veteranstoday--2020-03-09--The DARPA Hypersonic Destroyer

The DARPA Hypersonic Destroyer

Pravda : The order came from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA ) and cost the country , according to preliminary data , $ 19.6 million .
What kind of technology do Aerojet Rocketdyne offer – and how will it protect the US sky from missiles and planes ?
“ Aerojet Rocketdyne ” : from the FAA to modern rocket science The development of new items has been underway since 2018 and so far appears in the press under the name “ Glide Breaker Hypersonic Interception System ” .
According to the data available on the network @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a way to intercept all objects that move with hypersonic ( that is , at least 5 times faster than sound ) speeds in the upper layers of the earth ’ s atmosphere.
” Given that , first of all , the specialists of this company are known as designers and manufacturers of rocket engines , and was formed in the postwar period from people studying the legacy of the Germans in the field of rocket science ( in particular , installations and prototypes of the FAA series ) , this is most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of their “ hardware ” destruction .
She emphasized that the company is very proud of the honor rendered to her and will apply all her achievements in the field of rocket science for Glide Breaker .
You may be surprised , but when examined in detail , it closely resembles Reagan ’ s Star Wars .
This is a complex that will launch special missiles that can accurately maneuver in the upper atmosphere and hit hypersonic values .
In particular , it is planned to use gas turbine engines .
Hypersonic engine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : in May 2013 , the WaveRider X-51A cruise missile made the longest hypersonic flight in its class .
And dreams of such weapons take us back to the time of the SDI ( Strategic Defense Initiative , better known as Star Wars ) , that is , in 1983 .
It is hard to say how successful Star Wars will be in the new century .
However , both Aerojet Rocketdyne and the US Department of Defense note : this is not just a study or a set of tests .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ create technology that can be implemented in industrial production .
And if the venture is successful , then already in 2030 we will see not only missiles , but also new types of aviation .

Pravda: The order came from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and cost the country, according to preliminary data, $ 19.6 million. What kind of technology do Aerojet Rocketdyne offer – and how will it protect the US sky from missiles and planes?
“Aerojet Rocketdyne”: from the FAA to modern rocket science
The development of new items has been underway since 2018 and so far appears in the press under the name “Glide Breaker Hypersonic Interception System”.
According to the data available on the network, it will be used as “a way to intercept all objects that move with hypersonic (that is, at least 5 times faster than sound) speeds in the upper layers of the earth’s atmosphere.”
Specifically, “Aerojet Rocketdyne” entrusted with some assistive technology for the “Glide Breaker”. Given that, first of all, the specialists of this company are known as designers and manufacturers of rocket engines and was formed in the postwar period from people studying the legacy of the Germans in the field of rocket science (in particular, installations and prototypes of the FAA series), this is most likely data on missile components or methods of their “hardware” destruction.
Is a “space” weapon already a reality? “The development of hypersonic technology is an imperative of national security,” said Eileen Drake, CEO, and President of Aerojet Rocketdyne. She emphasized that the company is very proud of the honor rendered to her and will apply all her achievements in the field of rocket science for Glide Breaker. What is a system? You may be surprised, but when examined in detail, it closely resembles Reagan’s Star Wars. This is a complex that will launch special missiles that can accurately maneuver in the upper atmosphere and hit hypersonic values. In particular, it is planned to use gas turbine engines. Hypersonic engine technologies are already used in the USA: in May 2013, the WaveRider X-51A cruise missile made the longest hypersonic flight in its class. And dreams of such weapons take us back to the time of the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as Star Wars), that is, in 1983. It is hard to say how successful Star Wars will be in the new century. However, both Aerojet Rocketdyne and the US Department of Defense note: this is not just a study or a set of tests. The task is set as follows: to create technology that can be implemented in industrial production. And if the venture is successful, then already in 2030 we will see not only missiles but also new types of aviation. Source: Pravda.ru


veteranstoday--2020-03-09--Oil Price Wars Begin

Oil Price Wars Begin

Russia swiftly reacts to bloodbath in markets , ready for $ 25 oil Editor ’ s Note : Oilprice.com is using 25 % drop rough number to cover all the various blends involved .
It gives the OPEC disagreement between the Saudis and Russia as the prime reason .
I found that strange as a pending worldwide recession will obviously lower demand , so we have an obvious two hammer blow .
No one seems to be calculating in the boost lower oil prices will be to countries who import will be .
And yes , I know that will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus scourge .
Russia has earlier published that its National Wealth Fund could cover deficits in the national oil income , a major funder of the government , for over a decade .
But for the Saudis , $ 25 to 30 oil is more of a problem as they have been bleeding red ink for some time as they live in the land of make believe .
…Jim W. Dean ] I am suspicious that Prince Salman ’ s move to make himself King while his father is still alive was triggered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the country now .
Could that be there will be bad news for the Saudis with their own budget at these low oil prices ?
Russia ’ s sovereign wealth fund has enough reserves to cover budget deficit for years , even if oil prices stay between $ 25 and $ 30 per barrel , the Finance Ministry announced amid a dramatic oil market crash .
Despite Monday being a public holiday in Russia , both the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank were quick to react to the overnight drop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The former said that the Russian National Wealth Fund has $ 150 billion ( more than 10 trillion rubles ) worth of liquid assets from additional oil and gas revenues , which is enough to offset a possible shortfall from falling crude prices for 6-10 years .
The oil market turmoil dragged down Russia ’ s national currency , which fell sharply against the US dollar and the euro .
The ruble slid about eight percent , trading at 74.1 to the dollar on Monday morning .
Against the euro , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since late February 2016 .
The Central Bank of Russia announced that it is temporarily halting foreign currency purchases on the domestic market under its fiscal rule mechanism .
The regulator said the 30-day pause is aimed at reducing financial market volatility , adding that it is ready to take up additional measures to ensure the country ’ s financial stability .
The resumption of operations will depend on the how the situation develops in March .
Before the members of OPEC and allied oil producers met last week , Russian President Vladimir @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prepared for any scenario , it has enough reserves to stay afloat even if the situation continues to deteriorate .
At that time , however , crude prices were higher .
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov earlier said the Russian economy could withstand an oil price of about $ 30 per barrel , but noted that it wouldn ’ t be optimal for balancing the budget .
Last week , OPEC agreed on deeper production cuts to boost oil prices amid the coronavirus outbreak , but Russia refused to support the initiative , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ result of the disagreement , the current deal expires next month , creating the risk of additional oversupply in the market , which is already bracing for reduced imports by coronavirus-hit China , one of the main importers of oil .
In a shock announcement on Sunday , Saudi Arabia said it wants to increase oil production instead of cutting it , and also offered a discount for buyers of its oil .
The move was seen as the start of a price war , triggering massive losses in global benchmarks Brent and @ @

Russia swiftly reacts to bloodbath in markets, ready for $25 oil
…from Russia Today, Moscow
Editor’s Note: Oilprice.com is using a 25% drop rough number to cover all the various blends involved. It gives the OPEC disagreement between the Saudis and Russia as the prime reason.
–
I found that strange, as a pending worldwide recession will obviously lower demand, so we have an obvious two hammer blow. No one seems to be calculating the boost that lower oil prices will give to countries who import. That will be consumed by dealing with the virus scourge.
–
Russia had earlier published that its National Wealth Fund could cover deficits in the national oil income, a major funder of the government for over a decade. But for the Saudis, $25 to $30 oil is more of a problem, as they have been bleeding red ink for some time while they live in the land of make believe.
–
… Jim W. Dean ] I am suspicious that Prince Salman’s move to make himself King while his father is still alive was triggered by his wanting to consolidate complete control over the country. Could that mean there will be bad news for the Saudi economy from these low oil prices?
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– First published … March 09, 2020 –
Russia’s sovereign wealth fund has enough reserves to cover budget deficit for years, even if oil prices stay between $25 and $30 per barrel, the Finance Ministry announced amid a dramatic oil market crash.
–


veteranstoday--2020-03-09--YPG ordered to abandon Syria’s Kurds to Turkish ethnic cleansing by US

