Foreman Jr., Jonathan Drew, Martha Waggoner and Steve Reed contributed to this report.Jeffrey Collins, The Associated Press
Dual citizens needing a Canadian passport to enter country get a break from feds-[Daily Brew]-Terri Coles-September 20, 2016-YAHOONEWS
The Canadian government is giving dual citizens a break over a new passport policy that caught many by surprise.The immigration and citizenship department is extending the leniency period for the Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) requirement, which will require all Canadian citizens including the nearly one million dual citizens to have a valid Canadian passport when flying into the country.The six-month leniency period has been extended to Nov. 9 from Sept. 30, according to a news release from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada on Tuesday. The release also says that U.S. citizens will not fall under the same eTA requirement that will apply to other visa-exempt travellers as of Nov. 10. “In consultation with airline partners, we’re taking further steps to minimize any travel disruptions,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister John McCallum, says in the release. “We are extending the leniency period and doing another major information blitz in Canada and abroad to encourage affected travellers, including dual Canadian citizens, to plan ahead and get the necessary travel documents before they book a flight to Canada.”Right now Canadians can use their passport from another country to enter this one as long as they provide proof of Canadian residency, including a driver’s licence or citizenship card.The new rule was first announced in March 2016, the Canadian government says. Since the application process went live in August 2015 close to two million visa-exempt foreign nationals have applied for an eTA online.The release says “eTA was a key commitment under the Canada U.S. Beyond the Border Action Plan to develop a common approach to pre-screening air travellers coming to either country.”The new eTA requirement helps identify people who are inadmissible to Canada in order to prevent them from travelling to the country, the release reads. Once issued, an eTA is valid for five years or until a traveller’s passport expires.At least 2.9 per cent of Canadians, or 944,700 people, hold multiple citizenships, according to the 2011 census. The most common country for multiple citizenships is the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, France and Poland.The new policy on passport use only applies to entry into Canada by air and excludes land and sea arrivals.
EU states must take many more refugees, warn MEPs By Nikolaj Nielsen-sept 21,16-euobserver
BRUSSELS, Today, 14:56-EU countries will need to take many more refugees if the migration crisis in the Middle East is to be eased, according to a group of MEPs on a visit to Lebanon.British socialist Claude Moraes, who chairs the EU parliament committee on civil liberties, said a refugee distribution key, which sets how many people are resettled to each EU state, is needed for the plan to work."I hope there will be a distribution key and I hope there will be a stronger kind of direction in the legislation," he told EUobsever by phone from Beirut on Wednesday (21 September).Moraes said EU humanitarian and development aid in the region is not enough and that EU states needed to resettle more asylum seekers.The EU commission in July floated a proposal to better resettle refugees from outside the EU to member states.The plan omitted distribution keys and binding quotas as result of the political backlash from states like Hungary and Slovakia over similar previous plans.Even the voluntary scheme is likely to meet stiff resistance. A Hungarian spokesperson told reporters earlier this week that a "voluntary system is a bad idea".But German Green Ska Keller, also speaking from Beirut, said the Commission's proposal is weak and needs mandatory targets."There is nothing binding in there. There is no minimal number, there is no scheme of how many are to be resettled," she said.She also said the EU commission had changed the criteria, initially set by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), on which refugees are the most vulnerable."This is a big problem, even from a diplomatic point of view. All of a sudden you say no we don't want to have anything to do with the UNHCR any more, we do our own thing. It is not a smart move," said Keller.Lebanon hosts some one million Syrian refugees on top of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that have been living in camps for decades.It has more refugees per capita than any other country.Lebanon, which shares a long border with Syria, saw its population jump from around 4.5 million before war to almost 6 million today.The MEPs' visit coincides with announcement of a pledge by 50 nations to take in 360,000 refugees at refugee summit in New York on Monday.President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly that the United States would take some 110,000 new refugees for 2017.The EU commission announced €40 million of emergency humanitarian aid to Yemen.
EU targets foreign fighters with sanctions By Aleksandra Eriksson-sept 21,16-euobserver
BRUSSELS, Today, 09:27-The European Union will from now on be able to freeze assets and impose travel bans on people associated with the Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaida jihadist groups, even if they are not on UN blacklists.The move, agreed by the Council on Tuesday (20 September), is primarily targeted against EU nationals.In particular, people trying to travel to Syria could be stopped from leaving in the first place, or from coming back to another EU country besides than the one they hold the passport of. It will also become easier for EU countries to prosecute their own nationals for terrorist-related activities.Non-EU nationals with links to Islamic terrorism will be barred from entering the bloc. Their assets in the EU will be frozen, and it will become illegal for EU persons and entities to send them money.Those who qualify for the restrictive measures are people who participated in the planning or perpetrating of terrorist attacks or received terrorist training from IS and Al-Qaida.People can be listed for providing the Islamic organisations with financing, oil or arms; recruiting their members directly or through public provocations and activities in support of these organisations.In a separate area of the new law, serious abuses of human rights outside the EU, including abduction, rape, sexual violence, forced marriage and enslavement of persons, could also put individuals and entities on the list.The bloc set up its terrorist list after the 9/11 attacks, but until now, sanctions could only be imposed on people who were on the UN blacklist. EU countries could also create national lists.No one individual was put under sanctions on Tuesday.Europol estimates that more than 5,000 EU nationals have travelled to Syria. One third of them have since returned, and some 14 percent have been confirmed as having been killed.The move to step up sanctions was driven by France.France is the country which has the largest number of departures - 2,147 French nationals or residents have left for Syria, according to figures presented by prime minister Manuel Valls in July.
