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Showing posts from October 11, 2015

German mayoral candidate Henriette Reker stabbed in 'racist, political' attack

Source http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-german-mayoral-candidate-henriette-reker-stabbed-in-racist-political-attack-2135911 Flowers are laid down next to an election poster of Henriette Reker, candidate for mayoral election in Cologne, western Germany, at the site where she was attacked on October 17, 2015.   AFP A leading candidate in a German city mayoral election was  stabbed while campaigning today in what police said was a "racist political" attack linked to the large numbers of migrants entering the country. Henriette Reker, an independent close to the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel, suffered serious wounds to the neck in the attack in the western city of Cologne, which is to elect its mayor on Sunday. The attack comes as  Germany struggles to cope with a huge influx of asylum seekers, whose numbers are expected to reach between 800,000 and a million by the end of 2015. Merkel's open-door policy has provoked a backlash among her con

Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi calls for unity in divided Rakhine

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Source  http://dnai.in/cWX7 Aung San Suu Kyi  Myanmar's  Aung San Suu Kyi called for unity in volatile  Rakhine state on Saturday in an impassioned election rally, tackling head-on bitter religious divisions between  Buddhists  and  Muslims that have shaken the former junta-run nation. The opposition leader has faced international disappointment at her reluctance to speak out in support of marginalised Rohingya Muslims in the western state, but is also viewed with suspicion among Buddhist hardliners who see her as sympathetic to the minority. In a speech to hundreds of supporters in Rakhine's Thandwe town, Suu Kyi said it was critical that people nationwide could live "without discrimination based on race and religion". "All citizens in the union need to unite... great hatred and fear does not benefit our country," she said, repeating recent assertions that her political opponents had tried to use religion as a tool in campaigns for the November 8 polls. Mya

Yemen Government Invited to UN-Brokered Peace Talks: Spokesman

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Source http://m.ndtv.com/world-news/yemen-government-invited-to-un-brokered-peace-talks-spokesman-1233386 Riyadh:  The Yemeni government has been invited to take part in a new round of UN-brokered talks with rebels to end the country's deadly seven-month-old conflict, spokesman Rajih Badi said Saturday. "We have received an invitation from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, via his envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, to hold a new round of consultations with the Huthis and (rebel-allied former strongman) Ali Abdullah Saleh to implement UN Resolution 2216," Badi told AFP. The announcement comes two days after UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson said he hoped new talks between the Yemeni government and Iran-backed Huthi rebels could start this month despite a "deep distrust" between the warring parties. Badi said that "until now, there has been no agreement on the venue or a specific date" for the consultations. But he told the pro-government n

More die as violence and finger-pointing plague Israelis and Palestinians

Source http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/17/middleeast/israel-palestinian-tensions/index.html?sr=fbCNN101715israel-palestinian-tensions0558PMVODtopLink&linkId=18025498 (CNN) Israeli authorities reported three Palestinians pulling knives then being shot dead, as the spate of violence afflicting Israelis and Palestinians continued Saturday.  But the Palestinian version of the day's violence was different. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA mentioned no knives and said Israelis simply shot two Palestinians dead. Neither side related its accounts to those reported by the other side. It was unclear if these were the same incidents. Saturday's incidents as reported by both sides: Jerusalem

Russian Aerospace Force's aircraft destroy suicide bomber training base in Syria - Defense Ministry

Source http://m.asia.rbth.com/news/2015/10/17/russian_aerospace_forces_aircraft_destroy_suicide_bomber_training_base_i_50163.html The Russian Aerospace Force's aircraft have destroyed a terrorist training base in Syria, where foreign instructors have trained suicide bombers, spokesman of the Russian Defense Ministry Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov told reporters on Saturday. "In the suburbs of Salma [Latakia province] a Sukhoi Su-24M bomber hit a separately located building which housed a terrorist training base. According to the reconnaissance data, in the building foreign instructors have trained ISIL gunmen to wage a subversive war in the districts freed by the Syrian army, as well as suicide bombers," Konashenkov said. He noted that along with the training in mining and blasting activity terrorists were trained to legalize themselves among civilians and refugees. "The building also housed a workshop producing homemade explosive devices. The direct hit of the aviation

