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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/24/2014 11:39:19 PM

Norway on alert over feared terrorist attack

AFP

Armed police patrol outside Oslo Airport on July, 24, 2014 amid warnings of a terror plot (AFP Photo/Audun Braastad)


Oslo (AFP) - Norway is stepping up security amid intelligence reports of a possible imminent "terrorist attack" by militants who have fought in Syria, the country's security officials said Thursday.

The move comes as concerns mount in Europe about the growing threat posed by jihadists returning from war-torn Syria.

"We recently received information that a group of extremists from Syria may be planning a terrorist attack in Norway," said Benedicte Bjoernland, the chief of PST, the country's domestic intelligence service.

The threat is "non-specific" but "credible", said Bjoernland. Neither the timing of the attack, nor the identity of the militants are known, she added.

In a separate statement, Norwegian police said that the information received pointed to a possible attack "in Europe", with "Norway being specifically mentioned".

The authorities have ordered an increased armed police presence in stations and airports, recalled officers from leave and increased border controls.

The royal palace, parliament, Oslo city hall and other buildings usually open to the public have been closed to visitors.

"There is a specific threat against Norway and several measures have been implemented to face this threat," Justice Minister Anders Anundsen said, urging the population to be vigilant without stigmatising any group.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg postponed her summer holiday, but told local television that "it is important to live our lives and not be scared".

Oslo police were heavily criticised for their slow reaction to the massacre by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people on July 22, 2011, but claim to have addressed the problem.

- Soaring jihadi numbers -

In its annual evaluation presented earlier this year, the PST said the threat level against Norway had increased because of the conflict in Syria.

The intelligence services said some 50 individuals with links to Norway had fought or were fighting in Syria since the conflict started, and about half of them have returned.

The Nordic country has one of the highest rates per capital of nationals who have travelled to fight in the Syrian conflict.

In May, the PST arrested three people suspected of trying to join the jihadi Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), now called simply the Islamic State (IS).

In a report from last December, the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) said the number of foreign fighters in Syria had almost doubled since last year to up to 11,000 from 74 countries.

"Among Western Europeans, the number has more than tripled from 600 to 1,900 now," the ICSR said.

The potential threat to security was underscored in May with the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels, where four people died.

The chief suspect, French-Algerian Mehdi Nemmouche, who spent more than a year in Syria, is thought to have joined some of the most radical and violent jihadist groups.

According to Cato Hemmingby, a researcher at the Norwegian Police University, the rare move to make the threat public could be an attempt to dissuade terrorists from staging an attack.

Only two weeks ago, US Attorney General Eric Holder met his Norwegian counterpart Anundsen in Oslo and called for cooperation with Europe to stem the "grave threat" of extremists travelling to Syria.






The country is stepping up security, amid intelligence reports of a possible imminent attack by militants.
Soaring number of jihadists


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/24/2014 11:48:56 PM

Ukraine's PM resigns, complicating MH17 probe

AFP

CNBC's Sara Eisen reports Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is resigning.

Watch video

Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Ukraine's prime minister resigned Thursday after his governing coalition collapsed, plunging the former Soviet state into political limbo as it struggles to quell a deadly rebellion in the east.

The shock announcement added to an already chaotic situation in the rebel-controlled east, where international experts are carrying out a complex investigation into last week's downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that left 298 dead.

And the gravity of the situation facing the country was underscored by allegations from Washington that the US has evidence Russian troops are firing artillery on Ukrainian military positions from Russian soil.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said he was stepping down over the "dissolution of the parliamentary coalition and the blocking of government initiatives" after several parties walked out on the ruling group.

The collapse of the ruling coalition paves the way for early elections to be called by President Petro Poroshenko within 30 days.

Although a truce has been declared by both rebels and government forces in the immediate vicinity of the vast crash site, heavy shelling was ongoing nearby including around Donetsk, just 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the scene.

Ukraine's army reported four soldiers killed over the last 24 hours in its offensive to retake the eastern industrial heartland from pro-Russian insurgents.

Countries which lost 298 citizens in the disaster are looking to deploy armed police to secure the impact zone, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announcing the Netherlands was sending 40 unarmed police to the crash site.

"On the site it is still clear that nothing is happening without the approval of the armed rebels who brought the plane down in the first place," said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose country lost 28 citizens in the crash.

