uawchild
uawchild's JournalIslamic State captures up to 3,000 fleeing Iraqis: UNHCR
Source: Reuters
slamic State fighters may have captured up to 3,000 fleeing Iraqi villagers on Thursday and subsequently executed 12 of them, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in a daily report on events in Iraq.
The report followed a statement on Thursday from the Iraqi Observatory for Human rights, which said about 1,900 civilians had been captured by an estimated 100-120 Islamic State fighters, who were using people as shields against attacks by Iraqi Security Forces. Tens of civilians had been executed, and six burnt.
"UNHCR has received reports that ISIL captured on 4 August up to 3,000 IDPs (internally displaced people) from villages in Hawiga District in Kirkuk Governorate trying to flee to Kirkuk city. Reportedly, 12 of the IDPs have been killed in captivity," the UNHCR report said.
The United States is leading a military coalition conducting air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, where the group seized broad swathes of territory in 2014. The fighting had displaced 3.4 million people in Iraq by July 2016.
Islamic State's grip on some towns has been broken, but it still controls its de facto capitals of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-capture-idUSKCN10G0PT
Austria, called 'racist' by Turkey, tells Ankara to be moderate
Source: Reuters
Austria's Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz on Friday told Ankara to moderate its words and actions after his Turkish counterpart described Austria as a "capital of radical racism".
Turkish Foreign Minster Mevlut Cavusoglu made his comments after Austria's Chancellor Christian Kern said he would start a debate among European leaders to stop European Union accession talks with Turkey due to its democratic and economic deficits.
"I sharply reject the criticism of Austria by Turkey's Foreign Minister. Ankara is called upon to moderate its choice of words and its course of action (at home) as well as to do its homework," a spokesman quoted Kurz as saying.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-eu-austria-reaction-idUSKCN10G0X8
Turkish foreign minister says Austria is 'capital of radical racism'
Turkish Foreign Minster Mevlut Cavusoglu called Austria the "capital of radical racism" on Friday after Chancellor Christian Kern suggested ending European Union accession talks with Ankara.
In an interview with broadcaster TGRT Haber, Cavusoglu said Kern's comments, spurred in part by a crackdown on suspected perpetrators of a failed coup last month, were "ugly" and that he rejected them all.
"The Austrian chancellor should first take a look at his own country. One of the trends that is an enemy of human rights and values is racism and today Austria is the capital of radical racism," he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-eu-austria-idUSKCN10G0TY
Young boy to Pence: Are you Trump's apologist?
Source: Politico
At a North Carolina town hall Thursday, among the toughest questions Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence faced came from an 11-year-old boy.
“I’ve noticed you’ve been softening up on Trump’s words and policies. Is this going to be your role in the administration?” the boy asked Pence as the crowd erupted in laughter
Story Continued Below
“What I’ve learned, Matthew, and you’ll learn it when you’re governor of North Carolina … Sometimes things don’t come out the way that you mean them,” Pence said. “I couldn’t be more proud to stand with Donald Trump,” Pence added.
Trump has dealt with an array of controversies over the past week, including a public feud with the parents of a deceases U.S. solider and a flap over his refusal to endorse Paul Ryan in the House Speaker's upcoming primary. In both cases, Trump's running mate seemed to try to lessen the tension, with Pence praising the parents' sacrifice and saying that he endorsed Ryan with Trump's encouragement
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/mike-pence-little-boy-town-hall-trump-226666
"Sometimes things don’t come out the way that you mean them..."
Good lord.
What did Trump mean then when he asked three times in one security briefing why we can't just use nuclear weapons?
Coup arrests push Turkish penal system to breaking point
Source: Reuters
Even before last month's coup attempt, Turkey's penal system was overstretched, with crowded prisons and backlogged courts. Now, it is struggling to cope with an influx of thousands who have been detained in the aftermath of the attempted putsch.
The government says the situation is under control, but pictures of some alleged coup plotters handcuffed, stripped to their underpants and detained in sweltering rooms have raised concern among rights groups. There are reports that some jails are so crowded that prisoners have to sleep in shifts.
There are now so many alleged putschists that the government says it doesn't have a courthouse big enough to try them all and will need to build new ones. Some 3,000 prosecutors and judges are among those who have been detained, making it even more difficult to find members of the judiciary to handle trials.
Turkey's prison population has trebled since 2002 when the ruling AK Party founded by President Tayyip Erdogan came to power. Some are jailed in connection with the conflict in the mainly Kurdish southeast, which in the last year has seen some of the worst violence since the insurgency began in 1984.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-prison-idUSKCN10F1RV
Missing gay Syrian refugee found beheaded in Istanbul
Source: The Guardian - UK
The body of a gay Syrian refugee who disappeared in central Istanbul was found mutilated and beheaded two days later, a local rights group has said.
Muhammed Wisam Sankari went missing on 23 July after leaving his home in the conservative Fatih district, Kaos Gay and Lesbian Cultural Research and Solidarity Association said.
His killing has not been widely reported in Turkish media, other than in a handful of leftwing publications citing Kaos GL. There has so far been no official confirmation on whether he was killed for being gay.
Sankari arrived in Istanbul a year ago after fleeing the war in Syria, but wanted to leave Turkey because he feared for his life.
He was threatened by male gangs carrying knives, who said they wanted to rape him, friends told Kaos GL. One friend, who identified the body, told the organisation it was so mutilated, he was only recognisable from his clothes.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/04/body-missing-gay-syrian-refugee-muhammed-wisam-sankari-found-beheaded-istanbul
"They cut Wisam violently. It was so violent, two knives had broken inside of him. They beheaded him. His upper body was beyond recognition, his internal organs were out. We recognised our friend from his trousers,” the friend said.