Robert Inlakesh is a journalist , writer and political analyst , who had lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank .
He has written for publications such as Mint Press , Mondoweiss , MEMO , and various other outlets .
He specializes in analysis of the Middle East , in particular Palestine-Israel .
He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent .
For armed groups and militaries , there is a very fine line between being backed by an outside power and being an outright proxy of that supporting power ; the US-backed Kurdish YPG @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Syria ’ s Kurdish minority ) has repeatedly proven to be the latter .
The group that officially presents itself as politically progressive , multiethnic and pro-feminist force ( which helps it draw in leftist and anarchist European and North American volunteers ) has been heavily challenged by Turkey from its earliest years , but most directly so since the start of 2018 .
Despite the fact that the Turkish Army and Turkish-backed militant groups have repeatedly attacked the Syrian Kurdish population and displaced significant Kurdish communities that are ( or rather were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around Afrin , Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn ) , the YPG – instead of seeking new allies such as the Damascus government– maintains the strategy of ultimately doing what America tells it to do .
Time and time again , since Afrin in 2018 , the group has repeatedly turned down Damascus ’ offer for it to form a strategic alliance with the Syrian Army and fight against Turkish expansion into northern Syria – a common cause .
When Turkey launched Operation ‘ Peace Spring ’ in the fall of 2019 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to try to demonize Turkish actions against the YPG East of the Euphrates River .
It was a curious thing to witness , for the first time since the Syrian War began , US mainstream media channels , reporters and foreign policy personalities referred to Turkish-backed groups , which they had otherwise so much adored , as “ al-Qaeda-leaning ” and “ money-driven mercenaries ” .
It was also a far-cry from the US reaction to Turkey ’ s earlier ‘ Olive Branch ’ operation at the start of 2018 where the mainstream @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing was happening at all , despite the constant cries from Kurdish analysts on CNN , Fox , MSNBC , NBC and ABC accounts ; only Reuters and AFP bothered to mention the plight of Afrin ’ s Kurds after Ankara ’ s operation had been completed and the Turkification process for the region had begun in earnest .
The truth is the US did not want Turkey to conduct its eastern Euphrates offensive only because they knew that American forces would have to withdraw to avoid alienating strategic relations with Turkey and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Syrian government authority to the country ’ s grain-rich northeast regions and , perhaps even worse , to the oil-rich southeast .
In the event , it was the Syrian Army and Russia that came to the rescue of the YPG and Syria ’ s northern Kurdish communities in the wake of the US retreat ( euphemistically called a “ deliberate withdrawal ” ) , stopping the Turkish advance at the M5 international highway between Ayn Issa and Tel Tamir towns as well as saving Manbij and Ayn al-Arab ( Kobane ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Amid all of this , there were euphoric rumors that northern YPG units were going to join the Russian-led 5th Corps formation where they would be granted official status within the Syrian Army and receive the kind of heavy weapons ( tanks , infantry fighting vehicles , field guns , etc ) that the US – at Turkey ’ s specific request– had never armed them with ; but thanks to the subservience of the YPG leadership itself , this never materialized .
A relevant piece of information to know is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the YPG has been spotted with throughout the course of the Syrian conflict are either of captured stocks ( from abandoned Syrian military armories or from ISIS ) or stocks Damascus provided up until 2014 .
And since then business is back to normal .
The Turkish-backed militants are once again heroic , democracy-loving rebels as far as the official US point-of-view is concerned ; turns out they were only al-Qaeda mercenaries for about one month .
As expected , the YPG came out the biggest loser .
Its core northern territories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brought back under Syrian government control ( under terms the group had not wished for ) , its plans to sell oil to Turkey in exchange for not being attacked went out the window and it still found itself following orders from the same master who had abandoned it to Ankara ’ s east Euphrates operation .
A revolted pro-Kurdish media blamed everybody but the YPG for how events transpired .
However , with the earliest hints from US policy makers that perhaps the Kurds were ungrateful , they quickly stopped blaming America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point of view , it is only Assad and Russia ’ s fault that Turkey had invaded northern Syria with US approval .
The operations of the Syrian Army in Idlib to destroy the exact same Turkish-backed militants who have repeatedly attacked Syria ’ s Kurdish community and who have carried-out Ankara ’ s ethnic cleansing project in the country ’ s north are apparently a bad thing according to the US ; and at no point does YPG or Peshmerga-linked media ( such as Kurdistan 24 ) even attempt to counter this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all .
Recently , the Syrian Army , with the support of Russia , Iran and Hezbollah , concluded a three-month operation that saw almost half of the so-called militant-held ‘ Greater Idlib ’ area liberated from Takfiri militant control .
The YPG ’ s proxy status was once again affirmed during these events when YPG forces concentrated in the Tal Riffat area ( north of Aleppo city ) had a perfect opportunity to form a joint operations center with the Syrian military and coordinate an offensive to liberate the Anadan Plain region @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least put pressure on the Afrin front , but ended up doing no such thing .
Indeed , there were early reports that the YPG units based in the Tal Riffat area were partaking in a Syrian Army-led operation to recapture the town of Al-Sheykh Akil from Turkish-backed insurgents .
These reports turned out to be false , and the clarifier of the matter was the YPG itself , which , in a breathtaking statement , released by its spokesperson in Hasakah city ( on the other side of the country ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the “ Assad offensive on Idlib ” .
The statement alone proved the group has no grassroots basis ( as it claims to have ) , but instead a rigid , centralized and highly-politicized system of command – one that despite having official Kurdish figureheads , is directed by the United States and to the benefit of the United States ’ constantly changing goals in Syria .

(L-R) A member of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) walks with US soldiers during a patrol in the village of Ein Diwar in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province on November 4, 2019. (Photo by AFP)
by Robert Inlakesh
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and political analyst, who had lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for publications such as Mint Press, Mondoweiss, MEMO, and various other outlets. He specializes in the analysis of the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.
For armed groups and militaries, there is a very fine line between being backed by an outside power and being an outright proxy of that supporting power; the US-backed Kurdish YPG (a force assumedly designed to protect Syria’s Kurdish minority) has repeatedly proven to be the latter.
The group that officially presents itself as politically progressive, multiethnic and pro-feminist force (which helps it draw in leftist and anarchist European and North American volunteers) has been heavily challenged by Turkey from its earliest years, but most directly so since the start of 2018.
Despite the fact that the Turkish Army and Turkish-backed militant groups have repeatedly attacked the Syrian Kurdish population and displaced significant Kurdish communities that are (or rather were) native to northern Syria (namely around Afrin, Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn), the YPG – instead of seeking new allies such as the Damascus government– maintains the strategy of ultimately doing what America tells it to do.
Time and time again, since Afrin in 2018, the group has repeatedly turned down Damascus’ offer for it to form a strategic alliance with the Syrian Army and fight against Turkish expansion into northern Syria – a common cause.
When Turkey launched Operation ‘Peace Spring’ in the fall of 2019, the United States utilized its media power to try to demonize Turkish actions against the YPG East of the Euphrates River.
It was a curious thing to witness, for the first time since the Syrian War began, US mainstream media channels, reporters and foreign policy personalities referred to Turkish-backed groups, which they had otherwise so much adored, as “al-Qaeda-leaning” and “money-driven mercenaries”.
It was also a far cry from the US reaction to Turkey’s earlier ‘Olive Branch’ operation at the start of 2018 where the mainstream media and government officials pretended as if nothing was happening at all, despite the constant cries from Kurdish analysts on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC and ABC accounts; only Reuters and AFP bothered to mention the plight of Afrin’s Kurds after Ankara’s operation had been completed and the Turkification process for the region had begun in earnest.
Turkish military forces reportedly accommodate 1,500 militant family members in houses in Syria’s northeastern town of Ra’s al-Ayn.
The truth is the US did not want Turkey to conduct its eastern Euphrates offensive only because they knew that American forces would have to withdraw to avoid alienating strategic relations with Turkey and that it would lead to the return of Syrian government authority to the country’s grain-rich northeast regions and, perhaps even worse, to the oil-rich southeast.
In the event, it was the Syrian Army and Russia that came to the rescue of the YPG and Syria’s northern Kurdish communities in the wake of the US retreat (euphemistically called a “deliberate withdrawal”), stopping the Turkish advance at the M5 international highway between Ayn Issa and Tel Tamir towns as well as saving Manbij and Ayn al-Arab (Kobane) from being taken over by Takfiri terrorists.
Amid all of this, there were euphoric rumors that northern YPG units were going to join the Russian-led 5th Corps formation where they would be granted official status within the Syrian Army and receive the kind of heavy weapons (tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, field guns, etc) that the US – at Turkey’s specific request– had never armed them with; but thanks to the subservience of the YPG leadership itself, this never materialized.
A relevant piece of information to know is that the few tanks and heavy artillery pieces that the YPG has been spotted with throughout the course of the Syrian conflict are either of captured stocks (from abandoned Syrian military armories or from ISIS) or stocks Damascus provided up until 2014.
And since then the business is back to normal. The Turkish-backed militants are once again heroic, democracy-loving rebels as far as the official US point-of-view is concerned; turns out they were only al-Qaeda mercenaries for about one month.
US to let Kurds keep arms after Syria exit: Officials
As expected, the YPG came out as the biggest loser. Its core northern territories were either taken by Turkish-backed jihadists or brought back under Syrian government control (under terms the group had not wished for), its plans to sell oil to Turkey in exchange for not being attacked went out the window and it still found itself following orders from the same master who had abandoned it to Ankara’s east Euphrates operation.
A revolted pro-Kurdish media blamed everybody but the YPG for how events transpired.
However, with the earliest hints from US policymakers that perhaps the Kurds were ungrateful, they quickly stopped blaming America. Somehow, according to the pro-YPG point of view, it is only Assad and Russia’s fault that Turkey had invaded northern Syria with US approval.
The operations of the Syrian Army in Idlib to destroy the exact same Turkish-backed militants who have repeatedly attacked Syria’s Kurdish community and who have carried-out Ankara’s ethnic cleansing project in the country’s north are apparently a bad thing according to the US, and at no point does YPG or Peshmerga-linked media (such as Kurdistan 24) even attempt to counter this policy attitude – they say nothing at all.
Recently, the Syrian Army, with the support of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, concluded a three-month operation that saw almost half of the so-called militant-held ‘Greater Idlib’ area liberated from Takfiri militant control.
The YPG’s proxy status was once again affirmed during these events when YPG forces concentrated in the Tal Riffat area (north of Aleppo city) had a perfect opportunity to form a joint operations center with the Syrian military and coordinate an offensive to liberate the Anadan Plain region, west of Aleppo city, or at least put pressure on the Afrin front, but ended up doing no such thing.
Indeed, there were early reports that the YPG units based in the Tal Riffat area were partaking in a Syrian Army-led operation to recapture the town of Al-Sheykh Akil from Turkish-backed insurgents.
These reports turned out to be false, and the clarifier of the matter was the YPG itself, which, in a breathtaking statement, released by its spokesperson in Hasakah city (on the other side of the country), clarified the group had no role in the “Assad offensive on Idlib”.
The statement alone proved the group has no grassroots basis (as it claims to have), but instead a rigid, centralized and highly-politicized system of command – one that despite having official Kurdish figureheads, is directed by the United States and to the benefit of the United States’ constantly changing goals in Syria.


