Copycat Pot Edibles That Look Like Candy are Poisoning Kids, Doctors Say

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Websites 'flagrantly' selling edibles that violate federal rules, lawyer says

Rosa Marchitelli · CBC News

Posted: Jan 25, 2021, 1:00 AM PT

The package on the right is regular candy, the other contains enough THC to seriously harm an adult. Health Canada rules say cannabis-infused edibles can't be packaged with images or bright colours that can appeal to children, must have child safety warnings and be child-resistant. (CBC)

Dr. Jane Pegg couldn't believe her eyes when she saw the pot edibles that had poisoned a two-year-old who had been rushed to the emergency room in October.

"It so shocked and appalled me … the package looked almost identical to gummies that are sold as candies in the store," the Nanaimo, B.C., pediatrician said.

The boy wasn't moving and was having trouble breathing.

His distraught mother had accidentally given him marijuana-laced gummies that contained a massive dose of THC — a psychoactive compound in cannabis — thinking it was candy.

The edibles belonged to the child's grandfather, who has arthritis, and are sold under the names "Stoney Patch" and "Stoner Patch."

They look so much like the Sour Patch Kids brand that the company behind that candy, Mondelēz Canada Inc., successfully sued last January for trademark infringement.

"I don't know why the companies that are selling these products are not being shut down, not being fined, not being charged," said Pegg. 

Go Public found hundreds of websites selling illicit edibles with packages designed to look like all types

of candy and chocolate bars. (CBC)

Cannabis-infused edibles — including gummy candies, chocolate or baked goods — that are sold legally must follow Health Canada rules including a 10-milligram limit on THC.

They also can't be packaged with images or bright colours that can appeal to children, need to have child safety warnings and be child-resistant.

But copycat products often break all the rules. 

Go Public found hundreds of websites selling illicit edibles with packages designed to look like all types of candy and chocolate bars — everything from Sour Patch Kids, Pop Tarts, Snickers chocolate bars and more.

The sites are part of a huge and illegal marketplace that operates openly, under the nose of the government and law enforcement.

"These websites [are] operating quite flagrantly," said lawyer Trina Fraser, who specializes in cannabis regulatory law.

"I think there is a certain amount of jurisdictional struggle over whose responsibility [it is], because these enforcement actions cost money and someone's going to bear the cost of that," she said, referring to provincial, territorial and federal governments and the multiple police forces that are tasked with enforcing the rules.

The two-year-old Pegg treated spent the night in hospital and was released the next day.

Pegg's colleague, Dr. Jodi Turner, has seen similar poisonings in the same ER.

"Sometimes they [children] need to be kept on a monitor. You're looking for whether or not their heart is stable. You're looking at whether or not they develop seizures or need a ventilator to breathe," she said. 

Pot became legal in Canada in October 2018; edibles were legalized a year later.

Thanks to the madness of our Liberal government.

Not only does the packaging look like candy, so do the contents. On the left is the pot-infused product,

on the right is sour candy. (CBC)

Since then, regional poison centres across the country have reported a spike in unintentional poisonings of children and teens involving edibles — though it is unclear how many of those cases involved illicit, lookalike packages. Data was not available from every province and territory.

Such poisonings roughly doubled in B.C., Nova Scotia and Quebec between 2019 and 2020. B.C. saw almost 100 cases in 2020. Ontario, Manitoba and Nunavut, which report their poisonings together, reported 166.

No fatal poisonings of children or youth involving just cannabis have been reported to Health Canada since legalization in 2018.

After treating the toddler, the first thing Pegg did was contact Health Canada, to ask how to report the poisoning — but no one got back to her.

"I followed their reporting guidelines, I followed up by phone … [but] had no response until you [Go Public] contacted them."

Pegg finally heard back in January, more than two months after she reported the incident.

These cannabis edibles, displayed at the Ontario Cannabis Store in Toronto, comply with the federal Cannabis Act rules requiring plain packaging and standard warning labels (Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press)

Health Canada tells Go Public that Pegg's email was sent to a "generic" email account which gets a lot of messages and there was a "delay in processing the information."

Health Canada also said, via email, that after seeing an increase in such reports, it issued an advisory in August about accidental ingestion of illegal edible cannabis products by children and launched "extensive public education and advertising campaigns … to encourage adults to store all cannabis securely."

Statistics Canada says an estimated 42 per cent of cannabis users — 743,800 Canadians who responded to the survey — got pot from illegal sources in 2019.

'Whack-a-mole'

In its January email to Pegg, Canada Health said she should contact the RCMP or her local police department. But it's not quite that simple, according to the co-chair of the drug advisory committee at the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

Mike Serr says there are at least 1,100 illegal sites operating just in Canada, and while police have had success shutting some down, the problem is bigger than they can handle.

"I wish I had a better term, but really whack-a-mole describes it quite well. When we hit one down and get rid of it, four more pop up," said Serr, who is also chief of the Abbotsford, B.C., police department.

Serr says the websites are often run by organized crime and warns the products, which are often cheaper than the government-regulated cannabis, are untested, unregulated and run the risk of being contaminated.

Police are talking with banks to see if they will flag pot purchases and stop the flow of money to the illegal sites, he says.

"That will help disrupt the illicit market online … [banks] know that they should not be allowing those transactions, that they're illegal transactions. It's just really a matter of being able to identify the illegal and the legal online stores correctly."

He says he'd like to see the federal government fund a task force that specializes in shutting the illegal websites down.

The RCMP tells Go Public it has implemented what it calls a "national investigative strategy," working with the Canada Border Services Agency, Canada Post, Health Canada and municipal and provincial police forces to go after the organized crime groups running the sites.

Illegal websites look legit

Complicating the issue is how the websites look. In many cases, it's hard to tell the difference between legal and illegal sites, says Fraser. Adding to that confusion, she says, are the different rules in different provinces about who can sell pot online.

Ontario, for example, only has one legal, provincially run cannabis website, so buyers should know not to order from anywhere else. Other places, like Saskatchewan and Manitoba, allow private, licensed retailers.

"So, in some cases," says Fraser, "it becomes very tricky for the public to understand what is a licensed retailer and what is not."

Possessing cannabis purchased from illicit websites is also a crime.

Public Safety Canada says it has a plan that will crack down on the thriving, illicit market. That "action plan" was announced last March, but hasn't been implemented.

It includes increasing public education and working more closely with police, the provinces and territories to identify and shut down the sites.

The plan also proposes "putting search engines, social media, and payment platforms on notice about their legal responsibilities in relation to illegal online cannabis stores," wrote spokesperson Magali Deussing in an email to Go Public.

She says, "work is underway" to put the plan into action and that Public Safety Canada will review the effort to displace the illicit market, as part of its review of the Cannabis Act scheduled for the fall.

