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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
8/1/2014 5:43:53 PM

Ukrainian Troops Suffer Heavy Losses In Ambush By Pro-Russian Rebels


HRABOVE, Ukraine (AP) — With the sound of artillery blasts at a distance, 70 international investigators arrived Friday at the eastern Ukraine site where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed and started recovering the remains of as many as 80 victims that have been lying in farm fields for two weeks.

Several hours before they arrived, at least 10 Ukrainian soldiers were killed when their convoy was ambushed by pro-Russian separatist rebels in a town close to the wreckage site. Thirteen more soldiers were unaccounted for after the attack, officials said, and the bodies of four more people were being examined to determine whether they were soldiers or rebels.

But the team was able to launch what is expected to be a painstaking search and "brought back all the human remains they found," said Ilona de Ruyter, a spokeswoman for the Dutch-led recovery operation. She provided no further details on the remains.

The investigators from the Netherlands and Australia, plus officials with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, traveled from the rebel-held city of Donetsk in 15 cars and a bus to the crash site outside the village of Hrabove.

As they set up a base to work from at a chicken farm, an Associated Press reporter heard artillery fire in the distance. It was impossible to tell how far away shells were landing and whether the Ukrainian army or rebel forces were firing.

The investigative team's top priority is to recover human remains that have been rotting in midsummer heat of 90 degrees (32 degrees Celsius) since the plane went down on July 17. They will also try to retrieve the belongings of the 298 people killed aboard the Boeing 777.

After they arrived, members of the team wearing gloves broke up into small groups and walked into fields of scrub. They placed items into blue plastic buckets, but it was impossible for journalists prevented from getting close to see what they had collected.

Other team members gathered around plane wreckage, taking photos of debris from the jet's fuselage and tail. Rebel fighters guarding the perimeter of the zone stayed away from the investigators and some patrolled the streets of the neighboring village of Rozspyne.

Ukraine and the West contend the plane was shot down by the rebels with a Russian-supplied missile. Rebel leaders publicly deny it, but one top rebel official has told the AP on condition of anonymity that insurgents were involved in the operation that downed the plane.

Friday's search effort came after a smaller advance investigative team managed to perform a preliminary survey of the area a day earlier. For days, clashes along routes to the wreckage site had kept investigators from reaching the site. Independent observers warned that there has been tampering with evidence.

The sprawling site of fields in between two villages is now designated a crime scene and was being divided into grids for systematic searches for remains, belongings and jet crash evidence, Australian police officer Brian McDonald told reporters in Hrabove. Specially trained dogs will be also be used in the search, McDonald said.

Ukranian rescue workers after the crash loaded 200 body bags of remains onto a train and 227 caskets were flown to the Netherlands. Dutch forensics officials are now identifying the remains and Australian's foreign minister has said as many as 80 bodies are still believed at the crash site.

The investigative team's journey in their convoy lasted about three hours from Donetsk, through the government-held town of Debaltseve, and back into the separatist-controlled territory, where the wreckage lies. At Debaltseve, the convoy was joined by three vehicles from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

De Ruyter did not say how long the mission will last but the investigators will face shorter journeys to the site because they will relocate from Donetsk to a new base in the government-controlled town of Soledar, 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of the crash site.

Both sides in the conflict tentatively agreed to a cease-fire around the crash zone, but the Friday morning attack by rebels on government troops took place less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the site, outside the town of Shakhtarsk. Ukrainian forces and rebels have been battling in that area for several days but the town is still in rebel hands.

Defense officials said that an army convoy was struck by mortars during redeployment.

Ukraine security spokesman Vladislav Seleznev said the attack took place at 6 a.m., before the end of the 24-hour "day of quiet" declared Thursday in response to a call for a cease-fire from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

"The militants are behaving in a cowardly and shameless fashion," Seleznev said. "They used the 'day of quiet' just to fire on us."

Another Ukraine defense spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said another 13 soldiers have been reported missing in action after the attack.

Seleznev said the bodies of another four people killed in the incident have not yet been identified.

Ukrainian forces in attempting to regain control of the area are trying to drive a wedge into an area between the largest rebel-controlled cities, Donetsk and Luhansk. Shakhtarsk lies on one of two highways linking those cities.

In Donetsk, meanwhile, one person was killed Friday and three others were wounded when mortar fire struck a minibus carrying passengers near the central train station, said city hall spokesman Maxim Rovensky.

