The Orthodox Christian Channel - OCC247

Over 9,000 people killed, 20,000 wounded during conflict in Donbas — UN

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 01:49:00 +0000

GENEVA, /TASS/. More than 9,000 people — both civilians and military, have been killed and over 20,000 have been wounded as a result of the conflict in east Ukraine, the United Nations said in a regular, 12th, report on rights and freedoms in the country.

"In a conflict that has claimed more than 9,000 lives, the last few months have seen a significant reduction of hostilities in certain parts of eastern Ukraine, according to a UN Human Rights report released today," the UN said in a statement on its Ukrainian website.

"Serious human rights concerns persist, however, including continuing impunity, torture and an absence of the rule of law in the east, as well as a difficult humanitarian situation for those living in the affected areas and for those internally displaced," it said.

"The twelfth report by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine states that the "ceasefire within the ceasefire" of 26 August led to a considerable decrease in hostilities, particularly due to the withdrawal of certain heavy weapons by the Ukrainian military and the armed groups," the statement said.

"Between 16 August and 15 November, the time period covered by the report, 47 civilians were killed and 131 injured. The total death toll since mid-April last year is at least 9,098, with another 20,732 injured. Total figures include civilians, Ukrainian armed forces and armed groups," it said.

"The new casualties resulted largely from explosive remnants of war and improvised explosive devices, "underscoring the urgent need for extensive mine clearance and mine awareness actions on both sides of the contact line," the report states," according to the UN.

The statement also cited the report as saying that "the situation for an estimated 800,000 people living along both sides of the contact line has been particularly difficult."

"Restrictions against media professionals by the Ukrainian Government also undermine freedom of expression," the statement said.

The UN said its report also notes that "elements of the Security Service of Ukraine appear to enjoy a high degree of impunity, with rare investigations into allegations involving them."

Situation in Eastern Ukraine

Ukrainian troops have been engaged in fighting with local militias during Kiev’s punitive operation, underway since mid-April 2014, against the breakaway territories — the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics constituting parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.

Massive shelling of residential neighborhoods, including with the use of aviation, has killed thousands and led to a humanitarian disaster in the area.

Kiev has regularly violated the ceasefire regime imposed as part of the Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk Agreements.
The Package (Minsk-2) was signed on February 12, 2015 in the Belarusian capital Minsk by participants of the Contact Group on settlement in Donbass.

The Package, earlier agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four (Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine) envisioned an overwhelming cessation of fire and withdrawal of heavy armaments to create a security area in the region at least 50 kilometers wide.

Turkey's Erdogan meets Hamas leader Meshaal in Istanbul

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 01:42:00 +0000

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan met with Khaled Meshaal, leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas, on Saturday in Istanbul, Turkish presidential sources said, a day after Israel and Turkey said they were close to patching up five-year political rift.
A source from Erdogan's office said Meshaal "briefed Erdogan on the latest developments in the region", without giving further details. Islamist Hamas controls the Gaza strip.

Israeli officials said late on Thursday that a deal with Turkey was struck to normalize ties following high-level bilateral talks in Switzerland.
Turkish officials said a final agreement was yet to be sealed, but that given the progress it would not be too long.

Israel's once-strong ties to Turkey soured in 2010 when Israeli commandoes killed 10 Turkish activists when storming the Mavi Marmara, a ship in a convoy seeking to break an Israeli naval blockade of the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

Turkey had demanded Israel apologize over the assault, pay compensation and lift the Gaza blockade. For Israel, limiting Hamas activity in Turkey has been key.

Under the preliminary deal between the two countries, Saleh al-Aruori, a senior leader in the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas who has been living in Turkey, would be barred from the country, the Israeli official had said.

Russia-Turkey crisis: Sukhoi jet black box 'unreadable'

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 01:33:00 +0000

Data on the flight recorder of the Russian war plane downed by Turkey last month has so far proved to be unreadable, Russia's military has said.

It said the memory chips from the Su-24 bomber downed on the Syrian border were destroyed or badly damaged.

The Russians had hoped to prove the plane never entered Turkish airspace, as claimed by Ankara. Work will continue to try to retrieve the data.

The incident sparked a major bilateral crisis, with Russia imposing sanctions.
The Russian military representatives presented their preliminary findings in Moscow on Monday, after opening the "black box" on Friday in the presence of international experts.

Some 13 of the 16 chips had been destroyed, while x-ray tests on the others showed extracting information would be impossible using normal methods.

The Su-24 was shot down by F-16 fighters on 24 November.
Turkey insists that the jet, from the Russian air contingent deployed in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, ignored warnings to leave its airspace.
Both crew members ejected but the pilot was killed, apparently by militants on the ground while the navigator was rescued.

This map shows how much territory ISIS has lost this year

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 01:29:00 +0000

In the year after ISIS rampaged across the Middle East in a bid to seize territory and establish a self-declared Islamic "caliphate," the terrorist group continued to be a major threat to the world, pulling off sophisticated attacks and recruiting thousands more people to its cause.

But though concerns continue to grow over how the US handles the threat of terrorism, ISIS — aka the Islamic State, ISIL, and Daesh — has been losing ground where its core base of support lies, according to defense analysts at the IHS Conflict Monitor.

IHS estimates that ISIS has lost 14% of its territory since January. Some of the areas that have been retaken from the group were crucial to the its operations — including the Syrian border-crossing town of Tal Abyad, which connected ISIS's de-facto capital of Raqqa with Turkey.
ISIS has also lost a stretch of highway that connected Raqqa to its largest Iraqi holding, the city of Mosul.

In Iraq, the group lost Tikrit and the Baiji oil refinery. But though Iraqi forces were successful in retaking Tikrit, it's been a struggle for them to allow displaced locals to return to their homes.
And while ISIS lost some significant territory this year, the group also made some significant gains. It seized the Iraqi city of Ramadi and the Syrian city of Palmyra in a "near-simultaneous offensive" in May, IHS notes.

But these gains came at the expense of ISIS's territory in northern Syria, much of which was lost to Kurdish fighters. It left those areas less protected as they redeployed fighters to Ramadi and Palmyra.

"This indicates that the Islamic State was overstretched, and also that holding Kurdish territory is considered to be of lesser importance than expelling the Syrian and Iraqi governments from traditionally Sunni lands" like Ramadi, Columb Strack, senior IHS Middle East analyst, wrote.

