Bomb kills 28 at Sunni mosque
As worshippers left Friday prayer, a bomb hit a Sunni mosque in central Iraq killing 28 people. The bombing occurred after two days of attacks in Baqouba, many of which are in Shiite districts. Overall, the attacks have left over 50 dead.
Attacks on Sunni mosques have become more frequent however, and some are fearful that that the country is returning to more sectarian violence.
Later on Friday, seven were killed and 11 were wounded after a bomb blast occurred outside [...]
U.S. spy expelled from Russia
Russian television has aired footage provided by Russian secret services claiming that another American spy has been expelled from the country. On Tuesday, Russia ordered a U.S. diplomat to leave the country after allegedly being caught trying to recruit a Russian agent in Moscow.
The Russian footage identifies the man as Ryan Fogle, a third secretary of the U.S. Embassy, who works for the CIA. The footage only revealed a man identified as a Russian agent sitting in the dark and [...]
Dennis Rodman makes request of Kim Jong Un
Dennis Rodman has asked good friend Kim Jong Un (or “Kim” as Rodman calls him) to release a Korean American man from his sentence of 15 years of hard labor in North Korea. Rodman tweeted at the supreme leader in response to a Seattle Times editorial that dared him to ask Kim for the release.
Kenneth Bae is a tour operator in North Korea who was arrested in November for unspecified “hostile acts” against the state. According to a Foreign [...]
Oldest concentration camp survivor dies
The Mauthausen Committee, an Austrian organization that tracks the fate and well being of Nazi concentration camps, has revealed that the oldest concentration camp survivor has died at the age of 107. Leopold Engleitner died on April 21st. He survived three different concentration camps and forced labor between 1939 and 1945.
On release from the Ravensbrueck camp in 1943, Engleitner weighed a mere 60 pounds and went to work as a farm slave laborer. When told to report to Hitler’s [...]
Chávez revolution continues
Hugo Chávez’s political revolution will continue as voters chose to elect Chávez’s handpicked heir, Nicolas Maduro. Maduro will serve the remainder of Chávez’s six-year term.
Maduro’s opponent, state governor Henrique Capriles refused to recognize the vote on Sunday and has requested a recount. Maduro only slightly defeated Capriles, with over 99 percent of the vote counted. Maduro had 50.6 percent of the vote, whereas Capriles had 49.1 percent. “We are not going to recognize the result until every vote is counted, [...]
US Army veteran arrested after Syrian rebel fighting claims
US Army veteran Eric Harroun was arrested after making claims on his Facebook page that he had fought alongside militant groups fighting against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria. He is being charged by the U.S. District Court in Alexandria with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the US.
“Harroun, a U.S. citizen who served with the U. S. Army from 2000 to 2003, was charged by criminal complaint with conspiring to use a destructive device outside of [...]
Pope Francis I washes the feet of juvenile inmates in an Easter ceremony
Pope Francis I hasn’t even been Pope for a month, but he has already made a reputation for himself as preferring to abandon exclusive papal trappings and traditions in favor of mingling with the crowd. For a Holy Thursday ritual related to the celebration of Easter, Pope Francis went to the Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center in Rome. The center houses 46 young men and women, many of whom are Gypsies or North African migrants. In a tradition that [...]
Internet slowed by one of the largest cyberattacks in history
An antispam group and an obscure group of attackers became engaged in what is being called “largest computer attacks on the Internet.” An unknown group allegedly retaliated against a Swiss-British organization that works to keep advertisements for things like fake diet pills out of the world’s inboxes called Spamhaus with a series of cyber-attacks of an unprecedented scale. Matthew Prince, the CEO of CloudFlare, the company enlisted to fight the attacks for Spamhaus, said that the attacks were so big [...]
Rebels take control of Central African Republic government
About 5,000 Seleka fighters descended on Bangui, the capital city of Central African Republic (CAR), and took control of the national government. The rebel leader, Michel Djotodia, recorded a statement and released it to reporters.
“I consider it necessary to suspend the November 27, 2004 constitution, to dissolve parliament as well as the government. During this transition period which will lead us to free, credible and transparent elections, I will legislate by decree…We will lead the people of Central African Republic during a [...]
With Obama’s prompting, Israel issues a formal apology to Turkey
Behind closed doors at the Ben Gurion International Airport, President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a joint phone call to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Netanyahu made an official apology to the Turkish president for the deadly 2010 raid on a Turkish ship. In May of 2010, an Israeli naval commandoes killed nine activists, eight of them Turkish and one Turkish-American, during the bungled raid on the Mavi Marmara as it tried to breach Israel’s naval [...]
Indian parliament approves new anti rape legislation
The upper house of India’s parliament has approved legislation meant to pass laws increasing the penalties for rape and other sexual assault crimes. All the legislation needs is President Pranab Mukherjee’s signature in order to become law.
“We have tried to bring in a strong law, which is pro-women and will act as a deterrent,” Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told lawmakers in the upper house of Parliament which approved the bill Thursday.
The proposed law maintains death as the maximum [...]
Excerpts from Obama’s speech in Israel
“…And so Israel has been a refuge for the diaspora, welcoming Jews from Europe, from the former Soviet Union, from Ethiopia, from North Africa. Israel has built a prosperous nation, through kibbutzeem that made the desert bloom, business that broadened the middle class, innovators who reached new frontiers, from the smallest microchip to the orbits of space. Israel has established a thriving democracy with a spirited civil society and proud political parties and a tireless free press and a lively [...]