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Мазохи́зм: masochism Here at The St. Petersburg Times language desk, we've written a lot about gaffes in the translation and interpretation of official statements over the years. Once upon a time, those mistakes were just that — mistakes. And only translation nerds were interested in the nuances. Those days are gone. Now translation is just one more weapon in the propaganda wars.

Boris Johnson says he intends to renounce his American citizenship to prove his "commitment to Britain". He told the Sunday Times that his citizenship was "an accident of birth that has left me with this thing. I've got to find a way of sorting it out". The Mayor of London, who was born in New York, has in the past been forced to pay US tax because of his American citizenship. He has just completed a six-day tour of cities in the US. Mr Johnson said he would approach US ambassador Matthew Barzun to explore what steps he had to...

More Than 500,000 In U.S. Could Be At Risk Of Female Genital Excision Preliminary data shows that up to 507,000 women and girls in the United States were at risk of female genital excision in 2013. By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS A new study finds that nearly 507,000 women and girls in the U.S. could be at risk of female genital excision There is anecdotal evidence of U.S. girls being sent to their parents' home countries for 'vacation cutting' Nearly 507,000 women and girls in the United States could be at risk of female genital excision, including 57,000 in California, a new...

So here’s Obama’s opinion: Ukraine should not get military aid from the West because even with American help, Russia would still mop the floor with them. And this, according to the Times, is what Obama thinks will intimidate Putin into signing a peace treaty. I’ll offer the president some free advice: telling Putin the world is too weak to stop him isn’t very intimidating. Yet even if the West got Putin to sign on to a new agreement, nothing will have been accomplished. Putin has been violating the last ceasefire agreement, because there’s no one to enforce it. What Obama,...

,li>U.S. Seen in Middle East as Ally of Terrorists Many Egyptians and moderate Arabs and Muslims were shocked to hear that the U.S. State Department recently hosted a Muslim Brotherhood delegation. They were equally shocked when an EU court decided to remove Hamas from the bloc's list of terror groups. "Just two days after the controversial visit, the Brotherhood called for a war against their fellow Egyptians." — Linda S. Heard, Middle East Expert, Gulf News. "The Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to return to the political arena through the American door and terrorist attacks. The U.S. policy appears to be...

My new book, The Protestant's Dilemma, shows in a myriad of ways why Protestantism is implausible. We sifted through many arguments to boil the book down to the most essential. A few chapters didn't make the cut but are still good enough to share. Here's one of them. If Protestantism is true, There's no way to know whether you're assenting to divine revelation or to mere human opinion about divine revelation. Protestants and Catholics both believe that God has revealed himself to man over the course of human history, culminating in his ultimate self-revelation in Jesus Christ. But whereas Catholics...

Their neighbors thought they were a sales consultant and a real estate agent. He had a degree from Harvard. They had two children. They were a typical American family, except they were not. Documents released by the FBI paint a picture of the lives and the extensive training in spycraft given to a group of Russian spies sent to live in American society, including one couple found in Cambridge.

A Lubbock Texas judge made international headlines earlier this year for his prediction that if President Obama is reelected on Tuesday, it will open the door for a United Nations invasion. Judge Tom Head told a local radio station in September that the president will: “Try to give the sovereignty of the United States away. He’s going to call in the UN troops, personnel carriers, tanks and whatever.” The proclamation drew widespread scorn and ridicule both at home and abroad. Even the office of the Secretary General weighed in on Head’s prediction. “It’s absolutely ridiculous,” said a spokesperson for UN...

#Google hands data to US Government in #WikiLeaks espionage case https://t.co/ocBQGvL4yl pic.twitter.com/MIxGiOu9si — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 26, 2015 Google hands over WikiLeaks emails, but is the first to exploit Charlie Hebdo and Sony's "the Interview". Why? https://t.co/D2Ir2Yi3Kq — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 25, 2015 'Attack on journalism': WikiLeaks responds to Google's cooperation with US govt Google’s willingness to surrender the private emails of WikiLeaks staffers to the United States government amounts to an “attack on journalism,” a representative for the whistleblower group says. Kristinn Hrafnsson, an Icelandic journalist who joined WikiLeaks as the group’s spokesman in 2010, said he’s “appalled” that...