veteranstoday--2020-03-10--CHRISTIAN HOLOCAUST: Tragedies, names, faces among 2983 martyrs in 2019. Massacres raised

« At that time , Jesus said to his disciples : « If the world hates you , know that before you hated me .
If you were of the world , the world would love what is its ; because instead you are not of the world , but I have chosen you from the world , for this the world hates you .
If they persecuted me , they will also persecute you ; if they have observed my word , they will also observe yours .
But all this they will do to you because of my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the One who sent me » Gospel of John ( 15.18-21 ) « The Bishops , at the request of the people of God , have decided to consecrate Burkina Faso to the Immaculate Heart of Mary , Our Lady of Yagma .
It is an act of trust in faith and in the hope that with Mary , who intercedes for us , God will give us the victory over evil and the strength to work for the advent of a more fraternal world » .
Before opening the doors of hell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or severed heads to Christian martyrs in 2019 , I wanted to bring back this exemplary message of hope announced on Sunday 2 February by Monsignor Laurent Dabiré , Bishop of Dori and President of the Conference Episcopal Burkina Faso-Niger .
He said this while leading the pilgrimage to the Shrine of Yagma , in the archdiocese of Ouagadougou , a few hours after one of the latest massacres that are devastating the African country , making it rise steeply in the world rankings of the countries where Christians are most persecuted .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ date back to Sunday 16 February with 24 dead in the evangelical church of the village of Pansi , located not far from Sebba , in the province of Yahgha , in the north of the country , on Monday 10 February , when always in Sebba they are five believers were kidnapped and subsequently killed , including a Protestant pastor , and on the night of Sunday 2 February when about twenty civilians were killed in Lamdamol , a village in the north of the country .
« Burkina Faso needs men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this period of terrorist violence that bloody the country .
This is why it is necessary to consecrate Burkina Faso to the Immaculate Heart of Mary , so that the violence ceases » said Monsignor Dabiré .
« The fight against insecurity also involves fighting the scourges of ethnic and religious identity often exploited by terrorists , but also against corruption and injustice » he added .
The words of the African bishop are important because they summarize two of the dramatic aspects of persecution against Christians , misery and corruption .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ attention and wants to narrate the tragedies of 2019 by going beyond the numbers of the dossiers disseminated in recent weeks by the Pontifical Catholic Aid to the Church in Need Foundation and then by the NGO Evangelica Open Doors .
Thanks to the careful research and analysis of these operators , primarily committed to giving concrete answers to daily needs in the so-called Third World , one of the worst plagues of the Third Millennium is becoming ever clearer : the silent holocaust of believers in Christ , a genocide religious which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most serious in the history of Humanity and is tightened every year more because of the much more powerful and sophisticated weapons , both technologically and psychologically , now in the hands of the different persecutors .
From a global vision of the annual reports of ACS and Open Doors , integrated by the reports of Fides , the Catholic press agency of the Pontifical Mission Societies , and those of the Persecutions portal of the American evangelicals International Christian Concern , the picture emerges that in 2019 there were 15 millions more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of deaths has decreased , the number of victims of the massacres has increased , as proof of a “ scientific ” plan to eliminate the Christian community on the planet .
All political commentators who harshly criticize the Catholic Church in Europe and the Evangelical Pentecostal Church in the United States of America should for a moment wake up from the torpid obsessions in which prejudices have locked their minds and hearts .
They should look this merciless reality in the face … Precisely for this reason , Gospa News does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a pandemic of religious hatred but above all to show the faces of girls , girls , Canute nuns , elderly priests and young missionaries cut short in life even before starting their mandate .
As happened for one of the first martyrs of 2020 , the 18-year-old Nigerian Michael Nnadi , kidnapped together with other seminary companions and found a corpse in recent days after the release of the other three .
In her spiritual vocation it was broken in the prime of her years before it could bear fruit as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 12 days before the liberation of Italy , the red partisans killed the fourteen year old seminarian Rolando Rivi in Emilia Romagna .
The liberators of the so-called “ Death Triangle ” , largely atheists and communists , to remedy the Jewish Shoah perpetrated by the Nazi-Fascist regimes thus began the Christian Genocide of the contemporary era , which continued also in the months of peace following the end of the Second World war with execrable and foul feminicides .
Today this demonic holocaust continues essentially on four fronts .
One of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ethnic religious clashes in the hungry countries of Africa and Asia exacerbated by the new American-British-French Imperialism under the auspices of NATO countries that with the official state hand sign the sending of military missions of peace in the Sahel with the unofficial one of the corporations sell weapons to fundamentalist Islamic jihadists in violation of every embargo .
It is in these countries that the number of victims is dramatic and the persecution is judged “ extreme ” by the statistics of Open Doors and the alarm by ACS is more pronounced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight against corruption in Latin American countries where organized crime is on the rise ( also thanks to the affairs of the Calabrian mafia ‘ Ndrangheta who left Italy ) against which Christian missionaries try to fight , often paying with their commitment .
But persecutions in some countries are scientifically planned through the imposition of a cage of restrictions on individual religious freedom by the state in relation to different “ political ” orientations such as Communism in China and North Korea , Islam in Afghanistan , Pakistan , Somalia , Eritrea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ India and Sri Lanka where this nationalist confession clashes with the claims of Sunni Muslims , culminating in the tremendous explosive attacks in the Churches of Easter Sunday of April 21 , 2019 that caused 258 dead .
This is precisely the most evident data from an accurate analysis of last year ’ s statistics : as many as 260 million Christians persecuted for religious reasons in the world ( compared to 245 in 2018 ) , a number of religious and lay people killed in decline but massacres mass increase in tragic… @ @ @ @ @ @ @ affected by the phenomenon monitored by our research , 73 showed a definable level of persecution high , very high or extreme .
The number of Christians killed for reasons related to the faith drops from 4,305 last year to 2,983 in 2019 , with Nigeria still a land of massacres at the hands of Islamic Fulani breeders , far more lethal than the Boko Haram terrorists “ writes Open Doors in the report presented in January .
ACS research also denounces the dramatic situation in Africa , where in recent years more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in more and more countries .
« In the context of anti-Christian violence , the price paid by priests and religious is high .
In fact , of the 18 priests and a nun killed in the world in 2019 , 15 were killed in Africa , including 3 in Burkina Faso » .
In the latter nation , the burkinabé priest Fr Roger Kologo testified , « a real hunt is under way for Christians , who are hit during processions and expressions of their faith and even reached in their homes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 , more than sixty faithful have been killed » .
The fact that the missionaries assassinated in the world have gone from 40 in 2018 to 18 in 2019 is very little consoled because the emergency is daily also for the fourth and most occult method of fishing : the ethnic replacement taking place in Iraq and Syria due to the jihadist formations of radical Sunni-Salafist-Wahabite Islamists , funded and armed by countries born like Turkey , the USA and the United Kingdom in the tremendous and long-standing conflict for the elimination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in deference to the Zionist allies of Israel , and to those Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood of Qatar , just to mention the main actors of the Arabian Peninsula .
In Iraq and Syria , as in Lebanon and Libya at the time of Muhammar Gaddafi , the Shiites lived and lived together peacefully ( with local exceptions and in the still authoritarian dominance of Muslims ) with the Christians , with whom they even fight for freedom as in the Iraqi People ’ s Mobilization Forces and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kurds , paramilitary formations created to counter the spread of the Islamic State of Caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi , considered by multiple Middle Eastern analysts to two inventions of the imperialist West to justify his wars in pursuit of oil and gas in the Middle East .
The ISIS leader was in fact believed to be a secret agent of the Israeli intelligence of the Mossads and the American intelligence of the CIA so as to induce the leading terrorism experts to doubt his actual death announced by the US in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ detected by any radar from the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Army .
This geopolitical digression is indispensable to understand also the context of the onset of Islamic terrorists in Nigeria and in the Sahel as they represent , as for Turkey , the former Isis and Al Qaeda fighters sent to Libya , the vanguard of the civil war following the which the ancient colonialists can find justification for an armed intervention by winning the applause of the complacent media for the elimination of the jihadists they themselves fomented and armed .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Christian martyrs of 2019 must be told by themes starting from the massacres , to then remember the ambushes of priests , religious and lay volunteers and finally the sexual violence and deprivations of personal freedoms .
We will do this through the reports of Gospa News supplemented by the list of the most dramatic events reported by the 2017-2019 dossier of Aid of the Church in Need which spread on 24 October last when the Basilica of San Bartolomeo in Rome was lit red in memory of the blood .
of contemporary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the page ) .
CAMILLA ’ S SMILE SWITCHED OFF BY TWO BOMBS On January 27 , two bombs were detonated during Sunday mass in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo , Philippines .
The responsibility for the attack , which left 22 dead and over 100 injured , was claimed by the Islamist group affiliated to ISIS of Abu Sayyaf , whose leaders were excluded from negotiations between government and rebels that led to the referendum the previous week with which the autonomous region of Bangsamoro was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a day of agony in the Zamboanga City Medical Center hospital , the bright smile of 14-year-old Chieny Camille Tabas Rubio , the youngest of the victims of the attack , died forever .
A massacre so bloody that it is even able to touch the heart of the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte , the atheist communist dictator and mocker of Christianity , who has increased police activities to prevent other attacks against religious communities .
On Easter Sunday , 258 people , including at least 45 children , were killed and more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attacks in three churches and hotels in Sri Lanka .
The explosions hit the church of Sant ’ Antonio in the Kotahena district of Colombo , the church of San Sebastiano in Negombo and the church of Sion in Batticaloa , as well as two hotels of western tourists .
The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State affiliated group .
« The two faces of the terrible horror that swept Sri Lanka in a Blood Easter are all in two images : that of the evil founder of the Sri Lankan jihadist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the flag of Isis and that of little Tarushi of only 2 years old , the name is fictional but it is widespread among the island ’ s girls and means courage .
In two photos there is all the absurd drama of a grim and atrocious violence especially because it is premeditated as bestial : capable of snatching the life of at least 27 children ( one is scattered ) among the confirmed victims “ reported Gospa News in the hours following the tragedy .
read more SRI LANKA CARNAGES : RIDDLE @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shed by Sunni Jihadist Muslims against Christians in particular and against unfaithful Westerners in general : in an ocean of disturbing mysteries about the failure of intelligence alerted by the Muslims of Sri Lanka themselves .
Doubts that the 24 Islamic fundamentalists arrested by the police after the nine explosions ( 3 churches , 4 hotels , 1 supermarket and 1 private house ) are not enough to dispel the well-founded fear that only the wingmen and small fish of a powerful and articulate have ended up in prison network of terror capable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and vehicles to carry out its diabolical plan .
They are not enough to explain why the alleged mind , the imam loyal to Isis , has not been stopped before even though its danger is known to all , even reported by other Muslims .
A few days later the connections of Moulvi Zahran Hashim , the imam founder of the terrorists of the National Thowheed Jamath , with the suicide bombers of the wealthy family of an Islamic financier of the local communist party , then arrested , and those with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ awareness of the intelligence of Riad on the time and places of the attacks… Among the victims of the terrible attack there are also survivors with permanent injuries .
As the Open Doors reportage reports , among these is the evangelical Christian Rebecca , 24 years old : her face has been partially disfigured by fire .
Debbie , 6 , however , lost her father Ranjith , her mother Verlini ( Rebecca ’ s sister ) and cousin Jackson .
She herself suffered serious injuries and lost her sight .
Debbie only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confined to ICU for over a month .
He is recovering from trauma and learning to walk again .
His older brother Rufus and his grandmother still take her with him to church from time to time … WHOLE REPORT continues here IN ITALIAN VERSION WITH MACHINE TRANSLATING

