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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/8/2014 10:38:49 AM
Large U.S. drug bust

Raids target synthetic drugs, sellers across US

Associated Press




WASHINGTON (AP) — The Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday broadened its national crackdown on synthetic drug manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers as federal agents served hundreds of search and arrest warrants in at least 25 U.S. states.

Agents served warrants at homes, warehouses and smoke shops beginning early morning, DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said. The largest single operation was a statewide effort in Alabama. Agents also were active in 28 other states.

The DEA said agents made more than 150 arrests and served about 200 warrants. Federal, state and local authorities seized hundreds of thousands of individual packets of synthetic drugs and hundreds of kilograms of synthetic products used to make the drugs.

Authorities also seized more than $20 million in cash and assets, the DEA said.

U.S. authorities long have worried about criminal and terrorist groups in the Middle East using drug trafficking to fund illicit activities.

The DEA has been cracking down on synthetic drugs, including so-called bath salts, spice and Molly, since the drugs first gained widespread popularity years ago.

In late 2010, the agency responsible for enforcing federal drug laws moved to ban five chemicals used to make synthetic marijuana blends, including K2, Spice and Blaze. Since then, drug manufacturers have continued to modify their formulas and develop new chemical mixtures.

Ferdinand Large, staff coordinator for DEA's Special Operations Division, said the agency is now broadly focused on Chinese chemical manufacturers and the distributors, wholesalers and retailers in the United States. There is also growing concern about where the money is going.

Investigators have tracked hundreds of millions of dollars in drug proceeds being sent to Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, Large said.

"The money is going there, where it stops we don't know," Large said. Large said it's also unclear which criminal organizations may be profiting from the drug proceeds.

In a November 2013 report on transnational organized crime, DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart said "drug trafficking organizations and terror networks are joined at the hip in many parts of the world.

"DEA must relentlessly purse these dangerous individuals and criminal groups that attempt to use drug trafficking profits to fuel and fund terror networks, such as Hezbollah," Leonhart said.

Payne said Wednesday's crackdown was focused strictly on U.S. targets and involved 66 DEA cases, seven investigations led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents and several others led by Customs and Border Protection that focused on express consignment shipments.

Last year, the DEA and Customs and Border Protection wrapped up a 7-month investigation that ended in 150 arrests and the seizure of about a ton of drugs.

___

Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap


DEA cracks down on synthetic drugs


Federal agents serve hundreds of search and arrest warrants in at least 25 states.
Over 150 arrests made


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/8/2014 10:44:12 AM

US, Ukraine dismiss change of tack by Putin

AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin calls on pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine to postpone a vote on secession just five days before it was to be held, potentially pulling Ukraine back from the brink of dismemberment. Mana Rabiee reports.


Moscow (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin told rebels in Ukraine to halt plans for independence votes and said his troops have pulled back from the border, but his apparent change of heart received short shrift from Kiev and Washington.

Putin on Wednesday also hailed a planned May 25 presidential election in Ukraine -- previously condemned by the Kremlin -- as a "move in the right direction".

The surprise comments suggested a potential resolution of the conflict in Ukraine which has snowballed into Europe's worst standoff since the Cold War, as government troops battle to wrest back control of more than a dozen towns seized by the pro-Russia rebels.

Putin's new stance helped power rallies on financial markets in Moscow and New York. The United States and Europe have been preparing sanctions to hammer whole swathes of the Russian economy, which is teetering on recession, if the Ukraine presidential poll is scuppered.

But the White House and NATO said there was no sign of a Russian troop withdrawal, and Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk accused Putin of "talking through his hat" about the independence referendums, because they were illegitimate to begin with.

Putin ordered an estimated 40,000 troops to Ukraine's border two months ago, but said: "We have pulled them back. Today they are not at the Ukrainian border but in places of regular exercises, at training grounds."

Putin told the separatists in Ukraine "to postpone the referendums planned for May 11 in order to create the conditions necessary for dialogue".

Putin made his declarations after meeting Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, current chief of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The Russian president's spokesman said afterwards that, if Ukraine now halted its military offensive and started dialogue, "then this can lead Ukraine out of a situation that at this stage is growing only worse".

