"Simply put, we have been witnessing the revival of the slave trade in the 21st century." - Zainab Hawa Bangura: Opinion: Women were 'examined like cattle' | "We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah."

"Simply put, we have been witnessing the revival of the slave trade in the 21st century." - Zainab Hawa Bangura: Opinion: Women were 'examined like cattle' | "We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah." - What jihadis plan for women

June 11, 2015

M.N. - My Opinion:
Mr. Obama effectively resigned his position as the Leader of the Free World. He speaks so so softly that it is almost inaudible and is mostly incoherent. He unfastened his big stick and placed it to rest on a couch in the Oval office, for he has no need for it. He just wants to be "his brother's keeper". I doubt that he will be successful in this enterprise, if now, with all the enormous power and influence that he has, he is not able to be his little Yazidi daughter's keeper and his little Iraqi and Syrian sister's keeper. His daughters are with him, in safety and comfort, and may God bless them. Those girls and young women in Iraq and Syria are forced into sexual slavery and sold at the slave markets. This is not just the war in Iraq and Syria that we can half-ignore and leave to the local devices assisted by training. This is a war on Humanity and Civilization which we cannot ignore, for our souls will perish. While it is happening, we all are slaves, we all are abused and sold. "Je suis esclave".
Mr. Obama cannot find his strategy yet, after many months of wondering in the dark. If I may, I will try to help: resign the Presidency of the United States, which will be the only next logical step. Or, already, resume your duties!

ac pkg kaye why women join jihad_00003425

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Zainab Hawa Bangura:
But while it is true that most parties to the conflict are committing sexual violence, it is extremist groups like ISIL that have been particularly public and shameless in institutionalizing sexual violence and engaging in the brutalization of women and girls as a tactic of terror to advance their key strategic objectives...
Women and girls I spoke with described being treated as property to be owned and traded, or else as vessels for producing children for fighters. In ISIL strongholds in Syria and Iraq, Raqqa and Mosul, women and girls are held in houses and buildings before they are inspected, selected and sold in "bazaars" where prices can be negotiated. Simply put, we have been witnessing the revival of the slave trade in the 21st century.

Opinion: Women were 'examined like cattle'

Yazidi girls who slipped ISIS after its siege of Mount Sinjar describe how they were sent to slave warehouses along with hundreds of other women. There, they were lined up in groups of 50 and displayed for ISIS fighters to choose among them, some for marriage, others for sexual slavery.

The stories told to journalists or to human rights workers are confirmed by doctors who have examined the girls and say they have found evidence of repeated sexual assault.

An investigation by Human Rights Watch found "a system of organized rape and sexual assault, sexual slavery, and forced marriage by ISIS forces," actions that the group says "are war crimes and may be crimes against humanity."

ISIS is going to great lengths to prove how its treatment of women, including the selling of Yazidi prisoners as slaves, is in keeping with Islamic law. Its online magazine cites Islamic writings proclaiming: "We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah."

The worst fate is reserved for non-Muslims, such as Yazidis, but Muslim women in areas seized by Islamists have seen disaster. From Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, a modern town until ISIS conquered it last year, women say, "They have withheld all freedoms from us" and describe oppressive, fear-filled lives.

The brutality of the new jihadis is more than mere sadism. If it is madness, it is madness with a method. And when it comes to women, the method is one that aims to control them as a way to establish the society they envision, one where some women say life is simply not worth living.

What jihadis plan for women

Syria's Al-Qaida Branch Kills 20 Minority Druze Villagers

OPM Hack Far Deeper Than Publicly Acknowledged, Went Undetected For More Than A Year, Sources Say

sexual slavery isis - Google Search
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 12:00 PM

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Opinion: Women were 'examined like cattle'
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:57 AM

Story highlights

Zainab Hawa Bangura visited refugees who fled Iraq, Syria conflict
Sexual violence is being committed against women strategically, she says

Zainab Hawa Bangura is the United Nations special representative of the secretary general on sexual violence in conflict and serves as the United Nations' spokesperson and political advocate on conflict-related sexual violence. The views expressed are her own.

(CNN)Nothing prepared me for what I saw and heard when I visited refugees from the conflict with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

As I traveled to Iraq and Syria, and to neighboring countries of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to meet with refugees and displaced women, I heard firsthand the horrifying stories of how they have been targeted in this conflict.

I was told, for example, how mothers with babies were separated out by members of ISIL (also known as ISIS) because it is the younger women who they want to take. I heard how these younger women are examined to see if they are virgins, and how the younger and prettier they are, the more likely they are to get taken to ISIL's headquarters in Raqqa. And I heard how the rest are taken to open markets, where they will end up being auctioned after being examined like cattle.

I was in the Middle East as the special representative of the secretary general on sexual violence in conflict, and while I had been monitoring the situation since the crisis began, this was the first time I was able to visit those who have been disproportionately affected by the conflict.

Zainab Hawa Bangura

The refugees and displaced women and girls I met told me how sexual violence is being committed strategically, in a systematic manner, and with a high degree of sophistication by most of the parties to the conflicts. Indeed, as I moved from country to country, I came to the terrible conclusion that this is in essence a war on women and girls, a group that finds itself under assault every day, and every step of the way, whether it be in areas of active conflict, those under control of armed actors, or at checkpoints and border crossings.

But while it is true that most parties to the conflict are committing sexual violence, it is extremist groups like ISIL that have been particularly public and shameless in institutionalizing sexual violence and engaging in the brutalization of women and girls as a tactic of terror to advance their key strategic objectives.

ISIS: Enslaving, having sex with 'unbelieving' women, girls is OK

For a start, it is clear that ISIL has been working to increase recruitment by promising male fighters access to women and girls. In addition, the group has been raising funds through the sale of women and girls in slave markets and through ransoms paid by relatives. And the group has also been using sexual violence to displace populations, while also using the threat of sexual violence to extract information for intelligence purposes.

Women and girls I spoke with described being treated as property to be owned and traded, or else as vessels for producing children for fighters. In ISIL strongholds in Syria and Iraq, Raqqa and Mosul, women and girls are held in houses and buildings before they are inspected, selected and sold in "bazaars" where prices can be negotiated. Simply put, we have been witnessing the revival of the slave trade in the 21st century.

What can and should we do? Such extreme violence requires political and security responses, but also legal and social response.

For a start, all parties to the conflicts, both state and nonstate actors, have an obligation under international humanitarian law to prevent and punish such crimes. Second, U.N. agencies need greater support to be able to provide the necessary assistance and to be able to respond to the needs of the affected population, particularly women and girls who are suffering even in the places where they are seeking refuge. The reality is that the humanitarian appeals dealing with the provision of services to sexual violence survivors are underfunded, and neighboring countries are now also under tremendous pressure. Greater support is therefore needed not only for programs for refugees, but also to support host communities of neighboring countries that have absorbed an estimated 80% of the refugees.

'Treated like cattle': Yazidi women sold, raped, enslaved by ISIS

To address the transnational nature of ISIL, and the cross-border dimensions of the conflicts raging in the region, a concerted regional and international response is required, including improved information sharing across countries and a common counterterrorism response with women's protection and empowerment at its heart.

Such a response should also look at the root causes of violent extremism, something that we cannot ignore any longer. Preventing abuses will require deeper engagement with communities, including with traditional and religious leaders who can help break the silence surrounding sexual violence and ensure that it is the perpetrators who are shamed and stigmatized, not the victims. In fact, if there was a glimmer of hope during my visit, it was the statement issued by the supreme spiritual leader of the Yazidi community, who said that women and girls released from ISIL captivity should be embraced and reintegrated by their families and communities. Countering ISIL's violent ideology will mean accepting these women and girls -- and any children they may have -- in a spirit of tolerance, dignity and respect.

Ultimately, we cannot beat ISIL without understanding who they are, where they come from, and what their ideology is. The group presents a very formidable enemy, one that we must fight together.

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sexual slavery isis - Google Search
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:55 AM

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US Supports Ukraine on ‘Two Fronts’
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:41 AM

Voice Of America

The United States supports Ukraine’s efforts to counter Russian aggression and build an open government, says Washington’s envoy to the United Nations.

"The message of the United States throughout this Moscow-manufactured conflict - and the message you heard from President Obama and other world leaders at last week's meeting of the G7 - has never wavered: if Russia continues to disregard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine; and if Russia continues to violate the rules upon which international peace and security rest - then the Unnited States will continue to raise the costs on Russia," Power said in remarks to the Ukrainian people.
"And we will continue to rally other countries to do the same, reminding them that their silence or inaction in the face of Russian aggression will not placate Moscow, but embolden it," she added.

Power, known as a staunch supporter of Ukraine at U.N. Security Council meetings, met with Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, with whom she discussed the implementation of a cease-fire deal between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine at a time of renewed hostilities between the warring sides.

Minsk agreement
The agreement, reached in February in Minsk, Belarus, requires both rebels and Ukraine forces withdraw heavy weapons from the "line of contact," but international observers have reported frequent violations of the deal’s provisions.

“You cannot imagine how popular you currently are in Ukraine,” joked Poroshenko to Power at the beginning of their meeting, adding that many Ukrainians follow U.N. Security Council sessions devoted to the Ukraine conflict, which to date has killed some 6,500 people.

Power has earned a reputation for her sharp exchanges at the sessions with Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.

Russia is widely seen in the West as fueling the conflict in eastern Ukraine as a means of halting Kyiv's integration with Europe. Ukrainians toppled a pro-Russia president in February 2014 following months of massive street protests against his rule.

Power on Wednesday also paid tribute to the dozens of pro-democracy protesters killed during the “Maidan” rallies by security forces.

Part of Power’s mission to Ukraine is to also explore the establishment in Kyiv of a U.N. office charged with supporting the implementation of the Minsk agreement.
Biden-Yatsenyuk meeting
Power’s meetings with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv come on the heels of talks in Washington Wednesday between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
During the meeting Biden "underscored the resolve of the United States and its G7 partners to continue pressing Russia to fully implement the Minsk agreements, including return of the Ukrainian side of the international border to Ukrainian control, as well as the withdrawal of all Russian soldiers and weapons from Ukraine,” according to a White House statement.
The two sides also discussed Ukraine’s reform agenda, anti-corruption measures and other efforts “that will support stability and growth, and help to attract additional investment in Ukraine,” the statement said.

