A Sky News correspondent at the scene observed:

“As soon as the EDL got into the town centre… it became not only a lot harder for the police to try and contain anything, but also the aggression (increased) quite considerably. A few missiles have been thrown, glass bottles and the like. The police are trying to surround them and they’ve been charging them as well with batons.”

(Credit: SlyNews scren grab)

(Credit: SkyNews screen grab)

Check out footage from Sky News:

A few hours after the Woolwich terror attack and leading up to the riot, LBC noted that two men were arrested following separate attacks on local mosques.

In the midst of the violence is the story of a mother and “cub scout leader” who reportedly confronted the cleaver-wielding terrorists after their attack earlier today, telling them to hand over their weapons and that “It’s only you versus many people. You are going to lose.”

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett confronts one of the alleged killers (Credit: YouTube)

The Telegraph said that Ingrid Loyau-Kennett “engaged the terrorists in conversation and kept her nerve as one of them told her: ‘We want to start a war in London tonight.’”

Loyau-Kennett, 48, from Cornwall, was purportedly one of the first on the scene after two alleged “Islamic extremists butchered a soldier in Woolwich, south east London.”

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett

“I asked him if he did it and he said yes and I said why?” Loyau-Kennett recalled. “And he said because he has killed Muslim people in Muslim countries, he said he was a British soldier and I said really and he said ‘I killed him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan they have nothing to do there.”

Listen to the audio of Loyau-Kennett’s interview here.

(H/T: Gawker)

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(Photo: Shutterstock/Angel Simon)

The European Union (EU) recently announced that beginning on January 1 of 2014, eateries will be banned from serving olive oil in dipping bowls or even having re-usable bottles of the delectable good at the table.

From that point on, olive oil can only be served in “pre-sealed, non-refillable bottles that must be disposed of when empty,” Reuters reports.

According to the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, the much-criticized move is intended to improve hygiene and make sure the olive oil has not been diluted.

“We are just making clear that when you want to have olive oil of a certain quality in a restaurant, you get exactly the one you are paying for,” European Commission spokesman Oliver Bailly said in Brussels.

Apparently 15 out of 27 EU member governments supported the measure, including a few of the countries most associated with olive oil — Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal.  Ostensibly, the move will also help struggling olive oil producers in the economically beleaguered countries.  But some say it will put smaller producers — those who put their product in a large jar and can’t afford tamper-safe bottles for every portion — out of business.

Enzo Sica, who owns an Italian restaurant in Brussels, told Reuters: “They say they’re thinking about consumers, but this will increase costs for us and our customers as well. In this time of crisis, surely they should be worrying about other things rather than stupid stuff like this.”

EU Olive Oil Ban Internationally Ridiculed

The EU’s decision to focus on olive oil during a time of record debt and unemployment is drawing merciless criticism by the press and lawmakers alike.

“Suddenly, E.U. ministers have decided to wage a war on bad hygiene and sound traditions when many Europeans can’t afford a bar of decent soap,” Robert Bridge wrote in Russia Today.

The New York Times said Euroskeptics are seizing upon the ban “as proof of mindless interference by a faceless bureaucracy,” while the blog at the U.K. Guardian asked whether the EU has “gone mad,” adding: “As pointless – no – moronic laws go, it’s a doozie, showing absolutely no understanding or consideration for how restaurants and consumers operate.”

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said “this is exactly the sort of thing that Europe shouldn’t even be discussing,” while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said it is “too bizarre for words and incomprehensible to come with this sort of proposal at a time like this,” according to the U.K. Daily Telegraph.

In a scathing speech in front of the European Parliament, U.K. MEP Nigel Farage tackled the issue after blasting the hypocrisy of government leaders fattening their own pockets while targeting the rich as an “enemy.”

“I’m sure the citizens of Europe will all clap and cheer loudly that the grave, mortal danger of olive oil in dipping bowls has been removed by the officials,” he said with inimitable scorn.  “Well done, everybody.”

Watch Farage’s complete speech (which includes a few pointed words about global warming, as well), below:

–

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Gee, what could go wrong?

“This is an important moment,” Paul announced. “You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. It’s an irony you cannot overcome.”

FP has more:

The dispute centers on the issue of whether the United States could properly vet Syrian rebels so that weapons and body armor would not fall into the hands of extremist groups, such as the al Qaeda-aligned al-Nusra Front. The Pentagon’s top brass has vacillated about whether it’s logistically possible to keep track of weapons as they enter a conflict involving a complex mix of opposition groups, as the new bill would require. [...]

[Sen. Bob] Corker added that not arming rebel groups such as the more moderate Free Syrian Army would ensure the dominance of the better-equipped al-Nusra Front. Paul responded, saying, “It’s impossible to know who our friends are … I know everyone here wants to do the right thing, but I think it’s a rush to war.”

To get a sense of how adamant the committee is to authorize more aggressive intervention in Syria, an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) to limit the types of weapons delivered to rebels was forcefully rejected as well. “The senator from New Mexico wants to use shotguns against SCUD missiles,” McCain said dismissively.

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Image source: ITV

A man with blood-soaked hands holding what appeared to be a meat cleaver and a machete spoke out at the gruesome scene of a suspected terror attack that left one man dead in broad daylight in London on Wednesday, telling a cameraman, “you people will never be safe.”

According to reports, two men attacked and killed a third man near a London military barracks, shouting “Allahu Akbar.” The London Daily Telegraph characterized the attack as “Islamist terror.” Unconfirmed reports stated the man killed was a soldier. Two U.K. government officials told the Associated Press the attack seemed to be motivated by radical Islam.

“We swear by Almighty Allah, we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. The only reasons we killed this man is because Muslims are dying daily. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” the man with bloodied hands told a camera, as the victim’s body lay nearby. ” I apologize that women had to witness this today, but in our land, our women have to see the same! You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you!”

One eyewitness claimed on Twitter that he saw the victim “with his head chopped off,” a detail that was not confirmed by police.

Prime Minister David Cameron called the killing “truly shocking” and said he had asked Home Secretary Theresa May to call an urgent meeting of the government’s emergency committee.

A British government official who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the investigation said the details that had emerged were indicative of a “terrorist-motivated attack.”

May said she had been briefed by Britain’s domestic security service, MI5, and by police on what she called a “sickening and barbaric” attack.

Metropolitan Police Commander Simon Letchford told reporters that police received reports of an assault in the London neighborhood of Woolwich around 2:20 p.m. Letchford said “a number of weapons” were used, including a gun. He indicated the first police officers to arrive at the scene were unarmed.

“Officers including local Greenwich officers arrived at the scene and shortly after firearms officers arrived on the scene,” Letchford said. “Two men, who we believe from early reports to have been carrying weapons, were shot by police. They were taken to separate London hospitals. They are receiving treatment for their injuries.”

Police officers man a cordoned off area in Woolwich, east London, on May 22, 2013, following an incident in which a man was killed and two others seriously injured. A man thought to be a serving soldier has been killed near a barracks in London, while two alleged suspects are in a serious condition in hospital after police responded to reports of an incident, a local lawmaker said. The incident took place in a street near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich. (Getty Images)

David Dixon, head teacher of a nearby primary school, said police told him there was a serious incident. He said he saw body lying in the road outside.

He told the BBC that he then made sure children were inside and put the school into lockdown mode. He said he then heard shots fired.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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(Image: AP)

The glorification of government-run nationalized health care was a bit baffling for for many, especially those such as myself who have first-hand experience with their health care system.

I could write about my tale of woe, but NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez points out a much more disturbing account of the National Health System from a concerned mother with a disabled daughter.  As columnist Ian Birrell writes, “all too many people with disabilities end up being killed by the health service – the very institution supposedly dedicated to saving their lives.”

Via The Guardian:

The latest case is distressing and disturbing: Tina Papalabropoulos, a young woman scarcely older than my own child dying after a series of blunders by two NHS organisations – a hospital and out-of-hours GP service – in Essex. Quite rightly, her mother, Christine, is angry. “When your child becomes ill and you need professional help from doctors, you and your child are looked at and you can see their mind working, ‘Is there any point in trying to save this child’s life?’ You can see that they think, ‘This child has an existence and not a life’,” she said.

The loss of this young life was a needless tragedy. But it is far from an isolated one. Each week 24 disabled people are killed by such prejudiced presumptions; indeed, there was a case at my local hospital recently. These shocking figures are based on a government-commissioned inquiryinto one region of the country, which found people with disabilities 37% more likely to be killed by incompetence or inadequate care – and their lives end on average 16 years earlier than they should. The more serious the disabilities, the higher the risk.

Remember how “crazy” Sarah Palin was for suggesting such “death panel” decisions would be handed down with more government involvement in health care?  Yeah…

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An Israeli woman is taken out of a bank in the town of Beersheba, Monday, May 20, 2013. A gunman stormed into a bank in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba Monday, killing four people in a gunfight and taking a hostage before killing himself, police said. (AP Photo/Dudu Greenspan)

Customers and employees at a Bank Hapoalim branch in Beer Sheba, Israel were sure a terrorist attack was underway when they heard shots ring out Monday afternoon.

Instead, they were witness to what appears to have been a premeditated shooting carried out by an angry customer.

According to Israeli media, Itamar Alon, a 40-year-old unemployed customer of the branch, furious that he couldn’t get his credit line extended, shot bank employees and customers, killing four and then taking another employee hostage before he killed himself.

Shortly after the branch opened Monday morning, Alon unsuccessfully tried to withdraw money from the ATM machine. He entered the bank to ask for a further line of credit in the amount of $1,640, but due to his large overdraft he was denied the request.

Israeli television and newspapers reported that Alon then went home where he grabbed his gun along with three magazines of ammunition. Police sources told Israeli media that the trip home along with the large amount of bullets demonstrated his premeditated intentions to carry out a lethal attack.

Upon returning to the bank, he shot dead the bank manager Avner Cohen, 44, who had just recently begun working in that position, his loan officer Meir Zeitoun, 40, and two customers Anat Even Haim, 34, and Idan Shnitzer Savri, 22.

An eyewitness told Israel Channel 2 that he saw Alon shoot some of his victims twice, making sure that they were dead.

After his shooting spree, Alon took bank employee Miri Cohen hostage. Cohen told Channel 2 that she had been hiding under the desk with two customers when Alon found her and pulled her to the bathroom into which he locked the two of them. From inside the bathroom, Cohen said she could hear police outside the window trying to negotiate with her captor.

Ynet reports:

Describing her ordeal, Cohen said the shooter warned her to stay silent else he will shoot her. “A second later the gun was drawn in my face,” she recounted.

Locked in the bathroom with the shooter, Cohen was sure she would not escape with her life.

“Thank God, it was a miracle,” she said. After an hour, Alon told her to turn around with her face to the wall. “I said ‘that’s it, this is the end of me,’ and then I lowered my head and didn’t look at him and he put the gun in his mouth, I couldn’t see, but I heard a shot.”

Following the hour-long standoff, Alon shot and killed himself after which Cohen ran outside to safety.

Israeli media quoted police sources who described Alon as a former captain in the border police and a former security coordinator for Beersheba schools.

He was once awarded a medal by the former mayor of Beersheba for showing bravery during a terrorist attack 11 years ago. The Times of Israel reports, “Two terrorists reached an army base in the south and opened fire on soldiers, killing several. Alon, then an officer in the army, rushed to the scene and returned fire on the terrorists, helping to kill one of them.”

Because of his past work in the security field, Alon was eligible for a gun permit, though it had once been temporarily revoked. As in the aftermath of mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S., the issue of gun control is already being publicly debated. In Israel, there are tight limits on those who are licensed to own a gun. Only 2.5 percent of the population can legally carry a firearm, according to the Times of Israel, which describes the emerging debate:

In the wake of Monday’s killings at a Beersheba bank […] Israeli authorities intend to further tighten regulations to reduce the number of civilians eligible to keep guns, media reports said Monday night.

The killer, Itamar Alon, had a permit for the gun he used in the rampage, but had done no work that required such a permit for the past decade, Channel 2 news reported.

Alon had served in the IDF, receiving a citation for his role in preventing a terrorist attack in the city during the Second Intifada, then in the Border Police, and subsequently as a security officer for Beersheba educational institutions. But he had not worked in security for years, and was unemployed. “There was no reason for him to have been allowed to retain his gun permit,” Channel 2 reported, quoting police sources.

Former police commissioner Moshe Karadi said Monday night that the bank killings marked one of the worst incidents of its kind in decades, but that the police are encountering a relentless rise in violent crime, and have been working for years to reduce the number of gun permits. Police sources quoted by Channel 2 said this effort would now intensify under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Security, which is in charge of both the police force and the licensing of civilian firearms, with Monday’s killings serving to underline the imperative.

Extensive screening is required of those applying for gun permits, including a police background check and a medical form to be signed by a physician.

The Times of Israel reports, “The form consists of 24 questions, ranging from a patient’s physical health to his or her history of substance abuse and psychiatric care. Some 170,000 Israeli citizens are licensed to carry a weapon; of these, 40,000 are security guards who work in supermarkets, malls and schools.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the shooting was a “tragedy.” Though Israel has extensive experience with Palestinian terrorist attacks, the kind of mass shooting that occurred in the bank is rare. According to Israel Radio, Netanyahu said he “doesn’t remember an incident like this, certainly not in the last few years.”

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Bloodstains at the main gate believed to be from one of the American staff members of the U.S. Consulate, after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens on the night of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya. (AP)

On CNBC’s “Kudlow Report” with Larry Kudlow, former Democratic presidential candidate and DNC chairman Howard Dean called controversy over Benghazi “silly” and a “laughable joke.”

Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were murdered in the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi.  Since then, there has been an exhaustive effort underway to determine what exactly happened, though many questions — including where President Obama was throughout the hours-long attack — remain unanswered.

“This is about issues that are important to the American people,” Sean Spicer, the communications director of the Republican National Committee, said.  “Benghazi isn’t about scoring political points, it’s about making sure we do right by our foreign policy.  The IRS is about making sure that we don’t target American citizens…”

But Spicer had to stop talking because of Dean’s interruptions.

“Benghazi is a laughable joke,” Dean declared, repeating the statement once more for emphasis.

“With all due respect, governor, when four Americans die serving this country, that’s not a joke, sir.  That’s not a joke,” Spicer calmly replied.