Russian PM Says Defending 'National Interests' in Syria, Not Bashar Al-Assad

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Source http://m.ndtv.com/world-news/russian-pm-says-defending-national-interests-in-syria-not-bashar-al-assad-1233339 Moscow:  Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that Russia is fighting for its national interests in Syria, not for President Bashar al-Assad. "Of course we are not fighting for specific leaders, we are defending our national interests, on the one hand," Medvedev said in an interview to air on state television. "And secondly, we have a request from the lawful authorities (of Syria). That is the basis we are working on," he said, quoted on the government website. Medvedev said Russia in Syria is defending itself against the threat of Islamist extremists coming to its own country. "The president said this: it's obvious that if we don't destroy these terrorists there, they will come to Russia." Medvedev said that it did not matter to Russia who heads Syria in the future, as long as it is not the Islamic State jihadist gr

UNM project tackles online extremism

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) –  A lot of us are on social media. It’s how we stay in touch with family and friends. But there’s also a bad side to the instant technology. Violent extremists use social media as a tool, too. UNM students are launching a campaign to combat this new, dangerous online onslaught in a special campaign sponsored by the U.S. State Department. From recruitment to radicalizing, terrorists have taken to Twitter and other social media platforms. “It’s most people’s tendencies to focus on the unrest in the Middle East.  ISIS is one of the primary violent extremist groups, but there are definitely other movements throughout the entire world,” said Bryan Mirabal, a senior at UNM’s Anderson School of Management. With the click of a button, extremists at home also get their messages out on social media platforms. “Violent extremism is something that’s on all our our purviews,” said Lauren Wade, a UNM senior at the business school. The UNM project is called Know Extremism. “There

Spread of violent extremism threatens women’s rights

Source http://en.mehrnews.com/news/111092/Spread-of-violent-extremism-threatens-women-s-rights TEHRAN, Oct. 17 (MNA) – Iran’s UN deputy envoy Dehghani while pointing to current conflicts in Middle East said Fri. that the spread of violent extremism is threatening the lives and rights of women in the region.  Speaking at UN Security Council session on women, peace and security, Iran Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Gholamhossein Dehghani stressed that the perilous ideology of violent extremism will not be limited to the Middle East and will also threaten other countries across the world. “Conflicts in the Middles East have expanded to include new dimensions in a way that now women and girls have fallen victim to terrorism and violent extremism,” said Dehghani. He further added that in certain parts of the region, women have become targets of slavery and sexual assaults by terrorist and extremist groups. While expressing deep lament over the harrowing

Why Countering Violent Extremism Measures Can Be a Threat to Press Freedom

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Source http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/8315296?ir=India The Blog Committee to Protect Journalists Jonathan Kitchen via Getty Images By  Courtney C. Radsch , CPJ Advocacy Director “We’re stepping up our efforts to discredit ISIL’s propaganda, especially online,” President Barack Obama told delegates at the  Leaders’ Summit on Countering Violent Extremism  last month. The social media counter-offensive comes amid  U.N. reports  of a 70 percent increase in what it terms “foreign terrorist fighters”--citizens of U.N. member states who have left to join Islamic State and other militant groups.  Islamic State has embraced social media as a way to attract supporters around the world, in a move governments   and companies have struggled to respond to. The idea of counter narratives and of removing content and closing down social media accounts believed to be linked to Islamic State has become a major international agenda item. But the focus on the group’s use of social networking has opened the

‘Give IS suspects supergrass deals to tackle extremism’

Source http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/give-is-suspects-supergrass-deals-to-tackle-extremism-a3092331.html The European Union’s justice supremo today suggested supergrass sentencing deals should be offered to Islamic State terror suspects as part of a new strategy for tackling extremism. Vera Jourová, the EU justice commissioner, said that cutting the jail terms of terror convicts who agree to reveal details of their associates offered one way of countering the threat posed by radicalisation. She called for greater efforts to rehabilitate extremists who return from war zones, and warned against imposing “harsh sentences” on “aspiring young foreign fighters” whose plans are detected following tip-offs from relatives or friends. Ms Jourová said tough punishments in such cases would make other families “more reluctant” to alert authorities. Her comments, made exclusively to the Evening Standard, come ahead of an EU ministerial conference on Monday on how best to combat radicalisation

