Facing an imminent threat from the mujahideen of ISIS, Iraqi government troops have fled from three cities in western Iraq. ISIS had just taken a fourth city in the region, and was able to effortless occupy the other three after they were abandoned by security forces.
In other news, Glasgow Central Mosque has been given the go-ahead by city authorities to broadcast the call to prayer every day during the upcoming Commonwealth Games.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, RR, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Italy: Industrial Orders Up 3.8% March-Apr, 6.2% Apr-Apr
Biggest foreign rise since Sep 2009, 9.2%
(ANSA) — Rome, June 20 — Industrial orders were 3.8% up in April over March and 6.2% over April 2013, Istat said Friday.
The rise was fuelled by the best foreign-order rise since September 2009, 9.2%, the statistics agency said. The figures were taken as a sign the Italian economy may finally be turning the corner after the country’s longest postwar recession.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Early in the morning on June 18, 2013 a brand new Mercedes C250 coupe was driving through the Melrose intersection on Highland Avenue in Hollywood when suddenly, out of nowhere, it sped up. According to an eye-witness, the car accelerated rapidly, bounced several times then fishtailed out of control before it slammed into a palm tree and burst into flames, ejecting its engine some 200 feet away.
A witness, Jose Rubalcalva, whose house stood adjacent to the crash, told Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks news network that no one could approach the burning car because it kept exploding. In a simulated full-frontal crash of a 2013 C250 coupe, the car doesn’t explode on impact nor does it launch its engine 200 feet.
In fact, said Nael Issa, a Mercedes Benz dealer in Long Beach, “The car has a crumble zone, so when it crashes it goes in like an accordion. And in some cases the engine drops down, so it doesn’t go into you.”
The driver in the fatal crash was Michael Hastings, a 33-year-old crack investigative reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, whose June 2010 article, “The Runaway General,” exposed the behind-the-scenes failure of top U.S. General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan—and, even more damagingly, revealed McChrystal’s mocking attitude toward the Obama administration, which ultimately led to the general’s resignation.
Four months after Hastings’s so-called accident, and despite scant coverage in the mainstream media, new facts and evidence continue to emerge raising serious unanswered questions about whether the journalist was assassinated, the breadth of unconventional cyber-techniques that may have been used, and who might have been responsible.
| [Return to headlines] |
Calgary Muslims Stand Together in Protest of Violent Extremism
Tehseer Hussain is a typical, 20-something Calgarian. On a Saturday downtown, he wears jeans, boat shoes, a baseball cap and an artsy T-shirt. But he’s also Muslim, and he knows that makes some people suspicious of him.
“The moderate people have always been there, but they don’t get a voice in the media,” Hussain says. “Muslims were united but these violent forces are trying to divide and conquer us.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A Prophetic Trip on the Rolling English Road
By Charles Moore
This novel was first published in 1914, but it has nothing discernible to do with the approach of the First World War. I was reminded of its existence by the American writer Daniel Pipes, and read it. It contains one very famous thing — Chesterton’s much-anthologised poem about how “the rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road” — but otherwise it has been largely forgotten…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Britain Will Face Costs of Islamic Extremism for ‘Many Years’, Says Cressida Dick
Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner warns Britain faces long-term consequences of Syria conflict
Britain will feel the repercussions of Syria and the rise of Islamic extremism within its own borders for “many years” to come, a top counter-terrorism expert has said. Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police’s assistant commissioner and head of specialist operations, warned that Britain would feel long-term consequences of the conflict…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Berlin House of One: The First Church-Mosque-Synagogue?
Berlin thinks it is making religious history as Muslims, Jews and Christians join hands to build a place where they can all worship. The House of One, as it is being called, will be a synagogue, a church and a mosque under one roof.
The location is highly significant, according to one of the three religious leaders involved, Rabbi Tovia Ben Chorin. “From my Jewish point of view the city where Jewish suffering was planned is now the city where a centre is being built by the three monotheistic religions which shaped European culture,” he told the BBC.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Awards Prison Inmates Cash Compensation, Shorter Terms
Decree to prevent costly EU infringement proceedings
(ANSA) — Rome, June 20 — Reduced prison sentences and cash will be awarded to inmates as compensation for serving terms in overcrowded penitentiaries so Italy can comply with European Court of Justice rulings, Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi announced Friday.
Under a decree from the cabinet of Premier Matteo Renzi, inmates still in prison will have their sentences discounted by one day for every 10 spent in cells of less than three square metres while former inmates will receive eight euros for every day spent in what the Court of Human Rights has called “not humane and degrading treatment,” official sources said.
Boschi said the cabinet decision was taken to meet the rules and avoid infringement proceedings by the European Union against Italy that would have meant hefty fines levied on Rome by Brussels.
