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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/26/2015 4:02:25 PM

Ukraine: Phone calls prove rebels attacked city, killed 30

Associated Press

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Escalating rebel violence kills dozens in eastern Ukraine


KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's president said Sunday that intercepted radio and telephone conversations prove that Russia-backed separatists were responsible for firing the rockets that pounded the southeastern city of Mariupol and killed at least 30 people.

The attack on Mariupol, a strategically situated port city that had been relatively quiet for months, alarmed the West and looked likely further to aggravate relations with Russia.

Putting the blame squarely on Moscow, President Barack Obama said the U.S. would work with its European partners to "ratchet up the pressure on Russia."

European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini later announced that EU foreign ministers would hold an "extraordinary" meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss Ukraine. Diplomats said the U.N. Security Council would meet Monday afternoon on Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking separately with Mogherini and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, told them the Ukrainian government bore responsibility for the latest military escalation, according to statements released by his ministry. Lavrov did not, however, directly address who had carried out the attack on Mariupol and said that it should be investigated.

Separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko initially announced that his forces had begun an offensive on the government-controlled city of Mariupol. But after the extent of civilian casualties became known, he backtracked and blamed Ukrainian forces for Saturday's carnage.

The rocket attack came a day after the rebels rejected a peace deal and announced they were going on a multi-pronged offensive against the Kiev government in Kiev in a bid to seize more territory. The rebel stance has upended European attempts to mediate an end to the fighting in eastern Ukraine that has cost at least 5,100 lives since April, according to United Nations estimates.

"The intercepted radio and telephone conversations, which were given to me by Ukraine's security services, irrefutably prove that the attack was conducted by the terrorists, who, unfortunately, are supported by Russia," President Petro Poroshenko said during an emergency meeting of his Security Council.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation's monitoring mission said Saturday that the Grad and Uragan rockets that hit Mariupol were fired from areas under rebel control. The OSCE said its Permanent Council would meet Monday in Vienna "in light of the rapid deterioration of the situation in eastern Ukraine."

In Mariupol on Sunday, emergency workers disposed of rocket fragments left by the attack. Police said two unexploded rockets were found in a bank and an apartment building.

U.N. refugee agency workers handed out blankets to people left homeless or without heat because of the shelling, which hit schools, homes and shops.

"The city is in shock," Mariupol resident Yelena Khorshenko said by telephone. "The streets are empty, and people are boarding up their windows and preparing for the worst."

Mariupol lies between Russia and the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula. Heavy fighting in the region in the fall raised fears that the Russian-backed separatists would try to capture the city to forge a land link between the two.

In Kiev, hundreds gathered on the central square in memory of those who died in Mariupol. In addition to the 30 people killed, 95 people were wounded.

A peace deal signed in September in Minsk, Belarus, envisaged a cease-fire and a pullout of heavy weapons from a division line in eastern Ukraine, but both sides have repeatedly violated the pact.

The U.S. is "deeply concerned about the latest break in the cease-fire and the aggression that these separatists with Russian backing, Russian equipment, Russian financing, Russian training and Russian troops are conducting," Obama said during a visit to New Delhi.

"And we will continue to take the approach that we've taken in the past, which is to ratchet up the pressure on Russia and I will look at all additional options that are available to us short of military confrontation and try to address this issue."

Obama said the U.S. would work "in close consultation with our international partners, and particularly European partners, to ensure that they stay in lock-step with us on this issue."

The U.S. and EU have imposed sanctions on Russian individuals, businesses and entire sectors of the economy over Russia's annexation of Crimea and role in fomenting the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Lavrov, in the separate calls with Kerry and Mogherini, attributed the latest violence to stepped-up operations by the Ukrainian military. He urged the West to pressure Ukraine to engage in comprehensive talks for a political solution to the conflict, the ministry statements said.

Kerry told Lavrov that the U.S. was ready to participate in serious efforts to settle the conflict, but made clear that "Russia will be judged by its actions and that the costs to Russia will only increase of attacks continue," the State Department said.

In another indication of Western alarm over the latest violence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called both Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday. Merkel expressed her condolences to Poroshenko for the latest civilian deaths, her spokesman Steffan Seibert said.

"During her call with President Putin the chancellor urged him to avoid a further escalation and to exert influence on the separatists in order to achieve the implementation of the Minsk agreement," the spokesman said.