“Oh stop it,” Dean retorted.  “The blaming the president for that is a ridiculous joke, the American people — you’ve been beating on this for a year.  I don’t understand why you don’t give up on it…!”

After the two argued a bit, Dean added: “There are no serious questions being asked about Benghazi, none…It’s totally made up nonsense.  It’s totally clear what happened in Benghazi.  It’s ridiculous.”

Watch the entire interview via CNBC, below:

(H/T: National Review)

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“Harumph.” (Image: Getty)

According to Simon, the details could be “potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”  Indeed, if these details are true, this could be a real game-changer.  Emphasis mine:

The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in two areas — what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi and the pressure put on General Carter Ham, then in command of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and therefore responsible for Libya, not to act to protect jeopardized U.S. personnel.

Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft. [...]

This left Stevens in the position of having to clean up the scandalous enterprise when it became clear that the “insurgents” actually were al-Qaeda – indeed, in the view of one of the diplomats, the same group that attacked the consulate and ended up killing Stevens. [...]

He added that he and his colleagues think the leaking of General David Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell was timed to silence the former CIA chief on these matters.

Regarding General Ham, military contacts of the diplomats tell them that AFRICOM had Special Ops “assets in place that could have come to the aid of the Benghazi consulate immediately (not in six hours).”

Ham was told by the White House not to send the aid to the trapped men, but Ham decided to disobey and did so anyway, whereupon the White House “called his deputy and had the deputy threaten to relieve Ham of his command.”

If true, these report actually confirms some of my own suspicions about the motives behind the government’s response to the attack and the timing of Petraeus’ scandal.  In addition, Gen. Ham later resigned from his post, but his is just one of many turnovers in command at AFRICOM and the Middle East in recent years.

Simon notes that these reports are “largely hearsay,” information obtained from secondary sources.  But according to other sources, one of whistleblowers who testified on Capitol Hill is still urging Congress to investigate the reason why Stevens was in Benghazi and why Secretary Clinton insisted on establishing a more permanent diplomatic post, suggesting there’s still more to this story.  Stay tuned…

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Israel says a French TV report in 2000 that claimed Israeli forces killed the boy is misleading, provides no evidence and is part of a smear campaign against the Jewish state. For Palestinians, the case remains a vivid symbol of Israeli oppression and of their own sense of victimhood.

In this Sept. 30, 2000 file image from television, Jamal al-sutra signals his position while protecting his 12-year-old son Mohammed al-Dura, as they shelter behind a barrel from crossfire near Netzarim Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip. More than a dozen years later, the death of a Palestinian boy allegedly shot by Israeli troops in Gaza continues to stir emotions on both sides of the conflict.  (AP Photo/France 2, Fille)

The deep feelings surrounding the death of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura illustrate how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes far beyond the battlefield and is often a high-profile media war as well.

While Israel enjoys an overwhelming military advantage, it is often outclassed in the imagery battle, with the Palestinians portraying themselves as David to Israel’s Goliath. It’s a touchy subject for Israel, which devotes an enormous amount of energy to promote its image to counter what it sees as hostile international opinion.

The France 2 network report aired on Sept. 30, 2000, days after a Palestinian uprising erupted.

The video showed a terrified child and his father, Jalal, cowering in front of a wall during an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen. The father is seen gesturing frantically to try to stop the shooting as the boy screams in terror. The camera then cuts to a shot of the motionless boy slumped in his father’s lap. France 2 blamed Israeli troops for killing the boy.

Israel has long disputed the accusation, and on Sunday it published the 44-page report of its investigation, ordered last year by Israel’s current Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. It found the TV report misleading and unfairly critical of Israel. It said there was no evidence the boy was shot by Israeli troops or that he was even killed at all, claiming there were no blood marks on the scene or bullet wounds in the alleged victims. It said the boy was shown alive toward the end of raw video it obtained from France 2, but that was not included in the edited TV report.

A man walks past a mural depicting Palestinian Jamal al-Dura and his son Mohammed, allegedly caught in crossfire between Israeli forces and Palestinian police, moments before Mohammed was killed, can be seen at the Place de l’Enfant Martyr de Palestine (square of the Palestinian martyr child) in Bamako, on March 6, 2013. The monument commemorates the September 30, 2000 event, which has since launched a controversy, with some commentators alleging that the incident had been entirely staged. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Jamal al-Dura (L) and his family, visit the grave of their son Mohammed, at the Bureij cemetery in the central of Gaza Strip, on May 20, 2013. Mohammed died in the arms of his father on September 30, 2000, after being caught in crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants at the start of the second intifada, or uprising. Israel said on May 19, 2013, that a France 2 television report seen worldwide on the death of Mohammed was ‘baseless’, following an analysis of the raw footage. Credit: AFP/Getty Images 

“It is important to focus on this incident, which has slandered Israel’s reputation,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a ceremony where the report was delivered to him. “This is a manifestation of the ongoing mendacious campaign to delegitimize Israel. There is only one way to counter lies, and that is through the truth.”

Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of strategy and intelligence, called the al-Dura affair “a modern-day blood libel.”

No autopsy was conducted, and the Israeli investigation was based primarily on expert interviews and analysis of the raw film.

The boy’s father, Jamal al-Dura, on Monday called the Israeli allegations “silly” and offered to have the body exhumed for international inspection. “If he is still alive, who was the one who was shot in my arms and killed?” he asked. “The entire world saw how my beloved son was killed.”

France 2 said it would be willing to help al-Dura’s father exhume the body to “clarify the circumstances of the incident.”

“France 2 learned about the existence of the committee from the press, and this speaks for itself,” said Charles Enderlin, the network’s Jerusalem bureau chief and the reporter of the initial al-Dura story.

For the Palestinians, the al-Dura affair became a powerful rallying cry. The Palestinian Authority issued stamps and posters bearing his image and named a children’s hospital after him. Other Arab countries named schools and streets in his honor. The boy’s father was invited on speaking tours in the Arab world and honored by universities and political parties.

Islamic militants have cited the case as justification for carrying out attacks against Israel and Jewish targets overseas.

Israeli commentators who believe their country has been unfairly punished for the case nonetheless questioned the decision to conduct a new investigation, saying it was unlikely to sway already hardened opinions around the world.

“On one hand, it’s better late than never. On the other, the damage has already been done,” wrote Ben-Dror Yemini, a columnist for the Maariv daily. “No report, and certainly not a report commissioned by the Israeli government, is going to decrease the damage. We have already been defeated in the battle between lies and the truth. The lies won.”

Yossi Kuperwasser, the Israeli official who led the investigation, said it was imperative to set the record straight.

“The entire idea that Israel is a child killer … is first and foremost based on the Mohammed al-Dura story,” he told The Associated Press. “This case … is still being used by people who are committing terror attacks against Israel. It still feeds the hatred.”

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An elementary school in Nova Scotia has made a curious decision to cancel Mother’s Day and Father’s Day celebrations and to, instead, replace them with a more benign “Family Day” commemoration. The full name of the holiday the school has chosen to observe is the International Day of Families, an annual event that is recognized by the United Nations (it falls on May 15).

Astral Drive Elementary School has caught the ire of some parents, though, who see the change in celebration as unneeded and over-the-top. While the change has been on the books for a few years, it’s just now gaining media attention.

The U.N. has more about this intriguing holiday:

The International Day of Families is observed on the 15th of May every year. The Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 with resolution A/RES/47/237 and reflects the importance the international community attaches to families. The International Day provides an opportunity to promote awareness of issues relating to families and to increase knowledge of the social, economic and demographic processes affecting families.

In its resolution, the General Assembly also noted that the family-related provisions of the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits of the 1990s and their follow-up processes continue to provide policy guidance on ways to strengthen family-centred components of policies and programmes as part of an integrated comprehensive approach to development.

The International Day of Families has inspired a series of awareness-raising events, including national family days. In many countries, that day provides an opportunity to highlight different areas of interest and importance to families. Activities include workshops and conferences, radio and television programmes, newspaper articles and cultural programmes highlighting relevant themes.

While the school apparently made the amendment to accommodate more traditional families, Michelle Allaby, a parent of a child at the school, doesn’t agree with the decision to stop observing Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, CTV News reports.

Photo Credit: ShutterStock.com

“They weren’t allowed to make a card or a craft at Mother’s Day,” Allaby told the outlet. “So, I asked my friends that go to schools in the neighboring area, and they said yes, that their child had come home with a Mother’s Day card or craft, and it was a little upsetting to me.”

CTV News has more about how Astral Drive Elementary School celebrates the holiday:

As part of Family Day, students at the school were asked to write the names of all the people that supported them in their lives on a large tree hung in the gymnasium.

Family Day has been in place at the the school for two years. While some parents say it takes political correctness too far, others like that it is more inclusive.

While Allaby seems to think it is an example of political correctness run-amok, other parents enjoy the accommodations it grants to non-traditional families.

“I am the head of a single-family home, and I am mother and father,” said Shirley Owen, another parent.

It’s certainly true that non-traditional families are increasing in prevalence, but an argument could be made that there is no need to stop commemorating Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Some might even say that all three could be celebrated.

Photo Credit: ShutterStock.com

–

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It is unclear what exactly caused the accident from the video, but according to the blog RU_CHP (translated by Google Translate) the van — an Opel Zafira, which is a mini-van — drove into oncoming traffic near the city of Bryansk and crashed into a fence, which launched it into the air. Both the vehicle capturing the event on camera and the van in front of it pull over and the driver of a truck comes running.

(Image: YouTube screenshot)

(Image: YouTube screenshot)

(Image: YouTube screenshot)

Here’s the shocking footage:

So far, no one has raised doubts about the video’s authenticity (although we’re obligated to point out that with viral videos that’s always the case). In fact, the blog reports police saying the 30-year-old driver, who died from injuries on the scene, might have lost control due to a tire bursting. A passenger in the vehicle is said to be in intensive care suffering a head injury, among others.

(H/T: Business Insider)

This story has been updated to fix the video.

–

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The Nazi flag flying in Beit Omar (Photo Courtesy: Shneior Nachum Sochat, Tazpit News Agency)

Israeli settlers on their morning commute got quite the eyeful Monday morning when they saw a swastika-emblazoned red flag flying near a mosque in Beit Omar, a Palestinian village outside of Hebron.

Thousands of residents of Jewish settlements near Hebron and Bethlehem in Judea (the southern West Bank) drive to and from work on the road from which the flag was visible.

The Tazpit News Agency, which photographed the flying Nazi flag, reports residents “were astounded” to see the symbol under which millions of Jews were massacred during World War II now being prominently displayed by residents of a Palestinian town.

Uri Arnon, who saw the flag, told Tazpit News Agency: “I felt we were going back 75 years, losing our hold on the land. The Arabs no longer feel the need to hide their murderous tendencies, announcing out loud that they wish to destroy us.”

Aryeh Savir of the Tazpit News Agency tells TheBlaze, “The IDF’s [Israel Defense Forces] Coordination Office of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) latest response is that they are waiting for members of the Palestinian electricity company to come in and remove it because it is on power lines.”

Beit Omar, also known as Beit Ummar, is located in a part of the West Bank known as Area B in which the Palestinian Authority runs the day-to-day civilian affairs, while the IDF is responsible for military and national security related issues.

There has been a history of Nazi sympathies among some Palestinians. Most notoriously, the Palestinian leader Haj Amin al Husseini who served as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the 1920s and 1930s, was an outspoken Nazi collaborator and even met with Adolf Hitler. He also recruited Muslims to serve in the SS. This famous photo with Hitler was taken in 1941.

Haj Amin Al Husseini and Adolf Hitler in 1941 (Photo: German Federal Archive via Wikipedia)

Just last week, Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad was widely criticized for posting a column on Al Jazeera’s website in which he claimed that Zionism is anti-Semitic and that there is an “affinity between Nazis and Zionists.” Due to the outpouring of criticism, Al Jazeera removed the column form its site over the weekend.

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​Editor’s note: Glenn Beck will be covering this story on his 5 p.m. ET show on TheBlaze TV. You can watch here.

–

Last week, TheBlaze reported that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan invited the father of one of the radical Islamist activists killed on the 2010 Gaza flotilla to join the official entourage on his visit to the U.S. last week. And while sources familiar with lat week’s visit told TheBlaze that the father did not enter the White House or meet President Obama to deliver a personal letter about his son, according to the Turkish foreign minister’s Twitter account Secretary of State John Kerry did meet with the father and even posed for a photo with him.

The Turkish news site Hurriyet Daily News reports that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu arranged the breakfast meeting Friday where he, the father (Ahmet Doğan) and Kerry were present. Doğan reportedly updated Kerry on the “pending trial of Israeli soldiers involved in the” flotilla incident.

Foreign Minister Davutoğlu posted the below photo on Twitter:

This is the photo Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu tweeted showing Secretary of State John Kerry, himself and according to Hurriyet Daily News, Ahmet Doğan in the center (Photo via Twitter, May 17, 2013)

The foreign minister wrote that Kerry said he would personally give the letter to Obama.

Sabah kahvaltıda Amerikalı mevkidaşım John Kerry ile birlikteydik.Mavi Marmara şehidimiz Furkan Doğan'ın babası Ahmet Doğan Bey de katıldı.+

May 17, 2013 12:21pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@Ahmet_Davutoglu

Ahmet Davutoğlu

Mavi Marmara'da yaşananları ve Furkan'ın acısını paylaştık. + http://t.co/rMlopEHjnV

May 17, 2013 12:22pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@Ahmet_Davutoglu

Ahmet Davutoğlu

Ahmet Bey, ABD Başkanı Sayın Obama'ya muhatap mektubunu Sn. Kerry'e verdi, Sn. Kerry de mektubu Başkan Obama'ya ileteceğini belirtti.

May 17, 2013 12:23pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@Ahmet_Davutoglu

Ahmet Davutoğlu

TheBlaze showed the tweets to a Turkish translator who confirmed the subject matter.

“This morning I had breakfast with my American colleague John Kerry. Ahmet Doğan, the father of Furkan Doğan, one of the Mavi Marmara martyrs, also attended,” the first tweet says.

“We shared the events on the Mavi Marmara and Furkan’s pain,” says the second.

And finally: “Ahmet gave the letter addressed to Mr. Obama to Mr. Kerry. Mr. Kerry said that he would pass the letter on to President Obama.”