The Northern League criticised the decision to grant compensation as an “infamous measure” and the prison warders’ trade union Sappe was also critical. The Cisl trade union federation said it approved the compensation but said it is not enough to solve the problems in prisons on the peninsula.
Inmates made as many as 6,000 formal complaints against Italy to the Court of Justice.
Justice Minister Andrea Orlando denied suggestions the sentence reductions amount to a “mini amnesty” saying Italy would have had to pay at least double in infringement fines.
A wider package of prison reform is to be considered by Renzi’s cabinet June 30.
President Giorgio Napolitano has been a longtime critic of the prison system, denouncing the “critical, intolerable situation of overcrowding” in Italy’s penal institutions.
Italy’s 205 prisons held a total of 59,683 detainees on April 30, exceeding the legal capacity of 49,091 according to justice ministry figures.
Prison overcrowding is a factor in the high rate of suicides and incidents of self-harm among prisoners.
In February, Italy’s Senate gave final approval to a controversial law aimed at reducing prison overcrowding by releasing some inmates early.
That move came after the European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to make dramatic improvements to its prison system to stop overcrowding and undo violations against prison rights by May 20.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Once a European Star, Sweden Heads to Vote With Reform Fatigue
(Reuters) — When Sweden’s leftist opposition leader, a former welder, visited a disused factory in an old industrial town on his campaign trail, it was not to lament a bygone era but to tour new luxury apartments selling at around $6,000 a square metre.
Stefan Lofven’s inspection of the results of this new housing in Eskilstuna, once the heart of Sweden’s industrial working class, shows leftist politicians are embracing the low taxes and cheap loans spawning such luxury developments…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Polish Foreign Minister Says Ties With US Are Worthless in Leaked Conversation
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A Polish magazine says it has obtained recordings of a conversation in which Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski says the country’s strong alliance with the U.S. “isn’t worth anything” and is “even harmful because it creates a false sense of security.”
A short transcript of the conversation was released on Sunday by Wprost, a weekly magazine that set off a political storm last weekend with the publication of secret recordings of other top officials making compromising remarks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: City Mosque Will Broadcast Call to Prayer Every Day Throughout Games
THE Islamic call to prayer will be recited daily through loudspeakers at Scotland’s largest mosque during the Commonwealth Games. Representatives from Glasgow Central Mosque have been given the go-ahead by Glasgow City Council to broadcast the two-minute call known as the adhan every evening, with the Games coinciding with Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting.…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The Many Faces of British Poverty in France
A little-known charity has been helping out destitute British people in France for nearly 200 years. If the causes of poverty were once wars and revolutions, now it’s more likely to be a house purchase gone wrong.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Birmingham Dad Feared to be Recruiting Young Britons Into Islamic Terror Group
The 32-year-old father-of-two is suspected by the US of enabling many of the 400 young Britons thought to be fighting in Iraq
A Birmingham jihadi so dangerous that he was once monitored 24 hours a day by police is feared to be involved in the recruitment of young Britons into terror group ISIS.
The 32-year-old father-of-two who, for legal reasons, can only be referred to as ‘AY’, is suspected by the US of enabling many of the 400 young Britons thought to be fighting in Iraq…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Education is the Key to Combating Fundamentalism
Free speech, religious tolerance, an understanding of the dignity of others, the liberty of the individual, the freedom to make the most of one’s talents, and respect for the institutions of our democracy are what make Britain great
Given all the facts, it is now impossible to deny that Britain has a problem with fundamentalist Islam. This is not an indictment of the venerable faith of Islam, or of the millions of law-abiding, patriotic Muslims who live in this country. But it is a challenge that we ignore at our peril. A challenge that should be met with a positive restatement of British values…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sting’s Children Won’t be Getting Much of His $306m
Pop icon Sting says his children won’t be getting trust funds from his vast fortune, assuming there’s any money left in it. The 16-time Grammy Award winner and former frontman of The Police, told The Mail on Sunday that the vast wealth would be “albatrosses” around the necks of his six children.
The singer-songwriter who grew up in a shipbuilding community in northeast England says he told the kids, “there won’t be much money left because we are spending it!”
Sting’s wealth was estimated at $306 million by the Sunday Times Rich List.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Wimbledon is Key Target for Al Qaeda Bombers
BRITISH jihadis have been urged to bomb the Wimbledon tennis championships as the UK was warned it faces a new wave of terror attacks.
The chilling threat comes as Muslim extremists, including the 500 or so Britons fighting in Syria and Iraq, have been told to “bring the battle to Britain”.
