Sinkholes Appearing More And More Frequently

Oxnard Sinkhole Repairs

By Tracy Lehr
Nov 19, 2012 at 6:05 PM PST
 

Work is underway to fill a sinkhole that led to some minor accidents over the weekend.

Drivers discovered the sink hole in front of Channel Islands High School early Sunday morning.

The intersection of Rose Avenue and Raiders Way was closed for most of the day. Oxnard crews pumped water out of the hole and covered up the 20-foot crack, but repairs are still needed.

Fortunately, the high school is closed all week for the Thanksgiving break. 

Sinkhole Suddenly Opens up to Swallow Moving car in Cosmopolis, Washington

KXRO Newsradio
Tue, 20 Nov 2012 06:41 CST

Power outages, standing water, broken limbs, and at least one sinkhole.

A driver in Cosmopolis was in for a surprise as they drove towards the hill on C Street. Right as they passed the entrance to Mill Creek Park, they fell into a hole in the road.

Mayor Vickie Raines says that the culvert underneath C Street collapsed and tried to swallow the vehicle.

The road to the hill has been blocked to traffic as crews wait out the storm and prepare to assess the damage.  

Rockaway Residents Getting that Sink-ing Feeling

Dangerous sinkholes opening up in Arverne section of peninsula, locals fear street collapse

By Lisa L. Colangelo And Irving Dejohn
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, November 19, 2012, 5:47 PM

If lack of power and flood damage wasn’t enough, some Rockaway residents are getting the sinking suspicion that the ground just might literally cave in underneath them.

A cluster of sizeable sinkholes have appeared in the Arverne section of the peninsula, startling residents and one volunteer who documented all 12 of the noticeable indentations in the ground.

Storm recovery volunteer Steve Major picked up on a pattern of the holes as he was going door-to-door for a relief group last week along Beach 68th St. near Bayfield Ave.

“I’m extremely concerned that what’s visible isn’t the full extent of it,” said Major, an engineer and construction worker who came from Phoenix to lend a hand in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.

Major began documenting the sinkholes, which in one instance went as deep as 10-feet and as wide as two-feet.

“Most sinkholes don’t get discovered until there’s a serious collapse and someone dies,” he said. “I’d like to see if we can’t get this fixed before a house falls in.”

Locals along the storm-battered street — many of whom are still trying to rebuild their lives — were on edge after the discovery.

“My children noticed the holes in the backyard,” said resident Tyeakia Miles, 45. “The police officers came and measured it. One was five feet deep.”

The area is now “off-limits” to her four children due to fear of serious injury, Miles said.

Resident Adolfo Richter noticed three unmistakable indentations on his smoothly paved backyard shortly after Sandy struck.

After watching the entire basement of his property take on water, the crumbling concrete is insult to injury, he said.

After the deluge, the water must have gone underground, said Richter, 67. “It’s down there somewhere and now I’m really scared.”

The city Department of Environmental Protection was not aware of the sinkhole issue prior to the Daily News’ inquiries on Monday, officials said.

“DEP has dispatched crews to inspect the sinkholes,” an agency spokesman said.

Meanwhile, mother-of-two Danielle Hernandez said she fears for the welfare of her grandmother, who has the sinkholes in her backyard.

“It’s nerve wracking,” she said. “You don’t know. The ground might shift.”

note:  Our Earth is Groaning, quaking, shifting, and holes are falling in... We are facing not only climate changes from above, but also earth changes from below... 

Thousands in London, Beirut, Yemen, Rally Against War on Gaza

In the UK, Londoners hold a fourth day of protests against Israel's latest military offensive against the Gaza Strip. Thousands have gathered outside the Israeli embassy in support of Palestinians.

Among the speakers was Palestinian ambassador to London Manuel Hassassian who gave an impassioned speech.

The government in Britain has backed israel's violence saying it has a right to defend itself But even the foreign minister has admitted a ground invasion would lose Israel international support.

Protesters say that whatever changes or stays the same they will be here day after day attack after attack standing with the Palestinians and making their voices heard.

Nargess Moballeghi, Press TV, London

Israel main problem in Middle East 

A political analyst tells Press TV that the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza have made the Arab world realize that the enemy and the one massacring Palestinians is really Israel.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Kamel Wazne, political analyst, to further discuss the issue.

Pro-Gaza rally held in Beirut 

Lebanese and Palestinian factions held a pro-Gaza rally on the 4th day of the ongoing attacks that Israel has launched against Gaza. This rally is the 3rd of its kind in front on the UN ESCWA head quarters in Beirut since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Gaza.

