#Ozzone 3-17 > In your walk with Christ, what is your number one goal? What is your purpose? Do you have one?

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I see it much like a love story, where all you want to do is to please the one you love. 

It requires getting to know the One you love very intimately. Are you there yet?

Do you feel what He feels in difficult moments?

Charles Price once said, “Unless our hearts are filled with pain for the state of our world, we have not begun to sense the heart of God.”

Islam - Current Day - 80 Suspect Mosques in France; Saudi Court Ends Radical Group; Trump Pulls All Troops From Somalia

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Nearly 80 mosques suspected of ‘separatism’ face closure as French govt launches 'massive' offensive against religious extremism

3 Dec 2020 14:21

FILE PHOTO: A mosque in Creteil near Paris, France. © REUTERS / Gonzalo Fuentes

The French government has threatened to close dozens of mosques that have been flagged as potential security threats. The measures are part of an aggressive campaign to weed out Islamic extremism in the country.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Thursday that authorities were targeting 76 mosques suspected of promoting “separatism.”

In an interview with RTL radio, he claimed that in “some concentrated areas” of the country, mosques are “clearly anti-Republican.” He said France’s intelligence services have “followed” imams who preach ideas “counter to our values.” Darmanin stressed, however, that the institutions that have been identified as potential risks are just a fraction of the more than 2,600 Muslim places of worship in France.

“In the coming days, checks will be carried out on these places of worship. If ever these doubts are confirmed, I will ask for their closure,” he wrote in a tweet commenting on the interview. 

He also announced that 66 illegal migrants suspected of “radicalization” had been deported.

The crackdown is part of a “massive and unprecedented” set of government measures designed to curtail religious “extremism” in the country, Darmanin said.

The government initiative follows a string of recent Islamist attacks in France, beginning with the beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty in October. Paty was targeted by a radicalized Chechen refugee after showing his class caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed as part of a lesson on free speech. Nearly two weeks later, three people were killed in a knife attack in Nice. The suspect is a Tunisian migrant who was reportedly radicalized.

A mosque accused of inciting the hate that led to Paty’s murder was shuttered at the end of October.

In response to Paty’s killing and subsequent incidents attributed to religious extremism, the French government plans to roll out a wide-ranging law aimed at stopping separatism. Under legislation submitted by President Emmanuel Macron, each child in France would be given an identification number that would be used to ensure that they are attending school. Parents who keep their children at home could face fines and even jail time. However, the measures would apply to all children, not just those from Muslim households.

The proposed law will be reviewed by the country’s cabinet next week. 

Macron has already taken steps to rein in extremism. At his urging, the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) has agreed to create an organization that will issue accreditation to imams. The accreditation can be withdrawn if religious leaders espouse extremist views.

Saudi court sentences man to death for killing security officers

11 others jailed on terror charges including illegal possession of weapons

Published:  December 04, 2020 11:11

Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent, Gulf News

Cairo: A Saudi court had sentenced one man to death for killing two security personnel on the border with Yemen, according to Saudi media.

The Disciplinary Court said that the defendant had been convicted of “deliberately” shooting dead the two security personnel while they were on duty on the southern border where they tried to stop him and other members of his terrorist group.

The defendants had planned to illegally cross the kingdom’s southern border into Yemen to get engaged into the fight there and join terror groups.

The court also gave 11 others jail terms ranging from 25 to eight years on charges of illegal possession of weapons and funding terrorism in the same case.

Rulings can be appealed

The convicts were also charged with setting up an armed terror group. The court said that the convicts had failed to abide by their earlier pledges to act in line with law when they were released in previous militancy cases. All the rulings can be appealed.

The case was related to the convicts’ attack, using machine guns, on a border guard patrol in the Saudi region of Najran, killing two security men more than eight years ago, Okaz newspaper reported.

Investigations revealed that the culprits had been previously arrested over links to radical groups.

And you let them loose after they promised to be nice? Good grief!

Trump orders all US troops out of Somalia

By Helene Cooper New York Times,

Updated December 4, 2020, 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON — President Trump, continuing his end-of-term troop withdrawals from conflicts around the world, will pull American troops out of Somalia, where they have been involved in trying to push back advances by Islamist insurgents in the Horn of Africa.

The Pentagon announced on Friday that virtually all of the approximately 700 troops in Somalia — most Special Operations troops who have been conducting training and counterterrorism missions — will be leaving by Jan. 15, five days before President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to be inaugurated.