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Map: Is Islamic State in a neighborhood near you?
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:40 AM

Since the creation of the Islamic State in early 2014, the terrorist group has blitzed social media with propaganda aimed at luring adherents overseas to join the fight in Iraq and Syria, take up arms at home or provide other support. In the United States, the FBI has taken the lead in trying to prevent extremists from aiding the group.

U.S. authorities have charged more than three dozen men and women around the country in connection with the Islamic State. Men outnumber women in those cases by a margin of nearly 5 to 1. The average age of the individuals – some have merely been charged, others have been convicted – is 26. One is a minor.

The FBI says that, in a handful of cases, it has disrupted plots targeting U.S. military or law enforcement personnel. The bureau’s director, James B. Comey, said recently the FBI has investigations into possible homegrown violent extremists – not all of them linked to the Islamic State – in all 50 states.

Click here to see the full list of those who tried to join the Islamic State.

Adam Goldman reports on terrorism and national security for The Washington Post.

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Russian Groups Crowdfund the War in Ukraine
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:40 AM

WASHINGTON — The Novorossiya Humanitarian Battalion boasts on its website that it provided funds to buy a pair of binoculars used by rebels in eastern Ukraine to spot and destroy an armored vehicle. Another group, Save the Donbass, solicits donations using a photograph of a mortar shell inscribed with its web address and the names of donors. Yet another, Veche, states that its mission is to “create modern, combat-ready” military units fighting Ukraine’s central government.

These organizations are part of an online campaign that is brazenly raising money for the war in eastern Ukraine, using common tactics that have at least tacit support from the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Although they often portray their mission as humanitarian, most of the groups explicitly endorse the armed insurgency and vow to help equip forces in the two regions at the center of the fighting, Donetsk and Luhansk.

An examination by The New York Times of the groups’ websites, social media postings and other records found more than a dozen groups in Russia that are raising money for the separatists, aiding a conflict that has killed more than 6,400 people and plunged Russia’s relations with the West to depths not seen since the Cold War.

The groups have relied on social media — including YouTube and the Russian version of Facebook — to direct donations through state-owned banks in Russia and through a private system of payment terminals owned by a company called QIWI that is affiliated with Visa and traded on the Nasdaq. While most of the donations appear to come from Russia, the organizations have also solicited funds from abroad using large American and European financial institutions, including banks and companies like Western Union and PayPal, even though many of the groups are targets of international sanctions.

The fund-raising could pose legal risks for those companies, which are prohibited from doing business with blacklisted people or groups. In fact, the sanctions have helped give rise to a cat-and-mouse game in which the fund-raising groups morph with the shifting circumstances, changing names and redirecting donations to new accounts to keep the money flowing.

With the European Union expected to renew its sanctions, Mr. Putin has continued to insist that the fighters in eastern Ukraine are part of a homegrown opposition movement, even though a preponderance of evidence shows that Russia has provided manpower and weapons. In late May, for instance, two Russian soldiers were captured on the battlefield and charged with terrorism.

Mr. Putin participated in the negotiations that produced a tenuous cease-fire in February, and he has called on both sides to reach a lasting political settlement, most recently during his meetings with Italian officials and Pope Francis in Rome. Officials in Ukraine and elsewhere, however, say that he has continued to stoke the conflict in order to keep his neighbor weak and unstable. In recent days, new signs of a buildup of Russian troops and equipment at the border, as well as fighting that killed at least 19 people on the outskirts of Donetsk, have raised fears that the simmering conflict will erupt again.

It is unclear just how extensive the fund-raising network is, or how much money flows through it, though the separatist groups identified by The Times claim in social media posts to have raised millions of dollars.

The network features a disparate yet overlapping cast of characters that includes a mustachioed former Russian military intelligence officer credited with starting the uprising, Igor Girkin, who uses the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov; the dissident writer and Putin critic Eduard Limonov, whose neo-nationalist followers have championed the territorial expansion in ethnically Russian regions with far more vigor than Mr. Putin’s Kremlin; and a former “foreign minister” of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Yekaterina Gubareva, and her husband, Pavel, an ethnic Russian from Ukraine and one of the most prominent separatist leaders there.

All share a common cause: establishment of a region loyal to Russia that is sometimes called the Donbass or Novorossiya. They make similar appeals to ethnic and political solidarity with the fighters opposing the central government in Kiev, and they share methods for raising money for illicit activities that the Internet has made vastly more efficient, according to experts and officials monitoring financial flows of criminal and terrorist groups.

“Violent groups operating in war zones and their supporters abroad are exploiting advancements in communications and financial services technologies to more efficiently increase popular support and raise funds for their cause,” said Howard Mendelsohn, a former deputy assistant Treasury secretary and now the managing director of Camstoll Group, an advisory firm in Washington.

According to their own online appeals, the organizations have directed that donations be made via state-owned or state-controlled banks in Russia, including the country’s largest, Sberbank, or credit cards issued by those banks, some branded with MasterCard and Visa logos. Mr. Putin’s government, which strictly regulates nongovernmental organizations to monitor opposition political activity, has done little to stop the fund-raising.

The head of Russia’s Federal Service for Financial Monitoring, Yuri A. Chikhanchin, for instance, recently told Mr. Putin that his agency had frozen 3,500 bank accounts suspected of supporting terrorist organizations. The fighters in eastern Ukraine, however, are not among the groups Russia has designated as unlawful.

“Anyone in Russia who wants to provide assistance to the D.P.R. and the L.P.R. is encouraged by and gets support from the Russian government,” said John E. Herbst, a former American ambassador to Ukraine now at the Atlantic Council in Washington, using the abbreviations for the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

One of the fund-raising groups, Save the Donbass, claimed in May to have raised the equivalent of $1.3 million in donations through Sberbank and other payment systems, including QIWI.

The fund run by Ms. Gubareva and her husband, the Humanitarian Battalion of Novorossiya, claims to have raised $213,000 since its founding in May 2014, shortly after the fighting began.

Its website allows donors to direct their contributions to specific militia units, including a mortar battery named after the Russian version of Pinocchio, a puppet called Buratino, and boasts that it has provided not only the binoculars used in the destruction of the armored vehicle, but also tactical military gloves, laser range finders, radios and a car used by the battery’s spotters.

At least five of the organizations solicit donations through PayPal, the online payment company based in California that is now owned by eBay. PayPal has in the past faced legal trouble for processing payments to entities in Iran, Sudan and Cuba, recently paying nearly $7.7 million in penalties in a settlement with the Treasury Department.

When asked about the Ukrainian-related accounts — identified by email addresses in Russia — a PayPal spokeswoman, Sarah Frueh, said none of the accounts were valid. She declined to respond to additional questions seeking clarification.

Many of the organizations openly advertise ways to donate using American and European banks. On the Humanitarian Battalion website, for instance, Ms. Gubareva explains how to wire dollars or euros into her account at Sberbank using correspondent accounts at Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank in New York, among others. So did the separatist group Veche.

It remains unclear how much money is flowing into eastern Ukraine from abroad. Only one of the international banks said it had detected illicit donations, blocking a contribution to Ms. Gubareva’s organization, according to a bank official who spoke on the condition that the bank not be identified. Another donation of $200 did pass to Veche, which is not on any blacklist but proclaims links to organizations that are — including Mr. Strelkov’s Novorossiya Movement and the Ghost Battalion, led by Aleksei Mozgovy until he died in an ambush last month.

But the widespread use of QIWI has created potential risks for its partner, Visa. Nearly all the fund-raising groups solicit donations through QIWI, a virtual payment company founded in 2004 and later incorporated, like many Russian companies, in Cyprus. QIWI provides consumers in Russia — and increasingly other countries — with a variety of ways to make payments online or through a network of tens of thousands of terminals that act like reverse A.T.M.s, allowing users to deposit cash and then pay participating vendors.

Users can also move money to individuals — or charitable organizations — as long as they have accounts linked to working telephone numbers. Its partnership with Visa, begun in 2012, allows customers to use a QIWI-Visa credit card to pay vendors outside QIWI’s network.

The system has become wildly popular, used by 17 million Russians, but it has also skirted legal trouble. The company’s terminals and credit cards — along with the failure to require identification for transactions, as demanded by Russian law since last year — can be easily exploited to transfer proceeds from illicit activities, from drug dealing to tax evasion.

In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, required because its stock is traded on the Nasdaq, QIWI said its system “remains susceptible to potentially illegal or improper uses” such as money laundering by organized crime groups and other illicit actors, including those named in sanctions by the West for their activities in Ukraine.

In February, the company filed an amendment, saying that law enforcement officials had carried out an investigation at its Moscow offices involving “a small number of clients,” though it did not elaborate.

Officials with Visa said they did not believe their company had processed any donations to the organizations examined. QIWI’s chief executive, Sergei Solonin, said in a telephone interview that QIWI blocked some of the accounts identified by The Times last summer because they were engaged in fund-raising activity prohibited by company policy. The company, for instance, blocks the use of its system for political fund-raising.

Mr. Solonin said other accounts were blocked after The Times brought them to QIWI’s attention. One group, Tricolor, posted photographs of donations made on QIWI accounts as late as October 2014, but Mr. Solonin would not say whether that was one of the accounts closed later, citing Russia’s financial confidentiality laws. After that interview, a number of groups noted on their websites that their QIWI accounts had been blocked, and removed them as payment options.

But underscoring just how tricky it can be to curtail the groups’ fund-raising activities, a number redirected money to new accounts. On April 20, a group called Batman noted on its social media page that all but its Sberbank account had been blocked. But by May 18, it had updated the page to include a new QIWI account number and a plea: “Donbass needs your help!”

The Western sanctions lists, for their part, have not kept up with the groups’ ever-changing names. Mr. Strelkov’s Novorossiya Movement, for instance, stopped soliciting funds after the European Union placed sanctions on it in February. Instead, it asked that the funds be sent to a related group, not blacklisted, called Global Initiatives, run by the movement’s chief of staff and chaired by Mr. Strelkov.

