Showing posts with label AP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AP. Show all posts

Monday, March 27, 2017

Ancient Israeli Artifacts Offer Clues About Jesus' Life and Death - DANIEL ESTRIN/AP CHARISMA NEWS

A new archaeological discovery could offer insights into Jesus' life and death. (Unsplash/Phil Goodwin)

Ancient Israeli Artifacts Offer Clues About Jesus' Life and Death

Standing With Israel
In a cavernous warehouse where Israel stores its archaeological treasures, an ancient burial box is inscribed with the name of Jesus.
Not THAT Jesus. Archaeologists in Israel say Jesus was a common name in the Holy Land 2,000 years ago, and that they have found about 30 ancient burial boxes inscribed with it.
Ahead of Easter, Israel's antiquities authority opened up its vast storeroom to reporters on Sunday for a peek at unearthed artifacts from the time of Jesus. Experts say they have yet to find direct archaeological evidence of Jesus Christ, but in recent years have found a wealth of material that helps fill out historians' understanding of how Jesus may have lived and died.
"There's good news," said Gideon Avni, head of the archaeological division of the Israel Antiquities Authority. "Today we can reconstruct very accurately many, many aspects of the daily life of the time of Christ."
Israel is one of the most excavated places on the planet. Some 300 digs take place each year, including about 50 foreign expeditions from as far away as the United States and Japan, the Antiquities Authority said.
To read more, click here
Leaders are readers! Subscribe now and get 3 magazines for the price of 1. Get Ministry Today, Charisma and SpiritLed Woman all for $24. YES - Sign me up!
3 Reasons Why you should read Life in the Spirit. 1) Get to know the Holy Spirit. 2) Learn to enter God's presence 3) Hear God's voice clearly! Click Here to draw closer to God!
Did you enjoy this blog? Click here to receive it by email.

Friday, January 29, 2016

Obama Joins Israel Boycott, Labels West Bank Goods - BREITBART/Associated Press

Obama at Western Wall 2008 (Associated Press)

Obama Joins Israel Boycott, Labels West Bank Goods

Jan. 28, 2016  BREITBART/Associated Press

In a step towards joining an Israel boycott, the U.S. is now requiring goods originating from the West Bank (also known as Judea and Samaria) to be labeled separately from products from the rest of Israel, following the European Union’s crackdown on products from the disputed territories.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has issued new mandates requiring that West Bank products not be marked “Israel,” citing a notice from the year 1997 that offers such instructions.
The memo from DHS, titled, “West Bank Country of Origin Marking Requirements,” reads:  
“The purpose of this message is to provide guidance to the trade community regarding the country of origin marking requirements for goods that are manufactured in the West Bank.”
According to the instructions, “It is not acceptable to mark” goods from the West Bank as having been from “Israel,” “Made in Israel,” or from “Occupied Territories-Israel.”
In its statement, U.S. Customs threatens, “goods that are erroneously marked as products of Israel will be subject to an enforcement action carried out by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”
“Goods entering the United States must conform to the U.S. marking statute and regulations promulgated thereunder,” the statement adds.
Groups advocating “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” (BDS) against Israel have demanded separate labeling of Israeli goods from the West Bank and the Golan Heights as a step toward a total boycott of Israeli products.
Israel maintains that under international law, the West Bank is “disputed,” and not “occupied,” since there was no legitimate sovereign in the territory when Israel took control of it in self-defense after Jordan attacked Israel in 1967.
Many of the products that will be affected are made within areas of the West Bank, such as the Etzion bloc, are likely to be part of Israel under any peace agreement.
The new instructions were published by DHS over the weekend, following complaints from Palestinian and fringe leftist outfits that the U.S. was not complying with a 1995 law that calls for the marking of goods from the West Bank, Israel National News reports.
In November, the European Union mandated the labeling of Israeli products from the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Critics, including presidential candidates, have argued the labeling of products only from “Israeli areas” of the West Bank, and not Palestinian-controlled territories, is a discriminatory and anti-Semitic act.
The EU now refuses to allow the label “Made in Israel” on products made anywhere outside of the pre-1967 lines.
Following the implementation of EU labeling mandates, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the actions an “exceptional and discriminatory step.”
This will not advance peace; it will certainly not advance truth and justice,” he added.
Last week, the State Department effectively endorsed the anti-Israel labeling measures.
On Wednesday, to mark Holocaust Remembrance day, President Obama pledged to confront worldwide anti-Semitism:
“Here, tonight, we must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it,” he said from the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Kenya university attack: Christian student hostages shot on spot

