1. Palestinian ambassador in Prague killed in explosion at his house
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the explosion occurred when the ambassador was moving an old office safe box.
It was not immediately clear how the explosives ended up in the safe box, but the ministry said the blast was being investigated.
(How frightfully embarrassing for him)
2. Apple denies knowledge of NSA’s ‘complete’ access to iPhone
Apple on Tuesday vehemently denied suggestions from a security analyst that the company may have helped the NSA to develop backdoor access to the iPhone.
The statement came from security research Jacob Appelbaum, who revealed the existence of a secret program code-named DROPOUTJEEP by which the National Security Agency (NSA) appears to have nearly total access to the Apple iPhone.
A leaked NSA document, posted by German newspaper Der Speigel, describes the “software implant for the Apple iPhone” that can be used to gather information from the phone: It can turn on the microphone and camera, intercept text messages, creep through a contact list and more.
(Anyone wishing to know the truth or falsity of Apple’s denial, or the NSA’s degree of access to your equipment can find out easily. Simply ask any friend or acquaintance you have that works in IT. Ideally people who develop hardware for the internet but anyone who works for a high tech company either in software development or hardware development and ask them if the NSA makes demands on them or their company.. You will be able to gauge from the degree of uncomfortable evasiveness exactly the extent to which the NSA has inserted itself into every electronic device on earth. Apple is no exception)
4. From Ottawa islamic site linked to by exploded Minneapolis islamic community center.
If only we had known ‘Go home’ was an option!
5.CAIRO _ EGYPT – Clashes outside Egypt church
CAIRO – Egyptian Islamists clashed with police Tuesday outside a church in Cairo, security officials said, as Christians held prayers to mark the New Year.
The Islamists, with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, had been marching when they clashed with police standing guard outside the church.
The movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi was designated a terrorist group last week, furthering a crackdown on the Islamists since Morsi’s overthrow in July.
The Islamists have blamed Christians for supporting Morsi’s ouster by the military on July 3, following days of massive protests demanding the Islamist’s resignation.
Police beefed up security around churches on Tuesday in anticipation of any attacks.
A suicide bomber killed more than 20 people, most of them Coptic Christian worshippers, outside a church as they marked the New Year 2011.
Thank you M, Richard, OX aO and all who sent in material.
Keep an eye on this one.
http://news.sky.com/story/1189154/newport-teenager-vanishes-outside-her-home
‘Only’ 1,067 vehicles set ablaze on New Year’s Eve in France
By French standards, it was a peaceful New Year’s Eve.
Only 1,067 cars and vans were destroyed by arson, a “significant” reduction of more than 10 per cent compared to the number of vehicles set ablaze last year, according to Manuel Valls, the Interior Minister.
All things considered, it was a “positive result”, Mr Valls told a press conference on Wednesday. He said he regretted the deaths of three people in knife attacks in Paris and in eastern and southern France.
Car-torching has been adopted as a modern New Year tradition by some young revellers in France. The practice reportedly began in earnest amongst youths – often in poor neighbourhoods – in the 1990s in the region around Strasbourg in the east of the coutnry.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/10546263/Only-1067-vehicles-set-ablaze-on-New-Years-Eve-in-France.html
on JIHAD WATCH : Bad luck: Same family killed in Syria by Assad and by IDF bombing in Gaza
pic :
http://oi41.tinypic.com/2rptf6s.jpg
4/ What does that even mean? Maybe Vladtepes posted something about the conference at the time. I found an article after a bit of foraging, but I’m still not sure I get it. ‘The name is just a play on words.’ So – go halal or go back to Somalia? And that’s a clever advertisement for your cult in Canada?
http://www.muslimlink.ca/life/youth-corner/go-halal-or-go-home-an-example-of-a-successful-youth-led-initiative
For masochists with time on their hands, here is the author of the above article reading ‘poetry’ at a United Nations Association in Canada (UNA-Canada)’s Multimedia & Multiculturalism (M&M) panel of activists, artists and community organizers etc. called Represent?! at Ottawa’s SAW Gallery, where many moons ago I remember watching a white guy read lame ‘poetry’ about his homosexual fantasies in his underwear. I guess Sarah Musa is the natural outcome of that.