Wednesday, March 27, 2013
GATESTONE INSTITUTE: Egypt: A court sentenced an entire family – Nadia Mohamed Ali and her seven children – to fifteen years in prison for converting to Christianity.
The year 2013 began with reports indicating that wherever Christians live side by side with large numbers of Muslims, the Christians are under attack. As one report said, "Africa, where Christianity spread fastest during the past century, now is the region where oppression of Christians is spreading fastest." Whether in Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, or Tanzania—attacks on Christians are as frequent as they are graphic.
As for the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity, a new study by the Pew Forum finds that "just 0.6 percent of the world's 2.2 billion Christians now live in the Middle East and North Africa. Christians make up only 4% of the region's inhabitants, drastically down from 20% a century ago, and marking the smallest regional Christian minority in the world. Fully 93% of the region is Muslim and 1.6% is Jewish."
How Christianity has been all but eradicated from the region where it was born is made clear in yet another report on the Middle East's largest Christian minority, Egypt's Christian Copts. Due to a "climate of fear and uncertainty," Christian families are leaving Egypt in large numbers. Along with regular church attacks, the situation has gotten to the point that, according to one Coptic priest, "Salafis meet Christian girls in the street and order them to cover their hair. Sometimes they hit them when they refuse." Another congregation leader said "With the new [Sharia-heavy] constitution, the new laws that are expected, and the majority in parliament I don't believe we can be treated on an equal basis."
Elsewhere, Christians are not allowed to flee. In eastern Syria, for example, 25,000 Christians, including Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, Chaldeans and Armenians, were prevented from fleeing due to a number of roadblocks set up by armed Islamic militia groups, who deliberately target Christians for robbery and kidnapping-for-ransom—then often slaughtering their victims. » | Raymond Ibrahim | Wednesday, March 27, 2013
FRONTPAGEMAG.COM: The Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Azhar University want to shake hands with the new Pope Francis. One of the first pledges he has made is to embrace interfaith dialogue with the Muslim world. Will he become the latest dupe of the “moderate” Islamists?
Pope Francis is a critic of Pope Benedict’s 2006 speech in Germany where he quoted a Byzantine Emperor that said “show me just what Mohammed brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
It caused a rupture in relations between Muslim authorities and the Vatican, with almost 40 Muslim scholars signing a letter of protest. Five churches were attacked in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, reinforcing the negative depiction of their religion that they were so offended by.
Pope Benedict said he was “deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims” and “These were in fact a quotation from a Medieval text which do not in any way express my personal thought.” It fell short of the direct apology that was demanded.
He tried to make amends by praying inside Turkey’s Blue Mosque and visiting Jordan in 2009, where he reflected upon the “common history” of the Abrahamic religions. He visited more mosques than any other pope, entering twice as many as his predecessor. » | Ryan Mauro | Wednesday, March 27, 2013
MAIL ONLINE: Court of Appeal rejects latest attempt by Home Secretary to have Qatada sent back to Jordan / Released from jail in February last year under strict bail conditions / Returned to prison this month for breaching rules / Received over £500,000 in legal aid in ten-year battle with Government
Home Secretary Theresa May today lost her appeal court challenge to finally kick radical preacher Abu Qatada out of the UK.
In a major blow to the government's hopes of ever removing the radical hate preacher, the Court of Appeal ruled that he can stay in Britain.
Mrs May insisted 'this is not the end of the road' and will make another legal challenge against the ruling of judges in November that Qatada could not be deported to Jordan to face justice over alleged terror offences.
Qatada is said to have wide and high-level support among extremists, and featured in hate sermons found on videos in the flat of one of the September 11 bombers.
Mrs May's legal team argued at a recent one-day hearing in London that Qatada was a 'truly dangerous' individual who escaped deportation through 'errors of law'. Read on and comment » | Matt Chorley, MailOnline Political Editor | Wednesday, March 27, 2013
BBC: Pope Francis has decided to shun a grand papal apartment on the top floor of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace in favour of a modest two-room residence.
