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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
8/20/2017 11:45:26 PM

Two dead, six injured in Finland stabbing spree


A photo taken from the instagram account of BernatMajo shows police officers and rescuers standing in a street in the Finnish city of Turku where several people were stabbed on August 18, 2017 (AFP Photo/Bernat Majo)

Turku (Finland) (AFP) - Police shot and wounded a suspect after a stabbing spree in which a man killed two people and wounded six others in the Finnish city of Turku.

Within hours of the attack on Friday the force had announced increased police patrols across the country.

"There are eight victims in the stabbing. Two dead and six injured," Turku police tweeted after the assault in a market square. A hospital official told journalists that all the victims were adults.

Police shot a suspect in the thigh minutes after the attack at another square nearby, arresting him and confiscating his knife.

His identity has not yet been established, police said late Friday, nor was the motive for the attack clear.

Police described the suspect in custody as "a young man of foreign origin", providing no other details except to say they were collaborating with the Finnish Immigration Service.

While security forces wrote on Twitter that police were "looking for other possible perpetrators", police told journalists it was likely there was only one attacker.

Police assured Turku residents the city was safe on Friday evening.

The stabbing spree comes with Europe on high alert a day after drivers slammed vehicles into pedestrians in two attacks in Spain, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 100 others. The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for the Barcelona attack.

In Turku, images of a body covered in a white blanket were published on some online news sites, including the local daily Turun Sanomat.

- Police patrols stepped up -

The attack took place in the heart of the port city in southwestern Finland, just after 4:00 pm (1300 GMT) in a bustling neighbourhood.

"The perpetrator stabbed two people on the market square, one of whom came to the aid of the other," police told reporters.

"Then the perpetrator left the square to a busy street and stabbed more people."

Police arrested a suspect minutes later.

One victim died at the scene and the other in hospital, police said.

Bystanders had rushed to the scene to help the victims.

"I saw an old woman, I tried to help her. She was bleeding all over her body," Wali Hashi, who witnessed the attack, told AFP.

"She was wounded to her neck with the knife... I took her aside."

Another witness, who did not want to give his name, told public television YLE: "A young woman screamed really loudly at one corner of the square. We saw a man on the square, with a knife in his hand and he was waving it."

Police said the suspect in custody was being treated in hospital.

Central Turku -- located about 140 kilometres (90 miles) from the capital Helsinki -- was swiftly cordoned off and stores and restaurants closed.

Police also tweeted that they had raised their emergency readiness across the country after the stabbing, increasing security at airports and train stations and putting more officers on the streets.

"The number of patrols is being increased, information gathering is intensified," they wrote.

Investigators from Finland's National Bureau of Investigation were also examining surveillance camera footage from the scene.

- 'What we've been afraid of' -

Prime Minister Juha Sipila tweeted that his government was "following the situation in Turku closely and the police operation underway".

Turku mayor Aleksi Randall said in a statement it was "difficult to understand that such violence would happen on this scale in Turku.

"Occurrences that have been all too frequent in Europe and around the world have now arrived here, which is what we've been afraid of, too."

President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU "strongly condemns" the attack.

Police refused to confirm if the stabbing had been terror-related.

"At this stage of our investigations we can't say if it is a matter of terrorism," police told a press conference.

In June, Finland's intelligence and security agency Supo raised the country's terror threat level by a notch, from "low" to "elevated", the second notch on a four-tier scale.

It said at the time it saw an increased risk of an attack committed by IS.

"Supo has become aware of more serious terrorism-related projects and plans in Finland," it said.

"Foreign terrorist fighters (who have) left from Finland have gained significant positions within IS in particular and have an extensive network of relations in the organisation," it said in its June assessment.

In 2012, Finland's then-prime minister Jyrki Katainen escaped a knife attack in Turku while campaigning for municipal elections.

The man who approached him carrying a knife was found to be psychologically disturbed and no charges were brought against him.


(Yahoo News)


"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?
8/21/2017 12:19:26 AM

Spanish police believe they may have body of missing boy Julian Cadman

Nicola Harley

Julian Cadman, seven, who was killed in the Barcelona terror attack CREDIT: PA

Hopes were fading for seven-year-old British boy Julian Cadman on Saturday as Spanish authorities revealed they were no longer searching for any missing youngsters.