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter's Square before the Wed. general audience on April 16, 2014. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA. Manila, Philippines, Jan 18, 2015 / 12:56 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop Bernardito Auza – a member of the organizing committee for Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to the U.S. – has revealed details of the proposed schedule, which includes visits to three cities. “He would arrive on the 22nd and he would leave the evening of the 27th. It’s really a full six days, plus the travel, so it’s really one week,” Archbishop Auza told CNA/EWTN News in Manila on Jan....

The U.S. military is planning to deploy more than 400 troops to help train Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State, along with hundreds of U.S. support personnel, a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.

The United States of America is NOT at war with Islam. And every Muslim better pray and kiss our asses hoping that the USA is never at war with Islam. Every Muslim should bend over backwards to appease the United Sttates. The US is not at war with Islam. If we were, there would be a radioactive crater 300 meters deep and 1000 meters across glowing at 10,000 degrees at the site of the Kaaba shrine and Grand Mosque in Mecca -- where Muslims doing the Haj pilgrimage gather from around the world to bow down to the black Kaaba...

Muslims in USA by County.

It's time to ban the burka in the US now. Which one of the new congress people will stand up and sponsor a bill. Will all good men be quiet now?

Russia has presented a startling proposal to overcome the tensions with the EU: The EU should renounce the free trade agreement with the United States TTIP and enter into a partnership with the newly established Eurasian Economic Union instead. A free trade zone with the neighbors would make more sense than a deal with the US.

Never one to shy away from the social media spotlight, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently took to Twitter to bash the United States for alleged racial injustices, using popular hashtags like #Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter to draw parallels to Jesus and the unrest in Gaza.“#Jesus endured sufferings to oppose tyrants who had put humans in hell in this world& the hereafter while he backed the oppressed. #Ferguson,” Iran’s chief political and religious authority tweeted to his 92,000 followers on Sunday, CNN reported.Mr. Khamenei went on to compare Jesus’ struggle to that of black people in the United States.“It’s expected...

n the fall of 2008, a 30-year-old computer expert named Zarrar Shah roamed from outposts in the northern mountains of Pakistan to safe houses near the Arabian Sea, plotting mayhem in Mumbai, India’s commercial gem. Mr. Shah, the technology chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani terror group, and fellow conspirators used Google Earth to show militants the routes to their targets in the city. He set up an Internet phone system to disguise his location by routing his calls through New Jersey. Shortly before an assault that would kill 166 people, including six Americans, Mr. Shah searched online for a Jewish...

Russian strategic bombers conducted a third circumnavigation of the U.S. Pacific island of Guam last week as other bombers flew close to Alaska and Europe, defense officials said. Two Tu-95 Bear H bombers made the flight around Guam, a key U.S. military hub in the western Pacific, on Dec. 13. No U.S. interceptor jets were dispatched to shadow the bombers. Separately, two Canadian F-18s intercepted two Bear bombers that intruded into the Alaska air defense identification zone on Dec. 8 that a military spokesman called “unwanted, provocative, and potentially destabilizing.” Around the same time in Europe, NATO jets intercepted Russian...

Mr. Robert Spencer at Restoration Weekend 2014, at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Obama and politicians in both countries have been trading barbs for months as the countries' relations have plunged ever southward. But what about the countries' citizens? Are they as at odds as their leaders' rhetoric suggests? WorldViews delved into recent opinion polls conducted by the Pew Research Center and Gallup. Together, the data provide interesting insights into what Russians and Americans think about each other and themselves, how they differ in certain ways, and how they are similar when it comes to other aspects. Ways Americans and Russians think differently Less than half of all...