Mr Schumer joins a handful of Jewish Democrat Congress members who are against the deal
BBC AMERICA: Leading US Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer has announced that he is breaking ranks with President Obama by opposing the Iran nuclear deal.
He said there was a very real risk that Iran would use the agreement to pursue what he called its nefarious goals rather than moderate its approach.
Mr Schumer is the first Democratic Party senator to take such a stand.
Correspondents say his move is a serious blow to the president as he urges Congress to back the deal. » | Friday, August 7, 2015
The US State Department blames the Syrian government for the rise of Islamic State. Meanwhile, America carries out bombings in Syria, launching strikes from a base in Turkey. Daniel McAdams, executive director of Ron Paul University shares his perspective
THE AUSTRALIAN: The federal government will not prevent Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders from visiting Australia to launch a new anti-Islamic political party.
The Australian Electoral Commission on Wednesday approved the registration of the Australian Liberty Alliance, which will launch in Perth on October 20 with Wilders as keynote speaker.
In its manifesto, the party says it stands for “individual liberty, small government, Western values built on Judeo-Christian and humanistic foundations, social fairness and an integrated multi-ethnic society”.
Islam, it says, “uses the religious element as a means to project itself on to non-Islamic societies”, and is unparalleled in having both the doctrinal aspiration and the “economic and demographic muscle to impose itself globally”. » | Monday, August 3, 2015
OTTAWA CITIZEN: Canadian converts to Islam risk social and religious isolation because of rejection by their families and disinterest from inhospitable mosque communities, a new groundbreaking study is revealing.
“Converts are disconnected from mosque communities usually because they are from a different ethnic background,” said Australian researcher Dr. Scott Flower during a weekend Ottawa workshop on conversion.
Mosques are initially warm and welcoming to converts because conversion is one of their duties, he said.
But the welcome can quickly wear out.
“Most mosques are Pakistani, Turkish, Saudi or whatever, and converts are not being accepted into those communities,” he said. “So they are outsiders. If they are not connecting to the mosque and they lose their families, they are doubly isolated.” » | Chris Cobb, Ottawa Citizen | Friday, July 26, 2015
BREITBART.COM: A new Islamic State propaganda video, believed to be the first filmed in the German language, has threatened the life of Angela Merkel and called on believers to attack Germany and Austria.
Germany’s Die Weltreports at least two of the Jihadists seen in the film – which includes pronouncements on Jihad and the execution of two prisoners with assault rifles – are European citizens. Abu Omar al-Almani, a German, and Austrian Mohamed Mahmoud both speak in the film, calling on Muslims living in either country to either travel to the Islamic State, or to wage holy war at home.
Calling on Muslims to become ‘lone wolf’ killers Mohamed Mahmoud, who was jailed for four years for terrorism offences in Germany but escaped to the Islamic world says: “My brothers and sisters, either you come here and join the Mujahideen, or you lead the jihad in Germany and Austria. You do not need much, just take a large knife and kill every unbeliever. They are like dogs!”. » | Oliver Lane | Thursday, August 6, 2015
THE GUARDIAN: Ten members of emergency services and three mosque workers killed when bomber detonated vest during noon prayers in Asir
The Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a Saudi Arabian mosque that killed at least 13 people, including 10 members of a Saudi special forces unit, the latest in a spate of such attacks in the Gulf kingdom.
Isis said in a statement circulated on social media that it had targeted the men because they enabled the rule of Saudi Arabia’s monarchs and their western backers, and because they allegedly tortured Isis sympathisers.
The group pledged further attacks in the Arab world, and boasted of its ability to pierce Saudi security measures.
“We bring evil tidings to the Arab tyrants in the coming days, God willing,” the statement said. » | Kareem Shaheen in Beirut | Thursday, August 6, 2015
President Barack Obama has warned that without the Iran nuclear deal, there will be another war in the Middle East. He said that those who voted for the War in Iraq are now opposing diplomacy with Iran
STRAITS TIMES: CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt’s affiliate of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group threatened Wednesday to execute a Croatian kidnapped in Cairo last month within 48 hours if Muslim women jailed in Egypt are not freed.
The man is the first foreigner to be abducted and threatened with death by militants in Egypt since an Islamist insurgency erupted two years ago.