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: «If the world hates you, know that before you hated me. If you were of the world, the world would love what is its; because instead you are not of the world, but I have chosen you from the world, for this the world hates you. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have observed my word, they will also observe yours. But all this they will do to you because of my name because they do not know the One who sent me –
by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio for VT Italy
The Bishops, at the request of the people of God, have decided to consecrate Burkina Faso to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Our Lady of Yagma. It is an act of trust in faith and in the hope that with Mary, who intercedes for us, God will give us the victory over evil and the strength to work for the advent of a more fraternal world.
Before opening the doors of hell of horrors, tragedies disfigured faces or severed heads to Christian martyrs in 2019, I wanted to bring back this exemplary message of hope announced on Sunday 2 February by Monsignor Laurent Dabiré, Bishop of Dori and President of the Conference Episcopal Burkina Faso-Niger. He said this while leading the pilgrimage to the Shrine of Yagma, in the archdiocese of Ouagadougou, a few hours after one of the latest massacres that are devastating the African country, making it rise steeply in the world rankings of the countries where Christians are most persecuted.
The latest jihadist attacks in Burkina Faso date back to Sunday 16 February with 24 dead in the evangelical church of the village of Pansi, located not far from Sebba, in the province of Yahgha, in the north of the country, on Monday 10 February, when always in Sebba they are five believers were kidnapped and subsequently killed, including a Protestant pastor, and on the night of Sunday 2 February when about twenty civilians were killed in Lamdamol, a village in the north of the country.
«Burkina Faso needs men and women with a pure heart, in this period of terrorist violence that bloody the country. This is why it is necessary to consecrate Burkina Faso to the Immaculate Heart of Mary so that the violence ceases» said Monsignor Dabiré.
«The fight against insecurity also involves fighting the scourges of ethnic and religious identity often exploited by terrorists, but also against corruption and injustice» he added. The words of the African bishop are important because they summarize two of the dramatic aspects of persecution against Christians, misery, and corruption.
Gospa News follows the emergency with weekly attention and wants to narrate the tragedies of 2019 by going beyond the numbers of the dossiers disseminated in recent weeks by the Pontifical Catholic Aid to the Church in Need Foundation and then by the NGO Evangelica Open Doors.
Thanks to the careful research and analysis of these operators, primarily committed to giving concrete answers to daily needs in the so-called Third World, one of the worst plagues of the Third Millennium is becoming ever clearer: the silent holocaust of believers in Christ, a genocide religious which, by duration, is among the most serious in the history of Humanity and is tightened every year more because of the much more powerful and sophisticated weapons, both technologically and psychologically, now in the hands of the different persecutors.
From a global vision of the annual reports of ACS and Open Doors, integrated by the reports of Fides, the Catholic press agency of the Pontifical Mission Societies, and those of the Persecutions portal of the American evangelicals International Christian Concern, the picture emerges that in 2019 there were 15 million more persecuted Christians.
Even if the total number of deaths has decreased, the number of victims of the massacres has increased, as proof of a “scientific” plan to eliminate the Christian community on the planet. All political commentators who harshly criticize the Catholic Church in Europe and the Evangelical Pentecostal Church in the United States of America should for a moment wake up from the torpid obsessions in which prejudices have locked their minds and hearts. They should look at this merciless reality in the face …
HATE’S PANDEMIC AGAINST CHRISTIANS
Precisely for this reason, Gospa News does not want to report only the numbers of a pandemic of religious hatred but above all to show the faces of girls, girls, Canute nuns, elderly priests, and young missionaries cut short in life even before starting their mandate. As happened for one of the first martyrs of 2020, the 18-year-old Nigerian Michael Nnadi, kidnapped together with other seminary companions and found a corpse in recent days after the release of the other three.
In her spiritual vocation it was broken in the prime of her years before it could bear fruit as happened on Friday 13 April 1945 when, 12 days before the liberation of Italy, the red partisans killed the fourteen-year-old seminarian Rolando Rivi in Emilia Romagna.
The liberators of the so-called “Death Triangle”, largely atheists and communists, to remedy the Jewish Shoah perpetrated by the Nazi-Fascist regimes thus began the Christian Genocide of the contemporary era, which continued also in the months of peace following the end of the Second World war with execrable and foul femicides. Today this demonic holocaust continues essentially on four fronts.
One of the first causes is represented by the ethnic-religious clashes in the hungry countries of Africa and Asia exacerbated by the new American-British-French Imperialism under the auspices of NATO countries that with the official state hand sign the sending of military missions of peace in the Sahel with the unofficial one of the corporations sell weapons to fundamentalist Islamic jihadists in violation of every embargo.
read more HELL SAHEL FOR JIHADISTS CARNAGES
It is in these countries that the number of victims is dramatic and the persecution is judged “extreme” by the statistics of Open Doors and the alarm by ACS is more pronounced. The other is determined by the fight against corruption in Latin American countries where organized crime is on the rise (also thanks to the affairs of the Calabrian mafia ‘Ndrangheta who left Italy) against which Christian missionaries try to fight, often paying with their commitment.
But persecutions in some countries are scientifically planned through the imposition of a cage of restrictions on individual religious freedom by the state in relation to different “political” orientations such as Communism in China and North Korea, Islam in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, Iran and Hinduism in India and Sri Lanka where this nationalist confession clashes with the claims of Sunni Muslims, culminating in the tremendous explosive attacks in the Churches of Easter Sunday of April 21, 2019, that caused 258 dead.
This is precisely the most evident data from an accurate analysis of last year’s statistics: as many as 260 million Christians persecuted for religious reasons in the world (compared to 245 in 2018), a number of religious and lay people killed in decline but massacres mass increase in tragic…
«Out of about 100 countries potentially affected by the phenomenon monitored by our research, 73 showed a definable level of persecution high, very high or extreme. The number of Christians killed for reasons related to the faith drops from 4,305 last year to 2,983 in 2019, with Nigeria still a land of massacres at the hands of Islamic Fulani breeders, far more lethal than the Boko Haram terrorists “writes Open Doors in the report presented in January.
MURDERS OF RELIGIOUS LOSSES, INCREASING MASSACRES
