The lawyer for Kentucky clerk Kim Davis has stated that she met with Pope Francis during the pontiff’s visit to Washington D.C. last week and received encouragement from him in the meeting. It is a surprising disclosure, if true, but Attorney Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel insists that the Pope spoke to Davis and her husband in English and said “Thank you for your courage” and told her to “stay strong.”
Continue reading “A Papal Indulgence? Kim Davis Said Pope Met With Clerk and Told Her To “Stay Strong” [UPDATED]”
Category: International
There is a deeply disturbing trial unfolding in Germany involving another “honor killing.” Asadullah Khan, 51, strangled his 19-year-old daughter to death for bringing dishonor on his Muslim family after she stopped wearing the Islamic head scarf and continued to see her boyfriend and was then caught shoplifting condoms. The father and mother, Sharzia, 41, then dressed the dead body of Lareeb, put the corpse into a wheelchair to bring it to a car, then drove from Darmstadt to a remote forest where they rolled her down an embankment (she was found the next day). Both are charged and the key witness against them is their daughter Nida. The parents are from Pakistan and Khan speaks little German.
Continue reading “Muslim Couple On Trial For Strangling Daughter In “Honor Killing” in Germany”
Russian Ambassador Sergey Andreev has caused an outcry in Poland after stating that Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 was an act of self-defense prompted by the failure of the Poles to join a coalition against Hitler. It was a bizarre claim was not only politically disastrous but historically moronic. The Russians have often omitted from their accounts of the heroic Russian war with Germany that they were first and foremost an ally of Hitler and sought to carve up Europe with him. it was only when Hitler betrayed Stalin that the Russians fought against Germany in its invasion.
Continue reading “Russian Ambassador: Poland Responsible For German-Russian Invasion in 1939”
Last week, Qatar’s Sheik Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani first took a dangerous high-speed race through the streets of Beverly Hills and then allegedly told a reporter that he could kill him given his diplomatic immunity (which he didn’t have) . . . . and then fled the country in contempt of U.S. laws. Now, a Saudi prince has been arrested at a hillside compound near Beverly Hills after allegedly trying to force a worker to perform a sex act on him. Saudi prince Majed Abdulaziz Al-Saud was arrested on suspicion of forced oral copulation of an adult. The arrest followed the reported sighting of a woman covered in blood trying to escape the compound by climbing an eight-foot wall. He is now accused of sexually abusing and beating at least three women during a three-day party in his $37 million Beverly Hills home.
Continue reading “Another Arab Prince Faces Criminal Charges In Beverly Hills”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Yazidi Rights Groups, Non-Governmental Organizations, and the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq Petitioned the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute ISIS for crimes against humanity and genocide for the terrorist organizations atrocities committed against citizens in Iraq and Syria.
Ekurd Daily reported how the new effort to bring legal accountability to actors in the war torn region.
Members of Yazda International and Free Yazidi Foundation, backed by the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq (KRG), met with ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda today to present their new report outlining how [ISIS] fighters have slaughtered, enslaved, and raped thousands of Yazidis since it invaded their communities in the Nineveh province in northern Iraq last August. Thousands of Yazidi women and girls remain captive as sex slaves among IS militants.
These acts of violence committed by [ISIS] fighters against the Yazidis and other non-Muslim minorities in the region have been documented before. But Murad Ismael, co-founder of Yazda, told VICE News his group’s report provides further evidence of abuses against Yazidis at the hands of foreign fighters. According to the report, there’s an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people from Australia, Jordan, Europe, and beyond fighting for [ISIS].
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Though as further evidence ISIS is establishing a form of structuralized government, ISIS claims it will undermine Western currency markets with its minted bullion coins. It is using such to establish internal payments and as a hard currency to fund its black marketeering in illegal trade items. Since ISIS lacks a recognized currency, gold provides an intrinsic value in trade in foreign commerce.
However its reliance on bullion coinage can also make it vulnerable to economic countermeasures.
Continue reading “ISIS Minting Coins, Claiming They Will Undermine The Economies Of Enemies”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
We have followed the plight of several reporters for the news medium Al Jazeera who were imprisoned and subjected to various appeals on behalf of the prosecution to ensure their place amongst the incarcerated, accused under dubious evidence of involvement with terrorist organizations and the crime of reporting of false information. The courts even went so far as to accuse them of doing the work of the devil. (HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE)
For over a year there has been much outcry in the world media and the public about the abuses against free speech, journalists, and citizens; especially focused it was on these reporters. Now, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi grants a pardon to these Al Jazeera reporters.
