A sharia committee in a rebel-held area of Aleppo issued a fatwa deeming croissants ‘haram’ (forbidden in Islamic law) because of their “colonial” significance, pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Tuesday.It seems like just yesterday the Syrian rebels were eating human hearts, and today they refuse to eat croissants.
Croissants’ crescent shape celebrates European victory over Muslims, according to the fatwa (religious ruling).
(Townhall) A world history book used in an Advanced Placement class is under review by a Florida school board over allegations it favors Islam at the expense of Christianity and Judaism.
State Rep. Ritch Workman told Fox News the Prentice World History textbook rewrites Islamic history and presents a biased version of the Muslim faith.
“The book has a 36-page chapter on Islam but no chapters on Christianity or Judaism,” Workman said. “It’s remarkably one-sided.”
The textbook is being used in an Advanced Placement class in Brevard County schools. The book is on a state-approved list and has been used in the school system for the past three years without any complaints.
Workman said he received a copy of the book and he said it’s clear the authors “make a very obvious attempt not to insult Islam by reshaping history.”
“If you don’t see it from the eyes of a parent, kids are going to take this book as gospel and believe that Christians and Jews were murderous barbarians and thank God the Muslims came along and the world is great,” he said.
For example, Workman said a reference to Mohammed and his armies taking over Medina states, “people happily accepted Islam as their way of life.”
“It leaves out that tens of thousands of Jews and non-believers were massacred by Mohammed’s armies,” he said. “It’s a blatant deception.”
The book indicates that Jesus proclaimed himself to be the Messiah while stating as fact that Mohammed is a prophet, Workman said. Students are also given lessons on the Koran and the five pillars of Islam. The
“They don’t do that for Christianity,” he said. “That is offensive to me.”
School board member Amy Kneessy told Fox News she has similar concerns.
“Some of the descriptions of the battles use the word ‘massacre’ when it’s a Christian battle and ‘takeover’ when it’s a Muslim battle,” she said. “In young minds, massacre paints a very different visual picture than a takeover or occupation – when in fact both battles were very bloody.”
Kneessy said she’s also concerned that the book devotes an entire chapter to Islam.
“I don’t want revisionist history,” she said. “History is history.”
Pearson, the publisher of the textbook, confirmed there is a chapter titled, “Muslim Civilizations.”
“Pearson and its authors adhere to the highest editorial standards when creating course materials, which undergo a rigorous review process,” Pearson spokeswoman Susan Aspey told Fox News. “A review of the book shows there is balanced attention given to the beliefs of Islam, Judaism and Christianity.”
However, Workman said that statement is “patently unfair and untrue.”
“They hired a Muslim cleric to write the Muslim section,” he said. “The publisher told me.”
Aspey said that’s not correct.
She said “academic experts did review the content, but they did not write it or edit it.”
CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's state news agency says a gunfight between two families in a Cairo market has left 15 people dead, including 13 who were burned to death.Now that's a Ramadan spirit!
MENA said the fight late Monday started when a shop owner opened fire with his automatic rifle and killed two people who spread their merchandise on the ground outside his shop.
The agency said colleagues of the two set fire to the man's shop, where he and 12 of his workers were taking cover, killing them all.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Grenade-wielding Taliban fighters battled Pakistani security forces during a sophisticated midnight attack on a major prison holding hundreds of Taliban and other militants, police said on Monday.
Fighting continued into the early hours of Tuesday, and security forces said they had imposed a curfew on the city, Dera Ismail Khan, 200 miles west of Lahore.
The Pakistani Taliban sent 100 fighters and seven suicide bombers on a mission to free some of their top leaders, said Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid.
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LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Britain's Home Office confirmed Monday it will demand a 3,000-pound ($4,630) refundable bond for visas for "high-risk" visitors from six former colonies in Africa and Asia — a pilot scheme that has brought warnings at home and abroad that it will damage trade.And what do you know!
Britain said in a statement Monday that it will go ahead with the pilot scheme despite the outrage, charges of discrimination and warnings of retaliation. [...]
For now, the targeted countries are Nigeria, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Government data shows citizens of those countries applied for more than half a million visas to Britain last year.
Khaled Mahmud, owner of a Bangladeshi travel agency in Dhaka that deals with British student visas, charged the scheme was racist. "It smacks of a deep-rooted racial attitude," he told The Associated Press on Monday. [...]
Nigeria's government made a formal demand last month that Britain renounce the proposal. Foreign Affairs Minister Olugbenga Ashiru called in the British high commissioner to express "the strong displeasure of the government and people of Nigeria" over the "discriminatory" policy.
(INN) President Peres has politely suggested that the European Union to step out of Middle Eastern affairs while delicate negotiations are in process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Peres offered the advice in his remarks at a reception welcoming him to Latvia, organized by Latvian President Andris Berzins.
The Israeli president, who is also visiting Lithuania, thanked Latvia for helping to convince the European Union to list the military wing of the Hizbullah terror organization as a terrorist entity. But Peres also criticized the EU for blocking financial aid to Israeli institutions located in Judea, Samaria and areas of Jerusalem restored to the capital following the 1967 Six Day War.
Peres noted that such a restriction was harmful to the peace process, and emphasized that such negotiations should be left up to the parties involved, adding that the talks should be allowed to develop at their own pace, without further interference.
The best thing that Europeans can do at this point, Israel’s president said, is to exercise restraint, because this is the best way to demonstrate support for the complex talks that comprise the peace process. If fruitful, if he said, they will at last bring an end to the Israel-PA conflict.