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noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 01:19:00 +0000

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Who's setting the Balkans on fire? FYRMacedonian Maidan and the Ottoman trail

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 May 2015 13:22:00 +0000

The unrest in Macedonia was unexpected to the uninitiated. They started with an opposition party announcement that police is covering up the killing of a young man by prime minister's security detail in 2011. Several experts have linked this sudden unrest, which threatens to destabilize not only FYRMacedonia but the Balkans as a whole, with the country's refusal to join sanctions and Skopje's support for the Turkish Stream. This version assumes, at the conspiracy level theory, that the unrest was inspired by US intelligence services which are trying to make life difficult for Russia.

I'm not wholly rejecting this scenario, although let's just say that an expert as well informed as Aleksandr Sobyanin, the Director of Strategic Planning Service of the Border Area Cooperation Association, rejected it. In his view, the unrest in FYRMacedonia has nothing to do with Turkish Stream. Paradoxical, isn't it? But if we are to dig deeper, we'll realize the aims of the complex game played by the world's intelligence services in the Balkans, including the Turkish MIT which is playing the first fiddle.

Background Note: MIT (Milli Istikhabat Teshkilati) is the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey, created on the basis of the earlier MEH, or the National Security Service.

For starters, the Balkans are penetrated by the extensive spider web of the Albanian Mafia which is wholly controlled by MIT. The Albanians' business in Europe consists of drugs and other smuggled goods.

Kosovo Albanians control 70% of Germany's and Switzerland's heroin market. The Balkans have become a transit corridor which originates in South-Eastern Asia. The so-called Balkan Route carries 80% of all drugs sold in Europe. Albania, Kosovo, and western Macedonia have become a large drug warehouse.

Opium from Afghanistan and Pakistan is processed in Turkey, then sent to Europe via Kosovo and Czech Republic. Then the Balkan Route continues to Great Britain through the French port of Calais. Turkey supports the Albanian drug trade on state level, through its embassies, consulates, and cultural centers. Albanian Mafia is today the most powerful in Europe, having crushed even the Cosa Nostra and become a de-facto branch of Al-Qaeda in Europe. It is invulnerable to police infiltration because it is built on familial clans which gives the criminal network and the Turkish intelligence that is backing it considerable ability to destabilize the situation in any European country. In my view, the Albanian, and, therefore, the Turkish trail, should be sought even in the Charlie Hebdo affair. It can't be ruled out that's what the two investigators from Limoges, who committed suicide in suspicious circumstances, were trying to unravel.

On May 10 a group of Albanian militants invaded Kumanovo, which is populated by a concentrated Albanian minority, in order to launch a separatist uprising. The police was able to neutralize the intruders with some difficulty. Eight police died. The Prime Minister of Macedonia Nikola Gruyevsky was then accused of inability to deal with the Albanian Mafia, which provoked additional unrest.

Europe right now is gravely worried about the possibility of a big war in the Balkans. There are good reasons for such worries. Thus far Albanians have always gotten what they wanted. Their dream is the creation of Greater Albania.

Background Note: Greater Albania is the pan-Albanian idea of uniting all territories which are or were at any point in time inhabited by the Albanian ethnos. Most of Greater Albania is located on the territory of former Yugoslavia. In the event of successful implementation of the project, the contemporary Albania would be joined by north-western portions of Macedonia, southern areas of Serbia including Kosovo and Preshevo valley, and the southern regions of Montenegro which are populated by Albanians. Albanian nationalist ideologues consider northern parts of Greece their territory as well.

The likelihood of unrest expanding to the point of reaching the stage of controlled chaos is quite high in several Balkan states. It can't be ruled out that European great powers, France and Germany, will turn a blind eye on it, hoping that the Albanian nationalists will neutralize the tendency by several small European states, including Macedonia but also Greece and Serbia, to pursue an independent economic and political course. But the real beneficiary of the next big Balkan war would be Turkey. Its president Erdogan, who is backed by the army, concluded an alliance with Turkey's islamists as part of a general effort to restore the Ottoman Empire.

Already five years ago Turkey's Prime Minister Akhmet Davutoglu described Turkey's geostrategic vectors: "We'll make the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East together with Turkey the center of future international politics. This is the objective of Turkey's foreign policy and we will reach it. There are more Bosnians in Turkey than in Bosnians, more Abkhaz and Chechens than in Abkhazia and Chechnya, more Albanians than in Albania, because that's our Ottoman inheritance."

The Albanians are being used as an instrument. Their task is to create chaos in the Balkans, turn them into Europe's Somalia. Right now Ukraine is being "somalized". Balkans are next in line.

When the suffering of the Balkan peoples becomes unbearable, when a genuine humanitarian catastrophe starts unfolding, then Turkish peacekeepers will appear "on a white horse." The Turkish Army will harshly suppress Albanian crime networks, stop the bloodshed, and will de-facto control problem territories. Thus re-establishing Ottoman possessions in Europe.

The second vector of Ottoman expansion is the Middle East. Here the Turks can get only as far as Syria, which Russia will never give up, not to the Turks nor to ISIS. Likewise Turkey has no prospects for success in the foreseeable future in the Caucasus, and their leaders understand it.

Therefore Russian diplomacy, which understands the "Turkish game" perfectly well, is conducting itself in a correct and even calm manner when commenting on Balkan events. As of right now Turkey's schemes don't threaten Russia's interests. Moreover, Russia's intervention in the Balkans would be too big a burden to bear, considering our current stand-off with the West. The US is limiting itself to general editing of the Balkan scenario because they, too, would benefit from controlled chaos.

Nobody talks out loud about their intentions. Everyone is calling for peace. And, as often happens in such cases, war is becoming inevitable.

Elder Porphyrios' conversations with Cypriot friends

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 19 May 2015 00:53:00 +0000

One of my friends went to meet Elder Porphyrios. After they talked about her problems, he suddenly asked her how my son was, if he was well. My friend replied saying that he was very well.