His spokesman said he was "trying out this type of simple living" in a communal building with other priests.
In doing so he has broken a tradition which is more than a century old.
The decision reinforces the newly-elected Pope's austere reputation. As archbishop of Buenos Aires he refused to move into the Bishop's Palace.
Preferring more modest accommodation, he also often cooked his own meals.
Communal meals
Since the reign of Pope Pius X at the beginning of the 20th Century every pope has occupied the palatial penthouse apartment with more than a dozen rooms, staff quarters, a terrace and extensive views over the city of Rome.
But since his election Pope Francis has been living in a simple two-room suite in the Domus Santa Marta - a hotel-style residence built by his predecessor Pope John Paul II next to St Peter's Basilica.
And he intends to go on living there for the foreseeable future, according to the Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.
"This morning he let his fellow cardinals know that he will keep living with them for a certain period of time," Mr Lombardi said. » | Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Oman, a British ally in the Gulf has offered refuge to close relatives of Muammar Gaddafi, including his wife and a hated playboy son, officials from Tripoli and Muscat revealed on Monday.
Safia Gaddafi, the dictator's widow and three of his children left a hideaway in Algeria last October, more than a year after they crossed the border from Libya.
Mohammad Abdulaziz, Libya's foreign minister, said that the group had accepted political asylum from Oman and conceded it was difficult to foresee their return to Libya, where several face criminal charges.
Sultan Qaboos, Oman's ruler, is a Sandhurst-educated Anglophile who last week hosted a three-day visit by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall and he is close to several members of the Government.
The Gaddafi group includes the former leader's daughter Aisha, a lawyer who made headlines around the world with her campaigns on behalf of Saddam Hussein.
The most notorious member of the group is Gaddafi's son Hannibal. He is wanted for alleged human rights abuses by the new authorities in Tripoli.
Another son, Mohammad, is the son of the dictator's first wife, but despite being the head of the Libyan Olympic committee, he is not associated with the worst excesses of the regime. » | Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent | Monday, March 25, 2013
MAIL ONLINE: People who rob old ladies in the street, or hold up security vans, are branded as thieves. Yet when Germany presides over a heist of billions of pounds from private savers’ Cyprus bank accounts, to ‘save the euro’ for the hundredth time, this is claimed as high statesmanship.
It is nothing of the sort. The deal to secure a €10 billion German bailout of the bankrupt Mediterranean island is one of the nastiest and most immoral political acts of modern times.
It has struck fear into the hearts of hundreds of millions of European citizens, because it establishes a dire precedent.
If democratically elected governments are willing to impose outright confiscation of up to 40 per cent of balances over €100,000 upon depositors in Cyprus, then why not another such hit tomorrow — in Spain, Italy or, most plausibly, Greece?
This is the most brutal display since 2008 of how far the euro-committed nations are willing to go to save the tottering single currency. It shows that the zone’s crisis will run and run, to the grievous disadvantage of almost everyone except the Germans. » | Max Hastings | Tuesday, March 26, 2013
CHARISMA NEWS: We have just obtained a new letter from imprisoned American Pastor Saeed Abedini written to his wife, Naghmeh, and his family in Iran. In it, as in his previous two letters written inside the brutal Evin Prison, he documents the results of the continued abuse and torture he endures.
This letter, likely written weeks ago, was received by his family just yesterday. Written on the margins of scraps of newspaper, it is only the third letter Abedini has been able to get to his family in the past nearly 180 days of imprisonment and underscores the difficulty of getting any information from Iran about his condition.
Abedini writes that he cannot even recognize himself after all the beatings and torture he has endured: “My hair was shaven, under my eyes were swollen three times what they should have been, my face was swollen, and my beard had grown.”
