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TEL AVIV, Israel — The ear-splitting explosion from America’s “mother of all bombs” has been followed by calculated silence about the damage it inflicted.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday he does not intend to discuss damage estimates from last week’s use of the military’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State stronghold in Afghanistan.

The April 13 attack on an IS tunnel and cave complex near the Pakistani border marked the first-ever combat use of the bomb, known officially as a GBU-43B, or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb. U.S. military officials have said the 11-ton bomb effectively neutralized an IS defensive position.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, however, called the use of the weapon “an immense atrocity against the Afghan people.”

The Afghan government has estimated a death toll of more than 90 militants. It said no civilians were killed.

Reporters traveling with Mattis in Israel asked for his assessment of the bomb’s damage, but he refused.

“For many years we have not been calculating the results of warfare by simply quantifying the number of enemy killed,” Mattis said.

But the Pentagon sometimes announces death counts after attacks on extremists.

On Jan. 20, for example, it said a B-52 bomber strike killed more than 100 militants at an al-Qaida training camp in Syria. That same day, the Pentagon said more than 150 al-Qaida operatives had been killed by U.S. strikes since Jan. 1.

On Jan. 25 the Pentagon said U.S. strikes in Yemen killed five al-Qaida fighters.

Mattis, who assumed office hours after President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, hasn’t publicly discussed such numbers. He said Thursday his view was colored by lessons learned from the Vietnam war, when exaggerated body counts undermined U.S. credibility.

“You all know the corrosive effect of that sort of metric back in the Vietnam war and it’s something that’s stayed with us all these years,” said Mattis, who was in Tel Aviv to meet Israeli government leaders on Friday.

He met Thursday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

The publicity created by the bombing in Afghanistan caught many Pentagon leaders by surprise, leading to questions about whether U.S. commanders fully considered the strategic effects of some seemingly isolated decisions.

The Pentagon also has been criticized for its declaration that an aircraft carrier battle group was being diverted from Southeast Asia to waters off the Korean Peninsula, amid concern that North Korea might conduct a missile or nuclear test. The announcement led to misinformed speculation that the ships were in position to threaten strikes on North Korea.

Mattis said he is confident his commanders are properly weighing their actions.

“If they didn’t, I’d remove them,” he said.