Our translator notes that “martyr” in this context does not necessarily mean a religious one, but rather it can be used to describe those killed in a political context.

Hurriyet Daily News summarizes the tweets:

Ahmet Doğan, whose son Furkan Doğan was a Turkish-American dual citizen, handed Kerry a letter for U.S. President Barack Obama and gave information about the pending trial of Israeli soldiers involved in the raid.

Kerry said he would personally give the letter to Obama, Davutoğlu wrote on his Twitter account.

Doğan had previously said that he met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan before the start of his visit to Washington to give him the letter he wrote for Obama.

“[Erdoğan] said he could give the letter to the U.S. president, but that it would be better if I gave it to him in person, so he asked me to join the delegation,” Doğan said.

Kerry’s meeting with the father was not announced on the State Department’s daily Public schedule either Thursday or Friday.

No reporters at Friday’s State Department briefing asked about Kerry’s breakfast meeting earlier in the day, nor did the issue come up during Thursday’s briefing. The White House Press Secretary at his last briefing which took place on Wednesday was not asked to react to Prime Minister Erdoğan’s apparent desire to arrange a meeting between the flotilla father and President Obama.

According to Turkish media, the hope was that the father could deliver a letter personally to President Obama requesting the U.S. launch an investigation into the incident in which his son, Furkan Doğan, was killed. Furkan Doğan was a dual U.S.-Turkish citizen who shortly before his death at age 19 expressed a desire to become a shahid, that is a “martyr” for Allah.

As recently as one month ago, Kerry expressed sympathy for the families of those killed on the Mavi Marmara, the ship in the flotilla that Israel Defense Forces commandos boarded after it did not heed the command to stop sailing toward Gaza where a sea blockade is in place to thwart the transport of weapons to Hamas, a group the State Department defines as a terrorist organization.

In April, Kerry compared the American families mourning their loved ones killed in the Boston Marathon bombing with the families of the radical Islamist Turkish activists killed, seven of whom had expressed a desire to become “martyrs,” a term used often by terrorists before carrying out their attacks.

At the press conference in Istanbul, Kerry said (according to the State Department transcript), “I particularly say to the families of people who were lost in the incident we understand these tragedies completely and we sympathize with them.”

“And nobody – I mean, I have just been through the week of Boston and I have deep feelings for what happens when you have violence and something happens and you lose people that are near and dear to you. It affects a community, it affects a country. We’re very sensitive to that,” Kerry added.

Foreign Minister Davutoğlu did not take the time to tweet any other messages during the course of the U.S. visit last week save for the three tweets on May 17 reporting Kerry’s meeting with the flotilla activist’s father. This, even though his prime minister had high-profile appearances including a White House press conference, the laying of a cornerstone at a Muslim community center and a stop in Silicon Valley in the company of 100 Turkish businessmen.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) tweeted about Erdoğan’s visit on Wednesday to the Masjid Complex in Lanham, Maryland, posting a link to an article in The Muslim Link describing the stone-laying ceremony at the 15-acre, $100 million construction site “that will likely become the largest and most striking examples of Islamic architecture in the western hemisphere.”

The Muslim Link reports that the center aims to promote “the values of the Turkish Civilization” and that Erdoğan used the opportunity to criticize “groups promoting Islamophobia.”

All of those killed on the Gaza flotilla were Turkish citizens. During his visit to Israel in March, Obama tried to broker a deal to normalize relations between Israel and Turkey, which included an Israeli apology and an offer of compensation for those killed. In exchange, Turkey was expected to drop any legal proceedings but just last week Turkish lawyers representing the families of those killed – with the help of the African state of Comoros where the ship was registered – turned to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to seek a war crimes investigation.

The Turkish foreign minister’s Twitter account is not marked with the typical blue checkmark as an officially verified Twitter account, but with some 620,000 followers along with the confirmation by the Turkish news site Hurriyet, it has the appearance of being the foreign minister’s bonafide account.

Editor’s update:

In an interesting side note, while TheBlaze was preparing to publish this story we noticed that the Twitter account associated with the foreign minister started sending out tweets early Monday in rapid succession. In fact, about 50 tweets linking to random news stories from across the United States and Washington D.C. were sent in just over five minutes. Before TheBlaze could screen capture them, the tweets were deleted, leaving the three about the breakfast with Kerry at the top.

We initially did not publish this information, but have decided to add it as an update.

​This story has been updated with additional information.

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Israel Channel 2 broadcast this satellite image showing a Damascus airport warehouse before and after the airstrike (Screenshot: Channel 2 News)

The Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press reporters’ phone records was reportedly one element of a “sweeping” federal investigation to find out who leaked classified information about a failed Al-Qaeda plot to bomb an American airliner.

Now, the Obama administration has reportedly apologized to Israel for another leak of classified information to the media, one that occurred earlier this month and which Israeli officials are concerned could place Israeli lives at risk.

Israel Radio’s diplomatic correspondent Chico Menashe reported Sunday morning (via the Jerusalem Post):

American officials apologized to their Israeli counterparts for confirming that Israel was behind the airstrikes on the Damascus airport earlier this month, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.

The confirmation reportedly came from the lower ranks at the Pentagon, and the reasons for the leak are being investigated.

Menashe tweeted: “The U.S. has apologized to Israel for leaking details of the attack in Syria. Senior administration officials said to their [Israeli] counterparts that they are examining the issue and that low-level [officials] were responsible for the leak.”

Menashe also wrote, “US officials told that they [will] review the matter. The leak forced Assad to react harshly.”

U.S. apologized for leaking details of Israel. US officials told that they review the matter.The leak forced assad to react harshly.

May 19, 2013 1:44am via TweetCaster for AndroidReplyRetweetFavorite

@chicomenashe

chico menashe

The New York Times attributed its report about the bombing on May 3 to an Obama administration official: “Israel aircraft bombed a target in Syria overnight Thursday, an Obama administration official said Friday night, as United States officials said they were considering military options, including carrying out their own airstrikes.”

CNN, which broke the story first on May 3, quoted two unnamed U.S. officials:

The United States believes Israel has conducted an airstrike into Syria, two U.S. officials first told CNN.

U.S. and Western intelligence agencies are reviewing classified data showing Israel most likely conducted a strike in the Thursday-Friday time frame, according to both officials. This is the same time frame that the U.S. collected additional data showing Israel was flying a high number of warplanes over Lebanon.

One official said the United States had limited information so far and could not yet confirm those are the specific warplanes that conducted a strike. Based on initial indications, the U.S. does not believe Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace to conduct the strikes.

Two weeks later, Israel still has not officially taken responsibility for the bombings, which allegedly targeted Iranian Fateh-110 missiles intended to bolster Hezbollah’s arsenal.

Israeli security analysts suggest that confirmation of Israel Defense Forces involvement – even if leaked via American sources – not only could potentially endanger any agents still on the ground in Syria, but would also put pressure on embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad to retaliate against the Jewish state.

Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, told TheBlaze, “It requires the Syrians to react officially rather than deny that it happened or that it was an accident. It forces Syria and Hezbollah and Iran to react officially and say they want to seek revenge, which makes things more dangerous for Israel.”

“Can you imagine if things were reversed and somebody did that to the U.S.?” he added.

Assad may already be responding. Britain’s Sunday Times reported that the Syrian military has placed advanced weapons on standby to strike Israel, in the event Israel strikes targets again in Syria.

The report said that reconnaissance satellite images show Syria has surface-to-surface Tishreen missiles ready for use and aimed at Tel Aviv. Each can carry a half ton payload, according to the paper.

In an interview with CNN shortly after the airstrikes, Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad called the attack a “declaration of war,” adding that Syria would retaliate in its own time and way.

At the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the tumult facing the Middle East, calling it “one of its most sensitive periods in decades with the escalating upheaval in Syria at its center.”

“We are closely monitoring the developments and changes there and we are prepared for any scenario. The government of Israel is working responsibly and with determination and sagacity, in order to ensure the supreme interest of the state of Israel – the security of Israeli citizens in keeping with the policy that we have set, to – as much as possible – prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah and to [other] terrorist elements,” he said.

“We will work to ensure Israelis’ security interest in the future as well,” Netanyahu added.

Last week, Russia said it would move forward with a sale of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria, after Netanyahu made a visit to Moscow in person to try to convince the Russians to halt the deal. Once deployed, the advanced system will make future Israeli sorties over Syria more difficult, as well as rendering any notion of a U.S. or European-led no-fly zone much more complicated to implement.

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Les Echos, citing Finance Ministry data, reported that the culprit was a single levy last year on 2011 incomes of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million).

President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year to mitigate the impact of a rebate created by its conservative predecessor to cap individual taxation at 50 percent.

France’s President Francois Hollande prior a meeting at the Elysee palace on May 17, 2013 in Paris. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

More from the Reuters piece:

The government has been forced to redraft a proposed bill to levy a temporary 75 percent tax on earnings over 1 million euros, which had been one of Hollande’s campaign pledges.

The Constitutional Council has judged such a high rate of taxation to be unfair, leaving the government to rehash it to hit companies rather than individuals.

Since then, a top administrative court has determined that a marginal tax rate higher than 66.66 percent on a single household risked being considered as confiscatory by the council.

Les Echos reported that nearly 12,000 households paid taxes last year worth more than 75 percent of their 2011 revenues due to the exceptional levy. ($1 = 0.7798 euros)

(H/T: Drudge)

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After the apparent thief struggles with a female traveler for her phone, he makes a run for it and promptly gets hit by a bus.

In yet another startling twist, video shows the woman who had been robbed just minutes prior going to help the beleaguered alleged criminal.

The identities of the individuals have not been released, but it was reported that the man received medical treatment and was promptly arrested.

Watch the entire video via ITN, below:

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The Emergencies Ministry says none of the passengers and crew members were injured by the fire on the landing gear of the Boeing 737 at Vnukovo Airport on Saturday.

(Credit: RT)

A ministry statement said the plane belonging to Russian carrier UTair (YOOT-air) was flying to Moscow from the southern city of Stavropol.

The ministry said it was carrying 136 passengers and six crew members, but Russian news agencies quoted the airline as saying there were 129 passengers.

CBS News has the footage:

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A South Korean man watches a TV news reporting missile launch conducted by North Korea, at a Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, May 18, 2013. North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters on Saturday, a South Korean official said. It routinely tests such missiles, but the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing tensions. (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters on Saturday, a South Korean official said. It routinely tests such missiles, but the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing tensions.

The North fired two missiles Saturday morning and another in the afternoon, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said by phone. He said the North’s intent was unclear. His ministry said it is watching North Korea carefully in case it conducts a provocation against South Korea.

In March, North Korea launched what appeared to be two KN-02 missiles off its east coast. Experts believe the country is trying to improve the range and accuracy of its arsenal.

North Korea recently withdrew two mid-range “Musudan” missiles believed to be capable of reaching Guam after moving them to its east coast earlier this year, U.S. officials said. The North is banned from testing ballistic missiles under U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Earlier this year, North Korea threatened nuclear strikes on Seoul and Washington because of annual U.S.-South Korean military drills and U.N. sanctions imposed over its third nuclear test in February. The drills ended late last month. This past month, the U.S. and South Korea ended another round of naval drills involving a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier off the east coast. North Korea calls such drills preparation to invade the North.

Analysts say the recent North Korean threats were partly an attempt to push Washington to agree to disarmament-for-aid talks.

This past week, Glyn Davies, the top U.S. envoy on North Korea, ended trips to South Korea, China and Japan. On Friday, an adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned from North Korea but didn’t immediately give details of his talks with officials there.

On Monday, North Korean state media showed that the country’s hard-line defense minister had been replaced by a little-known army general. Outside analysts said it was part of leader Kim Jong Un’s efforts to tighten his grip on the powerful military after his father Kim Jong Il died in December 2011.

The United States and Japan are participants in six-nation nuclear disarmament talks along with the Koreas, Russia and Japan. North Korea walked out of the talks in 2009 after the United Nations condemned it for a long-range rocket launch.

North Korea possesses an array of missiles. U.S. and South Korean officials do not believe the North’s claim that it has developed nuclear warheads small enough to place on a missile. Last week in Washington, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and President Barack Obama warned North Korea against further nuclear provocations.

Tension between the two Koreas remains high after both sides pulled out their workers from a jointly run factory complex earlier this year. The countries remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce instead of a peace treaty.

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A few subtle changes made this Monday to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” again has some criticizing the government for a growing trend to militarize local law enforcement.

The update gives federal military commanders the authority to engage in “activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected, civil disturbances” temporarily during “extraordinary emergency circumstances.”

Civil liberties attorney and law professor Bruce Afran calls the rule, “a wanton power grab by the military,” and says, “It’s quite shocking actually because it violates the long-standing presumption that the military is under civilian control.”

On “Real News” Friday the panel discussed the possible dangers in expanding the role and power of the military over domestic law enforcement. Watch a clip below below with guest Col. Morris Davis:

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Although you can’t hear the shots in the following video, the crowd’s reaction is unmistakable:

Waltz was doing the interview for French news program called Le Grand Journal. After the shots were fired, security rushed him from the stage.

“Television footage showed Waltz, other guests and crew scrambling from the seaside stage as a voice said ‘there’s someone shooting,’” the Associated Press reports.

“When transmission resumed minutes later, host Michel Denisot said the noise had been caused by blanks. There were no reports of injuries,” the report continues. “Local newspaper Nice-Matin reported that a man was detained by police with a starter’s pistol, a pocket knife and a plastic grenade.”

–

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(H/T: TMZ). This post has been updated.

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Officials at the LEO Zoological Conservation Center in Connecticut tell the Greenwich Time they had removed the only male anteater from the enclosure in August, long before the six-month gestation period for baby Archie would have begun.

Baby on the back of the mother anteater. (Photo: LEO Zoological Conservation Center Facebook)

They feared that male, Alf, would kill another baby in the pen. That left the mother Armani, and the young female, Alice, in the enclosure.

But little Archie was born in April anyway.

Marcella Leone, founder and director of the conservation center, suspects this might be a rare case of delayed implantation, when fertilized eggs remain dormant in the uterus for a period of time.

The Greenwich Time reported that the same phenomenon has been seen in sloths and armadillos, which belong to the same suborder as anteaters.

