Islam - Current Day - Christchurch Mosques Threatened; Somali Madness; Hysteria That Beheaded Samuel Paty Was a Lie

2 arrested in New Zealand for online threats to Christchurch mosques

which saw deadly white supremacist attack in 2019

4 Mar, 2021 09:34

Visitors leave Al-Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand (FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy

Police in New Zealand have detained two individuals accused of making online threats against two Mosques in the city of Christchurch, both of which were the scene of the country’s most deadly shooting in 2019.

“Any messages of hate or people wanting to cause harm in our community will not be tolerated – it’s not the Kiwi way,” said John Price, Canterbury District Commander Superintendent in an emailed statement on Thursday. 

Police in the South Island city said that no charges have been made and did not elaborate on the nature of the threats. “We take all threats of this nature seriously and we are working closely with our Muslim community,” the police statement added. 

The pair were arrested as the country approaches the two-year anniversary of the deadly attack on the Al Noor mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch. On March 15, 2019, white supremacist Brenton Tarrant opened fire on worshippers, killing 51 people and injuring dozens more. The 29-year-old Australian livestreamed the massacre on Facebook.

Tarrant was sentenced to life in prison without parole, the first time anyone in the country has been confined for the rest of their life. 

On Wednesday, France outlawed far-right and anti-migrant group Generation Identitaire. Tarrant had previously donated to the group, which has recently been carrying out patrols along France’s border with Spain.

20 killed in Somali capital after suicide car bomb

detonates outside restaurant

5 Mar, 2021 20:48

FILE PHOTO: Somali government soldiers © Abdirazak Hussein FARAH / AFP

At least 20 people have been killed and dozens more injured in a suicide car bombing in Mogadishu. The incident occurred on the same day Somali Islamist militants stormed a jail in the semi-atonomus Puntland state.

The blast struck outside the Luul Yemeni restaurant on Friday evening, with eyewitness footage of the scene showing the scale of devastation as locals and first responders bearing torches searched through the debris in the dark for other victims. 

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and local medics have warned that the death toll may rise. Local reports say the scale of the blast brought down one building.

“So far we have carried 20 dead people and 30 injured from the blast scene,” Dr. Abdulkadir Aden, founder of AAMIN Ambulance services told Reuters.

The Mogadishu blast occurred on the same day Somali Islamist militants stormed a jail in the semi-atonomus Puntland state. At least seven soldiers were killed when members of the al-Shabaab terrorist group targeted the site in what one prison guard told Reuters was a “hellish battle.”

The militants claim to have released some 400 prisoners, including members of their group, though that figure has not been confirmed by the authorities. 

Al-Shabaab has carried out repeated attacks in Somalia in its efforts to overthrow the government and establish its own sharia law-based governance. 

Beheaded over a LIE? French teen whose story of schoolteacher & Prophet Mohammed cartoons led to his murder wasn’t even in class

9 Mar, 2021 17:39 

© Reuters / Charles Platiau

The schoolgirl who claimed a teacher asked Muslim students to leave the lesson before displaying obscene caricatures of Prophet Mohammed as part of his freedom-of-speech class lied about being there to avoid parental punishment.

The unnamed 13-year-old girl, whose story was deemed offensive by many Muslims, effectively set off a chain of events leading to teacher Samuel Paty’s gruesome murder in October 2020, having apparently admitted to lying about being present in the controversial class, according to her lawyer.

The girl hadn’t even been at school in the Paris suburb on the day history and geography teacher Paty supposedly showed the obscene images to the class, her lawyer Mbeko Tabula told the AFP news agency on Monday. Her name has not been made public due to her age.

“She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral, as her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson,” Tabula explained, without making it clear for whom or what she was supposed to be speaking.

Islamic Hysteria

The story, with all its controversial details, blew up after being shared on Facebook by her father. The reaction to the claims was swift and vicious. Paty soon began receiving death threats and was subject to a coordinated hate campaign by Islamic extremists both domestically and abroad, ultimately culminating in the 47-year-old’s murder by a complete stranger who had lived in France as a refugee after his Chechen family emigrated there.