Kenya university attack: Christian student hostages shot on spot

Al-Shabaab Claims Attack on Kenyan College

Al-Shabaab Claims Attack on Kenyan College
The Islamic extremists who slaughtered 147 people in a Kenyan school appeared to have planned extensively, even targeting a site where Christians had gone to pray, a survivor has claimed.
The masked attackers — strapped with explosives and armed with AK-47s — singled out non-Muslim students at Garissa University College and then gunned them down without mercy, survivors said. Others ran for their lives with bullets whistling through the air.

Amid the massacre, the men took dozens of hostages in a dormitory as they battled troops and police before the operation ended after about 13 hours, witnesses said.
One of the first things that the al-Shabab gunmen did, survivor Helen Titus said, was to head for a lecture hall where Christians were in early morning prayer.

“They investigated our area. They knew everything,” Titus told The Associated Press at a hospital in Garissa where she was being treated for a bullet wound to the wrist. Titus, a 21-year-old English literature student, said she covered her face and hair with the blood of classmates and lay still at one point during the attack, in the hope the Islamic extremist gunmen would think she was dead.

The gunmen also told students hiding in dormitories to come out, assuring them that they would not be killed, said Titus.

“We just wondered whether to come out or not,” she said. Many students did, whereupon the gunmen started shooting men, saying they would not kill “ladies,” Titus said. But they also shot women and targeted Christians, said Titus, who is a Christian.

Four militants were slain by security forces to end the siege just after dusk.
Police were today at the campus of Garissa University College, taking fingerprints from the bodies of the four assailants and of the students and security officials who died.

When gunfire from the Kenyan security forces struck the attackers, the militants exploded “like bombs,” Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said, adding that the shrapnel wounded some of the officers.

Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said fighters from the Somalia-based extremist group were responsible. The al-Qa’ida-linked group has been blamed for a series of attacks in Kenya, including the siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013 that killed 67 people, as well as other violence in the north. The group has vowed to retaliate against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the militants staging cross-border attacks.

Most of the 147 dead were students, but two security guards, one policeman and one soldier also were killed in the attack, Nkaissery said.

At least 79 people were wounded at the campus 145 kilometres from the Somali border, he said. Some of the more seriously wounded were flown to Nairobi for treatment.

Officials at the Australian High Commission in Kenya’s capital Nairobi are working to determine whether any Australians have been hurt in a university massacre.

A dusk-to-dawn curfew was ordered in Garissa and three nearby counties.
One suspected extremist was arrested as he tried to flee, Nkaissery told a news conference in Nairobi.

Police identified a possible mastermind of the attack as Mohammed Mohamud, who is alleged to lead al-Shabab’s cross-border raids into Kenya, and they posted a $220,000 bounty for him. Also known by the names Dulyadin and Gamadhere, he was a teacher at an Islamic religious school, or madrasah, and claimed responsibility for a bus attack in Makka, Kenya, in November that killed 28 people.
One of the survivors of Thursday’s attack, Collins Wetangula, told The Associated Press he was preparing to take a shower when he heard gunshots coming from Tana dorm, which hosts both men and women, 150 meters away. The campus has six dorms and at least 887 students, he said.

When he heard the gunshots, he locked himself and three roommates in their room, said Wetangula, who is vice chairman of the university’s student union.

“All I could hear were footsteps and gunshots. Nobody was screaming because they thought this would lead the gunmen to know where they are,” he said.
He added: “The gunmen were saying, ‘Sisi ni al-Shabab,"’ - Swahili for “We are al-Shabab.”