"There has still not been anything like a thorough professional search of the area where the plane went down, and there can't be while the site is controlled by armed men with vested interest in the outcome of the investigation."

Abbott has placed 50 Australian officers on stand-by in London.

- 'Rockets from Russia' -

The Ukrainian military said rockets were on Thursday being fired "from the Russian side," hitting locations close to Lugansk airport and in several areas in the Donetsk region.

Mortar shells also rained down on Avdiyika in the Donetsk region, the army said, without giving details of casualties.

An AFP crew heading to one of these combat hotspots Wednesday was turned back by rebels, who fired shots at their car.

Kiev said two fighter jets that were downed on Wednesday were hit by missiles launched from Russian territory, and that while the pilots ejected safely, there was no information about their whereabouts.

Meanwhile, the Red Cross warned both sides to abide by the Geneva Conventions, declaring that it considered Ukraine to be in a state of civil war.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf warned that Moscow was planning to deliver "heavier and more powerful multiple rocket launchers" to the pro-Russian separatist forces in Ukraine.

"They're firing artillery from within Russia to attack Ukrainian military," Harf told reporters.

- EU to put more under sanctions -

The EU, which accuses Russia of fanning the rebellion in Ukraine's east by arming the separatists, will add 15 Ukrainian and Russian individuals and 18 entities to its sanctions list, said a source from the bloc.

The move came just a week after the EU unveiled a round of toughened embargoes against Moscow, which is widely expected to sink into recession this year.

In the debate over more sanctions, Britain ruffled feathers in neighbouring France over its push for an EU arms embargo, as Paris is keen to go ahead with its sale of two warships to Russia.

On Thursday, Poroshenko said he was "very disappointed" at France's insistence on the deal, saying: "It's not a question of money, industry or jobs. It's a question of values."

US intelligence officials have said they believe the rebels mistakenly shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with a surface-to-air missile provided by Russia.

Moscow has denied the charges and Putin has pledged to "do everything" to influence the separatists and ensure a full probe into the crash.

Russia has continued a troop build-up near the Ukraine border and kept up deliveries of arms and equipment to separatists since the downing of the Malaysian airliner, US defence officials told AFP, without confirming that Russian troops were firing on Ukrainian positions.

The first bodies from the crash arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday to a solemn ceremony. Dozens more were flown there on Thursday to undergo an identification process that Rutte has warned could take months.

Dutch police have also been visiting bereaved relatives of the victims to retrieve DNA samples from items such as hairbrushes, and obtain details of tattoos and fingerprints, as well as consulting medical and dental records to help with the identification.

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/25/2014 1:04:36 AM

Wreckage, remains from missing Air Algerie flight AH5017 reported found in Mali

Dylan Stableford, Yahoo News
Yahoo News




Wreckage and remains from Air Algerie flight AH5017 has been found in northern Mali several hours after the plane carrying116 people crashed in that region, a Burkina Faso official told the Associated Press.

"We sent men with the agreement of the Mali government to the site and they found the wreckage of the plane with the help of the inhabitants of the area," said Gen. Gilbert Diendere, a close aide to president Blaise Compaore and head of the crisis committee set up to investigate the flight

"They found human remains and the wreckage of the plane totally burnt and scattered," he said.

Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita reported similar findings to Reuters, saying wreckage of the flight had been spotted toward the Algerian border between the towns of Aguelhoc and Kidal.

Meanwhile French President Francois Hollande disputed reports that the plane had been found at all, according to NBC.

"No trace of plane has been found yet. All efforts will be used to find this plane. I have mobilized all our military in this area," Hollande told reporters.

It remains unclear what caused the crash, but inclement weather is suspected. Here is what we know so far:

• Swiftair, the Spanish airline operated by Air Algerie, said it lost contact with MD83 aircraft — with 110 passengers and six crew members — about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ougadougou, the capital of the west African nation. The four-hour flight wasscheduled to arrive in Algiers at 5:40 a.m. local time.

Agence France-Presse reported that the plane was "not far from the Algerian frontier when the crew was asked to make a detour because of poor visibility and to prevent the risk of collision with another aircraft on the Algiers-Bamako route."

• Gen. Gilbert Diendiere, head of an emergency response unit in Ouagadougou, told AFPthat a witness saw the plane "falling" in the Gossi region of northern Mali. "We are in contact with the witness and we intend to survey the site," Diendiere said.