The 18-year-old killer, Abdullakh Anzorov, allegedly paid several students to help him identify Paty, followed him as he walked out of the school, and murdered and beheaded him in a street nearby.

The girl’s bombshell confession first appeared as a report in Le Parisien on Sunday. The newspaper said the girl was not in the class because of her “bad behavior,” and suggested she was motivated to cover up her failure to attend classes so as not to upset her father.

The father not only filed a complaint with the police and submitted his grievances to the school administration in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, but also launched the aforementioned hate campaign on social media, including a video detailing the supposed crimes of the teacher.

When the details of the case came to light, however, the girl’s father was arrested for “complicity in a terrorist killing,” while his daughter was charged with “slanderous denunciation.” Three other teens were charged with complicity in a terrorist murder for allegedly identifying Paty for the benefit of the attacker.

Anzorov may also have had contact with the 13-year-old’s father, according to police sources. Those sources suggested the Chechen Islamic extremist, whose half-sister had joined Islamic State in Syria, had spoken with the father over WhatsApp.

Paty’s killing set off belated efforts at enforcing seldom-used anti-radicalization laws already in place in France. Another student commented less than a month after the murder that he had somehow “deserved” it for “making fun of religion” – a comment that got the child expelled. By mid-December, the Ministry of National Education had reported 793 “incidents” during official tributes to Paty’s death. Some 131 students were subsequently suspended, and 44 expelled.

The End of Free Speech

The shocking murder had a ripple effect outside France as well, with Norwegian teachers reporting they were afraid to show cartoons of the prophet, despite Norway supposedly being committed to free speech. Just eight percent of teachers polled in November said they would use caricature images of the Prophet Mohammed in their lessons, with 37 percent admitting they were “afraid of the consequences.” Over a third of Norwegian teachers who responded to the same poll admitted they habitually avoided bringing up issues of religion, sexuality, suicide, and other hot-button topics, suggesting self-censorship was the rule rather than the exception.

Anzorov’s brutal actions triggered a troubling wave of support from some young Muslim students. An 11-year-old child was sent home from their Berlin classroom in November after declaring it was “OK to kill someone who had “insulted the prophet,” and children as young as eight have come out with similarly shocking statements.

While French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to crack down hard on Islamic extremism, many are concerned it’s too little, too late. Others have been concerned about the mixed messages being sent by the Western mainstream media when it comes to Islamist extremism: a headline of an AP story published in the wake of the murder, for instance, blamed France for “inciting anger in the Muslim world.”

'HANG THE INFIDEL!' - Islamic Insanity Rises Against Christian Woman in Pakistan

Farkhunda, the Martyr, the Rest of the Story  - The diabolical madness of Islam

Corruption is Everywhere - Malaysia's 1MDB Fund, Deloitte, Goldman Sachs; Two Bundestag MPs Capitalizing on Covid 19

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Deloitte to pay Malaysia $80mn for its role in pilfering

of state fund 1MDB

3 Mar, 2021 15:01

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia © Pixabay.com

Deloitte will pay Malaysia’s government $80 million to resolve all claims related to its auditing of accounts of scandal-linked state fund 1MDB and its unit SRC International from 2011 to 2014.

The Finance Ministry said on Wednesday that “The successful out-of-court settlement with Deloitte will expedite the payment of monies to fulfill 1MDB and SRC’s outstanding obligations, which would otherwise be delayed by potentially protracted and costly court battles.”

Deloitte has been under scrutiny for its role in auditing the financial statements of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund. The multibillion-dollar scandal involved top Malaysian officials, including former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was sentenced to 12 years in jail after being convicted on charges related to theft from the fund.

In 2019, Malaysia’s securities regulator fined Deloitte 2.2 million ringgit (about $543,000) for failing to report irregularities in relation to an Islamic bond issued by a 1MDB-linked company. After the US Justice Department filed civil lawsuits in 2016 over 1MDB, Deloitte said the 1MDB financial statements it had audited should no longer be relied upon.

Malaysian and US authorities estimate that at least $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB between 2009 and 2014 by senior officials of the fund and their associates.

