Canadian Convulsions > CSIS Covers up Trafficking Teens to Syria; Liberals Out-of-Touch - Rex Murphy

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CSIS persuaded Turkey to hide recruitment of operative

who trafficked teens to Islamic State

Globe and Mail, 

September 29, 2022

The most senior intelligence officer in charge of covert operations at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service went to Ankara in March, 2015, to persuade Turkish authorities to stay silent about the agency’s recruitment of a Syrian human smuggler who trafficked three British teenage girls to Islamic State militants, according to three sources.

The sources said the officer, Jeffrey Yaworski, who was at the time CSIS’s deputy director of operations, was carrying out a discreet but high-level campaign to prevent the spy agency from being publicly blamed for using the smuggler as an operative. The Globe is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to discuss national security matters.

One of the sources said Turkey eventually agreed to Mr. Yaworski’s request, but punished Canada by limiting the number of CSIS agents operating at the Canadian embassy in Ankara. CSIS also promised that any further clandestine activities in the country would be conducted as joint operations with Turkish intelligence, the source said.

The smuggler, Mohammed al-Rashed, was arrested by Turkish authorities on Feb. 28, 2015, within days of when he helped the girls cross the Turkish border into Syria. His capture threatened to place Canada at the centre of an international incident, after Turkish media reported that he had shared the girls’ passport details with CSIS, and that he had smuggled other British nationals seeking to join the Islamic State.

At the time of his arrest, Britain’s Scotland Yard had been frantically searching for the girls, and Turkey was unaware that CSIS had an Islamic State double agent operating in the country.

Turkey never publicly confirmed CSIS’s involvement with Mr. al-Rashed after Mr. Yaworski‘s travels to Ankara. The sources said he visited Turkey at least two times to meet senior Turkish officials in the aftermath of the operative’s arrest. One of the sources said Mr. Yaworski was trying to put the operational mess “back in the box.”

During the first visit, another source said, Mr. Yaworski apologized and asked the Turks to release Mr. al-Rashed, which Turkey declined to do because of the intense publicity in Britain about the missing girls. Turkey also did not want to be blamed for freeing an Islamic State human smuggler, since Ankara had been heavily criticized for failing to stop the flow of foreign fighters into Syria, the source said.

Mr. Yaworski declined to comment on his interaction with Turkish authorities, saying through an intermediary that he is bound by the secrecy provisions of the Security Information Act.

CSIS also declined to discuss the matter. “There are important limits to what CSIS can confirm or deny given the need to protect sensitive techniques, methods and sources of intelligence,” spokesperson Eric Balsam said in a statement.

Around the time Mr. Yaworski was holding secret talks with Turkish authorities, CSIS convinced British counterterrorism officials to cover up the agency’s role in the handling of Mr. al-Rashed. Those discussions were revealed in The Secret History of the Five Eyes, a new book by author Richard Kerbaj that recounts parts of Mr. al-Rashed’s story.

Mr. Kerbaj interviewed Richard Walton, the chief of Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism command, who said two CSIS officials came to see him shortly after the arrest of Mr. al-Rashed. They informed Mr. Walton that CSIS knew about the trafficking of the three teens and asked the British to obscure the spy agency’s role.

In his book, Mr. Kerbaj also wrote that CSIS sent an unidentified top official to Ankara to beg Turkey’s forgiveness for running a counterintelligence operation in their country. Mr. Kerbaj subsequently learned that the official was Mr. Yaworski, and that he had travelled to Turkey on at least two occasions after the arrest of Mr. al-Rashed. As deputy director of operations, Mr. Yaworski was responsible for all undercover missions, including recruitment and running of spies.

Mr. Kerbaj provided Mr. Yaworski’s name to The Globe and Mail last week, and the three sources later confirmed that he had travelled to Ankara.

The Globe has reported, citing a source with direct knowledge, that Mr. al-Rashed was freed on Aug. 5 after serving years in a Turkish prison on terrorism and smuggling charges, including for trafficking the three British girls, who were aged 15 and 16 at the time. The source said CSIS had planned to relocate him to Canada after his release. The government will not say if he has been granted asylum.