Protesters said that Israel has always been attacking the Palestinians in a barbaric way and stressed that this should stopped and that they will not sit and watch Israel's aggression against Palestinian people. Demonstrators said they try to send a message to the world that they will always support and stand with the resistance and fight against the Israeli war-machine.

Rahshan Saglam, Press TV, Beirut

Yemenis rally for Gaza 

'No Place Left in World for Anachronism of Wars, Israel’

Israel is partying like they believe this were still 1982. 75,000 young reservists, schooled in apartheid and racism, a generation of young Israeli’s who know little of physical labor, nearly one million “guest workers” do the “heavy lifting now,” are physically and mentally unfit for combat.

There is a difference this time, though the military advances Hamas has made over the past few months, smuggled MANPAD air defense weapons from Libya, rockets with advanced guidance systems and double the range of anything Israel had imagined are not the telling factor.

The issue is political. Even as the words left President Obama’s mouth, his statement of eternal support for Israel and their right of self-defense, he faces Israel as an enemy, perhaps more so than the people of Gaza do.

It is not just Netanyahu’s continual attempts to rig America’s presidential election and his colossal failure.

Netanyahu is clueless as to what is heading his way.

Polls during the recent election showed that American Jews care little or nothing about Israel. In fact, Israel is looked on as a nation of “free loaders” and increasingly is seen as “not worth the bother.”

Only so much whining is paid attention to. The photographs of dead Palestinian children are far more common now and the continual flow of stories about Palestinian terrorists the Israel lobby foists on the American public are no longer being accepted.

It has, at least during the past two years, become increasingly distasteful to peddle Islamophobia and racism. Political awareness has grown in America. Romney and Netanyahu made sure the election was very much about Israel.

Israel lost as much as Romney lost.

Then there is the reality “on the ground.” Israel can invade, they have the weapons, they have the manpower. What they do not have is the power of the press behind them.

Oh, the press is still there but few take the “pop culture media” as seriously as they had before. CNN and Fox, the American networks most inclined toward obedience to Tel Aviv, now only preach to a minority of disaffected and broken supporters of a failed political movement in total disarray.

The GOP, the “true red” friends of Israel are now “eating their own young” in a “blame fest” looking for scapegoats to explain why billions of dollars in drug money couldn’t buy an election in a nation long assumed to be filled with the ignorant and “unwashed.”

America turned out to be something different, a nation sick of being lied to. Time changes things. During my childhood, I watched America go from hating those of African descent along with Jews and Catholics to a nation where, at least in states that support Obama, where the vast majority of Americans live, race and religion are no longer the judge of character.

Israel’s “holocaust victimization card” is now worn and stained, one cannot claim “moral high ground” and murder children, steal human organs and operate nearly a third of the world’s crime cartels.

People notice.

    Things have changed “on the ground.” Though Morsi, in Egypt, has sworn to keep to the Camp David Accords, the people of Egypt will not allow an invasion of Egypt to go unanswered. If Morsi fails to act, it will seal his doom and bring an end to the accords.

Israel will have an enemy on her southern border.

Israel has depended on Jordan to act as a “hand puppet.” We are now seeing the first moves to eliminate Jordan as an Israeli pawn.

That will put the issue of West Bank settlements in a new light as they are built on land stolen from the people of Jordan. There will be a new government in Jordan, an Islamic government, it will come and it will no longer be able to suppress its two million Palestinians, nearly a quarter of who still live in refugee camps.

The roots of radicalization are there and it may not be in a month or two months but Jordan will fall and the desire to settle issues of “right of return” are less likely to be put to verbal or written negotiation.

Though the Western press has long suppressed the stories, the Saudi monarchy is weakening, Israel’s primary surrogate in the Middle East, though, depending on how the “wind is blowing,” Erdogan of Turkey can no long be seen as weak or complicit in Israel’s acts.

His rhetoric and failure to do anything but join Israel in moves on Syria, joined by the French, joined by Israel and serving as lapdog to his NATO masters, is not unnoticed.

Iran

It is believed by many that an American offer to lift sanctions in trade for stringent nuclear inspections has already reached the preliminary agreement stage between the United States and Iran. Israel has, we are told, indicated it will not oppose such an accord.

They will not because they cannot.

Without the issue of Iran as their “bloody flag,” Israel is likely to be forgotten, their nuclear weapons useful only as an assurance of the impotence of a minor nuclear power. Iran understands this issue well.