In UN speeches, Trudeau and Obama take aim at the politics of Trumpism-[The Canadian Press]-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
UNITED NATIONS, United Nations — Justin Trudeau's first speech to the United Nations General Assembly included some less-than-subtle references to the politics practiced by people like Donald Trump, in a year where populist nationalism has made gains in different countries.The prime minister never mentioned any names, yet warned three times in his speech about politicians who exploit anxiety for personal gain. Politicians have a choice to make, Trudeau said: stoke public angst because it works for them politically, or try alleviating it with policies that improve people's lives.He cast his government's spending-heavy program as the latter — with an infrastructure plan that he's convinced will create middle-class jobs."What is the alternative?" Trudeau asked."To exploit anxiety? To turn it into fear and blame? To reject others because they look, or speak, or pray differently than we do?"In a news conference, Trudeau denied referring specifically to one politician. The phenomenon of foreigner-blaming has emerged in different countries, he explained — including in Canada's last election, where he accused his rivals of running on "Islamophobia.''His message was similar to that of Barack Obama.Before Trudeau delivered his first UN address, the U.S. president gave his last. He defended globalization; derided walls between nations; and encouraged policies that allow working people to experience the benefits of the global economy."Today, a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself," Obama said — one of three references to walls in his speech. "So the answer cannot be a simple rejection of global integration. Instead, we must work together to make sure the benefits of such integration are broadly shared."He cited several policies that might reassure working people that the globalized economy isn't rigged against them: unionization, cracking down on tax havens, and a social-safety net that allows people to retrain for new jobs.Obama also described foreign aid as one of those tools to narrow inequality — not within countries but between them."A world in which one per cent of humanity controls as much wealth as the other 99 per cent will never be stable," he said. "A pervasive sense of injustice undermines people's faith in the system."He took a shot at the notion of trade wars, a solution suggested by populists like Trump. Tit-for-tat tariff spats would only impoverish the world and increase the likelihood of conflict, Obama said.Trudeau and Obama apparently didn't discuss their speeches beforehand. One official said any similarities simply stemmed from coincidence and a shared worldview.That level of agreement was illustrated later in the day during a discussion on refugees, where Obama saluted Trudeau: "I want to personally thank Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Trudeau and the people of both those countries, because the politics sometimes can be hard (on accepting refugees). But it's the right thing to do."Polls in recent weeks have shown a tightening race in the U.S., where Trump has suddenly appeared competitive in surveys nationally and in battleground states. His win in the Republican nomination race comes in a year where other anti-globalization politicians have achieved success in several European countries.While they differ in myriad policy areas, common themes shared by Trump and parties like France's Front National include opposition to trade deals, complaints about foreigners taking jobs, and advocating a harder line against radical Islamists.There's an active debate among American pundits about what's driving Trump's voters — anxiety about economics, as Trudeau suggests; culture and race; or a combination of factors, including frustration with run-of-the-mill politicians.Surveys have given reason to competing theories. They indeed show Trump doing better with voters who are less affluent and less educated. They also show greater resentment toward racial minorities.This was Trudeau's third trip to the UN this year, as he builds the campaign for a temporary security-council seat.He was asked why he wants that seat — and what agenda items he'd use it to promote. Trudeau didn't offer any specifics. He referred to championing diversity, and economic opportunity.He did promise more specifics this fall in one other area: on his promised deployment of 600 Canadian soldiers to peacekeeping operations.The prime minister received warm applause at his various events, and even some shouted cheers as he arrived in the main conventional hall Tuesday.However, in another respect, the room was similar to the one that last greeted his predecessor Stephen Harper and Britain's new prime minister, Theresa May, who spoke just before Trudeau: There were more empty seats than people, as various delegations dealt with their own UN meetings and events outside the main hall — which is the custom at the annual event.Trudeau's allies had poked fun at Harper for that.Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press.
ISAIAH 30:26-27
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold,(7X OR 7-DEGREES HOTTER) as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people,(ISRAEL) and healeth the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:
MATTHEW 24:21-22,29
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened,(DAY LIGHT HOURS SHORTENED) there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake (ISRAELS SAKE) those days shall be shortened (Daylight hours shortened)(THE ASTEROID HITS EARTH HERE)
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
REVELATION 16:7-9
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
Earth smashes yet another heat record; 16th month in a row-[The Canadian Press]-September 20, 2016-YAHOONEWS
WASHINGTON — Another month, another global heat record smashed.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday said August's temperature of 61.74 degrees (16.52 Celsius) was .09 degrees (.05 Celsius) warmer than the old August record set last year, and was the 16th consecutive month of record-breaking heat. NOAA monitoring chief Deke Arndt said it was also the hottest summer, with 2016 on pace to smash last year's record for the hottest year.August 2016 was also 1.66 degrees (0.92 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average. It was the fifth hottest month of any kind recorded, going back to 1880. Six of the 17 hottest months on record have been the summer months of 2015 and 2016.The June-through-August summer was 2.18 degrees (1.21 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average and beat the old summer heat record, set last year, by one-fifth of a degree (0.11 Celsius), NOAA said."The needle has been shoved all the way over into the red by greenhouse gases," Arndt said.NOAA's announcement came on a day when 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including Stephen Hawking and 30 Nobel laureates, released an open letter urging American leaders not to pull out of an international agreement to curb global warming.Organizer and MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said the scientists wrote the letter in response to the Republican party platform that rejects the Paris climate agreement reached last December. The letter said presidential nominee Donald Trump's advocacy of withdrawing from that agreement would "send a clear signal to the rest of the world: The United States does not care about the global problem of human-caused climate change."Pulling out of the Paris accord, Emanuel said, "will accelerate our head-long plunge into a riskier and riskier climate.""Everywhere we look we see signs that the climate really is changing," Emanuel said. "We're getting wake-up calls more frequently and we really have to do something about this."Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
Teleportation across Calgary marks 'major step' toward creation of 'quantum internet'-[CBC]-September 20, 2016-YAHOONEWS