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Rex Murphy: The Liberals are so far out of touch

it probably can't be measured

Canadians need the Trudeau government to deal with the realities of

skyrocketing fuel, food and mortgage costs

Author of the article Rex Murphy

Publishing date: Oct 03, 2022 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a Countdown to COP15 leaders event about climate change in New York City on Sept. 20, 2022. Rex Murphy wishes the Liberals would concentrate their energies on such domestic issues as inflation, soaring fuel costs, lack of clean drinking water on First Nations and government inefficiency. PHOTO BY BRYAN R. SMITH / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The greatest and most characteristic failure of the Trudeau administration has been its war against the oil and gas industry. It was so-early signalled. There is, for example, this brilliant pat-on-his-own-back — a yoga twist Mr. Justin has perfectly mastered — from nine years ago:

“I am pleased to announce that we will keep our commitment to implement a moratorium on crude oil tanker shipping on British Columbia’s north coast.”

From out of that deep but callow mindset came the blocking of pipelines, the wretched, useless (and in this time of rampant inflation) insulting so-called “carbon taxes,” the supine genuflections to the international global warming extremists, the hobbling of a mighty natural resource, and latterly the incredible elevation of a one-time Greenpeace activist and tower-climber, Steven Guilbeault (name his other qualifications), to a ministry in a supposedly mature national government.

The second greatest failure is a corollary of the first, the disregard, perhaps reaching to contempt, for the interests of the Western provinces. It amounts to the prime minister establishing a two-tier Confederation.

I am very well aware that I have made this observation many times before, but that puts no halt on my restating it: If oil and gas were the principal industries of Ontario, or especially Quebec, a drawing of an oil pipeline, or better yet that of an oil barrel, would long ago have supplanted the maple leaf on the Canadian flag.

How ever did global warming become the principal policy and obsession of the government of this vast, cold, main northern nation? If Canada were one of those tiny islands that shoot out warnings that they will be submerged in the apocalypse-to-come, it might be understandable.

The Maldives, for example, have staged their worry on this point. They held a televised “underwater cabinet meeting” to “raise awareness” of global warming. They gurgled very impressively, air bubbles drifting upwards, but, note, they still have land-based governance.

Of the thousands of islands in the Maldives that are barely above sea level, none have disappeared yet.

But Canada? Here’s a raw question too rarely asked — what’s our concern in all this? Why is global warming the principal and sternest policy of a Canadian government? Can we change China, India, Russia by our example? Beyond the burnishing of Trudeau’s credentials as the most self-advertised woke politician, what is it all about? Is Canada a heat furnace? Does Newfoundland threaten the global thermostat?

With the Canadian press asking stern questions about “carbon emissions policy” and which party has the “best” one, will no one ask the essential question: What benefit to Canada flows from “carbon reduction” schemes? Why does the Canadian government embrace global warming as the principal theme of national governance? Most succinctly, will no one in the press gallery ask the prime minister this question: What does it matter what we do?

Are there not wells to clean, passport lineups to shorten, inflation to worry about, estrangement from the Confederation to address?

Next question: Why has an international agenda, supported by every liberal billionaire and dogmatist of the warming crusade, become the key, near genetic, policy of the Trudeau administration? As Hillary Clinton so famously asked, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Can no one in the national press ask why it is important, or in any way consequential, or has any impact on any other government in the world, that Trudeau taxes Canadian gasoline and heating fuel in the “fight against global warming?”

Are there not wells to clean, passport lineups to shorten?

Why his personal and shallow preoccupations, and those of his ideologically driven mentor, Gerald Butts, are shaping the destiny of our nation? Canada is not a footnote to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It may be fine for cabinet ministers flying abroad, a PM with his private air accommodation, and MPs with solid salaries not to care about pump prices or the jump in food costs and mortgage payments, to ignore reality and stick with the global warming fixation. But it is not for most Canadians, and certainly not for the poorest of them, which should always be our care.