The Zionist “Sampson Option” has now become a badge of hypocrisy and has assured the people of Israel that they are watched and targeted by more than one nation that has sworn them “eternal friendship.”

American Enmity

There are now solid and verified reports that a coalition of rogue extremist groups within the American military and veteran community, generously funded by monies from the Gulf Cartel in Mexico, laundered through what Dr. Webster Tarpley describes as the “Mormon Mafia” and Israeli Likudists had planned to overthrow the US government by force after the election.

Sources at the highest levels have indicated that General Petraeus was to be offered the “presidency” after an iconic act of terrorism would cost the lives of top American leaders including but not limited to the President and Vice President.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe General Petraeus knew anything of this and were he to have been aware, would have moved to block such an effort.

However, during a “national emergency,” different decisions for criteria would have applied.

Jeb Bush was to have been his Vice President.

Very knowledgeable official sources surmise that a potential fallback could involve, not that General Petraeus is not available, a scenario where a weakened Secretary of State Clinton would assume the presidency, mired in a war with Iran, based on a series of assassinations and terror attacks, “pristine Iranian passports” would fall from the heavens like perfect snowflakes from a grey sky.

Moves Noted

In order to secure Mrs. Clinton in place, Senator’s McCain and Lindsay Graham have worked to block the nomination of Susan Rice over the Benghazi affair.

What is now being noted is that all those who gravitate toward wild conspiracy theories involving the murder of Ambassador Stephens are likely complicit in a plot against the United States.

Notes on Benghazi

In a recent discussion with a senior counter-intelligence official, I was reminded that the key issues of the Benghazi attack are twofold:

Who gains from the attack? That answer is clear, Romney and Israel.

How convenient is the timing. We strike the same tune again, timing serves Romney and Israel.

Thus, we see Dr. Webster Tarpley’s “Mormon Mafia” at work.

    I am also told we see the hands of State Department employees who, without their cooperation, the movements of the ambassador and his party would have been impossible to trace as well as coordinating the overwhelming attack of September 11, 2012, timed to coincide with the Terry Jones/Google/YouTube telethon meant to provide cover through purposefully staged violence.


Behind the telethon, we find the hands of the CATO Institute, their “Tea Party” through “P.J. Media and, as reported by Wayne Madsen, up to 50 senior Pentagon officers.

It was not the White House that sent the rescue force to Tripoli, four hours’ drive away while the Benghazi airport was open.

Pentagon officials had circulated a long disproven Al Jazeera story that the Benghazi airport was still unserviceable though four airlines land their daily.

Though we won’t see them testify in front of a congressional enquiry, if the real planners of the Benghazi attack were brought to justice, not those who actually carried out the attack themselves, the majority could be found living and working near Washington D.C. and closely aligned with right wing politics and Zionist causes.

Conclusion

Israel will attack and may invade but they are only digging a hole to bury themselves. What could have been a détente that may have brought generations of peace will more likely be a coalition of nations, not pledged to destroy Israel but destined to move through a world where Israel will no longer have a place.

Israel is a “dinosaur,” an anachronism of wars and conflicts that are fading memories. Israel is not alone, others will fall and Israel may well survive as a “homeland of the Jews” but either as a pariah nation or one willing to embrace a multicultural Christian, Muslim and Jewish heritage.

source: Press TV
author: Gordon Duff

 Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, a combat infantryman, and Senior Editor at Veterans Today. His career has included extensive experience in international banking along with such diverse areas as consulting on counter insurgency, defense technologies or acting as diplomatic representative for UN humanitarian and economic development efforts. Gordon Duff has traveled to over 80 nations. His articles are published around the world and translated into a number of languages. He is regularly on TV and radio, a popular and sometimes controversial guest. More Press TV articles by Gordon Duff

6.1 Magnitude Earthquake in Tonga - 9th Major Quake Worldwide in 9 Days

TONGA - A powerful 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck along the Pacific plate boundary, near the Tonga trench. 

The earthquake struck at a depth of 9.8 km (6.1 miles). The epicenter of the earthquake was 174 km (108 miles) ENE of Neiafu, Tonga. 

No tsunami warnings were issued for the region. 

Today’s 6.1 earthquake is the ninth major earthquake to strike the planet in the last 9 days; 6.0 magnitude and greater quakes are registering on a daily basis.  