'Families feel terrible'

Pegg says action is long overdue. "Surely in this day and age they can shut down these websites," she said. 

In the meantime, she's keeping a close eye on the reports of kids poisoned by pot edibles. She says the long-term impact on a child's developing brain is unknown.

Go Public asked to speak with the two-year-old's mom about the family's experience, but she declined the interview.

"Families feel terrible. Especially when it happens in another family member's home or... where [given] the packaging, there is no reason to think it contained THC," Pegg said. "They need to address this, online sales of these products because it's really placing children and families at risk."

Thanks Justin, you've not only made Canada stink horribly from skunk being smoked everywhere, but you've put our children in danger. I've been warning about this for years. It was obvious to anyone with a brain that this would happen, yet you went ahead with legalizing pot, and then edible pot with no real plan to police the distribution of those to ensure the safety of children.

As Dr Pegg said, we don't know the long-term damage THC may do to the developing brain of a small child. We do know that it is responsible for severe schizophrenia in one out of six users under 16. That should be enough the scare the daylights out of parents and politicians - but, apparently, it doesn't. 

Laws have to be written regarding these candy-like THC gummies. The makers, the sellers, the website hosts all have to answer and spend a long time in prison for endangering our children. And the police must be supported much more than they are in this endeavour.

I hate that Trudeau's Liberal gov't has done nothing in 5+ years to counter the rapidly growing child sexual abuse in Canada, and I hate that he's made life much more dangerous for children. 

Ban Gummy Bears and Other Kid-Friendly Cannabis Edibles, says Toronto Medical Officer of Health

Dutch PM Warns Canadians Against Sparking Up

Colorado’s Legalized Marijuana has Resulted in Hospital Visits for Children

Is Your Teen Smoking Pot? Is She Still Sane?

'The Link Between Marijuana and Psychosis is Significant'

Marketplace Tests Today's Marijuana and Finds It Very Dangerous for Under 25s

Thousands of Young People Hospitalized Due to Cannabis and Other Substance Use

Last year, more than 23,500 youths were hospitalized in Canada

for harm from substance use - 40% for cannabis use

Corruption is Everywhere > Italy, The Mafia, The Vatican Bank; What 'In God's Name' is Going On?

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Politicians among 48 arrested in huge Italian bust on ‘Ndrangheta mafia, hundreds of millions in cash seized

21 Jan, 2021 16:17

FILE PHOTO: Italy's Antimafia police ©  AFP / ROBERTO SALOMONE

Anti-mafia police carried out sweeping early-morning raids against Italy’s most powerful mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, on Thursday, arresting 48 people and placing the leader of a political party under investigation.

Officers from the Direzione Investigativa AntiMafia (DIA) immediately jailed 13 people, while 35 were placed under house arrest, with multiple politicians, low-level mob bosses and businessmen among those detained, according to local media.

The crackdown on the organized crime syndicate, based in Calabria, southern Italy, primarily targeted the economic arm of its operations, which prosecutors said had been exposed in its money-laundering and attempts to buy political influence.

“This investigation makes clear what we have been saying for decades. The ‘Ndrangheta shoots less and has more and more ties with business and politics,” prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, told reporters.

As part of the mafia crackdown, police have opened an investigation into Lorenzo Cesa, head of the small Christian Union of the Centre political party, over his alleged procurement of contracts for the mafia in return for favors.

DIA officers raided the former MEP’s house in Rome at dawn on Thursday, according to la Repubblica. The politician has resigned as head of the centrist party with immediate effect, saying he had been advised that the investigation relates to events dating back to 2017.

Gratteri said that a local head honcho of the ‘Ndrangheta was also among the arrests, claiming that police raids on the suspect’s house had uncovered “hundreds of millions in cash which they have not yet finished counting, dozens of Rolexes and luxury cars.”

The operation follows the opening of a “maxi trial” (2nd story on link) of 355 suspected mobsters and their associates, which began in Calabria last week and is the country’s largest mafia trial for at least 30 years.

With a reported 6,000 members in Calabria, and more in other countries, the ‘Ndrangheta has superseded Sicily's Cosa Nostra mafia as Italy’s most powerful criminal group, and one of the most influential in the world.

Ex Vatican bank chief gets 9 years for embezzlement

This is the first jail sentence issued by a Vatican court in relation to financial crimes

Published:  January 21, 2021 21:53

AFP  

The former president of the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) Angelo Caloia is seen during the first hearing

of his trial at the Vatican, May 9, 2018.

Rome: A former head of the Vatican bank, Angelo Caloia, was on Thursday found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering and sentenced to eight years, 11 months in prison.

It was the first-ever jail sentence issued by a Vatican state court in relation to financial crimes - a milestone in Pope Francis' ongoing efforts to clean up Vatican governance.

Caloia led the bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), from 1989 to 2009. The 81-year-old Italian was tried over corrupt real estate deals.

He was accused of conspiring with others to make millions from the below-market sale of more than 20 IOR properties in Italy, and laundering the proceeds in Switzerland.

The court established that the defendants "pocketed some of the money paid by buyers, or in any case money belonging to IOR ... for a total of around 19 million euros ($23 million)", the Vatican said in a statement.

Prosecutors claimed the illicit gains were worth 59 million euros in total, but judges did not find evidence of wrongdoing for some of the 29 deals under scrutiny.

Co-defendants were 97-year-old Gabriele Liuzzo, a lawyer, and his son Lamberto, 55, who were sentenced to eight years and eleven months, and five years and two months respectively.

Gabriele Liuzzo was convicted like Caloia of money laundering and embezzlement, while his son was tried and sentenced only over money laundering charges.

The three men were hit with fines ranging from 8,000 to 12,500 euros, and ordered to pay damages of around 23 million euros to the IOR and its real estate division SGIR.

One of Caloia's lawyers, Rosa Palavera, told AFP that Thursday's ruling would be suspended given that it was still subject to an appeal - meaning that he does not risk going to jail immediately.

A former IOR director general, Lelio Scaletti, was a fourth suspect in the affair, but the case against him was dropped after he died in 2015.

The scandal came to light in 2014, after Caloia and Scaletti's bank accounts were frozen following a criminal complaint from the IOR. But the trial did not start until May 2018.

Other suspect deals 

The IOR, founded nearly 80 years ago, has been embroiled in a long list of political and financial scandals, gaining a reputation as a money laundering haven for Italian politicians and mafia groups.

It has cleaned up its act over the last decade, as part of Vatican financial transparency reforms pursued by Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI.

For more of the sordid history of the Vatican Bank, read "In God's Name", a book by award-winning investigative reporter David Yallop. He proposes that John Paul (the 1st), was about to clean up the horrid mess just before he suddenly died.