And equally to the point, now that the blizzard of scandals and missteps, the airport clogs, the passport shambles, the WE scandals and the summoning of the near wartime Emergencies Act, have precipitated a drastic fall in the polls and signalled the “horror” of “Trumpian” Pierre Poilievre in the ascendant, would it be possible for the Trudeau government to stop role-playing on the international stage and tend to the less glamorous business of keeping Canada secure and stable?

It's my contention that Trudeau has always considered the Prime Minister of Canada as being a stepping stone to something more grand and fitting to his ego.

The current administration is so far out of touch I am not sure a measurement for the distance is available.

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Islam - Current Day > Pope Concedes to Imam Without Fight; Children Blown-up by Houthi Missiles; Muslim Madness over blasphemy

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Grand Imam Lectures Francis On ‘True’ Islam

by Jules Gomes, ChurchMilitant.com, 

November 4, 2022:

MANAMA, Bahrain (ChurchMilitant.com)  – The grand imam of Al-Azhar offered a robust defense of “true” Islam before Pope Francis at the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue on the first day of the pontiff’s apostolic journey to Bahrain.

“What is said and promoted from time to time about the institution of war in Islam against the infidels is not true,” Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb told Francis at the Sakhir Royal Palace during a dialogue session on Friday.

Apologia for Islam

“Indeed, it is a real lie about Islam and the life of its prophet, even if this is affirmed by some followers of the same religion, a religion that is based on evidence and testimony, not on ambiguity and lies,” al-Tayyeb claimed.

“I hope you are not bored with the constant claims that Islam is a religion of peace and equality,” the grand imam quipped.

Muslim scholars should “be diligent in letting Westerners know about true Islam,” and “continue to highlight what Islam encompasses in terms of lofty ideals, human brotherhood and cooperation, and other commonalities that the West and East agree on and welcome,” al-Tayyeb stressed.

“Western culture should not be represented as the only civilized society and as the standard for judging other cultures. Any interference with other cultures is an abuse of power,” he maintained, quoting words from Tzvetan Todorov’s The Fear of the Barbarians.

“The West needs the wisdom of the East, its religious and moral values upon which its people were raised, as well as its balanced view of man, the universe and our Creator,” in order “not to be blinded by putting the ephemeral before the eternal,” the sheikh noted.

While Pope Francis did not make any explicit reference to the Triune God or the Holy Bible, the highest-ranking cleric in the Sunni-Muslim world introduced and ended his address with an Islamic blessing and unapologetically quoted the Quran several times in his text.

“If Allah had willed, he could have made humanity one people” (Quran 2:256), al-Tayyeb preached, noting that God created man “free and capable of choosing belief, religion, ideology and doctrine.”

God did make man one people and then divided them at Babel when they rebelled against Him. As for being free to choose - the Quran tells believers to kill those who turn away from the faith.

“If it is natural for people to differ in beliefs, it follows that they must be free to choose any faith,” for “Allah says that ‘there is no compulsion in religion’ (Quran 2:256), the grand imam argued. Allah also tells his prophet, “So, [O Mohammed], would you like to force people to become believers?” (Quran 10:99)

“What is the relationship between people according to the philosophy of the Quran?” al-Tayyeb asked. “The only way to make this relationship work is knowledge, which is how Allah has established the interactions and relationships between people.”

“The Koran says it clearly: ‘O humanity! Indeed, we created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may get to know one another. Surely, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you. Allah is truly All-Knowing, All-Aware,” (Quran 49:13) the grand imam stated.

Not very clear! God made them into peoples and tribes so that they could not communicate with each other. The truth is the opposite of what the Quran says, but that's not too surprising.

Deceptive Dialogue

In comments to Church Militant, renowned Islamic historian and author of 22 books on Islam and the Middle East Robert Spencer explained how “al-Tayyeb’s exposition of Islam is highly inaccurate and misleading.”