• Burkino Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedrago told Reuters the aircraft was asked to change its route because of a storm in the area. There were powerful thunderstorms in the region around the time the plane went missing.


Weather satellite image at time of last contact with thunderstorms in the area

• Speaking on French television, French President Francois Hollande confirmed the plane was diverted due to poor weather conditions. "The search will take as long as needed," Hollande said. "Everything must be done to find this plane." A pair of French warplanes had been scouring the northern Malian desert for the plane, Reuters said.

• An airline source told AFP that contact with the aircraft was lost while it was over northern Mali, considered a "high risk" flight zone for U.S. airlines. But a senior French official told Associated Press that it is unlikely shoulder-fired weapons used by fighters in the region could shoot down an aircraft at cruising altitude.

• Earlier, Issa Saly Maiga, head of Mali's National Civil Aviation Agency, said the search was being coordinated with aviation officials in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Algeria "and even Spain."

• The Associated Press reported the flight was carrying 51 French nationals, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian. The six crew members are Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.

ABC News reported that the airport's Facebook page identified one of the passengers as Mariela Castro, niece of Fidel Castro and a prominent gay rights advocate. But the Telegraph later said the report was false.

• Flight AH5017's aircraft — owned by Swiftair but operated by Air Algerie — was 18 years old. According to aviation-safety.net, the plane suffered loss of power in the left engine during a June 2004 flight. Six months later, blade failure caused the aircraft to experience left engine failure while climbing at 15,000 feet. Neither incident resulted in an accident.

• Patrick Gandil, head of the French civil aviation authority, told the Telegraph that the plane was was checked in Marseille "two or three days ago" and found to be "in good condition." It had logged than 37,800 hours of flight time and made more than 32,100 takeoffs and landings, the Telegraph said.

• Air Algerie posted a phone number for families of passengers to call for information on the missing plane: +34 900 264 270.

• Below, an undated image of an MD-83:


• The crash is the third commercial air disaster in two weeks, and second in as many days. On Wednesday, a TransAsia Airways plane crashed in Taiwan while attempting an emergency landing in stormy weather, killing 48. On July 17, a Malaysia Airlines plane was downed over Ukraine, killing 298.

• Even before Thursday’s crash, commercial passenger aviation was in the midst of its deadliest year since 2010. If there are no survivors from the Air Algerie accident, then some 719 people will have been killed or are presumed dead in five major commercial passenger crashes so far this year. An average of 517 air-travel passengers were killed over the prior five years, according to statistics from the International Air Transport Association, an industry group. This year’s spike comes after a record low 210 deaths in 2013.

• William J. McGee, former FAA dispatcher and airline industry expert, told Yahoo News that he can't recall a week of crashes like this one.

“The pace of the last seven days is off the charts, no doubt," McGee said. "If you step back and look at the three events, we’re still learning. You have one that was shot down, one that never should have been flying in weather. And now, you’ve got one that is just plain lost over one of the most remote areas technologically in the world. I don’t see any threads quite frankly other than they happened within days of each other.

“The first missing Malaysian flight [MH370] from March has stayed in people’s consciousness more than others," he added. "The missing flight has really just spooked the whole world. A lot of it has to do with air phobia, fear of flying. As we’re speaking, people have died on highways across the United States that we’re never going to talk about. But it doesn’t generate news coverage in the same way as this.”

With Yahoo News' Siemond Chan, Eric Pfeiffer and Jason Sickles contributing reporting.






The plane carrying 110 passengers and six crew members crashed in northern Mali, officials say.
Reportedly changed its route



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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/25/2014 1:31:48 AM

Cuba looks to mangroves to fend off rising seas

Associated Press

In this July 2, 2014, photo, government forest scientist Reynier Samon shows a sprouting mangrove in Batabano, Cuba. For decades Cuba's mangrove forests have been under siege, their wood harvested by many to burn as fuel, build furniture, even as a spice to season meat. Now island authorities are putting together a national study, set a moratorium on all mangrove logging and implementing an ambitious reforestation plan that aims to safeguard the first line of defense against hurricanes and rising sea levels. (AP Photo/Franklin Reyes)


SURGIDERO DE BATABANO, Cuba. (AP) — Many people in this hamlet on the southern coast of Cuba remember when the shore lay about 100 meters (yards) farther out. That was four decades ago.