Fighting also has intensified for control over Debaltseve, a government-held town and railway hub about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Donetsk, the main city under separatist control.

Ukraine military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said rebel shelling had killed an undetermined number of civilians and damaged 60 residential buildings. He said there was no electricity or heat in the city of 25,000 people.

Four Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 17 wounded over the past 24 hours, Lysenko said.

___

Associated Press reporters Evgeniy Maloletka in Mariupol, Julie Pace in New Delhi, Lynn Berry in Moscow, Raf Casert in Brussels and Frank Jordans in Berlin 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?
1/26/2015 4:16:30 PM

Russia warns West not to blackmail it over Ukraine

Reuters


A man walks past a burnt-out vehicle after a shelling by pro-Russian rebels of a residential sector in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, January 24, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer

By Gabriela Baczynska

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia blamed Kiev on Monday for a surge in fighting in Ukraine and warned the West that any attempt to increase economic pressure on Moscow would be "absolutely destructive" blackmail.

Pro-Moscow separatists, backed by what NATO says are Russian troops, have launched an offensive in southeastern Ukraine and President Barack Obama said Washington was considering all options short of military action to isolate Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied any Russian involvement in the fighting and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of whipping up anti-Russian hysteria to justify extending economic sanctions against Moscow.

"Instead of increasing pressure on those who refuse to engage in dialogue to resolve the conflict peacefully, we see renewed talks about blackmailing Russia economically," RIA news agency quoted Peskov as saying.

"Russia has never agreed with such threats and such threats and blackmail have never led to anything and never will ... renewed threats of increased economic pressure on Russia are an absolutely destructive, unjustified and ultimately short-sighted approach."

Lavrov said the separatists in Ukraine were responding to attacks by government forces and the only way forward was through direct dialogue.

"We see attempts to derail the peace process and attempts again and again by the Kiev leadership to solve the problem by using force to suppress the southeast. These attempts lead nowhere," Lavrov told a news conference.

The European Union has called an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of its 28 member states for Thursday.

"We expect our Western partners ... not to do anything that gives the Kiev authorities the impression that all their actions automatically will win support in the West," Lavrov said.

He accused the West of "chronic" finger-pointing at Moscow over the Ukraine conflict, in which more than 5,000 people have been killed in more than nine months of fighting.

Lavrov said it would have been naive to believe the separatists would accept being shelled by government forces without responding.

He said the rebels had started actions to "eliminate the positions from which the Ukrainian armed forces had shelled populated areas with heavy weapons".

(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly and Polina Devitt, Writing by Timothy Heritage, editing by Elizabeth Piper)


"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?
1/26/2015 4:27:38 PM

Islamic State group nearly pushed out of Syria's Kobani

Associated Press

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Kurds Close to Driving Islamic State Out of Syria's Kobani: Monitor

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BEIRUT (AP) — Kurdish fighters backed by intense U.S.-led airstrikes pushed the Islamic State group almost entirely out of the Syrian town of Kobani on Monday, marking a major loss for extremists whose hopes for easy victory dissolved into a bloody, costly siege that seems close to ending in defeat.

Fighters raised a Kurdish flag on a hill in the border town near Turkey that once flew the Islamic State group's black banner. It represents a key conquest both for the embattled Kurds and the U.S.-led coalition, whose American coordinator had predicted that the Islamic State group would "impale itself" on Kobani.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and senior Kurdish official Idriss Nassan said the Islamic State group had been nearly expelled, with some sporadic fighting on the eastern edges of the town.

"The Islamic State is on the verge of defeat," said Nassan, speaking from Turkey near the Syrian border. "Their defenses have collapsed and its fighters have fled."

In September, Islamic State fighters began capturing some 300 Kurdish villages near Kobani and thrust into the town itself, occupying nearly half of it. Tens of thousands of refugees spilled across the border into Turkey.

By October, Islamic State control of Kobani was so widespread that it even made a propaganda video from the town featuring a captive British photojournalist, John Cantlie, to convey its message that Islamic State fighters had pushed deep inside despite U.S.-led airstrikes.

The town, whose capture would have given the jihadi group control of a border crossing with Turkey and open direct lines between its positions along the border, quickly became a centerpiece of the U.S.-led air campaign in Syria. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared it would be "morally very difficult" not to help Kobani.

