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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/22/2017 7:07:29 PM
	Church, Govt Argue Child Sex Predators Innocent Because Children Consented August 21, 2017 at 2:45 pm Written by Carey Wedler (ANTIMEDIA) The Catholic Church and government agencies in the United Kingdom have developed a new argument to avoid paying out settlements to victims of pedophilia and sex abuse: they’re claiming the children consented. As the Telegraph noted over the weekend: “Lawyers who represent some of the victims have told the Sunday Telegraph that the defence is more frequently being used by private schools, religious groups and local authorities when trying to defend compensation claims.” Though news of these recent attempts to avoid paying settlements emerged last month, the Telegraph recently viewed documents from two court cases in which defense attorneys used the “consent” argument. “One claimant was told by lawyers for the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark that his abuse, which included rape and began when he was 15, ‘actually occurred in the context of a consensual relationship (albeit one the Claimant in retrospect now appears to regret),’” the Telegraph reported. “I was below the legal age of consent anyway and there’s a grooming element to that kind of situation. It was totally disregarded and it made me feel really small,” he said. According to Siobhán Crawford, a lawyer with London-based Bolt Burdon Kemp, the strategy is usually used when a child turns sixteen during the abuse. Sixteen is the age of consent, though the Telegraph notes that “[f]or adults in a position of authority, it is illegal to have sex with a child under their care, even if the child is 16 or 17 at the time.” Even so, in one case, the Cambridgeshire County Council, a government entity, claimed a student whose abuse started when she was under 16 consented: “On her own account the Claimant voluntarily sought out contact with [the teacher] and considered that she was in a relationship with him. If that is correct, after she had obtained the age of 16, the Claimant consented to sexual acts with [the teacher] and those acts ceased to be assaults.” The victims in these two cases were eventually compensated. Despite claims from the Church and government that consent was issued, Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, disagrees. “No child ever gives their ‘consent’ to being abused, and the increased use of this line of defence, although still quite rare, is worrying,” she said. While the defense is rare, it is being employed more often. Crawford told the Telegraph that her firm had dealt with ten cases and that “there had been an increase in the past two years as authorities became aware that it was an option.” Barnardo’s, one of the children’s charities objecting to this new line of defense, said in July that since the CICA was established in 2012, “nearly 700 child victims of sexual abuse have been refused payments ranging between £1,000 and £44,000, according to a freedom of information request by the charity coalition,” which also includes Victim Support, Liberty, Rape Crisis and the National Working Group (NWG). One case in which the victim was not compensated, the Telegraph noted in July, “involved a 12-year-old girl who was plied with alcohol, led into the woods and sexually assaulted by a 21-year-old man.” “This was because she had gone into the woods ‘voluntarily,’ had not been a victim of violence, she emerged ‘happily’ from the woods and that she had recently had sexual relations with another child around her own age,” the outlet summarized. The coalition of charities has called for a change in rules. According to a press release Barnardo’s issued in July: “The coalition is calling for the rules to be changed so no child groomed and manipulated into sexual abuse is denied compensation because they complied with their abuse through fear, lack of understanding, or being brainwashed into believing their abuser loved them and developing feelings for them.” This is only the latest controversy surrounding the Catholic Church, which has been defending alleged pedophiles and child abusers within its ranks for years. The government agencies in question are also under fire now, too. As Dawn Thomas, co-chair of Rape Crisis England & Wales, said last month: “It’s not only bizarre but also inappropriate and harmful that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority applies a different definition of consent from the law and, as a result, routinely tell victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and exploitation that they consented to the sexual violence perpetrated against them.” Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/23/2017 12:23:45 AM