In early May, it morphed yet again, redirecting funds to yet another related group, ANO KNB. Later in the month, a group identified by the Novorossiya Movement as its partner, Strelkov Info, wrote that because of constant blocking of its accounts, “we’ve decided to not post them in places open to all”; donors could send an email “to find out transfer details.”

Meanwhile, new fund-raising appeals keep popping up. A group calling itself <a href="http://Dobrovolec.org" rel="nofollow">Dobrovolec.org</a> was soliciting funds online as of May 26, with QIWI and Sberbank accounts among the payment options. The group, which claims to be conducting at least two campaigns involving volunteer snipers and “tankmen,” called on fighters familiar with such deadly weaponry as surface-to-air missiles, flamethrowers and anti-tank guided missiles to join its effort to “participate in military conflict in the west of former Ukraine on Novorossiya side.”

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What jihadis plan for women
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:39 AM

Story highlights

Frida Ghitis: ISIS and other jihadi groups see women as crucial in role of caliphate they want to create
She says the groups want to enslave women, tie them to a long outdated view of how society should work

Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review and a former CNN producer and correspondent. Follow her @FridaGhitis. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN)There is a special kind of hell reserved for the women who fall into the clutches of today's Jihadi fighters.

We are all familiar with the brutality of ISIS, the self-anointed Islamic State, or Boko Haram, the Nigerian terrorists who have pledged allegiance to ISIS.

This new wave of violent Islamist groups proudly brandishes medieval methods of cruelty through modern technology as a tool of recruitment and intimidation.

But there is something very different about the way they treat women.

Frida Ghitis

The jihadi chiefs have a strategy beyond the battlefield. Their treatment of their female victims plays an important part in their ambitious radical strategy.

Killing the enemy, the men, is a tactic for winning battles and conquering territory. What they do to women has an altogether different purpose: It is part of the larger plan of building a "caliphate," a Sharia-ruled state complete with controls and norms harking back to the seventh century or, rather, to the group's interpretation of life in the early days of Islam.

The stories told to journalists or to human rights workers are confirmed by doctors who have examined the girls and say they have found evidence of repeated sexual assault.

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In Nigeria, Boko Haram also has a very specific approach to women. The 276 students kidnapped one year ago make up a small portion of the 2,000 women and girls kidnapped by the group since 2014, according to Amnesty International. There, too, women captives move from house to house and village to village, forced to convert when they are not Muslim, and prepare for marriage to jihadis.

It's a stark change from the previous generation of jihadis, when Osama bin Laden headed al Qaeda. Women were not a big part of al Qaeda's immediate plans because al Qaeda, unlike ISIS, viewed the establishment of a caliphate as a distant goal, one for future generations.

In contrast, ISIS is actively engaged in building those social structures. And if you want to build a new society, you need more than soldiers. You also need women. Women are indispensable for establishing a functioning community, even one whose laws are brutally repressive. Even if women are viewed as the property of men, they are still needed, not just for cooking, cleaning and sex, but to keep the home and raise children; hence the methodical capture, assault and subjugation.

It is no accident that Boko Haram has targeted students, as it did in Chibok, or that Somalia's Al-Shabaab Islamists killed scores of women in the massacre at Kenya's Garissa University in Kenya.

As in previous conflicts, women are spoils of war and rape is a weapon of war. It is a way to humiliate the enemy, a "reward" for soldiers and a tactic of ethnic cleansing.

During the Bosnian war of the 1990s, experts said Serbian soldiers engaged in systematic rape, thinking the babies of raped Bosnian Muslim women would be Serbian. In Darfur, government-backed militias were accused of using mass rape to humiliate the non-Arab groups.

But this is different. The women are not simply abused and discarded. ISIS and Boko Haram are enslaving them and incorporating them into the daily life of territories they rule, subjecting them to asphyxiating restrictions and abuses that have caused many of them to attempt suicide, according to some of those who escaped -- a phenomenon reminiscent of Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban, another radical Islamic group that managed to take control and impose unspeakable rulesfor women.

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Ex-Rhode Island House Speaker Gets 3 Years for Corruption
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:37 AM

ABC News: Politics

Former Rhode Island House Speaker Gordon Fox was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for corruption, bringing to a close the federal investigation into a man once considered the most powerful person in state government.

Crying, Fox apologized to his family, friends and to the state when he addressed the court before the sentencing.

"I accept full responsibility for my actions. No excuses, no justifications," Fox said. "I committed illegal acts and I'm very sorry for it."

He said the only explanation he could offer was greed, keeping up with the joneses and stupidity. He said he got himself in a bad financial situation and didn't know how to get out of it.

Fox pleaded guilty in March to charges of bribery, wire fraud and filing a false tax return. He acknowledged taking more than $50,000 in bribe money from a Providence restaurant when he was a member of the city board of licenses and admitted he took more than $100,000 from his campaign account for his own use.

The 53-year-old Democrat became the nation's first openly gay House speaker in 2010. He represented Providence for 11 terms in the House. He stepped down as speaker the day after a dramatic raid on his Statehouse office in March 2014 but remained in his seat until his term expired in January.

Prosecutors and Fox each agreed to request a three-year term as part of a plea deal.

U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi on Thursday called it "an appropriate, fair and just sentence." She said Fox's actions were crimes of choice. She also ordered him to pay $109,000 in restitution to his campaign account.

She noted that Fox waived an indictment, saving the government considerable time and resources, and he waived the statute of limitations on the bribery count.

Federal prosecutors painted a picture of a man living far beyond his means and using bribes and campaign cash to finance his lifestyle. They said he made less than $73,000 per year on average from his modest solo law practice but had a mortgage of $3,800 per month.

In court filings, they said that soon after he arranged the $52,500 bribe, he bought a $50,000 Audi. Still, he was left with a monthly car payment of more than $800.

They also said that from 2011 to 2013, neither Fox nor his husband made a single cash withdrawal from a bank teller or ATM, indicating he had a different source of cash.

In a court filing, Fox's lawyer, William Murphy, said Fox committed financial crimes "because his financial life was not in order."

Fox must surrender by July 7.

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American Keith Broomfield Killed Fighting Against ISIS in Syria
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:37 AM

An American man killed fighting alongside Kurdish forces against ISIS believed it was "God's will" that he go to Syria, his mother told NBC News.

"I didn't want him to go but I didn't have a choice in the matter," Keith Broomfield's mother, Donna, tearfully said in a phone interview Wednesday from Westminster, Massachusetts.

A woman who identified herself as Keith Broomfield's sister posted a text-message exchange on her Facebook page in which he explained his reasons for going overseas.

"I'm gonna do what I got to do," he wrote. "Sometimes you got to be a man whether you want to or not. I don't expect anyone to understand but I don't need anyone to either.'

A State Department official confirmed to NBC News that Broomfield, 36, was killed in Syria. The official did not provide further details, saying only that the State Department was in touch with his family.

Twitter accounts and Facebook pages linked to Kurdish fighters were first to report his death, calling Broomfield a "martyr" and saying he was killed in the Syrian countryside surrounding Kobani. There was no immediate official confirmation from the secular Kurdish forces fighting ISIS in Syria known known as the YPG.

Idris Nassan, Kurdish co-deputy foreign minister of the Kobani district, also confirmed to NBC News that an American who had joined Kurdish fighters died in a battle with ISIS in his area. It was not immediately clear when Broomfield was killed.

Donna Broomfield said that her son — who had been the production manager for the family's manufacturing firm —had left to join the Kurds about four months ago.

"He turned his life over to the Lord and he decided this was God's will and God wanted him to do it," she said.

There was "a little bit of texting" after he first arrived, but lately she had heard "nothing."

"I'm waiting for his body to come back," she added.

Jennifer Broomfield, who posted the text messages on Facebook but could not be reached for comment, wrote on her page that she "didn't think she would lose him."

"If we allow this war to continue we are ignoring that we are all sisters and brothers," she wrote.

"My brother died to defend my sisters who are being sold, enslaved, raped and murdered. To defend my brothers who are shot beheaded and dumped into piles off trucks.

"This can not continue. This needs to end.

"I don't care what country we are from."

Numerous Americans are believed to have traveled overseas to join the Kurdish People's Protection Union, also known by the initials YPG, in their fight against ISIS. However, Broomfield is believed to be the first U.S. citizen to die fighting alongside the YPG.

News of Broomfield's death came as U.S. President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of 450 additional military personnel to help and advise Iraqi forces battling ISIS and attempting to push the Sunni militants out of the city of Ramadi.

In recent weeks, ISIS also has seized the Syrian city of Palmyra.

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Russian journalist Konstantin Goldenzweig resigns from state-funded channel NTV due to 'propaganda madness' - Europe - World
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:36 AM

Konstantin Goldenzweig was formerly a reporter for NTV, a pro-Kremlin TV channel owned by state gas company

Gazprom.

Announcing his resignation on his Facebook page, he wrote in Russian: "I'm leaving NTV, where I worked intermittently for 12 years. Thanks to all my excellent colleagues who helped me, taught me, encouraged me and were my friends. And continue to be my friends. Thank you to those who watched."

"And sorry for the fact that in recent years I have sometimes participated in the general propaganda madness. There is only one banal conclusion - the deals with your own conscience are only as good as those you can cancel."

After his announcement, NTV released a compilation video of some of his reports, titling it 'Goodbye, Kostya!"

Following recent political unrest in Russia and Ukraine, the station has become more overtly pro-Kremlin. In 2012, it broadcast a documentary called The Anatomy of Protest, which alleged that Muscovites had been paid by shadowy opposition groups to take part in anti-government protests.

A sequel to this documentary, shown six months later, accused opposition leaders of planning high treason by forcefully seizing power

In pictures: Russia commemorates 70th anniversary of Victory Day

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A string of journalists for Russian-backed media organisations have resigned in recent years, angered at their growing part in the Kremlin's campaign of misinformation.

Liz Wahl, a newsreader for the American branch of state-funded TV channel Russia Today resigned live on air in April last year, saying she could no longer work for a network that she said "whitewashes the actions of Putin".

Sara Firth, a British journalist, resigned from the UK branch of Russia Today in July last year, saying on Twitter that Russia Today journalists "work for Putin", spread lies, and "obscure the truth".

