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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/25/2016 1:51:02 PM

Video shows Paris attackers committing earlier IS atrocities

Associated Press

FILE - In this Nov. 13, 2015, file photo, a woman is evacuated from the Bataclan concert hall after gunmen attacked the venue in Paris. New video released Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016, by the Islamic State group shows the extremists who carried out the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris committing atrocities in IS-controlled territory while plotting the slaughter in the French capital. The video shows the extent of the planning that went into the operation, which French authorities have said from the beginning was planned in Syria. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)


PARIS (AP) — New video released by the Islamic State group on Sunday shows the extremists who carried out the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris committing atrocities in IS-controlled territory while plotting the slaughter in the French capital that left 130 people dead and hundreds injured. The group also threatened to attack Britain.

The 17-minute video shows the extent of the planning that went into the multiple attacks in Paris, which French authorities have said from the beginning were planned in Syria. The video was provided online by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites.

All nine militants seen in the video died in the Paris attacks or their aftermath. Seven of the attackers — four from Belgium and three from France — spoke fluent French. The two others — identified by their noms de guerre as Iraqis — spoke in Arabic.

Seven of the militants, including a 20-year-old who was the youngest of the group, were filmed standing behind bound captives, described as "apostates," who were either beheaded or shot.

"Soon on the Champs-Elysées," says Samy Amimour, who was raised in a Paris suburb near the French national stadium, as he holds a captive's head aloft.

The Nov. 13 attacks targeted a packed concert hall, a restaurant and cafe, and a soccer match at the national stadium.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said the government is studying the video but would not comment on its contents. France's Interior Ministry and the Paris prosecutor's office had no immediate comment.

The video was filmed before the men sneaked back into Europe and contains no footage shot by the attackers during the days of terror that began Nov. 13 and ended only on Nov. 18 with the death of Abdelhamid Abbaoud, who was believed to be the leader of the attacks.

Instead, it was assembled from material shot before the men left for Paris, news video and amateur video. The video did not specify where the nine men were filmed, but it was believed to have been in IS-controlled territory in Syria. Abbaoud is seen simply speaking in a room

One militant, Brahim Abdeslam, is seen at a makeshift shooting range. Abdeslam, whose brother Salah fled Paris that night and remains at large, blew himself up at a Paris cafe where he was the only victim. Salah Abdeslam is not seen in the video.

According to the anti-islamic State activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, Brahim Abdeslam and two other attackers were trained in Raqqa, the extremist group's stronghold and the capital of its self-proclaimed caliphate.

In the video, as in other Islamic State propaganda trying to drive a wedge between European Muslims and their governments, the men say it is a religious duty to join them. They threaten more attacks in Europe, and the footage closes with one of the militants holding a severed head and footage of Cameron giving a speech — with a text in English warning that whoever stands with the unbelievers "will be a target for our swords."

"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?
1/25/2016 2:14:52 PM

Malaysia says Islamic State threat "very real" as video warns of attacks

Reuters




Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak watches a film screened at the opening of the International Conference on Deradicalisation and Countering Violent Extremism in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, January 25, 2016. REUTERS/Olivia Harris


By Rozanna Latiff

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Islamic State is a "very real" threat to the country, hours after a video from the regional wing of IS warned of attacks in the Muslim-majority nation for arresting its supporters.

Police said the video, featuring operatives from the militant group Katibah Nusantara speaking under the IS logo, was significant because it was the first from Islamic State in Malay.

"This threat is very real and my government takes it very seriously," Najib told a conference on extremism. "This is a challenge that faces us all around the world. We are far from immune to this danger in Malaysia."

Police said on Sunday they had arrested seven members of an IS cell who were planning attacks across the country. The suspected militants were carrying bullets, books on jihad, IS flags and propaganda videos.

Ten days ago, Malaysia arrested a suspected militant believed to have been planning a suicide attack in Kuala Lumpur.

Three Malaysians who were trying to enter Syria to join IS were arrested this month, Najib said.

The video that surfaced online warned Malaysia against the crackdown on IS supporters and featured two Malaysians based in Syria, said Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, director of the police counter-terrorism unit.

"They threatened to carry out an attack if police did not stop the arrests and release detainees immediately," said Ayob, adding that the video showed militants in the country were becoming more organized.

"Perhaps they didn't have a direct link with IS before, but now they do, so they can use the IS logo on their videos."

Katibah Nusantara, the militant network that released the video, is believed to be led by Bahrun Naim, who was identified as the mastermind behind the Jakarta bombings earlier this month. Indonesian police have said Naim is pulling strings from Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria.

Reuters could not independently verify the video.

"If you catch us, we will only increase in number but if you let us be, we will be closer to our goal of bringing back the rule of the Khalifah (caliph)," said a message on the video, according to Malaysian newspaper the Star. (http://bit.ly/23mzq4H)

Security experts in the region believe Islamic State's footprint is still light in Southeast Asia because militants are jostling to be its regional leader.