Wimbledon fortnight, which starts tomorrow, is a key target because it will attract hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world. Among them will be high-profile celebrities, politicians and, crucially, members of the Royal Family…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UKIP Voters Feel Disconnected Because They Can’t Send Emails, Chuka Umunna Says
Labour’s shadow business secretary says ‘a lot’ of people who voted for Ukip ‘can’t do things like’ sending and receiving emails and browsing the internet
Ukip voters feel disconnected from mainstream politics because they don’t know how to send emails or browse the internet, Labour’s shadow business secretary has suggested…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Youth Killed in Golan Heights Mortar Attack
(AGI) Jerusalem, June 22 — A 15-year-old Israeli boy was killed in the Golan Heights on Sunday morning, apparently by a mortar shell fired from Syria, newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
The boy’s father and two others were seriously injured when their car received a direct hit. Four Israeli troops were injured in March by fire from the Golan Heights. Israel captured the area from Syria in 1967 and annexed it in 1981.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Boy of 13 Killed in Golan Heights Blast From Across Syria Border
Syria’s bloody civil war recorded its first Israeli fatality on Sunday after an “intentional attack” from the Syrian side of the frontier, according to Israeli sources
Israel sustained its first fatality of Syria’s three-year civil war on Sunday when a boy of 13 died in an explosion in the occupied Golan Heights that Israeli officials said was “an intentional attack” from across the Syrian frontier.
Mohammed Qaraqara, an Israeli-Arab from Israel’s Galilee region, was travelling with his father, a defence ministry contractor, in a tanker carrying water at the time. The father and two other people were injured…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Air Forces Strike Military Sites in Gaza
GAZA, June 22 (Xinhua) — Israeli air forces have carried out early on Sunday a number of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, destroying military sites of Palestinian military groups, security sources said.
The air raids came a few hours after militants in Gaza fired two rockets on southern Israel.
Israeli jet fighters targeted four military installations of Islamic Hamas movement and Islamic Jihad groups in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khanyounis, according to the sources…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Two Palestinians Killed in Israel Army Raid in West Bank
NABLUS, West Bank, June 22 (Xinhua) — The Israeli army shot dead early on Sunday two Palestinians in the West Bank, medical and security sources said.
Medics at Rafidia governmental hospital said that Ahmad Fahmaw, aged 30, from Al-Ain refugee camp near Nablus was shot in the chest by an Israeli army force fire. Fahmawi died shortly after he was brought to the hospital, said the medics at the hospital.
Palestinian security sources told Xinhua that large Israeli forces stormed the refugee camp and raided dozens of houses, searching for three missing Israelis who disappeared in June 12 in the West Bank…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Australian With Terrorism Conviction Filmed Alongside Briton in ISIS Jihad Video
A jihadi recruitment video, featuring a British gap year student, also shows a man reported to be an Australian radical
A terrorist propaganda video released on Friday shows an Australian man next to British citizen Nasser Muthana, a gap year medical student from Cardiff. In the video, a second Westerner — sitting one-down from 20-year-old Muthana — is believed to be an Australian citizen with extensive terrorism connections…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Britain and US ‘Neglected Alert to Iraq Jihadist Takeover’
MI6 and the CIA were handed intelligence outlining the planned takeover of northern Iraq by jihadists and their allies five months ago but the British and American governments failed to act on it, senior officials in Iraq have told The Telegraph.
The head of intelligence for the autonomous Kurdish regional government, which has links with the West, said he had repeatedly tried to send warnings both to the central government in Baghdad and to its allies, Britain and America.
But despite repeated attempts to impress on Washington and London the seriousness of the unfolding situation, he said there was no response from either government.
The claims were made as it emerged that as many as 500 British-born fighters have travelled to the Middle East in recent months to take up arms with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Does Iran/North Korean Nuclear & ICBM Development Preclude a P5+1 Agreement?
