Free Republic

The legal conditions for extraditing a suspect linked to a 1982 attack in France, in which six people were killed, have been met, a Norway appellate court found Friday. Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed, a 61-year-old Palestinian who became a Norwegian citizen in 1997, is wanted by French authorities on suspicion of being one of the shooters in the attack on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris's Marais district, a historically Jewish quarter. The attack on August 9, 1982, which left six people dead and 22 injured, was blamed on the Abu Nidal Organisation, a splinter group of the militant Palestinian...

MANILA, Philippines – The National Bureau of Investigation has arrested in Pasay City two suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf Group wanted for the 2002 kidnapping and killing of members of Jehova’s Witness. NBI Officer-in-Charge Director Eric Distor identified the suspects as Jamar Ibi and Raden Jamil. The two were arrested by members of the NBI’s Counter-Terrorism Division (NBI-CTD) by virtue of arrest warrants issued by the Pasig City Regional Trial Court Branch 266. NBI-CTD Officer-In-Charge Darcy Binaya said the two were among those charged with six counts of non-bailable charges of kidnapping and serious illegal detention with ransom before...

ATTACK - The Pantin mosque will have to close its doors on Wednesday evening and for a period of six months. The cause, in particular, a video relayed on the Facebook page of the place of worship likely to have facilitated the savage murder of Samuel Paty on October 16 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine as well as the controversial personality of the imam. The faithful met this Tuesday morning near the mosque consider the decision unfair and disproportionate. "I have tears in my eyes," laments a mother, who has been practicing in this place of worship for a year. "The Pantin mosque...

"A reconnaissance patrol ambushed by Boko Haram in Tchoukou Maria," a group of islets on the border between Chad and Nigeria, said Chadian army spokesman General Azem Bermendoa Agouna. In fact, this attack claimed the lives of six soldiers while twelve others were wounded. The army neutralized a dozen terrorists, said the spokesman. Lake Chad, a vast expanse of water and swamps dotted with inhabited islets, serves as a hideout for the Boko Haram group from neighboring Nigeria and its dissident branch, the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap) group. The Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria...

In just two weeks Americans will go to the polls. For whom should Christians vote? This election is vitally important to you and future generations. There is a side that is openly supportive to Christians and the church. However, there is also a strong political movement that blatantly hates God and Christians. They ridicule Christians as racist, backward unscientific, judgmental and unsophisticated. They tell us that we need to change and update our doctrine to conform to their views about homosexuality, Islam, abortion and tax-payer funding for contraception. They approve of abortion even till after birth. They desire to use...

Almost all the polls say that US President Donald Trump is heading towards defeat at the hands of his Democrat challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden next month. But Robert Cahaly, who heads the Trafalgar Group polling firm, disagrees. Cahaly was the only major pollster that accurately called the 2016 presidential race. In an interview with The Political Trade podcast last week, Cahaly said his data show Trump headed for another upset victory Nov. 3.Cahaly said that today, as in 2016, the disparity between his numbers and the marquis polling firms' numbers owes to the latter's systematic neglect of what...

The Pantin mosque has apologized for broadcasting the video of the father angry with the beheaded professor on Friday. Gérald Darmanin wants it closed. Since the broadcast of a video of the father of the family who wanted the exclusion of Samuel Paty, this professor of history and geography beheaded for showing caricatures of Mohammed in class in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, the mosque of Pantin is under the critics fire. Indeed, the latter posted on her Facebook page the video of the angry student's parent who targets the teacher. She has since expressed regret. This Monday evening, Gérald Darmanin announced that he...

Reverend John claimed to have caught the vandal and held him until police arrived A suspect who tried to tear a huge cross off the roof of a church in east London was tackled by the reverend before police arrived at the scene. Footage on social media appears to show the man ripping at the large wooden crucifix after scaling the roof of Chadwell Heath Baptist Church in east London. He is seen hanging his parka jacket on the cross as he repeatedly attempts to pull the cross from its base. Reverend John, who had just held his regular Sunday...

A minute of silence will be observed to remember the victims of wars and of the coronavirus pandemic.VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis will attend an ecumenical prayer service and an interreligious ceremony for peace in Rome next week, the Vatican announced Friday. The prayer service will be held at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in the afternoon on Tuesday, Oct. 20, and will include participants from other Christian traditions. Following the prayer, Pope Francis will also join in a ceremony with representatives of the world’s major religions, to take place in Campidoglio Square. The square, which sits on...