(Writing by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Nick Macfie)

"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?
1/25/2016 2:24:25 PM

US general: Afghan army being 'rebuilt' for Taliban battle

Associated Press

FILE - In this Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2015 file photo, Afghan National Army soldiers guard a checkpoint on the way to the Sangin district of Helmand province, Afghanistan. After months of ferocious fighting, Afghan army units battling the Taliban in southern Helmand province are facing major restructuring and leadership changes, with several key commanders being replaced, a U.S. military official said Monday, Jan. 25, 2016. (AP Photos/Abdul Khaliq, File)


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — After months of ferocious fighting, Afghan army units battling the Taliban in southern Helmand province are facing major restructuring and leadership changes, with several key commanders being replaced, a U.S. military official said Monday.

Helmand has been a fierce battleground since last fall, with fighting taking place in 10 districts. At times, the insurgents have laid siege on army bases and threatened to overrun large chunks of territory. Local officials have called for help from central authorities and complained publicly over corruption that includes syphoning off salaries, food, fuel and equipment.

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, the head of public affairs for the U.S.-NATO mission, told The Associated Press that the Afghan army corps in Helmand is now being "rebuilt" and that senior officers are being replaced.

The reasons for the changes in the Afghan army's 215 Maiwand Corps "are a combination of incompetence, corruption and ineffectiveness," Shoffner said. The corps' commander has been replaced, along with "some brigade commanders and some key corps staff up to full colonel level," he said.

Helmand is a strategic region for the Taliban, as it as it shares a border of more than 250 kilometers (155 miles) with Pakistan. It grows large quantities of opium, used to produce most of the world's heroin. The harvest is worth up to $3 billion a year, and helps fund the insurgency.

The Afghan Defense Ministry confirmed the changes in Helmand. It said veteran army Gen. Moheen Faqiri was appointed to lead the corps and took over two months ago.

Gen. Dawlat Waziri, the ministry's spokesman, said brigade commanders have also been rotated out and replaced.

"Soon, other army units will have new commanders there," Waziri said.

In October, a meeting of the National Security Council discussed the worsening situation on the ground. In the presence of President Ashraf Ghani and U.S. Army Gen. John F. Campbell, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the NSC heard that Afghan security forces were badly led, poorly equipped and in the previous three months had suffered 900 casualties, including 300 dead.

Minutes of the Oct. 29 meeting, obtained by the AP, show that Helmand was described by the former head of the intelligence agency, Rahmatullah Nabil, as "the biggest recruiting pool for the Taliban" and the insurgents' "primary source of revenue" from poppy for heroin and marble smuggling.

Another concern is the Afghan police who are fighting on the front-lines across Helmand, often without the equipment and backup of the army, which means casualties are higher.

Last Wednesday, Gen. Abdul Rahman Sarjang, the Helmand provincial police chief, said the Afghan security forces were "exhausted" and in dire need of reinforcements. He also told the AP that a lack of coordination between the army and police was hampering progress in the fight.

The Taliban have made serious stands in seven Helmand districts — Sangin, Gereshk, Khanashin, Musa Qala, Nawzad, Washer and Marjah — and at least three districts of Lashkar Gah are also under threat, Sarjang said.

The changes in Helmand reflect that Afghanistan's civilian and military leaders are learning the limitations of the security forces as they take on the Taliban alone following the drawdown of the international combat mission at the end of 2014. The U.S. and NATO maintain 13,000 troops in Afghanistan, mostly in an advisory and training capacity.

In a most serious illustration of the dire battlefield situation in Helmand, the district of Sangin was besieged for weeks and in late December fears escalated that it would completely fall to the insurgents. The United States conducted airstrikes on Taliban positions, the British rushed special forces advisers to the area, and the Afghan military dropped food and ammunition to soldiers and police who were surrounded in their base.

Nabil told the NSC meeting there were about 12,000 Taliban fighters in Helmand, up to 60 percent of them from other parts of the country — evidence the insurgents had reinforced their numbers for the fight. Nabil also said Afghan forces' morale was "extremely low" and discipline had broken down with "junior commanders openly defying their superiors."

"Helmand is in a crisis," Nabil told the meeting.

Shoffner, the U.S. general, said troops had been moved from other parts of the country to reinforce Helmand and that strategies have to change.

The notion that there is a "fighting season is outdated," he said, as the Taliban offensives — which in the past occurred in the warmer, summer months — have escalated even in colder weather.

NATO officials have told the AP that Afghan troops have taken huge casualties — 28 percent higher in 2015 than before the international combat mission ended, according to reports received by the international coalition. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the reports.

Afghan authorities do not release the casualty tolls for their combat forces. In 2014 that figure was estimated to have been about 5,000.

___

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this story.

"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?
1/25/2016 3:36:07 PM
Olympics Loosen Rules to Allow Pre-Op
M-to-F Transsexuals to Compete with Women


by
WILLIAM BIGELOW
22 Jan 2016

There’s great news for adventurous male Olympic hopefuls: if they declare themselves women and reduce their testosterone below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to competition, they can compete against ladies.