Salon: Ted Cruz Encourages Domestic Extremism and Terrorism

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Source http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/michael-mckinney/2015/10/16/salon-ted-cruz-encourages-domestic-extremism-and-terrorism By   Michael McKinney   |   October 16, 2015 | 2:06 PM EDT On Friday, Salon featured two articles taking fire to presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Authored by Heather Digby Parton, one piece was titled,  “ Paranoid Rise of the Militant Right: Inside the Growing Threat of Domestic Extremism”  and examined the Department of Justice’s new focus on domestic extremists, and the author zeroed in on right-wing extremism. The second was written by Simon Maloy, who offered the slippery-slope argument against Cruz under the title,  “Ted Cruz’s Crazy “Jackboot” Talk: When Inflammatory Rhetoric Starts Getting Dangerous.” Parton opened with a statement by Assistant Attorney General John Carlin:  “We recognize that, over the past few years, more people have died in this country in attacks by domestic extremists than in attacks associated with international terrorist groups.” B

Five killed, 9 hurt in Saudi Shiite shooting: Ministry

Source http://m.timesofindia.com/world/middle-east/Five-killed-9-hurt-in-Saudi-Shiite-shooting- Ministry/articleshow/49426130.cms RIYADH: A gunman shot dead five people at a Shiite gathering in eastern Saudi Arabia on Friday before police shot him dead, the interior ministry said.  "As result of his shooting, five citizens... were killed, including a woman. Nine others were wounded," a ministry spokesman said in a statement. 

2 terror suspects charged over Sydney police shooting

Source http://m.timesofindia.com/world/rest-of-world/2-terror-suspects-charged-over-Sydney-police-shooting/articleshow/49402783.cms CANBERRA: Two men accused of supplying the revolver used to kill a police accountant outside a Sydney police building two weeks ago have been refused bail when they were formally charged with terrorism-related offenses. High school student Farhad Jabar was shot dead by police soon after he opened fire on Curtis Cheng as the 58-year-old civilian employee walked from the state police headquarters in Parramatta in western Sydney on Oct. 2. Talal Alameddine did not appear in court on Friday when he was charged with providing the .38 Smith & Wesson. Police allege the 22 year-old passed the gun to 18-year-old accomplice Raban Alou, who then gave it to Jabar. Alou did not appear in court when he was charged. Neither man entered a plea.  Bookmark or read stories offline - Download the TOI app

ISIS pays recruiters $10,000 per person, UN says

Source http://m.timesofindia.com/articleshow/49420380.cms BRUSSELS: The  Islamic State group is paying supporters up to $10,000 for each person that they recruit to wage jihad in Syria and Iraq , UN experts said on Friday after a visit to Belgium, one of the main countries of origin for so-called foreign fighters. Elzbieta Karska, who chairs a UN group studying the issue, said IS is using social media and informal networks of friends and family, with many of them in Syria, to recruit new jihadists in Belgium. The UN experts learned from Belgian contacts that 500 foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria originated in Belgium, the highest per capita of any EU country, she added. READ ALSO:  ISIS using Facebook, Twitter to recruit Muslim girls in UK "We have heard ... about situations where recruiters were paid from two, three thousand to 10,000 dollars depending on ... who was recruited," Karska told a press conference in Brussels, adding the findings were preliminary. "If someb

Iran Urges Cultural Move by Muslims against Terrorism

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Iran and Indonesia can cooperate to resolve the problems of the region and the Muslim world, President Rouhani said in a meeting with Indonesian Foreign Minister Rento Marsudi.  Meeting on Wednesday, Rouhani said that Indonesia is a significant country in the world of Islam and a very old friend of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  The Iranian president added that in the post-sanctions era, Iran-Indonesia can enhance economic ties and hoped that the joint economic cooperation council would be an effective step towards the goal.  Rouhani also noted that it is necessary to pave the way for investors of both countries to join economic projects.  He added that Iran and Indonesia share common views regarding the issues in the world of Islam while nowadays, unfortunately, some Islamic countries are not in good terms with one another.  Talking about the growth of terrorism, Rouhani noted that the expansion of terrorist groups requires the Muslim states to closely coop

BUSTED: Feds arrest Fox News ‘terrorism expert’ for pretending to be aformer CIA agent