Alexandria, Virginia ISIS recruiter teen pleads guilty
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:35 AM

Alexandria, Virginia (CNN)Ali Shukri Amin, from Alexandria, Virginia, pleaded guilty Thursday in a federal court to providing material support to ISIS and faces up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced Aug. 28.

The 17-year-old was accused of helping, Reza Niknejad, 18, who officials believe went on to join ISIS, travel to Syria, a law enforcement source said in March. The teen was also accused of passing messages between ISIS contacts.

Amin appearing before the judge in a blue jail jumpsuit only responded "guilty sir" to the judge when asked to give his plea and "no sir" when asked if he is innocent in any way to the charges he is facing.

Amin admitted in a statement of fact as part of the plea agreement to using the twitter handle @Amreekiwitness to "provide advice and encouragement to ISIL and its supporters," according to a Department of Justice press release.

Additionally, Amin taught followers how to use bitcoin to covertly send funds to the terror group.

Social media has been widely utilized by the terror organization for recruiting and propaganda purposes, but the U.S. has also used the various mediums, like Twitter, to hone in on foreign targets.

"Around the nation, we are seeing ISIL use social media to reach out from the other side of the world," Assistant Attorney General Carlin said. "Their messages are reaching America in an attempt to radicalize, recruit and incite our youth and others to support ISIL's violent causes."

Niknejad was also charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and conspiring to kill and injure people abroad in the Eastern District Court of Virginia on Wednesday.

Investigators spent more than a month watching the teen before he was arrested, the Washington Post reported at the time citing officials and neighbors.

"Today's guilty plea demonstrates that those who use social media as a tool to provide support and resources to ISIL will be identified and prosecuted with no less vigilance than those who travel to take up arms with ISIL," said U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente.

CNN's Sophie Tatum contributed to this report.

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Terror Watchdog Calls on UK to Draw Up New Surveillance Law
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:34 AM

LONDON — Britain's terror legislation watchdog concluded Thursday that the country needs a new law on monitoring online communications, arguing a fresh approach is necessary to address the concerns of both law enforcement and privacy advocates.

The independent reviewer of terror legislation, David Anderson, proposed a new blueprint for surveillance laws, saying that the existing framework satisfies neither security services nor privacy activists. The landmark 300-page report argues that a comprehensive and comprehensible law is needed to replace a multitude of current powers.

"Each intrusive power must be shown to be necessary, clearly spelled out in law, limited in accordance with international human rights standards and subject to demanding and visible safeguards," Anderson said. "The current law is fragmented, obscure, under constant challenge and variable in the protections that it affords the innocent. It is time for a clean slate."

The new architecture proposed for surveillance laws could have broader implications. Many countries look to Britain, and its long history of dealing with insurgencies, as being a leader in security legislation, said Cian Murphy, a counterterrorism law expert at King's College London.

"It is for Parliament to rise to the challenge of making that law — one which could set an example for states around the world," he said.

Anderson concluded that existing laws haven't kept pace with technology and are confusing — comparing it in a BBC interview to a 15-year-old car in need of repairs. One of Anderson's suggestions is the creation of a new intelligence auditor to oversee novel, contentious and sensitive requests for interception of communications.

The government ordered the review as part of legislation fast-tracked through Parliament last year.

Home Secretary Theresa May said a draft bill on reforming the powers of security services to monitor online communications will be will be brought forward after the summer recess.

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Female prison worker, in love, agreed to drive getaway car: NBC News
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:33 AM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A female prison worker being questioned by police, who are hunting two escapees from an upstate New York prison, thought she had a romantic relationship with one of them and had planned to drive the getaway car, NBC News reported on Thursday.

In the end, Joyce Mitchell, an industrial training supervisor in the tailor shop of Clinton Correctional Facility in the town of Dannemora, got cold feet and checked herself into a hospital for nerves on Saturday, the day the inmates were discovered missing, NBC reported, citing unnamed senior government officials.

The older inmate, convicted killer Richard Matt, 48, who has a history of escape attempts, had wooed Mitchell for months and established a relationship in which she agreed to drive the getaway car, the report said.

"She thought it was love," one of the officials told NBC News.

Mitchell's statements to police were incriminating enough to result in her being indicted for her role in the escape, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing an unnamed person with knowledge of the matter.

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Law enforcement officials man a roadblock while searching a wooded area near Dannemora, New York Jun …

Mitchell, who is married to another prison worker and has an adult son, earns a salary of $57,700 for the state corrections department job she has held since 2008, the Buffalo News reported.

Police have declined to comment further on Mitchell, but State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico said at a press conference on Wednesday: "She befriended the inmates and may have had some sort of role in assisting them."

Matt and David Sweat, 34, both convicted of murder, remained on the loose on Thursday, after escaping from the maximum-security prison through underground pipes and a manhole.

More than 450 state, federal and local law enforcement officers are now in their sixth day of a manhunt for the prison escapees, which has spread to Vermont and includes possible sightings as far away as Philadelphia.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

NBC News
Clinton Correctional Facility

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Deaths of soldiers and civilians strain Ukraine's ceasefire
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:33 AM

KIEV Three civilians and two Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in eastern Ukraine, renewing pressure on Thursday on a four-month truce in the separatist conflict, and international monitors said violence could surge at any moment.

The two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 13 others wounded by separatists using heavy weapons in violation of a ceasefire agreed in February, a military spokesman said in Kiev.

The three civilians were killed on Wednesday night in a mortar attack near Gorlivka, which is in separatist-held territory north of the regional city of Donetsk. The military and the rebels blamed each other for the attack.

A ceasefire between the two sides brokered in February by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France has stemmed large-scale fighting though regular skirmishes near Donetsk are claiming lives almost daily on both sides.

A spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe spokesman, Michael Bociurkiw, said the situation had stabilized following serious fighting between government forces and separatists at Maryinka, 23 km (14 miles) west of Donetsk on June 3, which shook the tenuous truce.

But he said re-location of personnel and weapons in the area meant "the normal pattern of violence has re-asserted itself ... the threat of a sudden flare-up still remains".

Areas in and around Donetsk airport, which fell to the rebels in January, remained the primary focus of fighting with 331 explosions recorded on June 9, he said.

Despite claims to the contrary, neither side has completed the withdrawal of heavy weapons as agreed in the four-power talks last February in Minsk, Belarus, Bociurkiw said.

The Minsk deal is held by all sides as the basis for reaching a peace settlement in a conflict which erupted in April, 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea and which has cost more than 6,400 lives according to U.N. figures.

But the United States, its Western allies and Kiev accuse Russia of failing to implement the Minsk agreement by keeping its troops in Ukraine and arming the rebels.

Moscow, which denies direct involvement in the conflict, takes the side of the separatists in accusing Ukrainian forces of attacking rebel positions in urban areas, in violation of the agreement.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, visiting Kiev on Thursday, said the United States remained supportive of the Minsk agreement despite violations. Most had been carried out by separatists and by the re-appearance on the field of heavy weapons which had previously been withdrawn, she said.

"There's a political solution, diplomatic pressure to try to ensure better implementation in the near term and full implementation ultimately and that is the necessary course even if, right now, it's a halting one," she said.

Power said Western sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis had a devastating effect on the Russian economy. She said that while these had not immediately forced Russia to withdraw its forces and weapons from Ukraine, Russia would feel the effect of being isolated over time.

(Writing By Richard Balmforth; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Calls for aid to Syria's Druze after al Qaeda kills 20
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:32 AM

BEIRUT/AMMAN Fighters from Syria's al Qaeda branch, the Nusra Front, have killed at least 20 Druze villagers, raising fear for one of Syria's minorities as insurgents including Sunni Islamists gain ground against President Bashar al-Assad.

Druze in Lebanon and Israel have made separate appeals for their Syrian kin to be armed to defend themselves from groups such as Nusra and the more powerful Islamic State, which has persecuted both minorities and fellow Sunnis.

The Druze faith, related to Islam, Christianity and Judaism, is practiced by around 1.5 million people, mostly in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. It is viewed as heretical by the puritanical school of Sunni Islam espoused by al Qaeda and by Islamic State, whose attempts to advance toward a Druze area of southern Syria have added to concerns.

The shooting in the northwest occurred in the village of Qalb Loze in Idlib province, where the Nusra Front is part of an insurgent alliance that has seized wide areas from government control since March.

The killings spiraled from a confrontation that began when Nusra Front members tried to confiscate the house of a villager who fought alongside government forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The dead included elderly people and at least one child, the UK-based Observatory said. A member of the Nusra Front was also killed when villagers managed to seize a weapon from a fighter.

An account of the incident attributed to a Nusra Front fighter and published on a Twitter account used by its supporters blamed a villager who refused to relinquish the house to someone "in need". It gave no casualty toll.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA described it as a massacre. A Lebanese Druze spiritual leader condemned the shooting and warned against a slide into the "furnace of lethal strife".

DRAWN DEEPER

An advance of Islamist fighters toward the Druze heartland of Sweida raises the prospect of another group being drawn deeper into a four-year-old civil war that has killed around a quarter of a million people and made 8 million homeless.

The Druze spiritual leader in Syria issued a statement on Tuesday calling on everyone who could bear arms to join the government army, saying their service would be restricted to Sweida province which was threatened by "impending danger". The statement was posted on Facebook by pro-government activists.

Assad, himself a member of a minority sect, the Alawites, has enjoyed support from many Druze in his fight against an insurgency whose two most powerful groups are Sunni Islamists, Islamic State and Nusra.

In an interview with Al Jazeera news channel last month, the Nusra Front leader said Alawites must change their beliefs and renounce Assad if they wanted to remain safe.

Assad's opponents accuse him of manipulating sectarian fears to shore up his support base.

"WE NEED WEAPONS"

The Druze have a large presence in Sweida province near the border with Jordan and Israel, where insurgents have made big gains recently.

The insurgents there include both the Nusra Front and other rebels who do not share its jihadist ideology and say they are committed to a diverse Syria. Some of the groups are supported by Western countries and their Arab allies, who are bombing Islamic State fighters while also opposing Assad.

In recent months, Islamic State has also been trying to advance into Sweida from the east.