Vatican prosecutors are currently investigating another suspect real estate deal, concerning a luxury property in central London, which may lead to a criminal trial.

And earlier this week they announced the imminent start of an embezzlement trial against Cecilia Marogna, known as "the Cardinal's Lady" for her links with disgraced Cardinal Angelo Becciu. She billed the Vatican around 500,000 euros for informal intelligence work, but is suspected of using part of the money to splurge on luxury goods.

Marogna was hired by Becciu, who was fired from a powerful Vatican job in September by the pope, after he accused him of syphoning off Vatican charity funds to help his siblings.

Becciu has professed his innocence, and since his dismissal he has not been publicly charged with any crimes.

Of course, one would think the Vatican to be filled with godly men with haloes around their heads. But such is very far from the truth.

#Ozzone 3-30 > Do You Really Search the Heart of God for the One You are Interceding For? You Should!

 

Islam - Current Day - Torture, Murders, Beheadings, Slaughters, Fires - How Islamists Celebrate Christmas

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"This Is a Warning to Christians in All Parts of the World":

The Persecution of Christians, December 2020

by Raymond Ibrahim

January 24, 2021 at 5:00 am

Muslim fighters tortured a 58-year-old Christian woman of Armenian descent by hacking off her ears, hands, and feet before finally executing her. — Medium.com, January 14, 2021, Artsakh.

As to why she was mutilated before being killed, jihadis often cite the Koran's calls to cut off the hands, feet, and throats of infidels (e.g., Koran 5:33, 47:4). — Artsakh.

One of the survivors... managed to escape his home in time and hide in the outside bathroom: "through the ventilator of the latrine he saw the rebels killing 4 members of his family including his wife and 3 children." — Virtueonline.org, December 3, 2020, Democratic Republic of Congo.

"My husband began reading verses in the Koran that allowed men to beat their wives if they disobey them, and after that he started beating me...." — Morning Star News, December 17, 2020, Uganda.

In January, Muslim fighters tortured a 58-year-old Christian woman of Armenian descent by hacking off her ears,

hands and feet, before finally executing her. The attack took place in the village of in Karintak, Artsakh (pictured).

(Image source: Adam Jones/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons)

The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of December, 2020:

The Slaughter of Christians

Nigeria: In a video that appeared on Dec. 29, Islamic terrorists executed five Christians. The footage shows five armed members of the Islamic State (West African province) standing behind five men dressed in orange suits, and on their knees with their arms tied behind their backs. The terrorists order each of the men to say their names and the hostages oblige, each adding, "I am a Christian." One of the terrorists then says "This is a warning to Christians in all parts of the world and those in Nigeria.... Use the heads of these five of your brethren to continue with your ungodly celebrations," a reference to Christmas. The five Muslims then open fire into the back of the Christians' heads and kill them.

A few days earlier, on Christmas Eve, and into the early morning of Christmas Day, Muslim raiders terrorized a Christian village, where they slaughtered between seven and 11 people, including a 5-year-old, and kidnapped 11 more (it is believed that the five Christians who were executed on video were from among these 11). Riding on trucks and motorcycles, the jihadis opened fire indiscriminately, torched 10 homes and one church, and plundered the food supplies meant to be distributed on Christmas Day. Although traumatized, some Christians remained defiant. A text by Markus Bulus, a local, on Christmas Day states:

"Whatever Boko Haram planned against us has failed. Whatever it is, we shall still celebrate Christmas. Jesus, we're so grateful this day even with the bad experience we had last night. We have nothing to offer as our thanksgiving, but we offer our hearts in deep supplication to your majesty on this Christmas Day."

Elsewhere throughout month of December, Muslim Fulani herdsmen "killed 33 Christians, destroyed 18 homes and displaced more than 2,500 people." Moreover, according to a report released by the International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law ("INTERSOCIETY"), between Jan. 2020 and Dec. 13, 2020, Muslims massacred at least 2,200 Nigerian Christians. Of this figure, "Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen," it said, were responsible for about "1,300 Christian deaths, followed by Boko Haram and its splinter groups (ISWAP and Ansaru) with 500 Christian deaths.... Nigeria in 2020 has lost an average of six Christians per day and 180 per month."

Uganda: A Muslim mob attacked and killed a man "a few days after he renounced Islam to follow Christ." On Nov. 30, Yusuf Kintu, 41, then an imam at a mosque, converted to Christianity. Pastor Andrew Nyanma said:

"We had been talking on several occasions, but he was so argumentative when we touched on matters related to faith. He was a brilliant Muslim Imam but also respected other people's faith. On this day [of his conversion], he was calm and receptive."

Three days later, his wife divorced him and left the house with his two youngest children. On Dec. 6, one week after his conversion—or, in Muslim eyes, apostasy—an angry Muslim mob rose up against him. According to one source, "the local Muslim community was upset in [sic] Yusuf for leaving Islam and becoming a Christian. Yusuf was seriously beaten and left unconscious." Pastor Andrew found him in the morning and took him to a hospital, where, on Dec, 7, Yusuf succumbed to his injuries.

Egypt: On Dec. 10, two Muslim brothers went on a stabbing spree targeting Christians in Alexandria. One man was killed and two others, severely injured, were hospitalized. According to authorities, the brothers went on their murderous rampage because they were "upset" that earlier that day, their mother had died.

"The matter began with insults and curses to the shopkeepers for being Christians," said Fr. Michael Gamil, whose nearby church was also targeted. "The Copts present responded with patience. Then, when one of them, Ramses, quietly went to close and lock [sic] his shop door, they lunged at and stabbed him with knives." Ramses' brother, who ran a grocery store nearby, saw what was happening, rushed to his brother's aid, and was also stabbed. The brothers then barged into the clothing shop of another Christian man and stabbed him near his heart. All three men were hospitalized with serious injuries in intensive care; Ramses died of his wounds. The rampaging brothers then entered Fr. Michael's church and cursed at a partially blind priest. Discussing the alleged motive, Fr. Michael said:

"They [Egyptian authorities] say they started cursing the Copts because their mother died; and two years earlier, they cursed the Copts because their brother died: what does [sic] [a familial] death and the Copts have to do with each other?"

He emphasized that the two brothers had been in the habit of verbally harassing and insulting Christians for years—although on that day, they clearly took their hatred to another level.

Artsakh: Muslim fighters tortured a 58-year-old Christian woman of Armenian descent by hacking off her ears, hands, and feet before finally executing her. According to the Jan. 14 report:

"On the same day of talks between Erdogan and Putin, when Turkey's leader said he would like to create conditions of 'coexistence' between Armenians and Azeris, officials located the body of an Armenian woman today who had been reported missing.

"The woman has been identified as 58-year-old Alvard Tovmasyan who was a resident of Karin Tak village, near the Shushi region of Artsakh currently occupied by Azerbaijani forces.