Stacy Belhumeur with Reid Park Zoo, who is a survival coordinator for giant anteaters, said delayed implantation is unlikely in this case, thinking it is more likely the male and female somehow found a way to mate.

“My guess is they thought they had him separated,” Belhumeur told Greenwich Time. “We’ve seen incredible feats of breeding success. We’ve had animals breed through fences.”

Huh.

Leone acknowledged that there is a place where the fence is shared but at the time conception would have had to take place, that fence line would not have been shared.

“It is a bit of a mystery,” Leone said.

See more pictures of the baby anteater and its mom here.

–

The Associated press contributed to this report. 

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Via WaPo:

In the bluer countries, fewer people said they would not want neighbors of a different race; in red countries, more people did.

If we treat this data as indicative of racial tolerance, then we might conclude that people in the bluer countries are the least likely to express racist attitudes, while the people in red countries are the most likely.

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Barack Obama hold press conference at the White House May 16, 2013 (Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images)

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan allegedly invited a special personal guest to accompany him on his visit to the U.S. this week.

According to Turkish media, the father of one of the radical Islamist activists killed in Israel’s raid on the Mavi Marmara in 2010 (the Gaza flotilla) was included as an invited guest in the prime minister’s delegation in the hopes he might be able to meet President Barack Obama.

Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old with both Turkish and U.S. citizenship, joined the Gaza flotilla where he expressed his desire for “martyrdom.” His father now wants the U.S. government to sue Israel over the raid in which the IDF says its forces were defending themselves from what appeared to them to be an organized attack launched by passengers armed with knives and metal bars as the commandos boarded the ship.

Today’s Zaman reports:

Ahmet Dogan, who asked Erdogan to deliver a letter to US President Barack Obama, joined Erdogan’s delegation upon a request by the Turkish prime minister.

Dogan said Erdogan told him: “I can give this letter [to him], but it is better if you give the letter to him yourself. I will include you among the members of the official delegation.” Dogan also said the prime minister told him he should meet with Obama if they can arrange an appointment with him. The victim’s father said he described Furkan and wrote about his son’s life in the letter.

It’s unknown if the father’s letter was delivered to Obama or if he actually met the President during the trip. That the radical activist’s father was with the prime minister’s entourage was not addressed during the joint Obama-Erdogan press conference Thursday or at the White House or State Department briefings of the past few days.

Furkan Dogan, along with eight Turkish activists, was killed in a battle with Israeli commandos who boarded the ship to enforce the naval blockade on Gaza, instituted after Palestinian terrorists were caught smuggling heavy weapons to the territory by ship.

Flotilla organizers claimed they were on a humanitarian mission, but an Israeli think tank reported that seven of the nine passengers killed had professed a desire to die as “martyrs” before the boat set sail to Gaza. Radical Muslim terrorists and their supporters often glorify the idea of martyrdom for Allah, achieved via jihad.

The Jerusalem Post cited the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center which reported a month after the raid that eight of the nine passengers killed were members of the IHH, a Turkish group that calls itself humanitarian but which the Israeli government along with some U.S. and European lawmakers characterize as radical Islamist in nature. The State Department has not included the IHH on its list of terrorist groups.

According to the Israeli think tank report, a Turkish newspaper printed this quote from 19-year-old Furqan Dogan’s diary, in which he said he wanted to be a martyr, providing strong evidence his intentions were not peaceful: “These are the last hours before I join the sweet experience of being a shahid (martyr). Is there anything more beautiful than this?”

On his visit to Israel in March, President Obama convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to issue an apology to Turkey for the killing of the flotilla activists and to offer financial compensation for those killed. In exchange, Turkey was supposed to promise to drop any legal suits against the Israeli servicemen involved.

Ever since the apology, Turkey has appeared to backtrack on the deal personally brokered by Obama. Earlier this week, lawyers for the Turks killed filed a complaint against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. That venue is chosen when parties seek investigations of war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity.

Officially, the suit was referred to the court by Comoros, a small African country in which the Mavi Marmara was registered. Michael Rubin of Commentary Magazine suggests Erdogan wants “plausible deniability,” that it’s not the Turkish government filing the suit in defiance of Obama’s request.

Rubin reveals that the law firm behind the ICC filing employs one principal who is “a long-time AKP party [Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party] activist and the other has been intimately involved in the IHH.” Rubin writes:

Anyone who believes that Erdogan seeks to bury that hatchet more than rub salt into the wounds of the last two years needs only to consider the special guest whom he has had join his delegation.[…]

It is actually quite amazing: Erdogan has endorsed an Al Qaeda financier, embraced not only Hamas but the most militant faction within that terrorist organization, defended the Sudanese leader against charges of genocide, and has been the largest leak in multilateral efforts to sanction Iran. And yet, Obama will not only welcome him to the White House with the highest honors, but help fulfill the Turkish premier’s blatant desire to use the White House as the backdrop to follow through on his pledge to bash Israel at every opportunity.

Erdogan has already rejected a personal request from Secretary of State John Kerry to hold off on visiting the Gaza Strip. Positioned next to Obama, Erdogan used the White House backdrop Thursday to announce the June timeframe for his trip to meet with Hamas leaders in Gaza, a group the U.S. defines as a terrorist organization.

At the press conference, Obama emphasized his strong relations with the Turkish leader. “This visit reflects the importance that the United States places on our relationship with our ally, Turkey, and I value so much the partnership that I’ve been able to develop with Prime Minister Erdogan,” Obama said according to the White House transcript.

Just two days after Turkish citizens got the International Criminal Court to investigate a possible case against Israel, Obama took a moment to compliment Erdogan for the steps he’s taken to fulfill the arrangement Obama brokered between Israel and Turkey.

“Given our shared interest in peace, I want to note the Prime Minister’s efforts to normalize relations with Israel,” Obama said.

White  House Press Secretary Jay Carney said at his daily news briefing Tuesday, “Turkey is one of our strongest partners.”

Besides meeting Obama, Erdogan placed a foundation stone at a new Turkish-American cultural center in Maryland.

According to Hurriyet Daily News, Erdogan said the center reflects the “alliance of civilizations.”

“In a period marked by Islamophobia, this center will express the brotherhood showing how wrong [Islamophobia] is,” he said.

—

UPDATE: Today sources familiar with the delegation’s visit told TheBlaze that Furkan Dogan’s father, Ahmet, did not enter the White House or meet President Obama or give him a letter. Phone calls to the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., to confirm this information were not returned.

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Morten Kjaerum of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights says action is needed “to break down the barriers, eliminate the hate and create a society where everyone can fully enjoy their rights.”

A video describing the results is below:

The survey of 93,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people showed that more than 80 percent of the group are verbally abused or bullied at school, nearly one in five feel discriminated against when seeking work and a quarter of the people have been attacked or threatened in recent years.

“High levels of under-reporting were also detected,” Kjaerum said. “Just 22% of the most serious violent incidents against LGBT people in the five year preceding the survey were reported to the police.”

An overview of the results reads:

The survey results provide valuable evidence of how LGBT persons in the EU and Croatia experience bias-motivated discrimination, violence and harassment in different areas of life, including employment, education, healthcare, housing and other services. The findings show that many hide their identity or avoid locations because of fear. Others experience discrimination and even violence for being LGBT.

Most, however, do not report such incidents to the police or any other relevant authority. By highlighting and analysing the survey results, this report, together with the upcoming EU LGBT survey – Main results report, will assist the EU institutions and Member States in identifying the fundamental rights challenges facing LGBT people living in the EU and Croatia. It can thereby support the development of effective and targeted European and national legal and policy responses to address the needs of LGBT persons and ensure the protection of their fundamental rights.

The survey was released Friday at a conference in The Hague, Netherlands, on the International Day against Homophobia. Read the results here.

–

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As the Christian Science Monitor reports, such smuggling even extends to so-called “Kentaki” fried chicken:

(Image: Facebook)

For six years, Rafat Shororo longed for the taste of a KFC sandwich he had eaten in Egypt. This week, he got his finger lickin’ fix at home in the Gaza Strip after a local delivery company managed to smuggle it from Egypt through underground tunnels.

“It has been a dream, and this company has made my dream come true,” says Mr. Shororo, an accountant, as he receives his order from the delivery guy.

The al-Yamama company advertises its unorthodox new fast-food smuggling service on Facebook. It gets tens of orders a week for KFC meals despite having to triple the price to 100 shekels ($30) to cover transportation and smuggling fees. The deliveries go from the fryers at the Al-Arish KFC joint 35 miles away to customers’ doorsteps in about three hours.

The fact that the tunnels operate quickly and cheaply enough for the Colonel’s secret recipe to be enjoyed in the tightly controlled Gaza Strip shows just how much of a sieve the Egypt-Gaza border has become.

“All you need to have any KFC product is a short phone call and a few hours, then you can enjoy the great taste of fried chickens,” says Shororo, checking over his chicken pieces, salads, and apple pies. Like other customers who are acquainted with KFC from their travels abroad, he says he doesn’t care how much it costs. “I just want it.”

Enterprising Palestinians have even started advertising their chicken-delivery services on Facebook:

Hundreds of these underground tunnels are meant to bypass an Israeli blockade.  Despite Israel’s attempts to relax the Gaza embargo, the black-market chicken is apparently still a hot item to get your hands on.

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A house where three women escaped is shown Tuesday, May 7, 2013, in Cleveland. Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who went missing separately about a decade ago, were found Monday in the home just south of downtown Cleveland and likely had been tied up during years of captivity, said police, who arrested three brothers. (Photo: AP/Tony Dejak) 

The news shot lightening speed across all media: Three young women long disappeared, presumed dead, were alive. And with the help of a neighbor they were free. As details surfaced, I found myself pulling away from business to check for updates. But for the pure rush of joy, nothing beat that first news flash: The door was forced open; the prisoners were free.

When you heard, did your heart leap?

Then do this: Picture those faces—Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus—and multiply them millions of times over to begin to have a realistic picture of slavery around the globe—children and women and men as unsuspecting as our Cleveland girls, also hidden in plain sight. In the U.S., thousands and thousands of citizens and internationals are unwilling participants in the perverse commerce of sex slavery and forced labor. Worldwide, the United Nations cites estimates as high as 27 million.

The sick suspect in Cleveland? He’s a footnote to the sophisticated network of slavery worldwide, ginning as much as $31.6 billion in annual profits.

My enlightenment—when slavery and trafficking victims changed for me from headlines to human faces—came several years ago when I could no longer get out of a mission trip to India. As a pastor of a large and affluent church in Southern California, I knew about India’s “untouchables,” its large population of “Dalits,” the world’s most trafficked people. I knew our church supported a couple of schools for Dalit children. All good; but India was a big space on the map and a long way away.

Then I was there, and I met two Dalit young ladies rescued from being sold into prostitution, and I heard them tell their stories. And every fuzzy statistic faded into two sets of eyes and the pain of two specific girls. “I’m in,” I prayed that night. “Tell me what You want.”

The three woman abducted and abused in Cleveland along with Roopa Raju (far right), a Dalit woman caught in the web of human trafficking before seeking help at the Tarika Women’s Center, a Christian ministry. (Photos: FBI handouts and George Thomas of CBN.)

In this case, offering help started with our church providing funds to build schools for Dalit kids because daily education means safety now and opportunity long term. Then the church made a movie, NotTodaythemovie.com, to help raise awareness.

And here you are, newly aware, because of three women forced into slavery. The victims have real faces. And in the absence of audible screaming voices to respond to, if you’re wondering what you can do, here’s the short list:

1. Be vigilant. Is there a child in your neighborhood not attending school? Treated differently than other kids? That girl bussing the restaurant table . . . is anything suspicious? You do better to misinform the authorities than to miss a cue.
2. Be Informed. If something seems wrong, step away and call the authorities. Have a plan. Know slavery’s likely hot spots—as in events surrounding the Super Bowl—and refuse to abide evil.
3. Be Involved. Neighbors heard the Cleveland girls’ screams and ran over. You’d be surprised how many people avoid getting involved.
4. Be the change.  Look into anti-slavery organizations like The A21 Campaign, Abolition International, Dalit Freedom Network, International Justice Mission, Operation Mobilization, Salvation Army and many others.

Thank God someone was there to be the hero in Cleveland. Guess what? You can be a hero, too. Keep your cape ironed and your tights in the top drawer.

This week, freedom happened and victims of cruelty acquired a face. Across the street or across the globe, you can help others like them. Because if one of us is enslaved none of us are free.

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In this Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012 photo, two young fighters read out Quranic verses for a journalist, at the request of their Islamist commanders, in Douentza, Mali. Across northern Mali, Islamists have plucked and paid for as many as 1,000 children from rural towns and villages devastated by poverty and hunger, The Associated Press has found. Interviews conducted by the AP provide evidence that a new generation in what was long a moderate and stable Muslim nation is becoming radicalized, as the Islamists gather forces to fight a potential military intervention backed by the United Nations. Credit: AP 

The lost history of Christians forced to convert to Islam—or die—is reemerging, figuratively and literally. According to the BBC: “Pope Francis has proclaimed the first saints of his pontificate in a ceremony [last Sunday] at the Vatican—a list which includes 800 victims of an atrocity carried out by Ottoman soldiers in 1480.They were beheaded in the southern Italian town of Otranto after refusing to convert to Islam.”

The BBC adds in a sidebar: “The ‘Martyrs of Otranto’ were 813 Italians beheaded for defying demands by Turkish invaders to renounce Christianity.  The Turks had been sent by Mohammed II, who had already captured the ‘second Rome’ of Constantinople.”

Historical texts throughout the centuries are filled with similar anecdotes, including the “60 Martyrs of Gaza,” Christian soldiers who were executed for refusing Islam during the 7^th century Islamic invasion of Jerusalem. Seven centuries later, during the Islamic invasion of Georgia, Christians refusing to convert were forced into their church and set on fire. Witnesses for Christ lists 200 anecdotes of Christians killed—including some burned at the stake, thrown on iron spikes, dismembered, stoned, stabbed, shot at, drowned, pummeled to death, impaled and crucified—for refusing to embrace Islam.

If history is shocking, the fact is, today, Christians—men, women, and children—are still being forced to convert to Islam.  Pope Francis alluded to their sufferings during the same ceremony: “As we venerate the martyrs of Otranto, let us ask God to sustain those many Christians who, in these times and in many parts of the world, right now, still suffer violence, and give them the courage and fidelity to respond to evil with good.”