Spencer, author of the recent bestseller The Critical Quran: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research, elaborated:

Among the many salient Quran passages al-Tayyeb does not quote is “Fight them until there is no more persecution and religion is all for Allah” (8:39), which is an open-ended declaration of war against unbelievers, and “Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are ruthless to unbelievers, merciful to one another” (48:29), which belies his claims about peace and knowledge guiding relationships between people.

Spencer lamented the futility of Catholic–Islamic dialogue, observing how “al-Tayyeb’s statement demonstrates yet again that for all too many Islamic leaders, if not all, interreligious dialogue is a vehicle for dawah, Islamic proselytizing, not genuine give-and-take.”

The scholar of Islam also compared the grand imam’s open apologia for Islam to Pope Francis’ reluctance to mention Jesus or the Bible:

He quotes copiously from the Quran, while Francis fastidiously refrains from quoting the Bible, showing once again how one-sided this “dialogue” really is: The self-abnegation and deference is all on the Christian side, while the Muslim side retains a resolute self-awareness and doesn’t move toward the other side even an inch.

“Even if he knows how deceptive al-Tayyeb is being, which he almost certainly does not, Francis wouldn’t dream of contradicting him publicly or asking him any pointed questions. He willingly and happily plays the useful idiot and dhimmi,” Spencer lamented.

Father and son killed by Houthi attack in Yemen

The National, 

October 31, 2022:

A father and son were killed when Houthi rebels shelled their house in Yemen’s government-held city of Taez, local health officials said.

Speaking to The Associated Press, one witness described seeing the man’s mangled body after the attack, which took place on Sunday.

The victim’s three children were injured and taken to hospital for treatment. One of the children’s legs was amputated and another later died.

“When the shell hit the house, we felt a shake in the neighbourhood, what can I say?” neighbour Ali Saleh told AP.

“It is something I can’t describe — the shrapnel reached inside my house. When I went out, it felt like doomsday, smoke and dust covered the whole area, it is something I can’t describe.”

Yemen’s Information Minister Moammar Eryani said six children in total were injured in two separate attacks.

“Houthi artillery shelling on the house of Sahim Al Amri in the Old Airport neighbourhood resulted in [the father’s] death and the injury of his two children, Sami and Amir, whose leg was amputated, and his brother Hashem, and a citizen was wounded by sniper bullets in Al Shaqab area,” he said.

This is a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia using the insane differences between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims as a catalyst.

Thousands protest in Mali over 'blasphemous' video

Fri, November 4, 2022 at 12:56 PM

Yahoo News

Thousands of demonstrators thronged Mali's capital Bamako on Friday to protest the publication of a video on social media deemed blasphemous against Islam.

Six people were held on Thursday accused of complicity in circulating a "blasphemous" video showing a man making "derogatory comments" and "insulting acts" against Muslims, the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed, the Bamako prosecutor's office said.

Police said the protest, called by the High Islamic Council of Mali (HCM), gathered thousands of people, although organisers estimated their numbers at more than one million.

Slogans including "No to blasphemous comments" and "no more attacks on Islam and the Prophet Mohammed" were visible on the protesters' banners.

"What happened is unforgivable. The author of the blasphemous comments must be arrested and tried," imam Abdoulaye Fadiga told AFP.

Haby Diallo, a teacher at a religious school in her 40s, said she wanted "inter-religious dialogue. Everyone should respect each other's religion".

The six people were put in pre-trial detention notably for refusing to tell authorities where the man -- who is still on the run -- was hiding, a source in the prosecutor's office told AFP.

The affair has caused uproar in Mali, where nearly 95 percent of the population is Muslim and the right to blaspheme does not exist.

The HCM -- a grouping of religious leaders and associations and Mali's highest Islamic body -- has called for the man behind the video to be "killed".

Ozzone 7-12 > I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.