	U.S. And South Korea Stage Huge Military Exercises Starting Today Despite Tensions AUGUST 21, 2017 By Aaron Kesel The U.S. and South Korean militaries will go forward with their annual massive sea, land and air drills today, despite tension with North Korea who has recently threatened to shoot four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missiles toward the U.S. owned island of Guam. The annual joint exercises started in the 1970s, called Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, have long been planned for the end of August, but this time the drill which has often drawn scrutiny has come at a time when both Washington and Pyongyang have traded threats back and forth. The 10-day joint military exercise will involve 17,500 American troops and 50,000 South Korean soldiers. The U.S. has called it a ‘defensive exercise.” South Korean President Moon Jae-in also said in a statement that the joint drills, were purely “defensive” and did not aim to raise tensions on the peninsula, Reuters reported. “There is no intent at all to heighten military tension on the Korean peninsula as these drills are held annually and are of a defensive nature,” Jae-in told Cabinet ministers. “North Korea should not exaggerate our efforts to keep peace nor should they engage in provocations that would worsen the situation, using (the exercise) as an excuse,” Jae-in said. In the past during the drills, one of the more controversial operations that took place was called “decapitation strikes” – a simulated attempt to kill Kim Jong-un and his top generals. It is not known if that part of the operation will be carried out or not during these exercises. If it does include this exercise that would only further antagonize an already paranoid North Korean leadership, potentially provoking them to do something brash. The U.S and South Korea hold two sets of war games every year, involving a massive number of troops and expansive display of military hardware. The first operation Foal Eagle/Key Resolve is held in the spring, while the second Ulchi-Freedom Guardian (UFG) is in autumn. Although the U.S. and South Korea insists the exercises are defensive, Foal Eagle in March includeddrills of preemptive military strikes to take out North Korean nuclear sites. North Korean state media declared that the military exercises will “further drive the situation on the Korean Peninsula into a catastrophe.” South Korea, China, and Russia have strongly opposed the war maneuvers by North Korea; and the U.S., China and Russia have urged the U.S. and North Korea to consider a“freeze for freeze” agreement to reduce tensions. In the deal, Pyongyang would agree to suspend its tests of missiles and nuclear weapons, and Washington and Seoul would agree to suspend large-scale military exercises that might provoke the nation. “I will prevent war at all cost,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in told reporters. “So I want all South Koreans to believe with confidence that there will be no war.” “Only South Korea can decide military actions on the Korean Peninsula,” he said. “Nobody can choose to carry out military action without South Korea’s consent. The United States and President Trump have made a promise to fully cooperate and ask for our agreement in advance, before utilizing whatever options they might use against the North.” Meanwhile, top Chinese generals have told Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, military action should not be an option on the Korean Peninsula. “Negotiations are the only effective option,” Fan Changeling, vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission said. Earlier this month South Korea and North Korea held bilateral peace talks to discuss resuming reunions of families separated since the Korean War more than 60 years ago. The two nations haven’t had any type of dialogue in three long years. China’s Global Times newspaper, an arm of the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, thrashed the decisionby the United States and South Korea to move forward with the exercises. “The drill will definitely provoke Pyongyang more, and Pyongyang is expected to make a more radical response,” the newspaper wrote. “If South Korea really wants no war on the Korean Peninsula, it should try to stop this military exercise.” North Korea has been known to respond strongly to the drills in 2014, the north fired scud missiles during Foal Eagle exercises. Additionally, during the 2015 Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises, North Korea and South Korea exchanged artillery and rocket fire over the border. That military exchange came after two South Korean soldiers stepped on landmines in the Demilitarized Zone. The South then proceeded to accuse North Korean soldiers of sneaking across the border and planting landmines. What will today’s drills bring? Will North Korea respond to the drills? Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post and is Director of Content for Coinivore. Follow Aaron at Twitter andSteemit. This article is Creative Commons and can be republished in full with attribution. Like Activist Post on Facebook, subscribe on YouTube, follow on Twitter and at Steemit. (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/23/2017 12:42:14 AM
	If Assad Is “Killing His Own People” Why Are They Rushing Back To Him? AUGUST 21, 2017 By Brandon Turbeville As the mainstream corporate press attempts to guilt Westerners over making Syrian refugees return home, Western outlets are, in fact, deconstructing their own propaganda narrative for all to see. For instance, according to the International Organization for Migration, more than 600,000 Syrians have returned home to Syria since the beginning of 2017, more than the number of returning refugees in the entire year of 2016. IOM reports that the majority of those Syrians going home were internally displaced people. After that, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq followed respectively. The typically pro-imperialist NPR attempted to suggest that the return of the internally displaced to their homes are being forced to relocate back home by the Syrian government. That claim, while largely nonsensical, is also contradicted by reports from other mainstream agencies. IOM is worried that the “appropriate measures” to ensure safety to those Syrians returning home are not yet in place. Of