But speaking to reporters on Air Force One, White House deputy spokesman Josh Earnest said "to date" there has been "no evidence that such a withdrawal has taken place".

Washington would "certainly welcome a meaningful and transparent withdrawal", he added. "That's something that we have sought for quite some time."

- 'Unacceptable pressure' -

Western governments have been increasingly warning of "war" over the worsening violence, and thrown their full weight behind the presidential election called by Kiev's interim leaders as a crucial step to political stability after a pro-Russian president fled.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in Kiev after meeting Ukraine's new leaders that Russia had deployed covert fighters and "enormous propaganda" as part of "unacceptable pressure" to block the poll.

US President Barack Obama said last week that if Moscow prevented the election, he would order stepped-up "sectoral" sanctions. His administration moved Wednesday to cut trade benefits to Russia.

Putin has admitted his forces were active in Crimea ahead of the territory's annexation in March but denied their use in east Ukraine.

"I would like to stress that the presidential election planned in Kiev, while it is a move in the right direction, will not decide anything if all the citizens of Ukraine fail to understand how their rights are protected after the elections are held," he said.

Ethnic Russians who make up a large part of the population in the southeastern half of the ex-Soviet nation of 46 million had expressed fears about losing their language and other rights under a new pro-Western government that is likely to emerge after the vote.

- Booby-traps in Slavyansk -

Those concerns have fanned the insurgency, which is battling to win back strategic positions lost in recent days to the Ukrainian military.

Officials said 14 troops have been killed, 66 wounded and three helicopter gunships lost in the operation against the rebels, who are estimated to have lost more than 30 fighters.

Clashes and a resulting inferno in the southern port city of Odessa last Friday claimed another 42 lives, most of them pro-Russian activists, pushing the death toll over the past week to nearly 90.

Russia's Interfax news agency said pro-Moscow gunmen were trying to recapture the TV tower in the rebel-held town of Slavyansk from soldiers who overran it at the start of the week.

Ukrainian officials say they are moving cautiously towards the centre of Slavyansk, which has a population of more than 110,000, to avoid civilian casualties.

The interior ministry said it had information that the rebels had booby-trapped the buildings they occupied in the town with explosives.

Putin's remarks came ahead of commemorations of the Soviet victory over German forces in World War II on Friday, when he will oversee a display of military might in Moscow's Red Square.

Russian officials and state television have increasingly portrayed Kiev's actions as akin to Nazi-style fascism, while Ukraine sees a revival of Soviet aggression.



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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/8/2014 11:03:07 AM

Crashed drones programmed to fly from North Korea and back: South Korea

Reuters


A rocket is fired during a drill of drone planes assaulting targets and a firing drill of self-propelled flak rocket destroying "enemy" cruise missiles coming in attack in low altitude, conducted by the air force and air defence artillery units of the Korean People's Army in an undisclosed location in this picture released by the North's official KCNA news agency in Pyongyang March 20, 2013. KCNA said this picture was taken on March 20, 2013. REUTERS/KCNA

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) - Three drones that crashed in South Korea had onboard flight programming that showed they were launched from North Korea and were meant to return after flying over military installations in the South, the defense ministry in Seoul said on Thursday.

South Korean and U.S. officials jointly examined the three drones that were recovered in three different locations near the Korean border over a two-week period starting in late March.

The second was discovered soon after a three-hour artillery barrage between North and South Korea in waters near a disputed maritime border.

The drones' penetration of South Korean airspace raised questions about its air defense capabilities while Pyongyang clings to its hard-line stance against Seoul.

"North Korea's action is a clear military provocation that violates the armistice and the South-North non-aggression agreement," the South's defense ministry said in a statement.

Pyongyang has denied any involvement, calling the South's charge a fabrication.

In April, North Korea proposed a joint probe with the South but Seoul rejected the proposal.

South Korea's defense ministry also said in April some of the parts in the recovered drones were manufactured in China, Japan, the Czech Republic and the United States, but it offered no further details.