"Tovmasyan was a second degree intellectually disabled person killed and 'tortured beyond recognition' outside of her home with her hands, ears, and feet cut off, according to her brother Samvel Tovmasyan who confirmed her identity by recognizing the clothes she was wearing."

As to why she was mutilated before being killed, jihadis often cite the Koran's calls to cut off the hands, feet, and throats of infidels (e.g., Koran 5:33, 47:4).

According to a separate Dec. 15 news report, "Armenians are being brutalized" and have "lost territory to their jihadist neighbors before agreeing to a cease-fire enforced by Russia.... Prior to violating the so-called peace agreement, the Turkish Muslims of Azerbaijan did as Muhammad commanded in beheading Christians." The report linked to a video of camouflaged soldiers overpowering and forcing down a struggling, elderly Armenian man, and then casually carving at his throat with a knife: "Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of violating the peace deal first," the report continues, "but observers note the only provocation Muslims need to attack Armenians is their continued existence."

Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh)

Democratic Republic of Congo: Members of the Allied Democratic Forces, widely acknowledged as "an insurgent jihadist group," slaughtered at least 30 Christians and raped ten women and girls in five villages between Nov. 20 and Dec. 3. One of the survivors, Tony Longi, managed to escape his home in time and hide in the outside bathroom: "through the ventilator of the latrine he saw the rebels killing 4 members of his family including his wife and 3 children." According to one local official, "We got information that as they killed the Christians the[y] were saying that they were killing them because they refused to convert to Islam." Another report describing these raids said there were "scenes of terrified Christians flooding into the streets as the jihadists surrounded churches in each of the five villages armed with guns, machetes, clubs, swords and axes."

Attacks on Muslim Converts and Christian Preachers

Uganda: A Muslim man beat and forced his wife to drink pesticide on learning that she had become Christian. Three months after Zubeda Nabirye, a 38-year-old mother of three, had secretly converted, her husband discovered Bibles in her possession and demanded if she had apostatized. She told him that "a friend had given me the Bibles, and I was using it to compare it with what is written in the Koran, and after all religion is a matter of personal choice... My husband began reading verses in the Koran that allowed men to beat their wives if they disobey them, and after that he started beating me with slaps and sticks. As if this was not enough, he forced me to take Dithane M-45," a toxic pesticide. He forced the poison into his wife's mouth; though she managed not to swallow most of it, she "ingested some while he was trying to strangle her and hitting her leg with sticks... He also injured her chest, neck and thigh." It was late in the night when "I regained consciousness and found myself surrounded by neighbors."

One of them later explained that "we heard groaning from a nearby banana plant, and there we found Zubeda Nabirye, who had just regained her consciousness but with vomit and blood all over her body." They took her to a nearby hospital. According to the Dec. 17 report, "she suspects her husband took her to the banana plants expecting she would die there." Even so, she did "not file charges with police over the assault as it could provoke further violence. She still looks very weak and asks about the wellbeing of her three children," who at the time were staying with her husband's mother due to COVID-19 travel restrictions: "I am worried about my children [aged 9, 13, and 16], who are under the care of my mother-in-law," Zubeda said. "I know it will be very difficult for me to see them and reunite with them."

In a separate incident in Uganda, on Dec. 21, Muslims gang-raped a female church pastor. The widowed mother of five was walking home from Christmas preparations at her church when she heard someone crying for help in the dark. "When I stopped," explained the 50-year-old whose name is withheld for security reasons, "I was surprised to see people coming from the bush, and one of them shouted in the Arabic language, 'Allah is greater—we have warned you several times to stop converting Muslims to Christianity. Today we shall teach you a lesson that you will not forget.'" One of the men covered her mouth with a chemical-doused handkerchief that caused her to lose consciousness. She awoke three hours later and was found by her nephew. "He saw blood on my torn skirt. He could not stop tears rolling from his cheeks, crying and shouting for help, and he took me to a nearby clinic for medical treatment."

Two months earlier, a Muslim neighbor had complained to her: "I am warning you not to come to our home. My children are now singing some Christian songs. I know soon they will come to your church. We as Muslims have no relations with infidels." A church member said that the rape victim remains traumatized: "Sometimes she is quiet for about one hour; ... she is having severe headache[s], swelling at her neck and severe pain in her private parts." "I am hurt," confirmed the visibly emotional and tearful pastor from her hospital bed during an interview on Christmas Eve. "I will miss Christmas celebration with my church members.... I hope these Muslim rapists have not infected me with deadly diseases. I forgive them," added the mother of five who was widowed five years earlier.

Attacks on Churches

Pakistan: On Christmas day, a mob consisting of as many as 60 Muslim men attacked a church during Christmas service. According to the Dec. 30 report, "They aimed to kidnap and assault the women in attendance." However, the church's security guards and male congregants "fought back with bare hands against the staff-wielding intruders, giving the women time to escape. Many Christian men suffered blunt trauma injuries and fractures in the fight." Before things got violent, the Muslim invaders had made derogatory comments about the Christian women, adding that they were "looking dashing today. Let us have all of them in our beds." When one of the Christian defenders angrily rose up, "The Muslims," he said, "warned me never to stop them from doing whatever they wanted to do with Christian girls." The authorities, on arriving, "helped the defeated Muslims escape, and blamed Christians for fighting back." According to a spokesman for the Christians:

"They scolded and threatened the Christian community, the Christian church, saying it's illegal to have their own security. Which is truly an unjustified and illegal action by the police, because it was announced by the government of Pakistan two years ago, that every church must have its own security. They must have their own CCTV cameras, barbed wires, and medical equipment."

Sudan: A temporary church structure of the Sudanese Church of Christ has been burned down five times by what one pastor described as "radical Muslims." They also threatened to butcher the Christians if they dared erect another tent again. According to the Dec. 22 report:

"Saying they didn't want a Christian presence in the area, the extremists have burned down the structures on Jan. 19, 2019, and this year on Jan. 4, Jan. 19, Jan. 28, and Aug. 7.... The church decided to report the attacks to police after the Aug. 7 arson in spite of the threats."

The original church building, which had been in operation since 1993, was first torched in 2019; since then, the 150-member congregation have been worshipping inside tents, though all five have been "reduced to ashes along with Bibles and prayer books." Church members identified several of the assailants. Police initially refused to file a case until an attorney got involved. Five of nine suspects involved have been arrested.

