4646-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

By Ellen Nakashima and Joby WarrickJuly 30Email the author

U.S. spy agencies are seeing signs that North Korea is constructing new missiles at a factory that produced the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, according to officials familiar with the intelligence.

Newly obtained evidence, including satellite photos taken in recent weeks, indicates that work is underway on at least one and possibly two liquid-fueled ICBMs at a large research facility in Sanumdong, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe classified intelligence.

The findings are the latest to show ongoing activity inside North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities at a time when the country’s leaders are engaged in arms talks with the United States. The new intelligence does not suggest an expansion of North Korea’s capabilities but shows that work on advanced weapons is continuing weeks after President Trump declared in a Twitter posting that Pyongyang was “no longer a Nuclear Threat.”

The reports about new missile construction come after recent revelations about a suspected uranium-enrichment facility, called Kangson, that North Korea is operating in secret. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged during Senate testimony last week that North Korean factories “continue to produce fissile material” used in making nuclear weapons. He declined to say whether Pyongyang is building new missiles.

[Pompeo pushes back against North Korea’s ‘gangster-like’ critique]

During a summit with Trump in June, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to a vaguely worded pledge to “work toward” the “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. But since then, North Korea has made few tangible moves signaling an intention to disarm.

1:49

The Post's Joby Warrick talks you through two of the satellite images that experts say prove North Korea continues to build its nuclear arsenal.(Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

Instead, senior North Korean officials have discussed their intention to deceive Washington about the number of nuclear warheads and missiles they have, as well as the types and numbers of facilities, and to rebuff international inspectors, according to intelligence gathered by U.S. agencies. Their strategy includes potentially asserting that they have fully denuclearized by declaring and disposing of 20 warheads while retaining dozens more.

The Sanumdong factory has produced two of North Korea’s ICBMs, including the powerful Hwasong-15, the first with a proven range that could allow it to strike the U.S. East Coast. The newly obtained evidence points to ongoing work on at least one Hwasong-15 at the Sanumdong plant, according to imagery collected by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in recent weeks.

“We see them going to work, just as before,” said one U.S. official.

The exception, the officials said, is the Sohae Satellite Launching Station on North Korea’s west coast, where workers can be observed dismantling an engine test stand, honoring a promise made to Trump at the summit.

[North Korea seeking to conceal parts of its weapons stockpile, officials say]

A May 28 satellite image of a building that U.S. analysts believe is a secret uranium enrichment facility near North Korea’s capital. (Planet Labs Inc./James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies)

Many analysts and independent experts, however, see that dismantling as largely symbolic, since North Korea has successfully launched ICBMs that use the kind of liquid-fueled engines tested at Sohae. Moreover, the test stand could easily be rebuilt within months.

Buttressing the intelligence findings, independent missile experts this week also reported observing activity consistent with missile construction at the Sanumdong plant. The daily movement of supply trucks and other vehicles, as captured by commercial satellite photos, shows that the missile facility “is not dead, by any stretch of the imagination,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The Monterey, Calif., nonprofit group analyzed commercial photos obtained from the satellite imagery firm Planet Labs Inc.

“It’s active. We see shipping containers and vehicles coming and going,” Lewis said of the Sanumdong plant. “This is a facility where they build ICBMs and space-launch vehicles.”

Intriguingly, one image, taken July 7, shows a bright-red covered trailer in a loading area. The trailer appears identical to those used by North Korea in the past to transport ICBMs. How the trailer was being used at the time of the photograph is unclear.

Lewis’s group also published images of a large industrial facility that some U.S. intelligence analysts believe to be the Kangson uranium-enrichment plant. The images, first reported by the online publication the Diplomat, show a football-field-size building surrounded by a high wall, in North Korea’s Chollima-guyok district, southwest of the capital. The complex has a single, guarded entrance and features high-rise residential towers apparently used by workers.

Historical satellite photos show that the facility was externally complete by 2003. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that it has been operational for at least a decade. If so, North Korea’s stockpile of enriched uranium could be substantially larger than is commonly believed. U.S. intelligence agencies in recent months increased their estimates of the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, taking into account enriched uranium from at least one secret enrichment site.

[Secret facilities complicate task of dismantling North Korea’s weapons sites]

The Kangson facility was first publicly identified in May in a Washington Post article that cited research by nuclear weapons expert David Albright. Some European intelligence officials are not convinced that the Kangson site is used for uranium enrichment. But there is a broad consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies that Kangson is one of at least two secret enrichment plants.

Several U.S. officials and private analysts said the continued activity inside North Korea’s weapons complex is not surprising, given that Kim made no public promise at the summit to halt work at the scores of nuclear and missile facilities scattered around the country.

The North Koreans “never agreed to give up their nuclear program,” said Ken Gause, a North Korea expert at the Center for Naval Analysis. And it is foolish to expect that they would do so at the outset of talks, he said.

“Regime survival and perpetuation of Kim family rule” are Kim’s guiding principles, he said. “The nuclear program provides them with a deterrent, in their mind, against regime change by the United States. Giving up the nuclear capability will violate the two fundamental centers of gravity in the North Korean regime.”

Pompeo, at the Senate hearing last week, sought to assure lawmakers that the disarmament talks with North Korea remained on track and that the effort to dismantle the country’s nuclear arsenal was just getting underway. He brushed aside suggestions that the administration had been deceived by Kim. “We have not been taken for a ride,” he said.

But some independent analysts think the Trump administration has misread Kim’s intentions, interpreting his commitment to eventual denuclearization as a promise to immediately surrender the country’s nuclear arsenal and dismantle its weapons factories.

“We have this backward. North Korea is not negotiating to give up their nuclear weapons,” Lewis said. “They are negotiating for recognition of their nuclear weapons. They’re willing to put up with certain limits, like no nuclear testing and no ICBM testing. What they’re offering is: They keep the bomb, but they stop talking about it.”

