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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
4/4/2013 11:01:25 PM

Timeline: North Korea's escalating aggression


Tensions rise as Kim Jong Un steps up his threats against South Korea and the U.S.

North Korea has never shied away from bellicose rhetoric. Lately, however, its young leader Kim Jong Un has taken Pyongyang's threats to a new level, causing the United States and South Korea to flex their military muscle. The U.S. in March sent two nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers on a test run over the Korean Peninsula, and has announced that it will send an advanced anti-missile defense system to Guam. Here, a look at how we got to this point:

October 9, 2006
North Korea conducts its first nuclear test with a plutonium-based device. The blast measures less than a kiloton, about a 10th of the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

SEE MORE: WATCH: A massive black hole devours a super-Jupiter

May 25, 2009
North Korea claims it successfully tested a nuclear weapon as strong as the one in Hiroshima. President Obama says the country is "directly and recklessly challenging the international community," and the United Nations passes sanctions banning all weapons exports from North Korea.

December 29, 2011
Kim Jong Un is officially declared supreme leader of North Korea several weeks after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.

SEE MORE: How the U.S. should deal with North Korea

December 11, 2012
North Korea catches the U.S. off guard by successfully launching a Galaxy-3 rocket into orbit. The rocket makes it all the way to the Philippine Sea, unlike a previous attempt in April that disintegrated seconds after launch.

February 12, 2013
Pyongyang conducts its third and most powerful nuclear test. North Korea claims it detonated a "smaller and light" bomb, causing outsiders to worry that the country might be closer to fitting a nuclear warhead atop a ballistic missile.

SEE MORE: Obama's 5-percent pay cut: A meaningful gesture?

March 7, 2013
The U.N. Security Council passes its strongest sanctions against North Korea yet, banning all countries from financial transactions that could help fund Pyongyang's nuclear program. Earlier that day, in anticipation of the vote, Pyongyang asserted its "right to preemptive nuclear attack" against the U.S.

March 11, 2013
North Korea nullifies the armistice with South Korea that brought the Korean War's hostilities to an end in 1953.

SEE MORE: Go ahead, hold a grudge. You'll feel better

March 21, 2013
North Korea says it will attack U.S. military bases in Japan and Guam if provoked, following joint military exercises by the U.S. and South Korea involving B-52 bombers.

March 27, 2013
North Korea cuts the last remaining lines of communication across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the peninsula. "Under the situation where a war may break out any moment, there is no need to keep North-South military communications," North Korea explained in a statement.

SEE MORE: Today in business: 5 things you need to know

March 28, 2013
Washington announces that two nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers dropped inert munitions over a South Korean island to demonstrate "the United States' ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes quickly and at will."

March 30, 2013
North Korea declares a "state of war" with South Korea.

SEE MORE: How ancient shark-tooth swords uncovered two long-lost species

April 2, 2013
Pyongyang announces its plans to restart its Yongbyon nuclear complex, shut down in 2007 during disarmament talks. North Korea claims it is only trying to ease the country's electricity shortage. but the move is condemned by Washington and the U.N.

April 3, 2013
Washington deploys an anti-missile defense system to Guam in response to North Korean threats. In the North Korean town of Kaesong, South Korean workers are banned from entering a jointly run industrial park, which serves as an important trade zone between the two countries.

SEE MORE: Do we really need an 'anti-drone hoodie'?

April 4, 2013
South Korea confirms that Pyongyang moved missiles with "considerable range" to North Korea's east coast, but says it doesn't look like the country is preparing for a "full-scale conflict."

Sources: AP, BBC, CBS News, Christian Science Monitor, Economist, Fox News, The Guardian (2)(3), NBC News, New York Times (2), Reuters (2)(3), Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Voice of America

SEE MORE: Why dementia costs the U.S. more than heart disease or cancer

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

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
4/4/2013 11:07:04 PM

Exposed: Super-Rich Hiding Trillions in Offshore Havens

The British Virgin Islands, the world's leading offshore haven used by an array of government officials and rich families to hide their wealth. Photograph: Duncan Mcnicol/Getty Images

The British Virgin Islands, the world’s leading offshore haven used by an array of government officials and rich families to hide their wealth. Photograph: Duncan Mcnicol/Getty Images

Stephen: This is BIG! – as you’ll read. It’s a special report prepared by the UK paper, The Guardian, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, so it has a UK focus. But the fact the story has been so heavily resourced by a mainstream paper is enough to send shockwaves around the global super-rich community. Remember: once one domino falls, the others follow…