In a "major step" toward practical quantum networking, researchers at the University of Calgary have successfully demonstrated the teleportation of a light particle's properties between their lab and the city's downtown area, six kilometres away."What is remarkable about this is that this information transfer happens in what we call a disembodied manner," said physics professor Wolfgang Tittel, whose team's work was published this week in the journal Nature Photonics."Our transfer happens without any need for an object to move between these two particles."Their research relies on advanced lasers, a dedicated fibre-optic line, and light-detecting sensors that must be kept incredibly cold because they won't work at temperatures above –272 C.It also relies on the increasingly well-known but still baffling phenomenon of quantum entanglement.The concept is so bizarre that a dubious Albert Einstein famously dubbed it "spooky action at a distance" in the 1940s, as he described what he saw as flaws in the emerging theory of quantum mechanics.But today, an increasing body of evidence has confirmed the most counterintuitive predictions of quantum theory, including the strange behaviour of "entangled" particles.These are pairs of particles that are fundamentally linked, such that the properties of each one is intrinsically tied up in the other and actions affecting one particle have an immediate effect on the other, no matter how far apart the particles are.For their demonstration, the U of C team used a specialized laser to create a pair of entangled photons — elementary particles of light — and sent one to Calgary City Hall via a dedicated fibre-optic line while keeping the other in their lab at the university in the city's northwest.At the same time, a third photon was sent to city hall from another location (a data centre in the southeast community of Manchester) so that it would meet and interact with the entangled photon."We had to make sure it arrived at the same time at city hall as the photon that was created at the data centre," said Tittel."And that's pretty tricky, because 'the same' in our case means with a provision of a few picoseconds."(For the non-physics crowd: A picosecond is one-trillionth of a second, or 0.000000000001 seconds — which means not much room for error.) Tittel said the team had to create feedback mechanisms in the experimental setup to ensure "very precise timing" of the photons' arrivals at city hall, as small changes in outdoor temperature that cause the fibre-optic cables to expand or contract by minuscule amounts could throw off the timing.-Success from kilometres away-In the end, though, the system worked and the transfer of properties between the photon at city hall and the photon at the university — 6.2 kilometres away, as the crow flies — was confirmed."It's fascinating to see that, not only teleportation exists, but that you can … transfer the state without transferring the photon over a large distance," Tittel said."From a fundamental point of view, that is fascinating. From a practical point of view, we used a standard fibre network to do so, which of course moves this whole demonstration into the realm of something that will be practical and useful."The team's article in Nature Photonics says the demonstration "constitutes a milestone towards a global quantum internet," as it is one of the longest distances over which quantum teleportation has been achieved using a fibre-optic network in this way."The way we localized all the different stations within the city of Calgary reflects what needs to be done in a future quantum repeater that will allow us to send quantum information, in principle, over arbitrarily long distances," Tittel said."So, it's a major step forward toward that goal."Coincidentally, in the same edition of the same journal, an independent team of Chinese researchers published the results of their own demonstration — one that used a slightly different setup but employed the same principles and confirmed quantum teleportation using a fibre-optic network over a span of 12 kilometres."Our experiment marks a critical step towards the realization of a global 'quantum internet' in the real world," the Chinese team wrote.What is the 'quantum internet,' anyway? It doesn't exist yet, but the dream of a "quantum internet" involves taking advantage of a key element of quantum mechanics — the fact that observing a particle's quantum state changes that particle's quantum state.This creates the opportunity to communicate with a degree of security never before possible, because no one can intercept a communication without the intended receiver of the information knowing about it."If you encode keys into quantum states and send them from person to another — for instance, through teleportation — then it turns out that you can verify at the receiver's side … if an eavesdropper has acquired any information about that key," Tittel said."If you find out that nobody has tampered with this transmission, you know that you share a perfectly secure key and then you can use it to encrypt some sensitive data."-Partnership between university, municipality-The development of functional quantum networks is still a long time off, but Sylvain Mayer, an information architecture engineer with the City of Calgary, said the city plans to continue working with the university to speed up the process.The fibre-optic network the U of C team used normally carries information between various city departments, but a dedicated portion of it was made available to the researchers through the Urban Alliance, a partnership developed in 2007."We're happy that part of our fibre infrastructure can be used by these fellows to be able to research cutting-edge technology," Mayer said."The city just wants to be able to continue to be able to help educational institutions in their pursuit of next-generation types of services that will eventually be able to help everyone around the world."
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.
Brexit: preparing for a bitter divorce By Benjamin Fox-sept 21,16-euobserver
London, Today, 15:31-So we have a tentative date: Brexit talks are "quite likely" to start in January or February, says Donald Tusk.Let’s not get too excited.Even if, as Tusk stated, Theresa May triggers Article 50 at the start of 2017, the UK government will still be in no position to hold substantive talks.The government’s new Brexit department is in the process of launching around 30 EU-related policy reviews. If the government works at break-neck pace, these reviews, and policy "red lines" for each, will have been completed by mid-2017. Only then will Britain be able to negotiate on detail, just at the time when Germany gears up for elections to the Bundestag.Nonetheless, the pre-Article 50 "phoney war" is well under way, and neither side is leaving much room to manoeuvre.The ideal arrangement for Theresa May would involve unfettered single market access and "passporting rights" (the right for British-based financial firms to do business in the eurozone), free movement for Britons to live and work across the EU, and, of course, strict limits on EU migration.-Shaky wisdom-The assumption (or wishful thinking) among Remain supporters is that either the negotiations will be so protracted that the UK will still be an EU member in 2020, leaving open a slim prospect of reversing the referendum result; or that the will of Theresa May and the Treasury will ensure that Britain at least retains single market membership.This perceived wisdom is now looking increasingly shaky. It underestimates just how powerful and emboldened the eurosceptic wing of the Conservatives is. An increasingly large faction of the party is prepared to double down its bet by advocating a "hard Brexit" - leaving the single market, and taking its chances with the WTO.In its launch report published on Sunday (18 September), the Leave Means Leave group (which is obviously insufficiently convinced by May’s "Brexit means Brexit" mantra) backed by a group of Conservative MPs, describes remaining in the single market as the “‘no say, low growth, regulatory burden, sovereignty illusion’ option locking in perpetual trade deficits”.“No deal is better than a bad deal,” says the new group’s chair, Leave campaigner and businessman Richard Tice.-'A la carte' approach-The British left is also edging towards demanding a UK specific deal on single market access. Speaking in London last Thursday (15 September), Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn described the referendum as “the end of a failed economic model”, arguing that any new settlement with the EU would need to allow more government intervention in the economy.“The state aid rules of the EU are no longer valid,” he said, adding that “governments across the world are choosing intervention”.It was, in many ways, the sort of speech that European social democrats used to make 30 years ago, emphasising the need for stronger trade union rights and protection. If you had added some nationalist rhetoric on refugees and migrants it could have been Marine Le Pen speaking.Corbyn’s party is bitterly divided and, at present, bordering on irrelevance. Even so, the fact that Labour is also moving towards an "a la carte" approach to single market membership suggests that Open Britain, the pro-single market pressure group formed from the ashes of the Remain campaign, will only be able to rely on the tiny rump of Liberal Democrat MPs for unconditional support.If British politicians are edging away from a Norwegian or Swiss-style arrangement with the EU, the EU seems scarcely in a position to offer any better.The Visegrad group made clear in Bratislava that freedom of movement is non-negotiable.-Playing ‘deal or no deal’-Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte may be in denial about the referendum, complaining that the UK is “still in the EU”. “I don’t think it’s good to have summits without them,” he said. As it was, May’s government behaved like an annoying ex by threatening to veto any attempts at EU harmonisation in defence policy.In a break up, both parties usually want to keep the house, the car and the family pet. Compromise is needed to reach an amicable settlement.Self-interest, not to mention sanity, may ultimately ensure that a deal can be struck. “The 27 will sign up to a deal with us,” May insisted on Monday (19 September), adding that “this is not just about us, it’s actually about their relationships and trading within that European arena”.For the moment, however, if Britain is planning to play "deal or no deal", and the EU is unwilling or unable to offer much to sweeten the departure terms, Brexit looks increasingly like a bitter divorce.Benjamin Fox, a former reporter for EUobserver, is a consultant with Sovereign Strategy, a London-based PR firm, and a freelance writer.