Many of the troops will be “repositioned” to nearby Kenya, a Defense Department official said Friday. It was not immediately clear whether other parts of the American presence in Somalia — such as CIA officers, the ambassador, and other State Department diplomats who are based at a heavily fortified bunker at the airport in Mogadishu, the Somali capital — will also withdraw from Somali territory along with the military.

The withdrawal from Somalia followed Trump’s orders to reduce the American presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reflected the president’s longstanding desire to end long-running military engagements against Islamist insurgencies in failed and fragile countries in Africa and the Middle East, a grinding mission that has spread since the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

The Pentagon pledged that efforts to safeguard American interests would continue.

“The US is not withdrawing or disengaging from Africa,” it said in a statement. “We remain committed to our African partners and enduring support through a whole-of-government approach.”

The United States will retain the ability to conduct counterterrorism operations in Somalia, especially drone strikes, and to collect early warnings and indicators regarding threats to the United States and allies from militant forces in the country.

The mission in Somalia was in the spotlight in recent days, after it was reported that a veteran CIA officer was killed in combat in Somalia, according to current and former American officials. The death already has rekindled debate over American intelligence’s counterterrorism operations in Africa. The officer was a member of the CIA’s paramilitary division, the Special Activities Center, and a former member of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6.

The troop withdrawal from Somalia comes just two weeks after Trump ordered the military to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, halving the number there to just over 2,000. Reductions in the American troop presence in Iraq also are underway.

Also this week, the Pentagon policy official overseeing the military’s efforts to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria was fired after a White House appointee told him that the United States had won that war and that his office had been disbanded. The ouster of the official, Christopher P. Maier, the head of the Pentagon’s Defeat ISIS Task Force since March 2017, came just three weeks after Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and three other Pentagon officials and replaced them with loyalists.

"Loyalists", read, not warmongers! Wars are never over in Deep State economies. There's always room to move weapons to someone.

Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller, who has been carrying out Trump’s purge at the Pentagon since he took over from Esper last month, characterized the moves as reflecting the success of the American-led effort to crush the terrorist state that the Islamic State created in large sections of Iraq and Syria.

Defense Department officials familiar with internal deliberations said the Somalia pullout would not apply to American forces stationed in nearby Kenya and Djibouti, where American drones that carry out airstrikes in Somalia are based.

Keeping those airbases would mean retaining the military’s ability to use drones to attack militants with the Shabab, a Qaeda-linked terrorist group — at least those deemed to pose a threat to American interests.

Exiting foreign conflicts has been a central component of Trump’s “America First” agenda since he ran for office in 2016. That appeal has particularly animated his base of populist voters, many of them veterans who have grown weary of their roles in longstanding wars. The president views his record on this issue as important to any political future he might pursue.

Somalia has faced civil war, droughts, and violence from Islamist extremists for years. The United States intervened in the country as peacekeepers, but abandoned it not long after the “Black Hawk Down” battle in 1993, which killed 18 Americans and hundreds of militia fighters.

The Shabab, an Islamist terrorist group whose name means “the youth,” emerged around 2007 and have violently vied for control of Somalia with occasional attacks outside its borders, including an attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2013 that killed more than five dozen civilians and a deadly assault on an American air base at Manda Bay, Kenya, in January.

Shabab leaders pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in 2012. In 2016, shortly before leaving office, the Obama administration deemed them part of the congressionally authorized war against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. Under the Trump administration, the military sharply increased airstrikes targeting Shabab militants.

Corruption is Everywhere - Friends of Sarkozy; Liverpool Mayor; Ukraine's Feeble Effort; Obrador's Troublesome Family

Former French interior minister under formal investigation for criminal association in Sarkozy-Libya fundraising scandal

3 Dec 2020 14:55 

FILE PHOTO: Former French President Sarkozy and former Elysee General Secretary, Claude Gueant,

with Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi ©

An interior minister who served in Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has been placed under investigation for “criminal association” by French judges as part of investigation into Libyan funding of the 2007 presidential election.

France’s national prosecutor's office confirmed on Thursday that former interior minister Claude Gueant is now under formal investigation on charges of criminal association. 

The charges brought against him are part of an ongoing investigation into possible Libyan financing of former President Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007. 

While it is suspected that the accused spent €42.8 million to finance the campaign, nearly twice the maximum authorized amount, it is also alleged that the campaign was funded from the pockets of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. 