(The Washington Post)

The fact that AP is reporting this abuse adds significance to the report: Is this a crack in the mainstream media’s wall of denial?

Those not wishing to read about the sexual abuse of nuns are advised not to read this story. But the truth must come out.

After decades of silence, nuns talk about abuse by priests

By NICOLE WINFIELD and RODNEY MUHUMUZA, AP, Jul. 27, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yaxph8bc

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The nun no longer goes to confession regularly, after an Italian priest forced himself on her while she was at her most vulnerable: recounting her sins to him in a university classroom nearly 20 years ago.

At the time, the sister only told her provincial superior and her spiritual director, silenced by the Catholic Church’s culture of secrecy, her vows of obedience and her own fear, repulsion and shame.

“It opened a great wound inside of me,” she told the Associated Press. “I pretended it didn’t happen.”

After decades of silence, the nun is one of a handful worldwide to come forward recently on an issue that the Catholic Church has yet to come to terms with: The sexual abuse of religious sisters by priests and bishops. An AP examination has found that cases have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, demonstrating that the problem is global and pervasive, thanks to the universal tradition of sisters’ second-class status in the Catholic Church and their ingrained subservience to the men who run it.

Some nuns are now finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement and the growing recognition that adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. The sisters are going public in part because of years of inaction by church leaders, even after major studies on the problem in Africa were reported to the Vatican in the 1990s.

The issue has flared in the wake of scandals over the sexual abuse of children, and recently of adults, including revelations that one of the most prominent American cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused and harassed his seminarians.

The extent of the abuse of nuns is unclear, at least outside the Vatican. Victims are reluctant to report the abuse because of well-founded fears they won’t be believed, experts told the AP. Church leaders are reluctant to acknowledge that some priests and bishops simply ignore their vows of celibacy, knowing that their secrets will be kept.

However, this week, about half a dozen sisters in a small religious congregation in Chile went public on national television with their stories of abuse by priests and other nuns — and how their superiors did nothing to stop it. A nun in India recently filed a formal police complaint accusing a bishop of rape, something that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

Cases in Africa have come up periodically; in 2013, for example, a well-known priest in Uganda wrote a letter to his superiors that mentioned “priests romantically involved with religious sisters” — for which he was promptly suspended from the church until he apologized in May. And the sister in Europe spoke to the AP to help bring the issue to light.

“I am so sad that it took so long for this to come into the open, because there were reports long ago,” Karlijn Demasure, one of the church’s leading experts on clergy sexual abuse and abuse of power, told the AP in an interview. “I hope that now actions will be taken to take care of the victims and put an end to this kind of abuse.”

___

TAKING VICTIMS SERIOUSLY

The Vatican declined to comment on what measures, if any, it has taken to assess the scope of the problem globally, what it has done to punish offenders and care for the victims. A Vatican official said it is up to local church leaders to sanction priests who sexually abuse sisters, but that often such crimes go unpunished both in civil and canonical courts.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the issue, said only some cases arrive at the Holy See for investigation. It was a reference to the fact that the Catholic Church has no clear measures in place to investigate and punish bishops who themselves abuse or allow abusers to remain in their ranks — a legal loophole that has recently been highlighted by the McCarrick case.

The official said the church has focused much of its attention recently on protecting children, but that vulnerable adults “deserve the same protection.”

“Consecrated women have to be encouraged to speak up when they are molested,” the official told the AP. “Bishops have to be encouraged to take them seriously, and make sure the priests are punished if guilty.”

But being taken seriously is often the toughest obstacle for sisters who are sexually abused, said Demasure, until recently executive director of the church’s Center for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University, the church’s leading think tank on the issue.

“They (the priests) can always say ‘she wanted it,'” Demasure said. “It is also difficult to get rid of the opinion that it is always the woman who seduces the man, and not vice versa.”

Demasure said many priests in Africa, for example, struggle with celibacy because of traditional and cultural beliefs in the importance of having children. Novices, who are just entering religious life, are particularly vulnerable because they often need a letter from their parish priest to be accepted into certain religious congregations. “And sometimes they have to pay for that,” she said.

And when these women become pregnant?

“Mainly she has an abortion. Even more than once. And he pays for that. A religious sister has no money. A priest, yes,” she said.

There can also be a price for blowing the whistle on the problem.

In 2013, the Rev. Anthony Musaala in Kampala, Uganda wrote what he called an open letter to members of the local Catholic establishment about “numerous cases” of alleged sex liaisons of priests, including with nuns. He charged that it was “an open secret that many Catholic priests and some bishops, in Uganda and elsewhere, no longer live celibate chastity.”

He was sanctioned, even though Ugandan newspapers regularly report cases of priests caught in sex escapades. The topic is even the subject of a popular novel taught in high schools.

In 2012, a priest sued a bishop in western Uganda who had suspended him and ordered him to stop interacting with at least four nuns. The priest, who denied the allegations, lost the suit, and the sisters later withdrew their own suit against the bishop.

Archbishop John Baptist Odama, leader of the local Ugandan conference of bishops, told the AP that unverified or verified allegations against individual priests should not be used to smear the whole church.

“Individual cases may happen, if they are there,” he said Thursday. “Individual cases must be treated as individual cases.”

___

PRIESTLY ABUSE OF NUNS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM

Long before the most recent incidents, confidential reports into the problem focused on Africa and AIDS were prepared in the 1990s by members of religious orders for top church officials. In 1994, the late Sr. Maura O’Donohue wrote the most comprehensive study about a six-year, 23-nation survey, in which she learned of 29 nuns who had been impregnated in a single congregation.

Nuns, she reported, were considered “safe” sexual partners for priests who feared they might be infected with HIV if they went to prostitutes or women in the general population.

Four years later, in a report to top religious superiors and Vatican officials, Sr. Marie McDonald said harassment and rape of African sisters by priests is “allegedly common.” Sometimes, when a nun becomes pregnant, the priest insists on an abortion, the report said.