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)
New York bomb squad clears suspicious package in Times Square-[Reuters]-By Laila Kearney-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's bomb squad responded to a suspicious piece of luggage abandoned on a sidewalk in the Times Square neighborhood on Wednesday that was later determined to be harmless, police said.Police blocked off a stretch of the tourist destination as investigators worked to determine the contents and owner of the luggage left outside a McDonald's restaurant, a police spokesman said.After more than an hour of investigating, police said they discovered the rolling suitcase was empty.Last Saturday, a pressure-cooker bomb exploded in Manhattan, injuring 31 people. Additional bombs were found in a second location in the city and in Elizabeth, New Jersey shortly after the explosion.Police have charged 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Afghanistan, for the explosion.(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Grant McCool)
Bomb suspect vowed 'death to your oppression,' feds say-[The Canadian Press]-The Canadian PressSeptember 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
NEW YORK — He bought bomb ingredients on eBay and recorded a mirthful video of himself igniting a blast in a backyard. In a handwritten journal, he warned that bombs would resound in the streets and prayed he'd be martyred rather than caught, authorities say.Ahmad Khan Rahami's jihad journal ended with a stark message, according to court papers:"Death to your oppression."-Federal court complaints filed Tuesday gave a chilling glimpse into what authorities say motivated the Afghan-born U.S. citizen to set off explosives last weekend in New York City and New Jersey, including a bomb that injured 31 people in Manhattan. The blasts came two years after the FBI looked into him but came up with nothing tying him to terrorism.Rahami remains hospitalized with gunshot wounds from a shootout with police that led to his capture Monday outside a bar in Linden, New Jersey. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had a lawyer who could comment on the charges against him, but a federal public defender told a judge Tuesday night that Rahami has not had access to a lawyer since his arrest.The charges against him include federal terror crimes and state charges of attempting to murder police officers.Rahami ordered citric acid, ball bearings and electronic igniters on eBay and had them delivered to a Perth Amboy, New Jersey, business where he worked until Sept. 12, the court complaints said. San Jose, California-based eBay Inc. noted that the products are legal and widely available and said the company had worked with law enforcement on the investigation.Just two days before Saturday's bombings, a relative's cellphone recorded Rahami igniting incendiary material in a cylinder buried in a backyard, the fuse being lighted, a loud noise and flames, "followed by billowing smoke and laughter," the complaints said.And the complaints said in his bloodied journal — damaged by shots from his gun battle with police — he fumed that the U.S. government was slaughtering Muslim holy warriors and alluded to plans for revenge.One portion expressed concern at the prospect of being caught before being able to carry out a suicide attack and the desire to be a martyr. Another section included a reference to "pipe bombs" and a "pressure cooker bomb" and declared: "In the streets they plan to run a mile," an apparent reference to one of the blast sites, a charity run in Seaside Park, New Jersey."The sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets," the journal declared.There also were laudatory references to Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki — the American-born Muslim cleric who was killed in a 2011 drone strike and whose preaching has inspired other acts of violence — and Nidal Hasan, the former Army officer who went on a deadly shooting rampage in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas, the complaints said.Rahami is accused of setting three bombs, one in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and two in Manhattan. One of the New York City bombs didn't explode, and the FBI on Wednesday issued a poster showing two men who investigators want to talk to. The agency says the men were seen Saturday night removing the bomb that failed to explode from a piece of luggage, then leaving the device behind while taking the suitcase. Investigators have said the two men are being sought as witnesses, not suspects.The FBI has said Rahami apparently was not on its radar at the time of the bombing. But he was in 2014, when the FBI opened up an "assessment" — its least intrusive form of inquiry — based on comments from his father after a domestic dispute, the bureau said in a statement."The FBI conducted internal database reviews, interagency checks and multiple interviews, none of which revealed ties to terrorism," the bureau said.A law enforcement official said the FBI spoke with Rahami's father in 2014 after agents learned of his concerns that the son could be a terrorist. During the inquiry, the father backed away from talk of terrorism and told investigators that he simply meant his son was hanging out with the wrong crowd, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.Rahami's father, Mohammad, told reporters Tuesday he called the FBI at the time because Rahami "was doing real bad," having stabbed his brother and hit his mother. Rahami was not prosecuted in the stabbing; a grand jury declined to indict him."But they checked, almost two months, and they say, 'He's OK, he's clear, he's not terrorist.' Now they say he's a terrorist," the father said outside the family's fried-chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Asked whether he thought his son was a terrorist, he said: "No. And the FBI, they know that."The FBI has faced questions before about whether it could have done more ahead of time to determine whether attackers had terrorist aspirations. The issue arose after the Orlando massacre in June, for instance, when FBI Director James Comey said agents a few years earlier had looked into the gunman, Omar Mateen, but did not find enough information to pursue charges or keep him under investigation.White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama was confident the bureau would review Rahami's interactions with law enforcement "to determine if there's something different that could have been done or should have been done to prevent the violence."Meanwhile, investigators are looking into Rahami's overseas travel, including a visit to Pakistan a few years ago, and want to know whether he received any money or training from extremist organizations.Rahami's wife is thought to be a Pakistani national. On a trip to Pakistan in 2014, Rahami emailed his local congressman seeking help because his pregnant wife had an expired passport.David Duerden, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi, was unable to confirm or deny reports that Rahami's wife had been questioned in the United Arab Emirates, which is home to a large expatriate Pakistani population and has airports that offer daily flights to Pakistan."We're aware of the reports but don't have any comment at this time," he told the AP.Emirati officials in Dubai and the federal capital Abu Dhabi said they had no information on her.Federal agents would like to question Rahami. But Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., who received a classified briefing from the FBI, said Rahami was not co-operating ; that could also be a reflection of his injuries.Rahami, who came to the U.S. as a child, studied criminal justice for a time at a community college, and he worked as an unarmed night guard for two months in 2011 at an AP administrative technology office in Cranbury, New Jersey. At the time, he was employed by Summit Security, a private contractor.AP global security chief Danny Spriggs said he learned this week that Rahami worked there and often engaged colleagues in long political discussions, expressing sympathy for the Taliban and disdain for U.S. military action in Afghanistan. Rahami left that job in 2011 because he wanted to take a trip to Afghanistan, Spriggs said.AP spokesman Paul Colford said the news co-operative told law enforcement officials about Rahami's work at the Cranbury facility.Summit's vice-president of security services, Daniel Sepulveda, said Rahami last worked for the company in 2011. Sepulveda said he was unaware of any complaints about Rahami's conduct.___Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jake Pearson in New York; Michael Balsamo, Michael Catalini and Dake Kang in Elizabeth, New Jersey; Josh Cornfield in Pennsylvania; Adam Schreck in Dubai; and Alicia A. Caldwell, Kevin Freking and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.Eric Tucker, Larry Neumeister And Jennifer Peltz, The Associated Press