The current string of seismic activity began on November 8, with successive earthquakes striking Vancouver Islands, Myanmar, Guatemala, the Gulf of Alaska, Aisen and Coquimbo Chile, Mexico, the Kuril Islands and lastly, the Tonga Region.

source
The Extinction Protocol

Tornado-Like Winds Hit Portugal's Algarve, 8 Injured

(Reuters) - Violent winds hit south Portugal's Algarve region on Friday, overturning cars and vans, some with people inside, blowing rooftops off houses and smashing windows.

Eight people were injured and taken to hospital and many areas suffered from flooding. Television footage showed a funnel-shaped rotating column of air approaching the shore from the Atlantic near the town of Lagos.

Meteorologist Maria Frade said the weather phenomenon "definitely resembled a tornado judging from the video", but would not immediately confirm if it was one.

Firefighters said most of those injured had to be pulled out of overturned vehicles.

Algarve is a popular tourism destination, although November is low season.

Tornadoes are not common in Europe, but do occur occasionally in the northwest and south of the continent.

“Pan-European” Protests Turn Violent While Advancing Globalism

Across Europe this week, an unprecedented and well-coordinated series of transnational mass strikes and protests led largely by Big Labor took to the streets in major European capitals and cities to demand an end to so-called “austerity” policies – mostly government spending cuts. In many cases, the massive demonstrations turned violent.

Analysts, however, say the seemingly spontaneous chaos may actually have been orchestrated by forces behind the scenes. Indeed, much of the media focus was on the relatively new phenomenon of so-called “pan-European” action, with labor leaders and activists framing the conflict as a regional European Union struggle rather than separate national efforts to influence domestic policy.   

From Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece to France and even Germany, millions of workers and union leaders representing virtually every sector of the economy in the EU joined forces on Wednesday. The mass action was, according to organizers at least, an effort to stop budget cuts and labor reforms that policy makers across the continent say are necessary to stave off an even deeper economic crisis.

“There is a social emergency in the south," claimed Secretary General Bernadette Segol with the European Trade Union Confederation, which played a large role in orchestrating the cross-border unrest throughout much of the region. “All recognize that the policies carried out now are unfair and not working."

Another official with the ETUC, representing nearly 90 groups across Europe, echoed those remarks but went even further. "The people of Europe will not stand for fiscal fundamentalism and will fight for an alternative based on social and economic justice," said General Secretary Designate Frances O'Grady. "'Those in the corridors of power in Brussels and Frankfurt need to understand this — that if ordinary European workers feel that the EU is about little more than cuts, open markets and privatization, then the European project will collapse just as surely as night follows day."

From the United Kingdom, protest leaders also emphasized the supposed need to join forces internationally as part of what analysts said was a push to further empower transnational institutions. “Coalition of Resistance” organizer Andrew Burgin, for example, was quoted as saying that the mass demonstrations would "forge links across Europe, showing Britain's austerity struggles as part of a pan-European, international movement."

Burgin, who organized a rally outside of the European Commission’s offices in London, also blasted government efforts to rein in budget deficits and wild spending. "They've only just started cuts but they are pretty draconian already," he was quoted as saying. "I think this is the beginning of a new movement. It will be a day remembered in history as the beginning of a pan-European movement, possibly an international movement, against capitalism."

With unemployment now above 25 percent, Spanish labor bosses called the second general strike in less than a year, organizing giant protests in cities across the country. Transportation, energy, businesses, schools, construction, health care, and more were brought almost to a standstill as outraged workers took to the streets. Unions claimed more than 75 percent of the labor force went on strike.

Organizers in Barcelona reported over a million protesters in the city, though officials gave far smaller figures. In Madrid, meanwhile, union bosses said some 350,000 people had gathered to speak out. Dozens of police officers were injured in clashes with violent mobs around the country and over 100 demonstrators were arrested.

"We have never seen an international strike with unions across borders fighting for the same thing — it's not just Spain, not just Portugal, it's many countries demanding that we change our structure," far-left Spanish Congressman Alberto Garzón with the United Left party was quoted as saying. "It's important to understand this is a new form of protest."

In neighboring Portugal, where unemployment is also high and surging, the situation was similar, with one of the nation’s two largest unions calling on its members to strike. Public transportation ground to a virtual halt as hundreds of flights out of Lisbon were cancelled. Hospitals operated with minimal staff and trash was left uncollected across the country. Dozens of Portuguese cities saw protests of varying sizes.

Italy also suffered from significant and violent unrest in numerous cities and towns, with tens of thousands of union members and students attacking riot police, according to news reports. A few police were reportedly injured while dozens of protesters were detained.