Since then, rising waters have gradually swallowed up rustic homes, a narrow highway that once paralleled the coast, even an old military tank that people now use to measure the sea's yearly advance.

"There was a road there," said Jose Manuel Herrera, 42, a fisherman and former charcoal harvester, pointing toward the gentle waves. "You could travel from here all the way to Mayabeque."

Worried by forecasts of rising seas from climate change, the effects of hurricanes and the salinization of farmlands, authorities say they are beginning a forced march to repair Cuba's first line of defense against the advancing waters — its mangrove thickets, which have been damaged by decades of neglect and uncontrolled logging.

In the second half of 2013, a moratorium was declared on mangrove logging. Now, the final touches are being put on a sustainable management master plan that is expected to be in place before the end of the year. President Raul Castro has said the plan is a top priority.

What makes the effort vital and closely monitored by environmentalists is that Cuba is one of the few places left in the Caribbean with extensive mangrove forests. Cuba accounts for about 69 percent of the region's current mangroves, the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund says. Mangroves act as both a barrier to the sea and a saltwater filter, making them important for coastal health.

Even in Cuba, experts say the situation is critical.

"The situation is bad. More than 30 percent of the mangroves are in a critical state," government forest scientist Reynier Samon said on a recent tour of Surgidero de Batabano, an area where deforestation has been extreme. The rest, he said, are in a state of medium deterioration.

Mangroves historically have been harvested heavily, for textile dyes, tannins used in the pharmaceutical industry, lumber for furniture and charcoal that rural Cubans rely on to fire their kitchens.

But healthy mangrove stands are important to alleviating one of the island's biggest headaches: Rising seas stand to wipe 122 towns off the map and penetrate up to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) inland in low-lying areas by 2100, posing a serious threat to coastal communities and agriculture, according to a government study last year.

Efrain Arrazcaeta, who runs a local environmental nonprofit, has witnessed the phenomenon with growing alarm. His group estimates a 2-meter (6.6-foot) maritime advance each year, using the submerged tank as a reference point.

"If the mangroves are restored, the mitigation of these effects will be notable," Arrazcaeta said.

No details of the mangrove plan have been made public. It will apparently include sustainable exploitation measures with some logging for the pharmaceutical industry under study, though the moratorium will remain more or less in place.

Officials are also waging a public awareness campaign to educate coastal residents to be caretakers of the tangled, mosquito-infested thickets. The campaign shows them how their own homes and farms are at stake and urges them to protect freshwater streams vital for maintaining the right saline levels.

"The perception of the importance of this ecosystem for these communities is low. They see it as something to exploit," said Samon, the government scientist.

Extensive reforestation isn't easy. There's no way of mechanizing the process, which means brigades of workers will have to wade into the swampy terrain and plant each mangrove by hand.

Even deciding what to plant where requires careful study. Red mangroves thrive next to the sea, black mangroves a few meters (yards) inland, "yana" mangroves beyond that. And if you plant any variety in a place that's too salty or not salty enough, it will die.

Financing for the plan comes from various ministries as well as a U.N. program on climate change adaptation. Officials declined to give budget figures, but said it's in the millions of dollars.

Samon said that in the past year some 36,000 hectares (89,000 acres) of mangroves have been successfully replanted nationwide. The measure complements other programs to relocate coastal buildings, protect sand dunes and regulate how close hotels can be to the sea.

In Surgidero, residents say the logging moratorium and some small initial reforestation have already had a noticeable effect. Seen from the sea, the coastline looks greener, they say.

"There is a cay that formed just from the (new) mangroves and in one year it grew to a good size," said Alexis Duarte, a fisherman.

Studies show that while mangrove loss across the Americas is about 3.6 percent per year, Cuba has recorded net gains in recent years.

Dan Whittle, Cuba program director for the Environmental Defense Fund, said Cuba "is probably the model for other countries" in the region for the coastal protection measures it has taken over the past decade or so.

However, he said, much work remains and Cuba has a mixed record implementing its protective laws and policies.

Samon says the political will is there to address the challenge. "Now we are in the phase of implementation and boots on the ground. It's urgent."

___

Andrea Rodriguez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP



How Cuba hopes to fend off rising seas


Officials say they are actively working to repair a plant that acts as a barrier to the sea and as a saltwater filter.
'The situation is bad'

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/25/2014 10:28:14 AM
Israel's Options In Gaza Are Dwindling As Heavy Casualties Boost Hamas

  • JUL. 24, 2014, 8:44 AM

REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Hamas fighter.