Discrimination, Misogyny, and Violence against Christians

Egypt: In what human rights activists described as an "egregious miscarriage of justice," a court acquitted three Muslim men charged with assaulting a Christian grandmother, including by spitting on and beating her, stripping her naked and parading her in the streets of their village, on the accusation that her son was romantically involved with a Muslim woman. Although this attack took place in 2016, and although video evidence and witnesses have identified the three Muslim men, the Egyptian courts refused to render a decision. As a Dec. 21 press release from Coptic Solidarity explains:

"After multiple delay tactics, including judges 'recusing' themselves and retrials by different court circuits, the case reached this sad conclusion. The Egyptian judiciary has revealed their true face of Islamist fanaticism and blatant bias against Coptic victims. This is indeed shameful for a country that has employed some form of a 'modern' justice system for 150 years.

"Upon hearing news of the court ruling, Mrs. Thabet [the victim], burst into tears, simply saying 'What shall I do after being so humiliated! My right is in the hands of my Lord who shall render me His justice.'"

Pakistan/China: Christian and Hindu women in Pakistan are being marketed to China as concubines and forced brides, a Dec. 9 report revealed. Due to China's longstanding one-child only policy and cultural preference to give birth to boys, the nation suffers from an acute shortage of females, causing Chinese men to import women from abroad. Speaking on Dec. 8, the top U.S. diplomat for religious freedom, Samuel Brownback, said that "religious minorities, Christian and Hindu women" from Pakistan are "being marketed as concubines and as forced as brides [sic] into China." This, he added., is because "there's discrimination against religious minorities that make [sic] them more vulnerable" in Muslim Pakistan.

France: "Handwritten letters were mailed to seven black African priests with their names and the address of the rectory where they live," reported the Vicar General of the Diocese of Avignon Pascal Molemb Emock: "The mail only says 'Allah Akbar' in French and in Arabic." Because violent Islamic attacks on clergymen and Christians in general have been escalating in France—five weeks earlier a Muslim man crying "Allahu Akbar" entered a church in Nice and slaughtered three Christians—an investigation was quickly opened. As a police source explained on Dec. 9, "These are not direct death threats, but in the context of a terrorist threat, this matter is taken very seriously." "I am not afraid for myself," said one of the priests. "I will continue to live alone in my rectory. But I am responsible for a community, I must be careful for the parishioners."

Iraq: Throughout November and December, at least 14 shops that sell alcohol in Baghdad—most of which are owned by Christians—were firebombed. According to a Dec. 16 report, these escalating attacks have "terrified shop-owners who fear hardline Islamists are flexing their muscle against alcohol consumption." Discussing the situation, Andre, an Iraqi Christian, reported that the recent bombing of his shop had cost him thousands of dollars in repairs. "These groups want the last of the Christians to leave the country," he said of the attackers: "They're targeting us." He also blamed security forces for leaving their post for hours, thereby providing the attackers with "time to place the explosives, take pictures before and after and publish them on Facebook." "Why doesn't the government arrest them?" he added, pointing out that he had even provided authorities with the license plate number of the attacking vehicle as captured by the store's surveillance camera.

Christmastime Terror

Spain: On Christmas day, a Muslim of Moroccan background, known only as Muhammad Q., stalked through a Christmas street celebration while brandishing a machete and crying out, "Allahu akbar, I'm going to kill you," at random passersby. He lunged at police when they arrived and slightly injured them, though they managed to subdue and arrest him. Subsequent investigations revealed that the 45-year-old had a criminal record relating to the sexual abuse of a minor and ties to the Islamic State.

France: A group of Muslims thrashed another Muslim for participating in a Christmas Day dinner. After Nabil, 20, published pictures of the dinner online, a schoolmate expressed his "shock" via text that a fellow Muslim would celebrate Christmas, at one point texting, "I'll show you what a real Arab is." Nabil and his scandalized Muslim schoolmate then agreed to meet and discuss the matter; but when Nabil arrived, the schoolmate and four other men ambushed and beat him, leaving him with a bloodied and bruised face and a warning not to report the incident to police, or else. Undeterred, he contacted local authorities who subsequently arrested the schoolmate. During his trial, he continued to assert his "shock" that Nabil had posted such pictures, adding "It is not Muslim to celebrate Christmas."

Western Europe: Some Christians in a few nations celebrated Christmas under threat. According to a Dec. 3 report, British intelligence, relying on a former al-Qaeda bomb-maker, warned that "a senior Isis commander is plotting a Christmas terror campaign in European countries, including Britain." The Muslim terrorists had allegedly "decided to try and use the lifting of lockdown restrictions during the Christmas period to launch attacks in Europe, in particular against the UK, France and Germany."

Germany: In a video that appears embedded in a Dec. 19 article, a Muslim cleric living in Braunschweig declared that "Christmas is an insult to Allah".

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again and Sword and Scimitar, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

For many links embedded in the text, and also for links to Raymond's monthly reports going back to 2011, please go to The Gatestone Institute. 

Is Religion a Major Factor in Ethiopia's War on Tigray Province? 750 Christians Slaughtered, Ark of the Covenant May Be Stolen; Christians Tested

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750 killed at Ethiopian Orthodox church said to contain the

Ark of the Covenant: report

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor 

Monday, January 18, 2021

Ark of the Covenant for the Tabernacle replica at BYU in this photo from October 16, 2017. 

(Wikimedia Commons)

Around 750 people were killed in an attack on an Orthodox church, which is said to contain the Ark of the Covenant described in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, in northern Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region — home to thousands of churches and monasteries — according to reports.

Hundreds of people hiding in Maryam Tsiyon Church in Aksum amid an armed conflict were brought out and shot to death, and local residents believe the aim was to take the Ark of Covenant to Addis Ababa, the Belgium-based nonprofit European External Programme with Africa reported in this month’s situational report, released on Jan. 9.

“The number of people killed is reported as 750,” it said. The church, the most ancient and sacred of Ethiopian Christianity and also known as the Church of St. Mary of Zion, belongs to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

“I’ve not heard more than rumours about the looting of the Arc from Maryam Tsion, but if it’s true that up to 750 died defending it, it is conceivable that the attackers didn't stop there,” said Michael Gervers, a professor of history at the University of Toronto, according to The Telegraph.

"The government and the Eritreans want to wipe out the Tigrayan culture. They think they’re better than rest of the people in the country. The looting is about destroying and removing the cultural presence of Tigray,” Gervers explained.

Former BBC World Service Africa editor and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Martin Plaut, said that those who escaped the Aksum massacre had reported that the attack began after Ethiopian federal troops and Amhara militia approached the church, the U.K.’s Church Times reported.

“People were worried about the safety of the Ark, and when they heard troops were approaching feared they had come to steal it. All those inside the cathedral were forced out into the square,” Plaut was quoted as saying.

About 1,000 people were believed to be in the church complex at the time of the attack. The EEPA said the massacre was carried out by Ethiopian federal troops and allied Amhara militia that are fighting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

The church and the Ark have likely not been damaged, Plaut added.