His father Andrew made the long flight from Australia and landed on Saturday afternoon to comfort his seriously injured wife, Jumarie, who had been in the area to attend a family wedding when she and her son were struck by the terrorist's van which killed 13 people and left more than 100 injured.

Despite a major appeal by his loved ones, the former Kent schoolboy, who loved to dance and fill his pockets with Lego, has not been found.

It is understood that Spanish authorities have a body that they believe is his, but are waiting for formal identification to take place.


(Yahoo News)

"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?
8/21/2017 12:50:25 AM

EVERYTHING TO KNOW ABOUT THE 2017 SOLAR ECLIPSE: WHY, WHEN AND WHERE TO CHECK IT OUT


BY


Unless you've been living under a rock with no WiFi for the past few weeks—and if you have, man, we're jealous—you know there's a total solar eclipse on Monday. It'll be the first to span the U.S. in nearly a century, and people are already going crazy, ordering eclipse glasses en masse, traveling to the best viewing spots and throwing all-day parties.

Lost in the shuffle, though, are the very basic details of what's about to go down (and by that, we mean what's about to go in front of the sun). Here are quick As to every Q you may have about the upcoming solar spectacle.

What is a total solar eclipse?

A total solar eclipse happens when the moon moves between the Earth and the sun, putting them all in a straight line, according to NASA. The moon will block the sun, casting the Earth in a short-lived night in the middle of the day.

When is it?

Monday, but the precise time for totality—that's when the moon will be right in front of the sun—depends on where you are. If you're in Oregon, for example, the eclipse will run from about 9 a.m. to noon local time, with totality taking place from 10:19 a.m. to 10:21 a.m. But if you're in Georgia, the eclipse will go from about 1 p.m. local time to about 4 p.m. local time, with totality occurring from 2:35 p.m. to 2:38 p.m. You can see more details here, courtesy of the American Astronomical Society.

Where can I see it?

The path of totality—for our purposes, the places in the U.S. where you'll have the full eclipse experience—runs across the country. NASA recommends you get to a spot in the 70-mile wide path, which includes locations in states like Oregon, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri and South Carolina. See a precise map here.


What if I'm not in that path?

That's OK. You can check it out from all of North America and even parts of Africa, Europe and South America. If you're not along the path of totality, you'll just see a partial solar eclipse.

Can I just, like, look up at the sun?

No. You're not supposed to look directly at the sun because it could burn your retinas. And it'll never heal, according to Vox.

Well, damn. What am I supposed to do?

Get some specially made eclipse glasses to filter the light. Your normal sunglasses won't do—you need a pair that meet ISO 12312-2 safety standards. You can buy glasses from the reputable companies listed here or snag free ones from your local library or eclipse event organizers.

If you can't find eclipse glasses—some retailers have been selling out or experiencing shipping delays—just simply don't look at the sun. Make a pinhole viewer per our instructions here, or see the eclipse in the shadows of tree leaves.

What if I can't go outside?

That's cool. You can live stream the eclipse on NASA's website, Twitter or Instagram.

What's next?

Greedy much? The next solar eclipse you can see from the U.S. will be an annular one, taking place on October 14, 2023,
according to NASA. After that, the next total solar eclipse will be in 2024.

(Newsweek)

"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?
8/21/2017 10:59:06 AM

Muslims fear anti-Islam backlash in tolerant Barcelona

Daniel BOSQUE


Muslims joined fellow residents of Barcelona to mourn the victims from Thursday's terror attack. But some fear the bloodshed has sown the seeds of islamophobia (AFP Photo/LLUIS GENE)

Barcelona (AFP) - Prayer time is approaching but Raja Miah, an imam at a tiny mosque in the heart of Barcelona does not expect a big turnout.

Since the twin attacks in Barcelona and the nearby seaside resort of Cambrils claimed by the Islamic State group, the Muslim community in central Barcelona's neighbourhood of Raval fears an anti-Islam backlash.

"People are very scared," said Miah, 23, as he sat in a small room at the mosque in Raval as a small group of children in an adjoining room studied the Koran.

Raval -- whose name derives from the Arabic word for neighbourhood -- is located just west of Barcelona's bustling Las Ramblas boulevard where a van ploughed into pedestrians on Thursday, killing 13 and injuring dozens of others. Just hours later, another person died in a similar attack in the holiday town of Cambrils, where police shot five suspects dead.