BERLIN (JPost) – The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – comprising six Arab countries – plans to impose robust sanctions against Hezbollah that will surpass the potency of last week’s EU measure labeling the military wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist entity, according to media reports on Sunday.
Saudi Arabian paper Al-Watan, which cited an unnamed source, wrote that the GCC views Hezbollah as a monolithic organization and “does not differentiate between Hezbollah’s military and political wings.”
In light of the council’s decision not to separate Hezbollah into distinct parts, the source said the GCC’s sanctions are slated to be “more comprehensive than the EU’s decision.”
According to Al-Watan, lines of diplomatic communication took place “between the GCC and some European and international countries in a bid to clamp down on Hezbollah and its members.”
The six GCC members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They are already “studying” counterterrorism methods for cracking down on Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia has deported supporters of Hezbollah from its territory, while Bahrain declared the organization to be a terrorist entity in April, making it the first Arab country to outlaw the Lebanese-based group.
The US, Canada, Israel, and the Netherlands consider Hezbollah’s entire apparatus to be a terror organization.
The 28-member countries of the European Union placed the group’s military wing on the EU terror list last week.
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality.
As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused — on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.
Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy "poor."
"I think it's going to get worse," said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend but it doesn't generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks.
"If you do try to go apply for a job, they're not hiring people, and they're not paying that much to even go to work," she said. Children, she said, have "nothing better to do than to get on drugs."
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Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie accused Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of carrying out massacres "only likened by those carried out by enemy Zionists and their treacherous agents." [...]
Badie accused "Zionist fingers" of meddling in the affairs of the Arab Spring countries the same way they are present in Egypt in order to build a Greater Israel.
He added that the Zionists have killers in Libya and Tunisia assassinate political activists opposed to the Islamist current to pave the way for the removal of Islamists from power.
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| This iconic Ground Zero image was seen as too “vehemently” American by some 9/11 Museum staffers. |
(NYP) This iconic picture of firefighters raising the stars and stripes in the rubble of Ground Zero was nearly excluded from the 9/11 Memorial Museum — because it was “rah-rah” American, a new book says.
Michael Shulan, the museum’s creative director, was among staffers who considered the Tom Franklin photograph too kitschy and “rah-rah America,” according to “Battle for Ground Zero” (St. Martin’s Press) by Elizabeth Greenspan, out next month.
“I really believe that the way America will look best, the way we can really do best, is to not be Americans so vigilantly and so vehemently,” Shulan said.
Shulan had worked on a popular post-9/11 photography exhibit called “Here is New York” in Soho when he was hired by Alice Greenwald, director of the museum, for his “unique approach.”
Eventually, chief curator Jan Ramirez proposed a compromise, Greenspan writes. The Franklin shot was minimized in favor of three different photos via three different angles of the flag-raising scene.
“Several images undercut the myth of ‘one iconic moment,’ Ramirez said, and suggest instead an event from multiple points of view, like the attacks more broadly,” the book says.
“Shulan didn’t like three photographs more than he liked one, but he went along with it.”
Shulan told The Post he didn’t know that the way Greenspan described the discussion about the photographs “is the way that I would have.”
“My concern, as it always was, is that we not reduce [9/11] down to something that was too simple, and in its simplicity would actually distort the complexity of the event, the meaning of the event,” he said.
Shulan was living in Soho on Sept. 11, 2011. He helped organize the “Here is New York” exhibit shortly after the attack, and it grew to include thousands of photographs taken by professionals and ordinary New Yorkers. The collection was later donated to the New-York Historical Society.
The photograph wasn’t the only item officials and family members argued over. Early on, it was decided that no human remains or photos of body parts be included in the museum. Dust from the collapse of the Towers will be on display, “but only dust which has been tested and determined not to contain remains,” Greenspan writes.
However, it was nearly impossible to determine if one artifact — called “the composite” — followed that rule. Three feet tall and 15 tons, the composite contains about four or five building stories compressed by pressure and heat into one solid block, with bits of paper and the edges of filing cabinets poking out of the surface.
The museum tested the outside of the composite and found it negative for DNA. But they couldn’t test inside it without the risk of destroying it. Eventually, despite the uncertainty and over the objections of some 9/11 family members, the piece was included.
(Motley Fool) If there's one thing that spurs defense companies' profits, it's war. And by all accounts, the civil war in Syria is horrific. More than 100,000 people have been killed, 1.8 million have fled, and 4.25 million are displaced. Further, on Thursday, the leader of Syria's Western-backed opposition group told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that if the United States doesn't supply the rebels with promised weapons, President Bashar al-Assad's regime would win.
Assad is known for his human-rights violations, corruption, and disdain for the U.S., but what pushed the Obama administration into promising weapons to Syrian rebels was "conclusive evidence" that Assad's regime used chemical weapons against opposition forces. However, the promise for weapons was made in June, and only recently was a "light armament" package approved. And now there is growing opposition to the United States' involvement in Syria.
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(JPost) A popular definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things over and over expecting different results. Others call this perseverance. Either way, those who try to solve the same problem using the same method that always ends in failure are left frustrated and unsatisfied; the problem remains unsolved.
The U.S. Secretary of State is in the Middle East for the sixth time since February. Why? To re-launch Israel-Palestinian peace talks. Secretary John Kerry and his predecessors apparently believe placating Palestinians will stop Middle East turbulence. If the goal is to stop Arab-Israeli conflict, to end anti-U.S. terrorism, moderate raging events across the Middle East and elevate U.S. stature in the Middle East, is advancing a Palestinian state at this point the answer?