The reporting team trawled millions of emails to show how fortunes are stashed in British Virgin Islands, a far-flung territory that runs on licensing fees from shadowy financial entities… You’ll find links to several equally revelatory breakout stories at the end of this introductory piece. There’s some big names in here and I feel this is just the beginning…

Leaks Reveal Secrets of the Rich Who Hide Cash Offshore

Exclusive: Offshore financial industry leak exposes identities of 1,000s of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world

By David Leigh, The Guardian – April 3, 2013

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/03/offshore-secrets-offshore-tax-haven

Millions of internal records have leaked from Britain’s offshore financial industry, exposing for the first time the identities of thousands of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world, from presidents to plutocrats, the daughter of a notorious dictator and a British millionaire accused of concealing assets from his ex-wife.

The leak of 2m emails and other documents, mainly from the offshore haven of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), has the potential to cause a seismic shock worldwide to the booming offshore trade, with a former chief economist at McKinsey estimating that wealthy individuals may have as much as $32tn (£21tn) stashed in overseas havens.

In France, Jean-Jacques Augier, President François Hollande’s campaign co-treasurer and close friend, has been forced to publicly identify his Chinese business partner. It emerges as Hollande is mired in financial scandal because his former budget minister concealed a Swiss bank account for 20 years and repeatedly lied about it.

In Mongolia, the country’s former finance minister and deputy speaker of its parliament says he may have to resign from politics as a result of this investigation.

But the two can now be named for the first time because of their use of companies in offshore havens, particularly in the British Virgin Islands, where owners’ identities normally remain secret.

The names have been unearthed in a novel project by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists [ICIJ], in collaboration with the Guardian and other international media, who are jointly publishing their research results this week.

The naming project may be extremely damaging for confidence among the world’s wealthiest people, no longer certain that the size of their fortunes remains hidden from governments and from their neighbours.

BVI’s clients include Scot Young, a millionaire associate of deceased oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Dundee-born Young is in jail for contempt of court for concealing assets from his ex-wife.

Young’s lawyer, to whom he signed over power of attorney, appears to control interests in a BVI company that owns a potentially lucrative Moscow development with a value estimated at $100m.

Another is jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis. He used fake BVI companies to obtain a record-breaking £750m in property loans from reckless British and Irish banks.

As well as Britons hiding wealth offshore, an extraordinary array of government officials and rich families across the world are identified, from Canada, the US, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, China, Thailand and former communist states.

The data seen by the Guardian shows that their secret companies are based mainly in the British Virgin Islands.

Sample offshore owners named in the leaked files include:

• Jean-Jacques Augier, François Hollande’s 2012 election campaign co-treasurer, launched a Caymans-based distributor in China with a 25% partner in a BVI company. Augier says his partner was Xi Shu, a Chinese businessman.

• Mongolia’s former finance minister. Bayartsogt Sangajav set up “Legend Plus Capital Ltd” with a Swiss bank account, while he served as finance minister of the impoverished state from 2008 to 2012. He says it was “a mistake” not to declare it, and says “I probably should consider resigning from my position”.

• The president of Azerbaijan and his family. A local construction magnate, Hassan Gozal, controls entities set up in the names of President Ilham Aliyev’s two daughters.

• The wife of Russia’s deputy prime minister. Olga Shuvalova’s husband, businessman and politician Igor Shuvalov, has denied allegations of wrongdoing about her offshore interests.

•A senator’s husband in Canada. Lawyer Tony Merchant deposited more than US$800,000 into an offshore trust.

He paid fees in cash and ordered written communication to be “kept to a minimum”.

• A dictator’s child in the Philippines: Maria Imelda Marcos Manotoc, a provincial governor, is the eldest daughter of former President Ferdinand Marcos, notorious for corruption.

• Spain’s wealthiest art collector, Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, a former beauty queen and widow of a Thyssen steel billionaire, who uses offshore entities to buy pictures.

• US: Offshore clients include Denise Rich, ex-wife of notorious oil trader Marc Rich, who was controversially pardoned by President Clinton on tax evasion charges. She put $144m into the Dry Trust, set up in the Cook Islands.

It is estimated that more than $20tn acquired by wealthy individuals could lie in offshore accounts. The UK-controlled BVI has been the most successful among the mushrooming secrecy havens that cater for them.