Reuel Marc Gerecht, Senior Fellow of the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies published a book review in Friday’s Wall Street Journal by former Pentagon official, Matthew Kroenig, A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat. Matthew Kroenig is an Associate Professor and International Relations Field Chair in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. Kroenig, who served under former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, presents a thesis that the only way to stop the Islamic regime in Tehran from achieving nuclear hegemony is for the US, not Israel, to bomb several key facilities in Iran. The suggested targets are the centrifuge enrichment centers at Fordow and Natanz, the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, and the plutonium producing heavy water reactor at Arak. Why? Because as Gerecht relates, the sanctions regime has not deterred Iran from investing over $100 billion in the project to achieve nuclear hegemony replete with the means of delivery. Further, as he points out in his review, the US has the means to seriously cripple those facilities with 30,000 pound bunker busting deep penetrating bombs. The hoped for Stuxnet malworm and other cyber warfare is past. Gerecht notes in his review, they have only “gummed up” the whirling centrifuges enriching weapons grade uranium. Neither does he believe that targeted assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, allegedly by Mossad, has put a dent in Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear capability. Given that the current P5+1 discussions with Iran seeking to perfect a final agreement with a deadline of July 20th, Gerecht makes this prediction:Next month in Vienna, Iran and the P5+1 world powers will extend the interim agreement they struck six months ago on Iran’s nuclear program. Secretary of State John Kerry will hold a press conference, offering both sides solemn praise for finding common ground. All the while, through this tough compromise and historic collaboration, the Islamic Republic’s 9,000 spinning centrifuges will keep on enriching uranium; the other 10,000 installed centrifuges won’t be dismantled. Eventually these centrifuges, or thousands of new-and-improved ones, will be able to produce bomb-grade fuelKroenig cautions:
Why would anyone believe that we would fight a nuclear war with Iran if we didn’t even have the stomach for a conventional war with a nonnuclear Iran?…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton and Obama at Arm’s Length on Syria
(AGI) Washington, June 22 — Hillary Clinton distanced herself from President Barack Obama on Syria. The former U.S. Secretary of State recently revealed she would have liked the U.S. to give more support to Syria’s moderate opposition forces against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Without quoting her directly, President Obama told CBS on Sunday: “I think this notion that somehow there was this ready-made moderate Syrian force that was able to defeat Assad is simply not true, and, you know, we have spent a lot of time trying to work with a moderate opposition in Syria.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
How US and Britain Were Warned of ISIS Advance in Iraq But ‘Turned a Deaf Ear’
Exclusive: Kurdish intelligence chief says information was passed on to CIA and MI6 about grand plan to take Baghdad
Five months ago, a Kurdish intelligence “asset” walked into a base and said he had information to hand over. The capture by jihadists the month before of two Sunni cities in western Iraq was just the beginning, he said.
There would soon be a major onslaught on Sunni territories…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
In Iraq, Militants Press on Toward Baghdad
Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) — Militant fighters tightened their grip Sunday on western Iraq as security forces withdrew from a handful of towns in Anbar province, moving closer to Baghdad.
The news that Iraqi forces withdrew from at least three towns in the province raised questions about whether Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government is giving up on the region.
It also comes the same day that Iran’s religious leader condemned any U.S. involvement in Iraq, saying al-Maliki’s government can handle its own problems.
“The United States is trying to portray this as a sectarian war. But what is happening in Iraq is not a war between Shiite and Sunnis,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency.
ISIS fighters continued their advance from the west and north on Baghdad. Iraqi security officials told CNN that Tal Afar airbase in northern Iraq was taken by militants believed to be ISIS on Sunday afternoon.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Supreme Leader: The Islamic Messiah is Coming Soon to Kill All Infidels
Iran’s supreme leader is promising a world free of infidels and nonbelievers with the coming of the Islamic messiah, Mahdi, a 9th-century descendant of the prophet Mohammad whom the Shiites refer to as the 12th Imam.
“The coming of Imam Zaman (Mahdi) is the definite promise by Allah,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech Wednesday on the anniversary of Mahdi’s birthday at an exhibition of research and historical documents on the 12th Imam.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran’s Qasem Soleimani Wields Power Behind the Scenes in Iraq
The crisis in Iraq has raised the possibility of co-operation between two arch-enemies — Iran and the United States.
Though it might seem strange, it happened before over both Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran provided military intelligence to the US to support its invasion to overthrow the Taliban in 2001, and in 2007 Washington and Tehran sent representatives to Baghdad for face-to-face talks over the deteriorating security situation there.
Back then, as now, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was battling spiralling sectarian violence.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: ISIS Conquers Ar Rutba and Qaim Effortlessly
(AGI) Baghdad, June 22 — The Sunni militia of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) met no resistance as they took over the city of Ar Rutba, 110 kilometres from Baghdad, and the Syrian frontier crossing of Qaim, where a large phosphates plant stands. According to an Anbar police source, quoted by the news outlet Nova, ISIS had taken over Ar Rutba and Qaim without firing a single shot. The ISIS militia immediately took control of the police and army headquarters in Ar Rutba.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iraqi Troops Withdraw From Three Cities in Anbar
RAMADI, Iraq, June 22 (Xinhua) — Iraqi security forces withdrew from three cities in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, after the Sunni militants took control of a fourth strategic city near the border with Syria, a provincial police source said on Sunday.
The city of Rawa, some 275 km northwest of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and the nearby city of Aanah, are under the control of the Sunni militants who seized the police stations and government offices in the two cities without fighting late on Saturday, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Islam’s ‘Protestant Reformation’ (Part 1)
By Raymond Ibrahim
In order to prevent a clash of civilizations, or worse, Islam must reform. This is the contention of many Western peoples. And, pointing to Christianity’s Protestant Reformation as proof that Islam can also reform, many are optimistic.