Gueant was Sarkozy's chief of staff from 2007 to 2011 and held the interior portfolio in 2011 to 2012. 

The former secretary general of the Elysee was already under investigation for nine offenses in this case, but charges of criminal association reportedly make it easier for the judges to bring the case to trial. 

As his trial began on Monday, he told the court “I do not recognize any of the abominations which have been levelled at me for six years.” 

French-Lebanese businessman who once claimed to transport Gaddafi funds to Sarkozy campaign by suitcase 'arrested in Beirut'

4 Dec 2020 17:46

(L) Ziad Takieddine © REUTERS / Gonzalo Fuentes; (R) Nicolas Sarkozy © REUTERS / Philippe Wojazer

Authorities in Beirut have reportedly arrested a French-Lebanese businessman linked to allegations of illicit Libyan financing for Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 French presidential election campaign, on foot of an Interpol request.

Ziad Takieddine fled to the Lebanese capital earlier this year after a French court sentenced him to five years in prison in a separate case involving millions of euros he’d allegedly received for arms sales to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. 

Takieddine previously claimed he had personally delivered suitcases carrying a total of €5 million from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Tripoli to Sarkozy’s chief of staff back in France in 2006 and 2007. 

However, he retracted the claim about the Libyan funds last month, instead accusing the magistrate overseeing the trial of the former French president of having twisted his words to make him “say things that are totally contradictory” to what he actually said.

Takieddine will now be questioned by Lebanon’s general prosecutor to establish whether or not the charges against him are justified and can be proven in court, the AFP reported. If the case proceeds, his trial could be held in Lebanon, where he is a citizen, or in France, with him being extradited back there.  

Sarkozy is currently on trial in a separate case, accused of corruption and influence-peddling for allegedly attempting to bribe a magistrate in return for information about an investigation into his party’s finances. 

On Thursday, former French Interior Minister Claude Gueant was charged with being part of a criminal conspiracy over the Libyan funding investigation. Gueant was seen as a close ally of Sarkozy, working as his chief of staff from 2007 to 2011 and his Interior Minister from 2011 to 2012.

Liverpool mayor among group arrested over alleged bribery & witness intimidation in building corruption probe – reports

4 Dec 2020 18:44

FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / Anthony Devlin

The first directly-elected mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, was reportedly arrested by Merseyside Police on Friday over alleged bribery and witness intimidation, as part of an investigation into development contracts.

A police statement detailing the arrests did not name the Labour mayor explicitly as a suspect in the "ongoing investigation", however, local reports have identified him as one of those detained.

Police said that those held include three men, aged 62, 33 and 46, "arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit bribery and witness intimidation." Two other men, aged 25 and 72, were arrested "on suspicion of witness intimidation."

Officers said the five had been taken to stations across Merseyside, "where they will be questioned by detectives."

A spokesperson for Liverpool City Council said it is "co-operating with Merseyside Police in relation to its ongoing investigation. We do not comment on matters relating to individuals."

Anderson or his office have yet to confirm or deny the reports of his arrest, however a Labour spokesperson confirmed that the mayor has been "administratively suspended" from the party, pending the outcome of the case.

Ukraine's Parliament Restores Anti-Corruption Legislation

Annulled By Highest Court

December 04, 2020 20:06 GMT

Ukraine's Constitutional Court

Ukraine’s parliament voted on December 4 to reimpose penalties for officials who provide false information about their incomes, defying an earlier ruling from the nation’s highest court.

Ukraine's Constitutional Court in October annulled key parts of the nation's anti-corruption legislation, sparking a widespread backlash at home and abroad. The decision threatened Western financial aid to Kyiv and visa-free travel to Europe Union countries.

The nation’s highest court declared unconstitutional a provision that required officials to submit electronic asset declarations. It also struck down legislation that made providing false income information a criminal offense.

Ukraine has suffered from widespread corruption for decades that has held back foreign investment and economic growth. The prior legislation, passed after the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests that pushed Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovuych from power, helped combat the problem by exposing and punishing those officials involved in graft.

The new bill passed by parliament on December 4 is less severe.

According to its provisions, an official who deliberately conceals assets worth between 1.3 million and 9 million hryvnya ($46,000 and $318,000) can be fined between 42,500 and 51,000 hryvnya ($1,500 to $1,800) or sentenced to between 150 and 240 hours of community service.

