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This Week’s Worldwide News with Ray
Islamic terrorists…a plane crash…Germany divided…suicide bombers…a hydrogen bomb…friendly fire…”LA Law”…Frank Sinatra Junior…President Obama says “Show me the money!”… And the question of the day: “Is marriage just a load of rubbish?” You may change your mind after you hear Ray right now. He’s got it all.
This is Ray Mossholder.
Yesterday was a very satisfying day for French President François Hollande when he learned that two more of the November 13th Paris mass murderers had been caught.
Two of their friends, Mohamed Belkaid and Hasna Alt Boulahcen, a woman, were shot and killed during a police raid on a terraced townhouse in Brussels, Belgium.
Salah Abdeslam, the number one fugitive on Europe’s “Most Wanted” list, was captured, and so was Monir Ahmed Alaaj, who was also being hunted for the 130 slain late last year in France.
Abdeslam was shot in the leg during the raid.
The three men and the woman had been living for four months in a terraced townhouse next to a pharmacy in the Saint Denise area of Brussels.
For weeks, detectives had carefully zeroed in on that house. Finally, they were satisfied with what they’d observed.
Police first evacuated the area surrounding the townhouse, and then, drawing their guns, the raid was on.
Abdeslam could have died as a suicide bomber the night of the Paris attacks. Three of the terrorists did die that night exactly that way.
That was the plan. His brother had already detonated himself. But the 26-year-old Salah decided he wanted to live.
Nine of the terrorists who staged the Paris attacks are now dead.
Mohamed Abrini is still at large and as of yesterday became the newest number one fugitive on Europe’s “Most Wanted” list.
All 62 people on board a Russian plane flying from Dubai to Rostov–on–Don, Russia.
Although an investigation is proceeding to determine the cause of the plane crash, near zero visibility has been blamed.
The Fly Dubai Boeing 737–800 attempted to land twice. On the second attempt, the plane smashed into the runway and exploded.
The black box that carries the final words of the pilot has not yet been found.
Chancellor Angela Merkel was Time Magazine’s “Person Of The Year for 2015”. But she evidently wouldn’t have had the same honor in her own country. What’s wrong with Angela? Her big heart.
In national elections in Germany this past weekend voters couldn’t have been more harsh. To say that Angela Merkel was humiliated would be a very kind remark.
Party names that are as common in Germany as Republican or Democrat are here at home, have torn a huge hole in Angela’s centerleft Christian Democratic Union.
The “Euroseptic AfD ” party has won big over Angela’s Christian Democratic Party and wants Germany to pull out of the European Union. They have also declared illegal immigrants should be gunned down by German border guards!
Their leader is Frauke Petry, a woman who leads a party that is with all their heart and soul anti-illegal immigrant and anti-EU.
And they and the Greens Party, which is a Siamese twin to America’s Green Party, won with an overwhelming victory on Sunday, capturing three areas of Germany that had been strong supporters of their Prime Minister until now.
At first, when the illegal aliens started to enter through German borders last year, the German citizenry met them with open arms and were warm and friendly. Following Angela Merkel’s advice, they wanted to make the 1.1 million who entered their borders feel at home.
Angela, like Governor Jerry Brown of California and President Obama, threw out the welcome mat and eagerly rejoiced over the more than a million new people in her country, half of them Syrian.
But then everything changed except the Chancellor’s thinking.
The migrants in Cologne and several other German cities, celebrated New Year’s Eve by raping many German women in the streets.
Frauke Petry said “We thought the puppies were darling until we found out they had rabies and that all of them bite hard.”
Germany’s citizens changed their minds about the immigrants overnight.
That change has taken place not only in Germany, but all over Europe, one by one, as the member states defy the EU and build Trump-style walls to keep the illegals out.
And this past weekend, German voters flooded millions of ballot boxes and said with their votes that they want a wall too.
Angela, herself, won’t face a personal election until 2017. But her nation has spoken loud and clear.
For weeks prior to the election, Ms. Merkel tried to tone down her enthusiasm for the foreigners and ordered more careful screening at the German borders. But that wasn’t enough for Germany’s people.
In many places, Angela’s center–left Christian Democratic Union lost by more than twenty points.
The EU has insisted that its member nations receive the millions of illegal immigrants like Angela has done and insists that she will continue doing it.
Angela Merkel will face an election in September 2017. What she does between now and then will cause the German people to decide whether they want her to lead them any further.
Ms. Merkel has acted ever since the elections as if they never even happened. She is still “full speed ahead” in keeping Germany’s borders open.
It was rush hour in Ankara, Turkey, early Sunday evening of last week. Suddenly traffic ground to a halt and many drivers fled their cars.
Two suicide bombers, one of them a woman, blew themselves up and took 35 Turkish lives with them.
It was a recurring theme that has been played out in Turkey since early last year.
This time the two Kurdish militants, suicide–bombed people on a crowded downtown street.
At least 125 others were wounded. Many set on fire. They were people simply people waiting for a bus.
The exploding car was full of pellets and nails intended to create a massive amount of injury and carnage.
