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International approval of U.S. leadership improved last year, rising from of 41% in 2012 to 46% in 2013. This ended a downward trend in U.S. approval ratings, which had consistently declined since 2009. While people around the world tended to have positive opinions of U.S. leadership, residents of some countries had a negative impression of the United States. In five nations, more than two-thirds of those surveyed disapproved of the current administration, according to the latest U.S.-Global Leadership Project, a partnership between Meridian International Center and Gallup.Last year represented a major improvement for U.S. leadership, Ambassador Stuart Holliday, president and...

t has been learned that one week prior to the Benghazi attacks that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, CIA Director David Petraeus met with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan. This finding, reported by Hurrieyt at the time, further bolsters brand new claims by Seymour M. Hersh, the man who broke the Abu Ghraib prison scandal story in 2004. In early 2012, the Obama administration, along with the administration of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reached an agreement that would have Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia provide funding for an operation run by then CIA Director David Petraeus (the Petraeus...

Decades ago, in the years after Iraq gained independence, a tradition of child marriage persisted in its hills and plains. Upon their fathers’ orders, Iraqi girls were betrothed to strangers and rivals alike to resolve tribal disputes or incur favor.But in the mid-1970s, such acts — called “fasliyah” — were prohibited as the nation moved toward secularization and modernity.“This decree [banning fasliyah] constituted the first step toward a civilized Iraqi community,” reports the Middle East publication Al-Monitor, “which would put an end to the failures of the tribal… society.”In the years that followed, rates of child marriage plummeted. By 1997, only 15 percent of...

Let’s set aside the moral issue that it’s wrong to negotiate with terrorists and the practical issue that negotiating with terrorists encourages more terrorism. Those are both right and obvious, but there’s also a third issue. Negotiating with terrorists doesn’t work unless they intend to stop being terrorists. The peace process between Israel and the PLO has never worked and will never work because the members of the terrorist group never intended to stop being terrorists. The PLO yammers on about Palestine, a country that never existed and a name that has nothing to do with the Arab conquerors they...

Brandeis Caves to Islamic Supremacist Thuggery - FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Brandeis Caves to Islamic Supremacist ThuggeryPosted By Robert Spencer On April 10, 2014 @ 12:55 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Brandeis University had planned to award an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali at its commencement ceremony this year, but after a smear campaign led by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamic supremacist groups, on Tuesday the university issued a statement announcing the predictable result: the honorary degree would not be given.Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Brandeis assured the world, “is a compelling public figure and...

A booby-trapped car exploded outside the Bank of Greece in central Athens on Thursday, though no one was injured in the blast, police said, as Greece was set to return to the debt markets after a four-year absence. The car which was parked on the pavement facing the central bank building blew up around 0255 GMT. The building is close to the office of Greece's international lenders. Police said the car, a Nissan, had been stolen and was fitted with 165 pounds of explosives. Internet news website Zougla and the Efymerida ton Syndakton newspaper had been informed of the planned...

Chris Matthews for an interview on Hardball Wednesday and made some news by saying he does not think the United States should bomb Iran even if they were to succeed in building an operational nuclear weapon. This statement differs not only from recent comments made by former Vice President Dick Cheney but also from the stated position of President Barack Obama. “I never have felt that Israel had a capability militarily to go 1,200 miles or more and bomb Iran effectively and then return back to Israel,” said of Cheney’s suggestion that Israel could attack Iran unilaterally. “The only country...

New York (AFP) - Russia declined to provide the FBI with information about one of the Boston marathon bombing suspects two years before the attack, The New York Times reported. Three people were killed and about 260 wounded on April 15 last year when two bombs made of explosives-packed pressure cookers went off near the finish line of the marathon. US authorities are seeking the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, then 19, for his alleged role in the blasts. His brother Tamerlan, 26, died after an exchange of fire with police after the Chechen Muslim brothers went on the run,...

In Pakistan, according to a report released by Movement for Solidarity and Peace, 100 to 700 Christian girls are forced to convert to Islam each year. The girls are usually between the ages of 12 and 25; they are abducted, forced to convert and then married to the abductor or to a third party. What commonly happens is that the family of the abducted girl files a First Information Report (FIR) for kidnapping to the police, and then the abductor files a counter FIR that accuses the girl’s family for harassing their ‘willfully’ converting daughter. The girl is forced to...