In October, Goldman Sachs (Asia), which was the main banker for the fund and helped it to raise $6.5 billion through bond sales, was fined $350 million by Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission for its role in the corruption saga. The fine is the highest ever imposed by the Hong Kong markets’ watchdog.

The money siphoned off from Malaysia’s state coffers was used to buy everything from artwork and jewelry to real estate and a superyacht. Some of the cash helped to finance the movie ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, which earned actor Leonardo DiCaprio a Golden Globe for his performance as a stock market scammer.

Scandal over face mask business deals forces German MP

from Angela Merkel’s party to quit

7 Mar, 2021 20:23

German MP Nikolas Löbel, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party, will quit parliament and not seek re-election. The reason? A series of deals on protective face masks that landed Löbel around €250,000.

As the coronavirus pandemic took hold in Germany, a company owned by Löbel brokered deals between a Chinese face-mask manufacturer and healthcare companies in the cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim. The contracts netted the 34-year-old MP a cool €250,000 ($298,000), Der Spiegel reported on Friday.

Löbel, who initially defended his deal as “in line with the market,” was bombarded with calls to resign, and on Sunday announced that he would retire from politics at the end of August, and from the CDU and its sister party, the CSU, immediately.

“Being a member of the German Bundestag and being able to represent my home city of Mannheim, there is a great honor and special moral duty,” he wrote in an apology statement to German media. “I take responsibility for my actions and draw the necessary political consequences.”

Löbel’s August retirement date wasn’t soon enough for his opponents, who continued to press for his immediate resignation. After a meeting on Sunday afternoon, his own party sided with the opposition, demanding that Löbel “complete this withdrawal from all offices and mandates” by the end of March. 

By Saturday evening, it was still unclear whether Löbel would honor his party’s demand.

Löbel is not the first CDU politician embroiled in a mask-supply scandal. Georg Nüsslein, a CSU lawmaker from Bavaria, has been accused of lobbying the government on behalf of a mask supplier last year, earning €660,000 ($800,000) that he then didn’t pay tax on. 

Nüsslein denied any wrongdoing, but resigned on Friday from his post within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, and announced that he would not seek reelection in September.

Ozzone 4-5 > Do You Really Understand the Agony of Christ in Gethsemane?

 

Islam - Current Day - ISIS Bride Can't Go Home; Terrorist Attack in Sweden; Chechen Witches; Palestinian Corruption & Covid19

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Britain's Supreme Court gets something very right

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Citizenship involves not just rights but also duties

Melanie Phillips

Shamima Begum

More than a few jaws dropped when Britain’s Supreme Court ruled a few days ago that the “Isis bride” Shamima Begum should not be allowed to return to Britain to fight the government’s decision to strip her of her British citizenship.

In 2015, when Begum was 15 years old, she and two other east London schoolgirls left Britain to join Islamic State in Syria. In February 2019, she was discovered heavily pregnant in a Syrian refugee camp. Her baby subsequently died of pneumonia and Begum said her two other children had previously died too. 

That year, the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, stripped her of her British citizenship on national security grounds — which have never been fully disclosed. He argued that she also held Bangladeshi nationality so she wouldn’t be left stateless. The government refused to allow her to return to the UK to fight that decision. 

Last July, the Court of Appeal ruled that Begum should be allowed to return because she could not effectively appeal against the decision while living in a camp in northern Syria. The Home Office appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that allowing her to return  “would create significant national security risks”. Last week, the court agreed.

Could it really be that the Supreme Court justices had actually done the obviously sensible thing and decided that the security of the country was an overriding priority in a human rights case? It could be, and was. 

Those of us who have long despaired of the way the unchallengeable “human rights” orthodoxy has undermined core values and captured swathes of the judiciary to carry this agenda forward raised our weary eyes at this ruling and blinked in disbelief. 

What had happened? Had the Supremes put their finger up to test the cultural wind and decided to tack to the real centre ground?

Although the judgment was unanimous, the most likely explanation is that the court has a new president, Lord Reed, whose views are said to be “conservative”— ie intellectually rigorous, ideology-free and evidence-based. 