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A recurring Fox News guest who claimed to be a long-time CIA agent was indicted and arrested Thursday for not, in fact, being a CIA agent. Wayne Simmons claimed to have 23 years experience with the secretive federal agency as an “outside paramilitary special operations officer,”  CNN reports . He was indicted for using that claim to gain security clearances and a post as a defense contractor advising military personnel overseas. On his  website , Simmons claims he joined the U.S. Navy in 1973, where he was recruited by the CIA,” and “spearheaded Deep Cover Intel Ops against some of the world’s most dangerous Drug Cartels and arms smugglers from Central and South America and the Middle East.” Simmons also claims he has been a “terrorism analyst” for Fox News since 2002. In 2004, he claims former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recruited him to join the Pentagon Outreach Program for Military and Intelligence Analysts. A Fox News spokeswoman told CNN that Simmons was a

Why are ISIS jihadis shaving off their beards and pretending to bewomen?

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File Photo  The Islamic State of Iraq and  Syria (ISIS) fighters have left behind mounds of hair after shaving off their beards and dressing as women to flee to the West.  According to the Daily Star, a photo on Twitter posted by an Iraqi journalist showed huge mounds of shavings in the Syrian city of Aleppo. There were discarded packets of razors among the mounts of facial hair. The journalist tweeted that the  ISIS fighters shaved off so they escape clean shaven to Turkey. According to the anti-ISIS resistance, some freshly-shaved jihadists are dressing up in women's robes and veils in a bid to get away. The terror network's fighters all sport shaggy beards and shaving or cutting facial hair is haram (forbidden) under the strict  Sharia law  of ISIS. The mass departure of ISIS jihadi has been sparked by the crushing of strongholds of the group by Russian fighter jets. Moscow security services claim thousands of terrorists have downed their weapons and fled t

Syrian Army, Hezbollah Retake Three New Areas in Southern AleppoOperation

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The sources said that, the Syrian Army, in coordination with Hezbollah, the National Defense Forces (NDF), and Kata’ebat Al-Ba’ath (Al-Ba’ath Battalions), launched their large-scale Southern Aleppo offensive in the Azzan Mountains at 10 a.m. (Damascus Time) on Friday morning. The Syrian Armed Forces and Lebanese Resistance captured 3 new sites from the militants Jabhat Al-Shamiyah (Levantine Front), Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) this morning, killing a number of enemy combatants in the process of their advance in the Aleppo's Southern countryside, massdar reported. The Syrian army troops and Lebanese Resistance captured the villages of ‘Abtayn, and Qala’at Al-Najam, along with the Defense Battalion Base and the farms surrounding it; this rapid progress by the pro-government forces caught the militants off-guard, as they frantically retreated to the Southwest in order to evade the swarming enemy fighters. The main objective of the Syrian Armed For

Gunman opens fire on Saudi Shiite mosque: TV

Riyadh (AFP) - A gunman opened fire on a Shiite house of worship in eastern Saudi Arabia on Friday before being killed himself, state TV said, while residents reported three or four injured. "A man who opened fire at a hussainiya in Saihat was killed," Al-Ekhbariya news channel reported, without saying how he Source  http://news.yahoo.com/gunman-opens-fire-saudi-shiite-mosque-tv-181356186.html

Terror Victims: Racism, insomnia plague Syrian refugee family in Germany

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Source http://news.yahoo.com/racism-insomnia-plague-syrian-refugee-family-germany-070426133.html HEIDENAU, Germany (AP) — For the Syrian refugee family, one reprieve from crushing boredom in the asylum center is short walks to a lake. But in a town teeming with neo-Nazis, the excursions can bring more distress than relief: A man recently stormed out of a coffee shop and screamed at two women of the Habashieh family to take off their hijabs "because we're in Europe!" Another time, people inside a car yelled: "Auslaender raus!!" — Foreigners Out!! Fear and frustration, however, have been tempered by kindness. A volunteer from nearby Dresden has befriended the Habashiehs, who fled Syria's civil war and arrived in Germany last month after a perilous journey from Damascus. Julius Roennebeck helps the family — Khawla Kareem, 44; her 19-year-old daughter Reem; sons Mohammed, 17, and Yaman, 15; and 11-year-old daughter Raghad — with practical things such