2,000 Teens Radicalized by ISIS in France – Report

© Ali Hashisho / Reuters

Around 2,000 teenagers have been radicalized by the Islamic State propaganda in France, a security source told Le Figaro newspaper, adding that the number of girls embracing jihadist ideology is on the rise.

Since the start of the year security force have identified 1,954 young men and women as Islamic State terrorist organization sympathizers, Le Figaro newspaper reported.

An unnamed high-raked security service official told the paper that the levels of radicalization among teens in the country have increased by 121 percent compared to January 2015.

17 French youths have been killed as they fought for the jihadists in Syria and Iraq, the source added.

According to the official, 37 teens have been recently indicted in the country on charges related to extremism and terrorism.

Another trend that worries the authorities is the increasing number of teenage girls sympathizing with the Islamic State terrorists, he said.

The jihadists are looking for youths with psychological problems, who experience difficulties at school or go through their parents’ divorce, the source stressed.

Of course they are, because you have to be psychologically  impaired to embrace that lunatic ideology, or Islam for that matter.

“I came to the absolute conviction that it is impossible…

impossible…for any human being to read the biography

of Mohammed and believe in it, and then emerge 

a psychologically and mentally healthy person.” 

- Syrian Psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan

Special recruiting techniques, employed by IS, make those young men and women an easy target for the radicals, he added.

BFMTV broadcaster reported that only in the first week of September four teens were arrested in France for establishing contacts with Islamic State.

They were all recruited by Rashid Kassim, a 29-year-old Frenchman, who contacted teens through social media and encouraged them to stage terror attacks.

Why is he still alive?

Earlier this week, French Interior Minister, French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said that the terrorist threat in the country is higher than ever before.

The minister added that 300 people have been arrested in France for links to terrorist activity since the beginning of the year.

Washington State School Districts to Allow 'After-School Satan' Clubs

Allow ‘After-School Satan’ programs or

face costly lawsuits, school told

A lawyer hired by a school district in Washington state has advised education officials that The Satanic Temple must be allowed to hold ‘After-School Satan’ programs.

Attorney Duncan Fobes told Mount Vernon School District that it could face costly litigation, which it would likely lose, if it prevented the The Satanic Temple from holding after-school programs for children at its facilities, the Skagit Valley Herald has reported.

The Temple announced its intention to hold the clubs earlier this year in response to a Supreme Court ruling allowing evangelical religious programs to operate in schools.

Nine clubs, including one in Mount Vernon, have been set up around the US and the Temple said they are specifically targeting schools which host a Good News Bible Club. The interdenominational Christian program operates in more than 3,500 public schools across the US.

Satanic Temple of Seattle spokesperson Tarkus Claypool said a parent brought the Bible club to its attention over concerns the club was teaching children to evangelize to other children, KOMO reports.

One of The Satanic Temple’s founders, Lucien Greaves, said the after-school clubs try to bring diversity to the religious opinions children are exposed to in school. He claimed the Good News Club instills children “with a fear of Hell and God’s wrath.”

That, I'm sure, is an extremely myopic view of what the clubs teach, although I can see it being particularly concerning to Mr Greaves.

The religious freedom campaign group says it does not believe in or worship Satan but instead views him as a metaphor for rebellion and rational inquiry. The group recently made headlines for establishing their headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts, the town famous for the colonial era witch trials.

However, at a Mount Vernon School Board meeting this week, concerned parents spoke out against the Temple's application for an after-school club.

Mike Cheek, who has grandchildren in the district, said, "This is going to be infectious and widespread… I know that if there is anything to do with Satan, it is dark and it is evil."

The district cannot ban the club from school property unless it uses hate speech, incites violence or includes pornography.

Board President Rob Coffey said the district’s hands are tied. "We must make our facilities available... We must make them available whether we like the group or not. There really is no opportunity for us to say no to the Satanic Temple or the After School Satan Club.”

Child Crisis in Calais

Child refugees in Calais ‘Jungle’ are

‘giving up’ on reaching Britain

A young migrant pulls a trolley in a muddy field at a camp of makeshift shelters for migrants and asylum-seekers from Iraq, Kurdistan, Iran and Syria, called the Grande Synthe jungle, near Calais, France. © Yves Herman / Reuters

Dozens of unaccompanied refugee children stranded in the French port town of Calais are giving up on ever reaching Britain, despite severe shortages of shelter and aid in the makeshift camp.