The problem traveled when the sisters were sent to Rome for studies. They “frequently turn to seminarians and priests for help in writing essays. Sexual favors are sometimes the payment they have to make for such help,” the report said.

The reports were never meant to be made public. The U.S. National Catholic Reporter put them online in 2001, exposing the depths of a scandal the church had long sought to keep under wraps. To date, the Vatican hasn’t said what, if anything, it ever did with the information.

Sister Paola Moggi, a member of the Missionary Combonian Sisters — a religious congregation with a significant presence in 16 African countries — said in her experience the African church “had made great strides” since the 1990s, when she did missionary work in Kenya, but the problem has not been eliminated.

“I have found in Africa sisters who are absolutely emancipated and who say what they think to a priest they meet who might ask to have sex with them,” she told the AP.

“I have also found sisters who said ‘Well, you have to understand their needs, and that while we only have a monthly cycle a man has a continuous cycle of sperm’ — verbatim words from the ’90s,” she said.

But the fact that in just a few weeks scandals of priests allegedly molesting sisters have erupted publicly on two other continents — Asia and Latin America — suggests that the problem is not confined to Africa, and that some women are now willing to break the taboo to denounce it publicly.

In India, a sister of the Missionaries of Jesus filed a police report last month alleging a bishop raped her in May 2014 during a visit to the heavily Christian state of Kerala, and that he subsequently sexually abused her around a dozen more times over the following two years, Indian media have reported. The bishop denied the accusation and said the woman was retaliating against him for having taken disciplinary action against her for her own sexual misdeeds.

In Chile, the scandal of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, an order dedicated to health care in the diocese of Talca, erupted at the same time the country’s entire Catholic hierarchy has been under fire for decades of sex abuse and cover-ups. The scandal got so bad that in May, Francis summoned all Chilean bishops to Rome, where they all offered to resign en masse.

The case, exposed by the Chilean state broadcaster, involves accusations of priests fondling and kissing nuns, including while naked, and some religious sisters sexually abusing younger ones. The victims said they told their mother superior, but that she did nothing. Talca’s new temporary bishop has vowed to find justice.

The Vatican is well aware that religious sisters have long been particularly vulnerable to abuse. Perhaps the most sensational account was detailed in the 2013 book “The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio,” based on the archives of the Vatican’s 1860s Inquisition trial of abuse, embezzlement, murder and “false holiness” inside a Roman convent. Once word got out, the Vatican poured the full force of its Inquisition to investigate and punish.

It remains to be seen what the Vatican will do now that more sisters are speaking out.

___

ONE SISTER’S STORY — AND YEARS OF HURT

The sister who spoke to the AP about her assault in 2000 during confession at a Bologna university clasped her rosary as she recounted the details.

She recalled exactly how she and the priest were seated in two armchairs face-to-face in the university classroom, her eyes cast to the floor. At a certain point, she said, the priest got up from his chair and forced himself on her. Petite but not frail, she was so shocked, she said, that she grabbed him by the shoulders and with all her strength, stood up and pushed him back into his chair.

The nun continued with her confession that day. But the assault — and a subsequent advance by a different priest a year later — eventually led her to stop going to confession with any priest other than her spiritual father, who lives in a different country.

“The place of confession should be a place of salvation, freedom and mercy,” she said. “Because of this experience, confession became a place of sin and abuse of power.”

She recalled at one point a priest in whom she had confided had apologized “on behalf of the church.” But nobody ever took any action against the offender, who was a prominent university professor.

The woman recounted her story to the AP without knowing that at that very moment, a funeral service was being held for the priest who had assaulted her 18 years earlier.

She later said the combination of his death and her decision to speak out lifted a great weight.

“I see it as two freedoms: freedom of the weight for a victim, and freedom of a lie and a violation by the priest,” she said. “I hope this helps other sisters free themselves of this weight.”

___

Muhumuza reported from Kampala, Uganda.

Weird Volcanoes Are Erupting Across the Solar System

Elizabeth Howell, Live Science Contributor

July 29, 2018 09:04am ET

Weird Volcanoes Are Erupting Across the Solar System

This computer-generated view of the surface of Venus shows lava flows from the volcano Sapas Mons that extend hundreds of miles across fractured plains.

Credit: NASA/JPL

NASA's Juno spacecraft recently spotted a possible new volcano at the south pole of Jupiter's most lava-licious moon, Io. But this volcanically active moon is not alone in the solar system, where sizzling-hot rocks explode and ooze onto the surface of several worlds. So how do Earthly volcanoes differ from those erupting across the rest of the solar system?

Let's start with Io. The moon is famous for its hundreds of volcanoes, including fountains that sometimes spurt lava dozens of miles above the surface, according to NASA. This Jupiter moon is constantly re-forming its surface through volcanic eruptions, even to this day. Io's volcanism results from strong gravitational encounters between Jupiter and two of its large moons, Europa and Ganymede, which shake up Io's insides.

Rosaly Lopes, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed observations of Io between 1996 and 2001, during the Galileo spacecraft mission to Jupiter.

"Io has lots of caldera-like features, but they are on the surface," Lopes told Live Science. "There are lots of lava flows and lots of lakes. Lava lakes are pretty rare on Earth. We have half a dozen of them. We think they have occurred in the past on Venus and Mars. But on Io, we actually see lava lakes at the present time." Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is one such spot on Earth dotted with lava lakes. [Photos: Fiery Lava from Kilauea Volcano Erupts on Hawaii's Big Island]

Juno scientists asked for Lopes' help in identifying Io's newly found hotspot. She said the new observations of Io are welcome, because Galileo was in an equatorial orbit and could rarely see the poles; by contrast, Juno is in a polar orbit and has a much better view. There are some hints that Io might have larger and less-frequent eruptions at the poles, she said, but scientists need more observations to be sure.