The U.S.-led air assault began Sept. 23, with Kobani the target of about a half-dozen airstrikes on average each day, and often more. More than 80 percent of all coalition airstrikes in Syria have been in or around the town. At one point in October, the U.S. air dropped bundles of weapons and medical supplies for Kurdish fighters — a first in the Syrian conflict.

Analysts, as well as Syrian and Kurdish activists, credit the air campaign and the arrival in October of heavily armed Kurdish peshmerga fighters from Iraq, who neutralized the Islamic State group's artillery advantage, for bringing key areas of Kobani under Kurdish control.

Nassan said U.S.-led coalition strikes became more intense in the past few days, helping Kurdish fighters in their final push toward Islamic State group positions on the southern and eastern edges of the town.

The U.S. Central Command said Monday that it had carried out 17 airstrikes near Kobani over the last 24 hours that struck Islamic State group infrastructure and fighting positions.

Nassan said he was preparing to head into Kobani on Tuesday and expected the town to be fully free by then.

Gharib Hassou, a representative of Syria's powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, based in Southern Kurdistan, said fighting was still going in "two or three streets," adding that most of the militants withdrew to the town of Tal Abyad to the east.

"There are a lot of dead bodies ... and they left some of the weapons," he said. Kurdish fighters also suffered high casualties, he said, adding that more reinforcements will be sent to reinforce control over the town.

Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Observatory, said the Kurdish force was led by Mohammed Barkhadan, the Kobani commander of the main Kurdish militia known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG.

Barkhadan is a well-known militia leader among Kurds and in 2013 he led an offensive that ousted Islamic militants out of the northern Syrian town of Ras Ayn, Aburrahman said.

Since mid-September, the battle for Kobani has killed some 1,600 people, including 1,075 Islamic State group members, 459 Kurdish fighters and 32 civilians, the Observatory reported earlier this month. The Islamic State group, increasingly under pressure, has carried out more than 35 suicide attacks in Kobani in recent weeks, activists say.

Retired Marine Gen. John Allen, the U.S. envoy for the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group militants, in November predicted Kobani would be a defeat for the extremists.

The Islamic State group "has, in so many ways, impaled itself on Kobani," he said in an interview in Ankara with the Turkish daily Milliyet.

___

Follow Zeina Karam on Twitter at www.twitter.com/zkaram .

___

Associated Press writers Bram Janssen in Irbil, Iraq, Umut Colak on the Syrian-Turkish border and Bassem Mroue in Beirut 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?
1/26/2015 5:00:54 PM
An inspiring testimony

Aisha Subhan Headshot



I Am a Muslim and My First Trip Abroad Was to Israel

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I always expected to travel to the Indian sub-continent, the home of my ethnic origins for my first time overseas; however, I heard about a unique opportunity through a friend earlier this school year -- a paid trip to the state of Israel.

This last winter break, I packed my bags for the Holy Land. With a group of 37 other college students, I would soon participate in an educational tour of the country hosted by The David Project.

Before my travels, I desired a few things from the trip: to observe and witness an accurate portrait of the nation, explore my own connection to the land, and discover opportunities and room for harmony. After my return to the US, I recognized that I identified a spiritual connection, a role model, and a vision for peace.

Upon arriving in Tel Aviv, Israel, I sensed familiarity. The air smelled and felt too, like Southern California. It was here that we were told that Israel is full of 7 million different opinions. After our time in Tel Aviv, we traveled to the West Bank then to the Arab town of Barta'a. Along the way, we unearthed Israel's nuance and complexity. The landscape shifted continuously, our cameras in hand.

Later, we made our way up north to the Sea of Galilee and paid close attention to Jesus's lessons of detachment, forgiveness, and love. Moving further north, we traveled to Golan Heights, close to the Syrian Border. An Israeli hospital for Syrian Civil War victims neared us. Subsequently, we traveled through the Jordan Valley, passing through Jericho, the oldest surviving city in the world and then to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth. For the last days of the trip, we explored the city of Jerusalem. Here, I gained the most insight.

Jerusalem is home to the Western Wall, The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and The Dome of the Rock. Religious coexistence decorates the city's skyline. On a Friday after the late afternoon prayer, I visited Haram-al-Sharif -- the home of both the Dome of the Rock and Mosque -al-Aqsa. I walked towards the holy site, the dome rising like the sun. Upon entering, I felt as if I had been there before. Engaging mind, body, and soul, I prayed in the third most holy place according to Islamic tradition. I then viewed the rock, where Prophet Mohammad is believed to have ascended into heaven to meet with God and in Judaism, where Abraham intentioned to sacrifice his son Isaac. I had anticipated this moment and there I was.