He heard the attackers arrive at his dormitory, open the doors and ask if the people who had hidden inside were Muslims or Christians.

“If you were a Christian, you were shot on the spot,” he said. “With each blast of the gun, I thought I was going to die.”

The gunmen then started shooting rapidly, as if exchanging fire, Wetangula said.
“The next thing, we saw people in military uniform through the window of the back of our rooms who identified themselves as the Kenyan military,” he said. The soldiers took him and around 20 others to safety.

The attack began about 5:30am, as morning prayers were underway at the university mosque, where worshippers were not attacked, said Augustine Alanga, a 21-year-old student.

At least five heavily armed, masked gunmen opened fire outside his dormitory, turning intense almost immediately and setting off panic, he told the AP by telephone.

The shooting kept some students indoors but scores of others fled through barbed-wire fencing around the campus, with the gunmen firing at them, he said.
“I am just now recovering from the pain as I injured myself while trying to escape, Alanga said. I was running barefoot,” Alanga said.

As terrified students streamed out of buildings, arriving police officers took cover. Kenya’s National Police Service said a “fierce shootout” ensued as police guarded the dorms.

Three dorms were evacuated as the gunmen holed up in a fourth, and Kenyan Defense Forces surrounded the campus.

“I am saddened to inform the nation that early today, terrorists attacked Garissa University College, killed and wounded several people, and have taken others hostage,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a speech to the nation while the siege was underway.

After the militants took hostages, fears arose over the fate of some of the students, but the National Disaster Operations Center said all were eventually accounted for.
The U.S. condemned the attack, with White House spokesman Josh Earnest saying Washington was standing with the people of Kenya, “who will not be intimidated by such cowardly attacks.” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned it, reiterating his solidarity with the Kenyans “to prevent and counter terrorism and violent extremism,” his office said.

Wetangula, who was rescued by troops, said one soldier instructed a group of students to run and to dive for cover at their command as they ran to safety.
“We started running and bullets were whizzing past our heads, and the soldiers told us to dive,” Wetangula said. The soldier told students later that al-Shabab snipers were perched on a three-storey dormitory called the Elgon, he said.

Kenyatta has been under pressure to deal with insecurity caused by a string of attacks by al-Shabab.

In his speech to the country, he said he had directed the police chief to speed up the training of 10,000 police recruits because Kenya has “suffered unnecessarily due to shortage of security personnel.”

Kenya’s northern and eastern regions near the Somali border have seen many attacks blamed on al-Shabab.

Last month, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for attacks in Mandera county on the Somali border in which 12 people died.

Police said 312 people have been killed in al-Shabab attacks in Kenya from 2012 to 2014.

Last week, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for a siege at a Mogadishu hotel that left 24 people dead, including six attackers.

AP

Medics help an injured person at Kenyatta national Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, after he w
Medics help an injured person at Kenyatta national Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, after he was airlifted from Garissa after an attack by gunmen.
-
A male student hostage is escorted out of Garissa University after Kenya Defence Forces ended a siege by terrorist gunmen.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

AP Slammed for Biased Jerusalem Attack Headline

AP Slammed for Biased 
Jerusalem Attack Headline



JERUSALEM, Israel -- The Associated Press is facing some heat for its offensive headline following Thursday's terror attack in Jerusalem.

The AP's initial headline read, "Israeli Police Shoot Man in East Jerusalem," with no mention that police were responding to a terror attack.

The vehicular attack injured seven people and killed three month-old Chaya Zissel Braun, who held dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship.

After repeated complaints, AP changed the headline to "Car Slams Into East Jerusalem Train Station. And finally, AP acquiesed to complaints, changing it to "Palestinian Kills Baby at Jerusalem Station." But there are still calls for the wire service to identify who is responsible and to take action.

Meanwhile, the terrorist, Abdel Rahman Al-Shaludi, who ran over pedestrians waiting at a light-rail station, is being hailed as a martyr on Fatah's Facebook page.

Fatah is the party of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who's been hailed as an iron-clad peace partner by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Watch video here: CBN News