ACS research also denounces the dramatic situation in Africa, where in recent years more and more jihadist formations have hit Christians in more and more countries.
In the context of anti-Christian violence, the price paid by priests and religious is high. In fact, of the 18 priests and a nun killed in the world in 2019, 15 were killed in Africa, including 3 in Burkina Faso». In the latter nation, the burkinabé priest Fr Roger Kologo testified, «a real hunt is underway for Christians, who are hit during processions and expressions of their faith and even reached in their homes and executed. Since the beginning of 2020, more than sixty faithful have been killed.
The fact that the missionaries assassinated in the world have gone from 40 in 2018 to 18 in 2019 is very little consoled because the emergency is daily also for the fourth and most occult method of fishing: the ethnic replacement taking place in Iraq and Syria due to the jihadist formations of radical Sunni-Salafist-Wahabite Islamists, funded and armed by countries born like Turkey, the USA and the United Kingdom in the tremendous and long-standing conflict for the elimination of Shiite Muslims from the Middle East, in deference to the Zionist allies of Israel, and to those Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood of Qatar, just to mention the main actors of the Arabian Peninsula.
In Iraq and Syria, as in Lebanon and Libya at the time of Muammar Gaddafi, the Shiites lived and lived together peacefully (with local exceptions and in the still-authoritarian dominance of Muslims) with the Christians, with whom they even fight for freedom as in the Iraqi People’s Mobilization Forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces of the Syrian Kurds, paramilitary formations created to counter the spread of the Islamic State of Caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, considered by multiple Middle Eastern analysts to two inventions of the imperialist West to justify his wars in pursuit of oil and gas in the Middle East.
The ISIS leader was in fact believed to be a secret agent of the Israeli intelligence of the Mossad and the American intelligence of the CIA so as to induce the leading terrorism experts to doubt his actual death announced by the US in the air raid of 26 October 2019 not detected by any radar from the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Army.
This geopolitical digression is indispensable to understand also the context of the onset of Islamic terrorists in Nigeria and in the Sahel as they represent, as for Turkey, the former Isis and Al Qaeda fighters sent to Libya, the vanguard of the civil war following the which the ancient colonialists can find justification for an armed intervention by winning the applause of the complacent media for the elimination of the jihadists they themselves fomented and armed.
This is why the story of the Christian martyrs of 2019 must be told by themes starting from the massacres, to then remember the ambushes of priests, religious and lay volunteers and finally the sexual violence and deprivations of personal freedoms. We will do this through the reports of Gospa News supplemented by the list of the most dramatic events reported by the 2017-2019 dossier of Aid of the Church in Need which spread on 24 October last when the Basilica of San Bartolomeo in Rome was lit red in memory of the blood. of contemporary martyrs (all links at the bottom of the page).
CAMILLA’S SMILE SWITCHED OFF BY TWO BOMBS
On January 27, two bombs were detonated during Sunday mass in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, Philippines. The responsibility for the attack, which left 22 dead and over 100 injured, was claimed by the Islamist group affiliated to ISIS of Abu Sayyaf, whose leaders were excluded from negotiations between government and rebels that led to the referendum the previous week with which the autonomous region of Bangsamoro was established, in Muslim Mindanao.
After a day of agony in the Zamboanga City Medical Center hospital, the bright smile of 14-year-old Chieny Camille Tabas Rubio, the youngest of the victims of the attack, died forever. A massacre was so bloody that it is even able to touch the heart of the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, the atheist communist dictator and mocker of Christianity, who has increased police activities to prevent other attacks against religious communities.
read more CHRISTIANS PERSECUTED: ASIA FREED, CAMILLE KILLED
TODDLER TARUSHI DIED IN THE SRI LANKA MASSACRES
On Easter Sunday, 258 people, including at least 45 children, were killed and more than 500 were injured in multiple terrorist attacks in three churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. The explosions hit the church of Sant’Antonio in the Kotahena district of Colombo, the church of San Sebastiano in Negombo and the church of Sion in Batticaloa, as well as two hotels of western tourists. The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State-affiliated group.
The two faces of the terrible horror that swept Sri Lanka in a Blood Easter are all in two images: that of the evil founder of the Sri Lankan jihadist group National Thowheed Jamath who swears before the flag of Isis and that of little Tarushi of only 2 years old, the name is fictional but it is widespread among the island’s girls and means courage. In two photos there is all the absurd drama of grim and atrocious violence especially because it is premeditated as bestial: capable of snatching the life of at least 27 children (one is scattered) among the confirmed victims “reported Gospa News in the hours following the tragedy.
read more SRI LANKA CARNAGES: RIDDLE ABOUT THE ISIS IMAM
A bloody hatred shed by Sunni Jihadist Muslims against Christians in particular and against unfaithful Westerners in general: in an ocean of disturbing mysteries about the failure of intelligence alerted by the Muslims of Sri Lanka themselves.
Doubts that the 24 Islamic fundamentalists arrested by the police after the nine explosions (3 churches, 4 hotels, 1 supermarket, and 1 private house) are not enough to dispel the well-founded fear that only the wingmen and small fish of a powerful and articulate have ended up in prison network of terror capable of procuring pounds of explosives, men and vehicles to carry out its diabolical plan.
They are not enough to explain why the alleged mind, the imam loyal to Isis, has not been stopped before even though its danger is known to all, even reported by other Muslims.
A few days later the connections of Moulvi Zahran Hashim, the imam founder of the terrorists of the National Thowheed Jamath, with the suicide bombers of the wealthy family of an Islamic financier of the local communist party, then arrested, and those with Saudi Arabia: terrible for the full awareness of the intelligence of Riad on the time and places of the attacks…
Among the victims of the terrible attack, there are also survivors with permanent injuries. As the Open Doors reportage reports, among these, is the evangelical Christian Rebecca, 24 years old: her face has been partially disfigured by fire. Debbie, 6, however, lost her father Ranjith, her mother Verlini (Rebecca’s sister) and cousin Jackson.
She herself suffered serious injuries and lost her sight. Debbie only came home on June 20 after being confined to ICU for over a month. He is recovering from trauma and learning to walk again. His older brother Rufus and his grandmother still take her with him to church from time to time …
©2020 – Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio – COPYRIGHT GOSPA NEWS – ITALIAN VERSION
– no reproduction without authorization
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veteranstoday--2020-03-10--Debunking Christianity, Ten Knockout Punches: Number 1

