House of Commons Prayer Could be in Violation of Charter

Canada's House of Commons prayer under attack

It was inevitable after the Supreme Court ruled Saguenay City Council's Catholic prayer was inappropriate, that godless twits would go after prayer in the House.

Speaker Andrew Scheer reads prayer in House

CBC News 
A House of Commons prayer that begins with "Almighty God" is under scrutiny following the Supreme Court decision that a municipal council in Quebec cannot open meetings with a Catholic prayer.

The prayer is read by the Speaker of the House ahead of each sitting before the doors are opened to the public. Parliament's website says that the Speaker, MPs and table officers must stand during the prayer, which is followed by a moment of silence.

Though usually a closed-door affair, the prayer was televised on Oct. 23, 2014 — the day after the shooting at the National War Memorial and inside Parliament's Centre Block.

The prayer reads:

Almighty God, we give thanks for the great blessings which have been bestowed on Canada and its citizens, including the gifts of freedom, opportunity and peace that we enjoy. We pray for our sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, and the Governor General. Guide us in our deliberations as members of Parliament, and strengthen us in our awareness of our duties and responsibilities as members. Grant us wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to preserve the blessings of this country for the benefit of all and to make good laws and wise decisions. Amen.

Opposition House leader Peter Julian is looking into whether the decision applies in the House of Commons, which is protected by parliamentary privilege, said NDP Leader Tom Mulcair.

"If there a place where we need to show we fully respect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it's here in Parliament," he said.

The prayer has been part of the daily House proceedings since 1877 and was codified in standing orders in 1927, said Heather Bradley, director of communications for the office of the Speaker.

Speaker Andrew Scheer "has no intention of changing this," but standing orders can be amended by the House, Bradley said.

'It's a moment of solemn reflection'   

Justice Minister Peter MacKay said he believes the prayer is "as inclusive as possible." But he said the prayer could be reviewed by the Board of Internal Economy, which is the governing body of the House of Commons.

"I'm personally comfortable with the way it is. The wording, the presentation, is done in such a way that it is to recognize all faiths. And even if a person is agnostic, it calls for a moment of silence and contemplation," he said.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said he is pleased that there are discussions underway about whether or not the prayer should be changed.

"It's important to respect the Supreme Court's ruling and to defend the rights of individuals," he said. "I hope — and I am certain — that we will be able to find a way to proceed. For me, like many others, it's a moment of solemn reflection."

It was Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre, who pushed through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It's a good charter, although it was obvious from the start that freedom of religion would eventually suffer for it. It was Pierre who put the law above God and it may be his son who kicks God out of Parliament. If you think kicking God around like that will be without consequences, you have a rude awakening coming. What happens when God removes His protection from a country? I don't know, but I think we will find out, and I don't think it will be pretty.

Mulcair said that he enjoyed the moment of silence observed in Quebec's National Assembly. And that's all that's important - whether or not you enjoy that moment. Tsk.

"It's a solemn moment at the beginning of each session. Those who want to pray are free to pray, but it's not imposed," he said.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson replaced the prayer at the beginning of city council meetings with a moment of reflection after the Supreme Court ruled the state must remain neutral in matters of religion on April 15. Wimp!

Surprise! Russia is up to Something in the Ukraine, Again

The US has accused Russia of deploying more air defence systems in eastern Ukraine in breach of a ceasefire deal.

Pro-Russian rebels, Ukraine

The state department also said Russia was involved in training separatist forces in the area and building up its forces along the border.

The Kremlin has not yet responded to the claims.

A truce between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels in east Ukraine was brokered by the West in Minsk in February.

Ukraine accuses Russia of arming the rebels and sending Russian troops over the border - a claim Moscow denies. Moscow denies everything, so what's the point of even asking?

State department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement that "combined Russian-separatist forces" were violating the terms of the Minsk deal, keeping artillery and multiple rocket launchers in prohibited areas.

"The Russian military has deployed additional air defence systems into eastern Ukraine and moved several of these nearer the front lines," she said.

'Complex training'
"This is the highest amount of Russian air defence equipment in eastern Ukraine since August."

Ms Harf said the "increasingly complex nature" of training of pro-Russian forces in east Ukraine "leaves no doubt that Russia is involved".

"Russia is also building up its forces along its border with Ukraine," she said.

"After maintaining a relatively steady presence along the border, Russia is sending additional units there. These forces will give Russia its largest presence on the border since October 2014."