Sankari had also been kidnapped and raped five months before his death, one of his housemates told Kaos GL. “They took him by car to a forest, where they beat and raped him,” his housemate Rayan said.
They previously had to leave a house because they were gay, Kaos GL said. There have been no arrests, the group reported.
Homosexuality has been legal in Turkey since 1923, when the republic was founded. It was also legal in the Ottoman empire from the mid 19th century.
However, gay people in Turkey regularly complain of harassment and abuse in a largely conservative Muslim society, where same-sex relationships are frowned upon.
Authorities in Istanbul banned the annual gay pride march in June for the second year in a row, citing security and public order fears."
As Turkey becomes less secular and yet more Islamic... very disturbing.
Saudi Arabia's top cleric urges businessmen to help troops
Source: Reuters
Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric has urged businessmen and banks to set up a fund to help soldiers stationed along the southern border with Yemen to pay their bills back home, Saudi media reported on Thursday.
The call reflects growing criticism of the Saudi business community seen as not doing enough for the country at a time when a drop in oil prices has slashed the kingdom's revenues and started to affect living standards.
Saudi Arabia waded in Yemen's civil war last year at the head of an Arab coalition trying to restore the recognized government to power. Hundreds of people, many of them Saudi soldiers and civilians, have been killed in cross-border raids by Houthi rebels since March last year.
Speaking in a weekly radio broadcast from the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh said Saudi soldiers were risking their lives "to defend their religion and country."
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-saudi-idUSKCN10F1KN
As the Saudis Covered Up Abuses in Yemen, America Stood By
Washington let Saudi Arabia commit atrocities in Yemen, then strong-arm the UN into remaining silent.
TThe United Nations has long been bullied by its most powerful members, and U.N. secretaries-general have usually been forced to grit their teeth and take it quietly. But few nations have been more publicly brazen in this practice than Saudi Arabia, and earlier this summer, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon managed to get in a dig at the Kingdom over its blackmail-style tactics. Ban openly admitted that it was only after Riyadh threatened to cut off funding to the U.N. that he bowed to its demand to remove the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, where it has launched a harsh military intervention, from a list of violators of children’s rights contained in the annex of his annual Children and Armed Conflict report. “The report describes horrors no child should have to face,” Ban told reporters. “At the same time, I also had to consider the very real prospect that millions of other children would suffer grievously if, as was suggested to me, countries would defund many U.N. programs.”
But the secretary-general wasn’t done. “It is unacceptable for U.N. member states to exert undue pressure,” Ban added. The removal of the Saudis from the list was also, he claimed, “pending review.”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/saudi-arabia-yemen-russia-syria-foreign-policy-united-nations-blackmail-214124
North Carolina man charged with trying to aid Islamic State: Justice Department
Source: Reuters
A North Carolina man was arrested on Thursday on a charge of conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State after he tried to buy an AK-47 assault rifle from an undercover officer and pledged allegiance to Islamic State on social media, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Erick Jamal Hendricks, 35, of Charlotte, also was trying to recruit people to train to conduct attacks in the United States on behalf of Islamic State, the department said in a statement. The allegations were made in a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday in a U.S. District Court in Ohio.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-northcarolina-idUSKCN10F1OL
Short article, that is it in its entirety.
DU member Native suggested adding a link to a much more in-depth article on this:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/feds-arrest-nc-man-allegedly-organize-isis-inspired/story?id=41116166
Thanks for the heads up.
In slap at Trump, some wealthy Republicans campaign for Clinton
Source: Reuters
Groups of wealthy Republicans unhappy with Donald Trump have been privately courting prominent peers to join them in backing Democrat Hillary Clinton's U.S. presidential bid, several people involved in the effort told Reuters.
They say they are seeking money and endorsements from other Republicans disillusioned by Trump, their party's candidate for the Nov. 8 presidential election. Some have received encouragement from Clinton and members of her campaign staff.
"I made the decision that I wouldn't be able to look at my grandkids if I voted for Trump," said Dan Webb, a former federal prosecutor and a self-described "Republican for decades" working to win over prominent Republican business people in Chicago.
Trump, a New York developer making his first run at public office, has made traditional Republican donors uneasy with inflammatory statements about women, Mexicans, Muslims and war veterans, among others.
Big-name Wall Street donors can make a difference for Clinton. They could inject big money into a campaign. They might influence moderate Republicans to switch sides. Their support of Clinton challenges Trump's assertion that his business successes make him a better candidate for president.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-republicans-idUSKCN10F10U
Trump has not said anything ridiculous
for the last 30 minutes or so -- it's 6:05 PM on the east coast.
'It's time': Edward Snowden just issued a cryptic message on Twitter
Source: Business Insider
Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower, issued a mysterious call for former colleagues to reconnect with him on Wednesday, tweeting "It's time" to his more than 2 million followers:
"Did you work with me? Have we talked since 2013? Please recontact me securely, or talk to @bartongellman. It's time. https://twitter.com/bartongellman/status/760841244704669697 …"
Snowden also quoted a tweet by journalist and author Barton Gellman, who said that he is seeking information on Snowden's work in the intelligence community so he can "tell it truthfully."
The cryptic tweet comes less than a week after Snowden exchanged Twitter barbs with WikiLeaks. The antisecrecy organization implied that Snowden was trying to win the favor of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in order to regain entry into the US.
Snowden is living in exile in Russia after leaking information about the NSA's surveillance programs in 2013. He has previously stated that his one condition for returning to the US would be the guarantee of a fair trial and the ability to argue his case before a jury against the charges he faces under the Espionage Act.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/edward-snowden-issued-a-cryptic-warning-on-twitter-2016-8
It's the season for this sort of thing...
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