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Google in 2012 sought to help insurgents overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to State Department emails receiving fresh scrutiny this week. Messages between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's team and one of the company's executives detailed the plan for Google to get involved in the region. "Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool ... that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from," Jared Cohen, the head of what was then the company's "Google Ideas" division, wrote in a July 2012...

Five bodies hang from a pole suspended between two cranes, a public display which serves as a reminder to those who might contemplate a life of crime. They belonged to a gang of five robbers, all of whom were publicly beheaded before their corpses were hoisted high in the air, where they remained for days. The gruesome sight is one scene in a shocking documentary to be aired this week which sheds light on life in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s bloodiest and most secretive countries. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3502079/Saudi-Arabia-s-kingdom-savagery-DOES-Britain-cosy-butchers.html#ixzz43V8fu0Xn Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

A Northern Virginia man admitted Friday in federal court that he spent months plotting to travel to Syria so he could become a fighter with the Islamic State. Joseph Hassan Farrokh, 28, of Woodbridge, unknowingly discussed his plans with FBI informants all along, prosecutors said. He was arrested in January at Richmond International Airport as he was about to board a flight for the first leg of his trip. During a hearing in federal court in Alexandria, Farrokh pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to the terrorist organization.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will miss a deadline set by the U.S. Congress for determining whether Islamic State atrocities against Christians and other religious groups are genocide, but he should have a decision soon, a spokesman said on Wednesday. Congress directed Kerry in legislation passed last year to consult with government agencies and rights organizations and report back to lawmakers on whether atrocities committed by Islamist extremists against Christians and other religious groups should be considered mass atrocities or genocide under U.S. law. The legislation sought a similar determination on whether Buddhist extremists in Burma...

Commenting on the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East, Rev. Franklin Graham noted the barbarity of the Islamic State but also the often oppressive nature of Islam itself, stating, “This is Islam: They persecute the church, they persecute Christians.” “The Sunnis persecute the Christians,” said Rev. Graham in an interview with CBN News. “We see in Syria and Iraq where they cut the heads of Christians, they rape the women, take them as sex slaves.” “They take the Yazidis, the minorities, and they do the same thing,” he said. “They kill the men but take...

The discovery of the oldest-known pre-Islamic Arabic writing in Saudi Arabia, from ca. 470 CE, evidently caused some consternation, given its Christian and Jewish context.In 2014, researchers from a French-Saudi expedition studying rock inscriptions in southern Saudi Arabia announced they had discovered what could be the oldest texts written in the Arabic alphabet. But they did so very quietly, perhaps because the context of the texts is something of an embarrassment to some. The dozen or so engravings had been carved into the soft sandstone of the mountain passes around Bir Hima – a site about 100 kilometers north...

Mosul (Agenzia Fides) - The jihadists of the Islamic State (Daesh) have released via the internet a short video documenting the burning of Christian books in the area of Mosul. The images show a militant jihadist who throws in flames books and dossiers that have crucifixes on the cover. The video, launched under the title "The Diwan (office) for Education destroys books regarding Christian Education in Mosul", was released on the net at the end of last week through the application Android jihadist Amaq News, with the intent to promptly disseminate all the news that concerns operations and terrorist attacks...

The French see René Descartes, a 17th century philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, as the truest expression of their national mind. I am afraid they are right.Descartes rejected authority in intellectual life and insisted on reconstructing knowledge on plain sense and strict reasoning, hence his famous motto, cogito ergo sum (“I think and therefore I am”). However, he also disdained experience as long as it could not be boiled down into logical and mathematical terms. This approach, so much at odds with the empirical and pragmatic approach favored in the Anglo-Saxon world, is indeed a hallmark of French culture -- including...

A huge explosion has taken place in the Kizilay neighbourhood of the Turkish capital Ankara, with reports of injuries. Turkish broadcaster NTV said the blast was caused by a car bomb, but this has not been confirmed. Witnesses say the explosion happened near the main bus station on Ataturk boulevard and close to many government ministries. Some vehicles were on fire.

As a direct result of Europe's refugee crisis, new and very unpleasant social fractures have started to emerge. One particularly troubling issue is the extent to which officials have tended to “blame the victim" in the ever more frequent sex attacks resulting from Europe's refugee surge, something we first touched upon earlier this week. For instance, Cologne mayor Henriette Reker drew sharp criticism for suggesting that it was German womens' duty to prevent assaults by keeping would-be assailants “at arm’s length.” Then there was the now infamous case of the 17-year-old Danish girl who faced a fine from police...

