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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
3/4/2015 1:54:07 AM

Obama says 'nothing new' in Netanyahu speech

AFP

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Obama says 'nothing new' in Netanyahu's Iran speech

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Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama said there was "nothing new" inBenjamin Netanyahu's controversial speech to Congress on Tuesday, insisting the Israeli Prime Minister did not offer a better option than negotiations.

RELATED: Netanyahu leaps into the fray

Netanyahu "did not offer any viable alternatives," Obama said speaking from the Oval Office.

Netanyahu earlier, before an impassioned joint meeting of Congress, pilloried talks with Iran, which if successful would be a key plank of Obama's foreign policy legacy.

Receiving a warm welcome from Obama's Republican foes, Netanyahu insisted the deal "doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb. It paves Iran's path to the bomb."

Obama has refused to meet Netanyahu during his visit to the US capital and said he did not watch the speech but saw a transcript.

"I am not focused in the politics of this, I am not focused on the theatre," Obama said.

"As far as I can tell, there was nothing new."

"On the core issue, which is how to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon which would make it far more dangerous, the prime minister did not offer any viable alternatives."

"We don't yet have a deal," he added. "But if we are successful, then in fact this will be the best deal possible with to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapon."

As Obama was speaking, talks between the United States and Iran to reach an agreement continued in Switzerland.

The deal would limit Iranian nuclear activity for a decade or more, but would not completely dismantle facilities that could be used to make a bomb.

Iran says it does not want a nuclear weapon.

Related video:


Yahoo News Speical Report: Analysis of #NetanyahuSpeech to Congress






"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?
3/4/2015 10:27:52 AM

North Korea warns U.S. about pre-emptive strike 'if necessary'

Reuters

Wochit
North Korea Has Power to Deter U.S. 'nuclear Threat': Foreign Minister


By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong said on Tuesday that his country had the power to deter an "ever-increasing nuclear threat" by the United States with a pre-emptive strike if necessary.

His rare speech at the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament drew a rebuke from U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood, who urged Pyongyang to stop making threats and rid itself of nuclear weapons.

Ri said joint military exercises currently being staged by South Korea and the United States were "unprecedentedly provocative in nature and have an especially high possibility of sparking off a war."

"The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) cannot but bolster its nuclear deterrent capability to cope with the ever-increasing nuclear threat of the U.S.," he told the Geneva forum. "Now the DPRK has the power of deterring the U.S. and conducting a pre-emptive strike as well, if necessary."

North Korea fired two short-range missiles off its eastern coast on Monday, South Korean officials said, in a move seen as a defiant response to this year's U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Pyongyang regularly denounces the annual drills, which it views as a preparation for war.

The missiles landed in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and southern Japan early on Monday after travelling for about 490 km (305 miles), according to South Korea's Defence Ministry.

Ri, speaking in Korean, did not refer to the firing.

Takashi Uto, Japan's parliamentary vice-minister for foreign affairs, told the forum the missile firing was a "clear violation" of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

U.S. envoy Wood said the exercises with South Korea, held for almost 40 years, were "transparent and defence-oriented".

"We call on the DPRK to immediately cease all threats, reduce tensions and take the necessary steps towards denuclearization needed to resume credible negotiations," Wood said, referring to six-party talks that collapsed in 2008.

"We will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state and we will do what is necessary to defend ourselves and our allies," he added.

Later at the U.N. Human Rights Council, Ri rejected the findings of an inquiry last year based on testimony from defectors and people still in North Korea. Its report said violations committed by the state may amount to crimes against humanity and called for prosecutions.

"The hostile forces are only interested to hear from such scum of mankind as the so-called 'defectors from the North' who fled abandoning their parents, wives and children after committing crimes at home," Ri said.

He called on the forum to address "brutal torture crimes" he said were committed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

(additional reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Tom Heneghan)





"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?
3/4/2015 10:46:44 AM

Ferguson police internal review of Michael Brown's shooting death remains a secret

Jason Sickles, Yahoo
Yahoo News

Ferguson Police have completed a use of force report into the August 9 shooting, but decline to make it public. (St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office)


Seven months after one of its white officers fatally shot an unarmed black 18-year-old, the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department’s own findings of what transpired remain under wraps.

The criminal investigation of Officer Darren Wilson shooting Michael Brown was handed off to the St. Louis County Police Department. But Ferguson police were still required to follow internal procedures on the immediate documentation of lethal or nonlethal physical force by an officer.

“Early and accurate reporting helps agency credibility,” state the guidelines Chief Thomas Jackson signed in 2010.

Yet, in the Brown case, Yahoo News reported that the “use of force” report had not been completed at least seven weeks after his death. Now that it’s finished, Ferguson is declining to make it public.

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Michael Brown and former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. (Facebook)

Michael Brown and former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. (Facebook)

Yahoo News requested the after-action report multiple times under the Missouri public records act. But City Attorney Stephanie Karr says the document isprivate under state law due to anticipated litigation and because it concerns the conduct or performance of personnel. A state grand jury declined to indict Wilson in November, and he resigned from the force a few days later.