Greece, likely the hardest hit economy in Europe, has been plagued by violent riots for years now, and those continued this week. In one of the most alarming developments, furious Greeks in the city of Thessaloniki assaulted the German consul on Thursday while chanting “kick the Nazis out.”  

There were reportedly smaller “symbolic” protests in Germany, which has thus far fared much better than its southern European counterparts and is currently funding massive bailouts across the region. However, German policy makers insisted that austerity must go on regardless of the mass demonstrations throughout the EU.

“We must nevertheless do what is necessary: break open encrusted labor markets, give more people a chance to work, become more flexible in many areas," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is pushing hard for a plan that would give unelected EU bosses the power to veto national governments’ budgets. “We will of course make this clear, again and again, in talks with the unions."

While the protests were largely framed as a sort of spontaneous uprising and a coming together of big government-promoting forces across Europe, experts said the real story is not quite that simple. It is true that with political power shifting at breakneck speed toward Brussels, much of the activism has also started taking aim at the EU. But critics believe the real organization is taking place out of the limelight in a very deliberate and methodical way.  

Analysts for the liberty-oriented Daily Bell, for example, speculated that the mass strikes and protests may have been what are known as a “false flags” — operations intended to deceive the public regarding who is actually behind an event or movement. The purpose, according to the analysis, would be to further the goals of an elite group of establishment power-brokers seeking to smash national sovereignty and eventually build a world government.

“One would have to be very naive to believe that the unions and their leaders were not part of this larger ‘directed history,’ as we call it,” the analysts wrote in a piece entitled Union Strikes Are Likely More EU False Flags published this week. “The idea that the union movement has not been co-opted — its leaders, anyway — is a silly one. The rank-and-file may believe, but leaders know the truth and operate as politicians do. They line their own pockets and try to stay out of the headlines.”

According to the Daily Bell, the true purpose behind the orchestrated unrest is evident if one understands the larger dialectic at work. The unions, the analysts said, are being used to co-opt real social action, which could eventually lead to even greater efforts to disband the emerging EU super-state while encouraging true reforms toward liberty, honest money, and national sovereignty. 

“The unions also look toward big government (and maybe the EU itself) for redress of grievances stemming from austerity. This has the effect of damping down the secession movement and cultural identity, which are on the upswing,” the free market-oriented analysts explained. “For this reason we don't put much faith in these big protests. In fact, it begins to look as if the chief reason for austerity was to provide justification for pan-European ‘union’ protests, thus cementing internationalism rather than tribal identity as the dominant ‘people's voice’ of the EU.”

Meanwhile, as the unrest continues to spiral out of control in much of southern Europe, the Eurozone economy is still sliding deeper into turmoil. Mega banks and bloated governments are seeking bailouts and the European Central Bank has stepped up its highly controversial monetary programs. Unemployment is still on the rise.

But while the EU itself seems to be coming apart at the seams, high-ranking officials from Brussels to most European capitals are working fiendishly to finish off what little remains of national sovereignty by exploiting the crisis. Eventually, as former Maoist revolutionary and current EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso admitted recently, the goal is to create a full-blown “federation.”

source
 

A Permanent Truce WAS BEING NEGOTIATED with Israel, While Israel Ordered Assassination of Hamas Leader

Killed Hamas Leader Was In Midst Of Negotiating Long-Term Truce With Israel

Just hours before Israel assassinated Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari on Tuesday, he received the draft proposal of a permanent truce agreement with Israel. But Israel approved the airstrike anyways, choosing escalation over resolution.

Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who helped negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit and maintained contacts with Hamas leaders, said the truce agreement included protocols for maintaining a cease-fire in the case of cross-border violence between Israel and Gaza.

Baskin told Haaretz that senior officials in Israel knew about the pending truce agreement, but nevertheless approved the assassination, presumably knowing it would terminate the truce and escalate the conflict with Gaza.

    “I think that they have made a strategic mistake,” Baskin said, “which will cost the lives of quite a number of innocent people on both sides.” He added that Jabari’s assassination “killed the possibility of achieving a truce.”

“This blood could have been spared. Those who made the decision must be judged by the voters, but to my regret they will get more votes because of this,” he added.

“According to Baskin,” Haaretz reports, “during the past two years Jabari internalized the realization that the rounds of hostilities with Israel were beneficial neither to Hamas nor to the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip and only caused suffering, and several times he acted to prevent firing by Hamas into Israel.”

Even when Hamas was pulled into participating in rocket fire, its rockets would always land in open spaces. “And that was intentional,” Baskin said.”