The ruling that Lord Reed delivered, in which he excoriated the findings of the Appeal Court judges as being wholly mistaken, was a robust statement of the priorities which should properly be established in this case. There was no “right" to fight a deprivation of British citizenship within Britain. On the contrary, he said: 

There is much more to this story at Melanie Phillips

Several people injured in suspected terrorist stabbing attack in Sweden

3 Mar, 2021 18:23 

FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / Michael Campanella

At least eight people have been injured in what Swedish police are treating as a possible terrorist attack. Officers shot and wounded the suspected attacker, who police describe as a man in his 20s.

Police were called to central Vetlanda after receiving reports just before 3pm local time that several people had been attacked with a knife. Officers later confirmed eight people had been injured to varying degrees, some seriously.

While initially being investigated as attempted murder, the incident is now being described as a “possible terrorist crime,” though it's unclear what the motives may have been for the incident.

The alleged perpetrator has been transported to the hospital and is being treated for his injuries. The man has not yet been questioned by police, but is being monitored at the hospital. 

The Swedish Transport Administration has suspended running trains in the area. 

Police have said the situation is under control and they do not believe any other perpetrators were involved in the incident.

In a statement, police said that an investigation has also been launched into their response to the incident and, as a result of that inquiry, will not comment further at this time as to why officers opened fire on the suspect.

Could it be because he was stabbing people? Just a guess, you know, I'm no expert, but...

Chechen cleric rebukes locals for providing ‘occult services’ as Russian region continues crackdown on ‘swindlers’ & ‘charlatans’

3 Mar, 2021 15:23

A theologian in Russia’s Muslim-majority region of Chechnya has reprimanded three women after local law enforcement detained them for occultism, a charge which has become more common in the area in recent years.

According to the state-owned television channel ‘Grozny’, four people from the town of Kurchaloy were arrested on February 23 on suspicion of practicing sorcery. A video posted on the channel's Instagram page depicts three women and one man being spoken to by Adam Elzhurkayev, a specialist of the state-run Islamic Medical Center, alongside two men from the security services.

"The work to identify sorcerers, healers, and other charlatans continues to bear fruit," the report said. "More fraudsters have been identified thanks to the work of Khusain Mezhidov, commander of the South Battalion, employees of the Kurchaloevsky District Police Department, and the clergy."

According to the report, the four arrested locals claimed that they could perform magic to improve their client's luck in personal relationships.

"The conversation with the theologian and the law-enforcement officers helped the women to see for themselves that they had committed a grave sin," the news report continues. "Despite all the educational activities, there are still those who believe in the power of witches."

On the Instagram post itself, the channel explained that witches are not real, and that those who seek their help are victims of "swindlers" and "charlatans" who should instead seek help from Allah and Islamic scholars.

According to local news site Kavkazsky Uzel, prosecutions for occultism have been on the rise since July 2019. A search of its website reveals at least seven incidents in February alone, mainly involving elderly women. In November 2019, a report on North Caucasus news site Obzor reported that one detained "healer" even had local officials as part of her clientele.

At the time, TV channel ‘Grozny’ ran a story with the sarcastic headline: "Clairvoyant Malika Datsaeva could not even foresee her own future."

Kurchaloy, Chechnya

Covid jabs meant for health workers ended up in the arms of Palestinian VIPs and footballers, officials admit

3 Mar, 2021 14:28

A health worker measures the temperature of a girl in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on March 3, 2021. ©  SAID KHATIB / AFP

Senior Palestinian politicians, their bodyguards and the national football team received Covid jabs meant for healthcare workers, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said. It also gave the Jordanian royal court another 200 doses.

In all, the PA admitted on Tuesday it gave some 10 percent of 12,000 Covid vaccines to a coterie of government ministers, members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s executive members, security personnel and soccer players as well as fulfilling a request from Amman for doses.

But it said the other 90 percent went to health workers treating Covid-19 patients in intensive care units and emergency departments and to other health ministry workers.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has long faced accusations of nepotism and cronyism, and the diversion of the vaccines has been criticized by groups who are pushing for greater transparency and fighting corruption in the territories administered by the Authority.

Giving priority to personal interests at the expense of the public good would lead to greater “instability and turmoil,” said AMAN, a network pushing for transparency.