Wednesday’s speech by the head of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Mashaal, in Qatar, did not constitute good news. One way or another Mashaal made clear that the fighting is likely to continue for a considerable time.

The stance he presented, which is accepted by all wings of Hamas — military and political, in Gaza and overseas — is that there will be no ceasefire without the full lifting of the blockade on the Strip.


This reality isn’t easy for Israel to deal with. Among a fair proportion of Israel’s political and security leadership, the hope, even the assumption, has been that Hamas is about to halt its fire, surrender, or moderate its demands. This does not reflect the reality.

Hamas is adamant that it will continue to fight until Egypt and Israel accept its demands, in part because the Gaza public insists upon it. Given the very heavy price paid by Gaza, residents insist on real change and not a return to the status quo.


Mashaal set out a notably tough negotiating position, but the simple fact is that Hamas has not been sufficiently damaged and does not feel its future is existentially threatened, and therefore is not seeking compromise, much less surrender. Its military and political command echelons are unharmed, its gunmen are killing IDF soldiers, and its rocket capabilities have been slightly weakened but not destroyed.

Therefore the Israeli public needs to internalize that this operation may continue for a long while yet. The army will continue its activities in the coming days, until the last of the tunnels is dealt with. The question is what will happen the day after that.

Israel will have to choose between some difficult options. One is to hold to its current positions a few kilometers into the Strip, without deepening the incursion. But treading water in this way would expose the troops to attacks without any further gains and thus is unlikely to appeal to anybody in the political or military echelons.

Two other options might be more likely. The first is to widen the ground offensive in order to defeat Hamas or force its surrender. The problem is that this would likely cause the deaths of dozens more soldiers, and a lengthy, bloody stay in the Strip, with the international community turning against Israel and the Israeli public consensus cracking.

The second is a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, with a declaration of a cessation of hostilities, similar to that which brought an end to Operation Cast Lead in 2009. This would be carried out in the hope that Hamas would understand the need to stop its fire or pay a still-heavier price.

At present, this looks like the likely, sane option. There’s just one problem: It’s not at all clear that Hamas would agree to it. Hamas is likely to continue its rocket fire, even after an IDF withdrawal, and to try to draw Israel into a war of attrition. Furthermore, this option would not solve anything in the long term. Hamas would return to tunnel building and rearm with longer-range rockets, likely to cause more harm to Israel in the next round of conflict.

Still, this option may be adopted in the next few days, integrated into an announcement of a “humanitarian ceasefire.” In other words, once the operation against the tunnels is finished — perhaps in two or three days — Israel may well announce an end to the ground offensive and time a humanitarian ceasefire announcement for the eve of Eid al-Fitr at the beginning of next week. Hamas might restart its rocket fire days later. We shall see.

When Mashaal was asked on Wednesday night about the possibility of Israel announcing a unilateral ceasefire, he didn’t rule this out, saying, “We’ll judge things at the appropriate time.”

Mashaal seemed very self-confident, declaring that it was Israel that was now under siege (given the since-lifted international flight bans), not Gaza. But this was leadership from afar. He’s in Qatar, not Gaza. “We’re prepared to die and not just to get the siege lifted,” he said, as though he was speaking from a tunnel in Shejaiya and not a luxury hotel in Doha.

He dismissed the idea of Hamas disarming and rejected Egypt’s longstanding proposal of a ceasefire now and negotiations later. Hamas would welcome a humanitarian ceasefire, he said, but not the kind that was being proposed. Don’t think that a short-term humanitarian halt to hostilities can be turned into something more permanent, he indicated.

Mashaal made one more interesting point that relates to the US. He claimed that Secretary of State John Kerry called his friends in Qatar and Turkey at the start of the conflict and asked them to broker a ceasefire. If this is true, it’s nothing less than a scandal because it would mean Kerry had cut out the ground from beneath the Egyptian ceasefire proposal.

We stand now with Israel and Hamas both insistent that they are winning and that the enemy is days, if not hours, away from breaking. That’s the feeling among Gazans and among Israelis, but the reality is harsher, more complex and more problematic: On both sides there is sufficient will, motivation, and capacity to keep fighting, and not enough to stop.



Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-is-not-about-to-fold-like-israel-its-sure-its-winning/#ixzz38TUrl1oB


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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