Even if it were the answer, Israel is always expected to give up land, prisoners, or both. Kerry suggests Israel release 82 Palestinian prisoners, who have Israeli blood on their hands, as a goodwill gesture to start negotiations. Where is a good will gesture towards Israel? Never mind expecting Palestinians to offer one, so why not from the U.S.? Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly requested President Obama to release an Israeli spy from an American prison to aid in persuading his cabinet to agree to the 82-prisoner release. Jonathan Pollard is a convicted spy, but murdered no one and has served almost 29 years. Obama rejected the request. Apparently Obama’s message is, “Don’t do as I do; do as I say.”
The world is watching an implosion of the Middle East. Iran is threatening the return of the 12th Imam via Armageddon as it reaches for nuclear proficiency. The image of a nuclear strike hovers over gulf state leaders, especially Saudi Arabia. Islamic terrorism on the U.S. mainland is an increasing threat as sleeper cells proliferate. Oil-producing regimes favorable to the U.S. are more vulnerable to terrorist subversion. Vital U.S. national security and economic interests are at risk as the formerly pro-U.S. Arab Middle East becomes Islamist. Once pro-U.S. Turkey has switched to anti-U.S. Russia and China are actors on the scene. Are Palestinian talks a solution to any of this mayhem? The answer is ‘NO.’
Piecing together a Palestinian puzzle for statehood is a distraction. Arab states view Palestinians as a subversive element; they defend them with words, but never with resources. As their pawns, the Arab world uses them to keep public opinion slanted against Israel. The raging, violent, out-of-control and unpredictable events across the Middle East are completely separate from the Palestinian issue.
As evidence from the U.S. point of view, the U.S. has pressured Israel for 30 years to give Palestinians with what they think they want. Israel awarded the Palestinians with sweeping concessions in 1983; since then, the U.S. (and Israel) have been rewarded with multiple terror attacks: 1993, Riyadh and Khobar Towers; 1998, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; 2000, the USS Cole, followed by the 9/11 attacks.
As evidence from Israel’s point of view, not one Arab-Israel war erupted because of, or on behalf of, the Palestinians. At the end of the 1948 War for Israeli Independence, Jordan and Egypt occupied Judea, Samaria and Gaza. They did not transfer these regions to the Palestinians. When Israel fought Palestinian terrorism in Lebanon in 1982, and fought Judea and Samaria in the 1st and 2nd Intifadas, and Gaza in 2006, 2009, and 2012, no Arab country rallied behind the Palestinians.
Palestinian statehood has consequences. U.S. interests and values would be undermined. The pro-U.S. Hashemite regime (Jordan’s royal family) would fall; Russia, China, North Korea and Iran could access the eastern Mediterranean; Islamic terrorism would flourish as per the encouragement of the hate education of Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO, the model of international terrorism. At the U.N. all Palestinian leaders since the World War II have sided with the likes of the Nazis, Communist Bloc countries, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein and the brutal terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Statehood would add another vote against the U.S. at the U.N. A Palestinian state would shrink an already tiny Israel and make it impossible for her to have defensible borders. Instead of a national security asset and beachhead for the U.S., Israel would be transformed into a national security liability.
The global power projection of the U.S. is presently palpably reduced. Yet, Israel appears as a shining star--stable, strong, democratic and an unconditional ally of the U.S. in the Middle East and beyond. Why would the U.S. stay stuck in the sands of placating Palestinians? Why wouldn’t the U.S. emphasize Israeli-American shared values, mutual commercial endeavors and joint homeland security issues? The implosion of the Arab Street should elevate, not impair Israel/U.S. relations. The so-called Arab Spring has produced an Arab Winter with no thaw in sight.
The U.S. under Secretary Kerry’s leadership may have good intentions to advance peace, but we are putting pressure in the wrong place. America’s leaders fail to understand the Arab mindset. We in the West do not share the same values as the Arab world; nor do we play by the same set of rules. Western leaders mistakenly assume that the entire world is in agreement as to the concepts of honesty, integrity and fairness. We have extended the proverbial olive branch in the form of concessions, but Arabs interpret our actions as weakness. When Arabs sense weakness they are further empowered to become more radical and demanding.
The United States must stand firmly with Israel. To do otherwise will likely only further radicalize Palestinian demands. For example, since 1949, every peace initiative instigated by the U.S. has failed. Over time, the unintended consequences of placating the Palestinians have been to fuel, rather than to extinguish Arab expectations and Islamic radicalism.
It’s time for the U.S. to change course. We must shed our image as a ‘paper tiger.’ Israel is our true friend and ally. We must show our solidarity by standing firmly on her side with dedicated conviction and strength of character. The United States must not waiver in our stance and we must not continue attempting to appease the Palestinians. This has never worked and it never will. As in the past, all we will get in return will be the shedding of more innocent blood.
(INN) The European Union expressed concern on Friday over a directive by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to suspend contact with Europe on matters related to Judea, Samaria and Gaza.Yes, Israel needs to be more direct. I'd go with, "fuck off".
Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, responded to the decision by saying, "The EU is concerned by reports in the Israeli media that the Israeli Minister of Defense has announced a number of restrictions affecting EU activities supporting the Palestinian people."
Kocijancic stressed, however, "We have not received any official communication from the Israeli authorities. Our delegations on the spot are seeking urgent clarifications.”
Israeli media outlets reported on Thursday that Yaalon has ordered the Coordinator of Government Activities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, to turn down any request by the European Union which relates to these regions.
Yaalon’s directive is a direct response to the EU’s new guidelines which forbid any contact with Israeli companies operating beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines, said the report. Last week the EU published these guidelines despite Israeli efforts to dissuade it from doing so.
