Japanese Men Were Planning to Fight for ISIS, Police Say!

The Tokyo police said Monday that they were investigating several Japanese men suspected of planning to go to Syria to fight for the jihadist group Islamic State. The police provided few details of the men, whom they described as university students in their 20s who were not actively attending classes.



They said one of the men, identified as a 26-year-old student at a university in Hokkaido, was recruited by the Islamic State via the Internet. The authorities said the men were the first Japanese suspected of wanting to join the Islamic State.

The police offered no additional information. However, the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s biggest newspapers, quoted an unnamed police source as saying that at least one of the men was recruited through a bookstore in Akihabara, a Tokyo neighborhood that is a center of youth culture.

The newspaper said the bookstore posted an advertisement offering unspecified work in Syria, and telling anyone interested to contact the store. The report said that the 26-year-old student might have responded to that advertisement.

The newspaper quoted the police as saying the man intended to depart for Syria on Tuesday. It said that he had never been to Syria before, and that the police had confiscated his passport to prevent him from going.

The Asahi Shimbun said the police were also investigating the owner and employees of the bookstore for connections to the Islamic State.

In Japan, engaging in war acts against a foreign government is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
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American Held by ISIS Says He Is ‘Pretty Scared to Die’!

Days after the apparent beheading of a British hostage held by Sunni militants in Syria, the parents of a 26-year-old American similarly threatened have released parts of a letter from him in which he says he is “obviously pretty scared to die.”



But the American, Abdul-Rahman Kassig, an aid worker and medic who converted to Islam last year, said in the letter, released late Sunday, that “the hardest part is not knowing, wondering, hoping and wondering if I should even hope at all.”

The letter was said to have been dated June 2, more than two months before the militants first claimed publicly to have decapitated a Western captive, the American journalist James Foley.

Last week, Mr. Kassig was shown in a video from the Islamic State militant group that purported to show the decapitation of a British taxi driver, Alan Henning. Mr. Henning was taken prisoner last December as he tried to deliver humanitarian relief supplies in Syria.

The news of his death dominated newspaper headlines and talk-show conversations in Britain, increasing pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to extend Britain’s participation in the air campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, and join American warplanes in attacks on targets in Syria. Mr. Cameron, like President Obama, has ruled out the deployment of ground forces. 

Last month, Parliament limited the role played by British Tornado warplanes, which are based in Cyprus, to hitting targets in Iraq. But in the anger aroused by Mr. Henning’s death, some Britons have called for the deployment of Special Forces to hunt down the man portrayed in successive Islamic State videos as the killer of four captives so far: two American and two British. 

The masked figure speaks with what seems to be a British accent. In a statement accompanying the portions of the letter they released, Ed and Paula Kassig of Indianapolis, the captive’s parents, urged people to refer to their son by the name he adopted upon converting to Islam, Abdul-Rahman, and not by his birth name, Peter. 

The parents have said that their son spent “a brief time in the U.S. military” before traveling to Lebanon in 2012 on spring break from college “to work there as a medic and humanitarian worker.”



In his letter, Mr. Kassig wrote: “I am very sad that all this has happened and for what all of you back home are going through. If I do die, I figure that at least you and I can seek refuge and comfort in knowing that I went out as a result of trying to alleviate suffering and helping those in need.”
“In terms of my faith, I pray every day, and I am not angry about my situation in that sense,” the letter said.
It ends with the words: “I wish this paper would go on forever and never run out and I could just keep talking to you. Just know I’m with you. Every stream, every lake, every field and river. In the woods and in the hills, in all the places you showed me. I love you.”

Mr. Kassig’s parents said their son’s “journey toward Islam” began when he observed the monthlong fast of Ramadan in 2013. But he converted “sometime between October and December 2013,” after his capture “when he shared a cell with a devout Syrian Muslim.”