Earlier this month, about 300 US paratroopers arrived in western Ukraine to train with Ukrainian national guard units.

At the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned the move "could seriously destabilise" the situation in Ukraine.

One of the key points of the Minsk deal stipulates that all foreign armed groups, weapons and mercenaries should withdraw from Ukrainian territory.

The UN says at least 6,116 people have been killed since the fighting began in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions last April - a month after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.

Despite the ceasefire deal, sporadic exchanges of fire have taken place.

Small Kurdish Girl Pictured Firing a Huge Machine Gun

What is the world coming to when even the 'good guys' teach their little children to kill? If there are any 'good guys'?

BBC Trending
Does a video of a Kurdish girl firing a machine gun mean that those fighting Islamic State are now mimicking their propaganda techniques?

The girl looks about six or seven years old. She chats away with an off-camera adult, possibly her father, who asks her how many Islamic State fighters she has killed. "Four hundred!" she says, speaking in a Kurdish dialect local to Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq.

'Four hundred", she's hardly old enough to count to 400.

Then the little girl leans over a machine gun bigger than she is, and using both hands, she fires away into the distance. As the shots echo across the desert, the man behind the camera eggs her on: "Kill! Kill!"

The striking footage appears to have first surfaced in mid-January on a Facebook page devoted to pro-Kurdish videos, and shortly thereafter it cropped up on a YouTube channel called "Kurdish YPG". The YPG, or People's Protection Units, are the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party in Syria.

The Kurdish YPG channel includes several other films glorifying the famous female Kurdish fighting battalions, alongside films about cooking potatoes and other random subjects. The channel also includes reports ripped straight from news organisations - here's a link to the original version of one of the news reports featured on the channel, a BBC video about Kurdish female warriors.

It's unclear how popular the video of the girl was until the social news site Vocativ reported on it a week ago - but since then other news outlets have picked up the story and various versions have clocked up hundreds of thousands of views in total.

The Islamic State militants who control huge areas in Syria and Iraq have increasingly been using children in propaganda videos. So does the video of the girl herald a new propaganda tactic on the part of Kurdish militias who are fighting IS?

It's unlikely, according to media analyst Hiwa Osman. "I think this is an isolated incident," he told BBC Trending via phone from the Iraqi city of Irbil. "I haven't seen other videos such as this - the most militarised pictures I've seen are of children dressing in the clothes of the Peshmerga [Iraqi Kurdistan fighters] for celebrations."

Osman added that Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq have gone out of their way to avoid mimicking the techniques of Islamic State. "After a failed [IS] attack in Kirkuk, one of the militants fell into the hands of the public, and the people who captured him were angry, and they beheaded him. The military leaders and the political leaders in the area came out strongly against the beheading. They don't want to be seen to be using the tactics of ISIS."

It's also clear that the girl isn't actually shooting at IS troops, says British-Kurdish blogger Ruwayda Mustafah. There are no other fighters or any other people pictured in the video, and the girl and the man behind the camera don't appear to be in any danger.

"I've seen the footage on several Facebook pages in Kurdish. Most people are outraged at the prospect of a young girl 'shooting'" Mustafah says. "But it's obvious from the video that this is just sensationalist and not factual ... the girl in the video hasn't really killed 400 ISIS terrorists."

Messages to the Facebook account that initially posted the video went unanswered, but Trending did manage to speak to the man behind the YouTube channel. The man, who (somewhat oddly) lives in Gaza, says he has no Kurdish family connection - he says he simply admires the Kurdish fighters and also runs websites and blogs devoted to the Russian Army and other fighting forces.

Backlash From the Brutal Murder and Burning of Afghan Woman

Islam's invisible women pray invisible prayers at Afghan shrine

The savage lynching of an Afghan woman who railed openly against superstitious practices has stoked public anger over the treatment of women but also ignited revulsion against Kabul's ubiquitous shamans, forcing them to go underground.

Last month a furious mob turned on Farkhunda, 27, beating her in broad daylight and setting her body ablaze on the banks of the Kabul River after an amulet seller, whom she had castigated, falsely accused her of blasphemy.

Demonstrators rally in front of the Kabul supreme court on March 24, 2015,
to protest against the savage lynching of Afghan woman Farkhunda

Her killing, which triggered protests around Afghanistan and several world cities, drew global attention to the treatment of Afghan women, while her funeral procession saw female pallbearers bucking tradition to carry her casket.