The health ministry said the PA officials who received the diverted doses were “in direct contact with the president and the prime minister” and the football team was vaccinated because the players needed vaccination certificates to be able to travel to play in an international game.

PA officials did not detail which type of Covid-19 vaccines were diverted to the officials.

In a December poll, 86 percent of Palestinians surveyed said they viewed PA institutions as corrupt.

The World Health Organization has expressed concern about the vaccine inequity between the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, which is leading one of the world’s most successful vaccination campaigns. To date, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, home to a combined 5.2 million Palestinians, have received donations of about 34,700 vaccine doses from Israel and Russia, as well as 20,000 from the United Arab Emirates to Gaza.

On Monday, the PA started vaccinations of health workers in the occupied West Bank after receiving 2,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine from Israel, and they have promised delivery of another 3,000 vaccines.

On Sunday Israel confirmed that it will administer Covid-19 vaccinations to Palestinians in the West Bank who have permits to work in Jewish settlements in the occupied territory and inside Israel. The PA had reached an agreement with Israel for it to vaccinate 100,000 Palestinian laborers.

The PA is expecting some two million doses ordered from various manufacturers, in addition to doses from the UN-backed Covax programme, set up to help less-wealthy nations procure vaccines, beginning with an initial 240,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine and 37,440 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech.

In January, Palestine became the first country in the Middle East to register the Sputnik V vaccine and an initial delivery of 10,000 doses arrived there last month.

In the past year, Palestine has reported more than 55,000 cases of coronavirus and registered 553 deaths.

Islam - Current Day - Now You See Them, Now You Don't, Now You See Then Again - The Kidnapping Business in Nigeria

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Gunmen kidnap 317 schoolgirls in northwest Nigeria, police confirm,

the 2nd major raid in as many weeks

26 Feb, 2021 15:51

This photograph taken on February 26, 2021 shows school uniforms displayed inside the deserted school dormitory at Jangede, Zamfara State in northwest Nigeria © Habibu ILIYASU / AFP

Police in Nigeria’s Zamfara State have said that 317 schoolgirls were abducted in an armed raid on Friday morning, just one week after 42 people were kidnapped from a boys’ school in neighboring Niger State last week.

“The Zamfara State Police Command in collaboration with the military have commenced a joint search and rescue operation with a view to rescuing the 317 students kidnapped by the armed bandits in Government Girls Science Secondary School Jangebe,” police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said in a statement on Friday. 

Speaking earlier on Friday, Sulaiman Tanau Anka, information commissioner for Zamfara State, told Reuters that the girls were taken in a midnight raid by unknown gunmen. Anka added that the attackers came with vehicles and transported the schoolgirls away. 

Amnesty International Nigeria called the attack “a serious violation of international humanitarian law” and called on the authorities to do everything in their power to bring about the students’ safe return. 

The predominantly Muslim state, which borders the Republic of the Niger to the north, has been repeatedly targeted by bandit groups in recent years. Officials speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters that the rise in abductions has been fueled in part by sizable government payoffs in exchange for the children. 

Just last week, gunmen attacked a boys’ school in neighboring Niger State in Nigeria and abducted 42 people. More than 300 boys were kidnapped from a school in Kankara in December, during President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to his home state.

In 2014, ISIS-linked jihadist group Boko Haram seized 276 girls aged between 12 and 17 from the Government Girls Secondary School in the remote town of Chibok, in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State. While a number of the girls have made successful escapes or been released, more than 100 remain missing.

I have serious concerns about the genuineness of state and federal governments when it comes to the kidnapping of schoolchildren. This has been going on for more than 7 years and the gov'ts have not found a way to protect schools nor to retrieve the children, especially girls, but to give the criminal, Muslim gangs oodles of money. 

I can't help but think that money would be better spent on the military, and on security in schools, if there was any real desire to stop this madness. However, there is so much corruption in this God-forsaken country, for all we know the governments and military are in on it!

Zamfara State, Nigeria

Nigeria school abduction: Hundreds of girls released by gunmen

Published 3 hours ago

The freed schoolgirls were taken to a government building in Zamfara state in a fleet of minibuses

Girls among the nearly 300 who were kidnapped from a school in north-western Nigeria have been describing their ordeal following their release.

