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Ukraine’s military has set up positions on the eastern side of the Dnipro River near Kherson city, the Institute for the Study of War cites Russian military bloggers as saying. Infiltrating the area could be a first step towards trying to dislodge Russian forces from positions they are using to shell and shoot at Kherson. The constant attacks have made it impossible for residents to return to normal life months after Ukrainian troops liberated the city from occupation. Ukrainian military forays across the river could also mark the first tentative steps towards launching a long-awaited spring offensive to reclaim more...

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has accused President Donald Trump of using the language of white nationalism and said he would push for a federal buyback programme to encourage Americans to give up their military-style weapons and ammunition if elected. The former vice president said in an interview with CNN that the voluntary weapons buybacks would be in addition to his push for renewing a lapsed federal ban on new manufacturing and sales of such firearms, a prohibition he helped win in 1994 as a senator from Delaware, only to watch it expire a decade later.

Medieval slave trade routes in Eastern Europe extended from Finland and the Baltic Countries to Central Asia April 15, 2014 University of Eastern Finland Summary: The routes of slave trade in Eastern Europe in the medieval and pre-modern period extended all the way to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. A recent study suggests that persons captured during raids into areas which today constitute parts of Finland, the Russian Karelia and the Baltic Countries ended up being sold on these remote trade routes. The routes of slave trade in Eastern Europe in the medieval and pre-modern period extended all the...

I watched this cable channel program yesterday. Somehow I do not recall my history teachers, teaching about the Muslim hatred for Chistians. But then again I went to public schools. "The hundred and nine men, women and children abducted by Murat Reis were at sea for nearly forty days. GERALD O’BRIAN "They left Baltimore 4pm on June 20th 1631 and they arrived in Algiers on July 28th 1631, and as far as we know, everybody survived the crossing." Some would wish they were no longer alive. For them the harbour entrance of Sale was the gate to a world of...

Here’s something you won’t read about in the US history books. The first legal slave owner in America was black and he owned white slaves. Anthony Johnson (BC 1600 – 1670) was an Angolan who achieved freedom in the early 17th century Colony of Virginia. Johnson was captured in his native Angola by an enemy tribe and sold to Arab (Muslim) slave traders. He was eventually sold as an indentured servant to a merchant working for the Virginia Company. Sometime after 1635, Antonio and Mary gained their freedom from indenture. Antonio changed his name to Anthony Johnson. In 1651 Anthony...

Human trafficking is booming in Europe, the Hague-based Eurojust, the EU’s crime-fighting unit, said on Thursday (26 April). But the number of cases brought against traffickers is grossly disproportionate to the number of reported victims. “Something is wrong; not enough people are being brought to justice. One thing is sure is that it is a booming business,” said Michèle Coninsx, President-elect of Eurojust. Eurojust, which coordinates with national judicial authorities on serious cross-border crimes, is aiming to get member states to bring more cases to it. Despite the alarming numbers, Eurojust handled 74 registered cases in 2009, up from only...

Last March a federal judge ruled that Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, the reputed former boss of the Patriarca crime family, must stay in jail pending trial on charges that he was shaking down jiggle joints in Providence, RI. However, more than a dozen high profile citizens including doctors and lawyers have filed letters with U.S. District Judge William Smith asking him to reconsider his decision because they can't conceive how the alleged racketeer and extortionist could be a threat to their community as reported by Tim White for WPRI. One letter is from filmmaker Michael Corrente whose projects include Outside...

The Wars of the Barbary PiratesEssential Histories #66Osprey Introduction Most Americans are unaware that, as a young republic, their nation fought a war with the Barbary pirates, the North African corsairs who plied the waters of the Mediterranean at the turn of the 19th century in search of ships to loot and men to enslave. This is perhaps not surprising, for the wars were conducted on a small scale, over a short period of time, and at a considerable distance from American shores. They were, moreover, the product of one of the most inglorious – even degrading – episodes in...

Hat Tip: Buy Danish, commenter at Hot Air "When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood -- you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That's why it's called the American dream." The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as...

Britain's 200-year jihadOn my travels for the past few days, I have been reading a book which tells the story of a quite astonishing part of British history of which I was previously unaware. In 'White Gold', Giles Milton records the appalling details -- gleaned,it appears, from a wealth of historical documents including diaries and letters -- of a seaborne Islamic jihad against Britain which lasted for no less than two centuries. From the early seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, thousands of British men women and children were kidnapped by Arab corsairs and sold into slavery in Morocco where they...

Just heard on the radio, Warren Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Nothing further.