Venus and Mars volcanoes are all right tonight

Venus also appears to have active lava flows on its surface, where temperatures reach more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (425 degrees Celsius). The few Soviet Venera spacecraft that landed there in the 1970s and 1980s lasted only a short while. Lopes said it's unclear if Venus has active volcanoes currently, although multiple observations from Europe's past Venus Express mission suggested it might. One example is Idunn Mons, which is a hotspot that may have erupted relatively recently.

Venus has dome volcanoes, or volcanoes with lots of peaks, although these volcanoes might be inactive. This kind of volcano is also common on Earth. A dome volcano is formed from eruptions of viscous (sticky) lava, with only a small percentage of gas that oozes out.

"Volcanologists call it two-face lava, because it hides itself and oozes out," Lopes said. Mount St. Helens, in Washington state, is one such example, with several of these lava domes dotting its crater. Venus is also populated with other types of volcanoes and volcanic features — pancake domes (which look like pancakes), arachnoids (eroded calderas that look like spiders), lava flows and volcanic plains.

Venus and Mars also have shield volcanoes, a type of volcano made up almost entirely of fluid lava flows. (Shield volcanoes are common on Earth, in Hawaii in particular, Lopes said.) Mars possesses the highest volcano in the solar system — Olympus Mons — and several other monster volcanoes, perhaps because its gravity is lighter than Earth's and the volcanoes can grow taller.

On Mars, the volcanoes appear to be dormant, as there are no visible recent lava flows on the surface. There's extensive evidence of past volcanism, though. There are flood plains of basalts, as well as other types of volcanoes that "were formed by more explosive volcanism, because they are highly eroded on the flanks," Lopes said.

Other worlds in our solar system also had lava volcanism in the ancient past, including Earth's moon, Mercury and the dwarf planet Ceres, Lopes said. And then there are worlds with possible cryovolcanism — or icy volcanoes — in which the erupting material is water, or water mixed with nitrogen or methane.

There is evidence of active plumes at Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus. Saturn's moon Titan may also have past cryovolcanic features on its surface, Lopes' research has found. Other worlds with possible cryovolcanism include Triton (Neptune's largest moon), Pluto, and Charon (Pluto's largest moon).

Originally published on Live Science.