Photographs unearthed by the North Korea Tech blog showed a drone made by a Chinese company with an almost identical size and shape to some of the drones found in South Korea.

South Korea's defense ministry said it was aware of the Chinese-made drone and had sought explanations from the Chinese government.

Repeated calls by Reuters to Taiyuan Hangyou Hangkong Technology Co. Ltd, the company that produces the drones, were not answered.

Chin's foreign ministry also did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

So far this year North Korea has test-fired medium-range ballistic missiles, threatened to conduct a nuclear test, and fired more than 500 artillery shells that landed in disputed waters between the two Koreas.

Pyongyang has also recently conducted engine tests for an intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States, a U.S. think tank said on Friday.

North Korea released TV footage last year of practice drones which had been modified to crash into predetermined targets, but it is not believed to operate drones capable of air strikes or long-range surveillance sorties.

North Korea's state media said last year leader Kim Jong Un had supervised a drill of "super-precision" drone attacks on a simulated South Korean target.

Although the North has one of the world's largest standing armies, much of its equipment consists of antiquated Soviet-era designs. It has focused its resources on developing nuclear and long-range missile programs.

(Additional reporting by James Pearson and Lim Sang-gyu in SEOUL and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Jack Kim and Paul Tait)



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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/8/2014 11:09:49 AM

Syrian rebels claim massive Aleppo hotel bombing

Associated Press
25 minutes ago


BEIRUT (AP) — A rebel-claimed bombing Thursday in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo leveled a hotel that government troops used as a military base, along with several other buildings in a government-held area, activists and militants said.

Syrian state television said an explosion struck a government-held area on the edge of a contested neighborhood in old part of Aleppo. The television report identified the hotel as the Carlton hotel, located next to the city's ancient Citadel.

A local activist group called the Sham News Network also reported the blast, saying that President Bashar Assad's troops were based in the hotel.

The Islamic Front rebel group claimed responsibility for the blast. A statement posted on its official Twitter account Thursday said that its "fighters this morning leveled the Carlton Hotel barracks in Old Aleppo and a number of buildings near it, killing 50 soldiers." It did not say how it knew how many soldiers died.

The Islamic Front is an alliance of several Islamic groups fighting to topple Assad. Many of its fighters have joined the Front after breaking away from the Western-backed Syrian Free Army last year.

Another activist group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Islamic Front fighters planted a huge amount of explosives in a tunnel they dug below the hotel and detonated it remotely.

It said the hotel was completely destroyed in the blast and that there were casualties among the troops.

Aleppo, the country's largest city and former commercial hub, has been carved into rebel- and government-held areas since the rebels launched an offensive in mid-2010, capturing territory along Syria's northern border with Turkey.

In recent months, government aircraft relentlessly has bombed rebel-held areas of the city and the opposition fighters have hit back, firing mortars into government-held areas. The rebels also have detonated car bombs in residential areas, killing dozens of people.

Meanwhile Thursday, more rebels were expected to leave the central city of Homs as an evacuation of opposition fighters moves into its second day.

Homs Gov. Talal Barazi told Syrian state TV late Wednesday that that the evacuation process is being conducted in "positive atmosphere." He said Homs will be declared a "secure" city once the army moves in later Thursday.

Barazi was seen touring Homs on Lebanon's Al-Manar TV, which is owned by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been battling rebels in Syria alongside government troops for months.

A reporter with Syrian state TV was seen broadcasting live from an entrance to Homs Old City. Standing near the city's main square known as the Clock Square, the reporter interviewed a priest who said he hoped people in the city would be safe again.

The Observatory, which has been documenting Syria's 3-year-old conflict through a network of activists on the ground, said that about 250 opposition fighters remain in the old districts of Homs, where they have been holed up under a crippling government siege for more than two years. The Observatory's head, Rami Abdurrahman, said more than 960 left the city Wednesday.

The rebels agreed to a cease-fire deal Friday as part of the evacuation.

An activist in Homs who goes with the name of Beibares Tellawi told The Associated Press that seven buses went into a once-besieged area of Homs on Thursday to take the remaining rebels out of the city.