 

Corruption is Everywhere > Glencore Energy Fines $315mn; Canada Sanctions Haitian Senators

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Glencore ordered to pay $315 million penalty for bribery

By Patrick Hilsman

   

Pro-union demonstrators protest against Glencore in May 2018. Glencore on Thursday was ordered by

Britain to pay $315 million in penalties for a bribery scheme. File Photo by Alexandra Wey/EPA-EFE

Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Glencore Energy U.K. Ltd. has been ordered to pay approximately $315 million in fines after an investigation by Britain's Serious Fraud Office determined the company paid $29 million in bribes to gain access to oil in Africa.

How else would you gain access to oil, or anything else, in Africa?

Justice Fraser of the Southwark Crown Court said Glencore had created a corporate culture "in which bribery was accepted as part of the West Africa desk's way of doing business."

As much as I hate corruption, I seriously doubt that Glencore 'created the corporate culture' of bribery. I suspect it predated Glencore by centuries.

"This is a significant overall total. Other companies tempted to engage in similar corruption should be aware that similar sanctions lie ahead," Fraser said of the penalty.

After launching its investigation of Glencore in 2019 the SFO uncovered a series of text messages and concealed payments implicating the London-based West Africa Desk in bribery schemes.

The investigation discovered that Glencore was using local contacts to funnel bribes, disguised as service fees and signing bonuses, to state-affiliated oil companies and ministries in Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and the Ivory Coast.

In 2015 two Glencore officials flew to South Sudan via private jet carrying $800,000 in cash bribes which had been withdrawn from the company's Swiss office under the pretext of being used to establish an office in the newly independent country.

"This has been a landmark case in U.K. anti-bribery enforcement, marking the first time since the introduction of the Bribery Act 2010 that a corporate has been convicted for the active authorization of bribery rather than purely a failure to prevent it," said Serious Fraud Office Director Lisa Osofsky.

"For years, and across the globe, Glencore pursued profits to the detriment of national governments in some of the poorest countries in the world. The company's ruthless greed and criminality have been rightfully exposed," Osofsky added.

If you think for a minute that colonial Britain and 19th century USA didn't employ similar methods and attitudes to rip off 3rd world peoples of their natural resources, you need your eyes opened.

Glencore has also been charged with bribery and market manipulation in the United States. A subsidiary has been ordered to pay $485.6 million to resolve market manipulation investigations.

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Canada sanctions two Haitian politicians suspected of enabling

'illegal activities'

Canada has announced sanctions against the President of Haiti's Senate Joseph Lambert, left,

and former senate president Youri Latortue, right. (Dieu Nalio Chery/The Associated Press)

Armed gangs have been blockading Haiti's main port since September

Darren Major · 

CBC News · 

Posted: Nov 04, 2022 2:49 PM ET |

The federal government has announced sanctions against two high-ranking Haitian politicians as the country grapples with multiple crises, including widespread civil unrest, food and fuel shortages and a resurgence of cholera.

On Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Canada would sanction the President of Haiti's Senate Joseph Lambert and former senate president Youri Latortue.

"Canada has reason to believe these individuals are using their status as previous or current public office holders to protect and enable the illegal activities of armed criminal gangs, including through money laundering and other acts of corruption," a statement from Global Affairs Canada said.

The sanctions will freeze any asset holdings the two have in Canada, the statement said.

Do they actually have any asset holdings in Canada?

Canada already has backed a UN-led effort to sanction Haitian gang leaders — including former police officer Jimmy Chérizier, also known as "Barbecue," one of Haiti's most infamous gang leaders.

Protesters walk past burning tires during a protest to reject an international military force requested by the government,

and to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, Oct. 17, 2022.

(Odelyn Joseph/Associated Press)

Armed gangs have been blockading Haiti's main port since September following a move by Ariel Henry, Haiti's unelected prime minister, to cut fuel subsidies. 

Gang violence has killed hundreds of civilians.

The country has been effectively leaderless for more than 15 months after the last president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated.

After overpowering an understaffed and under-resourced police department, the gangs have gone so far as to request seats in the governing cabinet, demanding that Henry's government grant amnesty and void arrest warrants against their members.

