Free Republic

10 January 2015 Nigeria: 'Girl Bomber' Kills 19 People In Maiduguri Market At least 19 people have been killed and several injured by a bomb strapped to a girl reported to be aged about 10 in north-eastern Nigeria, police say. The bomb exploded in a market in the city of Maiduguri, in Borno state. "The explosive devices were wrapped around her body," a police source told Reuters. No group has said it carried out the attack. The market is reported to have been targeted twice in a week by female bombers late last year. Correspondents say that all the signs...

Boko Haram militants opened fire on northern Nigerian villages, leaving bodies scattered everywhere and as many as 2,000 people feared dead, officials said.

More than four years ago the dangerous results of a growing Muslim population in a given area were explained by Dr. Peter Hammond in his book Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat. The essence of Dr. Hammond’s research into the correlation between Muslims appearing in a geographical location and the kind of vicious attacks that happen is as follows: When Muslims constitute less than 2% of a given location (Dr. Hammond uses countries but as Minneapolis–St Paul is showing us we can more correctly reduce a research area to a city) they behave themselves. We don’t...

(CNSNews.com) – Nine of the 10 countries with the worst records for persecution of Christians have populations that are at least 50 percent Muslim, according to the assessment of persecution in the Open Doors USA's World Watch List (WWL) 2015 and population information published by the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. The WWL is an “annual survey of religious liberty conditions for Christians around the world" that was released Wednesday. Communist North Korea topped the list for the 13th consecutive year for the regime’s extreme persecution of Christians. But the other 9 countries among the 10 worst had...

I have never laughed so bitterly as I did while reading Thursday's lead editorial by the great pretender-defenders of free speech at The New York Times. Paying obligatory lip service to the 10 cartoonists and staffers of the Paris satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo who were slaughtered for offending Islam, the Times intoned: "It is absurd to suggest that the way to avoid terrorist attacks is to let the terrorists dictate standards in a democracy." My GPS tracker of journalistic hypocrisy immediately identified the Times editorial board's high-altitude location -- ensconced atop their own Mt. Everest of absurdity and self-unawareness. The...

In the aftermath of the deadly assault on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical newspaper, much of the world has rallied in solidarity with the publication, its irreverent cartoonists and their right to free speech. But not everyone is so supportive. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, a U.S. organization that "defends the rights of Catholics," issued a statement titled "Muslims are right to be angry." In it, Donohue criticized the publication's history of offending the world's religiously devout, including non-Muslims. The murdered Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier "didn’t understand the role he played in his [own]...

<p>In the worst tragedy in seven years at the annual Muslim pilgrimage, 244 worshippers were trampled to death and hundreds more were hurt beneath a crush of people making their way to a ritualistic stoning of the devil.</p> <p>Panic ensued when a few pilgrims fell on a bridge, and others tried to escape the push of the oncoming crowd, authorities said. Safety measures were in place at the site -- one where fatal stampedes have been frequent -- but "caution isn't stronger than fate," Saudi Hajj Minister Iyad Madani said.</p>

The two “ghost ships” discovered sailing towards the Italian coast last week with hundreds of migrants – but no crew – on board are just the latest symptom of what experts consider to be the world’s largest wave of mass-migration since the end of the second world war. Wars in Syria, Libya and Iraq, severe repression in Eritrea, and spiralling instability across much of the Arab world have all contributed to the displacement of around 16.7 million refugees worldwide. A further 33.3 million people are “internally displaced” within their own war-torn countries, forcing many of those originally from the Middle...

Cathedral dean says he wants to make marchers 'stop and think'Cologne Cathedral will turn off its lights on Monday evening in protest against an anti-Islamic march in the German city. A group called Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (Pegida) is organising the march, which is the latest in a series of demonstrations in Germany. A recent march in Dresden attracted an estimated 17,000 people. Fr Norbert Feldhoff, dean of Cologne Cathedral, told Reuters: “Pegida is made up of an astonishingly broad mix of people, ranging from those in the middle of society to racists and the extreme...

Coptic Christian family — mother, father, and daughter — killed in Libya More information about the Coptic Christian family — mother, father, and daughter — killed in Libya continues to surface. In an interview with the mother’s brother, he explained how the murderers broke into the house in the middle of the night. They handcuffed and killed the father. Then they entered the children’s bedroom, three girls. The mother was there, cried out, tried to fight back, and was killed. They took the oldest daughter, Katherine, and fled with her. The girl’s body was later found in the desert, shot...