Consider some recent anecdotes:

In Pakistan, a “devoted Christian” was butchered by Muslim men “with multiple axe blows [24 per autopsy] for refusing to convert to Islam.” Another two Christian men returning from church were accosted by six Muslims who tried to force them to convert to Islam, but “the two refused to renounce Christianity.”  Accordingly, the Muslims severely beat them, yelling they must either convert “or be prepared to die. . . . the two Christians fell unconscious, and the young Muslim men left assuming they had killed them.”

In Bangladesh some 300 Christian children were abducted in 2012 and sold to Islamic schools, where “imams force them to abjure Christianity.”  The children are then instructed in Islam and beaten. After full indoctrination they are asked if they are “ready to give their lives for Islam,” presumably by becoming jihadi suicide-bombers.  (Even here the historic patterns are undeniable: for centuries, Christian children were forcibly taken, converted to and indoctrinated in Islam, trained to be jihadis extraordinaire, and then unleashed on their former Christian families.  Such were the Janissaries and Mamelukes.)

In Palestine in 2012, Christians in Gaza protested over the “kidnappings and forced conversions of some former believers to Islam.” The ever-dwindling Christian community banged on a church bell while chanting, “With our spirit, with our blood we will sacrifice ourselves for you, Jesus.”

Just as happened throughout history, Muslims today regularly “invite” Christians to Islam, often presenting it as the only cure to their sufferings—sufferings caused by Muslims in the first place.

In Pakistan, a Christian couple was arrested on a false charge and severely beaten by police. The pregnant wife was “punched, kicked and beat” as her interrogators threatened to kill her unborn baby. A policeman offered to drop the theft charge if the husband would only “renounce Christianity and convert to Islam,” but the man refused.

In Uzbekistan, a 26-year-old Christian woman, partially paralyzed from youth, and her elderly mother were violently attacked by invaders who ransacked their home, confiscating “icons, Bibles, religious calendars, and prayer books.” At the police department, the paralyzed woman was “offered to convert to Islam.” She refused, and the judge “decided that the women had resisted police and had stored the banned religious literature at home and conducted missionary activities. He fined them 20 minimum monthly wages each.”

In Sudan, Muslims kidnapped a 15-year-old Christian girl; they raped, beat and ordered her to convert to Islam. When her mother went to police to open a case, the Muslim officer of the so-called “Family and Child Protection Unit,” told her: “You must convert to Islam if you want your daughter back.”

Indeed, because Christian females are the most vulnerable segments of Islamic societies, they are especially targeted for forced conversions. In 2012, U.S. Congress heard testimony about the “escalating abduction, coerced conversion and forced marriage of Coptic Christian women and girls [550 cases in the last five years alone].Those women are being terrorized and, consequently, marginalized, in the formation of the new Egypt.”

As my new book Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians documents, wherever there are large numbers of Muslims—whether in the Arab World, Africa, Asia, or even in the West—Christians are being persecuted.  Forced conversions are the tip of the iceberg, and certainly not anomalies of history.

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Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the embattled socialist government says it will import 50 million rolls to boost supplies.

That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper on Wednesday.

“This is the last straw,” said Manuel Fagundes, a shopper hunting for tissue in downtown Caracas. “I’m 71 years old and this is the first time I’ve seen this.”

A woman who just bought toilet paper at a grocery store reads her receipt as she leaves the private store in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities _ toilet paper. Economists say Venezuela’s shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government’s controls on foreign currency. Credit: AP

One supermarket visited by The Associated Press in the capital on Wednesday was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.

“I’ve been looking for it for two weeks,” said Cristina Ramos. “I was told that they had some here and now I’m in line.”

Economists say Venezuela’s shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government’s controls on foreign currency.

“State-controlled prices – prices that are set below market-clearing price – always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union,” said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.

President Nicolas Maduro, who was selected by the dying Hugo Chavez to carry on his “Bolivarian revolution,” claims that anti-government forces, including the private sector, are causing the shortages in an effort to destabilize the country.

The government this week announced it would import 760,000 tons of food and 50 million rolls of toilet paper.

A customer leaves a private super market with her purchases, including toilet paper, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities _ toilet paper. Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the embattled socialist government says it will import 50 million rolls to boost supplies. Credit: AP

Commerce Minister Alejandro Fleming blamed the shortage of toilet tissue on “excessive demand” built up as a result of “a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country.”

“The revolution will bring the country the equivalent of 50 million rolls of toilet paper,” he was quoted as saying Tuesday by state news agency AVN. “We are going to saturate the market so that our people calm down.”

Finance Minister Nelson Merentes said the government was also addressing the lack of foreign currency, which has resulted in the suspension of foreign supplies of raw materials, equipment and spare parts to Venezuelan companies, disrupting their production.

“We are making progress … we have to work very hard,” Merentes told reporters Wednesday.

Many factories operate at half capacity because the currency controls make it hard for them to pay for imported parts and materials. Business leaders say some companies verge on bankruptcy because they cannot extend lines of credit with foreign suppliers.

Merentes said the government had met the U.S. dollar requests of some 1,500 small- and medium-sized companies facing supply problems, and was reviewing requests from a similar number of larger companies.

Chavez imposed currency controls a decade ago trying to stem capital flight as his government expropriated large land parcels and dozens of businesses.

Anointed by Chavez as his successor before the president died from cancer, Maduro won a close presidential election April 14 against opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, who refused to accept the result, claiming Maduro won through fraud and voter intimidation. He filed a complaint to the Supreme Court, asking for the vote to be annulled, though that’s highly unlikely to happen since the court is packed with government-friendly justices.

Patience is wearing thin among consumers who face shortages and long lines at supermarkets and pharmacies. Last month, Venezuela’s scarcity index reached its highest level since 2009, while the 12-month inflation rate has risen to nearly 30 percent. Shoppers often spend several days looking for basic items, and stock up when they find them.

Fleming, the commerce minister, said monthly consumption of toilet paper was normally 125 million rolls, but that current demand “leads us to think that 40 million more are required.”

“We will bring in 50 million to show those groups that they won’t make us bow down,” he said.

–

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–

A group of individuals from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore were caught early Wednesday morning trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts, one of the largest man-made public water supplies in the county, CBS Boston reports.

The trespassers, five men and two women, were caught in one of the no-trespassing zones of reservoir, according to Massachusetts state police.

Police also said that the trespassers “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area and claimed they are “chemical engineers” and “recent college graduates,” CBS Boston reports.

The Quabbin, located about 65 miles from Boston, supplies several Massachusetts communities, including the state’s largest city, with clean drinking water.

“State Police say there were no warrants or advisories on any of the individuals and ‘there was no evidence that the seven were committing any crime beyond the trespassing,” the CBS Boston report notes.

“All seven were allowed to leave and will be summonsed to court for trespassing. The FBI is investigating and routine checks of public water supplies have been increased following the incident.”

The seven individuals reside in Amherst, Cambridge, Sunderland, Northampton, and New York City.

“Police have not released their names because a court date has not been set,” the report adds.

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The Telegraph reportes that university lecturer Eleanor Jackson said the iconic red and white symbol could cause upset in in the town of Radstock, Somerset, because it was used 1,000 years ago during the Christian Crusades.

The council met to determine the fate of the flag, which flew atop the town’s civic flagpole.

“My big problem is that it is offensive to some Muslims, but even more so that it has been hijacked by the far right,” Jackson said. 

“My thoughts are we ought to drop it for 20 years.”

The Telegraph provides background:

Radstock Town Council, which serves a local population of more than 5,600 residents, eventually decided to purchase a Union flag to fly on Armistice Day.

The rainbow flag of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender pride movement will be flown at “appropriate” times of the year while an In Bloom flag will celebrate the town’s achievements in the gardening competition.

The objections raised about the flag of St George were branded “oversensitive” by the local Muslim community while the Muslim Council of Britain said England’s patron saint should not be associated with “any hatred of Muslims”.

But some British Muslims do not agree with the decision to remove the flag of St. George.

Spokeswoman Nasima Begum said, “St. George needs to take his rightful place as a national symbol of inclusivity rather than a symbol of hatred.”

Rizwan Ahmed, spokesman for the Bristol Muslim Cultural Society even noted that she believes the decision is political correctness run amok.

“I think they are going a bit far here … It is political correctness going a bit too far,” she said. 

“Use by the far right is one thing, but to say that Muslims are offended I don’t think is correct. We understand the flag is part of this country’s heritage, and in fact many many Muslims will identify as being British themselves.”

While council chair Lesley Mansell insisted that Jackson’s objection to the flag ”was not really taken into consideration,” they have opted to fly the Union flag instead. 

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(h/t: WeaselZippers)

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Ranting and raving into a microphone as the crowd bows its head in what appears to be either deference or praise, the cleric Sami Abu Al-’Ala says (translation via MEMRI):

Oh Allah, make the conspiracies of the Jews their own ruin.  Oh Allah, crush their soldiers and their weapons, destroy their homes, freeze the blood in their veins, disperse them, make their children orphans and their women widows, and shake the earth under their feet!  Oh Allah, annihilate the Jews as you annihilated the peoples of ‘Aad and Thamud.  Oh Allah, make the Jews annihilate themselves.

Tensions between Egypt and Israel have escalated sharply since the so-called “Arab Spring” led to the installation of an Islamist government in Egypt.

Watch the complete video, below:

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Lori Lowenthal Marcus, President of Z Street, appears on “On the Record.” (Photo: Fox News)

Soon after the Internal Revenue Service admitted it had been targeting conservative organizations applying for 501 (c) (4) status around the 2012 election — though it was later discovered it had been happening since at least 2010 — it was learned that Jewish groups had also faced similar scrutiny.

Now, we are learning that at least one group was told it was because of purported worries they were funding terrorism.

Z Street has been vocal about the treatment it received after battling with the IRS for years.  It filed a lawsuit against the government entity in 2010 alleging viewpoint discrimination after applying for 501 (c) (3) status in 2009 (processed through the same office as 501 (c) (4)).

Lori Lowenthal Marcus, president of Z Street, appeared on “On the Record” with Greta Van Susteren Tuesday to explain the situation.

“After we filed our lawsuit, the IRS began having several different positions on why it was taking so long, one of which was because terrorism happens in Israel.  Therefore, they had to look into our organization, because they thought we might be funding terrorism.  We are a purely educational entity.  We didn’t fund anybody; we barely funded ourselves!”

When Greta asked whether anyone in her group has been arrested for terrorism, whether their assets have ever been frozen in connection with terrorism, or whether the group has ever even been accused of promoting terrorist activity, the president incredulously replied, “No!”

If that’s not enough, the group only filed the suit after their lawyer was told by the IRS that groups connected to Israel receive special scrutiny, and that some are sent to a special unit to determine whether the organization’s positions contradict those of the administration’s.”

“At that point we knew that is classic viewpoint discrimination, and we had to [take] action,” she said.

Their group has still not been approved for the 501 (c) (3) status it applied for in 2009.

Watch the entire interview, below:

The POLITICO did some investigating on the matter, writing:

Legal filings show that the problems for Z Street — and apparently for other Israel-related groups — stemmed from an obscure unit in the Cincinnati IRS office: the “Touch and Go Group.” One of the so-called TAG Group’s duties was to weed out applications that might be coming from organizations which might be used to fund terrorism. In response to Z Street’s lawsuit, an IRS manager acknowledged that applications mentioning Israel were getting special attention. “Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a ‘higher risk of terrorism,’” wrote Jon Waddell, manager of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Determinations Group. “A referral to TAG is appropriate whenever an application mentions providing resources to organizations in a country with a higher risk of terrorism.”

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Source: BBC

Young Muslim adults in the U.K. are reviving the Islamic practice of temporary marriages.

Basically, a couple commits to a “pre-marriage” dating arrangement for a set period of time to determine whether or not they want to marry permanently.

The nikah mut’ah is different from regular dating in that the couple is, in a sense, considered bound by a “contract” under Islamic law with a view toward permanent marriage.

The BBC reports that some U.K. Muslims are considering temporary marriages as a way to blend their traditional Islamic practices with more modern, Western lifestyles.

“It allowed us to meet without breaking the bounds of Sharia [Islamic law]. We both wanted to date, to go out for dinner or go shopping and just get to know each other better before getting married, which we wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise,” a 30-year-old Pakistani-Brit named Sara told the BBC.

Sara, a pharmacist who was engaged in a temporary marriage before committing to her partner said, “it’s basically a contract.”

“You sit down and stipulate your conditions — for a girl who hasn’t been previously married, you do need the father’s permission.”

“We stipulated the duration, my father’s conditions, and I requested what you would call a dowry where the guy gives a gift to the girl. It’s simple, straightforward and doesn’t take long at all,” Sara told the BBC.

Nikah mut’ah is apparently on the rise among Shia students, however, the practice is hotly contested by Sunni Muslims who consider the practice haram, or forbidden.

The practice, however, was historically used so men could have a wife-companion for short periods of time while travelling long distances.

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Featured image screen grab.

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Source: Palestinian Media Watch

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) launched a German-funded project in southern Lebanon where the area’s Director of UNRWA Affairs, Ann Dismorr, posed with a map devoid of any trace of the State of Israel, instead presenting it as a map of “Palestine.”

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) captured the UN representatives’ egregious actions and noted that above the map is the Palestinian flag and the inscription: “Arab Palestine.” The text at the bottom of the map also reads just “Palestine.”

Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are all identified on the map by name. Only Israel is erased from the U.N. map. What’s more, The Jewish State’s towns in the Negev desert, along with Be’er Sheva, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, and the Dead Sea are allocated to Palestine on the map.

The map was presented at the launch of an UNRWA project to improve the water supply and rehabilitate shelters in the Rashidieh Camp, according to PMW. The map was reportedly a gift from the “Palestinian Women’s Union.”

According to UNRWA’s website, Germany was represented at the ceremony by the Head of Economic Cooperation and Development at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Lebanon.

High ranking Lebanese and Palestinian officials were also reportedly present at the event unveiling the Israel-less map:

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Photo source: AP

The Romeike family has for years been battling for the right to educate their children as they see fit.  Today, the United States government has denied their request.