“After converting, he took Islam’s practices seriously, praying the five daily prayers and taking on the name Abdul-Rahman,” the parents’ statement said. “We see this as part of our son’s long spiritual journey.”
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Bodies Are Found Close to Where Missing Students Clashed With Police in Mexico!

Authorities reportedly found clandestine graves containing several bodies Saturday near a southern Mexico town where students at a teachers college clashed with the police a week ago, leaving several people dead and up to 43 students missing. Witnesses said many of them were last seen being carried off by officers.

A tip led the authorities to the spot near a hill outside Iguala, about 100 miles south of Mexico City in Guerrero State, one of the poorest and most violence-prone in the country as organized crime groups have battled for power.

State officials speaking to reporters Saturday night declined to say how many bodies were found or whether they were the missing students, but they said DNA analysis and other tests were being conducted to identify the remains.



Officials were bracing for the prospect of one of the largest massacres in recent years of convulsive violence mostly related to drugs or organized crime.

The students disappeared after a chaotic bout of violence, in which local police officers opened fire on them as, depending on the account, they either collected donations for school or sought to hijack buses, as they have commonly done for transportation.

Six people were killed, including three students and three bystanders, and more than 30 people, nearly two dozen of them local police officers, were detained by the state prosecutor’s office in relation to the shooting, which the federal interior minister, Miguel Osorio Chong, called an “incredible” display of excessive force.

But students and family members said they could not account for 43 students after the clashes, and witnesses said they saw police officers taking away several of them.

A reliable local police investigation was all but impossible: The governor of the state, Ángel Aguirre Rivero, said the Iguala force and several others in his state had been corrupted by organized crime groups. Many of the officers in Iguala belonged to a gang called Guerreros Unidos, he said. 

The relatives of the missing fought to be heard in a week when unrelated student demonstrations in Mexico City preoccupied the news media, and coming after the revelation that three soldiers were charged with homicide related to the shooting deaths of 22 people captured in a confrontation in June.

Still, after a group of students, relatives and human rights representatives met with federal Interior Ministry officials Friday, they received a pledge that more federal officers and members of the military would join the search. About 24 hours later, the graves were found.
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HP To Separate Into Two New Industry-Leading Public Companies!

HP announced on Monday October 6, 2014, plans to separate into two new publicly traded Fortune 50 companies: one comprising HP’s market-leading enterprise technology infrastructure, software and services businesses, which will do business as Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and one that will comprise HP’s market-leading personal systems and printing businesses, which will do business as HP Inc. and retain the current logo.

According to information release by HP, the decision to separate into two market-leading companies will provide each new company with enhanced independence, focus, financial resources, and flexibility to adapt quickly to market and customer dynamics, while generating long-term value for shareholders.

Total Lunar Eclipse On Wednesday Will Be a Rare 'Selenelion'!

Observers of Wednesday morning's total lunar eclipse might be able to catch sight of an extremely rare cosmic sight.

On Oct. 8, Interested skywatchers should attempt to see the total eclipse of the moon and the rising sun simultaneously. The little-used name for this effect is called a "selenelion," a phenomenon that celestial geometry says cannot happen.

And indeed, during a lunar eclipse, the sun and moon are exactly 180 degrees apart in the sky. In a perfect alignment like this (called a "syzygy"), such an observation would seem impossible. But thanks to Earth's atmosphere, the images of both the sun and moon are apparently lifted above the horizon by atmospheric refraction. This allows people on Earth to see the sun for several extra minutes before it actually has risen and the moon for several extra minutes after it has actually set. 

As a consequence of this atmospheric trick, for many localities east of the Mississippi River, watchers will have a chance to observe this unusual sight firsthand. Weather permitting, you could have a short window of roughly 2 to 9 minutes (depending on your location) with the possibility of simultaneously seeing the sun rising in the east while the eclipsed full moon is setting in the west. 

Then again, sighting a selenelion might be problematic feat. Twenty-five years ago, in the August 1989 issue of Sky & Telescope, Bradley Schaefer, an astronomer who extensively studied the visibility of the moon when it was low in the sky, noted that the full moon only becomes visible when it is about 2 degrees up and the sun is about 2 degrees below the horizon.

