3965-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

Flynn did not initially disclose income from Russia-linked companies

FILE PHOTO - Then National security adviser General Michael Flynn arrives to deliver a statement during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington U.S., February 1, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, failed to disclose payments from a Russian television network and two other firms linked to Russia in a February financial disclosure form, according to documents released by the White House.

In a form signed by Flynn on March 31, the former White House official listed speaking engagements to Russian entities, including the Kremlin-funded RT TV, Volga-Dnepr Airlines and Kaspersky Government Security Solutions Inc, a U.S. subsidiary of Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab.

The form, released on Saturday, does not say how much Flynn was paid but the speeches are in a section titled "sources of compensation exceeding $5,000 in a year."

The speeches were not included in a form that Flynn signed electronically on Feb. 11, which the White House also released.

The discrepancy on reporting income linked to Russia could add to the scrutiny the retired general, who was forced to resign his White House post after only 24 days, is already under for his contacts with Russian officials.

U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in an effort to help Trump's candidacy. Multiple congressional committees and the FBI are looking into Russia's involvement.

Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner, said his client was in the process of submitting his financial disclosures forms in the days before he left the White House.

"That process was suspended when he left. When asked this week to resume the process and finalize the form, he did," Kelner said in an email. He added that it had been "far from clear" that Flynn was required to itemize each speech.The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

Flynn was forced out on Feb. 13 for misrepresenting conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak before Trump took office and misleading Vice President Mike Pence about them.

Flynn has requested immunity if he testifies before the intelligence committees of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, Kelner said last week.

Trump, a Republican, has said Democrats were pursuing investigations because they were upset about his Nov. 8 victory over their party's candidate, Hillary Clinton.

The Russian government has denied the allegations that it interfered in the U.S. election and released hacked emails of Democratic groups to tip the election toward Trump, who has called for better U.S. relations with Moscow.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Mary Milliken)

(Reuters)

Israel says not seeking Gaza 'adventures' after killing claim

PUBLISHED: 15:23 BST, 2 April 2017 | UPDATED: 15:23 BST, 2 April 2017

Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem, January 8, 2017

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday Israel did not seek "adventures" in Gaza after Hamas accused it of assassinating an official, and suggested the group itself could have killed him.

Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, has blamed Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and its "collaborators" for the March 24 killing of Mazen Faqha in the Palestinian territory.

Israeli officials had previously not commented on the killing.

"We are not looking for adventures," Lieberman said during a visit to the Israeli city of Sderot near the Gaza border, according to his office.

"We are conducting security policy with responsibility and determination.

"It does not matter what Hamas says, it's important what the Jews do."

He added: "Let Hamas do what it wants and we will do what we need to do. Hamas is known for internal assassinations, for settling accounts. I suggest that they look there for it."

In response, both Hamas and its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, accused Lieberman of seeking to evade responsibility for the killing.

"The Israeli occupier bears all responsibility for the assassination of Mazen Faqha and the ensuing results," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said in a statement.

The killing has raised the possibility of a response from Hamas and a fresh escalation of violence.

On Saturday, Hamas vowed "radical measures" against Palestinians who "collaborated" with Israel, with interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozum saying that could mean arrests, trials and even executions.

Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008. The enclave has been under an Israeli blockade for 10 years.

According to Hamas, Faqha formed cells for the Islamist group's military wing in the West Bank cities of Tubas, where he was born, and Jenin.

It said he played an important role in preparing two major incidents.

The first was a suicide attack in the Israeli settlement neighbourhood of Gilo in east Jerusalem in 2002 that killed 19 people.

The second was a suicide bus attack later that year that killed nine people in the northern Israeli city of Safed.

Both were part of a wave of suicide attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis during the second intifada, or uprising, between 2000 and 2005.

Israel sentenced Faqha to nine life sentences plus 50 years, but he was released in 2011 along with more than 1,000 other Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas had detained for five years, and transferred to Gaza.

(dailymail.co.uk)

A Chicago mother cried endless tears last week when two of her sons came to visit her at the restaurant she worked, and was shot and killed. Dillon Jackson, 20 was found dead inside the South Shore’s Nadia Fish and Chicken, and his brother Raheem Jackson, 19, was found laying against a tree. According to the Chicago Tribune, the mother was inconsolable.

“I can’t go on; my life is over. I’m ’bout to g**damn kill myself,” the mother said. “I was standing right here in the window; they killed ’em right in front of me.”

Two other men were also killed and later found by Chicago law enforcement. Emmanuel Stokes, 28, and Edwin Davis, 32 were both found inside the restaurant. Jackson’s grandmother, Georgia Jackson told reporters her grandsons went to the restaurant to get some food from their mother. At the shooting told Jackson “They shot Dillon.” By the time she arrived both her grandsons were dead.