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/1/2018 10:20:15 AM
	U.S. spy agencies: North Korea is working on new missiles This commercial satellite image shows North Korea’s Sanumdong missile assembly facility south of Pyongyang on July 7. The red vehicle in the inner courtyard is similar to those used by North Korea to transport missiles. (Planet Labs Inc./James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies) By Ellen Nakashima and Joby WarrickJuly 30Email the author U.S. spy agencies are seeing signs that North Korea is constructing new missiles at a factory that produced the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, according to officials familiar with the intelligence. Newly obtained evidence, including satellite photos taken in recent weeks, indicates that work is underway on at least one and possibly two liquid-fueled ICBMs at a large research facility in Sanumdong, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe classified intelligence. The findings are the latest to show ongoing activity inside North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities at a time when the country’s leaders are engaged in arms talks with the United States. The new intelligence does not suggest an expansion of North Korea’s capabilities but shows that work on advanced weapons is continuing weeks after President Trump declared in a Twitter posting that Pyongyang was “no longer a Nuclear Threat.” The reports about new missile construction come after recent revelations about a suspected uranium-enrichment facility, called Kangson, that North Korea is operating in secret. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged during Senate testimony last week that North Korean factories “continue to produce fissile material” used in making nuclear weapons. He declined to say whether Pyongyang is building new missiles. [Pompeo pushes back against North Korea’s ‘gangster-like’ critique] During a summit with Trump in June, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to a vaguely worded pledge to “work toward” the “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. But since then, North Korea has made few tangible moves signaling an intention to disarm. 1:49 Why satellite images seem to show North Korea is still building nuclear weapons The Post's Joby Warrick talks you through two of the satellite images that experts say prove North Korea continues to build its nuclear arsenal.(Jason Aldag/The Washington Post) Instead, senior North Korean officials have discussed their intention to deceive Washington about the number of nuclear warheads and missiles they have, as well as the types and numbers of facilities, and to rebuff international inspectors, according to intelligence gathered by U.S. agencies. Their strategy includes potentially asserting that they have fully denuclearized by declaring and disposing of 20 warheads while retaining dozens more. The Sanumdong factory has produced two of North Korea’s ICBMs, including the powerful Hwasong-15, the first with a proven range that could allow it to strike the U.S. East Coast. The newly obtained evidence points to ongoing work on at least one Hwasong-15 at the Sanumdong plant, according to imagery collected by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in recent weeks. “We see them going to work, just as before,” said one U.S. official. The exception, the officials said, is the Sohae Satellite Launching Station on North Korea’s west coast, where workers can be observed dismantling an engine test stand, honoring a promise made to Trump at the summit. [North Korea seeking to conceal parts of its weapons stockpile, officials say] A May 28 satellite image of a building that U.S. analysts believe is a secret uranium enrichment facility near North Korea’s capital. (Planet Labs Inc./James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies) Many analysts and independent experts, however, see that dismantling as largely symbolic, since North Korea has successfully launched ICBMs that use the kind of liquid-fueled engines tested at Sohae. Moreover, the test stand could easily be rebuilt within months. Buttressing the intelligence findings, independent missile experts this week also reported observing activity consistent with missile construction at the Sanumdong plant. The daily movement of supply trucks and other vehicles, as captured by commercial satellite photos, shows that the missile facility “is not dead, by any stretch of the imagination,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The Monterey, Calif., nonprofit group analyzed commercial photos obtained from the satellite imagery firm Planet Labs Inc. “It’s active. We see shipping containers and vehicles coming and going,” Lewis said of the Sanumdong plant. “This is a facility where they build ICBMs and space-launch vehicles.” Intriguingly, one image, taken July 7, shows a bright-red covered trailer in a loading area. The trailer appears identical to those used by North Korea in the past to transport ICBMs. How the trailer was being used at the time of the photograph is unclear. Lewis’s group also published images of a large industrial facility that some U.S. intelligence analysts believe to be the Kangson uranium-enrichment plant. The images, first reported by the online publication the Diplomat, show a football-field-size building surrounded by a high wall, in North Korea’s Chollima-guyok district, southwest of the capital. The complex has a single, guarded entrance and features high-rise residential towers apparently used by workers. Historical satellite photos show that the facility was externally complete by 2003. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that it has been operational for at least a decade. If so, North Korea’s stockpile of enriched uranium could be substantially larger than is commonly believed. U.S. intelligence agencies in recent months increased their estimates of the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, taking into account enriched uranium from at least one secret enrichment site. [Secret facilities complicate task of dismantling North Korea’s weapons sites] The Kangson facility was first publicly identified in May in a Washington Post article that cited research by nuclear weapons expert David Albright. Some European intelligence officials are not convinced that the Kangson site is used for uranium enrichment. But there is a broad consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies that Kangson is one of at least two secret enrichment plants. Several U.S. officials and private analysts said the continued activity inside North Korea’s weapons complex is not surprising, given that Kim made no public promise at the summit to halt work at the scores of nuclear and missile facilities scattered around the country. The North Koreans “never agreed to give up their nuclear program,” said Ken Gause, a North Korea expert at the Center for Naval Analysis. And it is foolish to expect that they would do so at the outset of talks, he said. “Regime survival and perpetuation of Kim family rule” are Kim’s guiding principles, he said. “The nuclear program provides them with a deterrent, in their mind, against regime change by the United States. Giving up the nuclear capability will violate the two fundamental centers of gravity in the North Korean regime.” Pompeo, at the Senate hearing last week, sought to assure lawmakers that the disarmament talks with North Korea remained on track and that the effort to dismantle the country’s nuclear arsenal was just getting underway. He brushed aside suggestions that the administration had been deceived by Kim. “We have not been taken for a ride,” he said. But some independent analysts think the Trump administration has misread Kim’s intentions, interpreting his commitment to eventual denuclearization as a promise to immediately surrender the country’s nuclear arsenal and dismantle its weapons factories. “We have this backward. North Korea is not negotiating to give up their nuclear weapons,” Lewis said. “They are negotiating for recognition of their nuclear weapons. They’re willing to put up with certain limits, like no nuclear testing and no ICBM testing. What they’re offering is: They keep the bomb, but they stop talking about it.” (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? 8/1/2018 11:22:04 AM