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 4/21/2017 10:37:46 AM
	Is Venezuela Finally Going Over The Edge? Massive Protests Erupt; Dozens Dead, Injured, Or Arrested APRIL 19, 2017 By Daniel Lang Venezuela has been at the end of its rope for a long time. Between the food shortages, sky-high inflation, record levels of crime, and a rapid decline of their standard of living, the people of Venezuela can’t take much more. And it appears that their breaking point may have finally been reached last month, when President Maduro tried to strip the powers of the opposition-led parliament, which would have made him a full-blown dictator. Since then, the parties opposing him have promised to lead the “Mother of all Protests,” which began today. The event was preceded by two weeks of protests that saw the deaths of five people, and hundreds of injuries at the hands of riot police. One was a 14-year-old boy who had been shot in the abdomen by government supporters. Three more protesters were killed today, as tens of thousands of people confronted the police and government supporters throughout the country. Graphic images of one protester who had been shot in the head have surfaced, as well as several photos of mob violence and police confrontations. At least 30 people have been arrested. Because the country is on the verge of collapse, opposition leaders are calling for an early election, which they believe will oust Maduro. They’re also calling for the release of opposition politicians who have been arrested in the past. It appears the only thing standing between the protesters and Maduro is the military and police, both of which have been called to the streets to quell the protests. The military remains the last institution that is still fiercely loyal to the Maduro regime. Contributed by Daniel Lang of The Daily Sheeple. (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 4/21/2017 10:44:45 AM
	Pentagon chief: US won’t reveal ‘mother of all bombs’ toll U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis speaks with reporters after his arrival in Tel Aviv Wednesday, April 20, 2017. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool photo via AP) (Associated Press) By Robert Burns \| AP April 20 at 2:20 PM TEL AVIV, Israel — The ear-splitting explosion from America’s “mother of all bombs” has been followed by calculated silence about the damage it inflicted. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday he does not intend to discuss damage estimates from last week’s use of the military’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State stronghold in Afghanistan. The April 13 attack on an IS tunnel and cave complex near the Pakistani border marked the first-ever combat use of the bomb, known officially as a GBU-43B, or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb. U.S. military officials have said the 11-ton bomb effectively neutralized an IS defensive position. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, however, called the use of the weapon “an immense atrocity against the Afghan people.” The Afghan government has estimated a death toll of more than 90 militants. It said no civilians were killed. Reporters traveling with Mattis in Israel asked for his assessment of the bomb’s damage, but he refused. “For many years we have not been calculating the results of warfare by simply quantifying the number of enemy killed,” Mattis said. But the Pentagon sometimes announces death counts after attacks on extremists. On Jan. 20, for example, it said a B-52 bomber strike killed more than 100 militants at an al-Qaida training camp in Syria. That same day, the Pentagon said more than 150 al-Qaida operatives had been killed by U.S. strikes since Jan. 1. On Jan. 25 the Pentagon said U.S. strikes in Yemen killed five al-Qaida fighters. Mattis, who assumed office hours after President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, hasn’t publicly discussed such numbers. He said Thursday his view was colored by lessons learned from the Vietnam war, when exaggerated body counts undermined U.S. credibility. “You all know the corrosive effect of that sort of metric back in the Vietnam war and it’s something that’s stayed with us all these years,” said Mattis, who was in Tel Aviv to meet Israeli government leaders on Friday. He met Thursday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The publicity created by the bombing in Afghanistan caught many Pentagon leaders by surprise, leading to questions about whether U.S. commanders fully considered the strategic effects of some seemingly isolated decisions. The Pentagon also has been criticized for its declaration that an aircraft carrier battle group was being diverted from Southeast Asia to waters off the Korean Peninsula, amid concern that North Korea might conduct a missile or nuclear test. The announcement led to misinformed speculation that the ships were in position to threaten strikes on North Korea. Mattis said he is confident his commanders are properly weighing their actions. “If they didn’t, I’d remove them,” he said. Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. (The Washington Post)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 4/21/2017 11:04:01 AM
	Paris police shot on Champs-Elysees; IS group claims attack By LORI HINNANT AND SYLVIE CORBET, ASSOCIATED PRESS PARIS — Apr 20, 2017, 11:43 PM ET The Associated Press Police seal off the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker, Thursday, April 20, 2017. French media are reporting that two police officers were shot Thursday on the famed shopping boulevard. Many police vehicles can be seen on the avenue that passes many of the city's most iconic landmarks. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) A gunman opened fire on police on Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard Thursday night, killing one officer and wounding three people before police shot and killed him. The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, which hit just three days before a tensepresidential election. Security already has been a dominant theme in the campaign, and the violence on the sparkling avenue threatened to weigh on voters' decisions. Candidates canceled or rescheduled final campaign events ahead of Sunday's first round vote. Investigators searched a home early Friday in an eastern suburb of Paris believed linked to the attack. A police document obtained by The Associated Press identifies the address searched in the town of Chelles as the family home of Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old with a criminal record. Police tape surrounded the quiet, middle-class neighborhood in Chelles, and worried neighbors expressed surprise at the searches. Archive reports by French newspaper Le Parisien say that Cheurfi was convicted of attacking a police officer in 2001. Authorities are trying to determine whether "one or more people" might have helped the attacker, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters at the scene of the shooting. One officer was killed and two police officers were seriously wounded when the attacker emerged from a car and used an automatic weapon to shoot at officers outside a Marks & Spencer's department store at the center of the Champs-Elysees, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said. A female foreign tourist also was wounded, Molins said. The Islamic State group's claim of responsibility just a few hours after the attack came unusually swiftly for the extremist group, which has been losing territory in Iraq and Syria. In a statement from its Amaq news agency, the group gave a pseudonym for the shooter, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he was Belgian or had lived in Belgium. Belgian authorities said they had no information about the suspect. IS described the shootings as an attack "in the heart of Paris." The attacker had been flagged as an extremist, according to two police officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to publicly discuss the investigation. Brandet said officers were "deliberately" targeted, as has happened repeatedly to French security forces in recent years, including preceding the 2012 election. Police and soldiers sealed off the area, ordering tourists back into hotels and blocking people from approaching the scene. Emergency vehicles blocked the wide Champs-Elysees, an avenue lined with boutiques and normally packed with cars and tourists that cuts across central Paris between the Arc de Triomphe and the Tuileries Gardens. Subway stations were closed off. The gunfire sent scores of tourists fleeing into side streets. "They were running, running," said 55-year-old Badi Fta?ti, who lives in the area. "Some were crying. There were tens, maybe even hundreds of them." French President Francois Hollande said he was convinced the circumstances of the attack in a country pointed to a terrorist act. Hollande held an emergency meeting with the prime minister Thursday night and planned to convene the defense council Friday morning. The incident recalled two recent attacks on soldiers providing security at prominent locations around Paris: one at the Louvre museum in February and one at Orly airport last month. Speaking in Washington during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, U.S. President Donald Trump said the shooting "looks like another terrorist attack" and sent condolences to France. A French television station hosting an event with the 11 candidates running for president briefly interrupted its broadcast to report the shootings. Conservative contender Francois Fillon, who has campaigned against "Islamic totalitarianism," said on France 2 television that he was canceling his planned campaign stops Friday. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who campaigns against immigration and Islamic fundamentalism, took to Twitter to offer her sympathy for law enforcement officers "once again targeted." She canceled a minor campaign stop, but scheduled another. Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron offered his thoughts to the family of the dead officer. Socialist Benoit Hamon tweeted his "full support" to police against terrorism. The two top finishers in Sunday's election will advance to a runoff on May 7. ——— Associated Press Writers Angela Charlton and Raphael Satter in Paris, Jeff Schaeffer and Nadine Achoui-Lesage in Chelles, France, and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this report. (abcNEWS)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 4/21/2017 1:54:28 PM
	BIOTERROR ATTACK COULD KILL MILLIONS, WARNS BILL GATES BY TOM PORTER ON 4/20/17 AT 1:32 PM A biological attack by terrorists that could kill up to 30 million people is increasingly likely due to the ease with which pathogens can be created and spread, Bill Gates has warned. The Microsoft founder told The Telegraph that an attack using a contagious virus such as smallpox could kill more people than a nuclear weapon. “Bioterrorism is a much larger risk than a pandemic,” he said, before giving a speech Wednesday at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. “All these advances in biology have made it far easier for a terrorist to recreate smallpox, which is a highly fatal pathogen, where there is essentially no immunity remaining at this point. “When you are thinking about things that could cause in excess of 10 million deaths, even something tragic like a nuclear weapons incident wouldn’t get to that level. So the greatest risk is from a natural epidemic or an intentionally caused infection bioterrorism events. “Whether the next epidemic is unleashed by a quirk of nature or the hand of terrorist, scientists say a fast-moving airborne pathogen could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year. So the world does need to think about this.” Gates’ charitable foundation provides funding for researchers to identify quickly outbreaks of disease. In November, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) issued a letter to President Barack Obama, warning of the emergence of new forms of bioterrorism. "While the ongoing growth of biotechnology is a great boon for society, it also holds serious potential for destructive use by both states and technically-competent individuals with access to modern laboratory facilities," the PCAST members wrote. They warned of the growing availability of gene editing technologies such as CRISPR. The technique has been hailed as one of the key scientific breakthroughs of recent years, and allows scientists to cut and replace DNA sequences. But PCAT experts said the technique could be used to create viruses that "can cut, modify, repress, or activate a host gene so as to disrupt an important cellular function," for example, bypassing immunity. Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on January 19, 2017. Gates has warned that a bioterror attack could kill millions and added that an attack using a contagious virus could kill more people than a nuclear weapon.REUTERS/RUBEN SPRICH Dr Filippa Lentzos, a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at King’s College London, said natural mutations of pathogens and those created by sophisticated techniques by scientists posed a much greater threat than those terrorists might create. “At a stretch, terrorists might be able to create a viable pathogen, but that does not mean they have created a sophisticated biological weapon, and certainly not one that could kill 30 million people. We are not talking about existential threats,” she tells Newsweek. "Gates does the global health security community a disservice by drawing public and policy attention to amateurs rather than national militaries or state-sponsored groups. It is these groups which might potentially have the capability, now or in the near-future, to develop dangerous biological weapons." “Our focus should be on the deliberate misuse of science, not by terrorists, but by a more sophisticated adversary." Scientists at the UK’s top-secret military research unit at Porton Down have been researching the use of the deadly ebola virus as a potential terrorist weapon, according to confidential documents released in 2015. “We will have epidemics in the next 20 years far worse than the ebola epidemic, or the Zika epidemic and there is some chance it would be a form of flu,” Gates said.Gates said that in a globalised society in which intercontinental travel is common, a pandemic could prove even more deadly than the 1919 influenza virus, which killed between 50 and 100 million people. “Something that is human-to-human respiratory that is like a measles or a flu or smallpox, that you need just one person on the bus or plane or the airport and you get huge things. A health crisis somewhere is a health crisis everywhere. “So the scariest thing is something like the 1919 flu which really spreads everywhere and because people are moving around more it’s easier for it to spread than back in 1919. If 1919 came back we have no immunity to that strain,” he said. (Newsweek)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 4/21/2017 4:47:01 PM
	US official: With eye on North Korea, China puts bombers on 'high alert' By Ryan Browne and Elise Labott, CNN Updated 0311 GMT (1111 HKT) April 21, 2017 Washington (CNN)China put cruise missile-capable bombers "on high alert" this week as the United States sees evidence the Chinese military is preparing to respond to a potential situation in North Korea, a US defense official told CNN. The official said the United States has also seen an extraordinary number of Chinese military aircraft being brought up to full readiness. China and North Korea: A complicated relationship 01:13 These recent steps have been assessed as part of China's effort to "reduce the time to react to a North Korea contingency," the official said. Such a contingency could include the risk of an armed conflict breaking out as tensions on the Korean Peninsula have increased in the wake of North Korean missile tests. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang said Friday he was "aware of the relevant reports" of a heightened alert in the Chinese air force but said he has "no information to give." But China's Ministry of National Defense said the US official's assertions were "not true." "The Chinese military at the China-North Korea border is maintaining a normal level of combat readiness and training," the ministry said in a statement. Assessing the North Korean threat 02:03 Washington and Pyongyang have ratcheted up the rhetoric, with the latter's state media warning Thursday that the United States and South Korea could be "completely destroyed in an instant" if North Korea launched a pre-emptive strike. Beijing has long been concerned about potential instability in North Korea should the regime in Pyongyang collapse, fearing both an influx of refugees and the potential of reunification under a South Korean government closely allied to the United States. US to test ability to shoot down North Korean missiles 00:48 China is also opposed to the US military's presence in South Korea, protesting the recent decision to begin deploying elements of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile defense system. Given the close economic ties between North Korea and China, US military officials have said Beijing is critical to solving the situation, with President Donald Trump recently commending Chinese President Xi Jinping for efforts to curb Pyongyang's activities. Senior administration officials told CNN on Thursday that China is the focus of the Trump administration's North Korea strategy. "Nobody thinks the Chinese are going to press North Korea militarily or bring the regime to its knees, but the strategy looks to China to find a political solution more than anything else," one senior administration official said. Pence on North Korea and the Trump administration 12:00 The officials said Trump's approach is based on a careful review of past US efforts to deal with North Korea, noting that during the analysis of failed negotiating efforts with the long-reigning Kim family, one thing became abundantly clear: "China has never exerted maximum leverage on the Kim regime." North Korea performance shows US in flames 00:44 But one senior administration official cautioned that the China-centric strategy was still at an early stage, and that "there are many more stages to go." Lu, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said Beijing was "gravely concerned" about North Korea's recent nuclear and missile activities but praised Washington's approach to the issue. "American officials did make some positive and constructive remarks ... such as using whatever peaceful means possible to resolve the (Korean) Peninsula nuclear issue," Lu said. "This represents a general direction that we believe is correct and should be adhered to." (edition.cnn.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Is Venezuela Finally Going Over The Edge? Massive Protests Erupt; Dozens Dead, Injured, Or Arrested

Paris police shot on Champs-Elysees; IS group claims attack

BIOTERROR ATTACK COULD KILL MILLIONS, WARNS BILL GATES

US official: With eye on North Korea, China puts bombers on 'high alert'

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