So, depending on the clarity of your sky, you might have up to roughly 10 to 15 minutes before sunrise for the sky to still be dark enough, and the moon to be high enough above any horizon haze for it to be clearly visible. And keep in mind that this holds only for the uneclipsed portion of the moon. You might, however, be able to mitigate the effects of a brightening sky somewhat by using binoculars or a telescope.

If the moon is totally eclipsed prior to sunrise, you probably are going to have to scan the western horizon with binoculars as the twilight brightens in order to still detect some semblance of the Moon, which will somewhat resemble a very dim and eerily illuminated mottled softball.

People who live in those portions of the United States and Canada that are a few hundred miles inland from the Eastern Seaboard should have a good view of the Moon's emergence from the umbra somewhat later. The low, partially eclipsed Moon in deep-blue twilight should offer a wide variety of interesting scenic possibilities for both artists and astrophotographers. From Toronto and points south through the eastern Ohio Valley and into the Piedmont to the Florida Gulf Coast, a peculiar-looking, waxing crescent moon with its cusps pointing downward will appear to set beyond the western horizon.

Farther west, across the western Great Lakes and down through the Deep South to the Gulf of Mexico, the moon will appear to be notched on its lower right side by the shadow.

Going still farther west, the Moon will go down "full," but if the western horizon is haze-free, assiduous observers from much of Minnesota, western Iowa, eastern portions of Nebraska and Kansas as well as central sections of Oklahoma and Texas might still be able to detect a faint penumbral stain on the moon's lower right limb.

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British hostage released in Libya after five months!

News has it that British schoolteacher David Bolam has been released after nearly five months of captivity in Libya, reportedly after payment of a ransom to his Islamist captors.

"Glad that David Bolam is safe & well after his ordeal and has been reunited with his family, who we have been supporting since he was taken," Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond wrote on Twitter.

Bolam was kidnapped by militants in May in Libya's second city Benghazi, much of which is under the control of Islamists.

The 53 year-old, who hails from Shropshire in western England, was Head teacher at the International School in Benghazi.

The BBC reported that his release had been secured by local political factions and that money had changed hands. It said that Bolam whose kidnapping had not been reported at the request of officials, was flown back to Britain on Thursday.

His captors had contacted the Libyan director of the school to demand a ransom, according to a source at the establishment speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bolam's release follows the beheading of British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, among four Western hostages executed since August by Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were also brutally executed by IS militants operating in Syria and Iraq, with all four murders made public in videos.

The hometown of taxi driver Henning, Eccles in northwest England, paid tribute to the 47-year-old in a candlelit church service open to all faiths, after his death was announced late on Friday.

Floral tributes to the aid worker, who travelled to Syria as a driver in an aid convoy, were left outside his minicab office and home, and yellow ribbons traditionally tied for hostages festooned the town centre.

The British foreign office said that since teacher Bolam was released, his family had appealed for privacy.

The SITE intelligence group identified a video posted on YouTube last month of Bolam, looking dishevelled and wearing a white T-shirt, appealing for British Prime Minister David Cameron to help secure his release.

The video, apparently recorded in August, was released by a group that called itself Jeish al-Islam (Army of Islam) but SITE could not authenticate it due to a lack of information.

A former teacher at Bolam's school, Ged O'Connor Challis, told the BBC that he had spoken to Bolam on the telephone the morning he was kidnapped.

He said Bolam had been captured while he was out shopping.

"He is single-minded and stubborn," Challis added. "He is a very bright person. He is an English teacher -- one of the best I have ever met."

Michael Aron, Britain's ambassador to Libya, wrote on Twitter: "Delighted Benghazi Head Teacher David Bolam has been released after over 4 months in captivity".

Ebola Patient In The U.S Struggling To Survive!