The Defense Minister reportedly instructed Dangot to make it difficult for the Europeans to operate in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
In the past week, Israel has denied several European requests to fund projects in the Palestinian Authority. In addition, eight requests by EU officials to cross from Israel into PA-assigned areas were denied and meetings between EU and Israelis officials were canceled.
A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Friday that several European humanitarian aid staff had had difficulty obtaining permits to enter Gaza and some requests had gone unanswered.
Israel met European envoys last Friday, warning them of a serious crisis between the European Union and Israel over the move.
Hundreds of legal experts from Israel and around the world have appealed to European Union Foreign Affairs Commissioner Catherine Ashton to annul the EU's plan.
The experts are noting that the decision does not have a legal basis, because, they argue, Judea and Samaria is not occupied territory in the legal sense of the term.
BEIRUT (AP) — They're lightweight, easy to assemble and have covers that are supposed to keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The U.N. refugee agency wants to test these individual housing units with an eye toward using them as shelter for Syrians fleeing their country's civil war.
But the plan is meeting stiff resistance from Lebanese officials, who fear that elevating living conditions for Syrian refugees ever so slightly will discourage them from returning home once the fighting ends. That frustrates aid organizations who are desperately trying to manage the massive refugee presence across the country.
Lebanon's refusal to set up any kind of organized accommodation for tens of thousands of Syrians — including refugee camps or government-sanctioned tent sites — is a reflection of its own civil war demons. It underlines the nation's deep seated fear of a repeat of the 1975-1990 war, for which many Lebanese at least partly blame Palestinian refugees.
Many regard the Syrians with suspicion and are worried that the refugees, most of them Sunni Muslims, would stay in the country permanently, upsetting Lebanon's delicate sectarian balance and re-igniting the country's explosive mix of Christian and Muslim sects.
"It's the fear of everything permanent, or semi-permanent, because of the Palestinian experience in Lebanon," said Makram Maleeb, a program manager for a Syrian refugee crisis unit at Lebanon's Ministry for Social Affairs.
"Any move toward a camp situation is quite worrisome because it suggests a permanent situation for the refugees," he told The Associated Press.
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libyan security officials say more than 1,000 detainees have escaped from a prison near the eastern city of Benghazi in a mass jailbreak.
A government security official in Benghazi, Mohammed Hejazi, said the jailbreak happened Saturday at Koyfiya prison, as protesters stormed the offices of Islamist-allied parties in Libya's main cities.
It wasn't immediately clear if the jailbreak was part of the protests or if inmates received outside help.
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(AP) The Army psychiatrist charged in the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting said in a statement to Fox News that the U.S. government is at war with Islam.
"My complicity was on behalf of a government that openly acknowledges that it would hate for the law of Almighty Allah to be the supreme law of the land," Maj. Nidal Hasan said in a lengthy statement released to Fox News (http://fxn.ws/1cafkA2) on Saturday. He then says in reference to a war on Islam, "I participated in it."
Hasan, 42, is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the November 2009 attack at the Texas Army post. His trial is scheduled to start Aug. 6. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
The American-born Muslim is serving as his own attorney and has made similar declarations during pre-trial hearings and jury selection. Fox News reported that Hasan didn't directly address the shooting in his statement, which it said is more than six pages long.
Hasan also said in the statement that he regrets serving in the Army.
"I would like to begin by repenting to Almighty Allah and apologize to the Mujahideen, the believers, and the innocent. ... I ask for their forgiveness for participating in the illegal and immoral aggression against Muslims, their religion and their lands," he told Fox News in the statement.
Hasan also has objected to the judge's denial of his "defense of others" strategy, which must show that killing was necessary to prevent the immediate harm or death of others. Col. Tara Osborn has barred him from telling jurors that he shot U.S. troops because they were an imminent threat to Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.
At a hearing earlier this month, Hasan, who is paralyzed from the abdomen down after being shot by police the day of the Fort Hood shooting, said he wanted jurors to know that he was being forced to wear a camouflage uniform that he believes represents "an enemy of Islam."
(WT) President Obama on Friday afternoon ordered another waiver of congressional restrictions on direct funding of the Palestinian Authority, clearing the way for more U.S. aid.
In the one-page order, Mr. Obama said he was taking the action due to the “national security interests” of the U.S. The move comes as the administration is preparing to host renewed direct talks in Washington between Palestinians and Israelis for the first time since 2010.
The president in March directed about $500 million to be sent to the Palestinian Authority, also waiving the restrictions set by Congress. At the time, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said he was seeking to move another $200 million to the Palestinians.
Some lawmakers oppose the aid, both because of sequestration budget cuts and the Palestinian Authority’s ties to the terrorist organization Hamas.
An administration official said the president will send $148 million to the Palestinian Authority, calling it “the most immediate and efficient means of helping the PA maintain and build the foundations of a viable, peaceful Palestinian state.”
Obama:"we don't negotiate with terrorists..we finance them" Held 3 w ago but still ongoing #Egypt #Tahrir #USA @CNN pic.twitter.com/qbLQclmhoO
— Nahla Sobhy (@nahlasobhy) July 26, 2013
(The Guardian) At least 120 supporters of Egypt's ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, have been shot dead by security officials in what is the worst state-led massacre in the country since the fall of Hosni Mubarak, according to figures released by Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. Earlier reports on Saturday said the death toll had exceeded 136.
The Egyptian health ministry said that it had counted 38 dead – though its figures are only based on bodies delivered to state institutions.
The massacre took place in the small hours of Saturday morning, at a sit-in at Rabaa al-Adawiya, east Cairo, where tens of thousands of pro-Morsi supporters have camped since Morsi was deposed on 3 July.
Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad said the shooting started shortly before pre-dawn morning prayers on the fringes of a round-the-clock vigil being staged by backers of Morsi, who was toppled by the army more than three weeks ago.
"They are not shooting to wound, they are shooting to kill," Haddad said, adding that the death toll might be much higher.
Al Jazeera's Egypt television station reported that 120 had been killed and some 4,500 injured in the early morning violence near Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawia mosque.
Reporters at the scene said firing could still be heard hours after the troubles started.
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CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian health ministry official says two protesters were killed in clashes between supporters and opponents of the country's ousted president in the coastal city of Alexandria.
The clashes broke out Friday, a day when rival rallies are held across Egypt. The country's army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi called for rallies to give him a mandate to stop "violence and terrorism." The supporters of Mohammed Morsi, the first democratically elected president removed by el-Sissi early this month, also held rallies Friday.
Friction started outside a major mosque in Alexandria, as the two sides exchanged stones and fired birdshot. Police and army tried to break up the fighting, lobbing tear gas and deploying soldiers. Health official Mohammed Abu Suleiman said two were killed and two dozen injured.
(TIME) Early Friday morning, an Egyptian judge announced the detention of deposed President Mohamed Morsi for 15 days while authorities investigate charges of espionage levied against him by the transitional government. The move aborts all possibility of near-term reconciliation with Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.Ramadan death toll is now at 3213.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has blocked the European Union from aiding tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, in retaliation for an EU ban on financial assistance to Israeli organizations in the occupied territories.
The EU imposed its restrictions last week, citing its frustration over the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in territory captured by Israeli forces in the 1967 Middle East War. The new guidelines render Israeli entities operating there ineligible for EU grants, prizes or loans, beginning next year.
An Israeli official said on Friday the Jewish state was compelled to respond to the EU's decision "to sanction or boycott the settlements".
"From our standpoint we cannot just ignore this or treat spitting in our face as though it is rain," the official said. [...]
The Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon had decided to suspend contacts with the EU in the West Bank.
Yaalon, a former army chief and a hardliner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, has "frozen projects, canceled meetings, curtailed coordination and permits for Europe's operations" for Palestinians living in what is known as Area C, a West Bank area fully administered by Israel, he said.
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Tunis: Protests and a general strike swept Tunisia Friday after gunmen killed an opposition head with "the same gun" used to kill a colleague, as under-fire authorities pointed to Al-Qaeda links.
Mohamed Brahmi was gunned down with the same weapon used to kill another opposition politician, Chokri Belaid, six months earlier, Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou said.
He said the main suspect in Brahmi's killing was a member of the radical Sunni Muslim Salafist movement linked to Al-Qaeda. [...]
The 30-year-old Paris-born suspect was already wanted in Tunisia for kidnapping and arms trafficking, the minister said. [...]
"The suspects are radical extremists, and some of them belong to Ansar al-Sharia," the main Salafist group in Tunisia, he said.
Canadian diplomats mounted a behind-the-scenes push to convince European countries to outlaw the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, a government official said in an interview Wednesday.
For the past year, the blacklisting of Hezbollah on the continent has been a Department of Foreign Affairs priority — one that apparently paid off this week when the European Union agreed to ban the military wing of the so-called Party of God.
The diplomatic effort began last July, after a bus carrying Israeli tourists was bombed in Bulgaria by suspected Hezbollah operatives. Following a discussion with Hillary Clinton, then the U.S. Secretary of State, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird instructed his officials to persuade the EU to proscribe Hezbollah.
We went out to try and achieve that objective
“This is a clear priority that was set out by the minister. We went out to try and achieve that objective,” said the official, who was closely involved in the diplomacy and spoke to the National Post on the condition he would not be identified.
(Spain) 80 People have died and many more injured in a passenger train derailment in north-western Spain. It is the country's worst train accident for 40 years.The Alvia 730 series train left the tracks on a bend about 3-4km (2-2.5 miles) from Santiago de Compostela station at 20:41 local time (18:41 GMT) on Wednesday, according to railway firm Renfe.It was on the express route between Madrid and the ship-building city of Ferrol on the Galician coast. The line to Santiago de Compostela has stretches of high speed track, where trains reach up to 220km/h (136.7mph), before having to slow to 80km/h before the section where the accident took place. A driver is reported to have said that the train was going at up to 190 kilometres per hour, twice the allowed speed limit on that particular curve of track. Authorities have said it is unclear why the accident happened, but they have ruled out an act of terrorism.
that he had offered her a lift because she was directing him to a shop to buy tomatoes.Magistrates said Iklaq’s story was ‘not credible’ and ordered him to pay a £400 fine, £625 costs and a £40 victim surcharge.
(Iraq) Dozens of Sunni militants set up a roadblock on a highway north of Baghdad early on Thursday, stopped trucks, checked IDs and then summarily executed 14 Shi’ite drivers.
(Iraq) Bomb and gunfire attacks, mainly targeting Iraqi security forces, in the predominantly Sunni areas in Iraq on Wednesday killed 22 and wounded some 64 others, as the country struggles to contain the worst violence since 2008. Minus the 9 policemen murdered I reported yesterday that gives me a figure of 13.
(Tunsia) "Mohamed Brahmi,"a leading opposition figure and critic of Tunisia's ruling Islamists,was shot dead by unknown gunmen outside his home near the capital on Thursday.
(Afghanstan) Bomb blasts in Kunduz, Jawzjan, have resulted in 5 dead and 21 injured. In a separate incident in Kandahar, the Taliban murdered two workers who used to work for the Afghan government.