According to the largest charity helping refugee children in the region, France Terre d’Asile, up to 35 unescorted minors have been turned away every day for the past three months because there are no beds for them in the emergency shelters.

And since July, almost 95 percent of children who have come to the charity’s accommodation in the town of Saint Omer, a half-hour drive from Calais, seem to want to stay in France rather than travel onwards to the UK. Last year, only 15 percent of the roughly 1,500 registered refugee children traveling unaccompanied said the same.

“We do feel powerless,” the shelter’s director, Jean-Francois Roger, told the Guardian.

“It is very hard psychologically for my colleagues who have to turn them away. It is difficult to explain to them why there are no places.

“It will be worse when it gets colder, when there is water up to your knees in the camp.”

Every time a child is sent away France Terre d’Asile calls in the social services, but they too are stretched to breaking point. Many end up sleeping in tents back at the camp.

Roger and his colleagues have been demanding more emergency beds from local authorities, but the political situation in France is not seen as being sympathetic towards refugees. The far-right Front National has an ever-bigger influence in the area.

“A few things have happened that have persuaded children to stay,” Roger told the Guardian.

“Since July, and the Brexit vote, the migrants are wondering what will happen to them if they turn up in Britain. We are not sure it is connected to Brexit, but there is a fear of what kind of welcome foreigners will have there now.”

In previous years, most of the children staying with Roger’s organization would return to Calais after a five-day break and attempt to cross the English Channel once more. But heightened security and the British-sponsored building of a four-meter high wall around the camp have made the children’s journey far more dangerous.

“It is getting harder and harder to cross the frontier,” Roger added.

“There is a bigger police presence, there are more checks, the barrier is bigger. It was always dangerous, but it is much more dangerous now for the children, and so they are forced to take much greater risks. It is also more dangerous in the camp in Calais itself. You have 10,000 people in a confined space and tensions are getting worse, and the children are more vulnerable.”

Charities have also been actively discouraging children from attempting the illegal crossing, and are instead advising them to request asylum in France, where the process is often easier and swifter to complete.

The groups of unaccompanied children arriving in Calais are growing, with a census by the Help Refugees charity revealing almost 1,200 minors reached the camp in the last month. The youngest of them was just eight years old, and a staggering 87 percent of the children were alone.

Hungary’s Orban: Send Illegal Immigrants to non-EU Camps ‘on Island or in North Africa’

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban © Kacper Pempel / Reuters

The EU should reverse the influx of illegal migrants by rounding them up and sending them to camps outside its borders, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said in an interview as his country holds a referendum on mandatory EU migrant quotas.

The Hungarian leader’s hard stance against immigration reflects a deep divide in European opinion, which has been highly polarized by the huge influx of refugees that started last year.

On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted she would like to “turn back time” to better prepare herself, the German federal government “and all those in positions of responsibility for the situation we were rather unprepared for in the late summer of 2015.”

“I would also like to turn back the clock… what a good idea,” Orban said. “But the problem is that it is not possible.”

On October 2, Hungarians will vote on Brussels’ plans to distribute some 160,000 refugees and migrants among the 28 EU member states, a ruling which was passed last September. Hungary was among four nations that voted against the step, and it has legally challenged it.

Hungarian President Janes Ader said in a statement posted on his office's website on Tuesday that the vote will be about the following question: "Do you want the European Union to be entitled to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary without the consent of parliament?" as cited by Reuters.

Speaking with the Hungarian news website Origo.hu, Orban suggested there should be an effort to try and reverse the flow of arrivals.

“Those who came illegally, they must be rounded up and shipped out,” Orban told the website. “We must set up large refugee camps outside the EU, with armed security and financial support provided by the Union. Everyone who came illegally must return there. There they can file for asylum. Until then, they must remain in large, non-EU camps. This could be an island, it could be a coastal area in North Africa, but the security and supplies of that area must be guaranteed by the EU in its own interest.”

Orban is protecting Hungary from cultural suicide that most EU countries have lovingly embraced. 