Originally from Germany, Evangelical Christians Uwe and Hannelore Romeike wanted to homeschool their six children, but it is against the law in Germany.  They faced threats of legal action from the government and crippling fines before choosing to immigrate to the United States in 2010, seeking political asylum.

U.S. Immigration Judge Lawrence Burman granted the Romeike’s request, but it was overturned in 2012 by the Board of Immigration Appeals, after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement challenged the decision.

Today, in the words of the Home School Defense League Association, which has represented the family: “The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Obama Administration’s denial of asylum granted to the Romeike family.”

The parents could face jail time if forced to return home.

The Romeike family. (Photo source: AP)

The ruling essentially states that “the Romeikes [have] not shown that Germany’s enforcement of its general school-attendance law amounts to persecution against them, whether on grounds of religion or membership in a recognized social group.”

The compulsory attendance laws — and related punishments if violated — apply to everyone, and therefore this isn’t a case of persecution, they say.

“The United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment, even treatment that our laws do not allow,” the ruling explains.

Read the full text of the ruling, below:

Michael Farris, the founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which has been representing the family, commented in a press release: “We believe the Sixth Circuit is wrong and we will appeal their decision…America has room for this family and we will do everything we can to help them.”

Mike Donnelly, HSLDA’s Director of Internal Affairs, added: “Germany continues to persecute homeschoolers.  The court ignored mountains of evidence that homeschoolers are harshly fined and that custody of their children is gravely threatened—something most people would call persecution. This is what the Romeikes will suffer if they are sent back to Germany.”

TheBlaze spoke with Peter Kamakawiwoole, one of the staff attorneys at the HSLDA, who said the family is “obviously disappointed, but they’ve had a tremendous amount of peace about this all throughout.”

“They’re very grateful for the outpouring of support,” he added, “and we’re going to continue to fight this.”

Regarding their future actions, Kamakawiwoole said they are planning to file a petition to have the entire 9th circuit re-hear the case, and if that fails, they’ll appeal to the United States Supreme Court.  In all likelihood, this means the legal battle will continue for many months.

He also took some time to break down the legal ruling, and the potential ramifications for religious freedom.

“If the government were to pass a general law precluding everybody from practicing a particular religion, obviously that’s persecution.  Under this ruling, that kind of law would not be persecution [because it applies to everybody equally],” he said.  “That’s unfortunate, because it’s not impossible to imagine any number of minorities, religious or social, facing legislation where they were legislated out of participation in society if the law is worded the right way.”

The Romeike family has appeared multiple times on TheBlaze TV, and Glenn Beck has donated $50,000 to their legal defense.

Watch one of their interviews with Beck, below:

​This post has been updated.

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The Atlantic Wire’s Jen Doll, “The Happiness Project” author Gretchen Rubin, and The Atlantic’s Contributing Editor Kate Bolick discuss what women want. New York Ideas festival, May 7, 2013, at New-York Historical Society. (Atlantic Live Facebook)

The recent New York Ideas 2013 conference, sponsored by The Aspen Institute and The Atlantic Magazine, brought together about 600 New York and national thought leaders.

Among the many participants were people such as: Robert K. Steel (NYC Deputy Mayor for Economic Development), John Borthwick (Founder and CEO, Betaworks), Eric Schmidt (Executive Chairman, Google), Alexa Von Tobel (Founder and CEO, Learnvest), and Katherine Oliver (Commissioner NYC Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting). The discussions were excellent, but mainly around technologies, policies and business innovations that shaped the past 5 years, and might shape the next 3-5 years.

In the 1950s, Detroit’s population peaked at around 2 million; by 2010, its population had declined to 700,000. Detroit has become a byword for urban collapse, because it failed to respond to the latter 20th Century’s changes (primarily the long term implosion of America’s auto industry). Its citizens paid a heavy price. With Detroit’s example in mind, it’s worth asking what changes the 21st Century might bring, and how they might impact the global, U.S. and NYC economies.

Below are some themes that I believe might shape the next 50 years. With each, consider what new product opportunities (if any) might be created, the challenges and opportunities for the global and U.S. economies/political systems, and the implications for entrepreneurs.

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” Peter Thiel. Zipcar, Warby Parker, and other recent successful start-ups are great companies, and will earn well-deserved fortunes for their founders. But none of these companies, singly or collectively, will have as much impact on civilization as the invention of penicillin. Have we entered a period of reduced productivity growth, as Robert Gordon (“Is U.S. Economic Growth Over?”, NBER 2012) and others suggest?

Are Google’s driverless car and Siri just the beginning for applied machine intelligence/Big Data?  Automated trucks, for example, could eliminate millions of jobs. Will this type of automation be good or bad – economically and socially? How will it transform society?

Many projections have China’s GDP surpassing the U.S. in the 21st century.  NYC became the world’s business center because, in the early 20th century, America became the world’s largest economy.  As the U.S. becomes the world’s largest regional market, and China becomes the world’s largest market, how will America and NYC adapt?

The U.S. population is aging.  Between now and the mid-21st Century, the number of Americans over 65 will double; by 2030, one in five Americans will be over 65. Is mid-late 60s retirement really appropriate anymore? What kinds of new non-medical products and services will be developed to serve an aging boomer population?  Given America’s current health care system (which costs 18% of GDP), how can it afford this demographic transition?

When the media industry stabilizes, what will it look like? Will feature films, news and music be crowd-sourced?  Will all the global/national brands (e.g., NYTimes) be gone, and the survivors be smaller, nimbler participants with extensive use of User Generated Content?  Or will the future have a few giant global participants (e.g., Google, Facebook, Amazon), the collapse of the middle, and a forest of small niche players?

If anthropogenic climate change is real and nothing is done, disastrous occurrences like Hurricane Sandy will become commonplace.  Will America’s coastal cities start to shrink, in population and importance?

Over the last two generations, the gap between the top 1/3rd (particularly the 1%) and the bottom 1/3rd of America’s population has widened to a chasm. For example: In April 2013, the unemployment rate for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher was 4%, but exceeded 11% for those with less than a high school education. Can America survive as two countries – one affluent and the other marginalized?

Is the rejection of secular humanism merely a short-term bubble or a long-term trend? Francis Fukuyama famously declared “The End of History”, and that Western liberal democracy had triumphed. Well, history’s returned with a vengeance.  In parts of the developed world (and even more strikingly in emerging markets), we see sharp, sustained rejections of liberal democracy, market economics and secular humanism.  What do these developments mean – when world views, values and goals diverge so radically?

We may be on the threshold of a scientific revolution in human genomics, giving us (for better or worse) an incredible ability to shape our genetic inheritance.  In what ways should we utilize these abilities? Who will decide how these capabilities will be developed? Will we use these new powers wisely? For more on this important topic, see the recently published book Regenesis.

Emergence of global ‘superbugs’ - Will decision-makers respond rapidly, and wisely, to potential pandemics?  How will such events (and their aftermath) affect commerce, travel, individual rights, and other features of our economy and society, particularly in global cities, such as NYC?

What will be the next 9/11 event?  Will it come from the Middle East, North Korea or a failed state? Will it be cyber warfare, nuclear, chemical, biological, or something else? Are we preparing sufficiently for the next generation of risk?

The list above is far from exhaustive, and some items are contradictory or ambiguous.  I don’t claim to have answers (and, I’m not even sure these are the right topics). But discussing and debating topics of this type is the best way I know to prepare to live in the unknown country that is our future.

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EDITORS NOTE – CORRECTING BYLINE TO KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV — Russian Su-25 attack aircraft release smoke in the colours of the Russian flag while flying over the Red Square in Moscow, on May 9, 2013, during Victory Day parade. Fighter jets screamed over Red Square and heavy tanks rumbled over its cobblestones as Russia flexed today its military muscle on the anniversary of its costly victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.  Credit: AFP/Getty Images

MOSCOW (TheBlaz/AP) — Russia’s security services say they have caught a U.S. diplomat who they claim is a CIA agent in a red-handed attempt to recruit a Russian agent.

Ryan Fogle, a third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, was carrying special technical equipment, disguises, written instructions and a large sum of money when he was detained overnight, the FSB said in a statement Tuesday. Fogle was handed over to U.S. embassy officials, the FSB said.

Russian state television showed pictures of a man said to be Fogle, wearing a baseball cap and what appeared to be a blond wig, lying face down on the ground. The man, now without the wig, was also shown sitting at a desk in the FSB offices. Two wigs and packages of 500 euro notes were among the items displayed on a table.

Russia Today provides some of those pictures via the FSB:

(FSB via Russia Today)

(FSB via Russia Today)

(FSB via Russia Today)

(FSB via Russia Today)

Russia Today also published a copy of the alleged recruitment letter:

(FSB via Russia Today)

Despite the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States still maintain active espionage operations against each other. Last year, several Russians were convicted in separate cases of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.

The detention of Fogle, however, appeared to be the first American diplomat accused of spying in about a decade and seemed certain to aggravate already strained relations between the two countries.

No immediate comment was available from the U.S. Embassy. Ambassador Michael McFaul, who was doing a question-and-answer session on Twitter when the detention was announced, said he would not comment.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it has summoned McFaul to appear on Wednesday in connection with the detention.

In Washington, the White House referred questions about the detained diplomat to the State Department. There was no immediate response from the State Department.

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The comments made Monday are already raising ire in neighboring countries that bore the brunt of Japan’s wartime aggression and have long complained that Japan has failed to fully atone for wartime atrocities.

Toru Hashimoto, the young, brash mayor of Osaka who is also co-leader of an emerging conservative political party, told reporters that there wasn’t clear evidence that the Japanese military coerced women to become what are euphemistically called “comfort women.”

“To maintain discipline in the military, it must have been necessary at that time,” Hashimoto said. “For soldiers who risked their lives in circumstances where bullets are flying around like rain and wind, if you want them to get some rest, a comfort women system was necessary. That’s clear to anyone.”

In this May 13, 2013 photo, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto answers reporters’ questions at the Osaka city office in Osaka, western Japan. Osaka’s outspoken mayor has said the system in which Asian women were forced to become wartime prostitutes before and during World War II was necessary to “maintain discipline” in the Japanese military. Credit: AP

Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from the Korean Peninsula and China, were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers in military brothels.

China’s Foreign Ministry criticized the mayor’s comments and saw them as further evidence of a rightward drift in Japanese politics under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“We are appalled and indignant about the Japanese politician’s comments boldly challenging humanity and historical justice,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily media briefing. “The way they treat the past will determine the way Japan walks toward the future. On what choice Japan will make, the Asian neighbors and the international community will wait and see.”

Asked about a photo of Abe in a fighter jet with the number 731 — the number of a notorious, secret Japanese unit that performed chemical and biological experiments on Chinese in World War II — Hong again urged Japan not to whitewash history so as to improve relations with countries that suffered under Japanese occupation.

“There is a mountain of definitive iron-hard evidence for the crimes they committed in the Second World War. We hope Japan will face and contemplate their history of aggression and treat it correctly,” Hong said.

Abe posed, thumbs up, in the aircraft during a weekend visit to northeastern Japan.

Right-leaning Japan Restoration Party co-leader and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, right, holds a name plate of former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, the party co-leader who won the parliamentary election, after placing rosette as he observes the result of the parliamentary election in Osaka, western Japan, Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012. Japanese media exit polls showed the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party won a clear majority in parliamentary elections, signaling a rightward shift in the government that could further heighten tensions with China. Credit: AP

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment over what it called a senior Japanese official’s serious lack of historical understanding and respect for women’s rights. It asked Japan’s leaders to reflect on their country’s imperial past, including grave human rights violations, and correct anachronistic historical views.

Hashimoto’s comments came amid criticism of Abe’s earlier pledges to revise Japan’s past apologies for wartime atrocities. Before he took office in December, Abe had advocated revising a 1993 statement by then Prime Minister Yohei Kono acknowledging and expressing remorse for the suffering caused to the sexual slaves of Japanese troops.

Abe has acknowledged “comfort women” existed but has denied they were coerced into prostitution, citing a lack of official evidence.

Recently, top officials in Abe’s government have appeared to backpedal on suggestions the government might revise those apologies, apparently hoping to ease tensions with South Korea and China and address U.S. concerns about Abe’s nationalist agenda.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga repeated the previous government position and said that those women went through unbearable pain.

“The stance of the Japanese government on the comfort women issue is well known. They have suffered unspeakably painful experiences. The Abe Cabinet has the same sentiments as past Cabinets,” he said.

Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura said Hashimoto’s remark was unhelpful given the criticism Japan faces from neighboring countries and the U.S. over its interpretation of history.

“A series of remarks related to our interpretation of (wartime) history have been already misunderstood. In that sense, Mr. Hashimoto’s remark came at a bad time,” Shimomura told reporters. “I wonder if there is any positive meaning to intentionally make such remarks at this particular moment.”

Hashimoto, 43, is co-head of the newly formed Japan Restoration Party with former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, who is a strident nationalist.

Sakihito Ozawa, the party’s parliamentary affairs chairman, said he believed Hashimoto’s remarks reflected his personal view, but he expressed concerns about possible repercussions.

“We should ask his real intentions and stop this at some point,” he said.

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Watch below as Glenn Beck breaks down the inaccuracies, inconsistencies and contradictions in the Obama administration’s words and deeds when it comes to the terrorist attack that claimed the lives of four American heroes:

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The Middle Eastern country will take over presidency of the conference from May 27 through June 23, and is being given the opportunity, AFP notes, based on an alphabetical rotation of 65 member states.

Considering Ian’s history — mainly allegations that the country is attempting to develop nuclear weapons — there’s clearly some irony here. The United States is planning to boycott the meetings during this time, claiming that Iran should not be allowed to hold official positions in the UN amid sanctions.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Credit: AFP/Getty Images 

Currently, Iran faces four rounds of ramifications for its purported actions. Allowing the country to hold this position, the U.S. claims, sends the wrong message and undercuts the central goals of the UN Conference on Disarmament.

AFP has more:

Iran’s presidency is “unfortunate and highly inappropriate,” said Pelton. “The United States will not be represented at the ambassadorial level during any meeting presided over by Iran.”

“The United States continues to believe that countries that are under Chapter VII sanctions for weapons proliferation or massive human-rights abuses should be barred from any formal or ceremonial positions in UN bodies.”

Pelton acknowledged that the conference presidency is largely ceremonial with no responsibilities.