The easy acceptance of the very terrible Given what we read in the New Testament , we are entitled to a few expectations about how the world should work—and about God ’ s involvement in it .
• “ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ?
Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father .
And even the hairs of your head are all counted .
So do not be afraid ; you are of more value than many sparrows.
” ( Matthew 10:29-30 ) • “ …on the day when , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through Jesus Christ , will judge the secret thoughts of all .
( Romans 2:16 ) • “ Truly I tell you , people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter ; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness , but is guilty of an eternal sin.
” ( Mark 3:28-29 ) This is intensive , intrusive theism .
Nothing in the natural world escapes God ’ s notice—even birds falling to the ground—and he knows the hair-count of every person .
Maybe these are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intent is to show how closely he watches , how carefully he pays attention .
Even to our thoughts : God is inside our heads ; he “ will judge the secret thoughts of all.
” He even monitors everything we say , so that he can catch people blaspheming the Holy Spirit .
We are being spied on .
Which would be fine , I suppose , if God took the responsibility—based upon his love and supposed power—that goes along with this supreme nosiness .
But given the way the world works—as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us to hope—God has much to answer for .
Jesus had a lot of nerve saying , “ Do not be afraid ” : “ Think about it .
A man approaches a school with a loaded assault rifle , intent on mass slaughter .
A loving person speaks to him , attempts to help him resolve his problems or to persuade him to stop , and failing that , punches him right in the kisser , and takes away his gun .
“ And a loving person with godlike powers could simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left the gun , or heal with a touch whatever insanity or madness ( or by teaching him , cure whatever ignorance ) led the man to contemplate the crime .
But God does nothing.
” ( Richard Carrier , Why I Am Not a Christian : Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith , p. 21 ) Carrier wrote this a year before the murder of 20 kids and six adults at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown , CT .
Surely , even devout Christians who think God has his eye @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s going on .
God couldn ’ t have done something to stop it ?
And it need not have been as dramatic as turning bullets into popcorn .
How about arranging for the gunman to have an accident on his way to the school ; cops show up , discover the rifle—and he ’ s under arrest .
A fender-bender is beyond the powers of the God who parted the Red Sea ?
That massacre , by the way , happened 14 December 2012 .
The nation was traumatized in the run-up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reconciled with a God who has his eye on sparrows ?
One pious woman , at a Christmas Eve dinner—during grace , no less—referenced the tragedy by saying , “ God must have wanted more angels.
” I was nauseated to the point of leaving the room .
This falls into a category I have labeled , Easy Acceptance of the Very Terrible .
“ Yes , it ’ s really bad , but we can ’ t be caught blaming God for anything.
” Christians assume that their god must have reasons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Sixteen years earlier , there was a less offensive stab at this kind of excuse-God theology , after a gunman killed 16 kids and their teacher at a primary school in Dunblane , Scotland .
One mourner left flowers outside the school , along with a Teddy Bear to which was attached a note , “ 13 March 1996 , The Day God Overslept.
” That was far less offensive than the wants-more-angels excuse : maybe God doesn ’ t pay attention to sparrows—or kids—after all .
God-Overslept is a compelling image @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In December 2004 , the Indian Ocean tsunami killed 225,000 people , and the following day when a Catholic colleague remarked how awful it was , I replied , “ Yes , God overslept again .
” He looked so stunned , so crestfallen .
Apparently his theology could accommodate a good God allowing this to happen : the easy acceptance of the very terrible .
What more evidence do we need that God is not paying attention ?
John A. Haught , who has written about religious madness ( Holy Horrors : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Madness ) , states the obvious ( what else can it be ) ?
“ Horrible occurrences such as the Indian Ocean tsunami that drowned 100,000 children prove clearly that the universe isn ’ t administered by an all-loving invisible father .
No compassionate creator would devise killer earthquakes and hurricanes—or breast cancer for women and leukemia for children—or hawks to rip rabbits apart and pythons to crush pigs and sharks to slaughter seals .
A creator who concocted such things would be crueler than people are…It doesn ’ t disprove the existence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wipes out the merciful god of churches.
” Christian amnesia kicks in right away , hence the 2004 tsunami is already a distant memory as the faithful cling to their God-of-the-Sparrows .
But much bigger calamities remain beyond their horizons of awareness ; events that weigh against God no longer make so much as a dent in their theology .
“ In October 1347…Genoese trading ships put into the harbor of Messina in Sicily with dead and dying men at the oars…The diseased sailors showed strange black swellings about the size of an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and groin .
The swellings oozed blood and pus and were followed by spreading boils and black blotches on the skin from internal bleeding .
The sick suffered severe pain and died quickly within five days of the first symptoms…everything that issued from the body—breath , sweat , blood from the buboes and lungs , bloody urine , and blood-blackened excrement—smelled foul .
Depression and despair accompanied their physical symptoms , and before the end ‘ death is seen seated on the face.
’ ” ( A Distant Mirror : The Calamitous 14th @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a third of the population between India and Iceland died this way .
“ In Paris , where the plague lasted through 1349 , the reported death rate was 800 a day , in Pisa 500 , in Vienna 500 to 600 .
The total dead in Paris numbered 50,000 or half the population.
” ( Tuchman , p. 99 ) “ Ignorance of the cause augmented the sense of horror…The actual plague bacillus , Pasturella pestis , remained undiscovered for another 500 years.
” ( p. 105 ) “ To the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one explanation—the wrath of God.
” ( p. 107 ) It would seem that , in his infinite wisdom , God had given Western Christendom a thousand pages of Bible without mentioning microbes ; in more than a thousand years of answering prayers , he had neglected to provide this crucial information as to why we get sick .
In response to the fervent prayers he heard during the plague years , he couldn ’ t have said , “ It ’ s the fleas , it ’ s the rats ” ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ human affairs ?
But God ’ s credibility took a hit .
Here is Tuchman ’ s killer paragraph : “ Survivors of the plague , finding themselves neither destroyed nor improved , could discover no Divine purpose in the pain they had suffered .
God ’ s purposes were usually mysterious , but this scourge had been too terrible to be accepted without questioning .
If a disaster of such magnitude , the most lethal ever known , was a mere wanton act of God or perhaps not God ’ s work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fixed order were loosed from their moorings .
Minds that opened to admit these questions could never again be shut .
Once people envisioned the possibility of change in a fixed order , the end of the age of submission came into sight ; the turn to individual conscience lay ahead .
To that extent the Black Death may have been the unrecognized beginning of modern man.
” ( p. 129 ) But many minds do remain shut .
If we ask most Christians today how they reconcile their God-is-good faith with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hear articulate answers—anything deeper than ‘ it ’ s a mystery ’ ?
Don ’ t bother consulting the professional apologists .
Not too long ago , one of them , here on the DC blog , said that the staggering total of those killed by the Black Plague amounted to just a small percentage of the human population that has ever lived .
Problem solved !
The failure of God ’ s compassion : ignored , forgiven .
Easy acceptance of the very terrible .
Humanity ’ s Other Scourge Can we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seem to be his domain , but apologists welcome the free will excuse as they survey battlefield carnage : sinful , wicked humankind—defying God—has to take the blame for war .
But , of course , they ’ re wrong .
It ’ s not at all that simple ; aggression necessary for survival has been built into our brains by evolution .
At the very least , couldn ’ t God set a good example ?
The Bible displays a cruel , warlike God , who fails basic anger management ; he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Old Testament prophets thundered endlessly about the destruction that sin would bring .
Yahweh commissioned the Israelites to pursue a scorched-earth policy in conquering the Promised Land , and when the Son of Man comes on the clouds , there will be more suffering than at the time of Noah .
Jesus himself is given script about coming , not to bring peace but a sword .
“ Onward Christian soldiers ” finds its justification in the Bible .
But why would God ’ s hands be tied once wars have begun @ @ @ @ @ @ @ War—good grief , thirty years—especially one fueled by religious hatreds ?
We ’ re asked to believe that God “ inspired ” a thousand pages of Bible , i.e.
, he controlled and directed minds to create scripture ; but he had no power to get people to change their minds about fighting and killing each other ?
To give them hints that killing each other over theology is immoral ?
Please , apologists , get your story straight about God ’ s power .
Don ’ t you even want it to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ complicit in the American Civil War : his Holy Word was used to justify slavery .
Each side knew that it had God on its side .
God had no means to let some people know they were on the wrong side ?
The early 20th century provides a frightful example of horrendous moral and natural evil coinciding .
John Loftus has noted the absence of the God-of-sparrows : “ In the same year that World War I ended in 1918 , which was a very good year , the most devastating plague @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more human beings suffered and died cruel deaths .
On the heels of the most horrific example of moral suffering comes the most horrific example of natural suffering .
God is good , right ?
Bullshit !
God did nothing in either case .
His only excuse is that he doesn ’ t exist.
” ( Debunking Christianity Blog , Nov 12 , 2018 ) As pious folks adore their loving God , does the flu pandemic even register ?
But even if does—so what ?
—the adoration continues : the easy acceptance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ willing to let gene mutation—in the great evolutional scheme of things—take the blame for thousands of genetic diseases ?
If they deny that evolution is real , then the Intelligent Designer has to be responsible .
Even those who accept evolution are often confident that God has the power to knock out disease—such is intensive , intrusive theism—otherwise , why pray fervently for God to act ?
Indeed , why would God need to be coaxed ?
One of the most agonizing aspects of human existence is mental illness .
Here the suffering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ centuries .
Only in very recent times have we begun to understand disorders of the mind , to develop treatments and medications .
So much human anguish has taken place under God ’ s watchful eye !
Why no interventions , no revelations ?
And why would a good God represent mental illness as demon possession in his holy book ?
Let me revisit James Haught ’ s comment , “ …no compassionate creator would devise …hawks to rip rabbits apart and pythons to crush pigs and sharks to slaughter seals .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crueler than people are.
” Animal suffering has been the rule on this planet far , far longer than human suffering .
Would a responsible agent have designed it this way ?
There ’ s a lot of evidence to indicate otherwise .
“ So Christians , ” Richard Carrier points out , “ feel compelled to contrive more ad hoc excuses to explain away the evidence—more speculations about free will , or ‘ mysterious plans , ’ or a desire to test us or increase opportunities for us to do good , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like that .
And yet Christians again have no evidence any of these excuses are actually true .
They simply ‘ make them up ’ in order to explain away their theory.
” ( Carrier , Why I Am Not a Christian , p. 22 ) Despite this modus operandi , Christian apologetics remains a robust industry .
There ’ s a huge bureaucracy—including millions of salaries—to keep in place , trying to sustain the ancient Jesus mystery cult in which so many people have intense emotional investment .
Speaking of the classical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ …Christianity bequeathed to it members a pervasive sense of a personal God ’ s direct interest in human affairs and vital concern for every human soul… ” ( The Passion of the Western Mind : Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View , p. 116 ) .
That was the gimmick , reinforced by many Bible texts , not just those quoted at the outset .
But this view of the world has been falsified .
The idea that a compassionate God pays careful attention to each one of us is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experience is that the Cosmos is indifferent .
Ratcheting up denial—feeling Jesus in your heart , for example—is a pathetic coping strategy .
We really don ’ t need more knockout punches , do we ?
But there are nine more to come .
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years , and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University .
His book , Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief : a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith , was reissued last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Foreword by John Loftus .