Sweida city, mostly unscathed in the war, was struck by shells on Thursday that killed one person, state TV reported.

The president of Israel, home to a large Druze community, on Wednesday expressed concern to the United States about the fate of the Syrian Druze, saying around 500,000 of them were under threat from Islamist militants in southern Syria.

A U.S. official said the Druze of Israel had raised the idea of arming the Syrian Druze with Israel, the United States and with Jordan.

Wiam Wahhab, a Lebanese Druze with close ties to the Syrian government, on Thursday urged all Druze to help their Syrian kin with "money, volunteers, weapons". He called on Assad to arm them.

By contrast, Walid Jumblatt, Lebanon's most influential Druze politician and an Assad opponent, has told Syrian Druze to reconcile their differences with those in the south who support the war against Assad.

Bashar al-Zoubi, a southern rebel leader, said the rebel campaign was not sectarian. "Sweida was in the range of the opposition for two years and we did not hit it once," he told Reuters via the internet.

(Reporting by Tom Perry/Suleiman al-Khalidi; Additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Alexandria, Virginia ISIS recruiter teen pleads guilty
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:31 AM

Additionally, Amin taught followers how to use bitcoin to covertly send funds to the terror group.

Social media has been widely utilized by the terror organization for recruiting and propaganda purposes, but the U.S. has also used the various mediums, like Twitter, to hone in on foreign targets.

Investigators spent more than a month watching the teen before he was arrested, the Washington Post reported at the time citing officials and neighbors.

CNN's Sophie Tatum contributed to this report.

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AFP assessing reformed Islamic radicals as potential counter-radicalisation poster-boys and girls
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:31 AM

You can't negotiate with IS: Abbott

The Prime Minister foreshadows Australia playing a greater role in the fight against Islamic State during a counter-terrorism summit in Sydney.

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The Australian Federal Police are assessing reformed Islamic radicals – including some turned back at airports when wanting to travel to the Middle East – as potential counter-radicalisation poster-boys and girls.

Commissioner Andrew Colvin told Fairfax Media on the sidelines of a major counter-terrorism conference in Sydney that using disillusioned ex-radicals is "a great strategy" and the AFP was already eyeing promising candidates.

His remarks came as Tony Abbott gave his strongest indication yet that he is keen to expand Australia's role in Iraq, hinting at a further training role as well as airstrike spotters on the ground. The Prime Minister painted the Islamic State terror group in apocalyptic terms, warning that it was "coming, if it can, for every person and every government, with a simple message: submit or die".

AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin says using disillusioned ex-radicals is "a great strategy". Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Colvin, meanwhile, said he wasn't yet ready to nominate disillusioned ex-radicals to sell the counter-extremist message but said there were "individuals out there that we think we can work with in this manner and I'm keen to progress that ...

"But for intervention by government, they may well [have found] themselves over in northern Iraq or Syria fighting, and a very different course of events would have taken place in their life."

He said the strategy could include people turned back at airports, but also people who stopped themselves by voluntarily turning back.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott delivers his address at the Summit to Counter Violent Extremism. Photo: Kate Geraghty

Such youngsters would have the credibility and the insight to understand and influence would-be foreign fighters, Mr Colvin said.

"Kids with street cred who probably have gone to the edge and come back I think will resonate with the community."

He stressed that candidates needed to be chosen carefully, as it was "a high-risk strategy at times". But he said no idea should be "off the table" given the seriousness of the threat.

Police and intelligence agencies have been alarmed by the plunging ages of Australians involved in alleged terrorism plots and activities, some of whom are being radicalised within just a few months.

Mr Colvin said the Islamic State terror group was probably targeting younger and younger recruits specifically because it would send the strongest shockwaves through the community.

"They're about trying to have an impact on us, and there's nothing that hurts communities more than having their young, their vulnerable, the future of the communities, being radicalised, being groomed, being convinced to do something they wouldn't otherwise do," he said.

The two-day summit in Sydney, involving 28 countries and bringing together the cream of Australia's law enforcement and intelligence communities, aims to find ways to combat radicalisation particularly online.

Mr Colvin said Australian agencies were still groping for the right ways to do this.

"I haven't given up, I'm not going to give up. We've got a way to go but we can't let these kids down."

Mr Abbott, opening the Regional Summit to Counter Violent Extremism, told the gathering of foreign ministers, ambassadors and counter-terrorism experts that Islamic State could not be negotiated with, only fought, and Australia was discussing with allied nations how to better help Iraq.

"We are talking with our friends and partners about how the air strikes might be more effective and how the Iraqi forces might be better helped," he said. "American leadership is indispensable here, as in all the world's trouble spots."

Fairfax Media understands there are no current proposals before the government to expand its role, nor requests from the US or Iraq, though it is widely known in government circles that Mr Abbott is keen to do more in Iraq if other countries are also willing.

Monash University terrorism expert Greg Barton said that after more than a decade of focusing heavily on military and law enforcement remedies, security agencies were now embracing community-led programs to counter jihadist propaganda as a frontline anti-terrorism weapon

This renewed focus on "countering violent extremism" was a "watershed moment", he said.

"The truth is there's no more low-hanging fruit in terms of new laws that are going to make the job any easier. In fact, they could well be counter-productive," he said.

On the citizenship debate, Mr Colvin said it could be "another tool" to fight terrorism but stressed it was up to the government.

Khalid Koser, a respected expert on terrorism and refugees, questioned the government's plan to strip citizenship from dual nationals suspected of being terrorists, calling it "a heavy-handed approach that could have negative unintended consequences".

"There is a tendency amongst many countries, including Australia, to think that there are national solutions to transnational threats and I'm not sure that's true any longer in the world in which we live."

Tobias Feakin, a national security expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, blasted the proposal, saying it amounted to sending Australia's problems overseas, which ran counter to the commitment at the United Nations to stop the flow of foreign fighters to the Middle East.

"If you suddenly say we're going to absolve ourselves of responsibility, then it goes against those resolutions," he said.

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OPM Hack Far Deeper Than Publicly Acknowledged, Went Undetected For More Than A Year, Sources Say
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:30 AM

ABC News: Politics

The massive hack into federal systems announced last week was far deeper and potentially more problematic than publicly acknowledged, with hackers believed to be from China moving through government databases undetected for more than a year, sources briefed on the matter told ABC News.

"If [only] they knew the full extent of it," one U.S. official said about those affected by the intrusion into the Office of Personnel Management's information systems.

It all started with an initial intrusion into OPM's systems more than a year ago, and after gaining that initial access the hackers were able to work their way through four different "segments" of OPM's systems, according to sources.

Much of that data has been stored on OPM systems housed by the Department of the Interior in a Denver-area data center, sources said. And one of the four "segments" compromised held forms filled out by federal employees seeking security clearances.

As ABC News previously reported, the 127-page forms — known as SF-86's and used for background investigations — ask applicants for personal information not only about themselves but also relatives, friends, and potentially even college roommates.

OPM insists the information compromised by the intrusion into its systems does "not [include] the names of family members."

"Family members of employees were not affected by this breach," OPM says on its website.

However, U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity say unequivocally such information was put at serious risk by the OPM hack. Of utmost concern are U.S. employees stationed overseas, including in countries such as China, whose government would covet personal information on relatives and contacts of American officials living in the communist country, according to officials.

"If the SF-86's associated with this hack were, in their entirety, part of the stolen information, then that would mean the potential release of a staggering amount of information, affecting an exponential amount of people," one U.S. official told ABC News on Sunday.

Acting as the government's human resources division, OPM conducts about 90 percent of background investigations for the federal government. Information from SF-86 forms dating back three decades could have been exposed in the cyber-attack, which the U.S. government strongly suspects was carried out by hackers in China, sources said.

Applicants seeking U.S. security clearances are required to provide the full names, dates of birth, places of birth and social security numbers of spouses or partners. Relatives' full names, dates of birth, current addresses and in some cases employment information are also required. And applicants are asked to the full names, dates of birth and addresses of "foreign contacts" — defined as a foreign national, including relatives, "with whom you, or your spouse, or cohabitant are bound by affection, influence, common interests, and/or obligation."

It's still unclear exactly what was compromised by the OPM hack, particularly because OPM officials and other authorities still don't have a good handle on how much information was actually stored by OPM in the first place, one U.S. official said. Nearly 50 government agencies send data to OPM for storage in some form, according to the official.

The intrusion was only noticed after OPM began to upgrade its equipment and systems. As soon as anomalies within the systems were noticed, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI were notified.

Over the next two weeks, OPM will be sending notifications to an estimated 4 million current and former government employees whose "Personally Identifiable Information" may have been compromised by the hack.

Those notifications "will state exactly what information may have been compromised," OPM says on its website.

And "since the investigation is ongoing, additional PII exposures may come to light," an OPM official acknowledged Sunday. "In that case, OPM will conduct additional notifications as necessary."

In a statement last week, an FBI spokesman said, "We take all potential threats to public and private sector systems seriously, and will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace."

An OPM spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment for this article.

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Despite recruitment struggle, Pentagon confident ‘Sunnis will come to them’ this time
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:29 AM

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President Obama authorizes 450 additional US troops to Iraq

The Pentagon is ready to try what appears to be a "Field of Dreams" strategy in Iraq, hoping to entice Sunnis to join the fight against ISIS with an "If you build it, they will come" plan for a new military training site.

Right now, the U.S. is training mostly Shiite fighters and Kurds, not Sunnis. To date, the Iraqi government has been unable to bring minority Sunnis back into the fold, after they were marginalized by the Shiite-led government.

With President Obama authorizing up to 450 additional U.S. troops to help in the training effort, White House and Pentagon officials say a major goal will be to bring those Sunnis on board.

But whether they can is an open question. And Republican lawmakers say the Obama administration still lacks a coherent strategy that can reverse ISIS gains.

"I don't think 450 troops are going to make the difference," Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., told Fox News, while still calling Wednesday's announcement a "good start."

At the Pentagon, spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters the 450 additional U.S. forces would be fully up and running in six-to-eight weeks. The new U.S. troops will go to Taqaddum Air Base in Anbar, in the city of Habbaniyah -- between Ramadi and Fallujah, both under ISIS control.