Regardless of how prominent the role is, the U.S. is doubling down — and isn’t alone in its criticism.

“This is like putting Jack the Ripper in charge of a women’s shelter,” said Hillel Neuer, who heads UN Watch, a Geneva-based group.

Read the entire story here.

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Exhibit A: The following video shows a chaotic brawl between two youth (kids born in 2002) hockey teams from Novokuznetsk, Russia [ignore the video’s music. It’s awful]:

Among the lowlights listed by Yahoo! Sports:

• Fifty seconds into this mess, a player from the blue team comes flying at a pile of players and does a full flip onto his head. Then, for his trouble, he gets pounded on by an opponent while he’s lifting himself off the ice.
• At the 1:08 mark, check the middle of the screen, as a white player goes all Ralphie on Scut Farkus, as he sits on his opponent and levels him with punches to the head.
• Twice in the video, a gang of white jersey players swarm a blue jersey player and beat the stuffing out of him like they’re in a prison yard. (OK, Gulag yard). The final time, in the clip’s final moments, is insane.
• Finally, after nearly two minutes of unencumbered chaos … hey, look, adults! Nice to see you. Finally.

Just wait until they grow up and get sent over to the NHL. Fun times.

–

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And the racetrack video, which is just now starting to go viral, shows that the the accident was really pretty awful:

What the backstory here? Jalopnik offers some details:

Ferrari 458s were racing at Suzuka when one of them was involved in a simply insane accident. The driver and a corner worker were injured, but should be ok. That’s unreal, because this is one of the worst accidents I’ve ever seen.

…Terajima was driving his yellow 458 when something went very wrong on the front straight. The car spears right after pit out, hitting the safety barrier. The car basically disintegrated.

Luckily, no one was killed:

Amazingly, Terajima and the nearby corner worker survived the crash. Terajima is in serious condition at the hospital, but it sounds like he’ll pull through. The corner worker is also in the hospital, but he seems to be in better shape than Terajima. Unbelievable.

Unbelievable, indeed.

–

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Alicia Gali grants her first public television interview since being raped and imprisoned in Dubai. (Photo: Yahoo 7 News)

Alicia Gali of Australia was excited about her new job in the “desert paradise” of Dubai.  American-owned Starwood Hotels, one of the world’s largest hotel groups, even offered to pay for her plane ticket and accommodations as part of the contract that she become a manager.

The United Arab Emirates had been aggressively targeting Australia for tourists when she took the job in 2008, portraying itself as “really progressive and forward-thinking and the ‘new’ Middle East,” Gali said.  But when she got there, she found another world entirely.

After being drugged and gang-raped by three of her colleagues, Gali says she found no help from her superiors at the hotel.  After she took herself to the hospital, she was thrown in jail for eight months for sex outside of marriage.

Gali’s Australian attorney explained that, as far as she understands, the crime is only considered rape under the country’s strict Islamic laws if there are “four adult, male Muslim witnesses that can provide evidence that the sex was non-consensual.”

Years later, Gali has granted her first television interview to Yahoo 7 News’ Ross Coulthart, and the news organization traveled all over the world to get to the bottom of the story.

(Photo: Yahoo 7 News)

According to the report, it was discovered that the assault was planned well in advance, down to the criminals putting a shirt and a plastic bag in Gali’s drain so it would flood, leaving her no real place to go late that night but down to the hotel bar.

She brought her laptop, ordered one drink, and some of her colleagues came over to put some more ice in it.

“I don’t even remember finishing the drink.  The next thing I know I woke up at 4:30 in the afternoon the next day,” she said.  “The door to my apartment was ajar.  I was completely naked with just my bra hanging off my shoulder.  I woke up in pain.  I had broken ribs and massive bruising on a lot of my body.”

There were reports of screams near her room that night, but Alicia doesn’t remember what happened.  Security was dispatched and three naked men were seen in the room, but it is unclear exactly what action was taken.

When Gali asked a senior manager how she could get home — the hotel was hanging onto her passport, presumably for safekeeping — she was allegedly told that she had a “debt” to them since they had paid for her flight and accommodations, and had not yet fulfilled the contract that would allow them to recoup their costs.

The interviewer repeated incredulously: “You’ve been raped. You’re asking for your passport so you can get medical assistance. And they’re saying ​you owe them money?”

With no idea what to do, Gali called the Australian consulate.

“All [the representative] said to me is reconsider your need to be in the country at this time, and that if I had been drugged there could be issues with drug laws in the country and that I could face life imprisonment.  I explained to her that the hotel was holding my passport and I couldn’t go anywhere,” but the representative did not offer to give her an emergency passport, Gali says.

According to Yahoo 7 News, ” the Australian government was actively trying to suppress [Gali's] story” at the time, telling her family not to speak with the media.

Alicia Gali’s mother describes the moment she found out her daughter was coming home. (Photo: Yahoo 7 News)

Eventually the pain of what turned out to be four broken ribs became too much to bear, so Gali took herself to the hospital.

“[The hospital staff] said, ‘Do you want to tell the police so that the men can be arrested?’” Gali recalled.  “And I said the hotel told me that I might have some issues with the fact that I had a drink, they said no don’t worry about it you’re Christian, you’re not Muslim, it’s fine.  Report the rape.”

They didn’t tell her that if she couldn’t provide the four male, Muslim witnesses, reporting a rape is essentially an admission of sex outside marriage.

Gali was quickly sentenced to a year in jail — 11 months for sex outside of marriage and 1 month for drinking alcohol — and 2 of the accused rapists got the same sentence.  The third got an extra month.

“I was petrified…I was absolutely terrified,” she recalled.

For eight months, Gali shared a “disgusting” cell with thirty other women where she says they sometimes didn’t turn the water on for days at a time during the middle of summer.

She was pardoned at eight months and allowed to go home.  So were her rapists.

Since that time, Gali still struggles with what she has endured.  She has been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and, according to various reports, is taking legal action against the Commonwealth of Australia for its role in the matter.

Both Starwood hotels and the Australian consulate in Dubai reject Gali’s accusations that they acted improperly, the former saying it provided “support and assistance” and that the safety of its employees is a “paramount priority,” the latter claiming she was provided with “extensive consular assistance” but adding that consular officers are not responsible for administering legal advice.

Watch Yahoo 7 News’ entire two-part report on Alicia Gali’s story, below:

Click here to read the complete report by Yahoo 7 News’ “Sunday Night.”

–

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File photo of a Syrian rebel (Image: Getty)

An extremely graphic and savage video going viral on YouTube in the past couple of days shows what appears to be a Syrian rebel dismembering a slain government soldier and then biting into his heart.

Reuters reports that the perpetrator seen in the video is actually a rebel commander whose nom de guerre is Abu Sakkar, who is one of the founders of the Farouq Brigade. And according to Reuters, he is a well-known insurgent from Homs.

In the video, which TheBlaze has chosen not to include in this post due to the graphic and disturbing nature of the images, one sees digitally blurred images of the rebel cutting into the torso of the soldier, who is presumably a loyalist of embattled President Bashar Assad. One then sees the rebel yanking out two organs from the slain soldier’s chest.

This is the translation subtitled on the video, “I swear to god we will eat your hearts out. You soldiers of Bashar (Assad) the dog…we will take out their hearts and eat them.”

The chants of Allahu Akbar – Allah is the greatest – are heard as off-camera onlookers cheer on the gruesome scene as the desecration of the dead body unfolds.

Before the video cuts off, the rebel is seen biting into one of the soldier’s just-extracted organs. According to his own narration, he is apparently biting the soldier’s heart.

Reuters reports that  Human Rights Watch has condemned the rebel’s behavior:

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said that he had seen an original, unedited copy of the video and that Abu Sakkar’s identity had been confirmed by rebel sources in Homs and by images of him in other videos wearing the same black jacket as in the latest clip and with the same rings on his fingers.

“The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence,” said Bouckaert.

He said that in the unedited version of the film, Abu Sakkar instructs his men to “slaughter the Alawites and take their hearts out to eat them”, before biting into the heart.

TIME Magazine’s Middle East Bureau Chief Aryn Baker writes that she first became aware of the video a month ago.

In her aptly-titled piece, “Savage Online Videos Fuel Syria’s Descent Into Madness,” she writes that Abu Sakkar’s real name is Khalid al-Hamad.

According to her description, while the rebel pulls a heart out with his right hand, the organ he pulls out with his left hand appears to be a lung.

As in the case of most amateur videos emerging from Syria, TheBlaze cannot verify its authenticity; however Baker describes TIME’s investigation into the video:

Two TIME reporters first saw the video in April in the presence of several of Abu Sakkar’s fighters and supporters, including his brother. They all said the video was authentic. We later obtained a copy. Since then TIME has been trying to ensure that the footage is not digitally manipulated in any way — a faked film like this would be powerful propaganda for the regime, which portrays the rebels as terrorists — and, as yet, TIME has not been able to confirm its integrity. Abu Sakkar has not commented on whether the man in the video is indeed him because he is currently fighting on the front lines in Syria, according to fighters under his command. The video became public on May 12 when it was posted online by a proregime group and is indeed now being used as propaganda by regime supporters (and has already been shared 1,115 times on Facebook and has over 46,000 views on YouTube). These 27 seconds of footage provide a glimpse at how brutal the Syrian war has become — and a startling example of how technology appears to be fueling that brutality.

“Videos like this prompt a troubling question: How do countries who want to support Syria’s rebels make sure they’re not unintentionally aiding rebels who might commit war crimes?,” Baker asks.

While nearly 80,000 have reportedly been killed during the two-year conflict, this latest video provides more evidence that horrific atrocities continue to be perpetrated.

Brigadier General Salim Idris who heads the Syrian Military Council (SMC), a group guiding some of the rebels tells TIME: “Look, it is very clear that these kinds of behaviors, this cutting of bodies, is not allowed. If there is evidence that fighters from the FSA [Free Syrian Army] are doing something against human rights or international law, they will be brought before the court.”

The video can be seen at (warning: graphic) this link.

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Senior Palestinian Authority official Jibril Rajoub (Courtesy: Palestinian Media Watch)

Jibril Rajoub, a senior Palestinian Authority official who is frequently characterized as a “moderate” in both the Western and Israeli media, said on Lebanese television that if the Palestinians had a nuclear weapon they would have nuked Israel “this morning.”

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) discovered and translated to English the interview Rajoub gave to Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen TV on April 30. Rajoub also posted the video clip to his own Facebook page, according to PMW.

When the interviewer referred to peace talks with Israel as “the negotiations game,” Rajoub suggested that the Palestinian Authority [PA] engages in negotiations because it does not have the military strength to defeat Israel by force.

“I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning,” he said.

He also said the Palestinian Authority would consider returning to the negotiating table only if Israel agrees to a list of Palestinian preconditions including freezing construction in Jerusalem, in West Bank settlements and freeing Palestinian prisoners, some of whom are serving sentences for terrorist acts.

Rajoub is President of the Palestine Olympic Committee and serves as Deputy Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee.

Israel Today explains why Rajoub’s nuclear threat strikes such a sensitive chord for Israelis, particularly in light of Iran’s nuclear quest:

There is a very good reason for Israel taking the Iran nuclear threat so seriously. There are a lot of people in this region, many of them holding positions of authority, who would like nothing more than to use a nuclear weapon against Israel, the consequences be damned.[…]

This revelation validates one of Israel’s chief concerns in the peace process – that in the absence of actually being educated for peace and coexistence, the inhabitants of an independent Palestinian state will, as a first order of business, work toward acquiring the military means to engage in renewed warfare against Israel.

In his Palestine Olympic Committee capacity last summer, Rajoub thanked International Olympic Committee officials for agreeing to not honor during the opening ceremony in London the 11 Israeli athletes slain during the 1972 Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists.

In the 1970s and 80s, Rajoub served 17 years in Israeli prison for terrorist activity.

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik of PMW write:

Senior PA officials often state that avoiding violent confrontation or war with Israel is only temporarily, due to the PA’s inability to take on such a conflict. They claim that negotiations with Israel are the right course of action for now, because conditions are not right for violence.

[Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas himself has also said on several occasions that if the Arab nations would begin a war against Israel, “Palestine” would join them.

According to the Commentator, a pro-Israel website, Rajoub is a signatory to the Geneva Initiative, a project that promotes a two-state solution. The group’s tagline is “An Israeli-Palestinian Initiative to End the Conflict.”

Its mission statement reads in part, “After a century of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, the Geneva Initiative offers a real and mutually agreed upon possibility for ending the conflict between the two sides and obtaining a mutually acceptable peace that guarantees the vital national interests of both sides.”

Rajoub was featured several years ago in a video clip promoting the campaign, where he stated “I am your partner” in Hebrew.

“There is a consensus in the Arab world to recognize the existence of Israel in return for an end to occupation,” he added then.

The Commentator provided translation of more excerpts from Rajoub’s Lebanese TV interview: “If you ask me as a Palestinian, I say — our battle is with the Israeli occupation. Our main enemy, not [just] as Palestinians but as Arabs and Muslims, is Israel and the Israeli occupation.”

“If [Arab] mobilization would begin for the liberation of Jerusalem; if money [would be spent] and swords drawn in the face of the Zionist enemy, that would be great,” Rajoub said according to the Commentator.

Here is the excerpt of the Rajoub interview that PMW translated:

Lebanese TV host: “The American [John Kerry] came to the PA. They are talking about reviving negotiations, about getting back to the table with the Israelis… Will you go back to the negotiations game?”

Jibril Rajoub: “There is no going back to negotiations unless the source of authority is the international resolutions, with a time frame and with the freezing of all unilateral Israeli steps: Jerusalem, the fence, settlements and prisoners.”

Host: “You’ve heard Israel’s refusal.”

Jibril Rajoub: “That doesn’t matter. Listen. We as yet don’t have a nuke, but I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning.”

[Al-Mayadeen TV (Lebanon), April 30, 2013]

Watch the clip here, courtesy of PMW:

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The odd appearance was White’s last three-hour show after six years at BBC Radio Stoke (she was already planning to leave the show before this incident unfolded). In addition to slurring her words, she appeared to have trouble operating the equipment.

“For the last time on lunchtime let’s ssssssssssay you pick the music,” she said. “It’s a P-A-R-T-Y because I said sooooo… Some people will say, ‘Oh, thank goodness she’s gone.’”