	Trump administration must stop giving psychotropic drugs to migrant children without consent, judge rules U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ruled that the federal government must seek consent before giving migrant children medication. (NAPABA/AP) By Samantha SchmidtJuly 31 at 6:38 AMEmail the author A federal judge on Monday found that U.S. government officials have been giving psychotropic medication to migrant children at a Texas facility without first seeking the consent of their parents or guardians, in violation of state child welfare laws. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to obtain consent or a court order before administering any psychotropic medications to migrant children, except in cases of dire emergencies. She also ordered that the government move all children out of a Texas facility, Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Manvel, except for children deemed by a licensed professional to pose a “risk of harm” to themselves or others. Staff members at Shiloh admitted to signing off on medications in lieu of a parent, relative or legal guardian, according to Gee’s ruling. Government officials defended this practice, saying they provided these drugs only on “an emergency basis” when a child’s “extreme psychiatric symptoms” became dangerous. The judge didn’t buy this explanation, pointing to testimony from children who said they were given pills “every morning and every night.” Officials “could not have possibly” administered medications to children on an emergency basis every day, Gee wrote. Children testified in court filings that staff with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement would sometimes not tell them what drugs they were being given or why. They recalled feeling side effects such as nausea, dizziness, depression and weight gain. Some reported being forcibly injected with drugs, and others said they felt that refusing medications would cause them to be detained longer. “I witnessed staff members forcefully give medication four times,” one child held at Shiloh, identified as Isabella M., said. “. . . Two staff members pinned down the girl . . . and a doctor gave her one or two injections.” Isabella was prescribed multiple psychotropic medications at Shiloh, including topiramate, without her mother’s consent, according to an April court filing. “Nobody asked me for permission to give medications to my daughter, even though the staff at Shiloh has always had my telephone number and address,” the mother testified. The mother said Isabella’s anxiety medications were causing her to tremble and feel nervous. Isabella “tells me that she has fallen several times,” her mother testified, “because the medications were too powerful and she couldn’t walk.” The Shiloh Residential Treatment Center, the judge ruled, violated a long-standing settlement that set strict standards for detaining immigrant children, including those who crossed the border unaccompanied and those who were separated from their parents. The 1997 Flores agreement requires the government to place children in the “least restrictive” setting appropriate to their age and any special needs. Plaintiffs on behalf of immigrant children showed Shiloh violated this standard in part because it is a locked facility with 24-hour surveillance and monitoring and engages in practices that are “not necessary for the protection of minors or others,” the judge wrote. Shiloh is one of many shelters contracted by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement to house immigrant children. Hundreds of migrant children remain in custody after the Trump Administration scrambled to reunite separated families under a court-imposed deadline. (Jon Gerberg/The Washington Post) There is evidence that several children were not allowed to have any private telephone calls at Shiloh, Gee wrote. One minor, identified as Julio Z., said Shiloh staff refused to let him and other children leave their living areas to get drinking water. When Julio tried to step out to get water on one occasion, a staff member allegedly threw him to the ground, injuring his elbow. The judge ordered Shiloh to stop using any unessential security measures, such as denying children drinking water, and demanded officials allow children at Shiloh to speak privately over the phone. Gee also said the government must explain to children in writing, in a language they understand and in a reasonable amount of time why they are being transferred to a secure facility, staff-secure facility or a residential treatment center. The judge also ruled officials cannot place children in a secure facility solely because they were allegedly affiliated with gangs. Most immigrant children in U.S. custody are in nonsecure facilities. But others are in a range of higher-security facilities. A secure facility is the most restrictive option, with a physically secure structure and staff trained to control violent behavior — much like a juvenile detention center. A “staff-secure” facility may have a secure perimeter, such as a fence, and a higher staff-to-child ratio, but is not equipped with locked cells. Residential treatment centers are assigned to children who are determined to pose a danger to themselves or others. Shiloh is a collection of trailers and small buildings that can house up to 44 children, 32 of them immigrants, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting, which has reported extensively on the facility. It has been contracted to house immigrant children deemed unaccompanied minors since 2013 and was also set to receive children separated from their parents under the Trump administration. The facility also has a history of troubling practices, includingallegations of child abuse, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting. A local congresswoman called for Shiloh to be shut downfour years ago after the Houston Chronicle reported on long-running allegations of physical violence, excessive use of physical restraints and several deaths of children in custody. A doctor at Shiloh who has signed off on many prescriptions for psychotropic drugs to immigrant children has practiced without board certification to treat children and adolescents for nearly a decade, the Center for Investigative Reporting found. In a statement currently on its website, Shiloh said it has been visited, audited or investigated by authorities at the state and federal level in recent weeks. “All of the widely distributed allegations about Shiloh were found to be without merit,” the center wrote. “The children have been found to be properly cared for and treated. Shiloh Treatment Center has a specific treatment purpose within the federal system. It does not participate in border actions.” Numerous sworn testimonies in court affidavits indicated children at Shiloh were regularly given psychotropic medication without the proper parental consent. Sometimes they were told these were vitamins. In an April 16 court filing, lawyers wrote that “psychotropic drugs can seriously and permanently injure children.” “The importance of oversight when giving psychotropic medications to children is well established,” the lawyers wrote. “Without it, the potential for abuse — including using drugs as ‘chemical straight-jackets’ to control children, rather than to treat actual mental health needs — is unacceptably high.” Julio Z., another minor held at Shiloh, said he “never knew exactly what the pills were.” Court documents list Clonazepam, Divalproex, Duloxetine, Guanfacine, Latuda, Geodon, and Olanzapine among his medications. “The staff threatened to throw me on the ground and force me to take the medication,” Julio Z testified. “I also saw staff throw another youth to the ground, pry his mouth open and force him to take the medicine. . . . They told me that if I did not take the medicine I could not leave, that the only way I could get out of Shiloh was if I took the pills.” Lucas R., a 12-year-old boy from Guatemala who was detained in February, was transferred to Shiloh after he refused to take antidepressant Zoloft, which was causing him stomach pain, according to a separate court filing. Shiloh medical staff diagnosed Lucas with major depressive disorder and told him that officials would not release him until Shiloh medical personnel declared him psychologically sound. His depression was in large part triggered by “being kept from family,” who had entered the country before him, according to court documents. (The Washington Post)
	"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? 8/1/2018 11:33:07 AM
