3754-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

FILE PHOTO - A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) passenger plane arrives at the Benazir International airport in Islamabad, Pakistan December 2, 2015. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood/File Photo

By Jibran Ahmed and Asad Hashim

PESHAWAR/ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - There were no survivors after a plane carrying 47 people crashed into a mountain in northern Pakistan on Wednesday, the airline's chairman said, as recovery operations continued late into the night at the remote crash site.

The military said 40 bodies had been recovered and rescue efforts involved about 500 soldiers, doctors and paramedics. The bodies were shifted to the Ayub Medical Center in nearby Abbottabad, about 20km (12 miles) away.

"There are no survivors, no one has survived," said Muhammad Azam Saigol, the chairman for Pakistan International Airlines. PIA-operated flight PK661, which crashed en route from Chitral to the capital, Islamabad.

Junaid Jamshed, a well-known Pakistani pop star turned evangelical Muslim cleric, was among those feared dead, an airline official said.

PIA said the captain of the flight had reported losing power in one engine minutes before its plane lost contact with the control tower en route to the capital.

The airline said the plane crashed at 4:42 pm local time (1142 GMT) in the Havelian area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, about 40km (25 miles) north of Islamabad. Chitral, where the flight originated, is a popular tourist destination in Pakistan.

Saigol said the ATR turboprop aircraft had undergone regular maintenance and in October had passed an "A-check" maintenance certification, performed after every 500 flight hours.

He said a full investigation of the crash, involving international agencies, would be conducted.

"All of the bodies are burned beyond recognition. The debris are scattered," Taj Muhammad Khan, a government official based in Havelian, told Reuters.

Khan, who was at the crash site, said witnesses told him "the aircraft has crashed in a mountainous area, and before it hit the ground it was on fire".

Pakistani television showed a trail of wreckage engulfed in flames on a mountain slope.

Irfan Elahi, the government's aviation secretary, told media the plane suffered engine problems but it was too early to determine the cause of the accident.

THREE FOREIGNERS ON BOARD

In a late night statement, PIA said the plane was carrying 47 people, including five crew members and 42 passengers. Earlier, the airline had said there were 48 people on board.

The airline said two Austrian citizens and one Chinese citizen, all men, had been on board. The flight manifest showed three people on board with foreign names.

The Austrian foreign minister's spokesman later confirmed two Austrians had been killed in the crash.

A local trader at the site of the crash said the fire was still burning nearly two hours after the crash.

"They are removing body parts," Nasim Gohar told Geo TV.

The military said it had sent in troops and helicopters.

"PIA is doing everything possible to help the families of passengers and crew members," the airline said in a statement.

The pop singer Jamshed, a member of one of Pakistan's first successful rock bands in the 1990s, abandoned his singing career to join the Tableeghi Jamaat group, which travels across Pakistan and abroad preaching about Islam.

In his last tweet, Jamshed posted pictures of a snow-capped mountain, calling Chitral "Heaven on Earth".

Plane crashes are not uncommon in Pakistan and safety standards are often criticized. In recent years, media have reported on multiple near-misses as planes over-ran runways and engines caught fire.

In 2010, a passenger plane crashed in heavy rain near Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board. Two years later, a plane operated by a private Pakistani company, with 127 people on board, crashed near Islamabad. All on board were killed.

PIA has also suffered major disasters in the past.

In 1979 and 1992, PIA jets crashed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and in Kathmandu, killing 156 and 167 people, respectively.

In 2006, a PIA plane crashed near the central city of Multan, killing 45 people.

(Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik and Amjad Ali in ISLAMABAD and Gul Hamad Farooqi in CHITRAL,; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Larry King)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/7/2016 11:34:27 PM
	Massive animal die-offs: 3000 deer, 300 birds, thousands of jellyfish blobs, 21 buffaloes By Strange Sounds - Dec 5, 2016 Meanwhile the ecosystem collapse is going on with thousands of birds, fish and mammals dying off in mysterious ways. When is this going to stop? Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease is the official cause of more than 2,000 deer found dead in 23 counties in South Dakota this year. We are close to the record year 2012, when 3,700 deer were killed by the disease. Viral disease kills thousands of deer in South Dakota. The heaviest losses have been in Brule (206 deer were found dead), Aurora and Beadle Counties (209 deer were found dead). Cap Journal Authorities are still investigating what killed an estimated 200 to 300 red-winged blackbirds in Stow Creek, a this rural township in New Jersey. Hundreds of Red-Wing Blackbirds were found dead in Stow Creek. Cause remains unexplained after two weeks of reaserch. The birds were found on the road, in farm fields and in wooded areas. Some of the dead birds were also found on some nearby roadways, as if they had suddenly fell from the sky. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has become involved in helping to determine what killed the birds in this latest incident. NJ Thousands of mysterious jelly-like creatures washed up on the sand in Huntington Beach on November 28, 2016. These are most probably sea cucumbers. And they are a lingering effect of last winter’s El Niño. What are these thousands of mysterious creatures on huntington beach? There’s all kinds of weird things happening. It’s just strange. KTLA Livestock officials are investigating the sudden death of 21 buffaloes in Ban Khao Duan village, Thailand. The farmer lost almost half of his herd within 3 days. 21 buffaloes died mysteriously in Thailand. It is unknown what disease has killed the buffaloes so suddenly. Herders have been asked to move their cattles away to prevent the spread of the disease. Bangkok Post And what’s next, a whale giant mass-stranding because of military sonars? (strangesounds.org)
	"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? 12/7/2016 11:50:18 PM
	Swarming crazy ants with a penchant for destroying electronics are on the move in Texas By Ben Guarino December 6 (Joe MacGown via Mississippi Entomological Museum) Of the nonnative animals crawling, buzzing and slithering across the American South, very few are officially designated “crazy.” The crazy ant is an exception. When a Texas exterminator, Tom Rasberry, spotted ants moving in an erratic swarm in 2002, the strange insects took his name: Rasberry crazy ants. A decade later, after biologists completed the species’ taxonomic identification, they renamed the ant in Latin Nylanderia fulva. In English, they dropped the Rasberry but kept the crazy, and now the tawny crazy ant marches across Texas. This ant march is slow, just some roughly 650 feet annually — about twice the length of a soccer field per year. But it seems inexorable. Texas A&M University researchers found crazy ants in 23 counties in Texas, reported the Austin American-Statesman on Sunday. Although the insects are so named for their swarming maneuvers, the term is equally apt for the damage they inflict on the human psyche. For reasons not fully understood, the ants are found in large numbers near electrical equipment and wall sockets.Cellphones and television sets have succumbed to the ant swarms, and the insects damaged electronics in a Houston-area industrial park. “It comes into houses and drives people crazy, maybe suppressing housing values,” Colorado State University entomologist Whitney Cranshaw told The Washington Post in 2009. (In 2013, the New York Times magazine profiled a Texas man so plagued by the ants he was about to gun down an outdoor colony with his AR-15. He refrained, the Times reported, after his wife started to laugh.) The ants are capable of living in immense colonies, up to 100 times denser than all other ants in an infested habitat. During a recent field study, one ant researcher collected more than 180,000 ants simply by leaving plastic tubes in an infested location overnight, the Statesman reported. The researcher did not need to use bait. Like the infamous fire ant, the crazy ant is a South American native that made its way to the Lone Star state. The animals do not coexist peacefully. The crazy ant — despite its less painful venom — has a chemical upper hand, scientists discovered in 2014. The crazy ants secrete a substance that neutralizes the fire ant acid, and are thus able to overwhelm the enemy ants. A few experts, such as University of Texas at Austin’s Ed LeBrun,worry that ecosystems already altered by the fire ant may be unprepared to keep the crazy ant in check. [Invasive ‘Jersey wriggler’ jumping worms devouring forest floors] Left to their own six legs the insects cannot travel far, but LeBrun noted in a 2013 statement that the animals could stow away in RVs or be shipped through the mail in garden products. “But the flip side of that is that if people living in or visiting invaded areas are careful and check for the crazy ants when moving or going on longer trips,” he said, “they could have a huge impact on the spread.” Entomologists have identified the ant in every Gulf state. The ant’s eastward march may take it next to South Carolina. “The predictive models show that the tawny crazy ant could become established in South Carolina in 2016, especially along the coastal counties from Jasper up to Georgetown,” Clemson University entomologist Eric Benson said in a statement in July. In 2013, the University of Texas at Austin announced a $2.7 million initiative to find biological ways to keep invasive insects under control. One such method is the release of predators. South American phorid flies, which lay their eggs on fire ants so the fly maggots can eat their hosts from the inside out, have shown promise curbing fire ant populations. (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? 12/8/2016 12:15:23 AM