(Kashmir) An Islamic Cleric has been arrested after the bodies of his two children (three-year old Aaliya Iftikhar and two-year old Mohammad Hashim) were found with their throats slits. His wife (Naseema, 40) who also had her throat slit is is battling for her life.
(Thailand) 2 Policemen and 4 civilians were murdered by Islamic separatists in Southern Thailand The policemen were visiting a market in Narathiwat Province, the others included a couple in their early 50s shot and killed while driving home and two Muslim villagers who died after gunmen sprayed bullets at a tea shop.
(Syria) A car bomb inside Damascus killed at least seven people and wounded 62.
Ramadan death toll is now at 2747.
(Syria) Due to the sporadic reporting from inside Syria it is hard to put a finger on the total number of people who have died in the internecine conflict which is full flow within the country. Rather than guess, I am simply going to report the figures as reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights . As of today they report that at least 2,014 people, mostly combatants, have been killed in Syria's civil war since the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began on July 9th. Minus the 80 deaths inside Syria we have reported so far and we come to a figure of 1934. Of course that figure is at the lower end of the scale and no doubt hundreds more poor people have perished this past fortnight.
Ramadan death toll is now at 2697
(Washington) The Liberal world here in the Uk is cock-a-hoop over how the current US administration has blocked the sale of 4 F16 jets to Eygpt after the Military there got rid of the Muslim Brotherhood leader for life the other week.
BBC
The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Washington says the decision is a way for the US to signal its displeasure with recent events in Egypt
The US government has delayed the delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt's air force, in an implicit criticism of the way the Egyptian military has behaved since forcing ex-president Mohamed Morsi from power.
(London) The East London borough of Tower Hamlets has one of the highest ethnic minority populations in the UK. However with a population of around 1/4 million, roughly 34% of the population are recorded of being Islamic, Christians account for around 27% of the population. Yet due to neoptism, Islamic block voting and the customary Islamic disregard for honesty, a Islamist mayor was voted in 2010.
Well it transpires that out of a budget of £595,000 in which to hand out to relgious groups in the borough, £378,000 was handed to 25 Islamic groups, the remaining 66% of non-Islamic groups had to share the rest.
Anybody else notice how when Muslims are in the minority they speak of inequalities , under-representation and racism at the hands of Non-Muslims, that the world must be fairer, that they support democracy and equality for all. Yet when they form the majority anywhere in the world (Never mind the UK) they set about looking after only their own and stamping down on all non Islamic faiths.
Meanwhile white liberals keep on telling me Islam is a religion of peace. Yeah, right.
(Egypt) It appears that a number of Allah's favourite terrorists inside Egypt felt that they had come across a cunning plan in which to murder as many people as they could during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. So they built a car bomb and decided to drive it to the town of El-Arish were they knew they could murder with impunity. The thing is, they must have picked a really bumpy route as ,is the case with infantile idiots they suffered a huge case of premature detonation and instead of killing as many innocents as possible, they saw their flip-flops jetting across the desert at over 100MPH followed naturally by their own burnt out bodies. Also in the same town Two Egyptian soldiers were shot dead.
(Somalia) Somali MP 'Sheikh Adan Mader' had a very lucky escape today in Mogadishu, when the car he (and 3 others) had been travelling exploded (due to a hidden bomb) just after they had left it. Unfortunately one passer-by was killed in the explosion.
(Pakistan) A terrorist attack on the town of Sukkur, saw buildings belonging to the Pakistani secret service targeted, after 4 bombs were detonated, heavily armed gunmen lay siege to the area. currently 5 people and 3 terrorists have been confirmed as killed with over 40 injured.
(Thailand) A bomb attack on the Chanet District Hospital, killed 2 Islamic women and 1 Buddhist teachers. The blast is the latest in a number of Islamic terrorist incidents in the south of Thailand where over the past 15 days of Ramadan 32 terrorist attacks have taken place killing 22 and injuring 28 more.
(Iraq) A terrorist attack on a Police station in the northern town of Bashmaya saw 9 policemen murdered.
(Syria) Two Palestinian men inside a Syrian refugee camp died of GSW when they decided to join a firefight between Free Syrian Rebels and Syrian regime forces.
(Pakistan) 18-year-old Waris felt his honour had been stained when he saw his stepmother talking to somebody he didn't know. So taking a gun he shot her. After handing himself in to the police Waris proclaimed that he tried his best to stop his stepmother from meeting strangers, but she did not stop. He said that he saw a stranger with his stepmother last night. -
(Pakistan) overnight 3 people were murdered in the city of Karachi.
Ramadan death toll is now at 763.
(London) The self appointed Muslim Council of Britain is an Islamic pressure group with the sole purpose of ensuring that Islam is granted as many privileges as possible, in which to ease the passage of getting 'Islam' recognised as the one and only faith of the United Kingdom. In order to achieve this aim, the MCB play the victim card every chance they get in which to ensure that the ethical latte drinkers out there, can only see the followers of Islam as only victims. Which is why when anybody has tried to discuss the more odious elements of the cult of Islam until 2005 they were character assassinated and then ostracised as 'Racists' Then in July 2005, the unthinkable happened, Islamic terrorists detonated 4 bombs in London and murdered 52 innocent people. The MCB insisted that the government hold a public inquiry so as to lay the blame not at fellow members of their faith, but rather at British foreign policy. Instead the government of the day set in motion a study group comprising of a number of MCB members and their conclusion about why Muslims turn so readily to terrorism, because Holocaust day in the UK which remembers the millions of Jews murdered by the Nazis , is offensive to Muslims.