A major goal, he said, is to "conduct outreach to Sunni tribes and Sunni militias and to begin bringing those [forces] into the fold."

But he said U.S. troops would not leave their new base in Anbar unless "certain conditions" are met including a "minimal" chance of contact with the enemy.

Instead of recruiting outside the base, Warren predicted: "Sunnis will come to them."

The White House faced skeptical questions on a conference call Wednesday, as even White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has acknowledged there are more trainers than recruits right now.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said Sunnis have not joined the Iraqi security forces due to "political tensions and divisions in Iraqi politics over the last several years."

Rhodes said, "We are aiming to find with the Iraqi government different ways to tap into that recruitment pool."

The additional U.S. troops would join the roughly 3,100 American troops already in Iraq, currently training about 3,000 Iraqis.

Rhodes said the Iraqi government, with the coalition, is reaching out to the Sunni tribes to "try to create a space for them to be a part of the popular mobilization forces that are emerging in different parts of Iraq." This effort, he predicted, would "provide for a greater recruitment base for fighters to both get in the fight against ISIL, but also receive training, equipping and assistance from the coalition."

It's an ambitious goal. And Republican critics say it's still not enough.

In a scathing statement, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the 450 U.S. troops would respond to a "real need" but he remains "deeply concerned that this new deployment is disconnected from any coherent strategy to defeat ISIL."

He also reiterated concerns that the forces will not deploy closer to the frontlines to help call in airstrikes and advise smaller units.

"Nearly 75 percent of U.S. strike missions return without firing a weapon because we do not have a unified air-ground campaign," he said.

State Department spokesman John Kirby, though, told Fox News on Thursday that the U.S. is "very good" at these kind of training campaigns, and vowed that ISIS will be defeated.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.

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Besieged by ISIS: Photographs From Inside the Syrian City of Deir ez-Zor
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:25 AM

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The people of Deir ez-Zor are surrounded—and scared. Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria already control about 40% of this city in Syria’s eastern desert and have encircled the rest of the town in a siege that began in December. Residents told a Western photographer who visited the city in May that they are familiar with the track record of the extremist Islamist group surrounding them: many have seen films of ISIS beheading and crucifying people it considers opponents and criminals, and they’ve heard the stories about the theocratic tyranny ISIS imposes on the areas it controls in Syria and Iraq. The 228,000 people still living under government control have every reason to be afraid.

The photographs on these pages were taken by the Western photographer, whom TIME has agreed not to name out of concern for his safety and who worked in the government-controlled part of Deir ez-Zor for three weeks. The images provide a rare look at the fighting from inside the besieged city. (The photographer was given access to the military by the dictatorial regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and was protected by government bodyguards. He says the government allowed him to take photographs without hindrance, but he says the local people he communicated with were unlikely to speak freely in the presence of officials.)

The people in the government-controlled section of Deir ez-Zor make up the largest single community in Syria under siege from any side in the brutal civil war, according to the U.N. The Syrian government is fighting to keep the city in part because the battle ties down ISIS forces that might otherwise push west toward Damascus. On May 21, ISIS overran Syrian government troops in the city of Palmyra, 210 km southwest of Deir ez-Zor. Four days earlier, ISIS had taken the Iraqi city of Ramadi, capital of the war-torn Anbar province. In both cases the group marshaled forces and pushed back government troops. Residents and government soldiers in Deir ez-Zor worry that the city might be the next major target for the militants in a war that began in 2011 and shows no sign of ending.

In phone interviews from Damascus and Beirut, the photographer described life in the increasingly fearful city. The Euphrates River runs through Deir ez-Zor and forms something of a divide between the two warring parties; ISIS occupies the northeast side and government forces control the southwest, he said. ISIS also controls slivers of territory on the southwest bank. He said the main focus of ISIS’s attacks is the military air base southeast of the city; the flights that land at the base have become the only way in and out of the government-controlled parts of Deir ez-Zor. ISIS has cut power supplies to the city, and it controls the nearby farmlands and oil fields.

The photographer said the ISIS-controlled parts of the city appear to be greatly damaged by artillery and aerial bombing, while the government-held areas have suffered relatively minor damage. The siege means the government-controlled section relies on the nightly arrival of a large Syrian air-force-operated cargo plane, which has a payload of more than 46 tons and transports munitions, food and medical supplies.

Assad and many of his top aides are from the Alawite sect of Shi‘ite Islam, a minority that constitutes about 12% of the Syrian population. Most of the opposition—moderate or extremist—comes from the Sunni Muslim majority. In Deir ez-Zor most residents are Sunni. The photographer didn’t see any sign of resistance against the regime forces from locals.

Normality alternates with anxiety in the city. Thousands of students attend the university, and the schools remain open. Traffic cops in black trousers, pressed white shirts and white helmets patrol the streets. But when news spreads of a new supply of cigarettes or bread, lines form rapidly. One man joked to the photographer about residents taking selfies with the lone tomato one trader had for sale.

The photographer wasn’t able to assess how many government soldiers formed the Syrian military contingent in Deir ez-Zor. Those he met seemed determined to fight on, knowing that defeat would almost certainly result in their slaughter. The local Sunni Shaitat tribesmen, who fight with the army, are witness to ISIS’s brutality. After the tribe resisted the ISIS takeover of the local oil fields in July, the militants executed at least 700 of them, according to locals and a human-rights group. Few doubt that the fate of the defenders of Deir ez-Zor would be any different if ISIS prevails.

Conal Urquhart is a Senior Editor at TIME. He is based in London.

Read the whole story

· · ·

Syria's Al-Qaida Branch Kills 20 Minority Druze Villagers
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:24 AM

BEIRUT — Al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria has killed at least 20 villagers belonging to the minority Druze sect after a confrontation in northwestern Idlib province, where the militants have forced hundreds of members of the sect to covert to Sunni Islam, an activist group and a Syrian opposition faction said Thursday.

The killings in Idlib are the deadliest against the minority Druze sect, which has been split between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad, since Syria's crisis began in March 2011.

The Druze villagers were killed Wednesday in Qalb Lawzeh village in the Jabal al-Summaq region, where Nusra Front fighters have dug up historic graves and destroyed shrines in recent months.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the shooting occurred after the Nusra Front tried to confiscate the home of a Druze government official in the village. It said the militants shot one villager dead, prompting another to grab one of the Nusra Front men's rifles and kill a member of the al-Qaida affiliate. The Observatory said the militants later brought reinforcements and opened fire, killing 20 villagers.

The main Western-backed Syrian National Coalition said "dozens of Druze young men" died in the shooting. It said an armed clash broke out "following an aggression by Nusra Front members."

Syrian state news agency SANA said a "horrible massacre" killed 30 people, including five members of the same family in Qalb Lawzeh. SANA added that the militants torched several homes.

Meanwhile, in southern Syria, Western-backed rebels on Thursday entered for the first time the predominantly Druze province of Sweida, which has been spared Syria's four-year civil war that has killed more than 220,000 people.

Activists said the rebels entered Thursday the Thaala military air base outside the provincial capital, also named Sweida, capturing parts of it from government forces.

A Sweida resident told The Associated Press that the city of Sweida was subjected to government shelling on Thursday that killed one person and wounded six. It was not clear if the shells strayed from the fighting around the air base. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity fearing for his own safety.

The developments in Idlib and Sweida bring the Druze community into the heart of the Syrian conflict. The Druze, a 10th century offshoot of Shiite Islam, made up about 5 percent of Syria's prewar population of 23 million people. Lebanon and Israel also have large Druze communities.

The top Druze cleric in Lebanon, Sheikh Naim Hassan, condemned the killings in Idlib and said efforts are being made to "contain this regrettable and painful incident."

Idlib activist Asaad Kanjo, who is currently in Turkey, said via Skype that very few details have emerged about the Idlib killings. Activists estimate that several hundred Druze have been forced to convert to Sunni Islam since the Nusra Front seized the Jabal al-Summaq region last year.

Former Lebanese Cabinet Minister Wiam Wahhab, a Druze politician close to Assad, said that Qatar and Turkey must be held responsible for the attack in Qalb Lawzeh because of their support for the Nusra Front.

Wahhab said Druze clerics "were executed" in the village square in Idlib. He called on all the Druze in Sweida to carry arms and defend their villages, and urged Assad's government to supply the residents with weapons.

"We need weapons in Sweida and any delay in supplying us with weapons, the Syrian state will be responsible," he said. "We want to fight with the state and with the army to defend ourselves."

In recent months, Assad's forces have suffered a string of defeats at the hands of rebels, a local al-Qaida affiliate and the Islamic State group.

Syrian TV said one of its crews in Sweida came under rebel fire that killed the crew's driver and wounded reporter Anas al-Salman and cameraman Dergham Dbeisi.

Rebel Maj. Issam al-Rayyes, a spokesman for the Southern Front alliance, said the Thaala air base in Sweida province was captured by rebels on Thursday, two days after opposition fighters seized another key military base in southern Syria.

Ahmad al-Masalmeh, an opposition activist in southern Syria, said troops withdrew from Thaala to other parts of Sweida province. The Observatory said rebels took parts of the base.

But Syrian state TV denied the claims, saying government troops had repelled the attack on Thaala.

Also in the south, the Observatory and state TV said a Syrian army warplane crashed in Sweida. State TV said an investigation is underway to know that cause of the crash.

____

Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed to this report from Damascus, Syria.

Read the whole story

· · ·

Rupert Murdoch to Step Down as C.E.O. of 21st Century Fox
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:22 AM

Rupert Murdoch, the 84-year-old chief executive of 21st Century Fox, is planning to hand over the media company’s reins to his son James, two people briefed on the plans said Thursday.

The elder Mr. Murdoch will remain at the company as executive chairman, and his son Lachlan will take on the position of co-executive chairman, the people said.

The succession plans are expected to be discussed at a board meeting next week, one person said.

“The matter of succession is on the agenda at our upcoming, regularly scheduled board meeting,” Nathaniel Brown, a Fox spokesman, said in a statement.

News of the succession plan was first reported by CNBC.