The Caribbean micro-state has incorporated more than a million such offshore entities since it began marketing itself worldwide in the 1980s. Owners’ true identities are never revealed.

Even the island’s official financial regulators normally have no idea who is behind them.

The British Foreign Office depends on the BVI’s company licensing revenue to subsidise this residual outpost of empire, while lawyers and accountants in the City of London benefit from a lucrative trade as intermediaries.

They claim the tax-free offshore companies provide legitimate privacy. Neil Smith, the financial secretary of the autonomous local administration in the BVI’s capital Tortola, told the Guardian it was very inaccurate to claim the island “harbours the ethically challenged”.

He said: “Our legislation provides a more hostile environment for illegality than most jurisdictions”.

Smith added that in “rare instances …where the BVI was implicated in illegal activity by association or otherwise, we responded swiftly and decisively”.

The Guardian and ICIJ’s Offshore Secrets series last year exposed how UK property empires have been built up by, among others, Russian oligarchs, fraudsters and tax avoiders, using BVI companies behind a screen of sham directors.

Such so-called “nominees”, Britons giving far-flung addresses on Nevis in the Caribbean, Dubai or the Seychelles, are simply renting out their names for the real owners to hide behind.

The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks caused a storm of controversy in 2010 when it was able to download almost two gigabytes of leaked US military and diplomatic files.

The new BVI data, by contrast, contains more than 200 gigabytes, covering more than a decade of financial information about the global transactions of BVI private incorporation agencies. It also includes data on their offshoots in Singapore, Hong Kong and the Cook Islands in the Pacific.

Unmasked: Top Figures with Secret Overseas Entities:http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/03/offshore-secrets-owners-unmasked

The Extraordinary Range of People Using Offshore Hideaways:http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/04/secrets-offshore-hideaways-laid-bare

Offshore Secrets: Unravelling a Complex Package of Data: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/04/offshore-secrets-data-emails-icij


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
4/4/2013 11:08:11 PM

What’s Going In North (and South) Korea?

human-pixels-of-north-koreaStephen: Behind the scenes here on the blog and among the InLight Radio team, we’ve been discussing what’s going on with North Korea. My gut is telling me that this is another cabal/media beat-up; kind of like last year’s ongoing “Iran Nuclear Danger’ story, where the Western media was fed (and, in turn, fed us) headlines about impending major war because of a threat to world peace from Iran. The reality of which, it still seems, has not materialised…

So, rather than run some of the dramatic mainstream rhetoric that’s been making the front pages for the past few days, we’ve steered clear of the current North Korea/South Korea/US drama.

But this story, by Benjamin Fulford, who is now writing more regularly for Veteran’s Today(and which Kauilapele has drawn my attention to – thanks Kauila!) has piqued my interest. Whether any of it is true or not I don’t know. But while Ben can say some pretty outlandish things, he also has some wonderful inside contacts. So how you feel about it is up to you; yet it could well be another angle on what’s going on with this current “North Korean saga…’

Ben Fulford

What is Going on With North Korea is Not What it Seems

By Benjamin Fulford, Veterans Today – April 3, 2013

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/04/03/what-is-going-on-with-north-korea-is-not-what-it-seems/

(April 3rd, 2013) – The biggest eye opener for me in decades of reporting about North Korea came seven years ago when a top Chinese government agent in Japan told me China considered North Korea to be a US colony.

The recent so-called threats of war by North Korea being widely reported in the Western press are in fact cabal efforts to intimidate that country as it seeks independence from secret US rule. The North Korean moves are a part of an overall East Asian move away from cabal rule.

However, recent corporate media coverage of North Korea makes it obvious that very few members of the Western media have a clue about what is really going on there. That is why I have decided to write a basic primer for the benefit of interested readers and policy makers.

The first thing people need to understand when looking at North Korea is to realize the country was set up by remnants of the Japanese army that was stationed in China during and before World War 2. The regime in North Korea thus closely resembles the war time government of Japan with the main difference being the God King is named Kim and not Hirohito. Remember, what is North Korea now was part of Japan or under Japanese influence from the late 19th century until the middle of the 20th century.

The next thing people need to understand is that part way through the post-war US occupation of Japan, a fundamental change in US policy took place. Following the murder of President Roosevelt by Nazi sympathizers towards the end of World War 2, a large part of the US intelligence community was gradually taken over by Nazis.