	AP: After Decades of Silence, Nuns Talk about Abuse by Priests July 31, 2018 By Steve Beckow The fact that AP is reporting this abuse adds significance to the report: Is this a crack in the mainstream media’s wall of denial? Those not wishing to read about the sexual abuse of nuns are advised not to read this story. But the truth must come out. After decades of silence, nuns talk about abuse by priests By NICOLE WINFIELD and RODNEY MUHUMUZA, AP, Jul. 27, 2018 https://tinyurl.com/yaxph8bc VATICAN CITY (AP) — The nun no longer goes to confession regularly, after an Italian priest forced himself on her while she was at her most vulnerable: recounting her sins to him in a university classroom nearly 20 years ago. At the time, the sister only told her provincial superior and her spiritual director, silenced by the Catholic Church’s culture of secrecy, her vows of obedience and her own fear, repulsion and shame. “It opened a great wound inside of me,” she told the Associated Press. “I pretended it didn’t happen.” After decades of silence, the nun is one of a handful worldwide to come forward recently on an issue that the Catholic Church has yet to come to terms with: The sexual abuse of religious sisters by priests and bishops. An AP examination has found that cases have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, demonstrating that the problem is global and pervasive, thanks to the universal tradition of sisters’ second-class status in the Catholic Church and their ingrained subservience to the men who run it. Some nuns are now finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement and the growing recognition that adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. The sisters are going public in part because of years of inaction by church leaders, even after major studies on the problem in Africa were reported to the Vatican in the 1990s. The issue has flared in the wake of scandals over the sexual abuse of children, and recently of adults, including revelations that one of the most prominent American cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused and harassed his seminarians. The extent of the abuse of nuns is unclear, at least outside the Vatican. Victims are reluctant to report the abuse because of well-founded fears they won’t be believed, experts told the AP. Church leaders are reluctant to acknowledge that some priests and bishops simply ignore their vows of celibacy, knowing that their secrets will be kept. However, this week, about half a dozen sisters in a small religious congregation in Chile went public on national television with their stories of abuse by priests and other nuns — and how their superiors did nothing to stop it. A nun in India recently filed a formal police complaint accusing a bishop of rape, something that would have been unthinkable even a year ago. Cases in Africa have come up periodically; in 2013, for example, a well-known priest in Uganda wrote a letter to his superiors that mentioned “priests romantically involved with religious sisters” — for which he was promptly suspended from the church until he apologized in May. And the sister in Europe spoke to the AP to help bring the issue to light. “I am so sad that it took so long for this to come into the open, because there were reports long ago,” Karlijn Demasure, one of the church’s leading experts on clergy sexual abuse and abuse of power, told the AP in an interview. “I hope that now actions will be taken to take care of the victims and put an end to this kind of abuse.” ___ TAKING VICTIMS SERIOUSLY The Vatican declined to comment on what measures, if any, it has taken to assess the scope of the problem globally, what it has done to punish offenders and care for the victims. A Vatican official said it is up to local church leaders to sanction priests who sexually abuse sisters, but that often such crimes go unpunished both in civil and canonical courts. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the issue, said only some cases arrive at the Holy See for investigation. It was a reference to the fact that the Catholic Church has no clear measures in place to investigate and punish bishops who themselves abuse or allow abusers to remain in their ranks — a legal loophole that has recently been highlighted by the McCarrick case. The official said the church has focused much of its attention recently on protecting children, but that vulnerable adults “deserve the same protection.” “Consecrated women have to be encouraged to speak up when they are molested,” the official told the AP. “Bishops have to be encouraged to take them seriously, and make sure the priests are punished if guilty.” But being taken seriously is often the toughest obstacle for sisters who are sexually abused, said Demasure, until recently executive director of the church’s Center for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University, the church’s leading think tank on the issue. “They (the priests) can always say ‘she wanted it,'” Demasure said. “It is also difficult to get rid of the opinion that it is always the woman who seduces the man, and not vice versa.” Demasure said many priests in Africa, for example, struggle with celibacy because of traditional and cultural beliefs in the importance of having children. Novices, who are just entering religious life, are particularly vulnerable because they often need a letter from their parish priest to be accepted into certain religious congregations. “And sometimes they have to pay for that,” she said. And when these women become pregnant? “Mainly she has an abortion. Even more than once. And he pays for that. A religious sister has no money. A priest, yes,” she said. There can also be a price for blowing the whistle on the problem. In 2013, the Rev. Anthony Musaala in Kampala, Uganda wrote what he called an open letter to members of the local Catholic establishment about “numerous cases” of alleged sex liaisons of priests, including with nuns. He charged that it was “an open secret that many Catholic priests and some bishops, in Uganda and elsewhere, no longer live celibate chastity.” He was sanctioned, even though Ugandan newspapers regularly report cases of priests caught in sex escapades. The topic is even the subject of a popular novel taught in high schools. In 2012, a priest sued a bishop in western Uganda who had suspended him and ordered him to stop interacting with at least four nuns. The priest, who denied the allegations, lost the suit, and the sisters later withdrew their own suit against the bishop. Archbishop John Baptist Odama, leader of the local Ugandan conference of bishops, told the AP that unverified or verified allegations against individual priests should not be used to smear the whole church. “Individual cases may happen, if they are there,” he said Thursday. “Individual cases must be treated as individual cases.” ___ PRIESTLY ABUSE OF NUNS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM Long before the most recent incidents, confidential reports into the problem focused on Africa and AIDS were prepared in the 1990s by members of religious orders for top church officials. In 1994, the late Sr. Maura O’Donohue wrote the most comprehensive study about a six-year, 23-nation survey, in which she learned of 29 nuns who had been impregnated in a single congregation. Nuns, she reported, were considered “safe” sexual partners for priests who feared they might be infected with HIV if they went to prostitutes or women in the general population. Four years later, in a report to top religious superiors and Vatican officials, Sr. Marie McDonald said harassment and rape of African sisters by priests is “allegedly common.” Sometimes, when a nun becomes pregnant, the priest insists on an abortion, the report said. The problem traveled when the sisters were sent to Rome for studies. They “frequently turn to seminarians and priests for help in writing essays. Sexual favors are sometimes the payment they have to make for such help,” the report said. The reports were never meant to be made public. The U.S. National Catholic Reporter put them online in 2001, exposing the depths of a scandal the church had long sought to keep under wraps. To date, the Vatican hasn’t said what, if anything, it ever did with the information. Sister Paola Moggi, a member of the Missionary Combonian Sisters — a religious congregation with a significant presence in 16 African countries — said in her experience the African church “had made great strides” since the 1990s, when she did missionary work in Kenya, but the problem has not been eliminated. “I have found in Africa sisters who are absolutely emancipated and who say what they think to a priest they meet who might ask to have sex with them,” she told the AP. “I have also found sisters who said ‘Well, you have to understand their needs, and that while we only have a monthly cycle a man has a continuous cycle of sperm’ — verbatim words from the ’90s,” she said. But the fact that in just a few weeks scandals of priests allegedly molesting sisters have erupted publicly on two other continents — Asia and Latin America — suggests that the problem is not confined to Africa, and that some women are now willing to break the taboo to denounce it publicly. In India, a sister of the Missionaries of Jesus filed a police report last month alleging a bishop raped her in May 2014 during a visit to the heavily Christian state of Kerala, and that he subsequently