Overlooked by most, however, is that Islam has been reforming. What is today called “radical Islam” is the reformation of Islam. And it follows the same pattern of Christianity’s Protestant Reformation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait: Attempt to Rape Police Officer
A newly recruited police officer filed a case against two friends, accusing them of sexual assault. In his statements to officers at the Saad Al- Abdullah police station, the 18-year-old Kuwaiti man said that two men he recently met visited him in the diwaniya of his house, and he agreed to go with them on a trip.
The suspects took the teenager to Salmi Road, then pulled over and tried to rape him, according to his statements. He added that he resisted their assault until he was able to break free, then escaped and called his brother to come pick him up. The teenager went with his brother to Jahra Hospital where he obtained a medical report for bruises, then went to the police station and filed a case.
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Netanyahu Warns Against Working With Iran on Iraq
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the United States on Sunday against working with Iran to help resolve the threat from Sunni insurgents in Iraq.
“When your enemies are fighting each other, don’t strengthen one of them,” Netanyahu said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Weaken them both.”
“The ultimate and most important goal is that Iran doesn’t have nuclear capabilities… that should be prevented at all costs,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Sticking to a Balanced Line on Iraq
US must listen to the experience of its Gulf allies as it manages the regionalisation of Iraq conflict
US President Barack Obama is resisting hawkish pressure from Republicans to send troops to Iraq. This dangerous right-wing attitude is drawn directly from the previous George W. Bush administration’s tactics of flinging American soldiers at any problem…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Sunni Militants ‘Capture Key Iraq Border Crossings’
Sunni militants have reportedly captured two key border crossings, to Jordan and Syria, in western Iraq.
The rebels, who include Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) fighters, now control three border crossings in Anbar province, Iraq’s largest. Meanwhile, in the north, reports say the airport in the town of Tal Afar has also fallen to the rebels…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The Hijab is Iran’s Most Cherished Weapon
By Azadeh Moaveni
As Iran’s parliament hyperventilates about the importance of the veil, women are quietly chafing under the regime’s control.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Only Wants Hegemony in Iraq, Says Iran Supreme Leader
(AGI) Tehran, June 22 — The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Sunday condemned any idea of U.S. intervention in Iraq. This follows the announcement of the dispatch of 300 U.S. soldiers to Iraq and the strengthening of the U.S. naval deployment in the Persian Gulf. The country’s pro-Iranian government of Shiite Nouri al-Maliki is in crisis due to the advance of Sunni insurgents led by the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis). Khamenei said that the Iraqis were able to end the conflict and that America only wants to keep Iraq under its hegemony by replacing Maliki with its lackeys. Iran’s Supreme Leader claimed that the conflict in Iraq is between those who want the country subservient to the U.S. and those who want it independent.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UAE Issues Travel Warning for Lebanon
BEIRUT — The United Arab Emirates is warning its citizens against traveling to Lebanon, citing security concerns.
The Gulf federation’s charge d’affaires in Lebanon, Hamad Mohammed Al-Junaibi, urged all Emiratis in Lebanon to leave immediately and to work with the UAE embassy to ease their departures, according to a statement carried late Saturday by the UAE’s state news agency.
The warning follows a suicide car bombing and police raids Friday against suspected members of an Al-Qaida breakaway group allegedly plotting attacks in the country.
Lebanon is a popular destination for tourists from the Emirates and other oil-rich Gulf states.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US-Sponsored Terrorism in Iraq and “Constructive Chaos” In the Middle East
Iraq is once again front page news. And once again the picture that is presented to us in the Western mainstream media is a mixture of half truths, falsehoods, disinformation and propaganda. The mainstream media will not tell you that the US is supporting both sides in the Iraqi conflict. Washington is overtly supporting the Iraqi Shiite government, while covertly training, arming and funding the Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Supporting the influx of terrorist brigades in Iraq is an act of foreign aggression. But the mainstream media will tell you that the Obama administration is “concerned” by the actions committed by the terrorists.
The preferred narrative in the U.S. and most Western mainstream media is that the current situation is due to the U.S “withdrawal” which ended in December 2011 (more than 200 U.S. troops and military advisors remained in Iraq). This portrait of events in which the US withdrawal is to blame for the insurgency does not draw any connection between the U.S. invasion of 2003 and the occupation that ensued. It also ignores the death squads trained by U.S advisors in Iraq in the wake of the invasion and which are at the heart of the current turmoil.
| [Return to headlines] |
Fighting in Eastern Ukraine Overshadows Calls for Peace From Kyiv and Moscow
Despite a seven-day ceasefire declared by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, there has been continued fighting in the east of the country. Both Kyiv and Moscow have called for a settlement.