Those who fail to declare assets worth over 9 million hryvnya will face a fine of between 51,000 and 85,000 hryvnya ($1,800 to $3,000) and between 150 and 240 hours of community service or up to two years of “restrictions of freedom” that do not include imprisonment.

Additionally, any official convicted of hiding income can be banned from holding public office for up to three years.

Well, that might slightly improve government coffers, but will do nothing to rescue one of the most corrupt societies in the world.

Felipa Obrador and Pío López: AMLO’s relatives

pointed out by corruption and nepotism

By Yucatan Times

December 4, 2020

The most recent corruption case in AMLO’s family circle is related to his cousin, whose company obtained millionaire contracts from Pemex.

MEXICO CITY (Latinus/Carlo Loret de Mola) – Although the fight against corruption and nepotism are pillars of López Obrador’s government, various family members have caused him to be harshly criticized due to the lack of these principles.

First Cousin

The most recent case is that of Felipa Guadalupe Obrador Olán, first cousin of the president, whose company, Litoral Laboratorios Industriales, has been benefited with contracts from Pemex for more than 365 million pesos.

According to information obtained by Latinus through transparency, the company won in 2020, along with other companies, three contracts for 133 million pesos to carry out water analysis, noise assessment, and characterization of hydrocarbons and chemicals in Pemex Exploration and Production facilities.

It is essential to mention that in 2019, the same company won, along with Marinsa de Mexico, a contract for 231 million pesos to introduce chemical products to wells in shallow waters off the Yucatan peninsula, which will expire until 2022.

Litoral Laboratorios Industriales is based in Campeche and specializes in chemical analysis and water and hydrocarbons study. In the last decade, it has provided services to the federal government and Campeche and Tabasco’s states.

According to research by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, the company has won direct awards with the Mexican Petroleum Institute (IMP), Airports and Auxiliary Services, the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), and the Institute of Security and Social Services for State Workers (ISSSTE).

It is worth mentioning that during the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, Felipa Obrador’s company benefited from at least 25 contracts. However, unlike those awarded under the present administration, these were with a lower frequency and amounts.

Given this situation, López Obrador said that “the director of Pemex will surely inform” about the case, but insisted that his government will not allow acts of corruption, nepotism or influence by any member of his family.

“I cannot fail the people. Corruption, impunity, influence peddling, cronyism, nepotism, none of these scourges of politics can be allowed. If a family member does something wrong, he should be judged even if he is a child,” he said.

Likewise, the president recalled that in June 2019, he established a memorandum. He promised not to accept “under any circumstances” that any member of his family could do business with the government.

Brother

Another representative case of corruption in the family circle has to do with his brother Pío López Obrador -who’s videos were broadcasted- taking money from David León, ex-coordinator of Civil Protection, to contribute to the operations of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) in Chiapas.

Due to those videos, AMLO was harshly criticized by the opposition and by public opinion. The head of the Federal Executive declared in a press conference that he was aware of such videos so that if the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) called him to testify, he would be willing to do so.

Sister-in-Law

However, there is still another case of corruption among the president’s family members, and it involves Concepción Falcón Montejo, wife of Ramiro López Obrador, AMLO’s brother.

In this case, she was identified as a participant in the alleged embezzlement of millions in Macuspana, Tabasco – the municipality where López Obrador is from – which would have caused the resignation of 11 local cabinet officials, among them the mayor of the district, Roberto Villalpando Arias.

The treasury’s embezzlement would have been for more than 200 million pesos between 2019 and 2020, from the deviation of resources corresponding to the Fund of Contributions for Social Infrastructure (FAIS) and the Fund of Contributions for the Strengthening of the Municipalities (Fortamun).

Cleaning up states as utterly corrupt as Mexico or Ukraine must be an impossible job, especially when your family is part of the problem. 

One more PML-N MPA to face corruption case in Punjab

Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz leader Malik Saif-ul-Malook Khokhar. — File photo

LAHORE: The Anti-corruption Punjab has registered another corruption case against a PML-N lawmaker, Malik Saif-ul-Malook Khokhar on Friday over allegations of corruption.

Khokhar has been accused of causing a huge loss amounting in the millions to the national exchequer through fraud and forgery, according to the Anti-corruption Punjab.

 The case against the MPA was filed on the recommendations of Lahore's deputy commissioner, said the Anti-corruption Punjab officials.