"Canada will not remain idle while gangs and those who support them terrorize Haiti's citizens," Joly said in Friday's statement.

Haiti's current leaders have called for foreign support to restore a semblance of stability to the chaotic country, and Henry has said he wants a "specialized armed force" to assist Haitian police in countering anti-government gangs.

Earlier this month, Canada delivered armoured and tactical vehicles to Port-au-Prince in an effort to support Haitian police locked in a conflict with armed gangs.

Last week, Joly met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Ottawa. Both committed to doing more for the embattled island nation.

Beyond sanctions, it's not clear what the two countries have planned — but it could include some sort of intervention by police and military personnel.

The U.S. and its allies are assembling a coalition of willing nations to provide "contributions of personnel and equipment for a potential mission," Blinken said last week.

Blinken said any such intervention would be "very limited in scope, limited in time" and focused on propping up the Haitian national police, a body that has struggled to keep criminal gangs at bay in recent months.

According to the United Nations, nearly half of Haiti's 11 million people face acute hunger and 1.8 million are at risk of a food emergency. In Cité Soleil, a sprawling slum in the capital of Port-au-Prince, roughly 19,000 people face a food "catastrophe," the UN said.

Islam - Current Day > 3 Cops injured on Temple Mount - Terrorist Neutralized; Halloween Riots in Austria

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Terror Attack at Temple Mount, Visitors Evacuated

Three people wounded in stabbing attack at entrance to the Temple Mount,

terrorist eliminated.

By World Israel News Staff

At least three police officers were wounded in a terrorist stabbing attack at an entrance to the Temple Mount Thursday morning.

The attack occurred adjacent to the Iron Gate, near the Muslim Quarter on the western side of the holy site.

According to initial reports, an Israeli police officer, roughly 40 years of age, was wounded in the attack. He is currently listed in light-to-moderate condition.

Two more officers, approximately 30 and 25 years of age respectively, were also wounded in the attack. Both are reportedly in light-to-moderate condition as well.

Police officers at the scene shot and eliminated the terrorist.

Authorities have identified the terrorist as a 20-year-old Arab resident of the Beit Hanina neighborhood in northeastern Jerusalem.

MDA and United Hatzalah emergency first responders were called to the scene, treating the victim before evacuating him to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the capital.

“I provided assistance to two lightly wounded people who were fully conscious,” said Yechiel Stern, a paramedic from United Hatzalah.

“After that, they were directed to continue receiving medical treatment at the hospital.”

Following the attack, police evacuated Jewish visitors from the Temple Mount.

Asylum violence: Minister of the Interior, we want to see the deportations TODAY! 

translated from “Asyl-Gewalt: Herr Innenminister, wir wollen noch HEUTE die Abschiebungen sehen!,” 

by Richard Schmitt, Exxpress, 

November 2, 2022

On the social media channel TikTok, they called for “re-enactments” of the massive race riots in Paris suburbs, they attacked and injured police officers, and frightened the residents of the inner cities of Linz and Salzburg – and they yelled “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”) [actually, “Allah is greater” — ed.], the battle cry of the Islamists: The dramatic images of the riots of the violent 200 to 300 migrants from Syria and Afghanistan shocked the Austrian population, the eXXpress reported.

“The right of hospitality is being abused” or “Soon they will also set fire to our houses” and “Tolerance must no longer be shown here” wrote worried citizens in the comment forums, while the well-known Austrian asylum lobby attracted attention with its loud silence. Only Michael Landau, the president of Caritas, shared at least one article about the migrant riots on Twitter, albeit without comment.

Austrians finally want to see action

According to “Krone”, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) announced that the Syrians and Afghans involved in the riots would lose their asylum status and be deported. And: “The crimes of the past night are an expression of a deeply anti-democratic attitude towards our constitutional values ​​and attitudes,” the interior minister condemned the riots on Monday evening. He commissioned state police commander Andreas Pilsl and the Linz city police commander to hold a security summit with the mayor. This is also confirmed by State Police Director Andreas Pilsl.