In recent months Baskin was continuously in touch with Hamas officials and with Egyptian intelligence as well as with officials in Israel, whose names he refused to divulge. A few months ago Baskin showed Defense Minister Ehud Barak a draft of the agreement and on the basis of that draft an inter-ministry committee on the issue was established. The agreement was to have constituted a basis for a permanent truce between Israel and Hamas, which would prevent the repeated rounds of shooting.

“In Israel,” Baskin said, “they decided not to decide, and in recent months I took the initiative to push it again.” In recent weeks he renewed contact with Hamas and with Egypt and just this week he was in Egypt and met with top people in the intelligence system and with a Hamas representative. He says he formed the impression that the pressure the Egyptians applied to the Palestinians to stop shooting was serious and sincere.

“He was in line to die, not an angel and not a righteous man of peace,” Baskin said of Jabari and of his feelings in the wake of the killing, “but his assassination also killed the possibility of achieving a truce and also the Egyptian mediators’ ability to function. After the assassination I spoke to the people in Israel angrily and they said to me: We’ve heard you and we are calling to ask if you have heard anything from the Egyptians or from Gaza.”

Since the assassination, Baskin has been in touch with the Egyptians but not with the Palestinians. According to him, the Egyptians are very cool-headed. They said it is necessary to let the fresh blood calm down. "The Egyptian intelligence people are doing what they are doing with the permission and authorization of the regime and apparently they very much believe in this work,” he says.

    The situation that is developing here is very sad, like all wars it is just innocent people getting caught in the middle of authoritarian psychopaths who are fighting over power.  The people of Israel have a nationalistic militant government that doesn’t represent their will, while on the other end the people of Palestine also have a nationalistic militant government that doesn’t represent their will.  The so called “leaders” of the Palestinian territories are Hamas and Fatah, they are two militant Islamic factions that in no way represent the people of Palestine.

As of now, peace negotiations are off.

Hostess Brands is Closed

HOSTESS BRANDS TO WIND DOWN COMPANY AFTER BCTGM UNION STRIKE CRIPPLES OPERATIONS

Friday, November 16, 2012 at 7:00AM

Irving, TX – November 16, 2012 – Hostess Brands Inc. today announced that it is winding down operations and has filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeking permission to close its business and sell its assets, including its iconic brands and facilities. Bakery operations have been suspended at all plants. Delivery of products will continue and Hostess Brands retail stores will remain open for several days in order to sell already-baked products.

Hostess Brands Inc. says it's going out of business after striking workers across the country crippled its ability to make its Twinkies, Ding Dongs and other snacks.

The company had warned employees that it would file a motion with U.S. Bankruptcy Court Friday seeking permission to shutter its operations and sell its brands if plants hadn't resumed normal operations by a Thursday evening deadline. The deadline passed without a deal.
The closing will mean the loss of about 18,500 jobs.

"I don't know if they thought that was a bluff," CEO Gregory Rayburn said on CNBC Friday. He said the financial impact of the strike makes it "too late" to save the company even if workers have a change of heart. That's because the clients such as retailers decide to stop carrying products when supplies aren't adequate.

Rayburn said he's hopeful that the company will find buyers for its roster of about 30 brands, which include Ho Hos, Dolly Madison, Drake's and Nature's Pride snacks. The company books about $2.5 billion in sales a year.

Hostess, based in Irving, Texas, said its stores will remain open for several days to sell remaining products. Operations at its 33 factories were suspended Friday. The privately held company filed for Chapter 11 protection in January, its second trip through bankruptcy court in less than a decade.

The move comes after thousands of members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union went on strike last week after rejecting a contract offer that slashed wages and benefits in September. The bakers union represents about 30 percent of the company's workforce.

Rayburn said the union's leadership had misled members into believing there was a buyer in the wings who would rescue the company. He said the union hadn't returned the company's calls for the past month.

A union representative did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Hostess had said earlier this week that production at about a dozen of its plants were seriously affected by the strike. Although many workers decided to cross picket lines, the company said it wasn't enough to keep operations at normal levels. Three plants were closed earlier this week.

Hostess had already reached a contract agreement with its largest union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The Teamsters had urged the bakery union this week to hold a secret ballot on whether to continue striking.

Hostess said the company is unprofitable under its current cost structure, in large part because of union wages and pension costs. Rayburn said in a statement on the company website that all employees will eventually lose their jobs, "some sooner than others."

"Unfortunately, because we are in bankruptcy, there are severe limits on the assistance the (company) can offer you at this time," Rayburn wrote.