Spotlights Mexican government's anti-clerical historyMEXICO CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - Mexican bishop Miguel Ángel Alba Díaz has asked the president of his country to issue an apology for murders and persecution of the Catholic Church committed by the Mexican government in the 1920s. Bishop Alba Díaz, who presides over the diocese of La Paz in Baja California, was responding to repeated demands by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that the Catholic Church and the government of Spain beg forgiveness for the evangelization and conquest of Mexico in 1521. Most recently, the president's wife, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, visited Pope Francis Oct. 10 to...

The left believes Christians should be free to worship whatever sky-fairies they want, providing it’s a part-time commitment behind closed doors.While interviewing Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, last week, CNN’s Chris Cuomo expressed concern that Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s faith appears “more central to her value system and her behavior and thoughts than it would be for just an ordinary Catholic.” Cuomo went on to suggest in an interview with former 2020 Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg that people’s faith “doesn’t matter,” but their policy positions affected by it do. What on earth does this mean? “It doesn’t matter if you have...

In South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, (SD CA, Oct. 15, 2020), a California federal district court refused to grant a preliminary injunction to a church that challenged California's current COVID-19 restrictions on worship services. The state limits plaintiffs’ indoor worship services to the lesser of 25% of building capacity or 100 people. The church had earlier unsuccessfully appealed a challenge to an earlier version of state restrictions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. (See prior posting.) According to the district court: Plaintiffs now argue ... that California’s “scientific pronouncements” are “largely baseless,” and that by “all...

HOLLAND — Keith Mannes has given his life to the Christian Reformed Church, serving as a pastor for more than 30 years. He’s done so happily and thankfully. But on Oct. 11, Mannes gave his last sermon and walked away from ministry among increasing political tension and divisiveness. Put simply, he stepped away due to the church’s broad support of President Donald Trump.

<p>Click on the link to watch the video. And please observe the rules for caucused threads.</p>

MANILA: An Indonesian fisherman held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) for eight months has been killed by his captors in the southern Philippines, the country’s military announced on Wednesday. Joint Task Force (JTF) Sulu commander Brig. Gen. William Gonzales said the victim was one of five Indonesians kidnapped by gunmen from the terror group in waters off Sabah, Malaysia in January and taken to Sulu where they were held captive. The man’s body was found during a clearing operation following a gunfight between the Army 45th Infantry Battalion (45IB) and ASG in Patikul, Sulu on Tuesday. “Our troops...

From Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice PORTIA Then must the Jew be merciful. SHYLOCK On what compulsion must I? tell me that. PORTIA The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is...

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON - Cameroon says it has again closed more than 60 schools on its northern border with Nigeria to protect children and teaching staff from increasing Boko Haram attacks. Many people have fled the region and are now displaced. The Islamist group has stepped up its use of suicide bombers, even as the country’s military has drastically reduced the jihadists’ firepower. The central African country has deployed its military to assure the safety of the remaining civilian population in the affected regions. Ousmanou Garga, Cameroon’s basic education official on the northern border with Nigeria, says recent Boko Haram attacks...

A homily that examines the Catholicity of VP Biden.

One, on Oct. 6, 2020, Pres. Trump tweeted that he has authorized the total declassification (no redactions) of any and all documents related to the Russian Collusion investigation and the Clinton e-mail scandal. It is now clear from handwritten notes of some Obama Administration officials that they knew that the DNC and Hillary Clinton financed this hoax. It is my opinion that the U.S. government should sue Hillary and the DNC to recover the cost of their deliberate scam. Two, concerning lawlessness, on Oct. 9, 2020, U.S. Sec. of State Pompeo said his department has Hillary Clinton’s deleted e-mails, and...

Fourteen soldiers killed in jihadist attack (Nigeria) ISIS fighters launched an assault on a military base in the northeast of the country on Saturday. Several soldiers are also missing. Jihadists linked to the Islamic State (IS) organization killed 14 Nigerian soldiers in an attack on a military base in the northeast of the country, military sources said on Saturday. Several soldiers are missing. Two sources, who requested anonymity, told AFP that fighters from the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap) group attacked the Jakana military base on Friday with machine guns and grenade launchers, a offensive followed by intense fighting....