Finding an island that's habitable with no residents or residents willing to be invaded is not going to be easy. Whether an island or North Africa, it will mean an increase in drownings as people will set out again to make it to Italy.

Liberal-minded people will find the idea offensive, but what they are doing now is worse, and allowing huge numbers of Muslims into Europe will be the end of Europe within 2 generations.

Orban said he believed the refugee crisis was a result of the emerging phenomenon of a “global village,” in which the world has come so closely together this has made some people think they have a right to go anywhere they please.

“But I belong to those who do not want their piece of the world’s civilization to change, and in particular do not want to change the culture of a piece of land that we call Hungary. I love this country.”

Orban’s latest remarks have already drawn criticism.

“This merely makes clear what we have understood about the Hungarian government’s policies all along — they want a zero refugee policy, even if that means mass deportations,” Helsinki Committee co-chair Marta Pardavi told the Financial Times.

Last week, Luxembourgian Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told the Die Welt newspaper that “Hungary is not far from an order to shoot refugees” and suggested that the country could be “excluded” from the EU for treating refugees “nearly as bad as animals.”

Orban has made a number of controversial remarks about asylum seekers in the past, such as suggesting pig’s heads be placed on top of the fence along Hungary’s border to better repel refugees. Recently, the Hungarian government has also released leaflets depicting some areas in London, Paris, Brussels and other European cities as no-go zones that have too many migrants whom “the authorities cannot keep under control.”

Hungary, a member of the EU, took a restrictive approach to the refugee crisis that started last year. In September 2015, it erected a razor-wire fence on its border with Serbia to stem the refugee flow and a month later it built another on the border with Croatia.

In June this year, Hungary allowed police to send back all illegal immigrants detained within 8 km from the fence and also further limited the number of daily entries for migrants to 30.

Big Pharma Spent $880mn on Keeping Opioids Available – Report

If there is anyone alive out there who thinks for one second that the pharmaceutical industry is in any way interested in your health, give your head a shake. Big pharma is interested in one thing only - your money. They don't even care if you kill yourself on prescription drugs, as long as you do it on their drugs. 

When did good corporate citizenship give way to nearly maniacal greed? When did responsibility give way to 'profits - no matter how many people we kill' mentality? And the Senators and Congressmen who sell their souls for a few campaign dollars are the most pathetic of all. They are supposed to represent us, but they are of the same mentality as big pharma. What a sick world!



© Gretchen Ertl / Reuters

In the midst of one of the worst drug epidemics in the US, a report found that the money spent on keeping painkillers regularly prescribed has overshadowed even anti-gun lobbying efforts and may be behind the opioid epidemic ravaging the nation.

The opioid crisis has reached a point where police officers carry Narcan when responding to calls due to the risk of accidental fentanyl exposure. But it may not have had to be like this, as multiple bills that would have limited opioid prescriptions were put in front of state governments.

However, very few of those bills passed, due to aggressive lobbying efforts from the drugmakers that rivaled in size those of anti-gun control groups. In fact, pharmaceutical companies spent more money lobbying against opioid restrictions than tobacco groups in 1998 when they were facing litigation from 40 states.

"The opioid lobby has been doing everything it can to preserve the status quo of aggressive prescribing," Dr. Andrew Kolodny, an opioid reform advocate, told the Associated Press. "They are reaping enormous profits from aggressive prescribing."

The opioid industry and its allied groups, such as the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACSCAN), spent $880 million on lobbying across the country and contributing to political campaigns. An average 1,350 lobbyists were employed by the drugmakers and their groups to maintain a presence in state capitals and be prepared to act quickly when faced with opposing political activity, according to the report.

In 2012, lawmakers received reports on a “crisis of epidemic proportions” that was wreaking havoc on 40 percent of Americans: chronic pain. Some researchers doubt the validity of the study that claims over 100 million Americans suffer from the condition. The study made no mention of the rising numbers of overdoses from OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet that had quadrupled from 1999 until 2012.

That same year, Senator Bernadette Sanchez (D-New Mexico) sponsored a bill that would have limited initial opioid prescriptions for acute pain to seven-day doses. The purpose of this measure was to make addiction less likely and provide fewer pills that could be resold on the black market.

The measure did not make it past the House Judiciary Committee.

“The lobbyists behind the scenes were killing it,” Sanchez told the AP.