The Anti-Corruption Punjab has accused the MPA of registering a forged surrender deed of a land measuring 22 canals, 11 marlas. Officials have alleged that he carried out the fraudulent activity with the help of the area's patwari (registrar) Iftikhar Ahmed and sub-registrar Raja Nadeem.

A surrender deed is prepared at the time of sale or transfer of a joint heirship.

Officials vowed to recover each and every rupee of the government from the accused.

#Ozzone 3-16 > How does the Judgement Seat of Christ affect you in your Christian walk? Does it?

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    Some Christians will assume that to think of the Judgement of Christ often would be to live in fear, and God certainly does not want us living in fear. Some believe that Christians have nothing to fear from the Judgement. Christ called Peter ‘Satan’, just shortly after blessing him and calling him ‘a rock’. 

    Not all ‘fear of God’ references in the Bible refer to ‘awe’, though some would have you believe that. God’s Presence often resulted in sheer terror though He came in peace. 

    Consider a toddler who, for the first time, climbs up onto the kitchen counter and opens the cookie jar and sticks his hand in the jar just as a parent enters the room. The child will be startled at being caught and will often start to cry. That’s fear! But the child doesn’t live in fear except when it is in the act of doing something it knows it shouldn’t. That’s a healthy fear of God, which should drive us to immediately repent and beg forgiveness.

Islam - Current Day - Mark and Spencer's Stabbing; al-Shabaab Slaughter; Islamist-Caused Hunger in Sahel

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Man arrested after woman stabbed in neck & another seriously injured

in brutal attack in England

2 Dec 2020 16:47

© Twitter / StevieeeWx

British police have arrested a 57-year-old after two women were stabbed while shopping in the northern English city of Burnley. The authorities have requested people not to speculate about the man’s motivations.

Lancashire police reported that they were called to an incident at 9:30am local time after two women were stabbed in a Burnley city branch of popular department store Marks & Spencer.

The two victims were taken to hospital with serious injuries, but the wounds are not thought to be life-threatening, according to a police statement. Investigators confirmed that a knife had been recovered. 

Local reports suggest that members of the public managed to apprehend the attacker before the police arrived at the scene.

Photos and videos have emerged online showing the moment the police arrested the alleged attacker. The man, who according to the police is from the local area and aged 57, appears calm as he is handcuffed by officers outside the store. 

The man’s clothing led many on social media to deduce that he is a follower of Islam and to suggest the attack was religiously motivated; however, police have not confirmed any motive for the stabbings. Lancashire Police said that while enquiries into the attack continue, they believe this “to be an isolated incident.”

The attack comes as England reopened on Wednesday after a month-long Covid lockdown and in time for the Christmas shopping rush.

In November, the UK’s terrorism threat level was raised from “substantial” to“severe” as a “precautionary measure” following a number of terrorist attacks in France and Austria.

I'm sure he is not a Muslim terrorist, just your friendly, neighbourhood stabber.

Al-Shabab attack leaves dozens dead in Somalia

By Danielle Haynes

Dec. 1 (UPI) -- A clash between al-Shabab militants, and Somali soldiers backed by civilians left dozens dead this week, the Ministry of Information said Tuesday.

The ministry told Voice of America that militants attacked a military base in the central town of Ba'adweyene on Monday morning, killing four soldiers and 11 civilians who took part in the battle.

Information Minister Osman Dubbe said government forces killed 51 al-Shabab militants in the fight, including the mastermind of the attack.

"Al-Shabab defeat in yesterday's attack in Ba'adweyene is a clear example of how the people who stand by the army can easily stop the attacks and plots of the enemy against the Somali nation, " Dubbe said.

Al-Shabab said it killed 53 troops in the attack and seized military vehicles. The group posted photos online of weapons it said it seized.

Trying to salvage face, no doubt. The last thing a terrorist organization can afford is to look weak.

Islamist violence escalates in Burkina Faso,

making widespread hunger worse

 Reuters

 Published at 08:34 pm December 2nd, 2020

Burkina Faso

File photo: Habibou Sore, 22, who said she fled her village in northern Burkina Faso barefoot and heavily pregnant as suspected Islamist gunmen approached, waits for her sixteen-month-old twins, who suffer from malnutrition, to be examined at a hospital in Kaya on November 23, 2020 Reuters

Over 7 million people face acute hunger in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso

Habibou Sore had to pause for breath as she ran barefoot from the approaching gunmen. She was pregnant with twins, due any day.