He persisted and asked her if my son was well three more times. My friend assured him that he was very well all three times. However, it left such a great impression upon her that when she returned to Cyprus she insisted on asking me about the matter. She telephoned me with some anxiety to ask me whether or not my son was sick. When I told her that, thank God, his health was fine, she calmed down. However she still wondered why Elder Porphyrios persisted in asking her if my son was well.

I told my friend that there was nothing wrong with my son's health. That was true. I did not tell her what was really happening to my son. It was strictly a family matter, which I did not see fit to make public.

Elder Porphyrios, was as always absolutely right, because at that time my son was suffering from great internal torment.

Maria I.

The first time I went to Elder Porphyrios it was with the purpose and the intent of personally finding out to what extent all those things I heard about him were true. I wanted to find out if there was any element of exaggeration in those stories.

With my objective rationalism I decided that I was going to verify this in my own way. I did not tell any one about it. I would try to have my mind elsewhere for as long as the Elder was talking. I would think of other things to find out for myself if he really could understand what I was doing.

We entered his room. There were five of us. We kissed his hand. He blessed us. The others said a few things then suddenly he started telling us a story. I decided that then was the right time to try out my little scheme.

Then immediately Elder Porphyrios turned towards me. He called me by my name said, "Are you listening to me?"

"Yes, Elder, Pm listening," I answered. He took up the story again. Suddenly he said to me again, "Listen to what I'm telling you." This happened five times. Each time he would interrupt his story a little, turn towards me and say, "Listen to what I'm telling you"

My friends naturally thought that these continual appeals on Elder Porphyrios' behalf constituted some expression of special interest towards me. Maybe it was because it was the first time I had met the Elder. Maybe it was because he wanted me, especially, to hear the story he was telling us. Only he and I knew the real reason.

This is my personal testimony. The Elder Porphyrios could really read the minds and thoughts of each person who approached him, with that marvelous gift of discernment he possessed.

Thus, God made me worthy to 'place my finger in the imprint of the nails' and to marvel at the grandeur, in the person of Elder Porphyrios, of the Lord's gift to twentieth century humanity.

K.I.

Our marriage began with the best of presuppositions and from the start Elder Porphyrios, whom we often telephoned, told us not to avoid having children.

A little later, after our child was born, we did not get along and we decided to get a divorce. We also had something against the Elder, may God forgive us. Instead of foreseeing our marriage dissolution with his gift of which we had personal experience, he encouraged us to have children.

However, when our infant began to grow up we became conscious of the fact that it would be criminal if we got a divorce. So we forgot our differences and decided to make up despite the fact that we would both have preferred a divorce. (We saw no other way out.)

Three years before his death, Elder Porphyrios told us,

"If you didn't have that child you would now be divorced and God only knows what would have happened to you. That's why I told you to have a child. You saved your marriage which is sacred, like all the sacraments of the Church,."

He continued, "You'll create a happy family if you always think of this image which I'll now describe to you. Your child will hold each of you by the hand. He will walk ahead to show you the road and you will follow."

L.A.

I was studying in Athens. I visited Fr. Porphyrios many times alone or with friends of mine. We always received encouragement, helping us continue our difficult life in Athens.

During Easter 1981, I visited him with my fiance. We were soon going to begin our new life together. We wanted to ask the Elder about a lot of things and to receive his advice. However, we respected the fact that he was ill and confined ourselves to receiving his blessing only. He said to me as I was kissing his hand,

"Let me check your pulse a little." I gave him my hand.

"It is good," we heard him say.

He continued, "You are both good. You are Christ's."

Then, turning towards me, he said

"You are a tender soul and very sentimental. You easily become enthusiastic about things but later you're wounded and get upset. May you always be sensitive to whatever is good. That is the way Christ wants us."

Elder Porphyrios' words often helped me to overcome many things in my life such as sorrow caused by disappointment and my extreme sensitivity

D.P.

I hasten first to make it clear that the only reason I am not signing this text is to avoid any possibility of my words being considered as a sign of haughtiness, pride, or boastfulness. Besides, the short story is what is important, not my name. I am nothing more than one of the many who through God's kindness got to know Elder Porphyrios.

It was a very beautiful spring afternoon. We reached Oropos with the usual manifest worry as to whether Elder Porphyrios was there, whether or not he was sick, if he would speak to us, if he was too tired from the many visitors on that day, etc.. We had these uneasy feelings every time we set off to visit him.

Arriving there, we found ourselves before a most unexpected scene. Glory to God! Elder Porphyrios was there. He was not in bed, but up and about. He was in good health. He was in a field (right next to the Convent that he later built), overseeing scores of people who had gone there voluntarily to plant different things in the field.

The scene was indescribably picturesque and biblical. The 'good shepherd' in the midst of his 'rational sheep'. The instructor of souls even demonstrating how tomatoes should be planted. So that everything would be as it should be, perfect.

Naturally, we didn't even consider approaching him to kiss his hand and to receive his blessing.

We stopped the car a good distance away from the area where the large number of people were working. We remained in the car and we tried to console one another and each person was saying:

"It doesn't matter, nature is so pretty here and the afternoon is so beautiful. Let's enjoy it at least."

Half an hour went by, and I felt the need to get out of the car and take a little walk in the forest nearby. I was so grieved because I would not talk to the Elder that I wanted to be alone and maybe to cry a little. I wanted to speak with him so much and to get his advice about the enormous problems that then burdened me. Besides, I went to Greece only once or twice a year. Who knows how many months would go by before I would see him.

As I was walking the length of the forest, my friends who had taken me there in their car came running towards me.

"Come on," they said to me, "the Elder is calling for you."

"Me?"

"Yes, he said to go up to him, he wants you." "You're joking?"

We had not told anyone that we were there. We didn't even speak to anyone from the time we arrived and parked the car here. No one took any notice of us because they were all so busy, and we were far away from them. The only way they could see us was with a telescope.

They practically dragged me to the Elder. I couldn't believe that Elder Porphyrios saw me. More importantly, he saw what was happening in my soul at that time.

I approached him. I kissed his hand, and he made me sit down next to him. He kept me near him for about an hour. He and I were talking while all the others around us were digging the ground and planting. This was happening to such an extent that I felt it was improper for me to receive preferential treatment. The others were killing themselves working and I was enjoying the seat of honour next to the Elder without my offering any help.