The report found that in 2012, drug companies and their affiliates contributed about $40,000 to various New Mexico campaigns.

In 2014, New Mexico would be home to the second highest death rate from drug overdoses.

“Here in New Mexico we are facing an epidemic,” US Attorney Damon Martinez told the New York Times.

New Mexico is home to the second highest American Indian population in the US and the Native population has been hit particularly hard by opioid addiction. American Indian students had rates of using heroin and OxyContin two to three times higher than the national averages from 2009 to 2012, the New York Times reported.

In 2007, OxyContin manufacturer Purdue paid $600 million in fines after pleading guilty to “misbranding” the drug, which misled doctors, patients and regulators about OxyContin’s high rates of addiction and risk of abuse.

In 2014, the pain study that senators received gained more attention. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cited it as a reason to keep painkillers accessible, but Michael Von Korff, a contributing researcher to the study, did not believe that the conclusion lawmakers and pharmaceutical companies were drawing from his work was correct.

Korff told the AP that the study represented “people with run-of-the-mill pain problems who are already managing them pretty well.” Korff is also a member of the Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, but found the figure of 100 million people with pain to be the centerpiece for lobbying efforts that cost the Pain Care Forum nearly $19 million.

An investigation found that nine out of 19 experts involved in the report had served as leaders in various groups that received funding from the painkiller industry, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In July, a bill meant to tackle the drug addiction epidemic was stripped of its $920 million funding by Republican senators. Meanwhile, the report found that opioid sales topped $9.6 billion last year – more than 10 times what the US government would have allocated to expand treatment options. In the last decade alone, Purdue has generated over $22 billion from opioid sales.

Pharmaceutical companies are not solely trying to crush any potential limitation on their products. They’ve been long pushing bills that are meant to combat the opioid abuse. But those bills also involve a new cash cow for the drugmakers: patent-protected abuse-deterrent opioids with extended release.

Some experts are hesitant to believe that abuse-deterrent opioids will be the remedy for the opioid crisis, however.

“The FDA shouldn’t be allowing these drugs to be labeled as ‘abuse-deterrent’ because they don’t really deter abuse–they deter misuse by specific routes,” Andrew Kolodny, the executive director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and senior scientist at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management, told Forbes.

“If a pill has been made difficult to crush, it should be labeled ‘crush resistant,” or “One of the main problems with calling them ‘abuse deterrent’ is that the terms ‘abuse’ and ‘addiction’ are often used interchangeably.”

In simple terms, making these drugs more difficult to abuse does not mean they aren’t addictive. According to Kolodny, they are “every bit as addictive and patients can become addicted taking pills exactly as prescribed.”

“If doctors make the mistake of thinking ADF opioids are less addictive, they may continue to over prescribe,” he added.

The other issue with the abuse-deterrent pills is that they are no deterrent of profits for pharmaceutical companies. Pennsylvania’s state senate will hear a bill that requires health insurance plans to cover abuse-deterrent painkillers with a patented formulation and cost three to five times more than standard painkillers, according to New Castle News.

The bill was lobbied by Purdue Pharma and written from recommendations of an opioid task force that met in private, held no public hearings and included pharmaceutical industry representatives. Its wording is nearly identical to at least 21 other bills in the country.

The FDA has held back on making bold stances on the opioid epidemic. Some limitations have been placed on prescribers, such as adding new warnings to immediate-release opioids but the federal agency has refused to require training doctors in writing safer prescriptions.

In fact, the first federal guidelines on reducing opioid prescriptions came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The recommendations advise that chronic pain sufferers look into non-opioid pain relievers and work with physical therapy. The resistance to these suggestions included threats of congressional investigation and legal action.

Muslim Militants Go Door to Door Killing Christians

The attacks come as Boko Haram kills eight at a church and a boat captain starts trial for throwing Christian refugees overboard.

Illustrative picture of Boko Haram victims. (Photo: © Reuters)

Central African Republic

Three horrific incidents in three different countries highlight the global persecution of Christians by Muslim supremacists.

A mob of Muslim militants descended on Ndomete village in the Central African Republic (CAR) and went door-to-door killing Christians. The U.N. confirmed the casualty figures.