Ukraine’s state border service said there had been attacks on its posts in the Luhansk region on Sunday. A spokesman for the separatists said Ukrainian forces were firing mortars at a village near the Russian frontier.
A seven-day ceasefire was declared by the Ukrainian government and began on Friday night but there have been reports of sporadic fighting in the east of the country throughout the weekend. In the Donetsk region, pro-Russian separatists reported a shootout with Ukrainian troops in Siversk, north of the city of Donetsk…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Putin Urges Ukraine to Respect Ceasefire
(AGI) Moscow, June 22 — Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the Ukrainian armed forces of firing artillery at separatist positions on Saturday night, breaking a ceasefire agreed on Friday. In an interview with Rossyia 24 TV, Putin asked Kiev to immediately end all hostilities and initiate a dialogue with separatist leaders in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Has ‘Bigger Plan’ For India, Warn Experts
At a time when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was discussing with his top officials on Wednesday about various ways to free the 40 Indian hostages who were kidnapped by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from a construction site in the Iraqi province of Salah-e-din, experts warned New Delhi about the ISIS’ bigger plan for the South Asian country.
The Indian security establishment has asked the Modi administration not to consider the rise of al-Qaeda offshoot as a distant problem affecting the Middle East. According to senior security officials, the rise of ISIS is a great danger for India as the South Asian nation is a part of the outfit’s global ambitions to create an Islamic World Dominion. The ‘Times of India’ daily reported on Thursday that ISIS recently released its world dominion map that includes parts of north-west India. The map shows western Indian province of Gujarat as part of the Islamic state of Khorasan.
According to sources close to the security establishment, the ISIS leadership has asked jihadists from India fighting in Iraq and Syria to return to their country and become a link between the Middle East outfits and the Indian subcontinent.
Executive Director of the Institute for Conflict Management Ajai Sahni has stressed that ISIS is the most efficient, organised, dangerous and ambitious terror outfit and New Delhi should be prepared to tackle the group in the coming days. “Strategy is a function of capability. We are not focusing on events in the Middle East because we have no capability to influence them. Earlier too, people have been kidnapped in the region and we have had to depend on third party negotiators. All global jihad will have India in its crosshairs. We can ignore them only at our own peril,” he told the media in New Delhi.
Describing the Indian jihadis fighting in Iraq and Syria as the ‘most dangerous’ people, Sahni added: “These are battle-hardened terrorists who will one day come back. Moreover, their antics and successes will inspire many more here as we already see them drawing inspiration from events abroad.”
Meanwhile, the Indian PM has sent former Indian Ambassador to Iraq Suresh Reddy to Baghdad to assist in freeing the hostages.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
THE official Malaysian police investigation of the disappearance of the airliner MH370 has identified the captain as the prime suspect after checks cleared all the other people on board, The Sunday Times can reveal.
The criminal inquiry does not rule out the possibility the plane was lost due to mechanical failure or terrorism, but the police view is that if it was the result of human action, the captain was the most likely perpetrator.
Malaysia’s special branch focused the inquiry on Captain Zaharie Shah, 53, after intelligence checks failed to substantiate any suspicions about the other people on board the jet, which was lost on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew. Its disappearance on March 8 is one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Potential Nuke Enrichment Site in India Identified
IHS Inc, a Colorado-based US company. has identified a possible new uranium hexafluoride plant at the Indian Rare Metals Plant (IRMP) near the southern Indian city of Mysore. A senior IHS official confirmed the news, saying that they identified the plant by using satellite imagery.
Talking to the media on Friday, Editor of IHS Jane’s ‘Intelligence Review’ Matthew Clements said that the identification made it clear India has the potential to expand uranium enrichment for its nuclear submarine fleet. According to him, IHS Jane’s defence and security intelligence experts believe that the possible new uranium hexafluoride plant will support new centrifuges, thus, expanding the South Asian country’s uranium enrichment capacity. Clements stressed that the plant could easily help India construct an increased number of naval reactors in order to expand its nuclear submarine fleet and to develop thermonuclear weapons. IHS experts are of the opinion that the new uranium enrichment facility can become operational in 2015.
Clements explained: “The expansion of India’s uranium enrichment facilities allows the country to press ahead with the introduction of its ballistic missile nuclear submarine fleet, part of an effort to enhance its existing nuclear deterrent in the face of perceived threats from both China and Pakistan.”