In Japan this meant that during the first part of the US occupation strenuous efforts were made to turn Japan into a pacifist, socialist country. Then as Nazi influence grew the fake so-called Cold War started and the policy shifted to fighting the Soviet Union. As a part of this new strategy 50,000 Japanese intelligence and military officers, experts in fighting communism in China, were brought over to Japan from North Korea.

This group has, to this day, exerted serious but hidden control over the Japanese political world in the post-war era. That is why it is no coincidence that the headquarters of the unofficial North Korean Embassy in Japan, the Chosen Soren (North Korean Citizens Association) is located next to the Yasukuni shrine honouring Japan’s war dead.

For much of the post-war era, the North Korean group in Japan was headed by Yasuhiro Nakasone and was closely allied to US power brokers like George Bush Sr. and David Rockefeller. For example, until recently the 20,000 strong Inagawa-kai yakuza gang prominently displayed a picture of George Bush Senior at its headquarters.

However, this cozy relationship started to change during the Bush Jr. regime when Asian secret societies found out that SARS was a race-specific Nazi bioweapon spread by the Bush regime with the aim of wiping out much of Asia’s population.

In Japan the result was large, but unreported midnight gang fights pitting supporters of the Nazis or Sabbatean Satanists against Asian secret societies and their Western allies.

As a part of this ongoing struggle, a regime change took place in North Korea after Kim Jong Il was assassinated with a stroke inducing poison administered by a Swedish prostitute.

The new ruler, Kim Jong-un, is the son of Yokota Megumi, a girl of Japanese royal family lineage who was kidnapped from a beach in Niigata when she was 13. The Kim regime is thus very pro-Japanese. The regime change in North Korea led to a severe split between the North Korean government and North Korean organizations in Japan.

Some of the North Korean organizations in Japan have been deeply in bed with the Sabbateans or Nazis and earned their money either using Nazi CIA manufactured “super-K” banknotes or else selling amphetamines. It was also the Nazis who supplied the North Koreans with both nuclear weapons and missile technology.

They also carried out some very nasty secret projects with their Nazi allies. For example, the attack on the Japanese subway system using poisonous sarin gas, and blamed on the Aum Shinrikyo Cult, was an operation run by a North Korean agent by the name of Ota in cooperation with “Jewish Al-Qaeda types,” according to several witnesses.

The nuclear and tsunami terror attack against Japan on March 11, 2011 was also carried out by the Sabbatean Nazis and some of their North Korean allies. The missile used in the attack was a 500 kiloton device stolen from the Russian submarine Kursk in 2000. It was transferred by the secret Nazi submarine network to the Nazi base on the Atlantic Island of Sao Tome. From there it was taken to the other Nazi submarine base in New Guinea before being taken to Japan via yacht and fishing boat.

After being landed in Kyushu it was then taken to a property in Hinodecho in Western Tokyo owned by Yasuhiro Nakasone. Then it was transferred to the Chosen Soren building next to the Yasukuni shrine before being taken to the deep sea drilling ship Chikyu. The sources for the information include smugglers and yakuza members actually involved in the transportation of the missile. These people are willing to testify to this in court.

On board the Chikyu, the nuclear material in the missile was divided to make several smaller devices that were drilled 10 kilometers into the sea-bed. One of the technicians involved in this operation ran to a church seeking help after his co-workers started to be murdered in order to silence them after the tsunami occurred. He was sheltered by a Christian group connected to the Tachikawa church of the reverend Paolo Izumi and is now in protective custody in the US.

Disgust at the 311 attacks is one of the main reasons for the split between the old North Korean organizations in Japan and the new North Korean government. This has led to the arrest of Yasuhiro Nakasone and an ongoing secret purge of all those involved in this operation.

A visible sign of this is that the Japanese government seized the Chosen Soren headquarters building and auctioned it off. It was bought for 4.5 billion yen (about $50 million) by Eikan Ikeguchi a Buddhist monk powerbroker who is very friendly with both Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and the regime of supreme leader Kim Jong-un of North Korea.

The Sabbateans Nazis, of course, are not taking this passively. For example, we can confirm from sources extremely close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he has come down with cancer and suspects he was hit with a cancer causing virus during his recent visit to the US. Abe is now taking hemp extract and has been advised by this writer to take 5000 IUs of vitamin D3 per day and 1 gram of vitamin C every six hours to counter-act the cancer causing virus.