	Oil Company Responds To US Army Corps’ Announcement, Will Continue To Proceed With Pipeline ByAmanda Froelich Posted on December 5, 2016 Credit: Aaron Judd Energy Transfer Partners released a statement making it clear that the Obama administration's decision will in no way halt the DAPL's construction. Sunday afternoon, hundreds of thousands of “water protectors” celebrated around the world – and specifically at the Standing Rock protest camp near Cannon Ball, ND – as word spread of the US Army Corps’ decision to deny an easement to Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and Sunoco Logistics Partners (SLP) for the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Jo-Ellen Darcy, the Army’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Works, said in a statement: “The Department of the Army will not approve an easement that would allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota.” Darcy added that the decision was based on the need to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing. “Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it’s clear that there’s more work to do. The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.” Supporters of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe have been protesting the development of the DAPL since April because of the threat it poses to sacred burial grounds as well as the Missouri River. There is concern that ‘human error’ will result in a pipeline spill, and that the tribe’s only source of clean water will be contaminated. Despite these concerns, ETP and SXL have pressed on to finish the $3.7 billion pipeline which may offer more jobs in a struggling economy. Three federal mandates were issued to halt the construction of the DAPL in recent months, but development continued nonetheless. It’s because of this that protestors began to blockade bridges and put themselves in danger to raise awareness about the issue. Activists have been maced, tased, shot with rubber bullets, beaten with batons, and hosed down with water canons in freezing temperatures to stop the DAPL’s construction. Finally, on Sunday, the US Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement for the pipeline to cross Lake Oahe, meaning the DAPL would need to be rerouted. Shortly after that declaration, however, ETP and SXL released their own statement, making it very clear that the companies have no intention of delaying or stopping construction. The statement reads: “As stated all along, ETP and SXL are fully committed to ensuring that this vital project is brought to completion and fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe. Nothing this Administration has done today changes that in any way.” ETP and SXL call the Army Corps’ decision a ‘purely political’ one and maintain that all legal requirements have been met in the past. Therefore, construction will continue. Because of this, water protectors are urged to continue camping out. A ‘victory’ might have been obtained yesterday, but the ‘fight’ is far from over. What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news! This article (Oil Company Responds To US Army Corps’ Announcement, Will Continue To Proceed With Pipeline) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com http://www.trueactivist.com/oil-company-responds-to-us-army-corps-announcement-will-continue-to-proceed-with-pipeline/ Category: World News & Politics
	"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? 12/8/2016 12:33:02 AM
	North Dakota Fracking Company Fined $2.1 Million For Pollution Of Native American Reservation ByWhitney Webb Posted on December 5, 2016 Credit – Reuters Slawson Exploration Company, the largest oil producer in the Midwest, was fined over $2 million for contaminating the air of the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota. During the past few centuries, the US federal government has consistently abused North American indigenous groups through the seizure of land and resources as well as through social and political discrimination. These practices were born out of a widespread belief known as “Manifest Destiny,” which held that European settlers were meant to expand across the North American content, replacing native culture with their own. Settler groups often advanced this agenda through the massacres of entire tribes and settlements along with other hallmarks of genocide. This sordid history continues today as Native American tribes remain the target of corporate pillaging and state-sponsored murder, leading to broken communities and poverty driven by government-sponsored exploitation. Oil and gas companies have become a major part of this systemic injustice in recent years, gaining access to native land for drilling with the government’s help and often against the tribe’s wishes. The Fort Berthold reservation, home to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, is one area where tribes in recent years have accused the government of allowing their people to be cheated by energy companies. According to lawsuits filed in the last few years, the swindle deprived the tribe of more than $1 billion and the influx of oil workers has brought a surge in drug use and crime to the reservation and its surrounding areas. In addition to the social cost, the drilling has taken a major environmental toll. The US government has approved over 1,700 oil and gas leases on the reservation, with 1,000 total wells expected to be drilled in the coming years. However, with around 300 wells currently, the environmental damage has already begun to mount. Since 2009, there have been about 70 reports of oil-related pollution as well as wildfires caused by fracking wells, which have burned thousands of acres. Just yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) slapped a North Dakota fracking company with a multi-million dollar fine for polluting the reservation’s air. Slawson Exploration Company, the largest oil producer in the Midwest, has around 170 oil and gas wells on the reservation, all of which employ hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in order to gain access to the Bakken oil shale. The EPA has found that Slawson failed to adequately design, operate, and maintain vapor control systems on its well equipment, leading to air contamination. The smog produced by these haphazard wells can lead to an increase in the incidence of respiratory illness and exacerbates long-term respiratory conditions such as asthma. For their negligence, the