And so it goes, we've had MCB members openly declare that British troops must be attacked, they have openly stated that homosexuality is unacceptable and they have attacked any attempt in which to punish Islamic terrorists in the UK. In other words they only support the viewpoint of racist bigioted muslims while promoting the view that they are a religion of peace.
Currently as it stands the Uk has in the last few years born witness to numerous terrorist plots, thankfully the vast majority have been caught in the bud, but as it stands over 60 people people have been murdered in cold blood and yet after each terrorist incident, we are all fed a line about how Muslims are fearful for their safety. Really? after Islamic paedophilic gangs have been caught time and time again targeting young girls we are fed a diet that they are not Muslims, that it is racist to think so and that actually more whites carry out crimes in the UK. In fact if I only listened to the bBC, I would believe that I lived in a racist land where whites abuse coloureds every chance they got. (Which is strange as I am brown skinned and have an Islamic name and i face no issues whatsoever)
Anyway after a couple of failed bomb attacks on mosques and the stabbing to death of an Islamic pensioner, the Police have 2 Ukrainian immigrants on charges of attacking the Islamic community. Get that, in the UK after numerous gang rapes, terrorist plots and the murder of over 60 people, including the beheading of a British soldier on the streets on London in broad daylight , 2 mosques have faced failed bomb attacks and 1 man has been murdered, all of which have transpired in the last few weeks and at the hands of foreigners . So much for the UK being a racist country, yet and a big yet the MCB is demanding that after dramatic escalation in violence" against British Muslims there needs a much tougher response from the government.
Really? and yet when the Government tried to do even less against Islamic terrorists, the MCB ensured they refused to help the British government.
Oh look there's that 'H' word again. Just so f-ing glad I left the gay death cult behind at the tender age of 10.
(London) yesterday the European Union passed a motion which declared that Hezb-allah (The Iranian backed Lebanese terrorist outfit) as being a terrorist outfit and thus by default "Persona non grata"
Good? Well not to the BBC which has pushed out article after articel about how this is all wrong, that Hezb-allah is a party of peace and guess what its all the fault of the Jew: So we have a video report on
Hezbollah 'deeply rooted in Lebanese society'
On how poor Hezb-allah can only be a victim
Hezbollah facing growing Syria backlash
Read up on the bBCs viewpoint that the only reason Hezb-allah are in Syria is to save Assad from Islamic terrorist.
EU ministers agree to blacklist Hezbollah's armed wing
How God sent Hezballah into Lebanon to combat the Jew
Iran: Cleric 'claims God sent warriors' to repel Israel
It appears that at the bBC, they still sing to the tune that:
"We are all Hezb-allah now"
The bBC, the propaganda arm for Islamic terrorism.
(Ankara) For that last few years Turkey under the control of the Islamist government of the Justice and Development Party have been most vocal about how Israel is a pariah state that must return the lands it took during a time of war. Oh how it has played the Isreal is evil card (Like every other Islamic country) in which to keep the natives focused away from what is happening within its own borders.
The funny thing is 100 years ago Turkey carried out the Armenian genocide (Recognition of which in Turkey gets you murdered) and as only the victors can, they subsumed large tracts of Christian Armenia into the Motherland that is Islamic Turkey. Yet for all their vocal protestations against Israel, the thieving Turks have stated that returning the lands they stole from Christian Armenia isn't even an option.
(Afghanistan) A follower of the peaceful religion decided that he was going to kill for Allah during the holy month of Ramadan. So taking pointers from the Islamic holy book, he walked an explosive laden donkey into a US army patrol and no doubt uttered 'Allah ackba' when he murdered 3 American servicemen. Religion of peace my arse.
(Afghanistan) In the Eastern province of Khost, gunmen attacked the home of the Spera district chief, killing his brother and 5 bodyguards.
(Turkey) Vigilant Turkish soldiers, showed the world what they are capable of when they opened fire on refugees trying to escape Syria.
(Pakistan) 5 years ago Tahir Sarwar married Shahnaz Bibi . Apparently her family were against this marriage, which is why after festering for such a long time, gunmen walked into the their family home and opened fire with automatic weapons. Killing 25-year-old Tahir, his wife Shahnaz Bibi, 22-year-old Zahid Sarwar,2-year-old Arish Tahir, 9-month-old Adnan Tahir and a guest Hamza Nawaz. -
(Kashmir) Islamic terrorists paid for by the pakistani government lost one of their own when they tried to infiltrate into India and were caught by the Indian army."Qari Yasir commander of the Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist outfit, found out the hardway what it is like to be hit by a machine gun.
(Algeria) Algerian troops ambushed a car containing 4 Islamic terrorists and in the ensuring one-sided battle. 4 of allah's favourite little terrorists,( including regional Al Qaeda deputy leader Abu Al Walid Tuhami) got their wish of dying over Ramadan.
(Gaza) A family dispute in the Gaza Strip saw 20 year old Majed Iyyad Katkat, stabbed to death during the Islamic holy month.
(Iraq) As can only transpire during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. 3 Bombs were detonated amongst Sunni Muslims who had congregated for evening prayer inside Iraq. 9 people were murdered and injuring over 50.
(Eygpt) Clashes between the real followers of Allah (Muslim Brotherhood arseholes) and the so called false muslims (Anybody not a MB supporter. Saw 11 people killed in pre-dawn clashes. It transpires that student MB supporters at Cario university decided to leave their sit-in and march to the local mosque. On route they blocked roads, causing huge traffic jams and enraging the locals. Whom it transpires found their savours in 7 masked men who saying enough was enough opened up with weapons removing 11 traffic foul-ups at a stroke.
Ramadan death toll is now at 712.
