Canada Cuts Diplomatic Ties With Iran

Canada abruptly closed its embassy in Iran and expelled Iranian diplomats in Ottawa Friday, citing safety concerns in Tehran and the long-standing view that Iran is a significant threat to global peace.

"The Iranian regime has shown blatant disregard for the Vienna Convention and its guarantee of protection for diplomatic personnel," Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Friday, formally listing Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.
"Under the circumstances, Canada can no longer maintain a diplomatic presence in Iran,” he said in a statement. “Our diplomats serve Canada as civilians and their safety is our No. 1 priority."
A senior official told CTV News there was a credible threat to Canadian diplomats in Iran.

Baird said the Iranian regime’s support of Syrian president Bashar Assad, Iran’s refusal to comply with the UN’s resolutions on its nuclear program and its regular threats to Israel make it “among the world’s worst violators of human rights.”
“This was a decision that we took very seriously,” Baird told CTV’s Power Play Friday afternoon in a telephone interview from Russia, where he is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.


Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-severs-diplomatic-ties-with-iran-citing-safety-concerns-1.946127#ixzz25qQpesST

Turkish Officers Take Command of Syrian Rebel Brigades

Turkish army officers have assumed direct command of the first two Syrian rebel brigades fighting Bashar Assad’s government forces, according to debkafile’s exclusive sources. This step has sent military tensions rocketing on Israel’s northern borders with Syria and Lebanon in case of a backlash.

The rebel North Liberators Brigade in the Idlib region of northern Syria and the Tawhid Brigade fighting in the Al-Bab area northeast of Aleppo are now taking their operational orders from Turkish officers, who exercise their authority from headquarters outside Syria in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep. Nonetheless, Turkey is considered to have stepped directly into the Syrian conflict marking the onset of foreign intervention.

Western and Arab military circles in the Middle East expect Turkey to extend its command to additional rebel units – not all of them part of the Free Syrian Army.
This first step has already caused waves.

1.  The consequences of Turkish military action in Syria were urgently aired with CIA Director David Petraeus when he arrived in Ankara Monday, Sept. 3, debkafile’s intelligence sources reveal.  After hearing how and when Ankara proposed to expand its role in the Syrian conflict, Petraeus discussed with Turkish military and intelligence chiefs the likely Syrian, Iranian and Hizballah responses.
He then flew to Israel to continue the discussion there.

2.  By then, US, Turkish and Israeli intelligence watchers were reporting unusual military movements in Syria and on Hizballah turf in southern Lebanon – suspected of being preparations for a blowback from the Turkish intervention in Syria.

3. The IDF countered by placing its units guarding the Syrian and Lebanese borders on a state of alert. Wednesday, Sept. 5, an Iron Dome battery was installed in Gush Dan to head off a potential Hizballah missile barrage on central Israel and its hub, Tel Aviv.

4.  Later that day, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan commented: "The regime in Syria has now become a terrorist state."
Only a few of Erdogan's listeners understood he was laying international legal grounding for expanding Turkish military intervention in Syria.

Debkafile's military sources report that Thursday, Sept. 6, military temperatures remained high-to-feverish along Syria's borders with Turkey and Israel, and along Lebanon's borders with Syria and Israel.

 

Story from here.

Ex-Drug User Treks County with Cross

Steve Fox is using his checkered past, filled with drugs and bad decisions, to raise awareness of teen drug abuse by carrying a cross through his county.

He says lugging the cross in such a public setting along city streets is not about him. "I'm trying to get people's attention. I need their help," said Fox.

"There are kids out here sticking dirty needles in their arms and they're loosing and hopeless. After that, they are headed to prison."

The ex-drug user has been to eight prisons in his lifetime and says that he doesn't want young people in his community to follow down the same path of destruction.

He's even stopping along the way to pray for people in his path.

Pastor Ben Hanna is following Fox and his team on their journey and supplying them with water.

Hanna knows the horrible effects of drugs in the area and applauds their efforts.

"We see it out here on Beardsley where the church is," says Hanna. "Junior high kids, already kicked out of school are out here pan handling."

Steve will carry the 22 pound cross the entire length of the county which is about 105 miles total.

He hopes his cross walk will show troubled teens that they can live, walk and act like champions. His ultimate dream is to provide young people with a place where they can learn construction skills like how to frame and weld.

Interestingly, Steve's eleven-by-six foot cross is the same exact dimensions as his old prison cell.

From CBN News

'Arab Spring' Hits PA As Hundreds Protest In Shechem

Hundreds of protesters gathered on Wednesday in the main square in Shechem (Nablus), calling for the ouster of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

The protesters held up signs which read, “Go away Fayyad” and “Abbas and Fayyad, your government does not represent us.” The protesters were also joined by Hamas parliamentarians.