The city government in Luhansk said five residents were killed and nine wounded after artillery shells rained down on them.

Officials in the two cities did not say who they believe was responsible for the shelling.

Ukraine has routinely accused Russia of supplying rebels with heavy weaponry and firing rockets onto Ukraine from its territory.

On Friday, Lysenko said that Russian military helicopters repeatedly crossed between 10 and 15 kilometers (6 and 9 miles) into Ukrainian airspace a day earlier.

Lysenko said the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense system reported another three incursions by aircraft flying at 800 kilometers (500 miles) per hour.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Russian troops lobbed shells across the border at Ukrainian troops on at least four separate occasions on Wednesday and Thursday and that a convoy of armored vehicles and trucks carrying fighters crossed the border into Russia.

Russia has repeatedly denied firing into Ukrainian territory

___

Leonard reported from Kiev, Ukraine. Associated Press reporters Yuras Karmanau in Donetsk, Ukraine, and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam contributed to this report.


(The Huffington Post)


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

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    Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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    RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
    8/1/2014 5:58:59 PM

    As Ebola Fear Increases, Here's A Map Of America's Quarantine Stations

    Business Insider

    As the largest-ever outbreak of Ebola rages on in a cluster of West African nations, the planned evacuation of at least one infected American to the United States raises the question: Are we equipped to deal with the disease here?

    The answer, in short, is yes — very well. A widespread Ebola outbreak here is "not in the cards," the CDC director recently told reporters.

    That's partially because the United States has excellent infection control procedures and facilities. Among those facilities is a network of quarantine stations, where the CDC can legally detain anyone who may have been exposed to cholera, diptheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, SARS, new strains of flu, or — relevantly — viral hemmorhagic fevers like Ebola.

    Here's a map showing where those quarantine stations are:

    View photo

    .
    cdc quarantine stations map ebola

    CDC

    A Brief History Of Our Quarantine System

    A yellow fever outbreak led to the country's first quarantine center and hospital, set up in Philadelphia in 1799. In 1944, a new law gave the federal government the authority to quarantine people, a responsibility formally taken over by the CDC in 1967.

    In the 1970s, according to the CDC, the number of quarantine stations was reduced " from 55 to 8 because infectious diseases were thought to be a thing of the past."

    But within the past decade, fears of bioterrorism after September 11 and the 2003 SARS epidemic prompted the U.S. to more than double the number of quarantine stations. There are now 20 scattered across the U.S., primarily at " ports of entry and land-border crossings where international travelers arrive."


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    Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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    RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
    8/2/2014 12:38:22 AM

    With Iron Dome bill, US shows it has Israel's back

    Associated Press


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    Israel's Iron Dome Missile Defense System Pays Off


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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Friday rushed through a $225 million bill to replenish Israel's missile defense system, and House approval was expected in the final hours before lawmakers began a summer break.

    The money will go to restocking Israel's Iron Dome, which has been credited with shooting down dozens of incoming rockets fired by Palestinian militants over three and a half weeks of war. The vote came two days after the Pentagon announced ammunition deliveries to the Jewish state and as a planned 72-hour cease-fire between Israel and Hamas unraveled almost as quickly as it began.

    Efforts in the Senate to approve the money stalled Thursday night after Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma sought cuts elsewhere in the budget to pay for the aid. Earlier, senators attempted to lump the Israel money into a broader spending bill that included border security and wildfire assistance money. That bill failed to get the necessary 60 votes on Thursday, and the House had little interest in it, anyway. Friday's separate Israel bill passed by voice vote.

    The Iron Dome system has emerged as a game-changer in the current round of violence, with Israeli officials citing a success rate as high as 90 percent.

    The system uses radar, advanced tracking technology and anti-missile batteries to follow the trajectory of an incoming rocket or mortar and determine if it is headed for a major population center. If an urban area is threatened, interceptors are fired to detonate in the air in close proximity to the missile. Projectiles not posing a threat are allowed to fall in empty fields. The system targets short-range rockets with a range between 2 miles and 45 miles; interceptors cost as much $100,000 apiece.

    Created by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Iron Dome has enjoyed strong U.S. technological and financial support.

    Throughout its history, the U.S. has provided more than $700 million to help Israel cover costs for batteries, interceptors, production costs and maintenance, the Congressional Research Service said. The total already appeared set to climb above $1 billion after Senate appropriators doubled the Obama administration's request for Iron Dome funding for fiscal 2015. Now it seems likely to rise even further, with President Barack Obama expected to sign any bill swiftly into law.