(Times of Israel) A Palestinian minister likened negotiations with Israel to a medieval agreement signed between the Prophet Muhammad and his political rivals in Mecca, which he violated two years after signing, Palestinian Media Watch revealed on Monday.
During last Friday’s sermon — attended by PA President Mahmoud Abbas and broadcast on national Palestinian television — Religious Endowments Minister Mahmoud al-Habbash blasted “Hamas’s impulsive adventure,” praising the leadership wisdom of the PLO that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the international recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Habbash then compared the decision of the PA leadership to negotiate with Israel to the agreement of the Prophet Muhammad on a 10-year truce with his rivals in the Quraish tribe of Mecca, known as the Treaty of Hudaibiya, reached in the year 628 CE.
“The hearts of the Prophet’s companions burnt with anger and fury … this is not disobedience [of God's command], it is politics. It is crisis management, conflict management … in less than two years, based on this treaty, the Prophet returned and conquered Mecca. This is the example. It is the model.”
Habbash’s sermon mirrored the incendiary historical comparison by deceased PA president Yasser Arafat in a Johannesburg mosque on May 10, 1994, where he compared the Oslo Accords to Hudaibiya.
“This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Muhammad and Quraish,” Arafat told his audience, unaware that his speech was being recorded.
Habbash’s statements reflected a predominant atmosphere of skepticism within the Palestinian leadership towards renewed talks with Israel. Presidential Spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh and PLO Executive Council Secretary Yasser Abed Rabbo have both claimed in recent days that no Palestinian decision has yet been taken to resume negotiations.
On Monday, Fatah official and veteran negotiator Nabil Shaath joined the two, telling Ma’an news agency that even preliminary talks in Washington depend on the Americans fulfilling a Palestinian demand, which he refused to specify.
“If the Americans agree, we will move to the next step, which is preliminary negotiations in Washington to explore the rules and terms of reference,” Shaath told Ma’an.
TheBlaze reported last week that prayer services at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on the first Friday of Ramadan took on a political tone when worshipers marched with posters showing support for ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and raised a huge banner celebrating his leadership.
Now, video has emerged of the events on the Temple Mount where the mosque is situated where it appears a Muslim religious leader also took the opportunity to virulently slam the U.S., Europe and Israel.
“What happened at the al-Aqsa Mosque during last week’s Friday prayers should be sounding alarm bells in the U.S., Britain and France,” writes journalist Khaled Abu Toameh who for years has been covering the Palestinian beat for the Jerusalem Post.
The Clarion Project translated a video taken at the July 12 gathering atop the holiest site in Judaism in which an imam from the group Hizb ut-Tahrir reportedly “incited a crowd of hundreds of Muslims calling for the destruction of America, France, Britain and Rome.”
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a pan-Islamic organization that supports merging Muslim countries into a united Sharia-ruled Islamic caliphate. According to the Clarion Project translation of the rally Imam Ismat Al-Hammouri led the crowd in chanting these slogans:
“Allah is Greater! [Allahu Akbar] Let America be destroyed!”
“Allah is Greater! [Allahu Akbar] Let France be destroyed!”
“Allah is Greater! [Allahu Akbar] Let Rome be destroyed!” […]
“Allah is Greater! [Allahu Akbar] Let Britain be destroyed!” […]
“We warn you America, leave Muslims alone. Leave Muslims alone because you messed around a lot in Syria and before that in Afghanistan and Iraq and now in Egypt,” the imam said.
“America, what do you think we are? We are the Umma of Islam, a strong nation, a great nation, a nation from the farthest East to the farthest West that will soon teach you a lesson in politics and in war, Allah-willing,” he said.
“Allah is greater and the outcome belongs to the devout…Listen, Obama, the Caliphate will return…the Caliphate is the answer,” he said.
“Listen, Obama, we are a nation that does not bow down, and the Caliphate will return!” the imam added.
TheBlaze cannot independently verify the contents of the video or the date or location where it was reported to have been recorded; however, veteran Palestinian affairs reporter Abu Toameh supports those details in a report he posted on the Gatestone Institute’s website Monday. He writes:
After the prayers, during a demonstration in support of Egypt’s deposed President Mohamed Morsi, thousands of Muslims began shouting slogans against the U.S., Britain, France and Israel.Abu Toameh writes, “Why did the Muslim worshipers chant slogans against the US, Britain and France? Because they believe that these countries are the enemies of Islam and were involved in the ‘conspiracy’ to remove the Muslim Brotherhood from power in Egypt.”
“Allahu Akbar, destroy the U.S., Britain and France!” the demonstrators chanted in scenes that appeared as if they were taking place in a remote Taliban-controlled village in Afghanistan.
But the protest did not take place in Afghanistan or Pakistan. It took place at the Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan, during which Israel allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank to enter Jerusalem for Friday prayers.
“But of course such demonstrations cannot occur without also shouting threats and slogans against Jews. Why Jews? Because the declared goal of these extremists is to destroy Israel and establish an Islamic Caliphate,” Abu Toameh adds.
He also points out that it is concerning that some of those who participated in the protest are Arab citizens of Israel who are affiliated with the Islamic Movement in Israel, a group that demonstrated in northern Israel last week in support of the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi.
“The anti-Jewish demonstration in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque is a sign of the growing power of Muslim extremists in the city [Jerusalem] and the West Bank,” Abu Toameh writes and adds that the Islamists pose a threat not only to Israel and the U.S. but also to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Clarion Project is a non-profit organization that describes itself as being “dedicated to exposing the dangers of Islamic extremism while providing a platform for the voices of moderation and promoting grassroots activism.”