"Most of us got injured," one of the schoolgirls told the BBC, adding that gunmen threatened to shoot them.

The girls were abducted by unidentified assailants from their boarding school in Jangebe, Zamfara state, on Friday and taken to a forest, police said.

The state's governor said on Tuesday that the 279 girls had been freed.

Such kidnappings are carried out for ransom and are common in the north of the country.

On Tuesday, dozens of the girls were seen gathered at a government building in Zamfara after they were taken there in a fleet of mini-buses.

Speaking to the BBC, one of the schoolgirls said that some of those kidnapped had found it difficult to continue walking when instructed to do so by the gunmen because of their injuries.

"They said they [would] shoot anybody who did not continue to walk," she said. "We walked across a river and they hid us and let us sleep under shrubs in a forest."

Another of the girls, aged 15, said that some of her classmates found it difficult "walking in the stones and thorns" and had to be carried.

"They started hitting us with guns so that we [would] move," she told Reuters news agency, adding: "While they were beating them with guns, some of them were crying and moving at the same time."

The girls were reportedly made to walk a long distance into the forest after their kidnapping

Some of the fathers who had arrived to see their daughters for the first time since their abduction told reporters they were "very happy" at the news of their release.

The group's release was secured through negotiations between government officials and the abductors, authorities in Zamfara state told the BBC.

Local authorities said that an earlier figure provided by police of 317 for the number of girls kidnapped was not accurate. One official told Reuters that the discrepancy was because of the fact that some girls had fled shortly after being abducted.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said he felt "overwhelming joy" at the news of the girls' release. "[I am] pleased that their ordeal has come to a happy end without any incident," he said.

The governor of Zamfara state, Bello Matawalle, tweeted that it "gladdens my heart to announce the release of the abducted students".

"This follows the scaling of several hurdles laid against our efforts," he added. "I enjoin all well-meaning Nigerians to rejoice with us as our daughters are now safe."

Mr Matawalle has denied paying for the girls to be released, but last week President Buhari admitted state governments had paid kidnappers "with money and vehicles" in the past and urged them to review the policy.

I wonder if it is only the kidnappers who receive payments for the girls? It's probably my overactive imagination combined with my firm belief in rampant corruption at all levels of Nigerian governments that causes me to imagine a governor's right-hand man teaming up with a bunch of friends with a scheme to make them lots of money. I'm such a conspiratorialist. 

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Analysis: Nigeria's ransom controversy

By Ishaq Khalid, BBC News, Abuja

It is believed that schools have started to be targeted as such abductions attract a lot of attention - putting more pressure on the authorities to negotiate with the armed criminal group responsible.

The authorities rarely admit to paying ransoms - but some observers say it is unlikely that the gunmen would release their victims without some sort of exchange, either of money or the release of their members who are in jail.

Besides, kidnapping for ransom is a widespread criminal enterprise across the country - people are seized by gunmen on almost a daily basis - with both the rich and the poor falling victims. Security personnel have been held too. People often speak of how they have managed to secure someone's release by raising funds from friends and relatives - or even selling their assets.

But ransom payments are controversial. It may save someone's life, yet some observers say paying ransom only fuels the problem. President Buhari agrees, saying today ''ransom payments will continue to prosper kidnapping''.

He has repeatedly said his government will not negotiate with the armed criminal gangs. But many believe the failure of his administration and those at the state level to provide security is to blame. There are growing calls for the authorities to provide security for thousands of schools across the country - many of which are unfenced and do not have adequate security guards.

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The 2014 kidnap of 276 schoolgirls in the north-eastern town of Chibok by Islamist militants Boko Haram brought global attention to the scourge of raids on schools in Nigeria, but a surge in recent attacks is suspected to be the work of criminal gangs.

The raid in Zamfara state was the region's second kidnapping in recent weeks. Some 27 students were kidnapped from a boarding school in Kagara in the north-central state of Niger last month before they were released on 17 February.

No group has said they were behind the Zamfara kidnappings.