At that time I knew very little about Christ and I studied the New Testament very little. Only later, when I had been taught by Elder Porphyrios to study the New Testament and the Fathers of the Orthodox Faith, did I understand the meaning of his actions that day, "...and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out" (John 10:3).

The Gospel according to St. Luke gave me the answer, "Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.' So He spoke this parable to them saying, 'What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he finds it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost! I say to you likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (Luke 15:1-7).

A Cypriot lady.

ISIS preps for war - ISIS smuggling fighters into Europe 'disguised as refugees'

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 19 May 2015 00:37:00 +0000

Islamic State is smuggling fighters into Europe, commanding them to disguise themselves as refugees, according to a Libyan government adviser. The militants are reportedly profiting by 'taxing' those operating the overcrowded boats.

Abdul Basit Haroun told BBC 5 Live Investigates programme that the boats are used “for their [the Islamic State's] people who they want to send to Europe, as the European police don't know who is from IS and who is a normal refugee or not.” The militants are reportedly being aided by trafficking gangs who operate in parts of North Africa controlled by the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

He added that the militants “sit down separately, they come alone and in the boat they are not scared at all. They are for IS — 100 percent.”

According to Haroun, the IS is pocketing a significant amount of cash from each journey, as it demands half the profits from those operating the boats.
“The IS, what they are doing, they are not controlling the boat. They give permission for the boat owner to use the spot under their control and they charge them for that 50/50 of whatever they make,” he said.

The fighters are considered“prize operatives” because they can travel undetected around the continent, Aimen Dean, managing director of Five Dimensions Consultants and a former spy for UK security services, said. He added that they have“no biometric data [in Europe]...no fingerprints, no nothing.”

Earlier this year, European border agency Frontex warned that fighters might be using “irregular migration routes” to reach the continent. It stated that resources were not being devoted to “screening” migrants, adding that “not knowing who is traveling within the EU is a vulnerability.”

Similar concerns have been echoed by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and other organizations, though others aren't convinced the militant group is indeed sending its fighters to Europe on refugee boats.

"I have heard some other people say that this is potentially happening, so I can't totally discount it. But I am still very skeptical – why would they bother trying such a risky route?" said Raffaello Pantucci from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a think-tank engaged in cutting edge defense and security research.

The journey from North Africa to Europe is an extremely dangerous one, with 3,500 people dying during the journey in 2014 alone. A total of 1,800 have died so far this year – a 20-fold increase from the same period last year, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

European ministers are meeting on Monday to discuss plans for military strikes against migrant boats before they can leave North Africa.

Hey, Christian, have you read the Bible? French Protestant church voted to allow blessing homosexual couples !!!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 19 May 2015 00:06:00 +0000

France's United Protestant Church (EPUdF) voted on Sunday to allow pastors to bless same-sex marriages, two years after Paris legalized gay nuptials amid protests backed by the majority Roman Catholic Church.

The EPUdF, created in 2012 in a merger of France's Lutheran and Reformed churches, said its synod also agreed that individual pastors or parishes can decide whether or not they will organize such blessings.

Protestants make up about two percent of the population in France, and two-thirds of them are evangelicals and mostly against same-sex marriage. About two-thirds of the French identify themselves as Catholic, although regular church attendance is in the single figure percentages.

"The synod has decided to take a step forward in accompanying people and these couples by opening the possibility of celebrating liturgical blessings if they want," said Laurent Schlumberger, president of the United Protestant Church.
The vote produced a large majority for the blessings, but Schlumberger acknowledged that "different opinions remain in our Church on this question."

Blessing or marrying same-sex couples has been a divisive issue in Protestant churches, with some liberal ones - such as those in Sweden and Denmark - fully approving gay weddings and others only offering a blessing service that is different than that for traditional marriage.

Conservative Protestant churches, especially evangelicals, oppose same-sex marriage as against Biblical teaching.

Roman Catholicism, the largest global church representing just over half the world's 2.2 billion Christians, also opposes same-sex marriage.

Danish jihadists cashed in on welfare benefits

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 23:56:00 +0000

According to an Employment Ministry document obtained by Radio24syv, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) told the Danish Agency for Labour Market and Recruitment (STAR) that there have been 32 instances of Danes receiving unemployment benefits from the state while waging jihad in Syria.

The payments to the 32 individuals amount to a total of 378,000 kroner ($58,000 or 51,000 euros).

“STAR has thus far received information pertaining to 32 people who, according to PET’s information, have gone abroad in relation to the conflict in Syria while at the same time receiving social benefits in the form of kontanthjælp and dagpenge [two types of unemployment benefits, ed.],” a document from STAR stated.

Denmark has one of the world's most generous unemployment insurance systems, with those on the dagpenge scheme receiving up to 801 kroner ($122, 107 euros) per day for up to two years. Kontanthjælp is a significantly more modest benefit.

It is the duty of the municipalities and the private unemployment insurers known as A-kasser to require repayments of benefits given to individuals who are not available to the Danish labour market and to report suspicion of welfare fraud to the police. According to the obtained documents however just one of the 32 cases was reported.

Peter Skaarup of the Danish People’s Party said the revelations show just how “careless” Denmark has been with regards to jihadists.

“There has been a lot of talk about how serious it is, but when it comes to the practical consequences we can see that nobody does anything,” Skaarup told BT.

“I think that every single case should be turned over to the police immediately because you are not available to the job market when you are in the midst of Syria’s civil war and if we are to send a signal that we won’t accept these Syrian fighters going down there, we need to put more consequences in place,” he added.

Over 80% of Russians against same-sex "marriages

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 23:51:00 +0000

Moscow - The percentage of Russians who are positive about the law banning the propaganda of homosexuality is increasing and is now 77% against 67% in 2013, Levada Center told.

Fifteen percent of the respondents do not support this law and 7% said they are not interested, a poll surveying 800 people conducted in 46 regions of Russia shows.

Over half of the respondents said they see this law aims to protect morals (67% against 60% in 2013), while 14% believe it aims to distract public attention from other problems and 7% believe it is aimed at fanning feud.

Seven percent of the respondents said they support the idea to allow same-sex "marriage" in Russia and 84% said they are negative towards it.

Twenty-nine percent of the respondents believe homosexuals are subjected to physical violence in Russia, while 32% believe they are discriminated against (psychological pressure, encroachments on rights, etc.). Thirty-seven percent of the respondents and 33% of the respondents respectively, have the opposite opinion.