 

Soon after arriving at a nearby town in northern Burkina Faso, her feet cut and swollen, Sore gave birth. Then her battle with hunger began.

Attacks by Islamist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have killed thousands of people this year in Africa's Sahel region, an arid belt to the south of the Sahara Desert.

The escalating bloodshed has worsened food shortages that threaten millions in a region already hit by climate change, poverty and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sixteen months after fleeing her village, Sore lives with relatives in the town of Pisilla and eats one small meal a day.

Her twin sons Hassan and Housein each weigh 7 kg, the equivalent of a healthy 4-month-old. Their bony legs are covered in sores, their scalps bare in patches. They scream for the milk their mother cannot provide.

 

"I am worried about them," Sore said, as she rocked the boys on her lap in a clinic in the town of Kaya, surrounded by paintings showing mothers how to breastfeed and the foods required for a balanced diet. "They are not doing well."

Over 7 million people face acute hunger in a vast area comprising landlocked Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, as armed groups cut off access to supplies and farmland, figures from the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) show.

Burkina Faso is deteriorating fastest. Over half a million children under 5 are acutely malnourished, U.N. figures show. WFP said in October that over 10,000 people were "one step short of famine."

"This year has been worse than anything we have seen in the last decade, a worsening situation that is obviously connected to growing conflicts," said Christelle Hure, spokeswoman for the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council, which offers shelter for the displaced.

'Great loss'

This summer's rainy season was one of the heaviest in years, bringing life to the hilly northern savannah where neem, eucalyptus and acacia trees tower over a sea of waist-high golden grass. Farmers say the conditions are perfect for crops and cattle - if only they could reach them.

Sayouba Zabre should be harvesting 10 hectares of millet and sorghum and tending dozens of cattle near his hometown in the Soum region. Instead he is in a camp for displaced people in the Center-North region after fleeing an attack this year.

Camp residents collect wood and dry hibiscus pods on the roofs of their makeshift tents - anything to make money. Zabre planted millet and peanuts, but it is not enough to feed his family.

"This is a great loss. There is a lot out there this year," he said, referring to his farm. "I should be there."

Many citizens rely on food from aid agencies that cannot reach some of the worst-hit areas. Twice this year, food deliveries were hijacked, said Antoine Renard, WFP's country director in Burkina Faso.

Dozens of health facilities have closed and about 200 others are operating at minimum staff levels, government figures show.

Malnutrition is overwhelming the clinic in Kaya where Sore took her twins. Before the crisis, it had about 30 child patients. Now it has 500.

"Every day we take children, every day we have severe cases," said midwife Aminata Zabre.

Mothers come regularly for sachets of baby food, though sometimes there is little improvement.

"I asked one woman 'why is your child still coming to us?'," Zabre said. "She told me her father-in-law was eating the child's rations."

Police raid homes in three states as Germany bans far-right group that wanted to re-establish Nazi dictatorship

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1 Dec 2020 12:30

A German police officer secures the area during a raid (FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

The German interior ministry has announced the banning of right-wing extremist group Wolfsbrigade 44 as multiple raids were conducted at the homes of many of the group’s members.

German police raided the homes of prominent neo-Nazis in three states early on Tuesday morning, after the government banned the far-right group, the Federal Ministry of the Interior confirmed.

“Federal Minister of the Interior [Horst] Seehofer today banned the right-wing extremist ‘Sturmbrigade 44’, also known as ‘Wolfsbrigade 44,’” the minister’s spokesperson Steve Alter tweeted on Tuesday. The tweet also quoted Seehofer.

Anyone who combats the basic values of our liberal society

will feel the decisive reaction of our constitutional state.

Seehofer also said that an “association that sows hatred and advocates the re-establishment of a National Socialist state has no place in our country.”

As a result of the ban, the authorities were able to take action against the group’s members.

The interior ministry confirmed that the homes of 11 people linked to far-right groups had been searched in Hesse, Mecklenburg West-Pomerania and North Rhine-Westphalia on Tuesday morning.

The police confiscated weapons, including one hand-knife, a crossbow, a bayonet and a machete as well as Nazi devotional objects such as swastikas and flags. Law enforcement also gathered evidence from computers and electronic devices.