    It's unclear, however, how quickly the new supplies might reach the battlefield. And Israel and Hamas may be in for a prolonged fight.

    A cease-fire arranged by the United States and United Nations collapsed shortly after its start Friday morning, with at least 40 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers killed. And the apparent capture of an Israeli infantry officer set the stage for a major escalation in a conflict that already has devastated large swaths of Gaza.

    The Obama administration, which had grown increasingly irritated with the mounting Palestinian casualties, condemned the capture as "absolutely outrageous." More than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 60 Israelis, mostly soldiers, have been killed in the last 25 days.

    Some of Congress' Iron Dome money could go to U.S. defense contractor Raytheon, which can manufacture components of the system after a March 2014 agreement between Israel and the United States. The two companies also are collaborating on a system targeting mid-range rockets that can travel between 45 miles and 200 miles to protect Israel against Hezbollah in Lebanon and President Bashar Assad's government and Sunni extremists in Syria.

    With an eye on Iran, Israel also is developing a deterrent against longer-range threats. The next generation of the Arrow system is scheduled to deploy in 2016.

    Shortly after the Gaza conflict erupted, Obama praised the missile defense systems as proof of America's commitment to Israeli security. His administration sent the Israeli request to Congress for more Iron Dome money even as the president and Secretary of State John Kerry have been seeking a humanitarian cease-fire.

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    Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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    RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
    8/2/2014 12:49:54 AM

    Israel pushes deeper in Gaza after soldier seized

    Associated Press

    Palestinian children wounded in Israeli shelling are treated in a hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Aug. 1, 2014. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)

    GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Backed by tank fire and airstrikes, Israeli forces pushed deep into southern Gaza on Friday, searching for an Israeli army officer believed to be captured by Hamas fighters during deadly clashes that shattered an internationally brokered cease-fire.

    The apparent capture of the soldier and the collapse of the truce set the stage for a possible expansion of Israel's 25-day-old military operation against Hamas.

    President Barack Obama and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon called for the immediate release of the soldier but also appealed for restraint. In Israel, senior Cabinet ministers convened late Friday in a rare emergency meeting after the start of the Jewish Sabbath.

    The search for the missing soldier centered on the outskirts of the town of Rafah, on the Egypt-Gaza border.

    At least 140 Palestinians were killed Friday in Gaza, with at least 70 killed in the Rafah area along with two Israeli soldiers.

    Earlier Friday, Israel and Hamas accused each other of breaking the truce, which had been announced by the U.S. and the U.N., and took effect at 8 a.m.

    The breakdown meant there would be no reprieve for the 1.7 million residents of Gaza, where large parts have been devastated by airstrikes and shelling, and at least 1,600 people — mostly civilians — have been killed and more than 8,000 wounded. Israel has lost 63 soldiers and three civilians.

    The fighting in the Rafah area continued into the night, with residents reporting airstrikes along the Egypt-Gaza frontier as well as heavy tank and artillery shelling. The Israeli military said it was searching for the missing soldier and had sent automated calls or text messages to Rafah residents to stay indoors.

    "We are under fire, every minute or so tanks fire shells at us," said Rafah resident Ayman Al-Arja. "I have been thinking of leaving since 2 p.m., but tank fire can reach anywhere, and I was scared they will hit my pickup truck. Now we are sitting in the stairwell, 11 members of my family, my brother, his nine children and wife. We just have water to drink and the radio to hear the news."

    The 45-year-old Al-Arja added: "We are just staying put waiting for God's mercy."

    The heavy shelling in Rafah was part of operational and intelligence activity to locate the missing officer, 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, the Israeli military said.

    An hour after the cease-fire began, gunmen emerged from one or more Gaza tunnels and opened fire at Israeli soldiers, with at least one of the militants detonating an explosives vest, said Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner.

    Goldin, a 23-year-old from the central Israeli town of Kfar Saba, was apparently captured in the ensuing mayhem, while another two Israeli soldiers were killed.

    "We suspect that he has been kidnapped," Lerner said.

    Obama called for Goldin's unconditional and immediate release and said it would be difficult to put the cease-fire back together. However, he said the U.S. will continue working toward a cease-fire.

    He said Israel committed to the truce, but at the same time called the situation in Gaza "heartbreaking" and repeated calls for Israel to do more to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties.