A little more than one-third of the respondents (37%) believe homosexuality is a disease that needs to be treated (against 34% in 2013). One-fourth of the respondents (26% against 17% in 2013) see homosexuality as a result of bad upbringing, promiscuity and a bad habit.

The percentage of respondents who see homosexuality as a result of seduction has decreased from 23% to 13% in the past two years. One out of every ten respondents believe homosexuality is innate (11% against 16% in 2013).

Two-thirds of Russians said their feelings about homosexuals are manly negative: fear and loathing (24%), irritation (22%), and tension (19%). One out of every four respondents (26%) reacts to homosexuals and lesbians "calmly, without any special emotion." Only 3% are friendly to homosexuals or interested in them.

MOLDOVA: Priests, opponents of same-sex relationships disrupt gay pride parade in Chisinau

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 23:49:00 +0000

Moldova - Representatives of civil society and the church disrupted a sexual minority march in Chisinau on Sunday.

Several LBGT community activists gathered in one of the central streets of Chisinau near a monument to Komsomol members. They unfolded posters, rainbow-colored flags and flags of Moldova, Poland and other countries. They gay activists intended to march on Grigore Vieru Boulevard.

However, representatives of the church and their supporters who oppose same-sex relationships prevented the march from taking place. The activists, who were carrying flags in the form of St. George stripes, and several priests carrying icons stood not far from the LGBT activists to prevent them from marching.

To prevent clashes, policemen in protective helmets holding shields and clubs stood between the two groups. The number of the police officers by far exceeded the number of protesters on both sides. Representatives of sexual minorities got into buses and left under the protection of the police. After that, the priests served a brief service, after which the protesters left.

Anastasia Danilova, executive director of the information center on LGBT rights, told reporters the protesters' slogan was expected to be "Because I live here."

"We want to draw the attention of the public to the fact that LGBT cannot be ignored because we are part of society. We live here, we are the same citizens, we work and pay taxes, like everyone else," she said.

Cultural and entertainment events, a charity fair and a fundraising events for stray dogs were held at the LGTB festival, Danilova said.

"The culmination of the festival is the equality march, which is timed to the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, which is marked on May 17, "Danilova said.

Swedish Ambassador in Moldova Igrid Tersman, who was present at the LGBT event, thanked both the representatives of the sexual minorities who intended to conduct the march and the police who prevented confrontation. She said on social networking sites that Moldova had remembered victims of homophobia and discrimination."

Russia's largest payment system, said it is not involved in schemes to provide financing to the Islamic State extremist group

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 23:45:00 +0000

Moscow, - Qiwi (MOEX: QIWI), which manages Russia's largest payment system, said it is not involved in schemes to provide financing to the Islamic State extremist group, the company's press service told.

A number of Russian and Kazakhstani news sources have reported that Islamic State fighters from the North Caucasus are collecting funds to finance terrorist activities using the Russian payment system.

"Successfully aiding and abetting terrorism could be the fault of any other large financial structure, as well as the internet as a whole, social networks, mobile operators, smartphone producers, etc. Everything that terrorists utilize, unfortunately," Qiwi's press service said.

A company representative said that Qiwi has created a system that blocks attempts to use the payment service for illegal purposes, while the official media has "mistakenly confirmed that remote payments are seemingly anonymous."

"This isn't so because, according to the law, there are types of payments for which identification is needed as both the payer and the receiver, which is what any payment system does, including Qiwi. In addition, electronic payment technologies allow for a significant amount of information to be received on payment participants, which might be used and is being used to prevent illegal activities," the representative said, adding that Qiwi regularly blocks such electronic wallets.

Qiwi controls Russia's largest payment service. The group includes LLC QIWI Wallet, QIPS LLC and LLC QIWI Payment Services Provider.

Dozens of priests leave Ukraine, 19 churches of Moscow Patriarchate seized

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 23:40:00 +0000

Vienna, - Dozens of priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) are leaving Ukraine in fear of persecutions, the head of the sector for interreligious liaisons at the Russian Orthodox Church's Synodal Department for External Church Relations Priest Dimitry Safonov told on Monday.

"There are dozens of priests who had to leave Ukraine. The exact statistic is currently impossible. They are pressured into leaving Ukraine. Their families are getting death threats, they themselves are facing the threat of physical violence," he told an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) conference on combating the intolerance and discrimination towards Christians in Vienna.

A total of 77 churches and monasteries have been damaged or demolished during the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, the priest said.

In western Ukraine, religious crimes are manifested in the seizure of UOC MP churches, Father Dmitry said.

"By now there have been credible reports about 19 churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church having been violently seized by the so-called "Kiev Patriarchate". This religious organization was formed in Ukraine in 1992 and has not been recognized by any of the Orthodox Churches worldwide," the priest said.

All actions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church "are motivated precisely by religious and national hatred," he said.

Earlier the UOC MP chancellor Metropolitan Anthony of Borispol and Brovary complained to the Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko about the seizure of the churches.

Nine UOC churches have been destroyed and another 77 damaged as a result of the hostilities in Donbass, which has 1,100 Orthodox churches and 17 monasteries, he said.

Russia to be the first to establish foreign currency reserve for BRICS New Development Bank

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 23:30:00 +0000

Russia aims to become the first country in the BRICS group of leading emerging economies to ratify an agreement on the foreign currency reserve pool, according to Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Vadim Lukov.

"An agreement will be ratified soon on establishing a pool of foreign currency reserves. Russia will most likely be the first country to do this," Lukov said.

South Africa will contribute $5 billion, Russia, India and Brazil will allocate $18 billion each while China will provide the remaining funds, according to the envoy.

The goal of the pool is so that BRICS member states could urgently replenish their liquidity from it in different proportions to resolve problems with their balance of payments.

Meanwhile, Moscow is sure that new members will eventually join the New Development Bank (NDB), as the group wants to avoid it being called the 'Bank of BRICS'.

In July, BRICS members signed an agreement in Brazil to forge ahead with the $100 billion NDB, which would also possess a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 billion.