It’s not the first time routine documents have been withheld or excessively redacted in the controversial case.

In Brown’s death, even a basic offense report — which is required by law — was never fully completed. Names and a description of the incident are missing. Ferguson police have not explained why the two-page document is mostly blank.

Law enforcement transparency was at the core of several recommendations presented to President Obama on Monday. The president’s “Task Force on 21st Century Policing” was appointed after Brown's death.

The next big development in the Brown narrative is expected to come this week with the release of findings from a months-long Justice Department investigation of the Ferguson police. Excessive force and possible civil rights violations have been the focus of the probe.

Official findings have not been released, but according to at least two published reports, federal investigators uncovered broad patterns of racial bias in the 54-officer department, municipal court and jail.

A source tells the AP that the investigation found that officers disproportionately used excessive force against blacks and too often charged them with petty offenses.

Chief Jackson did not immediately reply to an email from Yahoo News on Tuesday.

From the department’s written directive:

“The Professional Standards Officer will conduct an annual review of all use of force incidents to identify trends, improve training and officer safety, and provide timely information for the Chief of Police to address use of force issues with the public.”

Yahoo News also requested all Ferguson police use of force reports and annual summaries since 2009, but has so far been denied access to those documents as well.

Many police departments across the country make use of force reports publicly available, but sometimes the decision to release the records can vary— even within in the same state. In November, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on the July 2014 police shooting death of Christopher Maurice Jones in Pine Lawn, a town five miles from Ferguson. The story contained information from the Pine Lawn Police Department's use of force report, which the newspaper obtained through a request under the Sunshine Law.

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Former Officer Wilson accepts a commendation from Chief Jackson in February 2014. (Facebook)

Former Officer Wilson accepts a commendation from Chief Jackson in February 2014. (Facebook)

Two months ago, Attorney General Eric Holder called for better reporting of use of force data nationwide to help heal mistrust between law enforcement and communities.

“The troubling reality is that we lack the ability right now to comprehensively track the number of incidents of either uses of force directed at police officers or uses of force by police,” Holder said in a speech honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. “This strikes many – including me – as unacceptable. Fixing this is an idea that we should all be able to unite behind.”

Federal officials currently publish annual figures on the number of justifiable homicides by police and the number of officers killed or assaulted, but even that reporting is voluntary.

“Use of force data collection on a national level is absolutely pathetic,” Matthew Hickman, a criminal justice professor at Seattle University, told Yahoo News. “The worst part of it is the law actually requires it.”

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 instructs the Attorney General to collect data and publish an annual report on police use of force, but it has never happened. Holder said in January that police departments lack sufficient incentives to participate. The report presented to President Obama on Monday also faulted a lack of funding needed to fulfill the 1994 mandate.

The Brown shooting isn’t the only Ferguson case where reports involving Wilson were difficult to obtain.

Six months before Brown’s death, Wilson was honored for wrestling and restraining a drug suspect who was resisting arrest. According to policy, a use of force report should have been submitted. Yahoo News requested the document but was eventually told it doesn’t exist.

“We need that information to ensure that policing in the U.S. really does reflect democratic ideals,” said Hickman, a former DOJ statistician and researcher of police behavior. “The key is information about police behavior. It's an important issue.”

Jason Sickles is a reporter for Yahoo News. Follow him on Twitter (@jasonsickles).



"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?
3/4/2015 11:02:11 AM

Lawyer: Filing blaming boy for his own death was insulting

Associated Press

Tribune
Mother Of Tamir Rice Addresses City of Cleveland After Mayor`s Apology

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CLEVELAND (AP) — The mother of a 12-year-old who had a pellet gun when he was fatally shot by Cleveland police said Tuesday that the city was disrespectful of her son by suggesting he died as a result of his own actions.

Tamir Rice's mother addressed the city's response to her family's lawsuit a day after Mayor Frank Jackson apologized for wording in a court document in which the city's lawyers said the boy died as a result of his own actions.

Samaria Rice said she also wants an apology for her son's death. "I have not yet received an apology from the police department or the city of Cleveland in regards to the killing of my son. And it hurts," she said.

Benjamin Crump, one of the family's attorneys, said the city law department's wording was shocking and disrespectful. The mayor apologized Monday for the wording in the document, saying it was poorly worded and offensive.

The court documents filed late last week by the city said Tamir's injuries and the subsequent complaints for damages stemmed from his actions and failure "to exercise due care to avoid injury." It similarly said the "injuries, losses and damages" cited for his relatives in the complaint "were directly and proximately caused by their own acts," not by the city.

The city plans to alter the wording in the documents, the mayor said. "We are sincerely apologetic for our misuse and mischaracterization of our answer to that complaint," he said.

Another Rice family attorney, Walter Madison, said the city's response suggests that children should act like and handle all situations like adults.