Meanwhile, Proliferation Editor of Intelligence Review Karl Dewey said: “The enrichment plant was originally built to provide uranium for submarine reactors. But there is now significant excess capacity for other purposes, most likely nuclear weapons.” Supporting Dewey’s view, consultant to IHS Jane Robert Kelley insisted: “The US continues to treat India as a bona fide nuclear weapons state despite India’s failure to ratify the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Mysore’s original centrifuge plant was constructed in 1992, although site clearance for a new, even larger, suspected centrifuge hall began in 2010. It is this new facility that could soon be operational. India is generally vocal in publicising its defence industry successes, but has revealed little about operations at Mysore, possibly to reduce attention to its nuclear trade agreements with the US.”
However, New Delhi has so far made no comment on the issue.
IHS Inc serves international clients in nine major industries — aerospace and defence, automotive, chemical, energy, finance, maritime and technology.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistani Army Launches Offensive in Northwest
(AGI) Bannu, June 22 — About 350,000 Pakistanis have left their homes in northern Waziristan, the northwestern region of Pakistan where the army has been in violent clashes with the Taliban and tribes over the past week. A real humanitarian emergency is unfolding, for there are as many as 151,000 displaced children, who have currently found shelter in Bannu, Peshawar and Kohat, and some even in neighbouring Afghanistan, according to the authority dealing with the emergency. Another 300,000 people waiting are unable to leave the province.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistani Woman Killed by the Man She Asked to Save Her From Family’s ‘Honour Killing’
Boyfriend of Muzammil Bibi arrested after admitting murdering her, when she asked to run away from her family
The cover-up fooled no one. Muzammil Bibi was found slumped under a tree, in what was intended to look like suicide. Police said the 21-year-old had been raped and strangled before the killers looped her scarf around her neck and dumped the body beneath a tree, in a case with a chilling similarity to murders in India…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
China Xinjiang: Police Kill 13 Attackers
Thirteen assailants have been killed in an attack on a police station in China’s restive western province of Xinjiang, officials say.
The attackers drove a car into the station and set off explosives on Saturday morning, the local government said on its website. Three police suffered minor injuries but no civilians were hurt, it added.
The Chinese authorities blame Muslim Uighurs from Xinjiang for an increasing number of attacks in the province.
“On the morning of 21 June, a group of thugs drove a car into a police building in Yecheng County, Kashgar province and detonated explosives,” the local government website said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
China: Assailant Apologizes for Xinjiang Axe Attack
BEIJING, June 22 (Xinhua) — A teenager from Hotan in southern Xinjiang Autonomous Region has apologized for attacking people with an axe, in an exclusive interview with China Central Television (CCTV) on Sunday.
Murzahti, 19, entered a games room in Hotan on June 14 intent on attacking innocent people. His two accomplices Abduzahir and Abdughappar died from serious injuries after civilians fought back. According to the narrator of the news piece Abduzahir was the ringleader.
Murzahti, who holds temporary jobs, told CCTV that Abduzahir said to him “those who wage a holy war and die for it will not be judged after his death and will go directly to heaven.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
China Dog Meat Festival 2014: 10,000 Dogs to be Slaughtered at Yulin Summer Solstice Celebration
Activists are calling for a boycott of this year’s Yulin Dog Meat Festival, where thousands of dogs are slaughtered and eaten in China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
It is estimated that around 10,000 dogs were killed and eaten at last year’s Yulin Summer Solstice Dog Meat Festival.
Ahead of this year’s event, due to take place on 21 June, activists across the globe are calling for a halt to the event, with over $20,000 (£11,900) raised by one campaign to help rescue dogs and track those illegally capturing and killing the animals.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hong Kong Opens Polls for Unofficial Reform Referendum
(AGI) Hong Kong, June 22 — Hong Kong has opened the polls for the unofficial reform referendum called by the democratic movement to ask that citizens be free to choose the island’s “Chief Executive”, the former British colony’s head of government. At the end of the first ballot day in the 15 polling districts and three days of voting online, 647,400 people have cast their votes. The result is a real success considering that the voting process suffered many attacks from hackers, almost as many as in the elections of 2012.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
A COMMUNITY meeting has turned heated after angry Gold Coast residents gathered to object to a mosque being built in their area.
A crowd of about 250 people heckled Gold Coast councillor Chris Robbins when she was explaining the council process of approving applications, in reference to the proposal to build a mosque on Cannon St, Currumbin.
“You can object to it, you can hate it or whatever, but the law is you can’t discriminate,” Cr Robbins said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A Lesson From the Chinese Useful Today
by Andi Yu
The discriminatory views expressed by some about the planned mosque are familiar to Chinese Association treasurer Anita Jack. Despite being a fifth generation Chinese-Australian she is still occasionally told she shouldn’t be here. She believes the problem is ignorance and that it can only be solved through education.
