Free Republic

The young man of North African origin damaged an ancient Christian artifact at St. Jeremiah church in Venice. The Muslim man rushed into the church and threw the Crucifix to the floor. The Muslim broke the arms off the crucifix. Il Giornale reported: (translated) A young man of North African origin likely entered the church of St. Jeremiah and has heavily damaged the religious artifact. It was stopped by the caretaker and some faithful.“It’s wrong. It’s all wrong,” he kept repeating the young Muslims that this morning has created havoc in the church of St. Jeremiah , in Cannaregio, Venice...

"...leaving one ‘BLINDED IN ONE EYE’ and 4 others horrifically injured as they waited for a train. —- Young group were standing at Ockendon station, Essex, when attacked — Doused in corrosive liquid by group of Muslim assailants who then fled — One of the teenagers left blind in one eye while a second badly burned —Three others also hurt but released from hospital with minor injuries

airasia According to Indonesian official the last words on the blackbox belonging to missing AirAsia flight was “Allahu Akbar!” The recorder says, “Allah is Greatest! Allah is Greatest!” Via Tribune News (translated): Investigator Nurcahyo Utomo an expert examiner blackbox recording of National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC). He was assigned to check the recording of a conversation Captain irianto that fateful plane flew Air Asia, QZ8501. But it was not an easy task for him, because he knew very close to the former pilot of the Indonesian Air Force pilots. As quoted from Dailymail, Wednesday (14/01/2015), Nurcahyo can not imagine what...

Preface A wise man named Francis Bacon once said that knowledge is power. Certainly this is true when dealing with foreign, and often hostile, ideologies that confront our Western civilization and way of life. One of these ideologies is Islam. Americans, and Westerners in general, whether Christian or not, are all too often still dangerously ill-informed about Islam. Many people in the West hear and believe the propaganda promoted by various Muslim groups, but fail to search out the facts about the history, theology, and psychology of the Islamic phenomenon. While knowledge may be power, ignorance can render a person,...

Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) - Malaysia's Court of Appeal dismissed a request by Catholic leaders to dismiss an appeal filed by the government against a 2009 High Court decision allowing the use of the word Allah in Christian media. The three-member bench of justices issued their ruling after a morning of deliberation, saying that appeal hearings would start 10 September to resolve the dispute between The Herald, a Malaysian Catholic weekly, and the Home Ministry. With scores of Muslims waiting outside for the ruling, Court of Appeal Justice Datuk Abu Samah said the matter "is still a live issue and the...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday he would seek to have the Palestinians' U.N. status upgraded to a sovereign country and cautioned that Israeli settlement expansion meant time was running out for a two-state solution. "Despite all the complexities of the prevailing reality and all the frustrations that abound, we say before the international community there is still a chance—maybe the last—to save the two-state solution and to salvage peace," Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly. But he warned the 193-nation assembly that Israel was "promising the Palestinian people a new catastrophe" if it continues with its current Jewish...

Editor's note: President Barack Obama will address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday at around 10:00 a.m. You can follow along here as we live blog his speech or watch it live on CNN.com. [Updated at 10:22 a.m. ET] President Barack Obama began his address to the U.N. General Assembly by speaking about Ambassador Chris Stevens who was killed in the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya. "He came to love and respect the people of North Africa and the Middle East, and he would carry that commitment throughout his life," Obama said. "As a diplomat, he worked...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The lunar calendar that Muslims follow for religious holidays is creating a potential for misunderstandings or worse in a year when American Muslims are already confronting a spike in assaults on their faith and protests against new mosques. Eid al-Fitr, a joyous holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, this year falls around Sept. 11.

Levittown - The U.S. Justice Department has sued Essex County over its firing of a corrections officer for wearing religious headwear. The suit was filed in federal court in Newark on Monday on behalf of Yvette Beshier. It claims Beshier was first suspended and then fired by the county for wearing a khimar, or Muslim head scarf. The suit seeks monetary damages and also to require Essex County to adopt a policy that accommodates the religious observances and practices of employees.