“…on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. (Romans 2:16)
“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” (Mark 3:28-29)
This is intensive, intrusive theism. Nothing in the natural world escapes God’s notice—even birds falling to the ground—and he knows the hair-count of every person. Maybe these are just metaphors? Perhaps, but the intent is to show how closely he watches, how carefully he pays attention. Even to our thoughts: God is inside our heads; he “will judge the secret thoughts of all.” He even monitors everything we say so that he can catch people blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
We are being spied on. Which would be fine, I suppose, if God took the responsibility—based upon his love and supposed power—that goes along with this supreme nosiness. But given the way the world works—as opposed to what these verses might lead us to hope—God has much to answer for. Jesus had a lot of nerve saying, “Do not be afraid”:
“Think about it. A man approaches a school with a loaded assault rifle, intent on mass slaughter. A loving person speaks to him, attempts to help him resolve his problems or to persuade him to stop, and failing that, punches him right in the kisser, and takes away his gun.
“And a loving person with godlike powers could simply turn his bullets into popcorn as they left the gun, or heal with a touch whatever insanity or madness (or by teaching him, cure whatever ignorance) led the man to contemplate the crime. But God does nothing.” (Richard Carrier, Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith, p. 21)
Carrier wrote this a year before the murder of 20 kids and six adults at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, CT. Surely, even devout Christians who think God has his eye on sparrows must wonder what’s going on. God couldn’t have done something to stop it? And it need not have been as dramatic as turning bullets into popcorn. How about arranging for the gunman to have an accident on his way to the school; cops show up, discover the rifle—and he’s under arrest. A fender-bender is beyond the powers of the God who parted the Red Sea?
That massacre, by the way, happened 14 December 2012. The nation was traumatized in the run-up to Christmas. How could this be reconciled with a God who has his eye on sparrows? One pious woman, at a Christmas Eve dinner—during grace, no less—referenced the tragedy by saying, “God must have wanted more angels.” I was nauseated to the point of leaving the room. This falls into a category I have labeled, Easy Acceptance of the Very Terrible. “Yes, it’s really bad, but we can’t be caught blaming God for anything.” Christians assume that their god must have reasons for tolerating even the most horrific stuff.
Sixteen years earlier, there was a less offensive stab at this kind of excuse-God theology, after a gunman killed 16 kids and their teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. One mourner left flowers outside the school, along with a Teddy Bear to which was attached a note, “13 March 1996, The Day God Overslept.” That was far less offensive than the wants-more-angels excuse: maybe God doesn’t pay attention to sparrows—or kids—after all.
God-Overslept is a compelling image, and it stuck with me. In December 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami killed 225,000 people, and the following day when a Catholic colleague remarked how awful it was, I replied, “Yes, God overslept again. ” He looked so stunned, so crestfallen. Apparently his theology could accommodate a good God allowing this to happen: the easy acceptance of the very terrible.
What more evidence do we need that God is not paying attention to? John A. Haught, who has written about religious madness (Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness), states the obvious (what else can it be)?
“Horrible occurrences such as the Indian Ocean tsunami that drowned 100,000 children prove clearly that the universe isn’t administered by an all-loving invisible father. No compassionate creator would devise killer earthquakes and hurricanes—or breast cancer for women and leukemia for children—or hawks to rip rabbits apart and pythons to crush pigs and sharks to slaughter seals. A creator who concocted such things would be crueler than people are…It doesn’t disprove the existence of a heartless god, but it wipes out the merciful god of churches.”
Christian amnesia kicks in right away, hence the 2004 tsunami is already a distant memory as the faithful cling to their God-of-the-Sparrows. But much bigger calamities remain beyond their horizons of awareness; events that weigh against God no longer make so much as a dent in their theology.
Listen to Barbara W. Tuchman:
“In October 1347…Genoese trading ships put into the harbor of Messina in Sicily with dead and dying men at the oars…The diseased sailors showed strange black swellings about the size of an egg or an apple in the armpits and groin. The swellings oozed blood and pus and were followed by spreading boils and black blotches on the skin from internal bleeding. The sick suffered severe pain and died quickly within five days of the first symptoms…everything that issued from the body—breath, sweat, blood from the buboes and lungs, bloody urine, and blood-blackened excrement—smelled foul. Depression and despair accompanied their physical symptoms, and before the end ‘death is seen seated on the face.’” (A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, p. 96)
As much as a third of the population between India and Iceland died this way. “In Paris, where the plague lasted through 1349, the reported death rate was 800 a day, in Pisa 500, in Vienna 500 to 600. The total dead in Paris numbered 50,000 or half the population.” (Tuchman, p. 99)
“Ignorance of the cause augmented the sense of horror…The actual plague bacillus, Pasturella pestis, remained undiscovered for another 500 years.” (p. 105) “To the people at large there could be but one explanation—the wrath of God.” (p. 107)
It would seem that, in his infinite wisdom, God had given Western Christendom a thousand pages of Bible without mentioning microbes; in more than a thousand years of answering prayers, he had neglected to provide this crucial information as to why we get sick. In response to the fervent prayers he heard during the plague years, he couldn’t have said, “It’s the fleas, it’s the rats”?
Does this qualify as wise management of human affairs? But God’s credibility took a hit. Here is Tuchman’s killer paragraph:
“Survivors of the plague, finding themselves neither destroyed nor improved, could discover no Divine purpose in the pain they had suffered. God’s purposes were usually mysterious, but this scourge had been too terrible to be accepted without questioning. If a disaster of such magnitude, the most lethal ever known, was a mere wanton act of God or perhaps not God’s work at all, then the absolutes of a fixed order were loosed from their moorings. Minds that opened to admit these questions could never again be shut. Once people envisioned the possibility of change in a fixed order, the end of the age of submission came into sight; the turn to individual conscience lay ahead. To that extent, the Black Death may have been the unrecognized beginning of modern man.” (p. 129)
But many minds do remain shut. If we ask most Christians today how they reconcile their God-is-good faith with this 14th-century calamity, will we hear articulate answers—anything deeper than ‘it’s a mystery’? Don’t bother consulting the professional apologists. Not too long ago, one of them, here on the DC blog, said that the staggering total of those killed by the Black Plague amounted to just a small percentage of the human population that has ever lived. Problem solved! The failure of God’s compassion: ignored, forgiven. Easy acceptance of the very terrible.
Humanity’s Other Scourge
Can we blame God for war? The disease would seem to be his domain, but apologists welcome the free will excuse as they survey battlefield carnage: sinful, wicked humankind—defying God—has to take the blame for the war. But, of course, they’re wrong. It’s not at all that simple; aggression necessary for survival has been built into our brains by evolution.
At the very least, couldn’t God set a good example? The Bible displays a cruel, warlike God, who fails basic anger management; he drowns humanity almost at the outset. The Old Testament prophets thundered endlessly about the destruction that sin would bring. Yahweh commissioned the Israelites to pursue a scorched-earth policy in conquering the Promised Land, and when the Son of Man comes on the clouds, there will be more suffering than at the time of Noah. Jesus himself is given a script about coming, not to bring peace but a sword. “Onward Christian soldiers” finds its justification in the Bible.
But why would God’s hands be tied once wars have begun? Why would he tolerate a Thirty-Years War—good grief, thirty years—especially one fueled by religious hatreds? We’re asked to believe that God “inspired” a thousand pages of Bible, i.e., he controlled and directed minds to create scripture; but he had no power to get people to change their minds about fighting and killing each other? To give them hints that killing each other over theology is immoral? Please, apologists, get your story straight about God’s power. Don’t you even want it to make sense?
Surely God was even complicit in the American Civil War: his Holy Word was used to justify slavery. Each side knew that it had God on its side. God had no means to let some people know they were on the wrong side?
The early 20th century provides a frightful example of horrendous moral and natural evil coinciding. John Loftus has noted the absence of the God-of-sparrows:
“In the same year that World War I ended in 1918, which was a very good year, the most devastating plague hit the world in which 20-40 million more human beings suffered and died cruel deaths. On the heels of the most horrific example of moral suffering comes the most horrific example of natural suffering. God is good, right? Bullshit! God did nothing in either case. His only excuse is that he doesn’t exist.” (Debunking Christianity Blog, Nov 12, 2018) As pious folks adore their loving God, does the flu pandemic even register? But even if does—so what?—the adoration continues the easy acceptance of the very terrible.
Back to God’s Undisputed Domain
Are Christians willing to let gene mutation—in the great evolutional scheme of things—take the blame for thousands of genetic diseases? If they deny that evolution is real, then the Intelligent Designer has to be responsible. Even those who accept evolution are often confident that God has the power to knock out disease—such is intensive, intrusive theism—otherwise, why pray fervently for God to act? Indeed, why would God need to be coaxed?
One of the most agonizing aspects of human existence is mental illness. Here the suffering has been immense, for so many centuries. Only in very recent times have we begun to understand disorders of the mind, to develop treatments and medications. So much human anguish has taken place under God’s watchful eye! Why no interventions, no revelations? And why would a good God represent mental illness as demon possession in his holy book?
Let me revisit James Haught’s comment, “…no compassionate creator would devise …hawks to rip rabbits apart and pythons to crush pigs and sharks to slaughter seals. A creator who concocted such things would be crueler than people are.” Animal suffering has been the rule on this planet far, far longer than human suffering. Would a responsible agent have designed it this way?
There’s a lot of evidence to indicate otherwise.
“So Christians,” Richard Carrier points out, “feel compelled to contrive more ad hoc excuses to explain away the evidence—more speculations about free will, or ‘mysterious plans,’ or a desire to test us or increase opportunities for us to do good, and a whole line of other stuff like that. And yet Christians again have no evidence any of these excuses are actually true. They simply ‘make them up’ in order to explain away their theory.” (Carrier, Why I Am Not a Christian, p. 22)
Despite this modus operandi, Christian apologetics remains a robust industry. There’s a huge bureaucracy—including millions of salaries—to keep in place, trying to sustain the ancient Jesus mystery cult in which so many people have an intense emotional investment.
Speaking of the classical world, Richard Tarnas observed that “…Christianity bequeathed to it members a pervasive sense of a personal God’s direct interest in human affairs and vital concern for every human soul…” (The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View, p. 116). That was the gimmick, reinforced by many Bible texts, not just those quoted at the outset.
But this view of the world has been falsified. The idea that a compassionate God pays careful attention to each one of us is indefensible. The strong evidence of human experience is that the Cosmos is indifferent. Ratcheting up denial—feeling Jesus in your heart, for example—is a pathetic coping strategy.
We really don’t need more knockout punches, do we? But there are nine more to come.
About Author: David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years and has a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University. His book, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, was reissued last year by Tellectual Press with a new Foreword by John Loftus.
About Author: David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years and has a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University. His book, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, was reissued last year by Tellectual Press with a new Foreword by John Loftus.
Debunking Christianity: Ten Knockout Punches