The ongoing power struggle is also revealing itself in the form of a financial crisis brewing in South Korea, North Korea and Japan. This crisis has several interlocking dimensions. First of all, the Japanese government is considering passing a bill to tax all assets worth over 50 million yen (about $500,000) owned by South and North Korean nationals living in Japan. Since Korean gangsters seized large amounts of prime real estate near train stations during the chaos after WW2, huge funds are involved.

That may explain why several Korean groups are now offering to trade yen for won at a huge discount to the official exchange rate, according to a South Korean CIA source.

That also explains a lot of the North Korean saber rattling in recent days since the North Koreans secretly control huge swathes of the Japanese economy and are understandably reluctant to have those assets seized by Japanese taxmen.

There is also a huge credit card debt crisis brewing in South Korea, according to a veteran Japanese securities company executive. South Korean women are being sold into prostitution around the world to pay for their credit card debt, he says, but this option is not available for other Koreans. He expects a major credit card debt crisis to hit Goldman Sachs in particular, very hard.

The other crisis in South Korea has to do with bank loans, he says. Bank officers in South Korea with the authority to approve loans have been taking personal commissions of 10% or more on the loans they approve. This corruption is also leading to a bad loan scandal, he says.

The executive further made an interesting comment saying that “the people above me were Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger but they have lost power and we are not sure who is in charge now.”

This comment makes it quite clear that a temporary power vacuum is emerging as the old post-war political structures in East Asia change.

The new North Korean regime wants to unify with South Korea and are offering the South Koreans economic control in exchange for North Korean political control. The South Koreans are offering a ceremonial role to Kim Jon-un.

Both sides also want closer relations with Japan. That is why plans have already been approved to build a railway line linking Japan with the Korean peninsula.

The Japanese, for their part, want to keep the US military presence in the region to make sure they are not bullied into a submissive relationship with China. However, they are no longer willing to accept status as a junior partner of the US.

The Chinese are saying that Okinawa must once again become either a Chinese protectorate or an independent kingdom. They might be persuaded to allow Okinawa to become an independent free trade zone with a US military presence to assure its neutrality. Such a force would be paid for by the Japanese and Chinese.

There is also a proposal on the table to build a transnational East Asian development bank staffed by members of regional governments.

In any case, the recent saber rattling in East Asian can be equated to table pounding and shouting of the sort seen during M&A negotiations between major corporations. Things are still very much in flux and hard to predict but the end result, though, is expected to be a win-win solution.

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

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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4/5/2013 12:43:31 AM
While some people get along with far worse sex crimes, this man gets 5 years for what many see as a minor case

Designer gets 5 years in NY for preying on model

Designer gets 5 years in NY on charge of molesting aspiring model, also sentenced in Calif.


Associated Press -

FILE- In this Nov. 13, 2008 file photo, fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander appears at his sexual assault trial in Los Angeles. Alexander, already serving 59 years to life in California for molesting would-be models, was sentenced in New York on Tuesday April 2, 2013, to five years in a similar case in a courtroom full of his supporters who blew him kisses. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

NEW YORK (AP) -- A fashion designer already serving 59 years to life in California for molesting would-be models was sentenced in New York on Tuesday to five years in a similar case in a courtroom full of his supporters who blew him kisses.

Anand Jon Alexander, 39, admitted to one count of criminal sexual act in February for sexually assaulting a woman he baited with the promise of modeling work. He was named a high-risk sex offender and sexually violent predator Tuesday.

Outside court, his sister Sanjana Jon said she worked with him for years and she knows he's innocent.

"Anand Jon is innocent and he will prove it. The truth will come out," she said. "This is an innocent person who is being victimized."

Alexander had initially been charged with preying on a dozen women, but the figure then dropped to three. Prosecutors said some of the victims were minors, and some were drugged when he forced himself on them.

Some of the victims had already testified in the California case and Assistant District Attorney Maxine Rosenthal said prosecutors offered the plea deal so that the women wouldn't have to testify again and because he is already serving substantial prison time.

She said the victims were OK with the plea deal. "They were satisfied due to the length of the sentence in California," Rosenthal said.

He was transferred from a California prison to New York during the case. His prison time in New York amounts to time served, so no years will be tacked onto his California sentence, Alexander's attorney said.

Alexander, who wore a form-fitting gray suit and pink shirt with a vest, disputed the reason for the deal in court but didn't elaborate.

"Whatever their reasons for offering the plea were, my reasons were different," he said. Alexander's attorney said that he admitted to the crime so he could get evidence and materials from New York prosecutors needed to help overturn his conviction in California.