BRICS Rating Agency

Experts from BRICS countries are also discussing the creation of a new independent rating agency the Russian envoy said, adding that China's rating agency Dagong was currently in talks with Russia on the issue. The new Universal Credit Rating Group (UCRG) is to rival the so-called 'Big Three' that currently dominate the industry. The creation of an alternative agency was raised after Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch Group downgraded their rating regarding Russia's creditworthiness following the Western anti-Russia sanctions.

"After the recent cases with Big Three rating agencies issuing politicized and biased assessments of the state and development prospects of Russian economy, this issue is of particular relevance," Vadim Lukov told journalists, adding that Russia is not the first country to suffer from "rating aggression and rating dumping."

The BRICS grouping of emerging market economies will meet for summit twice this year; on July 8-9 in Ufa, and either on November 15 or 16 on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Antalya. Some 120 events will be held in 16 cities within the program of Russia's BRICS presidency program. Nineteen meetings will be held at the ministerial level.

Russia took over the presidency of the BRICS group from Brazil on Wednesday. President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce Sergey Katyrin became the BRICS Business Council head.

The BRICS group of prominent emerging economies was established in 2010, when South Africa joined Brazil, Russia, India and China in what was previously known as BRIC. The BRICS countries make up about 40 percent of the world's population and command a combined economy of about $16 trillion.

Drone View of FYRMacedonian Pro-Government Rally VIDEO

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 23:18:00 +0000

Thousands gather in FYRMacedonia in support of prime minister

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 23:15:00 +0000

Tens of thousands of FYRMacedonia have turned out to support Nikola Gruevski's government in a counter-protest after opposition supporters marched through the capital Skopje a day earlier to demand the prime minister's resignation.

The opposition accuses Gruevski of corruption, tapping the phones of thousands of people and of fomenting ethnic tensions to hang on to power.

Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker, reporting from Skopje, said a large crowd of government supporters playing Macedonian nationalist music and carrying Macedonian and Serbian flags assembled outside the parliament building on Monday night.

Forestier-Walker said: "The numbers appeared as large as the numbers of opposition protesters who had gathered on Sunday, estimated by some to have reached around 20,000 - although the government crowd were confined to a narrow strip in front of the parliament building. They have now left.

"Meanwhile around 1000 opposition supporters are still gathered at the tent village they have erected in front of the prime minister's office.

"There was a show of strength by the opposition but this is an indication that Gruevski also has broad support."

FYRMacedonia, a small Balkan country, is deeply divided by a year-long political crisis after disputed elections in April 2014, and still in shock after a bloody clash between police and ethnic Albanian men left 18 dead earlier this month.

The clash was the worst violence since the country narrowly avoided civil war after an ethnic Albanian uprising in 2001.

"Interestingly enough, you won't see any Albanian flags," our correspondent said, speaking of Monday's pro-government rally.
"The Albanian population makes up 25 percent of the population in Macedonia , but they don't seem to be represented here."

Gruevski, who only months ago seemed to have a firm grip on power, has also weathered the resignation last week of two key ministers and the implication of his intelligence chief in the phone-tapping scandal.

Sunday's march - called by Zoran Zaev's Social Democratic SDSM - brought many ethnic Albanians and Turks onto the streets as well as protesters from the Macedonian community.

Forestier-Walker said Zaev has been releasing self-styled "political bombs" - carefully choreographed news conferences in which audio recordings of taped phone conversations between Gruevski and his appointees implicated them in serious abuses of power ranging from vote-rigging to multi-million-dollar kickbacks.

The government says that the recordings have been faked, and accuses Zaev of seeking to destabilise Macedonia.

Erdogan Wants to Invade Jerusalem and Spain

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 23:03:00 +0000

According to this source, Turkish president Erdogan gave a speech last Friday in Erzincan, central Turkey, with inflammatory content. Erdogan wants to make peace between Sunnis and Shi’ites and together reconquer Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular. Prime Minister Ahmed Davutoglu had remarked recently, that “Jerusalem belongs to the Muslims, not to the Jews“. Well, that’s official then.

Not content with Jerusalem, Erdogan wants Spain (Al Andalus) back as well. A statement from which you safely can conclude that Erdogan feels strong and anticipates that a vast increase of Turkish power is just around the corner. And he might even be right.

In itself there is nothing new about these standard Muslim convictions concerning Jerusalem and Al-Andalus. Remarkable is that Erdogan dares to express his thoughts in public, in line with the advancing forces of the Islamic State and very remarkable is that he is not interested in antagonizing Iran.

Again, the US leadership is going to regret dearly a possible decision in the near future of the removal of Assad from power in Syria, because it would pave the way for Muslim armies under the command of Turkey, even in cooperation with Iran, to flock to the borders of Israel. Good luck with that. Are you really ready Israel to nuclear pulverize Istanbul and Tehran and kill many millions to prevent the conquest of a mosque?

To be honest, we don’t think that Israel has much future anyway. Thankfully, the Israelis can be evacuated to the vacant UN and Goldman-Sachs and other banking buildings in Manhattan, after the coming financial crash of the West and subsequent ‘de-dollarization’ of the world and the formation of the new Paris-Berlin-Moscow super power.

The Jews should have listened to Adolf Hitler, when he proposed to found a state for them in Madagascar: always beautiful weather, nice beaches, green water and most important: no Muslims. But then again: the Jews would have brought the US for nothing into WW1 and 116,516 American soldiers would have died in vain, while paying the Balfour bill of their Zionist overlords to the British, that is the right to found Israel in the future (1948 as it turned out to be), the one and only reason why the US was brought into WW1, entirely against the interest of the American population.

On August 15, 1940, shortly after the fall of France, Adolf Eichmann released a memorandum that 1 million Jews per year should be evacuated to Madagascar, after the anticipated defeat of Britain, that still refused to make peace with Germany and accept Germany’s existence. But the battle of Britain failed, not in the least because German intelligence noticed that the Soviets behind their backs had quietly begun to concentrate troops near the Russian-German border in large numbers, despite the Non-Aggression Agreement of August 1939 and that the risk was too great to have all the German troops situated in the West and Operation Sea Lion was called off and the British continued to rule the waves and blocked the execution of any Madagascar initiative.