..... Despite what Kerry said, which was unpleasant to Israeli ears, his commitment to the success of the diplomatic process and the time he has invested in solving the problem, regardless of the other unresolved conflicts in the world, should to be appreciated. Ukraine can wait. Kerry's goal of ending the conflict needs to be our goal as well. His problem, however, is how to go about it. From the beginning, he should never have set the bar so high. He should have added this, for the sake of fairness, at the Senate hearing. Perhaps he forgot. There is no...

PM facing embarrassment over links between adviser and Islamist group. Adviser Tariq Ramadan is grandson of Muslim Brotherhood's founder . ... Tariq Ramadan is one of 14 members of the Foreign Office’s Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief, chaired by Tory peer Baroness Warsi. He is Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University, and was a member of a taskforce set up by Tony Blair after 7/7. But Prof Ramadan, 51, is grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood’s founder Hassan al-Banna and his father Said Ramadan was a leading light. ... He was kept out of France in...

WASHINGTON — — When has a secretary of state been involved in so many disastrous, self-initiated negotiations? First, John Kerry convenes — against all advice and holding no cards — Geneva negotiations to resolve the Syria conflict and supposedly remove Bashar Assad from power. The talks collapse in acrimony and confusion. Kerry's response? A second Geneva conference that — surprise! — breaks up in acrimony and confusion. Then, even as Russian special forces are taking over Crimea, Kerry goes chasing after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — first to Paris, then Rome, then London — offering a diplomatic "off-ramp." Lavrov...

In an unusually pointed rebuke of its ally, Israel said on Wednesday that it was “deeply disappointed” by Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks a day earlier that appeared to lay primary blame on Israel for the crisis in the American-brokered Middle East peace talks.

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - ‘They Are Slaughtering Us Like Chickens’Posted By Raymond Ibrahim On April 9, 2014 @ 12:30 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Originally published by the Gatestone Institute.As happens at Christmas every year throughout the Muslim world, Christians and their churches were especially targeted—from jihadi terror strikes killing worshippers, to measures by Muslim authorities restricting Christmas celebrations.  Some incidents follow:Iraq:  “Militants” reported the Associated Press, “targeted Christians in three separate Christmas Day bombings in Baghdad, killing at least 37 people, officials said Wednesday.  In one attack, a car bomb went off near a church in...

The Russian government today claimed there are more than 100 American 'mercenaries' from a defense contracting company disguised as Ukrainian troops in the embattled former Soviet nation, a claim the American firm and top U.S. officials deny. ... The latest news relesae from Greystone, as posted on a company blog, is from September 2012, titled "New business in Russia" and simply says the company "provided executive protection services in Russia." In April 2012, the company announced it had been awarded a similar contract in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. ...

Ali was raised in a strict Muslim family, but after surviving a civil war, genital mutilation, beatings and an arranged marriage, she renounced the faith in her 30s. ... Thomas Doherty, chairman of American studies, refused to sign the faculty letter. He said it would have been great for the university to honor "such a courageous fighter for human freedom and women's rights, who has put her life at risk for those values."

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) strongly on Tuesday criticized U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for placing the bulk of the blame on Israel for the stalled peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA). Kerry, who spoke before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “Israel didn't release the Palestinian prisoners on the day they were supposed to be freed, and another day passed, and another day, and then another 700 settlement units were announced in Jerusalem, and ‘poof’…that was sort of the moment.” In response, RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said, “After almost nine months of negotiations, during which Israel...

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Monday expressed support for the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) move to seek membership in international organizations, reports the Ma’an news agency. “The decision by the Palestinians to exercise their right to join international organizations should not be seen as a blow to the peace talks,” Carter said in a statement. “I hope that, on the contrary, it will help to redress the power imbalance between Israelis and Palestinians, as we approach the 29 April deadline set by Secretary Kerry,” he added, according to Ma’an. …

April 6, 2014 Like a criminal wiping down a crime scene, the California State Senate has scrubbed its website and deleted the online archives of three Democratic state Senators that face criminal charges ranging from weapons trafficking to public corruption.

The Moroccan man facing criminal charges for allegedly planning to use remote-control planes to bomb a university building and federal building was able to remain in the United States by lying to immigration officials.El Mehdi Semlali Fathi was able to avoid a final order of removal last year — after remaining in the country for seven years after his visa expired — by claiming a fear of persecution based on his political beliefs, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit.“There is probable cause to believe, and I do believe that FATHI’s application for withholding of removal status was obtained...