course, the real question that needs to be asked here is simple: “If Assad is killing his own people, why are Syrians running back to him in droves?” After all, when African refugees were being labeled Syrian two years ago, we were told that these people were fleeing the “brutal Assad,” the dictator “killing his own people.” So why would people who were being slaughtered by their own government rush back to it at the earliest possible opportunity? Perhaps because they actually prefer to live in Syria than some other country. Perhaps their government isn’t killing them like Americans are being told they are. It is also important to point out that the rate of return for Syrian refugees has increased directly with the amount of territory liberated by the Syrian government. In other words, as the Syrian government liberates more territory, more Syrians return to their homes in government-controlled territory. Obviously, if Syrian refugees were fleeing Assad, we would be seeing an increase in refugees. Regardless, it is clear to all who are not being paid to see otherwise that Syrians are returning home because America’s terrorists are losing territory and, thus, they now have the ability to return to their homes under government control. While alternative media researchers have been pointing this out since the beginning of the conflict, mainstream media now has no choice but to admit that Syrians are willingly returning to the country run by the man these same outlets have attempted to demonize and destroy for six years. Slowly but surely, the mainstream media’s narrative surrounding Syria is unraveling in front of everyone’s eyes. This article may be freely shared in part or in full with author attribution and source link. (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/23/2017 1:03:57 AM
	RUSSIA TO PRODUCE 5-TON HEAVY COMBAT DRONE, SAYS CONTRACTOR BY DAMIEN SHARKOV ON 8/22/17 AT 8:00 AM Russian drone manufacturer Kronstadt Group said it will produce a heavy combat unmanned aircraft within the next five years, according to the company’s director, who made the announcement on Tuesday at an arms exposition outside Moscow. “The program in question is planned for three years,” Kronstadt head Armen Isakian told Russian news agency Interfax at the Armiya-2017 expo. “Its aim is to create an exhibition concept. As a whole, the arrival of a heavy drone could take up to four to five years.” He did not give other information about the drone’s capabilities other than to say it will have both a transport and combat application and boast a takeoff weight of around 5 tons. Kronstadt is in the process of developing the first entirely Russian-made drone—the Orien-E—which Isakian has said will likely be available for use and export by 2019. Among Orion-E’s more impressive specs is the developer’s promise that it has a maximum flight time of 24 hours—that would put the Orion's endurance on a par with the U.S. hunter-killer MQ-9 Reaper designed specifically with long-endurance in mind. Its maximum flight time is around 30 hours. However, with only a month passed since the machine was first unveiled, there has been little opportunity for independent analysts to analyze the aircraft. Russia’s armed forces are seeking to modernize large parts of the military and incorporate more automated equipment by 2020. The head of Russia’s air force, Viktor Bondarev, said last month that Moscow has “no right to fall behind” other countries in its drone program, noting that Russia needs to acquire drone strike capabilities soon. “The entire world is on the way to developing drone aircraft,” Bondarev said at the MAKS air show in July where the Orion-E was unveiled. “This is why we are carrying out analogous work in this direction. In the future, the [drone] operator will be on the ground and still master the skies.” Different independent and state contractors in Russia have teased various drone designs over the last few years. Russia’s state helicopter holding showed its planned Arctic surveillance drones at the MAKS show, while previous ambitious designs by state-developer Rostec have included amphibious drones that can land on water, shown in January. (Newsweek)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/23/2017 9:56:53 AM
	Iran extends reach with fight for land link to Mediterranean By BASSEM MROUE and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA\| Published August 23, 2017 Associated Press BEIRUT – Thousands of Iranian-backed fighters in Syria's central desert region are advancing east, bringing Tehran closer to its goal of securing a corridor from its border, through Iraq and all the way to the Mediterranean and providing it unhindered land access to its allies in Syria and Lebanon for the first time. The land-route would be the biggest prize yet for Iran in its involvement in Syria's six-year-old civil war. It would facilitate movement of Iranian-backed fighters between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon as well as the flow of weapons to Damascus and Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iran's main proxy group. It also positions Iran to play a prime and lucrative role in what is expected to be a massive rebuilding effort in both Iraq and Syria, which have been devastated in their ongoing wars. The potential for a physical artery for Iran's influence across the region is raising concern in predominantly Sunni Arab countries and in Israel, the nemesis of both Iran and Hezbollah. It poses a challenge to the Trump administration, which has vowed to fight Iran's growing reach. The route is largely