Armed groups operating in the state often kidnap for ransom but when gunmen took more than 300 boys from Kankara in neighbouring Katsina state in December last year, some reports said Boko Haram, which operates hundreds of miles away in the north-east, was behind the attack.

The reports were later disputed and the boys released after negotiations.

Corruption is Everywhere > Even to the Level of the Presidency of France; Congress, Pentagon, Money

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Sarkosy joins Chirac as former Presidents of France convicted of Corruption

1 Mar, 2021 13:11 

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, wearing a protective face mask, arrives for the verdict in

his trial on charges of corruption and influence peddling, at Paris courthouse, France, March 1, 2021.

© Reuters / Gonzalo Fuentes

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been found guilty of corruption on charges of trying to bribe a magistrate. The judge sentenced Sarkozy to three years in prison, with two years suspended.

Judge Christine Mee, who presided over the case, stated that the 66-year-old former political leader had “used his status as former French president” in a “particularly serious” act of wrongdoing, as she handed down the sentence.

Sarkozy was put on trial over accusations of trying to bribe Gilbert Azibert, a French magistrate, by offering him a well-paid job in Monaco in return for information about a criminal investigation into his political party at the time, the Union for a Popular Movement.

The investigation was looking into claims that Sarkozy and his party had received illegal payments from businesswoman Liliane Bettencourt during his successful 2007 presidential campaign.

The trial saw the former president accused of influence-peddling and violation of professional secrecy, with prosecutors seeking a four-year sentence with two years suspended for Sarkozy.

Prosecutors had focused their case on recorded conversations involving the co-defendants, where the bribery scheme was discussed, with Herzog mentioning in one call that Azibert was interested in a job in Monaco, and Sarkozy claiming he would “help” him.

Throughout the trial and despite the sentencing, Sarkozy has denied the allegations and protested his innocence. He is expected to appeal the court’s judgement.

While the former president has been given a one-year prison term and a two-year suspended term, the judge ruled that Sarkozy would be allowed to serve his sentence wearing an electronic tag under house arrest.

The investigation into Sarkozy can be traced back to the creation of France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office in 2014, which was investigating the former president over allegations that he had illegally received millions of euro in campaign financing from the ex-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddaffi. As part of their case, prosecutors tapped Sarkozy’s phone and that of his then-lawyer Herzog, recording conversations that revealed the bribery scheme.

Sarkozy is still facing another trial later this year, alongside 13 other individuals, over charges of illegally financing his 2012 presidential campaign. The case will focus on claims his office used a system of false accounting to hide overspending. He ultimately lost that election to Francois Hollande.

Alongside the former president, the French court also found co-defendants Thierry Herzog, Sarkozy’s former lawyer, and Gilbert Azibert, the magistrate he was accused of bribing, guilty and gave them the same sentence.

This is the second time in France’s history that a former president has been given a prison sentence. Jacques Chirac, who was Sarkozy’s predecessor, was found guilty of misusing public money in 2011 and was handed a two-year suspended sentence over criminal actions that occurred during his time as mayor of Paris.

US inspector finds AT LEAST $2.4 billion ‘wasted’ on buildings in Afghanistan

in ‘clear pattern’ of misuse and destruction

1 Mar, 2021 21:06

File photo: Men peer through windows of their building blown out by a bomb in Kabul, Afghanistan, December 20, 2020. ©  REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

Billions of US taxpayer dollars have been wasted on building infrastructure in Afghanistan that isn’t actually needed or can’t be used or maintained properly, says a new report from a special inspector, unlikely to change things.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) identified “about $2.4 billion in assets that were unused or abandoned, had not been used for their intended purposes, had deteriorated, or were destroyed” out of nearly $7.8 billion the US has spent on capital assets in the country.

Only $1.2 billion worth of assets were being used as intended, and only $343.2 million worth was in good condition, SIGAR said in a report sent to Congress at the end of February.

As long as the money is flowing, that's all that matters. Doesn't matter who it goes to or what it is for. War-mongering oligarchs will just continue to get richer.

These capital assets were just a portion of the nearly $36 billion the US has spent since 2002 to “support governance and economic and social development,” in Afghanistan, on top of the cost of waging war against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and other groups designated as terrorists.