EPA charged the company with a $2.1 million fine and forced the company to commit to spend $4.1 million on system upgrades as well as an additional $2 million on environmental mitigation projects. This settlement between the EPA and Slawson is said to be only one of several enforcement actions targeting oil/gas-related air pollution currently underway in North Dakota. Slawson’s negligence in fitting its wells with the systems necessary to prevent and mitigate pollution is yet another example of how fossil fuel companies consistently fail to show concern for the long-ranging effects of the contamination they cause. Nearby the Fort Berthold reservation, protests have raged for months over the Dakota Access pipeline, which seeks to route a massive pipeline through the Missouri river, a source of drinking water for millions. The company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, have been responsible for leaking more than 18,800 barrels of oil since 2005. Contamination of the river and the environment is guaranteed if the pipeline is completed and EPA fines will likely do little to lessen the damage, which would likely be irreparable. What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news! This article (North Dakota Fracking Company Fined $2.1 Million for Pollution of Native American Reservation) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com http://www.trueactivist.com/north-dakota-fracking-company-fined-2-1-million-for-pollution-of-native-american-reservation/ Category: World News & Politics
	"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? 12/8/2016 10:04:28 AM
	'No survivors' after plane crash in northern Pakistan mountains By Jibran Ahmed and Asad Hashim ReutersDecember 7, 2016 FILE PHOTO - A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) passenger plane arrives at the Benazir International airport in Islamabad, Pakistan December 2, 2015. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood/File Photo By Jibran Ahmed and Asad Hashim PESHAWAR/ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - There were no survivors after a plane carrying 47 people crashed into a mountain in northern Pakistan on Wednesday, the airline's chairman said, as recovery operations continued late into the night at the remote crash site. The military said 40 bodies had been recovered and rescue efforts involved about 500 soldiers, doctors and paramedics. The bodies were shifted to the Ayub Medical Center in nearby Abbottabad, about 20km (12 miles) away. "There are no survivors, no one has survived," said Muhammad Azam Saigol, the chairman for Pakistan International Airlines. PIA-operated flight PK661, which crashed en route from Chitral to the capital, Islamabad. Junaid Jamshed, a well-known Pakistani pop star turned evangelical Muslim cleric, was among those feared dead, an airline official said. PIA said the captain of the flight had reported losing power in one engine minutes before its plane lost contact with the control tower en route to the capital. The airline said the plane crashed at 4:42 pm local time (1142 GMT) in the Havelian area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, about 40km (25 miles) north of Islamabad. Chitral, where the flight originated, is a popular tourist destination in Pakistan. Saigol said the ATR turboprop aircraft had undergone regular maintenance and in October had passed an "A-check" maintenance certification, performed after every 500 flight hours. He said a full investigation of the crash, involving international agencies, would be conducted. "All of the bodies are burned beyond recognition. The debris are scattered," Taj Muhammad Khan, a government official based in Havelian, told Reuters. Khan, who was at the crash site, said witnesses told him "the aircraft has crashed in a mountainous area, and before it hit the ground it was on fire". Pakistani television showed a trail of wreckage engulfed in flames on a mountain slope. Irfan Elahi, the government's aviation secretary, told media the plane suffered engine problems but it was too early to determine the cause of the accident. THREE FOREIGNERS ON BOARD In a late night statement, PIA said the plane was carrying 47 people, including five crew members and 42 passengers. Earlier, the airline had said there were 48 people on board. The airline said two Austrian citizens and one Chinese citizen, all men, had been on board. The flight manifest showed three people on board with foreign names. The Austrian foreign minister's spokesman later confirmed two Austrians had been killed in the crash. A local trader at the site of the crash said the fire was still burning nearly two hours after the crash. "They are removing body parts," Nasim Gohar told Geo TV. The military said it had sent in troops and helicopters. "PIA is doing everything possible to help the families of passengers and crew members," the airline said in a statement. The pop singer Jamshed, a member of one of Pakistan's first successful rock bands in the 1990s, abandoned his singing career to join the Tableeghi Jamaat group, which travels across Pakistan and abroad preaching about Islam. In his last tweet, Jamshed posted pictures of a snow-capped mountain, calling Chitral "Heaven on Earth". Plane crashes are not uncommon in Pakistan and safety standards are often criticized. In recent years, media have reported on multiple near-misses as planes over-ran runways and engines caught fire. In 2010, a passenger plane crashed in heavy rain near Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board. Two years later, a plane operated by a private Pakistani company, with 127 people on board, crashed near Islamabad. All on board were killed. PIA has also suffered major disasters in the past. In 1979 and 1992, PIA jets crashed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and in Kathmandu, killing 156 and 167 people, respectively. In 2006, a PIA plane crashed near the central city of Multan, killing 45 people. (Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik and Amjad Ali in ISLAMABAD and Gul Hamad Farooqi in CHITRAL,; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Larry King) (Yahoo News)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

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'No survivors' after plane crash in northern Pakistan mountains

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