Mr. Murdoch put the succession plan in place in March 2014 when he named the two sons to senior positions in his companies. James was appointed co-chief operating officer at 21st Century Fox and Lachlan became nonexecutive co-chairman of News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, returning to his father’s side after a nine-year absence.

Rupert Murdoch preparing to step down as Fox CEO: reports
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:21 AM

Rupert Murdoch, the 84-year-old chief executive of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc, is preparing to step down and name his son James as successor, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing sources close to the Murdoch family.

The elder Murdoch would stay on as chairman, according to the CNBC report.

It was unclear whether the reorganization would take place this year or at the start of 2016, CNBC said.

The next Fox board meeting will discuss the matter of succession, Bloomberg reported.

The company was not immediately available for comment.

The Murdochs own 39 percent of voting shares in Fox and News Corp, the company that operates newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and book publisher HarperCollins, through a family trust. Fox split from News Corp in 2013.

A Harvard University dropout, James spent his early career as a cartoonist and co-founder of hip hop label Rawkus Records, which was bought by News Corp.

He joined News Corp in 1996, at the age of 23 and was soon installed as head of the company's Asian assets, including Star India. Four years later, he was named CEO of BSkyB, now known as Sky, that is 39 percent owned by Fox.

Some key investors have been warming to the idea that James has the ability to run Fox.

In interviews, some top investors who know James, and other people familiar with the company, describe him as curious and a risk taker like his father. But they also cite two big differences that they like: James is less sentimental about certain assets than his father and he is more enthusiastic about courting shareholders.

"James is a giant!" said Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a Murdoch family ally and one of Fox’s top shareholders with a 6.6 percent voting stake, in a recent interview.

Fox shares were down 0.50 percent at $32.79, while News Corp shares were off 0.23 percent at $14.61 in early trading.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Writing by Nick Zieminski; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Howard Goller)

Read the whole story

· ·

Murdoch 'to step down' as 21st Century Fox chief executive
Thursday June 11th, 2015 at 11:20 AM

BBC News - Home

Rupert Murdoch is preparing to step down as chief executive of 21st Century Fox, according to reports.

His son James will take over the role, while his other son Lachlan will become executive chairman, says CNBC.

The 84 year-old Rupert Murdoch will reportedly remain as executive chairman at the company and still have the final say in matters.

Entertainment firm 21st Century Fox was created two years ago after it was split from his media empire, Newscorp.

No-one from the company was immediately available for comment.

Next Page of Stories

Page 5

Russian-Occupied Ukraine Is Consumed by Chaos
Wednesday June 10th, 2015 at 9:41 PM

Newsweek

Opinion

A shrapnel-hit bus belonging to Ukraine's "Donbas" battalion is seen in the eastern Ukrainian town of Ilovaysk August 24, 2014. Most educated, skilled and wealthy people have fled the Donbas region, the author writes. Maks Levin/Reuters

What is at stake in Ukraine if Russia continues its onslaught

World News Review

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» Highway, schools closed amid search for escaped killers in New York - CNN
11/06/15 11:18 from Google News - Top Stories
CNN Highway, schools closed amid search for escaped killers in New York CNN (CNN) It's a rural, rugged, idyllic swath of northeast New York, a place where people enjoy nature and get away from the crowds, crime and commotion connecte...

» Sources: Scent picked up, wrappers found in hunt for escaped killers - CNN
11/06/15 11:18 from Google News - Top Stories
CNN Sources: Scent picked up, wrappers found in hunt for escaped killers CNN (CNN) There is growing confidence that a scent picked up in upstate New York is that of convicted murderers-turned-prison escapees Richard Matt and David Sweat,...

» Three Space Station Crew Members Land in Kazakhstan
11/06/15 11:18 from Voice of America
A three-person crew from the International Space Station has returned to Earth following a nearly 200-day stint in space. A Soyuz space capsule carrying NASA astronaut Terry Virts, Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency and ...

» AP Images of Vietnam War Make Homecoming in Exhibit
11/06/15 11:18 from ABC News: ABCNews
Famed AP images of war in Vietnam make homecoming in exhibit, 40 years after end of fighting

» Amid the Fifa scandal, Moscow's 2018 World Cup venue is ahead of schedule - The Guardian
11/06/15 11:17 from world - Google News
The Guardian Amid the Fifa scandal, Moscow's 2018 World Cup venue is ahead of schedule The Guardian Organising committee head Alexei Sorokin insisted at the World Football Forum in Moscow on Thursday that the investigations of Fifa c...

» US Stocks Open Higher, Building on Gains From the Day Before
11/06/15 11:17 from ABC News: ABCNews
Stocks gain in early trading in US after strong report on retail sales, hope for Greek deal

» Woman Accused of Faking Brain Cancer Pleads Guilty to Theft
11/06/15 11:17 from ABC News: ABCNews
Ohio woman accused of faking brain cancer and collecting donations pleads guilty to theft

» Rupert Murdoch preparing to step down as Fox CEO: reports
11/06/15 11:16 from Reuters: Top News
(Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch, the 84-year-old chief executive of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc, is preparing to step down and name his son James as successor at the entertainment conglomerate behind Fox News and the studio that makes "X-Men...

» European Parliament urges Sepp Blatter to quit FIFA presidency now
11/06/15 11:16 from Deutsche Welle: DW-WORLD.DE - Top Stories
The European Parliament has called for FIFA President Sepp Blatter to step down now, and for a process of reform to begin. At present, Blatter is to preside over the organization ahead of a vote for his replacement.

» A sensible way forward on surveillance? - BBC News
11/06/15 11:15 from Google News - World
BBC News A sensible way forward on surveillance? BBC News The debate over privacy and security has become increasingly fractious in recent years but David Anderson has laid out a road map which may offer a way forward. He does this by su...

» Congress passes historic law giving citizenship to Sephardic Jews
11/06/15 11:15 from In English Section | EL PAÍS
Ancestors of those expelled from Spain 500 years ago will not have to give up their current nationality or take up Spanish residence

» Afghan Prosecutor Killed by Sticky Bomb in Northern Province
11/06/15 11:14 from ABC News: ABCNews
Afghan prosecutor killed by sticky bomb attached to his car in volatile northern province

» Man Indicted on Murder Charges in NYPD Officer's Death
11/06/15 11:14 from ABC News: ABCNews
Man indicated on 1st-degree murder, other charges in shooting of New York City police officer

» Google Wants to Improve City Life With Sidewalk Labs
11/06/15 11:14 from ABC News: ABCNews
Google's latest moonshot, Sidewalk Labs, is aiming to change big city living.

» Average US Rate on 30-Year Mortgage Jumps to High for Year
11/06/15 11:13 from ABC News: ABCNews
Average US rate on 30-year mortgage jumps to 4.04 pct.; long-term rates reach high for year

» Box Office: 'Jurassic World' to Feast on $125 Million Debut - Variety
11/06/15 11:12 from world - Google News
Variety Box Office: 'Jurassic World ' to Feast on $125 Million Debut Variety Universal Pictures' “Jurassic World ” is going to take a monster bite out of the box office when it opens this weekend to a projected $125 million a...

» China ex-security chief gets life
11/06/15 11:11 from BBC News - World
China's former security chief Zhou Yongkang is jailed for life, the most senior politician to face corruption charges under Communist rule.

» Alzheimer's Drug Developer Axovant Climbs After $315M IPO
11/06/15 11:10 from ABC News: ABCNews
Alzheimer's disease drug developer Axovant rises after IPO prices above estimates at $315M

» Maximum Prison Sentences for 2 Brothers in Terror Plot
11/06/15 11:10 from ABC News: ABCNews
Maximum prison sentences for 2 Pakistani-born brothers in plot to bomb New York City landmarks

» China Jails Ex-Security Tsar For Corruption
11/06/15 11:08 from Sky News | World News | First For Breaking News
Zhou Yongkang, once feared and revered as one of China's most powerful men, gets a life sentence in a secret trial.

» Experience paradise in Indonesia
11/06/15 11:08 from CNN.com
The only resort on the island of Sumba, Indonesia, Nihiwatu allows its guests luxury and a close relationship with the local culture.

» Ryan Shock
11/06/15 11:08 from Breitbart News Network
Ryan Shock : Obamatrade ‘Declassified And Made Public’ After It Passes Chief Obamatrade proponent House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) admitted during Congressional testimony on Wednesday evening that despite ton...

» EU says time for Greek 'happy ending'
11/06/15 11:07 from BBC News - World
EU Commissioner Pierre Moscovici says a Greek debt deal is "ready for landing", as Greek PM Alexis Tsipras pushes for an agreement in Brussels.

» Rupert Murdoch Expected to Hand Reins of 21st Century Fox to Son James - New York Times
11/06/15 11:07 from Google News - Top Stories
New York Times Rupert Murdoch Expected to Hand Reins of 21st Century Fox to Son James New York Times Rupert Murdoch, the 84-year-old chief executive of 21st Century Fox, is planning to hand over the reins of the media conglomerate to his...

» U.S., allies target Islamic State with 29 air strikes: statement
11/06/15 11:07 from Reuters: International
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S.-led coalition targeting Islamic State forces have launched 29 air strikes against the group since early on Wednesday, the Combined Joint Task Force leading the operations said in a statement on Thursday.

» Kenya Risks US Sanctions for Failing to Stem Human Trafficking
11/06/15 11:06 from Voice of America
Kenya risks being subjected to U.S. sanctions for failing to comply with the minimum standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Acts (TVPA). Twenty-seven-year-old "Ruby" — not her real name — listens attentively during an awareness ...

» UN Climate Talks Inch Forward, Putting off Tough Decisions
11/06/15 11:06 from ABC News: ABCNews
UN climate talks inch forward, putting off tough decisions on Paris emissions pact

» Man, Dog Die After Getting Trapped Inside Hot Corvette - CBS Local
11/06/15 11:06 from Google News - Top Stories
CBS Local Man, Dog Die After Getting Trapped Inside Hot Corvette CBS Local PORT ARTHUR, Texas (CBS Houston/AP) — Police say a 72-year-old Texas man and his dog died of apparent heat exhaustion after not being able to get out of his locke...