Sadly, it worked.
Besides the 29 deaths, 125 people were being treated for injuries, 19 of them in serious condition, requiring 10 different hospitals to treat them.
29 people initially believed involved in causing the attack were arrested, ten are still being held and ten more are being searched for.
In response to the suicide bombing, Turkish fighter planes bombed 18 positions of the Kurdistan Workers Party in Iraq.
The bombings included the Quanil Mountains where the Kurdish leaders are based
Cars that had been parked along the streets were completely destroyed, torn apart by the blast.
This was the second suicide–car bombing in Ankara in less than a month. In February, the sleep go to sleep have a thank you go to sleep 29 people were killed in a similar way.
Turkey is fighting both Isis and the Kurds on Turkish soil.
Both bombings were in the area close to the Prime Minister’s office, Parliament and foreign embassies.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed he would bring terrorism “to its knees” because of attacks like this.
But he will have to wait to do that because this morning at 11 AM, Turkey was struck again – this time in Istanbul – on its main shopping street – just outside a government office.
Five people were killed
and another thirty-six wounded, including 10 Israelis.
Two Israelis with dual US citizenship and an Iranian were among those killed.
British singer Skin wrote on Facebook that the blast went off near her Istanbul hotel and the buildings there “shook like paper”.
This is the second suicide bombing already this year in Istanbul.
The first one came on January 12th in the historic Sultanahmet district, in a park near a German built fountain.
A group of tourists were standing near a German built fountain when a suicide bomber stepped into their midst and blew himself up.
The blast killed 13, 12 of them Germans, and injured fourteen others in the group.
Turkey is the fifth most visited country in the world.
Truth or fiction? The wild man who is the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, said last Sunday that North Korea is now capable of sending a ballistic missile into the heart of New York City that would be carrying a hydrogen bomb.
DPRK, the official state run news outlet in North Korea said “If this H-bomb were to be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City, all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn down to ashes.”
North Korean nuclear scientist Cho Hyong joined in. He said “Our newly developed hydrogen bomb surpasses our imagination.”
The H-bomb developed by the Soviet Union was able to smash windows of buildings 1000 kilometers away and the heat was strong enough to cause third-degree burns 100 kilometers away.”
(A thousand kilometers is about 625 miles; 100 kilometers is about 62.5 miles.)
The Pentagon has known already that with the advancements in North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile program, it is possible right now for the demented Kim Jong Un to order a strike that would be able to hit the United States West Coast.
But they are skeptical about it being able to travel all the way to the East Coast.
Do you know the difference between an atom bomb and a hydrogen bomb? I’m sure not a scientist, but let me try to explain it.
The typical atom bomb requires nuclear fission alone. They are usually made of plutonium or enriched uranium.
The energy that releases is beyond imagination. In 1945, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were widely destroyed when America under President Truman released atom bombs on both cities. 200,000 Japanese citizens were instantly vaporized.
But to create a hydrogen bomb, atoms are melded together and an atomic bomb has to be used just to kickstart it!
The first hydrogen bomb was detonated on a pacific atoll by American scientists in 1952.
They found that it was more than 500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb used on Japan’s two cities.
Imagine Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland Oregon or Seattle Washington was struck with this killer bomb, let alone the East Coast. God, may it never happen.
Kim Jong Un has warned the world that such a bomb is ready to launch and he may decide to launch it at any moment.
President Obama has tightened fiscal sanctions on North Korea
Once again, North Korea launched to ballistic missiles off the West Coast of the Korean Peninsula yesterday.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement “If the North continues to make provocations despite the stern warnings made by our military, it is inevitable for us to roll out the strict response that may lead to the destruction of the Pyongyang regime.”
The tragic death of Afro-American Detective Jacai Colson in Prince George County, Maryland, was even more tragic because it came from friendly fire.
Prince George County’s Police chief Hank Stawinski told reporters “The shot that struck and killed Detective Colson was deliberately aimed at it by another police officer.
It’s another tragic dimension to this unfolding story.”
Stawinski said the shooting happened in the midst of utter chaos. “We had officers under fire immediately, trying to seek cover.
As I have seen the facts and as they had been explained to me, there was no intention to indicate any malice or anything along those lines.”
Detective Colson was in plainclothes and wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest when the jumped out of his unmarked car last Sunday.
Colson had intended to confront a gunman outside a police station.
22-year-old Michael Ford has been arrested and accused of initiating the shootout with the police.
His brothers – 18-year-old Elijah and 21-year-old Malik – have also been charged with ten counts, including first-degree assault, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder.
The brothers were filming Michael as he took his forty caliber handgun and opened fire on police.
State Attorney Angela Alsobrooks they are held without bond.
Twice in a row Emmy Awards winner Larry Drake has died.
Larry was loved for his sensitive portrayal of mentally challenged office worker Benny Stulwicz in the long-running television series “L. A. Law”.
He was an actor in TV, film and stage.
About the character of Benny, Larry Drake explained to the Associated Press in 1989 “I portray Benny not as a stereotype but as a man with a full range of emotions.