In a video posted online by the militants, the Croatian identifies himself as Tomislav Salopek working for French company CGG, and appears kneeling at the feet of a hooded man holding a knife.
Reading from a sheet of paper, he says he will be executed within 48 hours if Egypt’s government fails to release Muslim women held in prisons.
Salopek, wearing an orange jumpsuit, did not say when the countdown began.
He said he was abducted on July 22 by the Sinai Province group, ISIS' Egyptian affiliate based in the Sinai Peninsula.
Formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the group changed its name when it pledged allegiance to ISIS in November. » | Wednesday, August 5, 2015
President Barack Obama spoke on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, speaking against the Iraq War and referencing former President John F. Kennedy, who spoke at the university in 1963.
THE GUARDIAN: Choudary, 48, and another man, Mohammed Rahman, 31, both facing charges of inviting support for proscribed organisation in lectures published online
Radical preacher Anjem Choudary has been charged with encouraging support for Islamic State, Scotland Yard has said.
Choudary, 48, of Ilford, faces a charge of inviting support for a proscribed organisation, namely Isis.
It is alleged he committed the offence between 29 June 2014 and 6 March 2015.
Another man, Mohammed Rahman, 31, faces the same charge.
Choudary will appear at Westminster magistrates court at 2pm on Wednesday.
It is alleged Choudary and Rahman publicised support for Islamic State (Isis) through lectures published online. » | Jamie Grierson and Shiv Malik | Wednesday, August 5, 2015
THE TELEGRAPH: Son of longtime dictator in undated video showing abuse of detainees in Tripoli prison, which human rights groups say raises questions over interrogation methods
Saadi Gaddafi, the son of Libya’s longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has appeared in a video showing prisoner abuse inside a Libyan jail.
Throughout the nine-minute long video, the 42-year-old sits hunched and blindfolded as he listens to the screams of other detainees being beaten in a back room. At the end of the film, Mr Gaddafi’s jailers ask him if he would rather be beaten on his feet or on his buttocks.
“What kind of a question is this? My feet,” the dictator’s son responds. His legs are then strapped to a metal contraption, and he too is hit.
The video, published on Sunday by news site Clear News, appears to have been filmed inside the al-Hadba corrections facility in the Libyan capital Tripoli. Libya’s state prosecutor said on Monday that his office was seeking to identify the guards shown in the video. » | Louisa Loveluck | Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush says the US must do more to combat Islamic State. 'We've let our guard down,' he said at a forum in New Hampshire, broadcast on C-SPAN, at which Republican presidential candidates tested their messages ahead of the first official debate on Thursday
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Eigentlich hatte König Salman drei Wochen an der Côte d'Azur entspannen wollen - doch nun ist Saudi-Arabiens Herrscher schon nach acht Tagen abgereist. 150.000 Menschen hatten zuvor eine Petition gegen die Sonderwünsche des Monarchen unterschrieben.
Die französische Mittelmeergemeinde Vallauris hatte alles unternommen, um dem betuchten Urlauber den Aufenthalt so angenehm wie möglich zu machen: Der etwa ein Kilometer lange Mirandole-Strand wurde für die Öffentlichkeit gesperrt, ein illegal errichteter Aufzug von der Villa zum Meer nachträglich genehmigt.
Drei Wochen wollte Saudi-Arabiens König Salman in seinem Anwesen an der Côte d'Azur verbringen. Doch nun ist der 79-Jährige schon nach acht Tagen abgereist und ins marokkanische Tanger weitergeflogen. … » | syd/AFP/Reuters | Montag, 3. August 2015
BT: A key confidant of US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told her David Cameron was "unsure, inexperienced, oblique and largely uncommitted" on foreign policy, it has been revealed.
A key confidant of US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told her David Cameron was "unsure, inexperienced, oblique and largely uncommitted" on foreign policy, it has been revealed.
The assessment came from Sidney Blumenthal in 2009, shortly before Mr Cameron became Prime Minister, and was contained in an email from a private system used by Mrs Clinton when she was US secretary of state.
Other messages describe London mayor Boris Johnson as "the Tory clown prince" and describe efforts by Gordon Brown and Ed Balls to prevent David Miliband from inheriting the Labour leadership as being "like the Tudors", The Times said. » | PA | Monday, August 3, 2015