veteranstoday--2020-03-10--Are AIPAC Infections a New 9/11?  18,000 Possible Infected now in all 50 states..

Haaretz/Tel Aviv– A man from Ohio who attended the AIPAC policy conference in Washington last week has tested positive for the novel coronavirus , Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said in a statement released Monday , bringing to total of cases linked to the event to four .
The three previous cases at the pro-Israel lobby ’ s conference were diagnosed in New York and Los Angeles .
“ This disease will for a period significantly disturb and disrupt our lives , ” DeWine said .
Ohio has declared an emergency situation to deal with the outbreak .
A Los Angeles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saturday confirmed a third patient , without mentioning whether this person contracted COVID-19 at AIPAC , or if they had already caught it before the conference , which took place from last Saturday until Tuesday and drew about 18,000 participants .
Several Israelis who attended the conference and returned to Israel before AIPAC ’ s announcement gave different accounts on how Israeli authorities handled their arrival from Washington .
On Monday , Israel expanded its quarantine order to include all arrivals , but the order only applies as of Monday for Israelis and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not been instructed to go into quarantine since returning , ” said one Israeli who had spoken at the conference .
“ I also called the government hotline and was told there are no special instructions regarding the conference .
I canceled some plans I had for this week , but am not fully in quarantine.
” Another participant who attended two days of the conference and is now in Israel also expressed confusion : “ I read in the news that people who attended international gatherings are instructed to be quarantined at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sure if that applies to AIPAC .
I haven ’ t received any direct instructions.
” “ I was told that I don ’ t need to be in quarantine according to Health Ministry regulations , ” another Israeli who spoke at the conference told Haaretz on Saturday , “ but I ’ m mostly staying indoors anyway , just in case.
” In the United States , no specific instructions have been given to anyone who attended the conference .

Is this an Israeli terror attack on the US?
Fourth AIPAC Conference Attendee Tests Positive for Coronavirus
‘This disease will for a period significantly disturb and disrupt our lives,’ Ohio governor says, reporting another confirmed case
Haaretz/Tel Aviv – A man from Ohio who attended the AIPAC policy conference in Washington last week has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said in a statement released Monday, bringing to a total of cases linked to the event to four.
The three previous cases at the pro-Israel lobby’s conference were diagnosed in New York and Los Angeles.
“This disease will for a period significantly disturb and disrupt our lives,” DeWine said. Ohio has declared an emergency situation to deal with the outbreak.
A Los Angeles County Department of Public Health statement on Saturday confirmed the third patient, without mentioning whether this person contracted COVID-19 at AIPAC, or if they had already caught it before the conference, which took place from last Saturday until Tuesday and drew about 18,000 participants.
On Friday, AIPAC sent out an email to its mailing list saying that two New York residents who attended the conference have tested positive for the coronavirus. A day earlier, the pro-Israeli lobby emailed event participants, saying that a delegation from a New York synagogue had been in contact with a person who had the virus before the event. The announcements stirred confusion and concern among other conference attendees both in the United States and in Israel.
Several Israelis who attended the conference and returned to Israel before AIPAC’s announcement gave different accounts on how Israeli authorities handled their arrival from Washington. On Monday, Israel expanded its quarantine order to include all arrivals, but the order only applies as of Monday for Israelis and Thursday for foreigners.
“I have not been instructed to go into quarantine since returning,” said one Israeli who had spoken at the conference. “I also called the government hotline and was told there are no special instructions regarding the conference. I canceled some plans I had for this week, but I am not fully in quarantine.”
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Another participant who attended two days of the conference and is now in Israel also expressed confusion: “I read in the news that people who attended international gatherings are instructed to be quarantined at home, but I’m not sure if that applies to AIPAC. I haven’t received any direct instructions.”
“I was told that I don’t need to be in quarantine according to Health Ministry regulations,” another Israeli who spoke at the conference told Haaretz on Saturday, “but I’m mostly staying indoors anyway, just in case.”
In the United States, no specific instructions have been given to anyone who attended the conference.


veteranstoday--2020-03-09--COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy Causes Prison Riots

Six inmates were killed in a prison riot in Italy and guards were taken hostage at another jail , as unrest spread in prisons across the country over measures to contain the coronavirus , including restrictions on visits .
Italy ’ s government has imposed a virtual lockdown across much of its wealthy northern regions at the epicenter of the contagion , in an effort to contain the coronavirus which as of Sunday had killed 366 people .
In a TV interview , the head of Italy ’ s prison administration Francesco Basentini said three inmates had died inside a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and three others had died after being transferred away from the prison .
“ There have been a series of rebellions across the country , ” Basentini said.Video shown on Italian television showed police and fire trucks outside the prison as black smoke swirled into the sky .
The justice ministry said fires had been set at a number of prisons causing severe damage .
Prison guards union Sappe said two guards had been taken hostage in the northern city of Pavia and were released after a police raid .
In an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ imposed limits on direct contact between inmates and their families .
Prisoners will be allowed to contact visitors by phone or other remote methods under the measures , in place until March 22 .
Modena and Pavia are within the red zone that the government has established to limit the coronavirus contagion .
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Health Editor’s Note: Italy is taking COVID-19 seriously!…Carol
Complex Emergency in Italy on March 09 2020 02:37 PM (UTC)
Six inmates were killed in a prison riot in Italy and guards were taken hostage at another jail, as unrest spread in prisons across the country over measures to contain the coronavirus, including restrictions on visits. Italy’s government has imposed a virtual lockdown across much of its wealthy northern regions at the epicenter of the contagion, in an effort to contain the coronavirus which as of Sunday had killed 366 people.
In a TV interview, the head of Italy’s prison administration Francesco Basentini said three inmates had died inside a jail in the northern town of Modena, and three others had died after being transferred away from the prison. “There have been a series of rebellions across the country,” Basentini said. Video shown on Italian television showed police and fire trucks outside the prison as black smoke swirled into the sky. The justice ministry said fires had been set at a number of prisons causing severe damage.
Prison guards union Sappe said two guards had been taken hostage in the northern city of Pavia and were released after a police raid. In an emergency decree on Sunday, the government imposed limits on direct contact between inmates and their families. Prisoners will be allowed to contact visitors by phone or other remote methods under the measures, in place until March 22. Modena and Pavia are within the red zone that the government has established to limit the coronavirus contagion.