"The siege of old Homs will be over in a few hours," Tellawi said via Skype. "We expect that everyone left inside will leave today."

In exchange for the rebels' safe departure from Homs, the opposition fighters have released 70 people who had been held by gunmen in various areas, including in Aleppo and in the costal province of Latakia, Barazi said.

Syria's uprising began with largely peaceful protests and has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones, pitting largely Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad's government that is dominated by Alawites, a sect of Shiite Islam.

Islamic extremists, including foreign fighters and Syrian rebels who have taken up hard-line al-Qaida-style ideologies, have played an increasingly prominent role among fighters, dampening the West's support for the rebellion to overthrow Assad.

___

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, and Yasmin Saker in Beirut contributed to this report

View Gallery


Syrian rebels claim Aleppo hotel bombing


At least 16 soldiers are killed in the blast, which leveled a hotel used as a military base near the Citadel.
Blow to Assad's forces


"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?
5/8/2014 11:43:06 PM

Strong earthquake shakes Mexico's Pacific coast

Associated Press



ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — A strong earthquake shook the southern Pacific coast of Mexico as well as the capital and several inland states Thursday, sending frightened people into unseasonal torrential rains that were also bearing down on the coast.

The 6.4-magnitude quake in southern Guerrero state was centered about 9 miles (15 kilometers) north of Tecpan de Galeana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and was felt about 171 miles (277 kilometers) miles away in Mexico City, where office workers streamed into the streets away from high-rise buildings.

There were no reports of injuries. A 30-meter (yard) section of elevated road collapsed in Tecpan, near the epicenter, closing the federal highway between the resort cities of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo. The road had been damaged in a magnitude-7.2 quake that hit April 18 in roughly the same area and was under repair when it collapsed. The detour road was under water from the rains Thursday.

Tecpan shook ferociously, causing a "wave of panic" and some roofs to cave in, Mayor Crisoforo Otero Heredia said. As the day went on, civil protection workers started hearing of collapsed houses, some in remote areas in the municipality of Tecpan such as the town of La Cienega.

A wall collapsed in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state, but civil protection crews in Acapulco found no problems except scared citizens who were forced to take refuge in the heavy rain that was hitting the region.

In Mexico City, elegantly dressed businesswoman Carmen Lopez was leaving a downtown office building when the ground began to shake. She dashed across the street to a leafy median as light poles swayed violently above her.

"That was just too scary," Lopez said as she quickly started dialing her cellphone to alert friends and family.

Behind her, thousands of people poured from neighboring office buildings, following pre-planned evacuation routes to areas considered safe in case of falling glass.

The quake occurred at a depth of 15 miles (23 kilometers) and its epicenter was about 40 miles (66 kilometers) from that of the April 18 quake that shook central and southern Mexico.

The earlier quake occurred in a section of the Pacific Coast known as the Guerrero Seismic Gap, which is a 125-mile (200-kilometer) section where tectonic plates meet and have been locked, causing huge amounts of energy to be stored up with potentially devastating effects, the USGS said. It said a magnitude-7.6 temblor struck in the section in 1911.

The U.S. agency said Thursday's quake was an aftershock of the April 18 temblor.

"The earthquake is indeed within the Guerrero Seismic Gap," USGS research geophysicist William Barnhart wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "But since it is consistent with being an aftershock of the magnitude-7.2, it is neither an abnormal event, nor does it significantly reduce the remaining stored stress in the seismic gap."

The USGS says the Guerrero Gap has the potential to produce a quake as strong as magnitude 8.4, potentially much more powerful than the magnitude-8.1 quake that killed 9,500 people and devastated large sections of Mexico City in 1985. The 1985 quake was centered 250 miles (400 kilometers) from the capital on the Pacific Coast.

Mexico City is vulnerable to distant earthquakes because much of it sits atop the muddy sediments of drained lake beds. They jiggle like jelly when the quake waves hit.

___

Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

View Gallery


Earthquake rocks Mexico's southern Pacific Coast


Workers stream into the streets of Mexico City, 171 miles from the epicenter, after a 6.4 temblor rattles buildings.
'Just too scary'

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