The militiamen, believed to belong to the Muslim militia group Seleka, killed 26 people and is thought to have deliberately targeted civilians. Seleka deposed then president Francois Bozize in 2013 and installed the Muslim Michel Djotodia instead.

Faced with mounting sectarian violence, Djotodia resigned in January 2014.

Although the Seleka group was officially disbanded, the group did not put down its weapons. Ex-Seleka fighters and Christian so-called “anti-Balaka” militias have been fighting since, displacing some 25 percent of CAR’s population.

“If the government is not going to beef up the security, then we are going to defend ourselves,” a local Christian leader told Morningstar News. “We shall not keep quiet as our brothers are dying.”

Nigeria 

In Nigeria Boko Haram militants attacked Christians in Kwamjilari village after a church service on Sunday. Gunmen reportedly killed 8 people who congregated outside the church in north-eastern Borno State.

Villagers reported Boko Haram stationed gunmen on the road leading away from the church so they could shoot those trying to flee.

Spain

In Spain an immigrant from Cameroon went on trial for the murder of six other immigrants whom he is accused of throwing overboard while crossing the Mediterranean in his boat. The boat captain, identified as Alain N. reportedly blamed the rough seas which were rocking the boat on the prayers led by a Catholic pastor on board and consequently threw them overboard. Another man who helped him throw them overboard later died.

The pair, both from Cameroon, reportedly beat the Nigerian pastor with pieces of wood before throwing him overboard. They then searched the other passengers for amulets or other identifying signs of Christianity and similarly beat and hurled overboard five other people.

Alain N. “was aware that the victims could not possibly survive and that they would die, either by drowning, from the cold, or from the physical injuries they had suffered,” according to statements made by the prosecution. “He was aware of the low temperature, the rough seas and the great distance from the coast and the absence of any nearby boats which could rescue them.”

South Korea Confirms it has Military Plan to Remove Kim Jong Un

The plan could be activated to retaliate against the North Korean leadership

in the event of a nuclear attack, Seoul says.

By Elizabeth Shim


South Korea’s defense minister confirmed on Wednesday the government has a plan to remove Kim Jong Un in the case of a strike against Seoul. File Photo by Rodong Sinmun

SEOUL, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- South Korea's defense ministry is planning a special force that could remove Kim Jong Un from power.

Defense Minister Han Min-koo also said Seoul needs to increase the number of full-time troops if it is to resist an armed North Korean invasion, South Korean news network YTN reported Wednesday.

Han told lawmakers at South Korea's National Assembly there is "a plan" to assemble a unit that could target the North Korean leadership, referring to a plan known as the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation, or KMPR, local news service News 1 reported.

So it doesn't actually have a plan to remove Kin Jong Un, but it has a plan to have a plan. 

"If it becomes clear the enemy intends to use nuclear-tipped missiles, in order to suppress its aims, the concept [of the special forces] is to retaliate against key areas that include the North Korean leadership," Han said Wednesday.

KMPR is part of a "three-axis system" in South Korea's military that includes Seoul's homegrown anti-missile systems, the Korean Air and Missile Defense, or KAMD, and Kill Chain, a pre-emptive strike system.

Han also voiced concerns about South Korea's permanent troops, and said at least 500,000 soldiers need to be on active duty in order to deal with the North Korean threat, a number that cannot be upheld without conscription, which is the current policy.

North Korea has 1.2 million troops, according to Han.

South Korean lawmakers of both ruling and opposition parties unanimously condemned North Korea's nuclear weapons proliferation, and in a rare show of unity on the issue some politicians have begun advocating for the reinstatement of tactical nuclear weapons on the peninsula, Maeil Business reported Wednesday.

So, without an operational plan to remove Kim Jong Un, and with a plan to reinstate tactical nuclear weapons, that makes this a very vulnerable time for South Korea. If the North does intend to attack the South, now would be the best time.

Kim Jin-pyo of the Minjoo Party of Korea, the opposition, said if China and Russia do not take "effective action to join sanctions against North Korea's nuclear development" there is no option other than to deploy tactical weapons in the country.

Lee Cheol-uoo of the ruling Saenuri Party said in addition to tactical nuclear weapons, means of developing Seoul's own nuclear deterrent, conducting pre-emptive strikes and regime change should all be reviewed.