Later that day, our group visited the Western Wall on Shabbat. A scene of celebration and community enchanted us all. From having a special individual experience at Haram-al-Sharif and then transitioning to a rich, community-based, and celebratory experience at The Kotel, I embarked on a unique spiritual ride. A beautiful pairing of Islam and Judaism, I thought.

Clearly, I had discovered a profound divine connection. I was further reminded of religious coexistence when I traveled to both the Dome of the Rock and The Western Wall on the same day. I recognized how important Muslims' place is within the Holy Land along with its monotheistic relatives. Additionally, I witnessed people of all faiths and backgrounds discovering a connection. After finding spirituality within the Old City, we would later meet with an individual who soon became a role model of mine.

For dinner one night, our group met with Forsan Hussein. Hussein, a Muslim, was once Chief Executive Operator of the Young Men's Christian Association in Jerusalem. During our visit with him, Hussein spoke of peace, solution, and hope. Breaking down the conflict to the simplest terms, he described Israel's objective of security and the Palestinian struggle for freedom. He stated that these were their main goals -- different, yet each goal interdependent on the other. For the first time, I heard the conflict described in these terms. Israel and Palestine depend on each other.

Moreover, Hussein stated his identity. He is a Palestinian-Israeli, he told us. He hopes to maintain his Palestinian culture yet he very much so considers himself an Israeli citizen. Hussein described how Jewish values are values he shares. I too, feel this way. A Jewish state is by all means capable of meeting the demands of its diverse inhabitants. However, as Hussein stated, things need to change. More needs to be done in integrating Palestinians in a Jewish state.

Transformations must transpire on both sides. Hussein explained how education could repair ideas that each group has about the other. Coupled with education, interaction between both groups ought to take place. When you have not seen the other, do not know the other, the situation polarizes and hardens. Fortunately, education is firmly rooted in both Judaism and Islam. In addition, interaction and being kind to one's neighbor is entwined in both faiths as well.

I had found my role model. Hussein's talk paralleled many of my own thoughts. Within his talk, Hussein displayed strength, eloquence, and strategy. It was then I asked him what keeps him motivated. He always remembers his father who always worked hard, struggling. Today, his son Adam motivates him. I realized that we all should remain motivated and hopeful. We must imagine what peace would look like.

For our last day in Jerusalem, we explored Hadassah Hospital where I contemplated a future of peace and unity. As we arrived, we were told the only enemy of the hospital's is disease. Again, I was reminded of shared Jewish and Muslims values. I recalled talking to my Jewish friend Lea and how we once discussed both of our father's passion for medicine, treatment, and care for others.

Within the hospital, Jews and Arabs work side by side -- equal opportunity for all. The hospital was a microcosm of what I hope Israel will strive to become. I hope to see Israel's democracy in full health. Additionally, in the future, I look forward to a Palestinian state resembling this same concept accompanied by strong and just leadership committed to peace. I desire to see the acceptance of Arabs in a Jewish-State and the acceptance of Jews in a Palestinian State.

At Hadassah Hospital, patients heal. Similarly, the conflict too can heal. It was here where I envisioned what peace would look like. Meanwhile, I await the cure.

On my trip, I felt a spiritual connection, met my role model, and conceptualized a future of harmony. I saw Israel as Israel, with all its nuance and complexity. With my return, I hope to share my spiritual connection experienced there, the importance of education and interaction, and that peace is possible.

In the meantime in Israel and Palestine, the healing process must begin. After a brutal and disastrous summer of war, Gaza must heal. War-traumatized Israeli soldiers must recover. Hatred and violence that has surged across the region has not brought about plans for peace nor negotiations. Clearly, other tactics must be employed. Creative solutions need to be sought while remembering our commonalties.

During my time in Israel, I refused to accept that our values are different, that peace is not possible. I witnessed the similarities of our values and the compatibility of our nature. We must relinquish fear and retain hope. In doing so, coexistence is near.

Thank you to all at the David Project for giving me this special opportunity.


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

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Joyce Parker Hyde

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/26/2015 5:17:57 PM
Thank you for writing such a beautiful and insightful article.
It is so heartwarming to see one so young actively looking for solutions to finding peace. We all share this planet and must find ways to get along as neighbors.
Thank you Miguel for finding her and sharing her with us.
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