Tigray Crisis Tests Ethiopian Christians Along Ethnic Lines

JACK BRYAN IN ADDIS ABABA|

NOVEMBER 25, 2020 01:03 AM

The streets of Humera in the Tigray region of Ethiopia on Sunday, November 22.

Image: Eduardo Soteras / AFP / Getty Images

The jagged rock spires and steep mountains of the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia are home to some of the oldest churches in the world.

Against that historic backdrop, forces loyal to the central government in Addis Ababa have pushed toward the regional capital, Mekele, fighting soldiers loyal to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Fierce fighting has raged since November 4, when Ethiopians awoke to see Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announce that he had sent federal troops to Tigray in response to an attack on the Northern Command Post of the National Defense Force in the region. The once-dominant TPLF, whose relations with the central government had been souring for months, had attacked federal troops.

“The last red line has been crossed with this morning’s attacks and the federal government is therefore forced into a military confrontation,” Abiy said.

All internet and telecommunications have been shut off in Tigray since then, making information difficult to verify. The Ethiopian government says it is making advances that include the capture of the ancient city of Axum, where the church of Our Lady Mary of Zion is believed by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church to host the original Ark of the Covenant.

As they retreated, TPLF forces damaged the Axum airport and destroyed bridges leading into Mekele.

“There was a lot of confusion,” a Christian expat working in the Tigray town of Shire, near the border with Eritrea, told CT. Evacuated by the United Nations last week, he asked to remain anonymous in order to protect his work there. “That first day was the worst, because people were killed, shot, and beat. We heard soldiers trying to hide in homes, and other soldiers trying to find them.”

“Soldiers in our church were killed,” he said. Though the Tigray region is 95 percent Orthodox, many of the federal troops stationed there are from other regions of Ethiopia where Protestantism is more common. “One deacon was captured and imprisoned, and two other [members] were killed because they were in the airport defense.”

He was saddened by the response in his church. “There wasn’t recognition of the individuals who had died. … It was ‘the outsiders,’” he said. “That is where it hits us as believers. These are our brothers.”

Initially, the TPLF denied the attack, and many international news sources have condemned Abiy’s “aggression” and called for peace. However, on November 14,senior TPLF member Sekuture Getachew made a statement on TPLF official satellite television channel Dimtsi Woyane (Voice of the Revolution), in which he stated: “Should we be waiting for them to attack? No, it was imperative to take a thunder-like strike.”

“From what we could gather on the ground, there were orchestrated efforts across Tigray at the same time to attack the Federal Defense Force,” said the Shire-based Christian worker.

“The next day, there were people parading through the streets, celebrating victory and the capture of federal soldiers,” he said. “And parading artillery that they had captured.”

After the conflict started, there was a partisan attitude in the church. “It was almost like, ‘We’re doing it, we are winning.’ And that saddened us,” he said.

Sekuture compared Tigray to “Israel surrounded by big Arab nations … preparing to attack it.” The TPLF has felt increasingly threatened since Abiy brokered peace with neighboring Eritrea, a conciliatory move that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

Though Tigray composes only 6 percent of Ethiopia’s population, the TPLF has dominated the political landscape since 1991. It was the TPLF-controlled government that fought a border war with Eritrea from 1998 to 2000 in which an estimated 80,000 people were killed. The TPLF has resisted Abiy’s peace by refusing to demilitarize the border it controls.

The determination of Abiy, a devout Pentecostal, to introduce political reforms has increasingly pushed TPLF elites out of power. Over the last two years, many TPLF leaders have been arrested or have fled north to Tigray after being charged with crimes ranging from attempted assassination, incitement of ethnic violence, and embezzlement of government funds. The TPLF refused to join Abiy’s unitary Ethiopian Prosperity Party after the dissolution of the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front, in November 2019.

Since then, the TPLF has worked on consolidating support in its region. Many observers have pointed to Tigray’s regional elections in June as the point of no return.

“The hard line became visible when TPLF decided to conduct a regional election on its own, defying the decision made at the national level,” said Shimels Sisay, a former professor of human rights currently working on Ethiopia’s elections. “Each was accusing the other of being unconstitutional and illegitimate.”

“The central government branded that as a mock election, which Tigray called a declaration of war,” he said. “As a result of this, we are where we are today.”

After the initial attack, loudspeakers announced a rally in the Shire stadium and trucks began rounding up the young men.

“There were some classes going on at the Bible School … they were totally disrupted because the local people did not want to be in a place where they could be found,” said the Shire worker. “They were afraid of conscription.”

Likewise, many of his non-Tigrayan friends and church members fled into the countryside when the fighting began, fearing being targeted on the basis of their ethnicity.

“What we saw is that ethnic identity is much stronger than religious identity, whether you’re Muslim, Orthodox, or Protestant,” he said.

Many organizations have predicted a humanitarian disaster will follow the conflict. According to the UN, 4,000 refugees a day are fleeing across the border to Sudan, where already 30,000 displaced people have gathered.

“As soon as there is the ability to respond, we will,” said Edward Brown, national director of World Vision Ethiopia, which has a large presence across the nation—including 82 staff in Tigray. “We are assuming we are going to have a massive scale-up [of operations in Tigray].”

The cause of the conflict is “part of the broader global narrative around identity and the tribalization of politics,” he said. “But here, it is not just winning or losing an election. It’s life or death: access to land, access to food … the stakes are so high.”

Even before the conflict, over 1 million people in Tigray were in need of daily food assistance, including 40,000 Eritrean refugees. This year has already been marked by a locust plague worse than any in living memory, and the current conflict will interrupt harvests across Tigray.

“On the Monday after it blew up, we started to see the people coming into town with their bags,” said the Shire worker. “Displaced women and children, standing on street corners. Many went to Sudan.”

It is clear to many that the church must be a part of moving Ethiopia forward after this conflict.

“A priest protects the Ark of the Covenant in Axum,” said Brown. “In Ethiopian, covenant (kalkidan) is a compound word meaning ‘promised word,’ based on the biblical, relational understanding: ‘I will be Your God and you will be my people.’”

“There has to be a covenant to keep Ethiopia together. That is much deeper than a negotiation or contract agreement that says, ‘You do this and I’ll do that.’ A covenant is a mutual commitment to relationship with one another,” he said.

“God’s at work [in Tigray], but it’s going to take a church that can rise above all this,” said the Shire worker. “That’s our prayer for the church in this time: How are they going to be the body of Christ there, in the midst of such volatile political and ethnic tensions?”

Tigray, Ethiopia

Islam - Current Day - Islamic Threats and Intimidation are Beginning to Reshape French Education

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The Religious Transformation of French Schools

by Giulio Meotti, Il Foglio

January 23, 2021 at 5:00 am

In France, a low-intensity war is bubbling, aimed at radicalizing education.