Defense lawyer seeking access to accused New York bomber-[Reuters]-By David Ingram and Laila Kearney-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawyer for an Afghan-born U.S. citizen charged with bombings last weekend in New York and New Jersey asked to see his client on Wednesday and suggested the man's first court appearance could occur in his hospital bed.Police in New York City also said they had not yet been cleared to speak to Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, who was arrested on Monday after a gunfight with police in Linden, New Jersey. He is now receiving treatment for his wounds at a hospital in Newark, New Jersey, where he could formally face his charges if he cannot travel to the U.S. District Court in Manhattan."He has been held and questioned by federal law enforcement agents since his arrest," David Patton, head of the New York City federal public defenders office, said in a court filing. "The Sixth Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution) requires that he be given access to counsel on the federal charges, and that he be presented without delay."Patton also asked to meet with Rahami on Wednesday."He's not yet medically cleared so that we can speak to him just yet," New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill told a news conference. "That may happen in the next 24 hours, pending the doctors' approval."Federal prosecutors said Rahami injured 31 people in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood with a homemade bomb that detonated on Saturday night in a case that law enforcement authorities now regard as terrorism.Rahami is also charged with planting bombs that went off in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and his hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, but did not injure anyone. He faces charges from federal prosecutors in both states.Rahami's wife met with U.S. law enforcement officials while in the United Arab Emirates and voluntarily gave a statement, a law enforcement official said. She was not in custody, the official said. A New Jersey U.S. congressman previously said Rahami had emailed his office in 2014 for help in getting her a visa to enter the United States from Pakistan when she was pregnant.The FBI said on Wednesday that it wanted to speak with two men seen in surveillance footage picking up a second bag containing a pressure-cooker bomb believed to be planted by Rahami in Chelsea on Saturday night. The two left the device on the street and took the bag.Officials said they regard the men as potential witnesses, not suspects.-PRAISE FOR BIN LADEN-Federal prosecutors portrayed Rahami, who came to the United States at age 7 and became a naturalized citizen, as embracing militant Islamic views, begging for martyrdom and expressing outrage at the U.S. "slaughter" of Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine."Inshallah (God willing), the sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets," Rahami wrote in a journal that he was carrying when arrested, according to prosecutors."Gun shots to your police. Death to your oppression," read the journal, stained with blood following Monday's gun battle.Rahami, in other parts of his journal, praised "Brother" Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader slain in a 2011 U.S. raid in Pakistan; Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric and leading al Qaeda propagandist who was killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike in Yemen; and Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.The attacks in New York and New Jersey were the latest in a series in the United States inspired by Islamic militant groups including al Qaeda and Islamic State. A pair of ethnic Chechen brothers killed three people and injured more than 260 at the 2013 Boston Marathon with homemade pressure-cooker bombs similar to those used in this weekend's attacks.In the past year, an Orlando gunman and a married couple in San Bernardino killed dozens in mass shootings inspired by Islamic State.Federal investigators were probing Rahami's history of travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and looking for any evidence that he may have picked up radical views or trained in bomb-making on those trips. They still are trying to find out whether he received any help in planning his attack or building the bombs.The charging documents lay out a wide swath of evidence pointing to Rahami as the bomber. Surveillance video places him in the area, and his fingerprints were on unexploded devices including a pressure-cooker bomb found blocks away from the blast.If Rahami's first court appearance occurs in the hospital bed, he would not be the first U.S. terrorism suspect to be charged in such a venue.Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted last year for his role in the Boston Marathon attacks and sentenced to death, also first faced charges in his hospital bed while he was still recovering from injuries sustained in a gunfight with police.(Additional reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Will Dunham)
Crime-plagued Chicago to add nearly 1,000 police officers: newspaper-[Reuters]-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago's police department plans to hire nearly 1,000 officers over the next two years in a bid to combat a surge of violence in the third-largest U.S. city including more than 500 murders this year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Wednesday.The department will add 970 officers to its force including 516 patrol officers, 92 field-training officers, 112 sergeants, 50 lieutenants and 200 detectives, police Chief Eddie Johnson told the newspaper.The city currently has around 12,000 officers, the newspaper reported.Chicago is struggling with a wave of violence that has included 509 murders in the city already this year, according to Chicago Police Department statistics, a 46 percent increase from last year.Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had been reluctant to hire more officers, relying instead on existing officers to work overtime. He is scheduled to give a speech on the city's crime problem on Thursday night.(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin; Editing by Will Dunham)
Chicken shacks' are lifeline for New Jersey's Afghan immigrants-[Reuters]-By Joseph Ax and Mica Rosenberg-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
ELIZABETH, N.J. (Reuters) - They dot the landscape in this working-class New Jersey city, popping up every few blocks with names like U.S. Fried Chicken, Royal Fried Chicken and New York Fried Chicken and Burger and giving immigrants a foothold in a new country.One of these fried chicken restaurants, First American Fried Chicken, was thrust into the international spotlight on Monday when authorities arrested the owner's son, Ahmad Rahami, after a shootout with police.Rahami is suspected of planting several explosives in New York City and New Jersey, including one that blew up on Saturday night in Manhattan and injured 29 people and two in New Jersey that exploded over the weekend but did not hurt anyone.Local restaurant owners in Elizabeth said on Tuesday that many of the fried chicken restaurants are operated by Afghan owners like Mohammad Rahami, who employed his sons including Ahmad, at his eatery.Joshua Sanchez, an Elizabeth resident who frequented Rahami's restaurant, said "chicken shacks" are part of daily life in the city. And Flee Jones, a rapper and producer who has known Ahmad Rahami since they were teenagers, helped write a song praising Rahami's shack and its friendly service.In many immigrant communities, the success of a few individuals in a particular business may inspire others to follow the same path."A lot of immigrants feel that if my old neighbor in Turkey or Afghanistan is able to do it, I can do the same thing," said Aisha Wahab, a board member of the California-based Afghan Coalition, which helps Afghan immigrants and refugees in the United States.That was the case for Ali, owner of a nearby chicken shack in Elizabeth, who opened his business in the early 1990s after coming to the United States as a 15-year-old war refugee."There were people from my country doing this business," said Ali, 43, who declined to give his last name for fear he might face harassment after the bombing.Ali said the business was a good fit for recent immigrants with limited English and a lack of professional