“If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us,” Those were the words of U.S President Barack Obama, after getting briefed by officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

However, barely a month after the statement was made, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States was fighting for his life at a Dallas hospital on Sunday and appeared to be receiving none of the experimental medicines for the virus, a top U.S. health official said.

Thomas Eric Duncan became ill after arriving in the Texas city from Liberia two weeks ago, heightening concerns that the worst Ebola epidemic on record could spread from West Africa, where it began in March. The hemorrhagic fever has killed at least 3,400 people out of the nearly 7,500 probable, suspected and confirmed cases.

"The man in Dallas, who is fighting for his life, is the only patient to develop Ebola in the United States," Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said on CNN's "State of the Union."

In a media briefing with reporters on Sunday, Frieden said he was scheduled to brief President Barack Obama on Monday.

Frieden said doses of the experimental medicine ZMapp were "all gone" and that the drug, produced by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, is "not going to be available anytime soon."

Asked about a second experimental drug, made by Canada's Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp, he said it "can be quite difficult for patients to take."

Frieden said the doctor and the patient's family would decide whether to use the drug, but if "they wanted to, they would have access to it."

"As far as we understand, experimental medicine is not being used," Frieden said. "It’s really up to his treating physicians, himself, his family what treatment to take."

Duncan remained in critical condition, Wendell Watson, spokesman for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, said on Sunday.

Earlier on Sunday, health officials said they were also seeking a "low-risk" homeless man who was one of 38 people who had potentially had contact with Duncan. Later on Sunday, a spokeswoman for Dallas County's top political official, Judge Clay Jenkins, said the man had been found and was being monitored.

At Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, parishioners prayed for Duncan, congregation member Louise Troh - who is quarantined because of her close contact with Duncan - and both of their families.

"Although this disease has become personal to us, we realize we're not the first to know its devastation, and we are not the ones most desperately affected," Associate Pastor Mark Wingfeld told the church audience.

He encouraged parishioners to focus not only on the Dallas family but also on those in West Africa stricken with Ebola.

In Nebraska, another hospital was preparing for the arrival of an Ebola patient who contracted the virus in Liberia, a spokesman said on Sunday.

Nebraska Medical Center spokesman Taylor Wilson would only identify the patient as a male U.S. citizen expected to arrive on Monday. But the father of Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman working for NBC News who contracted Ebola in Liberia, told Reuters on Friday that his son was going to Nebraska for treatment.

The Nebraska hospital last month also treated and released, Dr. Rick Sacra, an American missionary who also contracted Ebola in Liberia.

Sacra was admitted to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts on Saturday for a likely respiratory infection that is not believed to be a recurrence of the disease, hospital officials said.

Duncan's case has highlighted problems that American public health officials are trying furiously to address: The Dallas hospital that admitted him initially did not recognize the deadly disease and sent him home with antibiotics, only for him to return two days later in an ambulance.

"The issue of the missed diagnosis initially is concerning," Frieden said, adding that public health officials had redoubled their efforts to raise awareness of the disease.

"We're seeing more people calling us, considering the possibility of Ebola - that's what we want to see," he said on CNN. "We don't want people not to be diagnosed."

Frieden said he was confident the disease would not spread widely within the United States. U.S. officials are also scaling up their response in West Africa, where Ebola presents an enormous challenge, he added.

"But it's going to take time," Frieden said. "The virus is spreading so fast that it's hard to keep up."

When asked on Sunday if the United States should suspend flights to and from affected countries or impose a visa ban on travelers from those countries, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said "absolutely not."

"When you start closing off countries like that, there is a real danger of making things worse," Fauci said on "Fox News Sunday."

"You can cause unrest in the country," he said. "It’s conceivable that governments could fall if you just isolate them completely."

The CDC has identified 10 people who had direct contact with Duncan as being at greatest risk of infection. Another 38 were being monitored as potential contacts, out of 114 people initially evaluated for exposure risks. None from either group has shown symptoms, health officials said.

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