After the Molotov visit to Berlin in November 1940, the Germans knew that the Soviets would not stick to the terms of the Non-Aggression Agreement and were preparing for an assault against Germany and the rest of Europe. When the German surprise attack came of June 22, 1941, preempting a Soviet attack planned for a month or so later, the Germans advanced so quickly, that a new possibility arose to put the European Jews in Soviet conquered territory instead of Madagascar. The Germans organised a conference on January 20, 1942 in a villa in Wannsee, near Berlin…

[avalon.law.yale.edu] – Wannsee
…where the Final Solution of the Jewish Question was decided upon, meaning the relocation of all the European Jews ‘back to the USSR’, except for those able-bodied people, who could be used for the war effort in labor camps. At least, that’s what the Wannsee protocols say if you read them carefully. After the war however, the victorious and notoriously noble Allies reported to the world that in reality the Germans had a secret extermination program going on and since the Americans and Soviets have never told a lie in their entire history, we have to take their word for it. Besides, any other attitude is bad for your CV.

But we are going to have a scientific debate on these kind of subjects anyway, just to be on the safe side, once the US power will begin to wane, as in implode and all the currently closed war archives will be finally opened up. But not now. And we encourage our 1968 leftist overlords to vigorously fight holocaust denial, so rampant under Muslims living in the West, otherwise the real danger exists that the holocaust can’t become the designed religion of the New World Order, if the 2 billion Muslims (your pets) don’t believe in it. Can’t have that.

Greek Orthodox Church Celebrates 100 Years

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 10:46:00 +0000

It’s been a busy year for Pocatello’s Greek Orthodox Church. In preparation for the 100^th Anniversary, the building underwent comprehensive renovations.

KPVI News 6 was there to talk to members of the church as the renovations were unveiled and a new a new priest was ordained.

The sound of music filled Sunday’s service. Members of the Greek Orthodox Church greeted the freshly renovated building and newly ordained Priest with song.

Zoe Thiros and her family came to help the church celebrate.

“It’s very exciting because I have been here my whole life and so beautiful to see all the new iconography and the beautifications of the church and it’s just very beautiful,” says Zoe Thiros.

Over the past year the church received a new dome, beautiful painting on its walls and ceilings adorned with sparkling chandeliers.

Richard Shultz, the President of the Prayers Council, says Sunday’s meeting had an overflow of people.

“Well it’s filled the church completely. There is only standing room in the church right now, so yes it’s a huge crowd for the church,” Richard Shultz, President of Prayers Council.

Vicki Culver, from Florida, was in town for a family reunion. She says, for her, attending this service is symbolic.

“More of the reverence of our family and the actual understanding of where we came from. Our heritage. Greek heritage,” says Vicki Culver, Florida.

Some members of the church say they have a special connection to the 100 year old building, the Greek Orthodox Church in Pocatello, because they had family members that helped build it years ago.

“As a family, it’s just undescribable,” says Sherry Saites.

Sherry Saites is from Michigan and visiting for a family reunion. Her family roots in the church go back to its beginning.

“Its special because my great-grandfather and my grandfather both were here at the founding of the church,” says Saites.

Also at Sunday’s ceremony, his Eminence Metropolitan Isiah traveled up from Denver to help consecrate the new church and ordain Father Seraphim Johns.

“The important thing about this occasion is that we are honoring our immigrants and those who established these Parishes, says Eminence Metropolitan Isiah.

The church is listed on the national register of historic places.

According to the church’s website, Bannock County at one time had the largest Greek population in the state.

Isis Announces Caliphate Plans for Italy by Posting Chilling Images on Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 May 2015 10:40:00 +0000

The Islamic State (Isis) supporters have posted several pictures from inside major Italian cities, 'announcing' the arrival of the Caliphate in Europe.

With landmarks in cities like Rome and Milan in the backdrop, the scripts over the images warn that Isis fighters are making their way to Italy to extend their reign of terror in the middle east and Africa.

A series of images posted by Isis supporters on Twitter show the militant group threatening to carry out a terror attack inside Italy. One of the photos warns in Arabic: "#Islamic State in Rome. Now is observing and locating for the target. Waiting for the zero hour". Rome's Colosseum can be seen in the background of the photo.

The images have emerged at a time when the Libyan intelligence warned that Isis is exploiting the Mediterranean refugee crisis to smuggle its fighters into Europe. The development is worrisome, Italy is just a short ride across the Mediterranean from Libya.

Another set of images were shot in front landmarks in Milan, including the city's cathedral, and the venue of the Expo. There are also images taken at major railway stations and outside police posts. The Isis supporters also posted a message saying, "Our goal is to make sure even Vatican is Muslim."

Isis Fighters Pose as Refugees

Recent reports have found that Isis is smuggling its fighters into Europe along with migrants in boats sailing the Mediterranean from North Africa.

Abdul Basit Haroun, an adviser to the Libyan government, told the BBC that Isis fighters could be hiding among refugees entering Europe. The official said he had learnt about it from smugglers who are facilitating the clandestine travel.

He added that Isis wants to exploit the confusion and ensure a safe cover to its fighters. "European police don't know who is from [Islamic State] and who is a normal refugee or not."

The Story of Roman Empire - Documentary

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 16 May 2015 16:58:00 +0000

US urges Greece to drop Russian pipeline project

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 16 May 2015 11:22:00 +0000

The US is urging Greece to drop the idea of hosting a controversial Russian pipeline project, arguing the Turkish Stream pipeline running across the Black Sea to Greece would end up harming Greek and European interests — but Greece is resisting.

Amos Hochstein, the State Department’s special energy envoy, said Athens should instead promote the Southern Gas Corridor project aimed at bringing Caspian gas to Europe via Turkey and the planned Trans-Adriatic pipeline (TAP), rather than deepening Greece’s dependency on Russian energy.

The US said it was concerned that Athens’ consideration of an extension of the Moscow-backed Turkish Stream pipeline will not increase energy diversification, may be of concern to EU competition authorities, and is not a long-term solution to Greece’s energy needs.

Instead, the EU-backed Southern Gas Corridor project would bring much-needed cash and jobs. According to the embassy statement, “TAP will result in €1.5 billion in foreign investment in Greece, generate 10,000 jobs during construction, and provide many millions of euros in revenue annually over 25 years.”