At the Pierre Mendès France School in Saumur, a student told his teacher, "My father will behead you". It has become impossible even to make a precise list of these incidents. They occur every day in France.

"Faced with Islamist intimidation, what should the free world do?" — Title of Robert Redeker's column in Le Figaro in 2006. A few days later, he began receiving death threats.

If extremists have managed to intimidate France's schools and universities, why should they not be able to subdue all of society?

In France, a low-intensity war is bubbling, aimed at radicalizing education. Minister of Education Jean Michel Blanquer revealed that after the beheading of the schoolteacher Samuel Paty in October, 800 Islamist "incidents" had taken place in French schools. Pictured: Bois-d'Aulne College in Conflans-Saint-Honorine, where Paty was murdered on October 16, 2020. (Photo by Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images)

"Unlike you, Colonel, and so many others, Mila will never submit", wrote the French teenager's father to her school's principal in a letter published by Le Point. On January 18, 2020 Mila O., then 16 years old, made insulting comments about Islam during her Instagram livestream.

"During her livestream, a Muslim boy asked her out in the comments, but she turned him down because she is gay. He responded by accusing her of racism and calling her a 'dirty lesbian'. In an angry follow-up video, streamed immediately after she was insulted, Mila responded by saying that she 'hates religion'".

Mila continued: "The Koran is a religion of hatred; there is only hatred in it... Islam is sh*t..." Since then, she has received approximately 50,000 messages and letters that contain threats to rape her, slit her throat, torture and behead her. She has had to keep moving from one school to another.

Once again, Mila has found herself without a high school. On a social network, she accidentally gave the name of her new military school. Its management promptly excluded her for being a potential threat to the students' security. "Devastated by so much cowardice", Mila's father wrote. "Even the army cannot protect her and allow her to continue her education, what can we do, us, her parents? This observation is for us a horror film".

Even the French army cannot protect her? "She is 17 years old and now lives like the staff of Charlie Hebdo, in a bunker; it is unbearable!" Mila's lawyer, Richard Malka, said.

A few days later, "Caroline L.", a professor at the Faculty of Law of Aix-Marseille University, received countless death threats, accusing her of being "Islamophobic". The Aix-en-Provence prosecutor opened an investigation for "public insults for belonging to religion". Her "crime"? The professor had explained to her students there:

"There is no freedom of conscience in Islam. If you were born to a Muslim father, you are a Muslim for life. A kind of sexually transmitted religion. One of the biggest problems we have with Islam, and unfortunately it is not the only one, is that Islam does not recognize freedom of conscience. It is absolutely terrifying".

The Pierre Joël Bonté High School in Riom (Puy-de-Dôme) was closed on January 11 due to "insults and death threats" targeting teachers. "We have decided to close the school following insults and death threats to protect students and staff", a spokesperson of the school explained. A few hours later, a teacher in Toulouse, Fatiha Boudjahlat, asked for police protection after receiving significant threats.

In 2015, Islamic State announced that French schools must be attacked and invited its followers to "kill the teachers". According to Gilles Kepel, an expert on Islamism, "The school, for the supporters of political Islam, has become a citadel to tear down."

An article in L'Express tragically points out that schools are the object of violent campaigns by Islamists throughout the world. In 2014, a military school in Peshawar, Pakistan was targeted by a deadly Islamist attack that claimed the lives of 132 students. The Pakistani Taliban movement, between 2009 and 2012, attacked 900 schools according to a report by the NGO International Crisis Group. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, known for her fight for girls' education, was shot in the head by the Taliban in Swat. Boko Haram, responsible for numerous attacks in Nigeria, claimed it had kidnapped 276 high school girls in Chibok. In an attack by Islamists affiliated with al-Qaeda on Kenya's Garissa University, 142 students were killed. In Burkina Faso, more than 2,000 schools have closed their doors.

In France, a low-intensity war is bubbling, aimed at radicalizing education. While many Muslims might not support such a transformation, the current effort seems to have begun in 1989, during the bicentenary of the French Revolution and the French publication of Salman Rushdie's fictional novel, The Satanic Verses. A college in Creil refused admission to three students wearing the Islamic veil. French authorities tried by dialogue and appeasement to calm the situation. In an appeal, however, published by Le Nouvel Observateur and signed by authors Alain Finkielkraut and Elisabeth Badinter, several intellectuals denounced the "Munich of the republican school".

The Islamization of French education is now proceeding at a rapid pace. In 1989, the cry was, "Teachers, let us not capitulate!". Since then, some French teachers who have refused to capitulate have paid with their lives.

In October 2020, a French history teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by a Chechen terrorist for having carried out his work: educating his students to respect the founding values ​​of Western societies and the words mounted over the doors of their school (Liberté, égalité, fraternité), for discussing freedom of speech and showing them Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of Mohammed.

"Living together is a fable," Alain Finkielkraut wrote after Paty's beheading; "the lost territories of the Republic are the territories conquered by hatred of France. Eyes have opened, the evidence can no longer be hidden".

French Minister of Education Jean Michel Blanquer revealed that after the beheading of Paty, 800 Islamist "incidents" had taken place in French schools.

Another teacher was physically threatened at the Battières School in Lyon, where Samuel Paty had started his career. This teacher of history and geography had given a lesson on freedom of expression, in accordance with the school curricula, to a fifth-grade class. He stated, among other things, that Emmanuel Macron was not "Islamophobic". The father of a student came to see the teacher, challenging him verbally in front of witnesses. "He was vocal and very intrusive about what he said was and was not allowed to say in his classes", a witness said. Shocked, the teacher was put on sick leave and asked to change schools.

At a high school in Caluire-et-Cuire, near Lyon, a student threatened a teacher to "cut off his head". In Gisors, a girl distributed a photo of Paty's beheading to her companions. In Albertville, Savoy, the police had to summon four ten-year-old children and their parents because in the classroom they said "that teacher deserved to die". In Grenoble, an extremist Muslim was arrested for threatening to behead a teacher of history and geography named Laurent who appears on a reality TV show. "I will behead you" he said . Laurent was evidently preparing a video tribute to Paty. At the Pierre Mendès France School in Saumur, a student told his teacher, "My father will behead you".

It has become impossible even to make a precise list of these incidents. They occur every day in France.

A new survey reveals the level of self-censorship among French teachers. To avoid possible incidents, one out of every two teachers is admitting to self-censoring in class. By means of fear, terror and intimidation, Islamism is reaping what it has sown.