Women carry the coffin bearing the body of Farkhunda,
who was savagely lynched by an angry mob on the banks of the Kabul River,
in central Kabul on March 22, 2015

But the "Justice for Farkhunda" movement, as it is known, is not about women's rights alone.

"Down with ignorance" has been a familiar chant at protests denouncing her killing, which has prompted public sentiment to turn against Kabul's "healers" peddling amulets, talismans and good luck charms.

"Not every man who wears a turban is a religious scholar," Daiulhaq Abid, Afghanistan's deputy minister for religious affairs, told reporters.

Of course, there is far more at play here beside women's rights - I don't see that as an issue in Farkhunda's murder; or superstition. The real issue seems to have been overlooked, and that is the instant madness that came upon the crowd at the mere suggestion that someone burned the Quran. It takes a very small spark to cause Islamic insanity to explode into a massive eruption.  That is the issue that western liberal governments fail to understand in relation to their immigration policies.

Abid said his investigation revealed that the amulet seller falsely accused Farkhunda -- a graduate in Islamic studies -- of burning the Koran as her anti-superstition advocacy had been driving away his customers.

Many of Kabul's divine healers went underground even before Abid's ministry launched an unprecedented crackdown in the wake of Farkhunda's killing, shutting down their shops and evicting them from roadside markets.

Padlocked stores and vacant roadside stalls have become a familiar sight in the meandering and congested lanes of Murad Khani in Kabul's Old City, one of several hubs where spiritual healers have thrived for decades.

The backlash highlights the angst of a post-Taliban generation in Afghanistan -- where nearly two-thirds of the population is under 25 -- that is often torn between conservatism and modernity as the country rebuilds itself after decades of war.

"Farkhunda's death brought a revolution," women's rights activist Belqis Osmani told AFP.

"It shocked everyone, awakened everyone. It warned the traditional-minded people that a new generation is emerging -- a generation that is more educated and open-minded. They are more liberal and they don't fall for tricks of fake mullahs," she said.

- 'Exploiting ignorance' -
Ahmad Jawad, a 37-year-old Kabul resident, said the "Justice for Farkhunda" movement marked a rare battle in Afghanistan against pervasive ignorance.

"I once went to a traditional healer because I was in love with my cousin and wanted to marry her. He gave me some perfume and paper amulets. He instructed me to sprinkle perfume on the amulets and burn them," he told AFP.

"I did that for a week and everyone around me got a headache because of the bad smell. I couldn't marry my cousin in the end, and realised that my ignorance had been exploited for a charlatan's monetary gain."

But the backlash seems to be limited to urban centres such as Kabul. Just a two-hour drive outside the capital, in the village of Shakar Dara, it is business as usual.

An Afghan religious healer (R) writes amulets for his clients at his home
 in the Surkh Rood district of Nangarhar province

Baba Sahib, in his 60s, sat at the edge of a shrine, surrounded by stacks of amulets, charts with Arabic verses and photocopies of what he called "talismans for all problems".

Traditional healers are much-revered in the deeply conservative countryside, where illiteracy remains rampant.

Several decades of war have destroyed infrastructure in Afghanistan, with rural denizens having little or no access to conventional health services.

Many are forced to rely on healers for a variety of problems -- from debilitating maladies and infertility to finding stolen items and uniting lost lovers. Frequently help is sought despite warnings by religious clerics that such practices are at odds with Islamic doctrines.

Since the 2001 US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban government, the United States and other foreign donors have invested millions of dollars in Afghanistan's public health system.

But most government hospitals are still bedevilled by poor quality of care, scarcity of equipment and pervasive corruption.

As the midday sun rose, a trickle of village clients called on Baba Sahib to seek remedies for health ailments, relationship issues and to ward off "evil spirits".

For a turbaned village elder who complained about a severe headache, he offered the same paper amulet he offered to another client worrying about memory loss.

"Wrap it in a white cloth and then in a red cloth, and then tuck it into your turban. Your headache will go away," Baba Sahib said.

The elder kissed the amulet and turned back, looking hopeful.

Denver Teacher’s Third Grade Assignment Goes Viral Online

Similar messages and pictures came pouring in from other schools worldwide

Gulf News
REUTERS

Denver: A Colorado teacher who posted notes from her third grade class online and started a social media whirlwind under the hashtag #IWishMyTeacherKnew said the assignment had been a revelation for her.