sexually abused her around a dozen more times over the following two years, Indian media have reported. The bishop denied the accusation and said the woman was retaliating against him for having taken disciplinary action against her for her own sexual misdeeds. In Chile, the scandal of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, an order dedicated to health care in the diocese of Talca, erupted at the same time the country’s entire Catholic hierarchy has been under fire for decades of sex abuse and cover-ups. The scandal got so bad that in May, Francis summoned all Chilean bishops to Rome, where they all offered to resign en masse. The case, exposed by the Chilean state broadcaster, involves accusations of priests fondling and kissing nuns, including while naked, and some religious sisters sexually abusing younger ones. The victims said they told their mother superior, but that she did nothing. Talca’s new temporary bishop has vowed to find justice. The Vatican is well aware that religious sisters have long been particularly vulnerable to abuse. Perhaps the most sensational account was detailed in the 2013 book “The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio,” based on the archives of the Vatican’s 1860s Inquisition trial of abuse, embezzlement, murder and “false holiness” inside a Roman convent. Once word got out, the Vatican poured the full force of its Inquisition to investigate and punish. It remains to be seen what the Vatican will do now that more sisters are speaking out. ___ ONE SISTER’S STORY — AND YEARS OF HURT The sister who spoke to the AP about her assault in 2000 during confession at a Bologna university clasped her rosary as she recounted the details. She recalled exactly how she and the priest were seated in two armchairs face-to-face in the university classroom, her eyes cast to the floor. At a certain point, she said, the priest got up from his chair and forced himself on her. Petite but not frail, she was so shocked, she said, that she grabbed him by the shoulders and with all her strength, stood up and pushed him back into his chair. The nun continued with her confession that day. But the assault — and a subsequent advance by a different priest a year later — eventually led her to stop going to confession with any priest other than her spiritual father, who lives in a different country. “The place of confession should be a place of salvation, freedom and mercy,” she said. “Because of this experience, confession became a place of sin and abuse of power.” She recalled at one point a priest in whom she had confided had apologized “on behalf of the church.” But nobody ever took any action against the offender, who was a prominent university professor. The woman recounted her story to the AP without knowing that at that very moment, a funeral service was being held for the priest who had assaulted her 18 years earlier. She later said the combination of his death and her decision to speak out lifted a great weight. “I see it as two freedoms: freedom of the weight for a victim, and freedom of a lie and a violation by the priest,” she said. “I hope this helps other sisters free themselves of this weight.” ___ Muhumuza reported from Kampala, Uganda. Have a confidential tip? Contact Amy Forliti at The Associated Press at 612-332-2727 or aforliti@ap.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? 8/1/2018 4:51:05 PM
	FEELING THE HEAT Heatwave warning for Brits in southern Spain as experts predict Europe could see HOTTEST EVER day with temperatures topping 48C Mainland Europe is currently in the grip of an extreme heatwave with temperatures almost double the annual average By Sofia Petkar and Emma James 31st July 2018, 11:01 pm Updated: 1st August 2018, 11:00 am BRITS across mainland Europe’s Mediterranean coast have been warned to take extra care as the continental heatwave threatens temperatures in the high 40s. Europe is set to experience its hottest day ever as Spain and Portugal look likely to reach 48C later this week. Europe is set to experience its hottest day ever as Spain and Portugal look likely to reach 48C Spanish authorities have started making emergency preparations for the intense heatwave, which is expected to last until at least Sunday. Forecasters say the fiery "furnace" blast from the Costas is good news for sun lovers here in the UK with temperatures tipped to hit 36C. Met Office meteorologist Nicola Maxey said: "Temperatures will increase by a couple of degrees day by day with highs in the upper 20Cs quite widely by Friday and into the low 30Cs in places at the weekend. “Warmer air will be arriving from Iberia and the Continent from the middle of the week leading to an increase in temperatures.” Now some forecasters are saying the thermometer could hit 36C by the middle of next week and that would beat Britain’s 35.3C hottest day for three years last Thursday. Temperatures across Southern Spain are set to hit 48C this week REUTERS Holidaymakers have been warned to take extra precautions as an extreme heatwave grips mainland Europe Tourists in Spain have been warned to take extra care in the heat, and have been advised to remain out of the sun and to ensure they drink plenty of water. At least 27 of Spain’s 50 provinces have been declared an “extreme risk” as temperatures look set to begin soaring rapidly from Thursday. The worst of the heat is set to strike the Iberian Peninsula, close to the border of Portugal, where almost 11,000 firefighters and 56 aircraft are on standby to tackle forest fires. The extreme heat is expected to build up due to hot air coming up from North Africa - particularly over southwestern Europe. Spain’s current record high is 47.3C and Portugal has previously seen highs of 47.4C. The all-time continental European maximum is 48C, recorded in Athens, Greece, in July 1977. Temperatures across Southern France are also set to soar, with highs of around 40C expected within days. BOURNEMOUTH NEWS Beachgoers enjoy the sun in Lyme Regis LONDON NEWS PICTURES Two women were seen lapping up the sunshine at Leeds castle in Kent Ryanair have been cancelled 14 more flights at Stansted Airport after 'extreme weather' has caused a backlog of delays Authorities in the towns of Ardèche, Drôme, Pyrénées-Orientales, Rhône, Alpes-Maritimes, Gard, Hérault, Isère and Vaucluse are all on orange alert – the country’s second highest weather warning. Temperatures have already hit 36C near the town of Montélimar, with temperatures set to exceed 35C in Grenoble in the French Alps. The heatwave is expected to see scorching temperatures as high as 39C in the south east, especially near Marseille, by Wednesday. France has already had an intense bout of hot weather this summer, with July temperatures breaking weather records as the hottest on record since 2006 and 1983. Here in the UK, temperatures are set to reach 30C again, following a brief respite over the last few days, as the heatwave return to British shores with a vengeance. Forecasters have warned that mercury is likely to hit 30C again across London and the South of England by Friday. EPA Temperatures across Basque Country in northern Spain have been in the high 30s for days GETTY IMAGES - GETTY Brits in Spain have been warned to stay out of the sun as temperatures look likely to reach 48C The Met Office confirmed in a tweet that the heat was returning as a sea of red sweeps across the globe towards the UK. Brits will be rushing to beaches and parks across the country to soak up the sun and BBQ’s are expected to be sold out as the temperatures soar. They have been told to brace for even more sweltering weather over the weekend when it could reach possible highs of 33C. While the south sizzles, northern parts of the UK will continue to see showers with temperatures sitting in the mid-20s. ALAMY LIVE NEWS The UK has also been sizzling as temperatures soared to the mid 30s BOURNEMOUTH NEWS Sunseekers took over the tiny beach at Lyme Regis in Dorset as the hot weather returned after a weekend of storms A spokesman for the Met Office added: “In terms of the working days this week the weather will be quite unsettled. “In the North West parts of England and Norther Ireland, Scotland and parts of Wales can expect spells of wet weather. “Southern England and Wales are going to turn quite hot by Friday with temperatures hitting the high 20’s again. “This is likely to include quite a wide area across the southern part of the UK and it will widely hit 30C across southern England and Wales, and the very hot weather will return as we approach the weekend.” Scorched earth landscape of nature reserve outside Bristol revealed in aerial images as hot weather impacts hard (THE SUN)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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