How We Let Islamism Enter the School is the title of Jean-Pierre Obin's new book about the rise of Islamism in French schools. Obin, a former inspector-general of national education, in 2004 coordinated a report on manifestations of religious affiliation at schools. It was not the first report from a French education insider. Bernard Ravet was, for 15 years, the principal of three of the most problematic schools in Marseille. In his book, College Principal or Imam of the Republic?, Ravet wrote:

"For more than ten years, fanaticism has been knocking on the door of dozens of establishments.... It has sought to encroach on the physical territory of the Republic, centimeter by centimeter, by imposing its signs and standards",

French philosopher Robert Redeker wrote in 2006:

"Islam tries to impose its rules on Europe, opening swimming pools at certain times exclusively for women, a ban on caricaturing this religion, the demand for special dietary treatment of Muslim children, the fight for the wearing the veil at school, the accusation of Islamophobia against free spirits."

His column in Le Figaro was titled, "Faced with Islamist intimidation, what should the free world do?" A few days later, Redeker began receiving death threats. "I can't work and I am obliged to hide", Redeker said. "So in some way, Islamists have succeeded in punishing me on the territory of the republic as if I were guilty of a crime of opinion".

We should have paid more attention to that first case. It was the first in a long series of attacks on French teachers and schools. Fourteen years later, Samuel Paty has paid with his life, a university professor just received security protection and another had to leave his school after threats. If extremists have managed to intimidate France's schools and universities, why should they not be able to subdue all of society?

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

The Media is the Message - Indian TV Anchor Discusses Air-Strikes Before They Happen; US Faith in News Media Falls Below 50%, as it Should

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Indian TV anchor’s texts spark cries for security leak inquiry after he discussed Pakistan airstrikes before they happened

18 Jan 2021 16:32

FILE PHOTO: Indian Air Force fighter jets on May 3, 2020. © REUTERS/Amit Dave

Opposition politicians in India have called for an investigation into a potential national security leak after a TV anchor’s messages showed he had prior knowledge of airstrikes launched against Pakistan in February 2019.

Amid a series of text messages sent from Arnab Goswami, news anchor and editor-in-chief of Republic TV network, to the head of a TV ratings agency, Goswami mentioned that India would launch a “bigger than normal strike” on Pakistan. The messages were sent on February 23, 2019, just three days before India struck military targets in Pakistan, but weren’t made public until earlier this month as part of a separate investigation.

A transcript of the messages was included in a charge-sheet filed by Mumbai police as part of an investigation into allegations of rate fixing by Republic, which the network denies. 

“On Pakistan, the government is confident of striking in a way that people will be elated. Exact words used,” Goswami’s message reportedly read.

The anchor has denied having any prior knowledge of the military action, arguing that his message was in reference to the officially stated government position that India would “hit back at Pakistan after the Pulwama attack.”

On February 14, 2019, a Pakistan-based group launched the deadliest single attack against Indian forces in Kashmir since 1989, killing 46 soldiers in a suicide bombing. In response, India launched airstrikes against militants in Pakistani locations, escalating tensions and nearly bringing the two neighboring states to the brink of war.

Addressing the calls for an investigation into a potential government leak, Goswami criticised India’s opposition parties, accusing them of being a “mouthpiece” for Pakistan. 

The Indian government has not responded to the demands from the opposition parties, nor to suggestions of impropriety or leaking. 

Alongside the internal issues caused by the content of the messages, the issue also risks international outcry. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has suggested the texts show that the strikes were a political act, and not a military move, to help Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi secure re-election.

Americans’ trust in mainstream media has never been lower –

but journalists insist it’s the audience’s fault, not theirs

22 Jan 2021 03:59

FILE PHOTO. ©  Reuters / Shannon Stapleton

Fewer than half of Americans trust mainstream media, according to PR firm Edelman’s annual “trust barometer.” But rather than attempt to repair the relationship, media outlets blame their audience’s poor ‘information hygiene.’

Long headed for collapse, Americans’ trust in the media establishment hit an all time low in 2021, falling three points overall to just 46 percent, according to Edelman’s most recent annual survey. The figure marks the first time Americans’ trust of journalism sank below the 50 percent mark.

Americans’ trust in social media also hit rock bottom, clocking in at a miserable 27 percent, according to Edelman’s annual “trust barometer.” Globally, people’s faith in social media wasn’t much better, with just 35 percent of users deeming it a trustworthy source for “general news and information.”

Survey respondents did not hesitate to expound on their dim view of the journalistic profession, either – 56 percent of Americans agreed the media was “purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations,” while 58 percent agreed most outlets were “more concerned with supporting an ideology or political position than informing the public.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, breaking the numbers up by political party revealed a sharp contrast between Biden and Trump voters, with only 18 percent of the latter crowd deeming the media trustworthy in the wake of November’s presidential election. Even among Democrats, however, only 57 percent deemed the media trustworthy.

Conservatives, including the offspring of former president Donald Trump, took to social media to roll their eyes at what for them was stating the obvious. Most establishment outlets had after all been gushing about President Joe Biden's inauguration in truly outrageous terms, comparing his inaugural speech to that of JFK and waxing poetic about Vice President Kamala Harris' hair.

Others brought up dubious connections to “independent” media – including Edelman itself – suggesting the trust crisis had less to do with the media losing its touch than it did with Americans becoming more savvy regarding their manipulation.

The only group trusted by a majority of Americans out of Government, Media, NGOs, and Business in 2021 was, ironically, Big Business – even though corporations largely pull the strings of the media, politics, and the other institutions so many Americans seem to agree are not trustworthy.

Axios and other opportunistic journalists reading Edelman’s 2021 report have called for these CEOs to “visibly embrace the news media” in order to burnish the media’s public image.

'Visibly embrace', is that as opposed to 'invisibly embrace'?

“Now it’s time for [CEOs] to use the trust they’ve built up to help rebuild our civic infrastructure,” Axios concluded, specifically referring to outreach to Trump voters, whose trust in CEOs (61 percent) runs 40 points higher than their trust in the media. However, given conservatives’ unabashed loathing for mainstream media, the plan could backfire and drag corporations down a few notches in the MAGA crowd’s estimation.

Even while admitting that media distrust was a global issue rather than “a function of Donald Trump’s war on ‘fake news,’” Axios appeared to blame its audience for their refusal to put their faith in the Fourth Estate, posting a series of links tipping worried journalists off on why their propaganda might be missing the mark. Clutching pearls on topics from the Covid-19 pandemic and “vaccine hesitancy” to the US election scandals, the overarching message was simple – don't confuse your audience with opinions other than the one you want them to have.

However, Americans’ own distrust in the majority of their institutions does not bode well for the US’ “brand,” Edelman’s survey revealed. Other countries have apparently been paying attention, as trust in companies headquartered in the US fell four points to what was reportedly an all-time low of 51 percent.

Fox News’ Ratings Slide as Americans’ Mistrust of Mainstream Media Grows

6 Corporations own 90% of American news media