However, many Austrians no longer believe these announcements of deportations. An eXXpress reader wrote in the forum: “We want to see the pictures of the deportation today!” With 23,000 police officers on duty in Austria, it should perhaps also be possible to arrest the 30 ringleaders of the asylum riots within a few hours and fly them to Syria in an army transport plane. These pictures should then also be shown on TikTok. For days and over and over again.

Bits and Bites from around the World > Alcohol taskforce cop gets drunk shoots another cop; 5 Lions slip away from Zoo Containment

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'Alcohol taskforce' cop gets drunk in Swiss police station

and shoots colleague in the foot

By TOM SCOTSON FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 14:11 EDT, 31 October 2022 |

An alcohol taskforce cop got drunk in a Swiss police station and shot a colleague in the foot, authorities said on Monday. 

The intoxicated officer fired his gun seven times inside the taskforce office's last Friday, a spokesman for the Geneva judiciary confirmed. 

Five of the man's colleagues were there including 'one who was hit in the foot and had to undergo surgery,' he said.

The intoxicated officer fired his gun seven times inside the taskforce office's last Friday, a spokesman for the Geneva judiciary confirmed (file image of Swiss policemen on a Geneva Street)

The officer was questioned by Geneva's top prosecutor and stands accused of endangerment and causing bodily harm through negligence.

He has also been accused of resisting efforts to establish his 'capacity to drive'.

The authorities, who did not provide details on what the man's blood-alcohol level had been at the time, said the investigation was ongoing.

Methinks the fool will be reassigned to a different unit!

Five lions escape enclosure at Australian zoo, sparking emergency

By Darryl Coote

   

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Officials at an Australian zoo have launched an investigation after five lions momentarily escaped their enclosure Wednesday, sparking an emergency situation.

The incident occurred Wednesday morning at the Taronga Zoo, located along the shores of Sydney harbor.

Park officials said that one adult lion and four cubs were found outside their main exhibit at about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The lions were spotted in an area adjacent to their main exhibit and separated from the rest of the zoo by a six-foot containment fence, whose purpose is to keep the public back from the lion exhibit.

The zoo enacted an emergency response within 10 minutes of the lions exiting its enclosure, officials said.

Simon Duffy, executive director of the Taronga Zoo, told reporters during a press conference that all people on site when the incident occurred were moved to so-called designated safe zones.

"This is a significant incident. A full review is now underway to confirm exactly how the lions were able to exit their main exhibit," he said.

Four of the lions returned to their enclosure on their own, requiring zoo staff to only tranquilize one of the cubs, he said.

"All animals are now safe in their back-of-house exhibit and are being closely monitored," he added, stating the emergency lasted less than 10 minutes.

In a 5 p.m. update, the zoo said an initial review confirmed that the lions exited their enclosure due to an "integrity issue" with a containment fence.

"A full report will now be prepared for the [New South Wales] Department of Primary Industries," it said.

Islam - This Day in History > A Reality Check on Islamic History with Raymond Ibrahim

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The Deleted History of Islam: Interview with Raymond Ibrahim

The following Q&A was conducted by Davide Cavaliere for the Italian website L’informale:

Born and raised in the U.S. to Egyptian parents who lived in the Middle East, Raymond Ibrahim is an author and a highly regarded lecturer specializing in the Middle East and Islam. Currently a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Friedman Rosen Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Along with Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer and Bruce Bawer, he is one of the freest voices on Islamic history.

Italian publishers are disinclined to translate and publish books critical of Islam. You recently published Defenders of the West. Can you expose to our readers the content of the text?

Yes, it’s a follow-up to my previous book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.  Whereas that book focused on eight decisive battles between Islam and Europe that shaped the course of history, Defenders of the West focuses on eight decisive men. It looks at that same long war between Islam and Europe, but through the lens and lives of these eight warriors, whose lives and exploits are more dramatic than most fiction movies can capture. Ironically, whereas all eight of these men were once heralded as great exemplars and heroes, most of them are today either completely unknown, or else vilified, and their defensive wars against Islam presented as intolerant or unprovoked attacks by “Islamophobes” and xenophobes who were incapable of “celebrating diversity.”  I should add that I managed to delve into several arcane and little known sources, in different languages, to offer the most accurate and riveting account of their struggles against the jihad.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made Europe more dependent on Turkey, Azerbaijan, Algeria and the Muslim countries of the Caspian Sea. In the future, how will these Muslim nations exploit our dependence on their energy resources?