Kyle Schwartz, 26, asked the eight- and nine-year-olds at her Denver inner city school to write down something they wished she knew about them, partly as a writing exercise, and partly as a way for her to learn about her pupils.

Responses included “I don’t have pencils at home to do my homework,” and “I want to go to college,” to one tear-jerker from a girl who said she had no friends to play with at recess.

When the teacher shared photographs of some of the notes on Twitter, similar messages and pictures came pouring in from other schools worldwide.

Schwartz, a self-described suburban girl who has taught at southwest Denver’s Doull Elementary for three years, said she has conducted the exercise each year, in part because she wanted to underline the issue of poverty in US inner cities.

About 90 per cent of Doull’s 532 students are Hispanic, and 46 per cent are classed as English language learners.

Schwartz said one message that garnered a lot of sympathy online, from a girl who said she missed her father after he was deported to Mexico several years ago, was particularly revealing.

“That student comes to school each day with a smile on her face,” the teacher said, adding that she would not have known what the girl was going through if not for the handwritten note.

She said the pupils were told they could write anonymously if they wished, but that most were happy to add their names and to share their messages with classmates.

One widely commented upon note was from a girl who said she had no friends to play with during break time.

Schwartz said that message had been “heartbreaking,” but that she was gladdened to see how the other pupils rallied to support the child who wrote it.

“The next day at recess, all the girls huddled around her and played tag,” Schwartz said.

“A lot of what we’re teaching is how to be a good friend. My students’ emotional needs are just as important as their academic needs.”

FBI Director Accuses Poland and Hungary of Helping With the Holocaust

FBI director's article stirred up a strong reaction. One reaction by a Washington Post columnist and the wife of the Speaker of the Polish Parliament, Anne Applebaum, follows this brief article.

FBI director James Comey

Poland has summoned the US ambassador and demanded an apology over comments on the Holocaust by FBI director James Comey.

The foreign ministry said Mr Comey had suggested in a Washington Post article that some Poles were accomplices.

That's not actually correct. What he said, (below in blue) was that there were murderers and accomplices of Germany, Poland and Hungary. Consequently, he's accusing Poland and Hungary of being as guilty as Germany. What do you think? Does the Director need history lessons or English lessons?

After the summons US envoy Stephen Mull said he made it clear the US believed "Nazi Germany alone" was responsible.

Six million Polish citizens were killed by the Nazis during World War Two, half of them Jewish.
'Falsification of history'

In the Washington Post article on Thursday, aimed at raising education about the Holocaust, Mr Comey wrote: "In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil.

"They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do."

The words sparked a storm of protest in Poland.

President Bronislaw Komorowski told Polish television the comments were an "insult to thousands of Poles who helped Jews".

Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said: "To those who are incapable of presenting the historic truth in an honest way, I want to say that Poland was not a perpetrator but a victim of World War Two. I would expect full historical knowledge from officials who speak on the matter."

Ambassador Mull, who on Sunday attended ceremonies marking the 72nd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis, said in a statement he had written to Mr Comey "protesting the falsification of history, especially... accusing Poles of perpetuating crimes which not only they did not commit, but which they themselves were victims of."

After Sunday's summons he added: "I made clear that the opinion that Poland is in any way responsible for the Holocaust is not the position of the United States.

"Nazi Germany alone bears responsibility. I now have a lot of work before me to make things right in this situation."

Anne Applebaum
Washington Post

Response 
Anne Applebaum
Washington Post
The Polish ambassador to Washington has protested, the Polish president has protested, the speaker of the Polish parliament (to whom I am married) has protested — and the U.S. ambassador to Warsaw has apologized profusely. Why? Because James Comey, the director of the FBI, in a speech that was reprinted in The Post arguing for more Holocaust education, demonstrated just how badly he needs it himself.

In two poorly worded sentences, he sounded to Polish readers as if he were repeating the World War II myth that most drives them crazy: Namely, that somehow, those who lived in occupied Eastern Europe shared full responsibility for a German policy. Comey put it like this:

“In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do.”

There are a number of problems with that pair of weak sentences, starting with the vast difference between Germany and the rest. During the war, Germany had a state policy of exterminating the Jews. This policy involved not “accomplices” but hundreds of bureaucrats, tens of thousands of soldiers, train schedules and plans. Germany also encouraged the creation of collaborationist governments in other countries – Vichy France, for example – some of which used their own police officers to send their Jewish citizens into the German death camps.