The Jerusalem Post recently reported that the four Jihadists who recently shot up an Oslo synagogue also planned to kidnap and behead Norway’s Israeli ambassador Miriam Shomrat. Involved were two Pakistani nationals, a Turk and a “Norwegian.” “Sunday’s shooting came less than a week after an Al Qaida plot targeting the site was uncovered,” JihadWatch reported. And now the Kosovo connection....

Belgrade, 29 August (AKI) - Serbian police have broken up a human trafficking chain, arresting 33 people, most of them Albanians, the Belgrade-based daily Press reported on Tuesday, quoting police sources. The report said police who had been tracking the flow of illegal immigrants for some time, raided a house in Belgrade on Monday where they found 28 Albanian, and five Turkish citizens who had entered the country illegally. The police said that 13 were juveniles, aged from 11 to 17, and all of them will be returned to their home countries. According to police, the Turks were smuggled into...

Join Cheryl Felicia Rhoads – Hollywood In The Heartland Report – October 27th 2:00PM EST… On The Kevin Fobbs Show End Human Trafficking Slavery Make Hollywood a Human Trafficking-Free Enterprise Zone Kevin Fobbs host of The Kevin Fobbs Show and actress and conservative commentator Cheryl Felicia Rhoads of Hollywood In The Heartland Report will tackle America’s dirty little secret, human trafficking … women and children are kidnapped for use in Hollywood’s adult entertainment industry, pornography, prostitution, and entertainment in strip clubs and other adult entertainment venues across America as well as in cities across the globe. This is the compelling...

A BOY whose mother died in the tsunami is feared to have been kidnapped from a Thai hospital by a pedophile. Kristian Walker, 12, from Stockholm, was said to have been led away by a dark-haired stranger. Swedish police sent seven officers to Thailand to investigate. The boy's father, Dan Walker said he was gravely concerned for his son. He said that Kristian and two of his other children went on holiday to the Thai resort of Khao Lak with his mother -- Mr Walker's ex-wife -- and her boyfriend. When the tsunami struck their hotel, Mr Walker's ex-wife was...

Swedish Children for Sale By Ilya Meyer FrontPageMagazine.com | November 29, 2004 In June 2004, Swedish mother Elizabeth Krantz's five children were kidnapped from Sweden by Krantz's estranged Palestinian husband Ismail Nowajah. The children -- Adam, Amina, Zakarias, Miriam and Sara -- range in age from six to sixteen. They were taken to the Gaza Strip against their will and in contravention of Swedish law and have since been incarcerated in separate locations. Their mother, from a small town outside Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast, has custody of the children, with visitation rights granted to her estranged husband. Ismail Nowajah...

Suffer the Children: The child sex trade is a global nightmare, but a former Interpol agent and a Boulder nonprofit are doing something about it. by Pamela White “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” –Friedrich Nietzsche from Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future David Race Bannon has nightmares that would freeze your marrow. In his dreams, he sees dismembered children, 4-year-olds chained to beds in Bangkok brothels, photographs of infant...

SVAY RIENG, Cambodia — Four years of sexual servitude had shattered Srey Mom's spirit and left her with no real family, other than the brothel owner she called "Mother." After I had purchased the freedom of Srey Mom and Srey Neth, the two teenage prostitutes whose story I've told in my last three columns, we took Srey Neth back to her family. Then we had to drive clear across the country to return Srey Mom to her native village. During that long drive, she repeatedly vowed that she would never return to the brothels — but she said it so...

<p>Aug. 18 issue — Like many teenage girls in Minneapolis, 17-year-old Stacey liked to hang out after school at the Mall of America, Minnesota’s vast shopping megaplex. Cute, blond and chatty, she flirted with boys and tried on the latest Gap fashions. One day last summer, Stacey, which isn’t her real name, says she was approached by a man who told her how pretty she was, and asked if he could buy her some clothes. “He was an older guy, dressed really well,” she recalls. “He said he just wanted to see me in the clothes.” Stacey agreed, and went home that night with a $250 outfit.</p>

<p>NEW YORK, Aug. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the last year, local and federal law-enforcement officials say they have noted a marked increase in teen prostitution in cities across the country, reports Assistant Editor Suzanne Smalley in the August 18 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, August 11).</p> <p>Law-enforcement agencies and advocacy groups that work with teen prostitutes say they are increasingly alarmed by the trend lines: the kids are getting younger; according to the FBI, the average age of a new recruit is just 13; some are as young as 9. And, while the vast majority of teen prostitutes today are runaways, illegal immigrants and children of poor urban areas, experts say a growing number now come from middle-class homes.</p>