There’s even better news for these men; according to transgender guidelines approved by the International Olympic Committee, genitalia does not serve as a prerequisite. The guidelines state: “To require surgical anatomical changes as a pre-condition to participation is not necessary to preserve fair competition and may be inconsistent with developing legislation and notions of human rights.”

Cyd Zeigler at OutSports.com reported on the policy change.

The IOC held a “Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism” in November at which they created the new guidelines, loosening prior rules adopted in 2004 to allow transgender athletes into the Games. The previous rules required that transgender athletes must have undergone external genitalia changes and removal of gonads, as well as obtaining legal recognition of their assigned sex from appropriate official authorities.

The new guidelines attempt to justify themselves by citing various societies’ acceptance of fluid gender identity, writing, “Since the 2003 Stockholm Consensus on Sex Reassignment in Sports, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of autonomy of gender identity in society, as reflected in the laws of many jurisdictions worldwide.”

The IOC ignores evidence that the fairness of male to female transition still leaves men larger in general than the women they compete against. As Robert S. Beil, M.D., of Montefiore Medical Group, acknowledged, “MTF trans people tend to be bigger, and may have certain strengths from before they started using estrogen.” As noted in a studypublished in the British Journal of Sports Medicine:

The decision to categorically restrict male to female transsexual athletes from competing in a given sport as females rests on two critical assumptions. The first is that most people exposed to testosterone from puberty onward will develop physical and/or physiological attributes that contribute to a distinct performance advantage over most women. Although the performance boundaries between male and female athletes have narrowed in the past several decades, there are distinct gender differences that exist on average.The second assumption needed to justify restricting male to female transsexual participation in female events is that these attributes can withstand the hormonal manipulation of sex reassignment, thereby giving the male to female transsexual athlete an unfair competitive advantage. Certainly, there are some effects of testosterone that cannot be reversed, including (most notably) its effect on postpubertal height in men. Men are on average taller than women, with the pubertal growth spurt accounting for most of the gender difference.

After acknowledging that surgery is unnecessary for trans athletes to compete, the IOC guidelines pontificate, “The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition. Restrictions on participation are appropriate to the extent that they are necessary and proportionate to the achievement of that objective.”

Here’s how that “fair competition” works, according to the guidelines:

Those who transition from female to male are eligible to compete in the male category without restriction.

Those who transition from male to female are eligible to compete in the female category under the following conditions:

The athlete has declared that her gender identity is female. The declaration cannot be changed, for sporting purposes, for a minimum of four years.

The athlete must demonstrate that her total testosterone level in serum has been below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to her first competition (with the requirement for any longer period to be based on a confidential case-by-case evaluation, considering whether or not 12 months is a sufficient length of time to minimize any advantage in women’s competition).

The athlete’s total testosterone level in serum must remain below 10 nmol/L throughout the period of desired eligibility to compete in the female category.

Compliance with these conditions may be monitored by testing. In the event of non-compliance, the athlete’s eligibility for female competition will be suspended for 12 months.

Joanna Harper, a transgender medical physicist who attended the November meeting, explained further, “The waiting period for trans women goes from two years after surgery to one year after the start of HRT. This matches up with the NCAA rules and is as good as anything. The waiting period was perhaps the most contentious item among our group and one year is a reasonable compromise.”

(breibart.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 Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/26/2016 1:23:48 AM

Zika virus suspected of causing brain damage to babies to spread throughout Americas - WHO



© Ricardo Rojas / Reuters

The mosquito-borne Zika virus is set to spread in all countries across the Americas, except Canada and Chile, the World Health Organization has warned.

Women planning to travel to areas where Zika is circulating should consult their healthcare provider before traveling and on return, the WHO said.

In Brazil 2,700 cases of birth defects are suspected to have been triggered by Zika and authorities urging the Brazilian women to postpone childbirth.

After the number of reported cases skyrocketed from 147 in 2014 to more than 2,400 in 2015, six Brazilian regions declared the state of emergency.

Q: What is ? A: Zika is a virus spread to humans by Aedes mosquitoes, the same mosquitoes that spread dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever


The Zika virus can be transmitted through blood and has also been detected in human semen, the WHO has stated. The mother-to-child transmission, both during pregnancy, childbirth or breast-feeding, is still to be examined.

The organization added, though, that it remains to be confirmed if the disease is sexually transmitted.


Zika is spread by the same mosquitos that carry dengue and yellow fevers.

There is currently no vaccine for the virus, which can cause fever, rashes, joint pains and conjunctivitis within days of being contracted.

For the majority of those affected, the virus leads to a short illness – up to a week, but in some cases, could cause death.

It is suspected that the virus causes brain damage in unborn babies, resulting in microcephaly, a birth defect which sees babies born with abnormally small heads and later experiencing developmental delays.




(RT)

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

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