Tamir was shot in the abdomen by an officer responding to a call about someone with a firearm near a recreation center on Nov. 22. The officer fired within two seconds of the police car stopping nearby, and the confrontation was captured on surveillance video. Tamir had been carrying what turned out to be an airsoft-type gun that shoots non-lethal plastic pellets.

The federal lawsuit alleges excessive force, negligence, infliction of emotional distress on his sister and mother, violation of due process for the parents and failure by the responding officers to immediately provide first aid to the boy, who died the next day.

The Cuyahoga County sheriff's department is investigating the shooting. A prosecutor has promised that a grand jury will consider whether the case merits criminal charges.


"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?
3/4/2015 3:43:27 PM

Man killed by Los Angeles police was wanted by US marshals

Associated Press

KABC – Los Angeles
Man killed in Skid Row officer-involved shooting identified


LOS ANGELES (AP) — A homeless man who was killed by Los Angeles police on Skid Row was living under an assumed name and was wanted for violating probation terms for a bank robbery conviction, French and U.S. officials said Tuesday.

A law enforcement official identified Charley Saturmin Robinet, 39, as the man police shot Sunday. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly and talked to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Axel Cruau, the consul general for France in Los Angeles, said the man stole the identity of a French citizen and was living in the United States under an assumed name. He had applied for a French passport in the late 1990s to come to the United States to "pursue a career in acting."

Using the name Robinet, the man was identified as a French national in 2000 when he was convicted of robbing a Wells Fargo branch and pistol-whipping an employee in an effort to pay for acting classes at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.

That arrest spurred the consulate to provide the man with support, but as he was nearing his release from prison in 2013, officials found another Robinet in France with the same birthdate and discovered the one in the U.S. was an impostor, Cruau said.

"The real Charley Robinet is in France apparently living a totally normal life and totally unaware his identity had been stolen years and years ago," Cruau said.

While in federal prison in Rochester, Minnesota, the bank robber known as Robinet was assigned to the mental health unit, and federal officials said medical staff determined he was suffering from "a mental disease or defect" that required treatment in a psychiatric hospital, documents show.

He served roughly 13 years in prison and then spent six months in a halfway house before being released in May 2014, said Ed Ross, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons.

Foreign nationals are typically deported after serving criminal sentences. But in this case, France would not take the man, since he wasn't really a French citizen. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that immigration authorities could not detain people indefinitely because no country is willing to take them. So once his sentence was served, the man known as Robinet was apparently set free.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said she couldn't immediately comment on his immigration history.

Under the terms of the man's release, he was required to provide reports to his probation officer at the beginning of each month, Deputy U.S. Marshal Matthew Cordova said. When he failed to do so in November, December and January, a federal warrant was issued Jan. 9.

U.S. probation officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment Tuesday, and it was unclear what efforts they made to find the man.

Leaders at Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row said he's been living on the sidewalk outside their shelter for six to eight months.

The confrontation that ended in the man's death Sunday was recorded on a bystander's cellphone and viewed millions of times online. Authorities said the man tried to grab a rookie officer's gun before three other officers shot him.

The three officers who fired their weapons in the struggle were veterans of the Skid Row beat who had special training to deal with mentally ill and other people in the downtrodden area, police leaders said.

But the rookie officer who cried out that the man had his gun, leading to the shooting, had considerably less experience, and police didn't immediately say how much training he had received in dealing with mentally ill people. All officers must go through at least an 11-hour course.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said some of the veteran officers had "completed our most extensive mental illness training over a 36-hour course." Initial signs showed the officers used what they had learned during the confrontation, despite the outcome, he said.

"The way you have conversations, the way you offer options, the way that you give some space, the body language that you portray, the way that you escalate, all of that is part of the training," Beck said Monday. "I will make judgment on that when I review the totality of the investigation, but on the face of it, it appears they did try all of that."

Several dozen people rallied Tuesday in protest of the shooting and observed a moment of silence.

Though the shooting was captured on multiple videos and two officer-worn cameras, exactly what happened remains unclear.

Video showed the homeless man reaching toward the rookie officer's waistband, Beck said. The officer's gun was later found partly cocked and jammed with a round of ammunition in the chamber and another in the ejection port, indicating a struggle for the weapon, the chief said.

"You can hear the young officer who was primarily engaged in the confrontation saying that 'He has my gun. He has my gun,'" Beck said.

The three other officers then opened fire.

Beck said the officers had arrived to investigate a robbery report and the homeless man refused to obey their commands and became combative.

A security camera outside a homeless shelter about 75 feet away showed the man pushed over a neighbor's tent and the two people had a dispute. When officers arrived, the suspect turned and jumped into his tent. The man jumped out, flailing and kicking before ending up on the ground.

Beck said officers didn't know if the suspect was arming himself. Stun guns "appeared to have little effect, and he continued to violently resist," Beck said.

As the man took swings, four officers wrestled him to the ground. The struggle became blurry and distant, but shouting could be heard, followed by five apparent gunshots.

The four officers are on paid leave.

___

Tami Abdollah can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/latams. Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles 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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