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The United States shut down its embassy in Libya on Saturday and evacuated its diplomats to neighboring Tunisia under U.S. military escort amid a significant deterioration in security in Tripoli as fighting intensified between rival militias, the State Department said. "Due to the ongoing violence resulting from clashes between Libyan militias in the immediate vicinity of the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, we have temporarily relocated all of our personnel out of Libya," spokeswoman Marie Harf said. The withdrawal underscored the Obama administration's concern about the heightened risk to American diplomats abroad, particularly in Libya where memories of the deadly 2012...

French authorities say they foiled an Islamic terrorist plot reportedly targeting the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and a nuclear power plant last year. The revelation comes as the country unveiled new anti-terror rules which included a proposal to ban terror suspects from leaving the country if it is thought they intend to fight abroad, The Telegraph reported. French authorities revealed they arrested a 29-year-old Algerian butcher living in southern France June 2013, after they found coded messages between him and a high-ranking Al Qaeda member discussing how “to conduct jihad in the place you are currently,” according to Le Parisien....

With the rise of Islamist organizations, repressive regimes, and civil conflicts which threaten regional stability, the promise of the Arab Spring of 2011 quickly devolved into an Arab winter. In an expansive article in The Economist, the threat to the Middle East is discussed in appropriately grave terms; Syria and Iraq are in flames while Jordan looms as the next domino to potentially fall. Libya and Yemen, where Islamic terror networks operate with impunity, are labeled “failed states.” Those Middle Eastern nations that are not in danger of imminent collapse are either absolute monarchies or counties which merely maintain...

An ongoing lawsuit has pried loose new records linked to a family of Sarasota Saudis who left home in a hurry just before 9/11. It was Halloween night, 2001. The horrors of 9/11 were still fresh on the the minds of Americans. At a time when everyone was on edge, the sight of a man disposing documents in a dumpster behind a Bradenton storage facility aroused suspicion. Summoned to the scene, Manatee County sheriff’s deputies confronted the man, who had a Tunisian passport. According to FBI records, authorities searched the dumpster and found “a self-printed manual on terrorism and Jihad,...

There’s always Tunisia. Amid the smoking ruins of the Middle East, there is that one encouraging success story. But unfortunately for the Obama narratives, the president had about as much as to do with Tunisia’s turn toward democracy as he did with the World Cup rankings. Where administration policy has had an impact, the story is one of failure and danger. The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace, for the surge in Iraq had beaten down the al Qaeda-linked groups. U.S. relations with traditional allies in the Gulf, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were very good....

France has expelled a 28-year-old Tunisian it accuses of running a jihadi recruitment ring which is sending fighters to Syria. An Interior Ministry statement Saturday says the unidentified Tunisian was sent back to Tunisia on Thursday "in view of the threat his presence constituted for public security and the safety of the state."

The Arab Spring, which started with the self-immolation of a Tunisian vegetable vendor at 11.30 am on 16th December, 2010, has resulted in two failed states in the region so far.  Libya has become “Scumbag Woodstock” because of the number of terrorist organisations headquartered there.  The French and English attempt at regime change created a terrorist haven with consequences as far afield as Mali and the 300 Christian girls kidnapped in Nigeria.  Fortunately, Syria has become a meatgrinder for Islamic terrorists and for the moment has ceased being a net exporter of terrorism.  In that conflict, the Obama Administration has...

Unique samples were among the 250 ancient coins found in Bornholm After hours of searching through the mud with metal detectors, amateur archaeologists Frank Pelle and Bent Gregersen made the discovery of their lives on a ploughed field in Bornholm earlier in April. The two lucky gold-diggers found an ancient Viking gold treasure hidden in the ground. "It was an amazing feeling, for we had searched for hundreds of hours without luck," Pelle told Ekstra Bladet. Thousand-year-old treasure After studying x-rays of collected earth samples, Bornholms Museum, the local archaeological museum, estimated that the treasure of 250 gold and silver...

Tunisia’s elected assembly accepted a petition Wednesday to question the tourism minister over a decision allowing Israelis to use their passports to enter the country for an annual religious pilgrimage. While Israelis and Jews long have traveled to Tunisia for an annual pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba, this is the first year that Israelis have been allowed to use their passports rather than a special document issued by Tunisian embassies. Tunisia does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. …

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just completed a series of landmark reports that chronicle an update to the current state of consensus science on climate change. Its conclusion: On our current path, climate change could pose an irreversible, existential risk to civilization as we know it, but we can still fix it if we decide to work together. But in addition to the call for cooperation, the reports also shared an alarming new trend: Climate change is already destabilizing nations and leading to wars. That finding was highlighted in last week's premiere of Showtime's climate change docu-drama...