But after the recent meeting with the US official, Greek Energy Minister Panayiotis Lafazanis said his government would continue to back Turkish Stream, “because we think it will be useful for our country.”

Cash-strapped Greece, backed against the wall by its international creditors and on the look-out for revenue, has intensified relations with Russia in the past months, a move that has been watched by Brussels and Washington with growing concern.

Alexei Miller, chief of Russian energy giant Gazprom, recently announced that his company would start building Turkish Stream and that gas would flow to Turkey by December 2016.

Brussels has been skeptical of the pipeline’s commercial viability. Many experts share this view.
According to Laszlo Varro of the International Energy Agency, Gazprom is in no position to undertake large new investment projects in 2015.

While 2013 saw record profits for the company, in 2015 the “idea that Gazprom will be able to finance large new infrastructure investments in South Eastern Europe has zero credibility in our view,” he said at a Brussels conference.

Mohammed Morsi, ousted Egyptian president, sentenced to death

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 16 May 2015 11:09:00 +0000

An Egyptian court today sentenced ousted president Mohammed Morsi to death over his part in a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

As is customary in passing capital punishment, Judge Shaaban el-Shami referred his death sentence on Morsi and others to the nation's top Muslim theologian, or mufti, for his non-binding opinion. He set June 2 for the next hearing.

Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, was ousted by the military in July 2013 following days of mass street protests by Egyptians demanding that he be removed because of his divisive policies. Morsi's successor, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, was the military chief at the time and led the ouster. El-Sissi ran for president last year and won the vote in a landslide.

Morsi already is serving a 20-year sentence following his conviction on April 21 on charges linked to the killing of protesters outside a Cairo presidential palace in December 2012.

Also sentenced to death with Morsi in the prison break case were a total of 105 defendants, most of them tried and convicted in absentia. They include some 70 Palestinians. Those tried in absentia in Egypt receive automatic retrials once detained.

Supporters of Morsi and his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood chanted "down, down with military rule" as the verdict was announced in the courtroom, a converted lecture hall in the national police academy in an eastern Cairo suburb.

Prosecutors have alleged in the case that armed members of the Palestinian Hamas group entered Egypt during the 18-day uprising through illegal tunnels running under Gaza's border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Taking advantage of the uprising's turmoil, the militants fought their way into several prisons, releasing Morsi, more than 30 other Brotherhood leaders and some 20,000 inmates, prosecutors say. Several prison guards were killed and parts of the stormed prisons were damaged.

Escaped death sentence once before

The former president escaped a death sentence in a separate case before el-Shami related to allegations that Morsi, several of his aides and leaders of the Brotherhood allegedly passed state secrets to foreign groups, including Hamas group and Lebanon's Hezbollah, during his one year in office.

A total of 16 senior Brotherhood leaders and aides were sentenced to death by el-Shami in that case. A verdict on Morsi's role in that case will be announced in the June 2 hearing.
Even if confirmed by the mufti, Saturday's death sentences still can be appealed.

Muslim Brotherhood official Amr Darrag condemned the Egyptian court's decision Saturday, and called on the international community to take action.

"This is a political verdict and represents a murder crime that is about to be committed, and it should be stopped by the international community," Darrag, co-founder of the dissolved Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, told Reuters in Istanbul.

ISIS leader, Baghdadi, says "Islam was never a religion of peace. Islam is the religion of fighting."

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 15 May 2015 23:20:00 +0000

Islamic State (IS) has released an audio message it says is from its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which if confirmed would be the first in months.

The message urges Muslims to emigrate to the "caliphate" it has proclaimed in areas of Syria and Iraq. A reference to the Yemen conflict means it is recent.
Analysts say the voice appears to be Baghdadi's but this is not verified.

Baghdadi's fate has been unclear amid reports of air strikes by the US-led coalition that is opposing IS.
The message came as IS advanced to within 2km (1.2 miles) of the Unesco World Heritage site of Palmyra, one of the archaeological jewels of the Middle East.

Syria's antiquities chief warned that if IS seized Palmyra it would destroy everything that exists there.

'War of Muslims'

The latest message was released by the group's al-Furqan media outlet and appeared on several websites.

The speaker says: "There is no excuse for any Muslim not to migrate to the Islamic State... joining [its fight] is a duty on every Muslim. We are calling on you either to join or carry weapons [to fight] wherever you are."

He adds: "Islam was never a religion of peace. Islam is the religion of fighting. No-one should believe that the war that we are waging is the war of the Islamic State. It is the war of all Muslims, but the Islamic State is spearheading it. It is the war of Muslims against infidels."

IS declared a "caliphate" over parts of Iraq and Syria in June 2014.

The speaker in the message says: "There is no might nor honour nor safety nor rights for you except in the shade of the caliphate."

The speaker also makes references to the recent Saudi-led air campaign against Shia rebels in Yemen, which began on 26 March. He condemns the Saudi royal family and says the conflict in Yemen will lead to the end of its rule.

Baghdadi's last message was in November.

His only public appearance was to deliver a sermon in Mosul in Iraq after IS took the city last July.
An Iraqi interior ministry spokesman said in April that Baghdadi had been seriously wounded in a coalition air strike in March.

However, the Pentagon said it had no information on that, and other reports last year of him being injured proved to be inaccurate.

The Iraqi ministry of defence said on Wednesday that the second-in-command of IS, Abdul Rahman Mustafa Mohammed, was killed in an undated coalition air strike on a mosque in northern Iraq.
But the US said coalition planes had not attacked a mosque.

ISIS Bombs Assyrian, Armenian Churches in Syria

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 15 May 2015 23:01:00 +0000

According to reports from Syria and also the Turkish press, ISIS has bombed two churches in Syria, the St. Odisho Assyrian Church in Tel Tal and the St. Rita Tilel Armenian Church in Aleppo. The churches were bombed yesterday.

Located on the Khabur river in the Hasaka province in Syria, Tel Tal is one of the 35 Assyrian villages that was attacked by ISIS on February 23. ISIS captured nearly 300 Assyrians in those attacks and subsequently released 23, all from the village of Tel Goran. The remaining Assyrians are still being held captive.

The entire Assyrian population of these villages, nearly 3,000, has left their homes and are expected never to return. Some have already emigrated to Lebanon. Most are living in Hasaka or Qamishli and are planning to leave Syria.