    "Innocent civilians caught in the crossfire have to weigh on our conscience, and we have to do more," Obama said. He added that Israel must be able to defend itself, but that irresponsible actions by Hamas have put civilians in danger.

    Israel has gone to great lengths in the past to get back its captured soldiers. In 2011, it traded hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier who had been captured by Hamas-allied militants in 2006. The capture of two soldiers in a cross-border operation by Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006 sparked a 34-day war between the Iranian-backed Shiite group and Israel.

    A Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, would neither confirm nor deny the capture, saying the event was being used — along with the killing of two Israeli soldiers in the Rafah area — as a cover for what he called a "massacre" in Rafah.

    The violence killed at least 70 Palestinians and wounded 440 in the Rafah area, according to Gaza Health Ministry official Ashraf al-Kidra. The dead included paramedic Assef al-Zamily, killed when an Israeli tank shell hit an ambulance in which he was riding, al-Kidra said.

    Another 70 Palestinians were killed elsewhere in Gaza on Friday, according to al-Kidra.

    Ban blamed Hamas for violating the cease-fire and demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Goldin.

    The U.N. chief also urged both sides "to show maximum restraint and return to the agreed 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire that tragically lasted such a brief period of time," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry by phone that Palestinian militants had "unilaterally and grossly" violated the cease-fire and attacked Israeli soldiers after 9 a.m.

    "Israel will take all necessary steps against those who call for our destruction and perpetrate terrorism against our citizens," Netanyahu told Kerry, according to a statement from the prime minister's office.

    Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas' deputy leader, denied that Hamas violated the truce. He told Al-Arabiya news channel from Cairo that the movement's military wing carried out no military operations after 8 a.m.

    A longtime friend of Goldin's said he is engaged to get married and that he studied at a Jewish seminary in the West Bank settlement of Eli. Goldin has a twin brother who also is in the military on the Gaza front lines, said the friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have the family's permission to discuss Goldin's personal details with the media.

    The soldier's father, Simha Goldin, is a Tel Aviv University professor specializing in Ashkenazi Jewry, the friend said.

    "We want to support the military in the fighting against Hamas in Gaza. We are sure the military will not stop before it turns over every stone in Gaza and returns Hadar home safe and sound," the father said in a statement to reporters outside his home.

    The shelling in Rafah sent families fleeing from apartment blocks. One woman carrying two children rushed toward a parked car, yelling to a bystander, "Quick, open the car door!"

    Ambulances ferried the wounded to al-Najar hospital, where family members frantically searched for loved ones among the bloodied bodies on stretchers. Many of the wounded were children. In one room, four children were treated on a single bed, while others were examined on the floor.

    On July 8, Israel began an aerial campaign against Gaza aimed at halting Palestinian rocket fire and later sent in ground troops to target launch sites and tunnels used by Hamas to carry out attacks inside Israel.

    Four brief humanitarian cease-fires were announced, but each broke within a few hours.

    The Israeli military said Gaza militants fired at least 38 rockets and mortars at Israel since the start of Friday's cease-fire, and two were intercepted.

    The latest cease-fire, announced by Kerry and Ban, was intended to be the first step toward a lasting truce, with Egypt inviting Israeli and Palestinian delegations to Cairo for talks. Despite its collapse, an Egyptian government official said Cairo had not canceled its invitation for Palestinians and Israelis to hold talks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the media.

    Soon after the cease-fire started, Gaza's residents took advantage of the lull to return to their homes, many of which had been destroyed. In the heavily bombarded Gaza district of Shijaiyah, less than 1.6 kilometers (a mile) from the Israeli border, residents surveyed the damage.

    Bassem Abul Qumbus found that his three-story home — in which he had invested tens of thousands of dollars - had been shattered. Shells had punched a hole in the ceiling of one bedroom and a wall had collapsed into the kitchen.

    "The work of all those years is gone," he said as he struggled to salvage flour from bags that had been torn apart by shrapnel.

    In the southern town of Khan Younis, residents searched for bodies amid destroyed homes. Rescuers and volunteers used makeshift stretchers to carry away corpses, some badly burned.

    Nidal Abu Rjeila found the body of his disabled sister on the side of the road, her wheelchair flipped upside down. He said her body had been there for five days.

    "I tried to reach human rights groups and the Red Cross, but no one was answering me," he said, overcome by grief.