And that seems to surprise people – that such characters can feel as much as they feel, and note as much as they note.”
Drake was a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He wrote the mystery-comedy play “Whodunnit, Darling?”
Most recently he had been teaching acting.
Drake had suffered from weight problems for 30 years.
He was 66.
There are very few people in the Western world who don’t know the name Frank Sinatra and who he was.
And I hope you got a chance to hear Frank Sinatra Junior sing. He was nearly as good as his dad.
The world has a little less rich music in it now because Frank Sinatra Junior died of a massive heart attack in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Wednesday night.
Frank Junior had been in Daytona Beach to perform his father’s famous songs and tell about his dad’s life.
He toured the United States and the world doing that. His performances were called “Sinatra sings Sinatra”.
He was 72.
Frank Sinatra Junior was kidnapped at the age of 19. He was already a singer then.
Rescued, he continued to sing.
Though his career never reached the top of the charts like his dad constantly did, he was delighted to be recognized as Sinatra’s son.
Among his highlights, Frank Sinatra Junior was his father’s musical director and conductor.
And he performed the National Anthem at a New York Yankees game last year.
If you’ve never heard Frank Sinatra Junior sing, I highly recommend that you go on iTunes and download him.
Here’s an interesting question: When was the last time you received an 18% raise in your salary? That’s what President Obama has on his wish list.
The problem is, he’s absolutely serious.
Under a Democrat-sponsored bill introduced to the Senate by Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, all federal employees would receive an across-the-board pay raise of 5.3% next year.
The bill is co-sponsored by Democrats Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
That figure is more than three times what president Obama has proposed.
He has asked for a 1.6% pay raise for federal workers in 2017.
But that’s for them, not for him
President Obama once an 18% increase in his retirement package after he leaves office.
According to the Congressional Research Service it’s one of the items in the highly inflated federal budget that is before Congress for fiscal years 2016 and 2017.
Poor President Obama. All he will get if he doesn’t receive his wanted pay raise is a 199,000,700 dollar pension for life.
Of course, that doesn’t take into consideration the $96,000 a year that is meant to pay for office staff payroll.
All postage is free for the rest of his life.
The president is granted a host of other benefits that very often add up to more than the amount of the pension payment – over $200,000 per year.
So, without an 18% increase, the president will receive far above $400,000 a year. But we’ve really just started.
Our president in or out of the White House is free to write his memoirs – a hot selling item that millions of readers will want to buy.
He or she can join corporate boards once they’re retired. They can give speeches, and we already know how much the Clintons make doing that.
Oh, you don’t know what those amounts are. Well, Bill Clinton made $65 million in speaking fees alone up till now and another $15 million for his published memoirs.
I won’t even go into what Hillary makes because you might think I was being political.
Ex-presidents earned nothing after retiring until 1958 when Congress put in place the Former Presidents Act, granting all that I’ve just told you.
There have been some sad things happen to ex-presidents before 1958.
Thomas Jefferson had to sell his personal library. That was the beginning of the Library of Congress.
James Monroe was worse off than that. He died in abject poverty.
If you think the presidents who retire from office to serve 18% more than millions, contact your congressperson now and urge them to give it to him.
If you don’t think retired presidents should get 18% raises, contact your congresspeople and tell them so.
Wouldn’t it be nice to get an 18% raise in your salary?
And finally…I recently heard a man say “Marriage is just a load of rubbish”.
Then tonight I read that Carla Squitieri of Chesterfield, Missouri, could have easily said “My wedding ring is just a load of rubbish.”
Or, more precisely, she did say “My wedding ring is in a load of rubbish!”
And Carla wasn’t talking about just any wedding ring. She was talking about her $400,000 wedding ring!
Both her husband and her searched high and low throughout their mansion and came up with an absolute zero. They had to face it, the ring was gone.
Then, in horror, Carla realized what she must’ve done. She had accidentally dropped her $400,000 wedding ring in the trash.
And the garbage collectors had already picked up that trash and hauled it away.
That’s when Joe Evans came to the rescue. Thank the heavens for Joe Evans! He’s the operations manager for Meridian Waste Services in Chesterfield.
The garbage truck was headed for a dump that was radioactive!
But in hearing the plight of the Squitieris’ Joe quickly rerouted the load of rubbish and $400,000 ring.
The truck dumped its load in a different dump what they only had to sort through all the garbage of 900 houses. What a blessing!
They held their noses and began sorting through used ketchup bottles, grapefruit peels, empty boxes of Rice Krispies, and a whole lot worse stuff.
They only had to do this for a half hour. Then “Eureka!” The 12.5 carat diamond ring was found in a garbage bag sealed by Carla.
There were tears of joy and showers at the Squitieri’s mention and then a scrubbing of the ring.
And now I know what that man must have meant when I heard him say “Marriage is just a load of rubbish”.
This is Ray Mossholder from the Reach More Now news desk in Fort Worth, Texas. And, you can see Carla’s ring on the Drudge Report.com
I’ll be back with more world news as the world turns.
This Week’s Worldwide News with Ray
This Week"s Worldwide News with Ray