PA Arabs have been protesting over rising food and public transportation prices, and Wednesday’s protest came one day after a demonstration in Hevron, during which protesters burned a puppet made to look like Fayyad. Demonstrations also took place in Bethlehem and Ramallah.

Fayyad said with respect to the public protest that he understood the demonstrators’ frustrations and is aware of economic difficulties facing the Palestinian Authority. He acknowledged the high rate of unemployment and the fact that the government financial safety net is not enough to help needy families.

Fayyad pledged to work vigorously to increase social assistance to the needy, but said that the economic problems of the Palestinian Authority are mainly due to external factors, such as the rise in food prices and the Israeli “occupation” which prevents economic growth. He called on donor countries to fulfill their obligations to the PA and transfer financial assistance. He also said that financial aid is needed in Jerusalem, to support action against its “Judaization.”

The PA government currently faces its worst financial crisis since its 1994 establishment. The crisis has rendered the PA unable to pay employees their salaries or pay off debts it owes to private businesses.
Fayyad warned several months ago that the Palestinian Authority may soon fail financially and cease to exist.

A PA economist predicted that the PA is on the verge of collapse, warning that the later it happens, the harder it will be.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said at a meeting of foreign ministers of the Arab League in Cairo on Wednesday that the public is right when it demands lower prices and fair wages.

“The Arab Spring began, and we support what the people say and want," said Abbas.
Earlier this week, a teenager died after setting himself ablaze in Gaza to protest economic hardship due to unemployment in the Hamas terrorist-ruled region.

Story from here.

Turkish Teacher Imprisoned for Likening Erdogan to Hitler

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan

A Turkish school teacher was sentenced to one year in prison for likening Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Adolf Hitler, Anatolia news agency reported.
The court found Oktay Zaif, who allegedly showed footage of speeches by Hitler and Erdogan during class, guilty of "politically aiming to distance military students from Prime Minister Erdoğan and his party," according to the report.

Zaif claimed that he was unaware that the video compared the two rulers, and reportedly turned it off when he heard the Turkish prime minister's voice.

"I downloaded the video from the Internet because it was related to the World War II," Zaif said. "I discovered the content on the prime minister after it began playing. I turned it off then."

The sentence was reduced to one year and 15 days, from the original one year and three months, after the suspect showed remorse in court, according to the Anatolia news agency. [ Story ]

Syria: Islamic Exremists Attack Christian Village Killing Five People

Islamic extremists, fighting on the side of the rebel group “Syrian Free Army” (PAS),  attacked the Christian village of Gassaniâ under Homsom (165 km north of Damascus). According to the television station “Al-Dunya”, gunmen killed five people and took hostage another 17 people.

As told by a military source, the Islamists are remnants of gangs, leaving Homs due to heavy bombardment by Syrian elite forces.

ITAR-TASS reported.  fighting in Homs, which is an important industrial center in Syria and in the Bèb-Sbâa and Bèb-to Turkman, where a large group of militants  destroyed several jeeps with machine guns.

According to the news agency Al-AHD, Surya, government troops freed about 80% of Homs from the control of  “mercenaries and terrorists”. However, pockets of resistance remain in the old part of the city and the Sunni outskirts. 
News Service Al-Watan reported that Syrian forces repelled on the night  of September 5th in the border villages of Hallât and Mšejrfa invasions of the gang of terrorists from Lebanon. Several fighters were killed, while the rest took refuge on the territory of a neighbouring country.
[Story from here.]

Extremist Muslims have gone on a killing spree against Christians since the beginning of the civil war with the Obama administration turning a "blind eye" to all of these atrocities while continuing its support for the rebel forces.

Please take a few minutes to watch the following video for a current view of the situation.. [ El Greco ]

US Middle East Bases To Suffer If Israel Attacks Iran?

Cutting through the US-Israeli debate over where to put “red lines” for Iran, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Monday night, Sept. 3 that Iran would hit US bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities, even if the Americans were not involved in the attack.

Earlier Monday, the New York Times reported on the debate in the White House over whether US President Barack Obama should declare “red lines” for Iran beyond which the US would act, in response to Israel’s complaint that he has been too vague about how far Iran will be allowed to go.

But even if Obama did set a clear red line now, the NYT admits its credibility would be questionable: “The US and its allies have allowed Iran to cross seven previous red lines in 18 years."
The statement by the top US soldier, Gen. Martin Dempsey, last Thursday that America did not “want to be complicit” in an Israeli attack on Iran was interpreted by the prime movers as meaning that US-Israeli discussions in the last two weeks on where to put the "red lines" were at an impasse.