Listen to a portion of her on-air antics, below:

White said on the broadcast that she had a few drinks before getting on the air, adding to the perception that she was drunk. Still, she denied that alcohol was inhibiting or impacting her behavior.

“I’m not drunk, I’ve had a couple of drinks, I’m not drunk… I’m sad,” she continued.

Dan Siegertsz, a colleague, stepped in to complete the broadcast. A spokesperson later said that White was “under par” and was, thus, unable to finish the show. A longer version of the audio can be heard here.

(H/T: News.au.com)

–

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The surprise decision only covers the right of a transgender person who was born male to marry a man, and for one who was born female to marry a woman.

The ruling by the Court of Final Appeal brings the semiautonomous Chinese city in line with many other places in the Asia-Pacific region, including mainland China, where transgender people are allowed to marry as their new gender.

Reporters crowd around a speakerphone as they listen to a transgender woman on it after she won a legal ruling at Hong Kong s top court allowing her to marry, in Hong Kong Monday, May, 13, 2013. Credit: AP

The court ruled in favor of the woman, identified only as W. One of the judges on the five-member panel dissented.

W’s lawyer, Michael Vidler, said his client was “overjoyed.” W, who is in her 30s, was born a man but had surgery in 2008 to become a woman. The hospital issued a letter certifying her new gender.

Vidler read a statement by W to reporters in which she said that after the surgery she has lived her life “as a woman and been treated as a woman in all respects except as regards my right to marriage. This decision rights that wrong.”

In a conference call later with reporters, W said, “I’m very glad that I can finally get married to my beloved boyfriend in Hong Kong.” She added that she hopes the ruling will have a positive influence how sexual minorities are seen in Hong Kong, where many hold conservative views.

Vidler said the ruling won’t take effect for 12 months, giving the government time to change marriage laws.

Reporters’ microphones surround a speakerphone as a transgender woman speaks on it after she won a legal ruling at Hong Kong s top court allowing her to marry, in Hong Kong Monday, May, 13, 2013. Credit: AP

The judges noted that from evidence and submissions received, “it appears in the Asia-Pacific region, such marriages are permitted” in mainland China, Singapore, India, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. Same-sex marriage remains rare in the region, though New Zealand approved it last month.

In China, the Ministry of Civil Affairs clarified the law in 2003 to make it clear that transgender marriage is legal.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, came back under Chinese control in 1997 but was granted a high degree of autonomy from Beijing and retains a separate legal system.

–

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Egyptian Salafis hold posters of the slain al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden with Arabic slogan which reads ” a man who humiliated America, lived benign and died a martyr” in front of the state security headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, late Thursday, May 2, 2013. (Photo: AP)

CAIRO (TheBlaze/AP) — Egypt’s interior minister said Saturday that security authorities have arrested three suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants who were planning to carry out suicide attacks on vital installations and an unspecified foreign embassy.

According to the New York Times, a “Western official” said police have “privately” identified that embassy was the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.  Egyptian diplomats have also reportedly confided in their American counterparts that the U.S. Embassy was the target.

Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim told a news conference that the men had been in contact with Dawood al-Assady, a leader of al-Qaida in Pakistan and other southeast Asian countries, and that the group was planning to attack government buildings and a foreign embassy. He did not disclose details.

The interior minister said authorities seized 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of ammonium nitrate, a key ingredient in homemade explosives. Security officials also discovered statements issued by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the group’s arm in North Africa, on one of the men’s computers with information on how to make bombs and rockets, and ways of collecting intelligence.

He said the suspects are also believed to have links with the so-called “Nasr City terror cell,” which was broken up last year and its members arrested on accusations of plotting attacks against public figures in Egypt.

Ibrahim denied that al-Qaeda is active in Egypt, but said the three men were in contact with al-Qaeda militants abroad.  He also revealed that the suspects were on the “verge” of carrying out the attack when they were arrested.

Egypt’s security has sharply deteriorated in the past two years, with Islamic militants suspected of being behind cross-border assaults on Israel as well as a bold attack that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in the northern Sinai Peninsula last year. Ibrahim told reporters that the men were trying to take advantage of the country’s situation to “target innocent civilians and attack foreign diplomatic missions.”

Ibrahim said one of the three men had received instructions from al-Assady to contact two members of the Nasr City terror cell.

He added that one of the men had received combat training by members of al-Qaeda in Iran and Pakistan and also had connections with members of al-Qaeda in Algeria. The group was additionally accused of having contacts with someone who is in charge of receiving suspected terrorists on the Turkish border, but not further details were given. Turkey has borders with Iraq, Syria and Iran.

The interior minister named the suspects as Amr Mohammed Abu al-Ela Aqida, Mohammed Abdel-Halim Hemaida Saleh and Mohammed Mostafa Mohammed Ibrahim Bayoumi. Two of the men were detained in the northern coastal city of Alexandria, while the third was arrested in Cairo.

In other instances of declining security in the country, a U.S. citizen was stabbed in the neck outside the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Friday. Christopher Stone, who works at the American University in Cairo and was recently appointed as the U.S.-based director of the CASA program for intensive Arabic language study “is doing well” and will be released from the hospital soon, the university said in a statement Saturday.

The U.S. Embassy said the perpetrator, who was detained, claimed his motivation was to seek revenge over U.S policies in the Middle East. “The (police) investigation, while still ongoing, has established that the perpetrator acted alone, and the incident was not tied to any larger conspiracy,” the embassy said in a statement.

Additionally, Egypt’s top prosecutor ordered Saturday the release of one of the country’s most prominent activists only a day after ordering his arrest pending an investigation related to a protest against the country’s interior minister.

Ahmed Maher, the founder of the April 6 Youth Movement that was at the forefront of the 2011 revolt that ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak, was arrested at Cairo airport Friday as he returned from a trip to the United States.

His April 6 group credits itself with helping Morsi win last year’s tight presidential run-offs against a Mubarak-era official that many activists feared would restore the previous regime.

Maher has since said he regrets his group’s support of Morsi and the Brotherhood, and has accused the president of abusing his powers in ways similar to Mubarak.

Maher was among a number of opposition figures who declined to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit to Cairo earlier this year, saying that Washington’s handling of Egypt’s political turmoil and economic problems is “shallow” and in favor of the Brotherhood.

—

Associated Press writers Aya Batrawy and Mariam Rizk contributed to this report.

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Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu listens to Mayor of Shanghai Yang Xiong (not pictured) at their meeting in Shanghai on May 7, 2013. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

JERUSALEM (TheBlaze/AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be seeking alternate sleeping arrangements when traveling after receiving a sky-high bill for installing a customized bed on a recent flight to London, officials close to the Israeli leader said.

Netanyahu found himself facing a public uproar on Sunday after Channel 10 TV reported over the weekend that he had spent a whopping $127,000 in public funds on a special sleeping cabin for the five-hour flight to attend Margaret Thatcher’s funeral last month.

Netanyahu’s office initially defended the decision, saying the prime minister had a busy schedule ahead of the flight and needed to be fresh for important meetings in Britain.

But following public criticism, officials close to Netanyahu said late Saturday that he had actually been unaware of the cost, and once informed, he ordered the bed be canceled on all future flights. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

According to the Times of Israel, the flight would have been roughly $300,000, but the cost of installing the bed brought the total up to $427,000.

The uproar comes at a delicate time in Israel. Netanyahu’s government is in the process of drawing up a budget expected to include painful austerity measures and tax increases due to a widening deficit.

Demonstrators march through the streets to protest against Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s budget cuts on May 11, 2013 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo: Getty Images)

On Saturday night, thousands took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities to protest the expected budget cuts. Netanyahu was meeting Sunday with top officials to discuss likely cutbacks in the defense budget.

Micky Rosenthal of the opposition Labor Party called for an inquiry into the prime minister’s “scandalous behavior” according to the Maariv daily on Sunday.

“We thought that nothing could surprise us anymore when it came to the Netanyahus’ personal behavior. Well, we thought wrong,” wrote Sima Kadmon, a political commentator in the Yediot Ahronot daily.

“It is unbelievable that not a single person in the prime minister’s inner circle saw how reprehensible this was. Not a single person showed a tiny bit of common sense. There was no one who anticipated just how angry people would be when they learned about this,” Kadmon said about the custom-made bed.

Earlier this year, Netanyahu stopped buying ice cream from his favorite Jerusalem parlor after an Israeli newspaper discovered his office was spending $2,700 a year for the frozen treat.

–

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The blasts, which were 15 minutes apart and hit the town of Reyhanli’s busiest street, raised fears that Turkey could increasingly be drawn into Syria’s brutal civil war.

Turkey already hosts Syria’s political opposition and rebel commanders, has given shelter to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and in the past retaliated against Syrian shells that landed in Turkey.

Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said the assailants were from Turkey, but were linked to Syria’s intelligence service.

“We have to a great extent completed our work toward identifying the assailants,” he told reporters. “We have established that the organization and assailants have links to the pro-regime mukhabarat (intelligence) organization.”

He did not name the group, but said the aim of the attack was to pit Turks against Syrian refugees in Reyhanli.

The site of one of the explosions after several explosions killed at least 40 people and injured dozens in Reyhanli, near Turkey’s border with Syria, Saturday, May 11, 2013, Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler said. Credit: AP

Earlier, another deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc said: “Our thoughts are that their mukhabarat and armed organizations are the usual suspects in planning and the carrying out of such devilish plans,” he said.

Arinc said the attacks were still being investigated, but that If it’s proven that Syrian was behind the attack, Turkey would “do whatever is necessary,” without specifying if that included military action.

One of the car bombs exploded outside the city hall while the other went off outside the post office. Reyhanli, a main hub for Syrian refugees and rebels in Turkey’s Hatay province, is just across the border from Syria’s Idlib province. Private NTV television, citing unnamed security sources, said the explosions were remote-controlled and that plastic explosives were used.

Images showed people frantically carrying the wounded through the rubble-strewn streets to safety. Black smoke billowed from a tall building.

The explosions came days before Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to travel to the U.S. for talks, which are expected to be dominated by the situation in Syria. The car bombings also follow allegations by Erdogan the Syrian regime has fired about 200 missiles tipped with chemical weapons.

Syrian mortar rounds have fallen over the border before, but if the blasts turn out to be linked to Syria it would be by far the biggest death toll in Turkey related to its neighbor’s civil war.

People carry a woman injured in a blast in Reyhanli, near Turkey’s border with Syria, Saturday, May 11, 2013. Credit: AP

Syria shares a more than 500-mile (800-kilometer) border with Turkey, which has been a crucial supporter of the Syrian rebel cause. Ankara has allowed its territory to be used as a logistics base and staging center for Syrian insurgents.

Atalay said 43 people were killed and 140 others were wounded in the blasts. There was no immediate information on the identities or nationalities of the victims.

The bombings” will increase the pressure on the U.S. president next week to do something to show support to Turkey when Erdogan visits him in Washington,” said Soner Cagaptay, an expert on Turkey at the Washington Institute. “Washington will be forced to take a more pro-active position on Syria, at least in rhetoric, whether or not there is appetite for such a position here.”

Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center, said the attack may force Turkey to take action.

“It should be a defining moment for Turkey,” Shaikh said. “It has been supporting the rebels, and there has been strong rhetoric. But this may be a moment where it really has to assert itself – if it is the Assad regime (behind the bombings), and it is quite conceivable it is.”

Turkey’s opposition criticized the government’s policy on Syria, saying its active support of the rebels had put the country’s security at risk.

“Erdogan’s discourse of hatred toward Assad and provocations against the administration in Damascus is coming back to us in the form of attacks and provocations,” said Devlet Bahceli, chairman of a nationalist opposition party.

People carry the injured from one of explosion sites after several explosions killed at least 40 people and injured dozens in Reyhanli, near Turkey’s border with Syria, Saturday, May 11, 2013, Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler said. Credit: AP

The force of Saturday’s explosions gutted some buildings, and the charred shells of cars littered the streets.

“Three buildings partly collapsed and became unusable,” Talat Karaca, who witnessed the second explosion from his rooftop, told The Associated Press by telephone. “We couldn’t approach the scene for a long time because of the blaze.”

Khawla Sawah, the medical director of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations in Reyhanli, said the town’s main hospital was full and many of the wounded were taken to the nearby city of Antakya and to a clinic set up by the Syrian medical relief group on Reyhanli’s outskirts. The center received 11 wounded, including one Turk and 10 Syrians.

She said some of the injured told her that the cars that exploded had Syrian license plates.

Both Sawah and another witness, Suzan Alhasoglu, said the incident raised tension in Reyhanli with angry youths attacking Syrians cars and other targets.

“The authorities are asking Syrians to stay home and not drive around in Syrian cars,” Sawah said. “Syrian doctors at the Reyhanli hospital were asked to go home too.”

Turkey’s military released a statement condemning the attack and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu vowed from Berlin that Turkey would act.

“Those who for whatever reason attempt to bring the external chaos into our country will get a response,” he said.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara issued a statement condemning the “murderous attack” in Reyhanli and said Washington “stands with the people and government of Turkey to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice.”

The main Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, condemned the attack and said it stands together with the “Turkish government and the friendly Turkish people.”

The coalition sees “these heinous terrorist acts as an attempt to take revenge on the Turkish people and punish them for their honorable support for the Syrian people,” it said.

The frontier area has seen heavy fighting between rebels and the Syrian regime. In February, a car bomb exploded at a Syrian border crossing with Turkey, just a few kilometers from Reyhanli, killing 14. Turkey’s interior minister at the time blamed Syria’s intelligence agencies and its army for involvement.

Four Syrians and a Turk are in custody in connection with the Feb. 11 attack at the Bab al-Hawa frontier post. No one has claimed responsibility, but a Syrian opposition faction accused the Syrian government of the bombing, saying it narrowly missed 13 leaders of the group.

In that bombing, most of the victims were Syrians who had been waiting in an area straddling the frontier for processing to enter Turkey.

Tensions also flared between the Syrian regime and Turkey after shells fired from Syria landed on the Turkish side, prompting Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S. to send two batteries of Patriot air defense missiles each to protect their NATO ally.

—

Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara. Associated Press writers Ezgi Akin in Ankara, and Bassem Mroue, Yasmine Sakher and Karin Laub in Beirut contributed to this report.

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