Continue reading “Egypt President Pardons Imprisoned Al Jazeera Reporters”
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front, has been criminally charged with inciting racial hatred in the latest example of the rollback on basic free speech rights in France and other European nations. I have been a critic of the crackdown on free speech in France, including the hypocrisy of the government in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. In this case, Le Pen compared Muslim street prayers to a Nazi-like occupation, a statement that should be clearly protected as political speech in France. Instead, she will be pulled before a tribunal in another example of how free speech is being eviscerated by anti-discrimination and hate speech laws.
Marine Lance Cpl. Gregory T. Buckley, 21, of Oceanside, N.Y., died Aug. 10 in Garmsir, Afghanistan, while supporting combat operations. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force. There is an incredibly disturbing story in the New York Times this week where soldiers have reported being told by American officials to ignore the rape and abuse of Afghan boys at a base by Afghan officers so not to interfere with a cultural practice. The boys were brought to the base to be raped as part of what Afghans call bacha bazi, literally “boy play.” Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father that he would lay on his bunk at night and listen to the screaming of the boys as they were sexually abused by Afghan officers. Buckley went to his superiors and was allegedly told not to interfere. Buckley was later shot to death by an Afghan policeman at the base in 2012.
Turing chief executive Martin Shkreli (shown here) has become an overnight villain after public interest organizations raised alarm over his company buying a long-used medicine, Daraprim, in the treatment of AIDS and immediately raised the price of $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill. When a reporter asked him to explain the increase for a drug that has been on the market for 62 years, Shkreli called him a “moron” and refused to answer the question. The company has now become a target in the presidential election as an example of how companies are still profiteering on these drugs.
As we struggle with our own unemployment issues, it is easy to lose sight of how much worse the situation is in countries like India. That comparative point was driven home this week when the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh announced that it had a few hundred job openings for low-level office workers who run errands and make tea. The response was a deluge of 2.3 million people applying for the 368 jobs.
Continue reading “Indian State Posts Openings For 368 Low-Level Jobs . . . 2.3 Million Apply”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The BBC presented an engaging and informative report concerning how the unprecedented demand for rare earth elements is leading to environmental degradation, especially in developing countries. It proposes that one of the ironic tragedies of manufacturing green technologies is that it is leading to concentrations of pollution in specific areas. This also brings forth the importance of having a conversation about advanced, consumer societies needing to engage in much self reflection on the causes of the insatiable appetites consumers have for top of the line electronics. Of which are designed with quick obsolescence as a business model.
Continue reading “Rare Earths Mining And Processing Leading To Much Pollution In The East”
We have been discussing the controversy over a man from Qatar who went on a dangerous high-speed chase in a yellow Ferrari and then both threatened a reporter and claimed diplomatic immunity. He informed the reporter that he could kill him with utter immunity from prosecution and topped off that threat by saying “F*** America.” It is now confirmed that this disgraceful thug is a member of Qatar’s ruling family: Sheik Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar’s ruling family. Al-Thani claimed immunity but does not actually have it. However, by some incredible sequence of events, Al-Thani was allowed to flee the country to avoid any accountability.
Continue reading “Qatar Prince Who Claimed Immunity In High-Speed Chase Flees The Country”
We have previously discussed the myriad of discriminatory rules facing women in Iran under that country’s application of Islamic rules. Now one of those archaic rules has cost the country’s soccer team it’s captain. Niloufar Ardalan, 30, will not be competing in Malaysia because her husband refused to sign papers to allow his wife to renew her passport. The Asian Football Confederation Futsal Championship is set to run from Sept. 21-26.
I have the honor today and tomorrow of speaking at the Utah Valley University’s annual Constitutional Conference sponsored by The Center for Constitutional Studies. The CCS, under Director Rick Griffin, has blossomed into an extraordinary center for intellectual exchange in Orem, Utah with figures regularly brought from all over the world to discuss a myriad of legal and policy questions. This conference is particularly fortunate to have a group of diverse academics and lawyers, including Judge Sir Christopher Greenwood, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Judge on the International Court of Justice. Sir Christopher will give a keynote address entitled “The Powers and Privileges of U.S. Presidents Abroad under International Law.” He is one of the truly towering figures in international law.