skills.Another chicken shack owned by an Afghan family flanks the Elizabeth train station, where Rahami is suspected of leaving up to half a dozen explosive devices on Sunday.Mohammad Hassan, 23, the owner's son, said his father has been in the fried chicken business for many years, first in neighboring Union and now in Elizabeth.Elizabeth has a sizable and well established Muslim population with a wide range of professions, according to religious and community leaders.Afghans, however, make up only a small portion of that group, though their numbers have been rising.Census data showed approximately 200 Afghans living in the city, according to the federal government's latest five-year survey that covered 2010 to 2014.Hassen Abdellah, president of the Dar-Ul-Islam mosque, said Elizabeth was a first stop for many immigrants, including Muslims seeking a town with a large and active community."We're a seaport town. You get off the plane, and you're in Elizabeth," he said in a telephone interview. The mosque has been in Elizabeth for 75 years and typically has about 500 to 700 people at Friday prayer, he said."If there's tension, I haven't heard about it," he said. "The beauty of what we have going on in Elizabeth is the Muslim community here is no stranger to other people."The Rahamis clashed with some neighbors, though others described them as friendly and sociable. The suspect's family engaged in a protracted battle with the city after numerous complaints from local residents about noise and late hours at First American Fried Chicken, and Mohammad Rahami filed an unsuccessful federal lawsuit against the city claiming religious discrimination.U.S. authorities are still investigating what possible motives Ahmad Rahami may have had for placing bombs in New York and New Jersey and if he was radicalized during trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan.Several local Muslim leaders told a news conference on Tuesday that the acts Rahami is suspected of committing were not representative of their religion."This individual perpetrator, these terrorist acts do not represent Islam or Muslims in any sense," said Ali Chaudry, the president of the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge.But Ali, the chicken shack owner, said he was worried about retaliation, even though he has rarely faced discrimination in diverse Elizabeth."It's very scary," he said. "Who knows who's going to walk into the store?"(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Mica Rosenberg; Additional reporting by Chris Prentice and Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
Police in riot-hit Charlotte say shooting victim was armed-[Reuters]-By Greg Lacour and Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CHARLOTTE, N.C./TULSA,Okla. (Reuters) - A black man killed by police in a Charlotte, North Carolina, parking lot had ignored commands to drop a handgun that officers said he was holding, authorities said on Wednesday hours after 16 officers were injured in protests sparked by the shooting.The trouble in Charlotte unfolded as demonstrators in Tulsa, Oklahoma, demanded the arrest of a police officer there who was seen on video shooting to death an unarmed black man who had his hands in clear view at the time.The two deaths were the latest to raise questions of racial bias in U.S. law enforcement and have stoked a national debate on policing ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.Police shootings in cities such as New York, Baltimore, Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri, have triggered more than two years of largely peaceful street protests punctuated by days of rioting and arson and given rise to the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement.U.S. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton called for an end to these types of shootings. Her Republican rival, Donald Trump, questioned what the Tulsa officer was thinking in shooting a man he said seemed to pose no imminent threat.Criminal investigations have been opened in both cities after the shootings, and the U.S. Justice Department has started a separate probe into the Oklahoma incident to see if officers' use of force amounted to a civil rights violation.Bracing for the possibility of more unrest Wednesday night, Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts called for calm and dialogue and urged people to have patience with the investigation.The city's police chief, Kerr Putney, said 43-year-old Keith Scott was seen on Tuesday getting into a vehicle holding a handgun. Police surrounded the car, Putney said, and Scott was shot by a black police officer after he exited the car and did not obey orders to drop his weapon."He stepped out, posing a threat to the officers," Putney told a news conference, adding that police acted heroically in trying to stem the protests that followed.Scott's family said he was reading in his car and was unarmed, but the police chief disputed that."I can also tell you we did not find a book," Putney said. "We did find a weapon."North Carolina allows for the open carry of handguns, including having a pistol in a vehicle.One protester was arrested and several were injured in demonstrations that blocked an interstate highway. Rioters set fires and stoned police cars, Putney said, and officers used tear gas to disperse the crowd.-'SICK AND TIRED'-U.S. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the protests were embarrassing and caused "utter chaos.""Charlotte is better than this," Tillis said in a statement.On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina said police should release body and dash camera footage from the scene, and black activists and pastors called for an economic boycott of Charlotte."We're sick and tired of being sick and tired," civil rights activist John Barnett told reporters near where Scott died.Protesters in Oklahoma, meanwhile, have called for the arrest of Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby, who is white, for the killing on Friday of Terence Crutcher, 40, whose sport utility vehicle broke down and was blocking a road.Shelby's lawyer has said she feared for her life, believing Crutcher was reaching into his vehicle for a weapon. Lawyers for the Crutcher family released still images from police videos showing the car window was shut and said the use of force was not justified.Two police videos, one taken from a helicopter and one from a patrol car dashcam, show Shelby with her weapon drawn following Crutcher as he walked slowly to his vehicle with his hand in the air. Shelby shoots him as he puts his hands on the vehicle, and he falls to the ground.Speaking in Cleveland, Trump said it appeared Crutcher had been doing what he was supposed to do: "This officer, I don't know what she was thinking. ... Was she scared? Did she choke?"In a tweet on Wednesday, Clinton said: "Keith Lamont Scott. Terence Crutcher. Too many others. This has got to end."(Additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Emily Flitter in Cleveland; Writing by Jon Herskovitz and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and James Dalgleish)
Police chief: Officers warned black man to drop gun-[The Canadian Press]-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Police officers gave a black man multiple warnings to drop a handgun before one of the officers opened fire and killed him, Charlotte's police chief said Wednesday, hours after protesters and police clashed in unrest that saw tractor-trailers looted and set on fire.More than a dozen officers were injured, including one who was hit in the face with a rock. Authorities had to use tear gas to disperse the protests in North Carolina's largest city, which joins Milwaukee, Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, on the list of U.S. cities that erupted in violence over the death of black men at the hands of police.Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said during a news conference that 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott was shot because he was armed and posed a threat. But a woman who said she was Scott's daughter posted a video on Facebook soon after the shooting, saying that her father, who had an unspecified disability, was holding a book, not a gun."My daddy is dead," the woman says, screaming and crying on the video.The police chief said the black officer who shot Scott was a plainclothes officer wearing a vest with "Police" on it. The officer did not have a body camera, but three uniformed officers who engaged the suspect were required to wear body cameras.The North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union urged Charlotte police to release any footage of the shooting, but Putney said he couldn't because of an ongoing investigation.The ACLU noted that a new law restricting release of such footage doesn't take effect until Oct. 1. That new law says footage from police body or dashboard cameras can't be released publicly without a court order.The chief said officers were searching for a suspect when they saw Scott exit a vehicle with a handgun. He said the officers told him to drop the gun and that he got out of the vehicle a second time still carrying the gun."It's time to change the narrative, because I can tell you from the facts that the story's a little bit different as to how it's been portrayed so far, especially through social media," he said.His comments were an apparent reference to the profanity-laced, hourlong Facebook video, which was taken down Wednesday. In the video, the woman appears to be at the shooting scene, which is surrounded by yellow police tape, as she yells at officers.The woman did not respond to Facebook messages, and her claims could not immediately be verified by The Associated Press. It also was not clear if she witnessed the shooting.The black officer who shot Scott, Brently Vinson, has been placed on administrative leave as is standard procedure in such cases. Vinson has been with the department for two years.Police said the protests broke out around 7 p.m. Tuesday, about three hours after the shooting. TV footage showed dozens of protesters on Interstate 85 apparently looting semi-trucks and setting their contents on fire on the highway, shutting the highway down.The police chief said 16 officers suffered mostly minor injuries and police cars were damaged after people began throwing rocks.By 5 a.m. Wednesday, the streets were quiet and I-85 was moving again. Broken glass and rocks littered the ground where a police car had been vandalized. Less than 5 miles away, wooden pallets barricaded the entrance of a Wal-Mart that had apparently been looted.Detectives recovered a gun at the scene and were interviewing witnesses."The officers gave loud, clear verbal commands, which were also heard by many of the witnesses," the police chief said.Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts appealed for calm while B.J. Murphy, an outspoken leader of the Nation of Islam, called for an economic boycott of the city. He said if "black lives don't matter, black money shouldn't matter."The protest in Charlotte came hours after hundreds of people rallied outside Tulsa police headquarters, calling for the firing of police officer Betty Shelby, who shot 40-year-old Terence Crutcher on Friday during a confrontation in the middle of a road that was captured on police dashcam and helicopter video.Shelby's attorney has said Crutcher was not following the officers' commands and that Shelby was concerned because he kept reaching for his pocket as if he were carrying a weapon. An attorney representing Crutcher's family says Crutcher committed no crime and gave officers no reason to shoot him.Local and federal investigations into that shooting are ongoing and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Justice Department was in regular contact with Charlotte officials."These tragic incidents have once again left Americans with feelings of sorrow, anger and uncertainty," she said at the International Bar Association Conference in Washington. "They have once again highlighted - in the most vivid and painful terms - the real divisions that still persist in this nation between law enforcement and communities of colour ."___Associated Press writers Tom Foreman Jr., Jonathan Drew, Martha Waggoner and Steve Reed contributed to this report.Jeffrey Collins, The Associated Press
Dual citizens needing a Canadian passport to enter country get a break from feds-[Daily Brew]-Terri Coles-September 20, 2016-YAHOONEWS
The Canadian government is giving dual citizens a break over a new passport policy that caught many by surprise.The immigration and citizenship department is extending the leniency period for the Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) requirement, which will require all Canadian citizens including the nearly one million dual citizens to have a valid Canadian passport when flying into the country.The six-month leniency period has been extended to Nov. 9 from Sept. 30, according to a news release from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada on Tuesday. The release also says that U.S. citizens will not fall under the same eTA requirement that will apply to other visa-exempt travellers as of Nov. 10. “In consultation with airline partners, we’re taking further steps to minimize any travel disruptions,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister John McCallum, says in the release. “We are extending the leniency period and doing another major information blitz in Canada and abroad to encourage affected travellers, including dual Canadian citizens, to plan ahead and get the necessary travel documents before they book a flight to Canada.”Right now Canadians can use their passport from another country to enter this one as long as they provide proof of Canadian residency, including a driver’s licence or citizenship card.The new rule was first announced in March 2016, the Canadian government says. Since the application process went live in August 2015 close to two million visa-exempt foreign nationals have applied for an eTA online.The release says “eTA was a key commitment under the Canada U.S. Beyond the Border Action Plan to develop a common approach to pre-screening air travellers coming to either country.”The new eTA requirement helps identify people who are inadmissible to Canada in order to prevent them from travelling to the country, the release reads. Once issued, an eTA is valid for five years or until a traveller’s passport expires.At least 2.9 per cent of Canadians, or 944,700 people, hold multiple citizenships, according to the 2011 census. The most common country for multiple citizenships is the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, France and Poland.The new policy on passport use only applies to entry into Canada by air and excludes land and sea arrivals.
EU states must take many more refugees, warn MEPs By Nikolaj Nielsen-sept 21,16-euobserver
BRUSSELS, Today, 14:56-EU countries will need to take many more refugees if the migration crisis in the Middle East is to be eased, according to a group of MEPs on a visit to Lebanon.British socialist Claude Moraes, who chairs the EU parliament committee on civil liberties, said a refugee distribution key, which sets how many people are resettled to each EU state, is needed for the plan to work."I hope there will be a distribution key and I hope there will be a stronger kind of direction in the legislation," he told EUobsever by phone from Beirut on Wednesday (21 September).Moraes said EU humanitarian and development aid in the region is not enough and that EU states needed to resettle more asylum seekers.The EU commission in July floated a proposal to better resettle refugees from outside the EU to member states.The plan omitted distribution keys and binding quotas as result of the political backlash from states like Hungary and Slovakia over similar previous plans.Even the voluntary scheme is likely to meet stiff resistance. A Hungarian spokesperson told reporters earlier this week that a "voluntary system is a bad idea".But German Green Ska Keller, also speaking from Beirut, said the Commission's proposal is weak and needs mandatory targets."There is nothing binding in there. There is no minimal number, there is no scheme of how many are to be resettled," she said.She also said the EU commission had changed the criteria, initially set by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), on which refugees are the most vulnerable."This is a big problem, even from a diplomatic point of view. All of a sudden you say no we don't want to have anything to do with the UNHCR any more, we do our own thing. It is not a smart move," said Keller.Lebanon hosts some one million Syrian refugees on top of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that have been living in camps for decades.It has more refugees per capita than any other country.Lebanon, which shares a long border with Syria, saw its population jump from around 4.5 million before war to almost 6 million today.The MEPs' visit coincides with announcement of a pledge by 50 nations to take in 360,000 refugees at refugee summit in New York on Monday.President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly that the United States would take some 110,000 new refugees for 2017.The EU commission announced €40 million of emergency humanitarian aid to Yemen.