Dear PMW subscribers, Following Palestinian Media Watch‘s release of a video on Thursday in which a Palestinian girl read a poem on official PA TV calling for “war that will smash the oppressor and destroy the Zionist’s soul,” YouTube “terminated” PMW’s account for violating their “terms of service,” which includes hate speech. The terminated account, https://www.youtube.com/user/palwatch/, contains nearly all of PMW’s videos. We urge anyone with contacts at Google or YouTube to contact them and request that PMW’s account be reinstated. Others can send a message to YouTube by clicking the “Send feedback” link at the bottom of YouTube’s homepage.

Egypt said Sunday that the bombing which killed the country's chief prosecutor last year was carried out by members of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood who had been trained in the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Egyptian Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar said dozens of people have been detained in connection to the killing of 65-year-old Hisham Barakat last June, the first assassination of a senior Egyptian official in 25 years. "Hamas trained, prepared, and oversaw the implementation" of the attack, he said in an address broadcast by state and private media, which also aired confessions by some of...

(Mother Teresa's missionary order) VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis was “shocked and profoundly saddened” by the murder of four Missionaries of Charity and 12 other people at a home for the elderly in Aden, Yemen. Gunmen entered the building on Friday and went room to room, handcuffing victims before shooting them in the head. A message signed by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the Holy Father “sends the assurance of his prayers for the dead and his spiritual closeness to their families and to all affected from this act of senseless and diabolical violence.” The message...

Before political correctness, our soldiers were free to fight back. Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. A century before American soldiers fought Muslim terrorism in the Middle East, they fought it in the Philippines. Their attackers were Moro Muslims whose savage fanaticism appeared inexplicable. A formerly friendly Muslim might suddenly attack American soldiers, local Muslim rulers promised friendship while secretly aiding the terrorists and the yellow left-wing press at home seized on every report of an atrocity to denounce American soldiers as murderers whose honor was forever...

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RIYADH: A new military transport aircraft manufactured locally will be tested next year after 18 months of development and design. This is according to Prince Turki bin Saud bin Mohammad, president of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology. The AN-132 is the result of cooperation with Ukraine and would see 80 planes produced, partially in the former Soviet nation, he said. The AN-132 is a modern version of the military transport plane AN-32, with modern engines and electronics that would make it more fuel-efficient and able to take off and land in various environments, he was quoted as saying...

The municipality of Selcuk, a town in western Turkey where Virgin Mary is believed to have spent her last days, plans to erect a giant statue dedicated to her in the fashion of the notable statue in Brazil depicting her son. Virgin Mary House, a stone structure on the outskirts of Bulbul Mountain, is a popular spot among Christian pilgrims since its discovery in the 19th century. Looking to boost faith tourism revenues, Selcuk Mayor Zeynel Bakici said they would erect "a splendid statue" depicting the sacred figure, the same day he announced they were seeking to host an international...

Turkish PM Ahmed Davutoglu said the government expects Russian tourists to come despite tensions between Ankara and Moscow, as shrinkage in the sector was "unexpected." Russia earlier urged tourists not to visit Turkey, citing security concerns. Speaking at a news conference on Monday, Davutoglu announced an action plan to provide support for the tourism industry, including an $87-million government grant and setting up a facility to allow travel firms to restructure their debts. "We believe Russian tourists will start coming back to Turkey," he was quoted as saying by the Daily Sabah, an English-language newspaper published in Turkey. Davutoglu added...

There were no casualties, but the bomb destroyed three out of five classrooms of the government girls' primary school in Tiarza village of tribal South Waziristan, a local security official told AFP. Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the "Sajna" arm of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the school had been targeted because it was run by the military and the group was opposed to female education. Tariq told AFP that militants captured 18 people including school security guards and labourers before planting the explosive, but later released them. Since 2002, when the army moved into northwestern...

US Soldiers Pose with the Bodies of Moro (Muslim) Insurgents, Philippines; circa 1906 On March 7, 1906, US troops under the command of Major General Leonard Wood massacred as many as 1,000 Filipino Muslims, known as Moros, who were taking refuge at Bud Dajo, a volcanic crater on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines. The First Battle of Bud Dajo, also known as the Bud Dajo Massacre, was a counter insurgency action fought by the United States Army against Moros in March 1906, during the Moro Rebellion phase of the Philippine - American War. After the United States...