Judge Cassandra Mullen had to ask Alexander several times if he had anything to say about his sentencing. He finally replied: "I'd like to thank everyone for being here."

He did not apologize to the victim, a common occurrence at sentencings.

Born in India, Alexander — known professionally as Anand Jon — launched a fashion line in 1999 and built it into a high-flying career. He was featured on "America's Next Top Model," worked with such celebrities as Paris Hilton and Mary J. Blige and was among 20 people profiled by Newsweek in 2006 as up-and-coming players in various industries.

Then, in 2007, sex assault allegations against Alexander began surfacing. He was convicted in Los Angeles the next year of sexually assaulting seven women and girls, some as young as 14. An appeals court affirmed the conviction in 2012. His lawyers are working on filing a petition before a higher court.

The New York courtroom was full of supporters who traveled from India and California and wore white T-shirts that had a photo on them and read "Free Anand Jon." As Alexander was led away, he turned and smiled broadly at them. Some blew kisses.

His mother, Shashi Abraham, implored the public to look closely at the facts of the case. "People do believe in his innocence. Look at how many people are here supporting him, from all over," she said.

Outside court, men hung a banner that read "Free Anand Jon" to a fence near the courthouse.

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

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
4/5/2013 9:49:44 AM

Buddhist, Muslims from Myanmar clash in Indonesia

Associated Press/Binsar Bakkara - Indonesian police officers carry the body of an illegal migrant from Myanmar upon arrival at a hospital in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia Friday, April 5, 2013. Police said a violent brawl between Buddhist and Muslim asylum seekers from Mynamar in an immigration detention center in Belawan of North Sumatra early Friday leaving eight dead and 15 injured. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

BELAWAN, Indonesia (AP) — Religious and ethnic tensions running high in Myanmar boiled over far outside the country's borders Friday, when Buddhist fishermen and Muslim asylum seekers from the country brawled with knives and rocks at an Indonesian immigration detention center, leaving eight dead and another 15 injured.

The melee broke out in North Sumatra province, where more than 100 Rohingya migrants — most intercepted off Indonesia's coast after fleeing their homeland in rickety boats — and 11 Buddhists accused of illegal fishing were being housed together, said local police chief Endro Kiswanto.

He said witnesses told police the clash started early Friday after a Rohingya Muslim cleric and a fisherman got into a heated debate about sectarian violence that erupted last month in central Myanmar when mobs of armed Buddhists torched Muslim-owned homes and shops, killing dozens and forcing thousands to flee.

Insults were traded, and the cleric was allegedly attacked by a fisherman, said Yusuf Umardani, the detention center chief. When the cleric screamed, his friends jumped in to help. From there, the rumble broke out so quickly, security guards were too late to stop it.

"The violence took place so fast, and it was completely unexpected because they had been living peacefully here so far," Umardani said. "Most of the dead victims suffered severe head injuries. Apparently, they fought using anything that they could get — rocks, wood, chairs and knives."

Eight Buddhists were killed, and 15 Rohingya were injured. Three other Buddhists escaped unharmed, Kiswanto said.

"Our friends were covered in blood," surviving fisherman Win Thike Oo told an Associated Press photographer at the scene. "If we were there at the time, we would also be dead."

About 280 people are crammed into the overcrowded detention center — more than double its capacity. It is filled with a mix of mostly asylum seekers from different countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere.

Boatloads of Rohingya have been washing up on Indonesia's shores following a wave of violence last year in western Myanmar, where they are considered illegal Muslim settlers from neighboring Bangladesh. Hundreds have been killed and more than 100,000 left homeless in clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya.

The tensions have tested Myanmar's fledgling reformist government as it attempts to institute political and economic liberalization after nearly half a century of military rule.

"We actually don't understand about what is happening in my country," said survivor Oo, who has been detained for nine months at the center after being nabbed for illegal fishing in Indonesian waters. "We are only fishermen. We don't care about politics or conflict."

All of the victims from the detention center were rushed to a hospital in the provincial capital, Medan, about 23 kilometers (14 miles) south of the port town of Belawan. The three surviving fishermen have been moved to a separate building and hundreds of police have been deployed to secure the center. A forensics team was working to collect evidence and surveillance recordings were being reviewed.

Kiswanto said 25 Rohingya were being questioned by police and would be prosecuted under Indonesian law if suspected of being involved in the killings.

____

Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini contributed to this report from Jakarta, Indonesia.


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