“We got a call from their mama. She only said one at first, but when I got here they said they found the other,” Jackson said. As it stands now police believe the son’s death was gang retaliation for a killing that took place Wednesday. (March 29)

(vibe.com)

Death around corner for civilians living on Mosul's frontline

Displaced Iraqis who had fled their homes wait to enter at Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq April 3, 2017.REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Ulf Laessing | MOSUL, IRAQ

Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses, pensioner Abdelraziq Abdelkarim enjoys the afternoon sun outside his house in Mosul after a day of rain. He does not flinch when a mortar opens fire just around the corner.

His home is on the busiest frontline in the northern Iraqi city just 200 m (yards) from Islamic State positions. Outside his house, Federal Police units are firing at the militants.

Government forces have been evacuating civilians as they fight to seize Mosul, once the hardline Sunni militant group's main urban stronghold in Iraq and now the scene of a six-month-old battle.

But some families refuse to go, shrugging off the danger of a mortar fired two blocks away or a counter-attack from the militants who move around at night. Gunfire rings out constantly between Federal Police and militants holed up in abandoned shops and apartments.

"I don't want to go. I've lived all my life in this house," said 72-year Abdelkarim, a former studio photographer, sitting next to his handicapped son and a grandchild.

They share a two-floor house in a narrow street with five people from two other families. Military Humvees and mortar launchers are just parked outside.

Almost 300,000 people have fled Mosul since the government offensive to recapture the city began in October, according to the United Nations.

But Abdelkarim and his friends dread going to one of the crowded camps where aid agencies sometimes place two families in one tent for lack of space. Others stay with relatives in cramped homes.

They had stocked up food, water and petrol for a power generator when the military campaign began. There is no food store at the frontline but soldiers sometimes share rations or a family member goes to one of the food distribution centers set up by the military, they say.

"We are maybe three or four families left. The rest are gone," said Abdullah Ahmed, a 42-year old engineer staying with Abdelkarim. "Right across out door 50 people stayed in one house but they've fled."

DEATH AROUND CORNER

Their short alley shows the military's challenges in dislodging Islamic State fighters hiding in the Old City -- navigating is difficult in the labyrinth of narrow, often covered alleys offering perfect hideouts for snipers or to stage ambushes.

U.S. officials estimated about 2,000 fighters were still in Mosul in February at the start of the second phase of the campaign, to dislodge them from western sector.

Iraqi forces have been edging closer to al-Nuri Mosque -- some 300 meters away -- where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a caliphate nearly three years ago across territory controlled by the group in both Iraq and Syria.

But the front has hardly moved in past two weeks as Humvees or tanks are of no use in the Old City.

"See our street is about one-and-half meters wide," said Ahmed, whose TV satellite shop was closed by Islamic State as watching TV channels was banned under its austere version of Sunni Islam.

"Near the mosque the streets only half as wide as this. There are some 40 to 50 small houses clustered around it," he said, pointing in the direction of the mosque. "It's very difficult to move there."

When Federal Police opened fire with a machine gun perched on the top floor of a house through a hole broken into a wall, Islamic State fired back within two minutes with accuracy.

"There are snipers here," a federal policeman said.

There is another reason why the friends want to avoid going to camps. IS fighters seized the husband of one of their sisters two before the government forces arrived.

"I fear they killed him because he was a policeman," said his 30-year-old wife Dhikrayat Muwafiq, weeping in the kitchen where she was preparing rice and beans.

"I don't want to go until we know where he is. I need to stay," she said.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)