Germany also occupied Poland, but there was no Polish “Vichy.” During the war, there was no Polish state at all. Indeed, it was the absence of the Polish state that enabled the Germans to create a lawless, violent world, one in which anyone could be arbitrarily murdered, any Jew could be deported — and any Pole who helped a Jew could be shot instantly, along with his entire family. Many were. Millions of others died too – Polish intellectuals, priests and politicians were all Nazi targets.

In the course of the war, most of Poland’s infrastructure, industry and architecture were destroyed. In that atmosphere, many people were frightened by or indifferent to the fate of the Jews, and some murdered in order to avoid being murdered. But that doesn’t mean that “in their minds” they “didn’t do something evil.”

Although the circumstances were different, Germany’s leading role is equally clear in Hungary. The wartime government of Adm. Miklós Horthy did pass anti-Semitic legislation and did align itself with the Nazis. But the mass murder and deportation of the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz began only in March 1944, when that government dissolved and was replaced with a straightforward German occupation. Once the Hungarian state had been dissolved, in other words, Hungary also became a lawless, violent zone where anything was possible.

So no, it is not true, as Comey made it sound, that “murderers and accomplices” in Germany, Poland and Hungary and lots of other places were somehow responsible for the Holocaust. And no, it isn’t true that the Holocaust is a story of so many otherwise “good” people who “convinced themselves it was the right thing to do.”

On the contrary, it’s a story about the power of fear, the danger of lawlessness and the horror that was made possible by a specific form of German state terror in the years between 1939 and 1945 – a terror that convinced many people to do things that they knew were terribly, terribly wrong. If the FBI director wants to take some lessons from Washington’s excellent Holocaust museum, that’s very admirable. But first he should make sure he’s understood what he’s seen.

Anne Applebaum writes a biweekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. She is also the Director of the Global Transitions Program at the Legatum Institute in London.

ISIS Slaughters More Christians as They Grow in Territory

ISIS expanding in Anbar Province, Iraq

CBC
A video released by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on Sunday appears to show the killing of two different groups of captured Ethiopian Christians by the militants' Libyan affiliates.

The 29-minute online video purports to show militants holding two groups of captives. It says one group is held by an ISIS affiliate in eastern Libya known as Barka Province and the other by an affiliate in the south calling itself the Fazzan Province.

A masked fighter brandishing a pistol delivers a long statement, saying Christians must convert to Islam or pay a special tax prescribed by the Qur'an.

The video then switches between footage of the captives in the south being shot dead and the captives in the east being beheaded on a beach.

It was not immediately clear who the captives were or when they were captured. It was also not clear how many captives were killed. The SITE Intelligence Group said it had images taken from the video.

The video bore the official logo of the ISIS media arm al-Furqan and resembled previous videos released by the extremist group, including one in February in which ISIS militants in Libya beheaded 21 captured Egyptian Christians on a beach.

ISIS has been able to gain a foothold amid the chaos in Libya, where two governments backed by rival alliances of militias are battling each other as well as extremist groups.

Apparently, ISIS has gained 2 footholds in Lybia. And if al-Furqan is involved in filming both groups, then the relationship with ISIS is more than just nominal, it's very real.

The Islamic State group is also advancing in Iraq, where the extremists captured three villages near the city of Ramadi in the western Anbar province and were locked in heavy clashes with Iraqi troops.

More than 90,000 people have fled the extremist group's advance in Anbar, a United Nations humanitarian agency said Sunday.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement that civilians are fleeing Ramadi as well as the three nearby villages captured by ISIS militants a few days ago. It said humanitarian agencies have moved quickly to provide assistance, including food, water and shelter.

Mideast Egypt Libya

The beheading of 21 Coptic Christian men by ISIS in Libya
earlier in the year caused outrage in neighbouring Egypt
(Hassan Ammar/Associated Press)

"Our top priority is delivering life-saving assistance to people who are fleeing — food, water and shelter are highest on the list of priorities," said Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq.

Grande expressed concern over the safety of the displaced people, who are mainly heading to Baghdad and the IS-held city of Fallujah.

"Seeing people carrying what little they can and rushing for safety is heart-breaking," she added.

Iraqi officials in Anbar have described Ramadi as a ghost town, with empty streets and closed shops.

Iraqi troops backed by Shiite militias and U.S.-led airstrikes managed to dislodge the IS group from the northern city of Tikrit earlier this month.

But the troops have struggled against the militants in Anbar, which saw some of the heaviest fighting of the eight-year U.S. military intervention that ended in 2011.