Well, if history is any indicator, these Muslim nations will exploit our dependence on their energy resources in a manner that bolsters Islam, including on the world community. For example, Saudi petrodollars are well-known to fund and disseminate the most radical form of Islamic teaching in mosques and madrasas all throughout the world, including if not especially in the West—so-called “Wahhabism” (which is really another way of saying literal and purist Islam).  Furthermore, trying to strengthen Islam and weaken Infidels is a Muslim imperative, one which can be achieved in many ways, jihad only being the most famous.  In this scenario, Muslims will use the infidels’ own money and dependence on Muslim resources to radicalize fellow Muslims against the West.

Muslims have conquered and subjugated vast territories all over the world, from Europe to Asia to Africa. How is it possible that a warrior and slave-holding civilization is, now, considered a “victim” of supposed Western oppression?

Yes, it’s quite the amazing turn of events, no? The reason such a topsy-turvy history has managed to prevail is twofold: First, the bulk of the real historical interaction between Islam in the West—centuries’ worth of war, conquest, bloodshed, and mass slavery—has been suppressed; here I am discussing the ongoing, violent, jihadist onslaught perpetrated by Muslim caliphates, sultanate, emirates, from a variety of nations, including Arabs, Berbers, Turks, and Tatars. As discussed in both books, Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar, for well over a thousand years, these diverse peoples, operating under a distinctly Islamic logic—the sort championed by ISIS, the sort we were told has “nothing to do with Islam”—waged a relentless jihad on every corner of Europe, going as far as Iceland in their slave raids. Moreover, in the early centuries of Islam, three-quarters of the original Christian world—including all of North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia Minor (now known as Turkey)—were violently annexed from the Christian world, even though these regions represented the older and more developed regions of Christianity. Unfortunately, few people in the West know this; they seem to think that the Middle East and North Africa was always Islamic. But not only has this history been completely suppressed; in its place, whatever anecdotes can be found to demonize Europeans and present Muslims as victims have been stripped out of context, exaggerated, and widely disseminated.

Is this what occurred with the Crusades?

The Crusades are a perfect example. If you speak to any Western person and ask them when did conflicts begin between Muslims and Europeans, they will invariably say the Crusades.  In so doing, they expose their ignorance that, in fact, the Crusades were really a drop in the bucket of the totality of warfare between Islam and the West over the course of more than one millennium; and during all of those wars—including the United States of America’s first war as a nation, with “Barbary”—it was the Muslims who were the aggressors. Why else was Islam in Spain, or the Balkans, or Russia, for centuries? Finally, when the “mainstream” talks about the historical interaction between the West and Islam, they invariably begin with the colonial era, that is to say, they begin during that brief time span when the West finally became militarily superior to Islam, and therefore can be positioned as the aggressor.  Ironically, and in reality, even the early European colonizers were operating within the context of the nonstop, long war between Islam and themselves; in other words, they were trying to reform or at the very least defang the Muslim world.

The recent stabbing of Salman Rushdie shows that Islam has a “long memory” regarding the “offenses” of which it considers itself a victim; in contrast, Westerners quickly forget terrorist attacks and Islamic violence. To what do we owe this difference in memory?

Good question. I think much of it revolves around how Muslims and Westerners have been conditioned. Muslims, I would say, have a natural or normal kind of memory, one that places and interprets events in the context of their history.  Western people, on the other hand, are habituated by the so-called “news,” to think and care only about what is “new”—even though, of course, nothing is really ever new—before passing onto the next thing that the “news” is abuzz with and forgetting the former.

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