(Reuters)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 4/3/2017 4:27:54 PM
	Sun Apr 2, 2017 \| 2:59pm EDT Flynn did not initially disclose income from Russia-linked companies FILE PHOTO - Then National security adviser General Michael Flynn arrives to deliver a statement during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington U.S., February 1, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, failed to disclose payments from a Russian television network and two other firms linked to Russia in a February financial disclosure form, according to documents released by the White House. In a form signed by Flynn on March 31, the former White House official listed speaking engagements to Russian entities, including the Kremlin-funded RT TV, Volga-Dnepr Airlines and Kaspersky Government Security Solutions Inc, a U.S. subsidiary of Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab. The form, released on Saturday, does not say how much Flynn was paid but the speeches are in a section titled "sources of compensation exceeding $5,000 in a year." The speeches were not included in a form that Flynn signed electronically on Feb. 11, which the White House also released. The discrepancy on reporting income linked to Russia could add to the scrutiny the retired general, who was forced to resign his White House post after only 24 days, is already under for his contacts with Russian officials. U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in an effort to help Trump's candidacy. Multiple congressional committees and the FBI are looking into Russia's involvement. Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner, said his client was in the process of submitting his financial disclosures forms in the days before he left the White House. "That process was suspended when he left. When asked this week to resume the process and finalize the form, he did," Kelner said in an email. He added that it had been "far from clear" that Flynn was required to itemize each speech.The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday. Flynn was forced out on Feb. 13 for misrepresenting conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak before Trump took office and misleading Vice President Mike Pence about them. Flynn has requested immunity if he testifies before the intelligence committees of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, Kelner said last week. Trump, a Republican, has said Democrats were pursuing investigations because they were upset about his Nov. 8 victory over their party's candidate, Hillary Clinton. The Russian government has denied the allegations that it interfered in the U.S. election and released hacked emails of Democratic groups to tip the election toward Trump, who has called for better U.S. relations with Moscow. (Reporting by Diane Bartz and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Mary Milliken) (Reuters)
	"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? 4/3/2017 4:49:22 PM
	St Petersburg Metro Blast Kills and Injures Scores April 3, 2017 at 7:43 am Written by Anti-Media News Desk (MEE) At least nine people were killed and 20 injured in explosions in a train carriage at metro stations in St Petersburg on Monday, Russia’s national anti-terrorist committee said. Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying the blast was caused by a bomb filled with shrapnel. Another source in Russia’s emergency services told Reuters there had been only one bomb blast. “There was one blast in one site in between (stations) as the train arrived at the Technology Institute station from Sennaya (Ploshchad) station,” the source said. Russian media reported earlier that there were two blasts and that at least 10 people had died. President Vladimir Putin, who was in St Petersburg for a meeting with Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko, said the cause of the blasts was not yet clear and efforts were under way to find out. He said he was considering all possibilities including terrorism. No individual or group has claimed the apparent attack. Video showed injured people lying bleeding on a platform, some being treated by emergency services. Others ran away from the platform amid clouds of smoke. A huge hole was blasted in the side of one carriage with mangled metal wreckage strewn around the platform. Passengers were seen hammering at the windows of one closed carriage. Authorities closed all St Petersburg metro stations. The Moscow metro said it was taking unspecified additional security measures in case of an attack there. Russia has been the target of attacks by Chechen militants in past years. Chechen rebel leaders have frequently threatened further attacks. At least 38 people were killed in 2010 when two female suicide bombers detonated bombs on packed Moscow metro trains. Over 330 people, half of them children, were killed in 2004 when police stormed a school in southern Russia after a hostage taking by Islamist militants. In 2002, 120 hostages were killed when police stormed a Moscow theatre to end another hostage taking. Putin, as prime minister, launched a 1999 campaign to crush a separatist government in the Muslim majority southern region of Chechnya, and as president continued a hard line in suppressing rebellion. By MEE and agencies / Republished with permission / Middle East Eye / Report a typo
	"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? 4/4/2017 12:53:55 AM
	Israel says not seeking Gaza 'adventures' after killing claim By AFP PUBLISHED: 15:23 BST, 2 April 2017 \| UPDATED: 15:23 BST, 2 April 2017 Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem, January 8, 2017 Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday Israel did not seek "adventures" in Gaza after Hamas accused it of assassinating an official, and suggested the group itself could have killed him. Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, has blamed Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and its "collaborators" for the March 24 killing of Mazen Faqha in the Palestinian territory. Israeli officials had previously not commented on the killing. "We are not looking for adventures," Lieberman said during a visit to the Israeli city of Sderot near the Gaza border, according to his office. "We are conducting security policy with responsibility and determination. "It does not matter what Hamas says, it's important what the Jews do." He added: "Let Hamas do what it wants and we will do what we need to do. Hamas is known for internal assassinations, for settling accounts. I suggest that they look there for it." In response, both Hamas and its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, accused Lieberman of seeking to evade responsibility for the killing. "The Israeli occupier bears all responsibility for the assassination of Mazen Faqha and the ensuing results," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said in a statement. The killing has raised the possibility of a response from Hamas and a fresh escalation of violence. On Saturday, Hamas vowed "radical measures" against Palestinians who "collaborated" with Israel, with interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozum saying that could mean arrests, trials and even executions. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008. The enclave has been under an Israeli blockade for 10 years. According to Hamas, Faqha formed cells for the Islamist group's military wing in the West Bank cities of Tubas, where he was born, and Jenin. It said he played an important role in preparing two major incidents. The first was a suicide attack in the Israeli settlement neighbourhood of Gilo in east Jerusalem in 2002 that killed 19 people. The second was a suicide bus attack later that year that killed nine people in the northern Israeli city of Safed. Both were part of a wave of suicide attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis during the second intifada, or uprising, between 2000 and 2005. Israel sentenced Faqha to nine life sentences plus 50 years, but he was released in 2011 along with more than 1,000 other Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas had detained for five years, and transferred to Gaza. (dailymail.co.uk)
	"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? 4/4/2017 1:15:40 AM
	Chicago Mother Heartbroken After Seeing Her Two Sons Shot And Killed National Shenequa Golding @GoldingGirl617 \| April 2, 2017 - 1:15 pm CREDIT: Getty Images A Chicago mother cried endless tears last week when two of her sons came to visit her at the restaurant she worked, and was shot and killed. Dillon Jackson, 20 was found dead inside the South Shore’s Nadia Fish and Chicken, and his brother Raheem Jackson, 19, was found laying against a tree. According to the Chicago Tribune, the mother was inconsolable. “I can’t go on; my life is over. I’m ’bout to g**damn kill myself,” the mother said. “I was standing right here in the window; they killed ’em right in front of me.” Two other men were also killed and later found by Chicago law enforcement. Emmanuel Stokes, 28, and Edwin Davis, 32 were both found inside the restaurant. Jackson’s grandmother, Georgia Jackson told reporters her grandsons went to the restaurant to get some food from their mother. At the shooting told Jackson “They shot Dillon.” By the time she arrived both her grandsons were dead. “We got a call from their mama. She only said one at first, but when I got here they said they found the other,” Jackson said. As it stands now police believe the son’s death was gang retaliation for a killing that took place Wednesday. (March 29) (vibe.com)
	"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? 4/4/2017 9:43:07 AM
	Mon Apr 3, 2017 \| 10:57am EDT Death around corner for civilians living on Mosul's frontline Displaced Iraqis who had fled their homes wait to enter at Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq April 3, 2017.REUTERS/Suhaib Salem By Ulf Laessing \| MOSUL, IRAQ Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses, pensioner Abdelraziq Abdelkarim enjoys the afternoon sun outside his house in Mosul after a day of rain. He does not flinch when a mortar opens fire just around the corner. His home is on the busiest frontline in the northern Iraqi city just 200 m (yards) from Islamic State positions. Outside his house, Federal Police units are firing at the militants. Government forces have been evacuating civilians as they fight to seize Mosul, once the hardline Sunni militant group's main urban stronghold in Iraq and now the scene of a six-month-old battle. But some families refuse to go, shrugging off the danger of a mortar fired two blocks away or a counter-attack from the militants who move around at night. Gunfire rings out constantly between Federal Police and militants holed up in abandoned shops and apartments. "I don't want to go. I've lived all my life in this house," said 72-year Abdelkarim, a former studio photographer, sitting next to his handicapped son and a grandchild. They share a two-floor house in a narrow street with five people from two other families. Military Humvees and mortar launchers are just parked outside. Almost 300,000 people have fled Mosul since the government offensive to recapture the city began in October, according to the United Nations. But Abdelkarim and his friends dread going to one of the crowded camps where aid agencies sometimes place two families in one tent for lack of space. Others stay with relatives in cramped homes. They had stocked up food, water and petrol for a power generator when the military campaign began. There is no food store at the frontline but soldiers sometimes share rations or a family member goes to one of the food distribution centers set up by the military, they say. "We are maybe three or four families left. The rest are gone," said Abdullah Ahmed, a 42-year old engineer staying with Abdelkarim. "Right across out door 50 people stayed in one house but they've fled." DEATH AROUND CORNER Their short alley shows the military's challenges in dislodging Islamic State fighters hiding in the Old City -- navigating is difficult in the labyrinth of narrow, often covered alleys offering perfect hideouts for snipers or to stage ambushes. U.S. officials estimated about 2,000 fighters were still in Mosul in February at the start of the second phase of the campaign, to dislodge them from western sector. Iraqi forces have been edging closer to al-Nuri Mosque -- some 300 meters away -- where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a caliphate nearly three years ago across territory controlled by the group in both Iraq and Syria. But the front has hardly moved in past two weeks as Humvees or tanks are of no use in the Old City. "See our street is about one-and-half meters wide," said Ahmed, whose TV satellite shop was closed by Islamic State as watching TV channels was banned under its austere version of Sunni Islam. "Near the mosque the streets only half as wide as this. There are some 40 to 50 small houses clustered around it," he said, pointing in the direction of the mosque. "It's very difficult to move there." When Federal Police opened fire with a machine gun perched on the top floor of a house through a hole broken into a wall, Islamic State fired back within two minutes with accuracy. "There are snipers here," a federal policeman said. There is another reason why the friends want to avoid going to camps. IS fighters seized the husband of one of their sisters two before the government forces arrived. "I fear they killed him because he was a policeman," said his 30-year-old wife Dhikrayat Muwafiq, weeping in the kitchen where she was preparing rice and beans. "I don't want to go until we know where he is. I need to stay," she said. (Editing by Angus MacSwan) (Reuters)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

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Flynn did not initially disclose income from Russia-linked companies

Israel says not seeking Gaza 'adventures' after killing claim

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Death around corner for civilians living on Mosul's frontline