The newly-elected Chinese Christian governor of Indonesia’s capital city, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, is finding new allies in Jakarta’s influential Muslim leaders, reports MNN. Mr. Purnama, who goes by “Ahok,” reflects an “acceptance of diversity” agenda being put forth by the newly-elected President and former gubernatorial running mate, Joko Widodo. “He’s referred to as a double-minority because he’s ethnic Chinese, which is a minority in Indonesia, and he’s also Christian,” notes John Bachman of the Haggai Institute. “Given the fact that Indonesia has a very large Muslim population, there are some leaders that have been very vocal [about], ‘This is not...

Saudi Arabia's national airline is allegedly planning to separate male and female passengers on its flights, in accordance to strict rules enforced by the Gulf kingdom. Gulf media report that Saudia will keep men and women segregated onboard, unless they are close relatives. The move follows a spate of complaints from male fliers unwilling to allow other males to sit next to their wives and other female family members.

Refugees live 'like animals' in camps ...........................Sister Hatune points to the fact that 96 percent of the people who populated the Middle East at the turn of the eighth century were Christian. Now, that Christian population has dwindled to 6 percent. Turkey was once almost all Christian, but now it is 0.03 percent Christian. Iraq had 1 million Christians under Saddam Hussein, but now only a few thousand remain, and the churches of Baghdad will be mostly empty this Christmas. “Where are these Christians? Where are these people? Just ask yourself,” said the fiery nun, whose native tongue is Aramaic.

In a TV interview, Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed, the imam of a gay-friendly mosque in Paris, said: "I believe that it was Allah who created homosexuals... Allah does not speak against homosexuality in the Quran." The Algerian-born Zahed founded the gay-friendly mosque and an association for gay and lesbian Muslims in France. Following are excerpts from the interview, aired on Deutsche-Welle TV Arabia on December 17, 2014: Interviewer: Let me take you back to the moment when you told your parents that you were homosexual. How did they respond? Ludvic-Mohamed Zahed: They did not believe me – especially my mother, who said:...

In November 2014, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took a bold and unprecedented step for a Muslim nation by designating 85 radical Islamic organizations as terrorist organizations. The UAE’s designation is the most audacious and significant classification of terrorist organizations worldwide, and is superior to the lists developed by the United States, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United Nations. As to why it is unrivalled, here are a number of reasons: First: The UAE addressed the roots of the problem, in the sense that terrorist ideology paves the way for terrorist acts; hence, the list included organizations...

Muslim Albanians in Kosovo are capturing Christians, dissecting them alive, tearing out their organs, killing the victims, and then selling the organs to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the two major nations of the Antichrist. We learned this from a local Serbian Christian and veteran Special Forces officer in Serbia’s military, named Lazar. We interviewed him and this is the information he conveyed to us. He said “They also kill people and sell their organs in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.” He then said, They abduct people in Kosovo, Serbian people — in some cases Albanian people — and they take their...

Picture the Pope praying in a mosque alongside top Muslim leaders. That’s what happened in Turkey last weekend. Pope Francis was at the Blue Mosque in Instabul on Saturday as part of his three-day visit to the predominantly Muslim country. He also celebrated Mass at the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in the city. The visit to the mosque is significant as the Pope tries to promote peace and unity between Muslims and Christians. He’s the second Pope to worship at the Blue Mosque. The first was his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who was there in 2006 for a...

WASHINGTON - Biden, speaking at a forum on the Middle East at the Brookings Institution think tank, rejected calls for more sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program because "this is not the time to risk a breakdown when we still have a chance for a breakthrough." Biden said the sanctions imposed by the United States and allies were working by slowing Iran's economy, as well as its nuclear program. "It's frozen the program, it's given us a shot for a peaceful solution," he said. "I tell you, I think it's a less than even shot but it's a shot,...

Andrew White, an Anglican priest known as the “Vicar of Baghdad,” has seen violence and persecution against Christians unprecedented in recent decades. In the video embedded below, he recounts the story of Iraqi Christian children who were told by ISIS militants to convert to Islam or be killed. Their response? “No, We Love Yeshua (Jesus).”Find out more about Andrew White’s ministry, The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, which provides humanitarian assistance to many of the Christians under attack by ISIS. Be sure to watch his interview below, and spread the word about the horrific persecution going...

Vatican's chief ecumenical officer speaks about implications of this weekend's papal visitPope Francis and Ecumencial Patriarch Bartholomew will sign a joint declaration Sunday, confirming the growing relationship between the long-separated Churches of Rome and Constantinople. The Pope's visit comes just six months after he and Bartholomew met in Jerusalem and singed a Joint Declaration about their commitment to the search for Christian unity. Accompanying Pope Francis on the journey to Turkey is the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, who said in a Vatican Radio interview this week that first of all ithe papal...