1. Shiite Militias Win Bloody Battles in Iraq, Show No Mercy
JURF AL-SAKHER, Iraq—In a makeshift barracks about 40 miles south of Baghdad, Ahmed al-Zamili flipped through pictures on his mobile phone: an Islamic State fighter’s corpse hanging from a crude noose, a dead man on the ground clutching an AK-47 and a kneeling, blindfolded man uttering a confession.
Mr. Zamili says the men were captured when his militia of more than 650 Shiite fighters, known as Al Qara’a Regiment, drove Islamic State out of Jurf al-Sakher in late October. After briefly interrogating the enemy soldiers, Mr. Zamili ordered their executions, he says.
2. Iraqi churches used as Islamic State prisons
The Iraqi city of Mosul was once a majority-Christian city, but is now an Islamic State (IS) stronghold, where militants have repurposed deserted church buildings as prisons.
Fides news agency reports that detainees were held at the ancient Chaldean Church of the Immaculate Conception in the eastern part of the city, having been blindfolded and handcuffed.
St George’s monastery has also allegedly been used as a female detention centre.
Reports circulated last week that the nearby convent of the Chaldean Sisters of the Sacred Heart had been bombed by IS militants.
3. Furor over ‘conversion’ of Muslims in India
(It’s funny how often the sauce curdles when the gander is a muslim)
India’s opposition politicians have protested inside parliament against the alleged mass conversion of about 200 Muslims to Hinduism in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Opposition MPs on Tuesday attacked the conservative Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party over the conversions in Agra city, reportedly under allurement by groups linked to the ruling party’s ideological parent, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
“This is a serious matter as allurement was given to poor [people] to get them converted,” Dalit leader Mayawati was quoted as saying by Times of India website.
The opposition has asked the government to ensure the religious freedom of minorities as enshrined in the country’s constitution.
Incentives to convert to islam article here.
4. Palestinian minister dies after confrontation with Israeli police
(Typically misleading headline given what actually happened. The Israelis offered medical help to an anti-israel protester who was having an MI and he refused the help. Those are the facts)
5.Footage from Indian Parliaemnt on the conversion of a few muslims to Hinduism.
I find it truly shocking that muslims would have the temerity to fight about a few muslims being bribed to convert to Hindusim when muslims across the world are murdering people who do not convert, or forcibly converting people by torture and threats of death. Yet silence. Silence at the U.N., in the USA and elsewhere. The world has gone mad.
Much more to come shortly.
More than 3,000 migrants died this year trying to cross by boat into Europe (CNN, Dec 10, 2014)
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/10/world/europe/migrant-deaths/index.html
“They brave the risk of drowning, drifting endlessly or dying of thirst to make it illegally to a better life in Europe.
Migrants traveling, often on overfilled boats, usually make it. But last year, 3,419 didn’t.
They perished in the Mediterranean Sea, the United Nations Refugee Agency said Wednesday.
Some went under, like the 500 killed, when their angry traffickers sank their boat on purpose in September, according to survivors. The men, women and children had refused to transfer to very small boat they felt sure would not hold them and wasn’t seaworthy.
They asked to be taken back to their departure port in Egypt. Instead the traffickers rammed their boat and laughed while they watched it sink, the survivors said.
The seafaring dangers are little deterrent for those leaving abject misery, such as the intense bloodshed of wars, which is driving hordes into asylum.
More than 207,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean for Europe this year illegally — almost three times the previous high of about 70,000 in 2011, the agency said. That’s 60% of the 348,000 boat migrants worldwide this year.
Figures on such crossings is inexact, as many boats elude detection….”
Suicide attack on Iraqi military base kills 9 (CNN, Dec 10, 2014)
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/10/world/meast/iraq-violence/index.html
“A suicide attack outside a military base in Samarra, north of Baghdad, killed nine people and wounded 15 others Wednesday, security officials said.
Iraqi soldiers were among the dead and wounded, according to the officials, who blamed the truck bombing on ISIS.
Samarra is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad.”
Russian Official in Syria Talks Peace With Assad (abcnews, Dec 10, 2014)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/senior-russian-official-damascus-talks-27494326
“A senior Russian official met President Bashar Assad on Wednesday, saying he discussed Moscow’s efforts to bring all sides in Syria’s civil war to the negotiating table and warning that terrorism poses a threat to everyone.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov arrived in the Syrian capital for a two-day visit, the last leg of a regional tour that has taken him to Turkey for meetings with Syrian opposition leaders as well as Lebanon for talks with senior government officials and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Bogdanov has said Russia is trying to arrange a meeting between Syria’s warring sides without preconditions…”
Falling oil prices threaten to transform the industry (BBC, Dec 10, 2014)
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30393690
“Companies that had been riding the crest of $100-plus oil are facing a reality check. What looked like a good investment at $100-a-barrel doesn’t look so profitable at $60.
Across the sector – from super-majors like BP, services giants such as Halliburton, and minnow explorers in the depths of Africa – the question is the same: is the 40% fall since June the new normal, or a blip in an otherwise long-term upward trend?
This week, analysts at investment bank Morgan Stanley warned that oil could fall to $43 a barrel in the second quarter of next year unless oil producers’ group Opec bolsters the price by cutting production.
But in truth, no-one really knows for sure where the price is going. In the meantime, companies like BP are forced make contingency plans ahead of what could be a tougher climate.
“The fall in oil prices has added to the importance of making the organisation more efficient,” a BP spokesman told the BBC.
A company the size of BP can at least play the long game. Hundreds of smaller and mid-tier oil and gas explorers – and their investors – will be rethinking their business plans urgently. ….”
Nigeria violence: Two suicide attacks near busy Kano market (BBC, Dec 10, 2014)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30416870
“At least four people have been killed and seven injured in a double attack by female suicide bombers near a market in Kano, northern Nigeria, police say.
One blast hit a vehicle loading area at the Kantin Kwari textile market. Boko Haram militants are suspected of being behind the attacks.
Last month more than 100 people died in a gun and bomb attack during prayers at one of the biggest mosques in Kano.
Some 2,000 have died in attacks blamed on the Islamists so far this year.
AFP news agency quoted state police commissioner Adenrele Shinaba as saying the attacks had been carried out by “two young girls in hijab [Muslim headscarves]”.
“They came by the market and asked to be directed to a public convenience. The bombs detonated, killing them and four others,” he said….”
4/ Peaceful, lovely gentleman. “Minister.” I thought maybe he was a Christian.
Buried deep down, he was a murderer.
Abu Ein, who was convicted of killing two young Israelis in a bomb attack in 1979 and released as part of a prisoner swap in 1985, was a vocal opponent of Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank, which Palestinians want as part of an independent state together with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
I’d say justice was long overdue.
The scene inside the Parliament is hilarious, esp. the last half when at a least three muzlims are delivering their speech or interfering with others……simultaneously.
The chair acts as though he’s used to having more control. over the members.