The Wolfsbrigade 44 group is said to have been created in 2016 and, according to security officials, aims to re-establish a Nazi dictatorship in Germany.

In 2018, a bag of weapons and a T-shirt bearing the group's name was found on a train.

The number 44 is thought to refer to DD, an abbreviation for “Division Dirlewanger.” Oskar Dirlewanger was a Nazi commander in the SS (Schutzstaffel) paramilitary group, was well known as a sadistic war criminal and is associated with a number of atrocities during World War II. 

Last week the homes of nine German police officers were raided (5th story on link) after an extremist right-wing chat group was exposed.

It seems neither of these two groups are associated with any actual acts of violence, at least, not yet. Woke governments seem far more worried about far-right terrorism than about Islamic terrorism. I'm not defending the far-right; I hope they are sent to prison until they grow up. But there seems to be a desire to deflect some fear toward the right instead of toward Islam.

#PCMadness Attack Strikes Nasdaq, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and The Canadian Government

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Nasdaq threatens 75% of listed companies with order to appoint women & LGBT or other 'diverse' directors to board – or else

1 Dec, 2020 16:49

© Reuters / Shannon Stapleton

US stock exchange Nasdaq has warned listed companies they must appoint at least two “diverse” directors to their board – a ‘self-identified’ female and an “underrepresented minority” or LGBTQ person – or possibly face delisting.

Nasdaq revealed its plan to turbocharge diversity on its exchange in a proposal filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday. 

Under the proposed new rules, not only will all listed US companies be required to “publicly disclose consistent, transparent diversity statistics regarding their board of directors,” but “most” companies would have to either appoint “diverse” board members or explain why they hadn’t done so in a letter. 

The mandatory addition of “one [director] who self-identifies as female and one who self-identifies as either an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+” appears to leave room for Rachel Dolezal-style “self-identification” as something other than white, male, or straight – a potential loophole for companies that prefer to keep their current boards. Non-US companies and small firms would be permitted to appoint two female directors instead.

Listed companies would be required to publish their diversity stats within a year of the SEC adopting Nasdaq’s proposal, and be required to have “one diverse director” within two years of implementation. Depending on company size, they would have four or five years to comply with the two-director requirement. Those who fall short can escape delisting only “if they provide a public explanation of their reasons for not meeting the objectives.”

While the exchange’s reasoning behind the proposal – to “enhance investor confidence that all listed companies are considering diversity in the context of selecting directors” – has already raised some eyebrows, Nasdaq insisted it had analyzed “over two dozen studies that found an association between diverse boards and better financial performance and corporate governance.”

However, with 75 percent of currently-listed Nasdaq companies falling short of the proposed requirements, according to the New York Times’ financial blog DealBook, some have questioned how piling on new regulations is supposed to improve financial performance. While Nasdaq has hit record highs in recent days, much of the real economy is still in shambles from the Covid-19 economic shutdowns and in no shape to expend resources on the hunt for box-checking board candidates.

To enforce the new quota system, Nasdaq has partnered with Equilar, a “leading provider of corporate leadership data solutions.” As ZeroHedge pointed out, Equilar’s own board of directors appears to lack any ethnic diversity. 

That's probably why ethnicity wasn't included in the list. BTW, neither were disabled, pedophiles, illegal aliens, seniors, religious diversity, languages, etc., etc.

The proposal was widely panned, as social media users joked Nasdaq was “turning into [a] college admissions office” and argued that selecting directors based on their skin color, genitalia and sexual preference epitomized the bigotry most “diversity” measures claim to fight. “This delegitimizes women and POC,” one user tweeted, pointing out that “people will think they achieved their position by quota and not talent.”  

Others merely wondered how Nasdaq planned to enforce such a rule.

Though some, inevitably, thought it didn’t go far enough, insisting companies wouldn’t benefit from diversity unless they had at least three women on their boards. 

At the same time as Nasdaq was hopping aboard the woke express, investment bank Credit Suisse unveiled its “LGBT-350” index on Tuesday to widespread groans. Many wondered about the need for such an index.

The bank is by no means the only outfit obsessed with surface-level attributes – Goldman Sachs will no longer take a company public unless it has at least one “diverse” board member. Since September, the state of California has required companies headquartered there to have a minimum number of minority directors or face six-figure fines.

And, lest we forget, The Canadian Government! Trudeau's Cabinet was chosen based on ethnic and sexual diversity as well as religious diversity, except Christianity.