EU targets foreign fighters with sanctions By Aleksandra Eriksson-sept 21,16-euobserver
BRUSSELS, Today, 09:27-The European Union will from now on be able to freeze assets and impose travel bans on people associated with the Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaida jihadist groups, even if they are not on UN blacklists.The move, agreed by the Council on Tuesday (20 September), is primarily targeted against EU nationals.In particular, people trying to travel to Syria could be stopped from leaving in the first place, or from coming back to another EU country besides than the one they hold the passport of. It will also become easier for EU countries to prosecute their own nationals for terrorist-related activities.Non-EU nationals with links to Islamic terrorism will be barred from entering the bloc. Their assets in the EU will be frozen, and it will become illegal for EU persons and entities to send them money.Those who qualify for the restrictive measures are people who participated in the planning or perpetrating of terrorist attacks or received terrorist training from IS and Al-Qaida.People can be listed for providing the Islamic organisations with financing, oil or arms; recruiting their members directly or through public provocations and activities in support of these organisations.In a separate area of the new law, serious abuses of human rights outside the EU, including abduction, rape, sexual violence, forced marriage and enslavement of persons, could also put individuals and entities on the list.The bloc set up its terrorist list after the 9/11 attacks, but until now, sanctions could only be imposed on people who were on the UN blacklist. EU countries could also create national lists.No one individual was put under sanctions on Tuesday.Europol estimates that more than 5,000 EU nationals have travelled to Syria. One third of them have since returned, and some 14 percent have been confirmed as having been killed.The move to step up sanctions was driven by France.France is the country which has the largest number of departures - 2,147 French nationals or residents have left for Syria, according to figures presented by prime minister Manuel Valls in July.
In UN speeches, Trudeau and Obama take aim at the politics of Trumpism-[The Canadian Press]-September 21, 2016-YAHOONEWS
UNITED NATIONS, United Nations — Justin Trudeau's first speech to the United Nations General Assembly included some less-than-subtle references to the politics practiced by people like Donald Trump, in a year where populist nationalism has made gains in different countries.The prime minister never mentioned any names, yet warned three times in his speech about politicians who exploit anxiety for personal gain. Politicians have a choice to make, Trudeau said: stoke public angst because it works for them politically, or try alleviating it with policies that improve people's lives.He cast his government's spending-heavy program as the latter — with an infrastructure plan that he's convinced will create middle-class jobs."What is the alternative?" Trudeau asked."To exploit anxiety? To turn it into fear and blame? To reject others because they look, or speak, or pray differently than we do?"In a news conference, Trudeau denied referring specifically to one politician. The phenomenon of foreigner-blaming has emerged in different countries, he explained — including in Canada's last election, where he accused his rivals of running on "Islamophobia.''His message was similar to that of Barack Obama.Before Trudeau delivered his first UN address, the U.S. president gave his last. He defended globalization; derided walls between nations; and encouraged policies that allow working people to experience the benefits of the global economy."Today, a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself," Obama said — one of three references to walls in his speech. "So the answer cannot be a simple rejection of global integration. Instead, we must work together to make sure the benefits of such integration are broadly shared."He cited several policies that might reassure working people that the globalized economy isn't rigged against them: unionization, cracking down on tax havens, and a social-safety net that allows people to retrain for new jobs.Obama also described foreign aid as one of those tools to narrow inequality — not within countries but between them."A world in which one per cent of humanity controls as much wealth as the other 99 per cent will never be stable," he said. "A pervasive sense of injustice undermines people's faith in the system."He took a shot at the notion of trade wars, a solution suggested by populists like Trump. Tit-for-tat tariff spats would only impoverish the world and increase the likelihood of conflict, Obama said.Trudeau and Obama apparently didn't discuss their speeches beforehand. One official said any similarities simply stemmed from coincidence and a shared worldview.That level of agreement was illustrated later in the day during a discussion on refugees, where Obama saluted Trudeau: "I want to personally thank Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Trudeau and the people of both those countries, because the politics sometimes can be hard (on accepting refugees). But it's the right thing to do."Polls in recent weeks have shown a tightening race in the U.S., where Trump has suddenly appeared competitive in surveys nationally and in battleground states. His win in the Republican nomination race comes in a year where other anti-globalization politicians have achieved success in several European countries.While they differ in myriad policy areas, common themes shared by Trump and parties like France's Front National include opposition to trade deals, complaints about foreigners taking jobs, and advocating a harder line against radical Islamists.There's an active debate among American pundits about what's driving Trump's voters — anxiety about economics, as Trudeau suggests; culture and race; or a combination of factors, including frustration with run-of-the-mill politicians.Surveys have given reason to competing theories. They indeed show Trump doing better with voters who are less affluent and less educated. They also show greater resentment toward racial minorities.This was Trudeau's third trip to the UN this year, as he builds the campaign for a temporary security-council seat.He was asked why he wants that seat — and what agenda items he'd use it to promote. Trudeau didn't offer any specifics. He referred to championing diversity, and economic opportunity.He did promise more specifics this fall in one other area: on his promised deployment of 600 Canadian soldiers to peacekeeping operations.The prime minister received warm applause at his various events, and even some shouted cheers as he arrived in the main conventional hall Tuesday.However, in another respect, the room was similar to the one that last greeted his predecessor Stephen Harper and Britain's new prime minister, Theresa May, who spoke just before Trudeau: There were more empty seats than people, as various delegations dealt with their own UN meetings and events outside the main hall — which is the custom at the annual event.Trudeau's allies had poked fun at Harper for that.Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press.