After multiple beatings in interrogations at the hands of the radical Islamic regime, Abedini wrote that the nurse who was supposed to treat injured inmates told him “‘in our religion we are not suppose to touch you, you are unclean ... Christians are unclean!’” He explained, “they would not give me the pain medication that they would give other prisoners because I was unclean.” » | Jordan Sekulow/ACLJ | Tuesday, March 26, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Anders Behring Breivik, the killer who carried out Norway's biggest peacetime massacre, has been denied permission to attend the funeral of his mother.
Breivik, a 34-year-old right-wing extremist who is serving a 21-year jail sentence for killing 77 people in twin attacks in July 2011, is being held under strict prison conditions.
Officials at the high-security Ila prison near Oslo decided to extend his strict security regimen when it came up for review Tuesday, and denied his request to attend the funeral, his lawyer Tord Jordet said.
Wenche Behring Breivik, who died last week aged 66, had shunned the spotlight after her son's attacks. She appeared to be the person closest to him, and he had described her as his "Achilles heel". » | Agence France-Presse | Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The high-profile Egyptian ex-Muslim convert to Islam, Magdi Cristiano Allam, is leaving the Roman Catholic Church because of what he sees as an inherent weakness in the Church to confront the excesses of Islam and the Church's legitimisation of Islam as a true religion of God, Muhammad as one of His true prophets, the Koran as a sacred text, and mosques as legitimate places of worship. Magdi Allam is convinced that the ideology of Islam is inherently violent, conflicted within and warlike with the outside world. Moreover, Mr. Allam is convinced that Europe will eventually submit to Islam if Europeans do not have the vision and summon up the courage to stand up to it. Islam, he says, is incompatible both with Western civilization and human rights. He says he will continue to believe in Jesus, whom he has always loved and proudly identified with. Christianity, he says, more than any other religion brings man closer to God, who chose to become man. [Source: Corriere della Sera] | Tuesday, March 26, 2013
WIKI: Magdi Cristiano Allam »
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: British Muslims fighting in Syria’s civil war could return home to carry out terrorist attacks, intelligence chiefs have warned.
There are “hundreds” of Europeans now fighting in Syria, some of whom are with groups linked to al Qaeda, the Home Office has told MPs.
In an annual report on its Contest counter-terrorism strategy, the Home Office warned of the risk to Britain and other European nations posed by foreign fighters now gaining military experience in Syria.
The Home Office warning – based on assessments by British intelligence agencies – comes as ministers debate doing more to arm and support the rebels fighting the regime of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
The uprising in Syria "has involved many organisations with different political views and tactics; some are connected with and supported by al Qaeda in Iraq,” the Home Office report says. » | James Kirkup, Deputy Political Editor | Tuesday, March 26, 2013
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Russia has sharply criticized the bailout deal for Cyprus, with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev accusing the EU of theft. Russian state television even likened the forced levy imposed on wealthy investors -- many of them Russian -- to the expropriation of Jews by Nazi Germany.
The verdict of Russian state television on Europe's effort to save Cyprus was damning. The last week "will enter the history books of the EU as a destructive one," said Dmitry Kiselev, the presenter of the popular news program Vesti Nedili on the Rossiya channel.
Kiselev heaped criticism on the forced levy to be imposed on bank deposits in Cyprus. He said the last time a Western European government proceeded so recklessly was when Adolf Hitler expropriated the Jews.
Nazi propaganda at the time described the money held by Jewish people as "dirty," said Kiselev. That was precisely how Europe was talking about Russian assets deposited in Cyprus, he added.
"The new world order is being founded against Russia, at Russia's costs and on the rubble of Russia," said a Rossiya correspondent from the Mediterranean island nation.
The Kremlin feels it has been sidelined in the tug-of-war over the Cypriot bailout, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso visited Moscow for talks last Friday, but just a few days later, Europe's new attempt to avert a financial meltdown in Cyprus has elicited fierce criticism from Moscow. » | Benjamin Bidder in Moscow | Monday, March 25, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
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