Tunis (AFP) - It happens every April ahead of the summer marriage season, says Tunisian gynaecologist Faouzi Hajri -- desperate brides-to-be beg for surgery to make them "virgins" again for their wedding night. Fearing rejection as "used" women in a conservative Muslim country where premarital sex is nevertheless common, Tunisian women are increasingly opting for the sort of surgery offered by Doctor Hajri. But it doesn't stop them regretting the need to convince new husbands of their purity. "A woman's honour shouldn't be determined by a few drops of blood," says Salima, a 32-year-old who admits she had the operation...

BARACK OBAMA may recall a tricky moment when he first met King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia five years ago. Bending to shake hands with the octogenarian monarch, the taller American appeared to bow deeply. Republican snipers in America gleefully blasted the president for “kowtowing” to rich Arabs. Such protocols should run more smoothly when Mr Obama heads to Saudi Arabia on March 28th for his second time in office. Unfortunately, however, relations between the two countries have seldom been more awkward. Their close alliance dates to the end of the second world war, when an ailing Franklin Roosevelt met Saudi...

The US has taken control of a tanker full of oil loaded from a rebel-held port in Libya, the Pentagon says. The raid by Navy Seals took place in international waters south of Cyprus, said Rear Adm John Kirby. The Morning Glory's evasion of a naval blockade at the eastern port of Sidra prompted Libya's parliament to sack Prime Minister Ali Zeidan last week. The oil terminal has been under the control of militia wanting autonomy for eastern Libya since July 2013.

Norwegian Cruise Line announced it was canceling all future calls to Tunisia on Tuesday, two days after the North African country refused entry to Israeli nationals who were passengers on the Norwegian Jade. “We want to send a strong message to Tunisia and ports around the world that we will not tolerate such random acts of discrimination against our guests,” Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Kevin Sheehan said in a strongly worded statement. “We are outraged by this act and the fact that we were not notified in advance of this practice. We apologize sincerely to our guests who were affected...

Received by email: B'nai Brith Canada has learned from Canadian Jewish tourists aboard a Norwegian Jade cruise ship that Israeli tourists have been denied the right to disembark when the ship dropped anchor at the Port of Tunis, Tunisia. As passengers began preparations to visit the country, Israelis on board were quietly told that they were not welcomed by the Tunisian Government and would have to remain onboard. According to some Jewish passengers no prior notice was issued, either in writing or by public announcement. The cruise line also failed to advise passengers in advance that Israeli tourists would...

Compensation for Jews pushed out of Arab lands may become yet another issue MUCH as Palestinian refugees and their offspring remember the orange groves and cinemas they lost in Jaffa when Israel was born in 1948, Jews who once lived in Iraq recite the qasidas—lyrical Arabic poetry—and recall the time when most of Iraq’s banks and transport companies were run by Jews. “Iraq has gone downhill since they forced us out,” sighs a professor at a gathering of academics of Iraqi origin at Or Yehuda, a Tel Aviv suburb, slipping into Arabic. “Mubki, lamentable.” American officials are unclear on the...

Christianity began in the East, not the West, yet today Christians in the East are enduring an all-out-assault by Islamic terrorists, while Christians in the West live their lives largely oblivious to it all. This has to change. This is no imaginary persecution; in Syria alone there have been reports of kidnappings, Christian communities intentionally displaced by militants and, worst of all, shootings and beheadings of Christians who refused to convert to Islam. In Egypt radicals have recently destroyed dozens of churches, and the once vibrant Christian population in Iraq has been decimated. Christians in the West should stand up...

The Tunisian Parliament approved a new constitution Monday. Despite reports that the constitution guarantees both separation of powers and civil rights, it lacks one crucial clause: absolute freedom of religion—for its politicians. The new constitution names Islam as the official religion. While RT reported Sunday that Sharia Law will not be the basis of the constitution, Article 73 of the new plan does demand that the President be exclusively Muslim—as a model of being a good Tunisian citizen. …

Women with uncovered faces might give the little tykes all sorts of ideas. This isn’t happening in Afghanistan… but in Tunisia. The heartland of the Arab Spring. A group of Salafites has issued death threats against teachers at an elementary school in Djerba, Tunisia, if they will not start wearing the Islamic veil within a week. ... Some might complain that it’s unfair to call Salafis moderate. But I’m not being sarcastic. If the Muslim Brotherhood can be repeatedly referred to as a moderate group as well as many of the Salafist militias in Syria that aren’t Al Qaeda… that...