We can in fact be educated about this issue in our community by looking at the history of the Chinese…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Mosque to “Co-Exist Harmoniously” Like Temple
CHINESE Association treasurer Anita Jack has said the mosque approved by council last week should be treated no differently to other places of worship.
“We live in a secular society and there seems to be an agenda that we live in a Christian society. It is secular by choice, by the people, and with that we allow things like The Stupa, the Chinese temple, churches and cathedrals to co-exist harmoniously and the mosque should be no different,” Ms Jack said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Q Society Spreading Anti-Mosque Message in Bendigo
The anti-Islam group that brought controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders to Australia has emerged as a key force behind protests against the building of a mosque in Bendigo.
The goldfields city has faced a surge of anti-Islamic sentiment following last week’s approval of its first mosque. An anonymous group tied black balloons to the house of a local councillor who supported the successful planning application — meant as a warning linking domestic violence with Islam…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Boko Haram Attacks Villages in Northern Nigeria
(AGI) Kano, June 21 — Boko Haram’s violence in two villages of the northern Nigerian state of Borno killed at least 10 people on Saturday. The attacks occurred not far from Chibok where, two months ago, Islamic extremists kidnapped over 200 schoolgirls. “We have found 10 dead bodies which show gunshots,” reported Enoch Mark, a Christian priest in Chibok.
“We believe that more people might have been killed in the attacks, but we must wait before we go into the villages to search for more bodies,” the priest added.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mozambique: Convoys Again Come Under Renamo Fire
Maputo — Gunmen of Mozambique’s former rebel movement Renamo on Thursday attacked two convoys travelling on the main north-south highway between the Save river and the small town of Muxungue in the central province of Sofala.
According to Daniel Macuacua, head of the public relations department of the Sofala Provincial Police Command, cited in Saturday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, nobody was killed in either attack, but there was severe damage to some of the vehicles…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
America’s Border Inundated With Almost 50,000 Child Migrants
In the last eight months 47,017 youngsters — some as young as three — have been apprehended crossing from Mexico without their parents. And the American authorities are struggling to cope, write Nick Allen in Los Angeles and Philip Sherwell in New York
The shocking images captured young faces pressed blankly up against thick glass panes and hundreds of children huddled under aluminium-foil blankets on concrete floors behind chain fences and barbed wire.
The pictures were filmed not in Third World refugee camps but in US border patrol stations where authorities have been overwhelmed by an unparalleled wave of unaccompanied children pouring across the frontier…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration Brings Vibrancy to Sweden
Swedish health authorities discover every girl in one class had undergone genital mutilation: report. We can learn so much from other cultures, which have different values than ours. “Of the 60, nearly half of the girls had undergone the most extreme form of female circumcision, in which the clitoris and labia are cut off and the vagina is sewn up to leave just a small opening. . . . A common practice is for immigrant parents to take their young girls to their home country, where the ritual is performed. Most often it is done with a razor blade or a knife, and without anesthesia.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Coastguard Rescues 104 Migrants Off Sicily
(AGI) Rome, June 22 — The Italian coastguard rescued another 104 migrants in the Strait of Sicily on Sunday morning. A patrol vessel is expected to land the migrants on Sunday evening at the Sicilian port of Porto Empedocle.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Burnt Offerings on the Altar of Multiculturalism
by Diana West
Only one faith on Earth may be more messianic than Islam: multiculturalism.
Without it — without its fanatics who believe all civilizations are the same — the engine that projects Islam into the unprotected heart of Western civilization would stall and fail. It’s as simple as that. To live among the believers — the multiculturalists — is to watch the assault, the jihad, take place un-repulsed by our suicidal societies. These societies are not doomed to submit; rather, they are eager to do so in the name of a masochistic brand of tolerance that, short of drastic measures, is surely terminal.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
@Scotland: City Mosque Will Broadcast Call to Prayer Every Day Throughout Games
Hope Christians will be ringing the church bells in Glasgow to drown out the Mahommedan call to submission.
“A noble hart may hae nae ease, gif freedom failye”
Ring those church bells every minute of every hour of every day, heartily, Glasswegians.
A Prophetic Trip on the Rolling English Road
Charles Moore
A review of `The Flying Inn`(1914) by G.K.Chesterton
This book can be read,free of charge,in various formats.
https://archive.org/details/flyingin00chesuoft
UKIP Voters Feel Disconnected—-Can’t Send Emails,Chuka Umunna Says.
UKIP youth movement strikes back with own campaign.Google *#EmailChuka*for items.
OR email Umunna direct……chuka.umunna.mp@parliament.uk
email
chuka.umunna.mp@parliament.uk