being carved out by Iran's allies and proxies, a mix of forces including troops of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hezbollah fighters and Shiite militias on both sides of the border aiming to link up. Iran also has forces of its own Revolutionary Guard directly involved in the campaign on the Syrian side. Concerns over their advances are expected to come up when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds talks Wednesday in the Russian resort of Sochi with President Vladimir Putin, whose country is an ally of Iran and Assad. The talks will focus "first and foremost (on) preventing Iran's military entrenchment in Syria," David Keyes, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said. "Iran's aggression in the region continues to grow. The regime is trying to entrench itself militarily on Israel's border. Israel cannot and will not allow this," he said. "Any cease-fire which allows Iran to establish a foothold in Syria is a danger to the entire region." A corridor would be a boost for Israel's powerful enemy Hezbollah, which has an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. Iran currently ships weapons to Hezbollah mostly by flying them to Syria to be shipped on the ground to Lebanon. Israel has warned it would do what it can to keep Iran from threatening its borders and has carried out airstrikes in Syria against suspected weapons shipments bound for Hezbollah. Israel pushed hard for a U.S- and Russia-brokered truce that came into effect recently in southern Syria to keep Iranian-backed militias at a distance from the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967. The land route is by no means a fait accompli. Any road link will likely be a frequent target by Sunni insurgent groups. But Iran's allies are making progress on both sides of the border, taking territory from the Islamic State group. In recent months, Syrian troops and allied militiamen have marched forward on three fronts toward areas bordering Iraq. One of their main targets is the IS-held eastern city of Deir el-Zour, where the militants have imposed a siege for years on a small government-held pocket. Syrian troops and pro-Iranian Iraqi militiamen do already meet at one small area on the border — at the Jamouna region on the Iraqi side and Wadi al-Waer on the Syrian side. But the area is too dangerous to be used as a corridor, since militants continue to launch hit-and-run attacks. Syrian troops reached another part of the border in June, but much of the adjacent territory on the Iraqi side is still IS-held. Inside Iraq, Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen are gaining more influence in predominantly Sunni areas bordering Syria. Militiamen are involved in the battle to retake the Iraqi town of Tel Afar, which would boost the militias' hold on the nearby border region. The Shiite militiamen are also present in Iraq's western Anbar province bordering Syria. "Our aim is to prevent any barriers from Iraq to Syria all the way to Beirut," said Jaafar al-Husseini of Iraq's Kataeb Hezbollah militia. "The resistance is close to achieving this goal." Al-Husseini warned that if the Americans try to act against the advances on the Syrian side, Iraqi militiamen will target U.S. troops in Iraq. U.S.-backed Syrian fighters had aimed to move up from southeastern Syria to the north through IS-held territory along the Iraqi border, an assault that would have blocked pro-Iranian forces' moves to link up. But in June, Assad's forces succeeded in reaching the border first, cutting them off. Now the American allies are preparing to try to from the other direction, moving south along the border from the northeastern province of Hassakeh, according to Syrian activists. In addition to hundreds of members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard corps, thousands of pro-Iranian fighters are deployed in Syria and have played instrumental role in shoring up Assad's forces. They include Lebanon's Hezbollah, Afghanistan's Fatimiyoun, Pakistan Zeinabiyoun as well as Iraq's Nujbaa and Kataeb Hezbollah groups. Iranian leaders avoid publicly speaking about their aim to link to so-called "axis of resistance," referring to Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and other anti-Israel forces. But its allies have no qualms about showing their ambition. "The aim is for a geographical connection between Syria, Iraq and the axis of resistance," Syrian Information Minister Ramez al-Turjuman said in a TV interview. Earlier this year, Washington helped broker a deal between the Iraqi government and Olive Green, an American private security company, to secure the highway linking Baghdad with the Jordanian border. That was seen by Iran's allies as an attempt to impede the land link. Qais al-Khazaali, who heads the Iranian-backed Iraq militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq, warned that the Iraqi people "will not allow the return of American security companies." The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, said it is almost impossible to prevent Iran from achieving its goal, after it spent hundreds of millions of dollars and sent arms and fighters to help keep Assad in power. "Iran's influence in Syria is unstoppable even if Bashar Assad leaves power because Iran has deep links and presence in Syria," Abdurrahman said. "Had it not been for Iran, the regime would have collapsed in 2013." ___ Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report. (Fox News)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

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