"There is a lot of fear, people don't go out. Very few people come to pray. Normally we are about 40 people, last night we weren't even 15 and this morning 10," said Miah, who moved to Barcelona nine years ago from Bangladesh.

Spain's Muslim community has until now been spared from the islamophobia that has swept parts of Europe.

Far-right parties remain barely visible and just four percent of Spaniards consider immigration to be a problem, according to a survey by the government's Centre for Sociological Research (CIS).

But the string of attacks in Europe, claimed by the so-called Islamic State group, has sparked a rise in hate incidents.

The number of recorded cases jumped from just 48 in 2014 to 534 in 2015, according to a campaign group, the Citizens' Platform Against Islamophobia.

And Muslims fear it will get worse following the twin attacks.

- 'You feel bad' -

The narrow and normally noisy streets of Raval were silent on Saturday morning.

Immigrants account for roughly half of the densely-populated neighbourhood's population, with a huge number of people from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Morocco.

"(The) Spaniards treat us well, they help us, they make us feel at home," said Raja.

But just minutes after the attack in Barcelona, he said he could feel that something was changing. When he fled the Ramblas area in the wake of the attacks he was stopped by police.

"It's normal, they saw me with my beard and robe and they stopped me. But you feel bad," he said.

"We fear that the same will happen here as in France, Britain or other places" where far-right parties have grown strongly in recent years, said Islam Zahid, 22, who runs a small supermarket in back streets of Raval. Children could be heard playing football in the background.

About 100 members of Barcelona's Muslim community, many of them tearful, gathered on Las Ramblas on Saturday to demonstrate against the twin attacks in Spain.

"They are not Muslims, they are terrorists" and "Islam is peace," they shouted.

- 'Barbarians' -

Marzouk Rouj, a 39-year-old Moroccan construction worker who went to the demonstration with his daughter, said the bloodshed left him "shattered".

"I have lived more years here than in my (own) country. My children go to school here and I don't want people to look at them negatively because of some barbarians," said Rouj, who moved to Spain from Nador in northern Morocco when he was just 16.

Several Muslims left flowers at an impromptu shrine on Las Ramblas.

"In the end Muslims are the main victims, for the deaths as well as for the social pressure," said Xantal Genovart, vice president of the Association of Catalan Muslim women.

Catalonia is home to about a quarter of Spain's 1.9 million Muslims -- and it is also a centre of jihadism, according to experts.

Even so, Mounir Benjelloun, president of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities, remains optimistic.

"I think that Spain will know how to handle this and will separate the culprits from the rest so a xenophobic message does not prosper," he said.

The initial signs are encouraging. A small group of anti-Islam protesters who turned up at Las Ramblas on Friday were forced to leave after passers-by began to shout "No racists" at them.

(Yahoo News)

"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?
8/21/2017 11:15:26 AM

Syrian army encircles Islamic State in central Syria advance


FILE PHOTO: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with AFP news agency in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture provided by SANA on April 13, 2017. SANA/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's army and its allies have encircled an Islamic State (IS) pocket in central Syria after a series of advances in the desert region, state media, a Hezbollah military media unit and a war monitor said on Friday.

President Bashar al-Assad's military has advanced against Islamic State along two prongs towards Deir al-Zor province this year, leaving a large jihadist salient stretching back west between them.

Its forces have now cut off part of that salient with a pincer movement, enclosing a large Islamic State enclave around the village of Uqairabat, the state news agency SANA reported.

The military media unit run by Hezbollah, a well-armed Lebanese ally of Assad in his more than six-year-old war with rebels and militants, said army units pushing southwards from Ithriya and northwards from Jebel Shaer had joined up.

Uqairabat is 37 km (23 miles) east of the town of al-Salamiya, near the only road through government territory to Aleppo, a route that has sometimes been closed because of fighting. Driving Islamic State militants out of that pocket would reduce pressure on the road.

The army has also made advances further east in recent days that could cut off more of the IS salient, according to the war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Islamic State is on the back foot in Syria, where Kurdish and Arab militias backed by a U.S.-led coalition have captured swathes of its territory in the north and are assaulting its former Syrian "capital" of Raqqa.

The jihadist group is now falling back deeper into the Euphrates valley region of eastern Syria.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; editing by Mark Heinrich)

(Yahoo News)

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

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