CAIRO (AFP) — In a potential blow to themed resorts from Vegas to Tokyo, Egypt is to pass a law requiring payment of royalties whenever its ancient monuments, from the pyramids to the sphinx, are reproduced. Zahi Hawass, the charismatic and controversial head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told AFP on Tuesday that the move was necessary to pay for the upkeep of the country's thousands of pharaonic sites. "The new law will completely prohibit the duplication of historic Egyptian monuments which the Supreme Council of Antiquities considers 100-percent copies," he said. "If the law is passed then it...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Muslim-majority Malaysia's first astronaut will get guidelines allowing flexibility in praying in zero gravity and eating space meals under Islamic rules, the country space chief said Monday. **snip** Malaysia held a forum for Islamic scholars in April 2006 to discuss problems Muslim space travelers might face, such as pinpointing the Saudi holy city of Mecca, which Muslims are expected face when they pray five times a day. The guideline booklet, published this month, says the direction should be determined "according to the capability" of the astronaut. **snip**

Airport officials said Friday they will consider setting aside a private area for prayer and meditation at the request of imams concerned about the removal of six Muslim clerics from a US Airways flight last week. Steve Wareham, director of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said other airports have "meditation rooms" used for prayers or by passengers who simply need quiet time. A group of Somali clerics met with airport officials Friday and said they would attract less attention if they had a private area for prayer. Devout Muslims pray five times daily, facing the holy city of Mecca. "When we...

U.S. Muslims outraged after imams kicked off plane By Michael Conlon 27 minutes ago Muslim leaders expressed outrage on Tuesday after six imams were removed from a commercial airline flight in Minnesota for what they said was nothing more than trying to say evening prayers. "They were treated like terrorists ... humiliated," said Abu Hannoud, civil rights director for the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who said the men were taken off the US Airways flight in handcuffs. He said the men were still trying to find a flight back to Phoenix where most are affiliated with...

An al-Qaida-linked extremist group warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that he and the West were "doomed," as protesters raged across the Muslim world to demand more of an apology from the pontiff for his remarks about Islam and violence. The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, issued a statement on a Web forum vowing to continue its holy war against the West. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified. The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross"...

Just in. I am looking at a picture of the WTC with smoke pouring out of the western tower. Looks like a huge amount of damage. Debris raining down on people in the street.

Here are some links from the FR archives in observance of the fifth anniversary of 9/11/2001 - Threads list of several breaking news items - Latest Articles The first post reporting the attacks by OldEconomyBuyer - World Trade Center Posted on the first anniversary - Associated Press newswire - September 11, 2001 - Chronology of news alerts, bulletins and flashes

With the smoke still rising from the ruins of the al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan, intelligence agents and journalists from all over the world were already combing through the rubble in an attempt to uncover information on the nature and quality of the training the camps' roughly 20,000 graduates had received. (snip) After losing its training camps, al-Qaida went on the offensive. By 2003, the entire "Encyclopedia" was suddenly available on the Internet. Thousands of illustrated pages containing bomb-building instructions, in-depth rules on how to encode information and extensive details on organizing terrorist cells were suddenly available -- in Arabic --...

CAIRO, Egypt — The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah exposed divisions across the Arab world, not only between Shiites and Sunnis but also between Arab governments and their citizens. Key Arab allies of the United States, predominantly Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, fear the rising power of Shiites in the region: Hezbollah militants who virtually control southern Lebanon, Iraq's majority Shiite government, and — most worrisome — the Shiite theocracy that has run Iran for decades. Yet many ordinary people, Sunnis as well as Shiites, are cheering the Lebanese guerrillas because of their willingness to stand...

BOOKS of hate promoting suicide bombings, anti-Australian conspiracies and racism can be freely sold in the Muslim community after a ruling that they don't breach sedition laws. The material, found by The Daily Telegraph in Lakemba and Auburn bookstores last year, was judged by federal authorities not to incite violence in the first known test of anti-terrorism laws. Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said last night he felt uneasy about the continuing threat posed by such material remaining on the streets. But he said NSW Police would abide by the "qualified and considered legal opinion" offered by the Commonwealth Director of...

This past Good Friday, a man entered Mar Girgis Church in Alexandria, Egypt, and stabbed one worshipper to death and wounded two others. He then went to another church and stabbed three other Christians. The events in Alexandria were a reminder of the, at best, tenuous status of Christians in the Islamic world. The Egyptian government immediately dismissed the possibility that animus toward Christians played a role in the attacks. Egypt’s Interior Ministry said that the attacker suffered from “psychological disturbances.” How convenient. Egyptian Christians, known as Copts, did not buy it, and for good reason: Police officials had a...