    Israel says it has tried to spare civilians by warning them before military strikes, and that Hamas endangers Gazans by firing rockets from residential areas.

    Palestinian militants have shot hundreds of rockets into Israel during the conflict, extending their reach to major cities but causing few casualties, in part because Israel's "Iron Dome" defense system has intercepted many of the missiles.

    Hamas has vowed to keep fighting until Israel and Egypt lift a crippling blockade of Gaza imposed after the Islamic militant group seized power there in 2007.

    ___

    Hendawi reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Yousur Alhlou in Jerusalem and Aron Heller in Kfar Saba, Israel, contributed to this report.


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

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    Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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    RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
    8/2/2014 1:21:25 AM

    Who Is Behind Gaza's Mass Execution?

    The Daily Beast

    Who Is Behind Gaza's Mass Execution?

    KHUZAA, Gaza — In a small bathroom on the edge of the Gaza town of Khuzaa there are the haunting signs of what looks like the summary execution of several Palestinians. This once vibrant village near the border with Israel sits on the edge of the city of Khan Younis, but it is well within the 1.8-mile “buffer zone” that Israel has turned into a no-man’s land. It has been inaccessible for weeks as Israeli bombardment and troops try to take out heavy guerrilla resistance. Now all that’s left is rubble, bombed-out buildings and the all-encompassing, sickening smell of death.

    The temporary ceasefire announced Thursday night was supposed to give the residents of places like this time to return home, take stock of the damage and collect belongings. But the “72-hour” ceasefire broke down after 90 minutes, and as I walked through the main street, where pieces of humans were visible beneath homes and stores, the constant thud of exploding Israeli shells grew closer and closer.

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    As I reach the berm of sand, tile and stucco that marked a kind of front line, bodies are being piled on carts in the street. Near the ruins of a demolished store, the black ammunition vests worn by Palestinian fighters lie in tatters as if hastily stripped off. There are no bodies or weapons nearby.

    Suddenly journalists and local residents are shouting from a house on the edge of the front. The small family home is still intact but the stench of rotting flesh that comes from inside is overpowering.

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    A barefoot corpse in camouflaged khakis is being carried into the street, partially wrapped in rug, as I enter the house. His partly burned and partly decomposing face is unrecognizable as anyone who was ever alive and breathing. Witnesses say there were at least six bodies piled together inside this one tiled room where the air is poisonous with decay.

    Blood and blackened remnants are caked on the bathroom floor. The walls have been drenched in blood and they are pocked with scores of bullet holes that look as if they were fired from an automatic weapon at waist level. Some of the bullet holes are in line, as if the gun were sweeping across its targets. There is also soot staining the tiles, suggesting the bodies were burned or there had been a small blast. Several tiles have fallen away from the wall. The house is filled with casings from the bullets used in assault rifles. They are marked on the bottom as “IMI” (Israel Military Industries).

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    What happened here? It is the kind of place and the kind of incident that may be studied for years. We may hear that the Palestinians were executing suspected collaborators, or that a lone Israeli soldier went mad and started murdering prisoners. There may be many theories. All I can tell you is what I saw and heard at the scene this day.

    Twenty-one-year-old Naban Abu Shaar told me he was one of the first to find the bodies. He said they looked as if they were “melted” and piled on top of each other.

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    “When we entered the bathroom, I found the bodies of people slumped on top of each other in the corner,” he said, staring into the distance as if disconnected from his words.

    The owner of the house, Mohammad Abu Al Sharif, said he couldn’t recognize the bodies but believed, because of their clothes, some of the dead may have been from his family. He did not say if any of them were fighters. The house had nine members living in it before Abu Al Sharif, his wife and four daughters escaped Khuzaa 20 days ago. He lost contact with those who stayed, he said.

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    In the streets around, some residents pulled clothes and blankets from the crushed concrete of obliterated homes while others used farming tools to unearth the dead. Shell-shocked women stumbled down the pulverized road, wiping sweat and tears with their hejabs as they cursed—to no one in particular—both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi for not protecting them from Israel.

    The signs of the panicked flight almost three weeks ago were apparent everywhere in town. Neatly hung laundry still dangled over the main street from the second-floor balcony of an apartment above a blown-out storefront.

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    Khalid al Najar, 27, was half dazed as he walked back toward Khan Younis with a plastic bag of clothes. This is his first time returning home since he fled nearly three weeks ago. “I’m from a place that used to be called Khuzaa,” he told me.

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