In an attempt to contain the fallout from the Dempsey comment and put the dialogue back on track, the White House is sending CIA director David Petraeus to Jerusalem for more “red line” palaver with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Debkafile, which first disclosed his mission Sunday, Sept. 2, voiced doubts about his chances of success. Both parties to the debate know that the sands on a nuclear Iran are running out faster than they can talk. Roughly by the end of this month or early October, Iran will have enough 20-percent enriched uranium for its first nuclear bomb, overtaking any “red lines” and making them irrelevant.

Feeling the approaching heat, Netanyahu called a special cabinet meeting for Tuesday, Sept. 4 with the participation of the heads of Israel’s clandestine services, Military Intelligence, the Mossad, the Shin Bet and the Foreign Office Research Division, to hear their annual report.
It is likely to go on all day with updates on the situation in Syria, Egypt and Jordan – all weighty topics. But the agenda will certainly be topped with a detailed rundown on the current state of Iran’s nuclear program.

Continued....

Turkey Warned Against Going Back to Future On PKK

ISTANBUL — Just as one of the bloodiest summers since the 1990s is turning Turkey’s leaders increasingly hawkish against Kurdish politicians and separatist guerillas, Human Rights Watch offered a glimpse into the dark methods employed two decades ago that scarred the population and sowed distrust toward the state.

Thousands of civilians disappeared or were killed in the 1990s as Turkey’s military pursued a scorched-earth policy against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, according to a report unveiled Monday by the New York-based human-rights group. The conflict has claimed more than 44,000 military, PKK and civilian lives since it started in the 1980s and displaced thousands of people from their villages, Human Rights Watch said.

Story continued , here.

Is The World Run By Three City-States?

What if all of the major wars, revolutions, plagues and epidemics in the world did not happen naturally but were controlled and pre-planned by a few powerful families with sinister plans for world domination? And what if these very families are about to usher in a New World Order?

The answers to these and other questions may be found within the borders of three of the most powerful cities in the world. These cities include the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., the inner city of London and Vatican City in Italy.

According to the following video, these cities are basically self contained City-States with their own laws , police and national flags.

See the video below and judge for yourselves.
{ A word of advice: Do not confuse Religion with faith in God or in a Personal Savior. ]

Imam Reportedly Fabricated Evidence Against Rimsha

There’s an encouraging development likely to end the ordeal of a 14-year-old Christian girl charged under the blasphemy law and allow her to be released from jail on bail.

According to a story by Pakistan Today, a witness has claimed that the cleric who played a major role in framing charges of burning pages of the Holy Quran on the girl fabricated the evidence by placing Quranic pages in the ash brought to him by the complainant.

imam Khalid Jadoon

Recording his statement before a magistrate in Islamabad on Saturday, Hafiz Zubair said he and two other people were present in the mosque for Aitekaf. That was when Malik Ammad, the complainant in the case, came to the mosque’s imam Khalid Jadoon with a plastic bag that he claimed contained the ashes of a Noorani Qaida allegedly burnt by Rimsha. Zubair said Jadoon brought some pages of the Holy Quran from inside the mosque and mixed them with the ash.

“I asked Jadoon why he was fabricating the evidence. He said that this would ensure a strong case against the girl and would ultimately help them in evicting the Christians from the locality,” said Azhar. Pakistan Today said he added that the other two people present in the mosque at that time had also asked the imam not to place false evidence against the girl.

 Commenting on the development, Rimsha’s lawyer Tahir Naveed Chaudhry told Pakistan Today that Azhar’s statement proved that the case against the minor girl was fabricated. “Jadoon and Ammad concocted the evidence and they should be booked on the same charge that they had leveled against the girl,” he said.

Pakistan Ulema Council Chairman Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi also condemned the imam for implicating a minor girl in a false case. “The revelation proves our stance that the case against the girl was fabricated. The government should take immediate notice of this revelation and should give exemplary punishment to the perpetrators of the crime to ensure that the law is not misused against any person,” Pakistan Today reported he said.

 Earlier in the day, Judge Muhammad Azam Khan adjourned the hearing of the case until Monday. He asked police to investigate a bail application made on Rimsha’s behalf after prosecutors claimed paperwork had not been signed by the girl or her mother. Pakistan Today said speaking to reporters outside the court, Rimsha’s lawyer Tahir Naveed Chaudhry accused prosecutors and lawyers of using delaying tactics.

[ By Jeremy Reynalds Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service ]

Update: Imam is charged in blashemy case

Check this link out for recent deveopments: http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=752616&binId=1.810401