Since SIGAR’s establishment in 2008, the inspectorate’s reports have shown “a clear pattern of nonuse, misuse, deterioration, or destruction” of capital assets the US built for the Afghan government. The latest report includes the detailed descriptions of a “stratified sample” of 60 capital assets, concluding that 91 percent of the $792.1 million spent on them went to projects that were “unused or abandoned, were not used as intended, had deteriorated, were destroyed, or had some combination of the above.” 

The sample included roads and bridges, hospitals, schools, irrigation systems, power plants, police and border facilities. Among the examples were a hospital in the Parwan province designed for a staff of 150 that only had 19 employees; one crumbling and one completely destroyed bridge; and a “center of excellence” school for boys in the Laghman province that ended up serving as a guest house for visiting government officials instead.

There was even a garbage incinerator facility built at a military base used by both US and Afghan government forces that never got used because “open-air burn pits… cost less to operate.” Meanwhile, US veterans have complained of a variety of chronic conditions attributed to burn pits. 

SIGAR concluded that many capital assets were not wanted or needed to begin with and the Afghans lacked resources to maintain or use them as intended, but also that in some cases the US agencies behind them – primarily the Pentagon, State Department and USAID – simply didn’t deliver the projects to the locals on time and in a usable state.

Given that SIGAR has been warning about wasteful spending in Afghanistan for over 12 years now, it doesn’t appear likely that the latest report will make much of a difference in Washington.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee scheduled a hearing about it for March 16. The chair of the Subcommittee on National Security Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) said that US taxpayer resources “must be more wisely and carefully allocated to ensure they do not go to waste.” However, he prefaced that by saying he believes that “targeted humanitarian relief and construction assistance for Afghanistan was and is warranted.”

The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC were blamed on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban government was accused of sheltering the terrorist group’s leader Osama bin Laden. He was tracked down and killed in Pakistan in 2011, but the war in Afghanistan continued.

Under the terms of the peace agreement the Trump administration signed with the Taliban in February 2020, US troops were supposed to leave Afghanistan by May 2021. The Biden administration has walked back that commitment, however, accusing the Taliban of not honoring their part of the bargain.

Of course, Biden would walk it back. Deep State is back in charge in Washington so the money will just keep flowing to friends in Afghanistan as it has begun again in Syria. 

Corruption is Everywhere - And All Around Ex-King Juan Carlos of Spain

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Ex-Spanish King Juan Carlos pays back multi-million euro tax bill

amid corruption scandal

26 Feb, 2021 14:40

Spain’s former King Juan Carlos I has paid back his second tax bill after fleeing to the United Arab Emirates following his 2014 abdication in favor of his son Felipe VI amid fear of prosecution over a corruption scandal.

The payment of €4.4 million ($4.9 million) was confirmed by the former king’s lawyer on Friday, marking the second time in recent months that Juan Carlos has handed over money as part of a voluntary settlement to authorities. The latest figure was related to travel costs and expenses that were covered by a foundation of which he was a beneficiary.

Back in December, Juan Carlos agreed to make a payment of more than €678,000 to tax officials over allegations of illegal credit card transactions to avoid a criminal investigation being opened into his actions and potentially allowing him to return to Spain without concerns about being arrested. 

Juan Carlos has been living in the United Arab Emirates following his decision to flee Spain in August 2020 after authorities linked him to an investigation into allegations of corruption during his reign. Although, he has claimed he would be willing to cooperate with prosecutors if asked.  

The investigation has focused on the awarding of a high-speed rail contract in Saudi Arabia, which saw Spanish companies secure a €6.7 billion ($8.12 billion) deal. Anti-corruption investigators have suggested that they believe Carlos might have kept some funds hidden in Switzerland from the agreement.

Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said that the government was not able to speak about any specific cases related to citizens. However, he stated that “no one is allowed to break the law,” in remarks that were seen as targeted at the former monarch. 

Juan Carlos has refused to comment on the allegations of corruption, as well as agreements with tax authorities, choosing only to confirm the settlements that have been paid through his lawyer. 

King Felipe VI, who replaced his father in 2014, has also declined to comment on the ongoing reports of investigation and the recent developments related to Juan Carlos.