» Australian Couple Vows to Divorce If Gay Marriage Legalized - TIME
11/06/15 11:05 from Google News - World
TIME Australian Couple Vows to Divorce If Gay Marriage Legalized TIME An Australian couple has vowed to divorce “as a matter of conscience” if the country legalizes same-sex marriage. In an op-ed in the Canberra City News, Nick Jensen wr...

» Manhunt spreads into Vermont for killers who made daring New York prison ... - Washington Post
11/06/15 11:05 from Google News - Top Stories
TIME Manhunt spreads into Vermont for killers who made daring New York prison ... Washington Post The manhunt for two convicted killers who made a brazen escape from a maximum-security prison in upstate New York continues to grow, with m...

» Police dogs detect US fugitives
11/06/15 11:04 from BBC News - World
Police bloodhounds have found where David Sweat and Richard Matt may have spent the night after escaped from prison six days ago.

» Police dogs 'detect US fugitives'
11/06/15 11:04 from BBC News - World
Police bloodhounds have found where David Sweat and Richard Matt may have spent the night after escaped from prison six days ago.

» Uganda 'lunchtime sex' controversy
11/06/15 11:02 from BBC News - World
Ugandan row over crackdown on hotels for affairs

» Eight must-see Budapest buildings
11/06/15 11:02 from CNN.com - World
Just about every capital city in Eastern Europe seems to have been called "the Paris of the East" at some point.

» Oui Try Harder: France Vows to Be Nicer to Tourists
11/06/15 11:01 from World news
France has announced a scheme to lure more tourists with a new fund, and ministers urged the French to be more welcoming.

» Zhou Yongkang, Ex-Security Chief in China, Gets Life Sentence for Graft - New York Times
11/06/15 11:01 from Google News - World
New York Times Zhou Yongkang, Ex-Security Chief in China, Gets Life Sentence for Graft New York Times HONG KONG — Zhou Yongkang, China's former domestic security chief, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for accepting bribes...

» PM holds 'open and frank' EU talks
11/06/15 11:01 from BBC News - World
David Cameron holds what are described as "open and frank" talks with the Belgian prime minister as he meets more of his counterparts over his plans for EU reform.

» Dogs may have picked up scent of 2 killers on the run in New York
11/06/15 11:01 from CNN.com
Prison worker in spotlight after brazen escape | Notorious manhunts

» Swiss and Austrians probe possible cyberattack on Iran nuclear talks - Reuters
11/06/15 11:01 from Google News - World
Haaretz Swiss and Austrians probe possible cyberattack on Iran nuclear talks Reuters GENEVA/VIENNA Swiss authorities have searched a house in Geneva and seized computer material in connection with a possible cyberattack on nuclear negoti...

» Virginia Teen Allegedly Admits Radicalizing Others to Join ISIS - ABC News
11/06/15 11:01 from Google News - Top Stories
CNN Virginia Teen Allegedly Admits Radicalizing Others to Join ISIS ABC News A Virginia teenager admitted today that he used Twitter to attempt to radicalize others to join ISIS in Syria, including a fellow Virginian who left for Syria o...

» Nobel laureate Tim Hunt resigns over comments on 'disruptive' female scientists
11/06/15 11:01 from Deutsche Welle: DW-WORLD.DE - Top Stories
A Nobel Prize-winner has resigned as a professor at a London university after making controversial comments about female scientists. Tim Hunt made the remarks at a conference in South Korea on Tuesday.

» Kurds Hail American 'Martyr' Killed Fighting ISIS
11/06/15 11:00 from World news
Keith Broomfield left Massachusetts for Syria about four months ago, his family said.

» HHS on ObamaCare court ruling: Burden on Congress, states
11/06/15 11:00 from Latest News
What happens after SCOTUS ruling?

» Pyongyang’s Koryo Hotel on fire, according to reports
11/06/15 11:00 from World: World News, International News, Foreign Reporting - The Washington Post
TOKYO — The twin-towered Koryo Hotel in central Pyongyang, a regular haunt for delegations visiting North Korea, was reported to be on fire Thursday night.Flames could be seen high up in the 43-story hotel, possibly near the bridge that ...

» Fire hits a North Korea landmark, the Koryo Hotel
11/06/15 11:00 from World: World News, International News, Foreign Reporting - The Washington Post
TOKYO — The twin-towered Koryo Hotel in central Pyongyang, a regular haunt for delegations visiting North Korea, was reported to be on fire Thursday night.Flames could be seen high up in the 43-story hotel, possibly near the bridge at th...

» Violent mudslides killed dozens in Nepal last night - Quartz
11/06/15 10:59 from Google News - World
IBNLive Violent mudslides killed dozens in Nepal last night Quartz Torrential rains triggered a handful of mudslides above vulnerable villages in rural Nepal last night. More than 20 people were killed, according to the Associated Press;...

» Bill Clinton's Plan as First Gentleman: 'Being Around to Buck Hillary Up Every ... - People Magazine
11/06/15 10:58 from Google News - Top Stories
People Magazine Bill Clinton's Plan as First Gentleman: 'Being Around to Buck Hillary Up Every ... People Magazine He's a former president himself and a powerful global philanthropist. But if his wife is elected president nex...

» Colombia's FARC rebels step up attacks on energy infrastructure
11/06/15 10:58 from Reuters: International
BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's FARC rebels attacked an energy pylon in the southern province Caqueta, leaving 500,000 people without electricity, the military said on Thursday as the Marxist group steps up attacks on infrastructure amid s...

» Grain Lower, Livestock Mixed
11/06/15 10:58 from ABC News: ABCNews
Grain lower on the CBOT, beef higher and pork mostly lower on the CME

» EU tells Greece's Tsipras: time's up, no more gambling
11/06/15 10:57 from Reuters: Top News
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union bluntly warned Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Thursday that time was up and he should stop playing with his cash-strapped country's future and instead take crucial decisions to avoid a deva...

» Ex-China security chief jailed for life
11/06/15 10:57 from FT.com - World
Zhou Yongkang the latest ‘tiger’ snared in President Xi Jinping’s campaign against corruption

» China’s ex-security chief jailed for life
11/06/15 10:57 from FT.com - World
Latest high-ranking official to fall in government campaign against corruption

» See Astronauts return to Earth
11/06/15 10:57 from CNN.com
NASA astronaut Terry Virts and his crewmates land in Kazakhstan following a 199-day mission to the International Space Station.

» US-Brazilian Airline Founder Wins Bid for Portuguese Carrier
11/06/15 10:56 from ABC News: ABCNews
Consortium led by US-Brazilian airline founder wins bidding for Portugal flagship carrier TAP

» 3 Space Station Astronauts Safely Return to Earth
11/06/15 10:55 from ABC News: ABCNews
3 space station astronauts safely return to Earth after 199 days in orbit

» Report: Murdoch plans to step down as CEO of 21st Century Fox - USA TODAY
11/06/15 10:55 from Google News - Top Stories
USA TODAY Report: Murdoch plans to step down as CEO of 21st Century Fox USA TODAY Rupert Murdoch , chairman and CEO of 21st Century Fox , plans to step down as CEO of the media company, according to CNBC. In a widely anticipated move, th...

» Kinzinger: Special Forces raids needed in ISIS fight
11/06/15 10:55 from Latest News
Republican lawmaker offers up a plan

» Swiss and Austrians probe possible cyberattack on Iran nuclear talks
11/06/15 10:54 from Reuters: International
GENEVA/VIENNA (Reuters) - Swiss authorities have searched a house in Geneva and seized computer material in connection with a possible cyberattack on nuclear negotiations between Iran and major powers in the city, Switzerland's attorney-...

» France Wants to Boost Tourism by Developing Wine Tours
11/06/15 10:52 from ABC News: ABCNews
France wants to boost tourism by developing wine tours in its countryside

» Jazz Star Ornette Coleman Dies In New York
11/06/15 10:52 from Sky News | World News | First For Breaking News
The self-taught saxophonist initially polarised the jazz world but soon came to be known as an avant garde genius.

» Keith Broomfield: Family of first US citizen killed fighting against Isis say he was wanted to confront atrocities
11/06/15 10:51 from The Independent - World RSS Feed
The family of the first American citizen known to have killed fighting against Isis, said he was inspired to act after watching media coverage of their atrocities and killings.

» Obama Thanks Trade Supporters With Ride on Air Force One
11/06/15 10:51 from ABC News: ABCNews
House Democrats get ride of a lifetime on President Obama's trip to G-7 summit

» Non-meeting of minds
11/06/15 10:51 from The Economist: Europe
Tsipras’s plan still doesn’t add up A GLANCE at the crowds climbing the Acropolis suggests a normal Athenian summer, despite ominous noises coming from Brussels. Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, still claims he can cut a deal with Gre...

» The voters’ signal to Erdogan
11/06/15 10:51 from The Economist: Europe
FOR Turkey’s combative president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has won every election he has faced since becoming Istanbul’s first Islamist mayor in 1994, it was a bitter defeat. Voters denied his Justice and Development (AK) party a majori...

» Start-up city
11/06/15 10:51 from The Economist: Europe
THE café is organic, the décor industrial loft-style and the furniture artfully mismatched. This is NUMA, a digital hub in Paris, where facial hair is abundant and ties are non-existent. Perhaps it is insouciance, ignorance or quiet conc...

» What would the Kaiser say?
11/06/15 10:51 from The Economist: Europe
Where Wilhelm reigned FOR five centuries Berlin grew out from its political centre, the castle of the Hohenzollerns, as the dynasty rose from imperial electors of Brandenburg to kings of Prussia and finally emperors of Germany. The expan...

» Talking time
11/06/15 10:51 from The Economist: Europe
LATELY an unfamiliar emotion has washed over Cyprus: hope. The economy is starting to crawl back after a euro-zone bail-out in 2013. But the big news was the surprise election, in April, of Mustafa Akinci, a centre-left moderate, as pres...

» IMF: Greek Bailout Talks Stopped Amid Lack of Progress
11/06/15 10:51 from WSJ.com: World News
The International Monetary Fund has halted bailout talks with Greece after a failure to make progress in negotiations.

» A walk down solidarity street
11/06/15 10:51 from The Economist: Europe
ENGAGEMENT, governance, stakeholder: the European Union is awash with abstract nouns that defy attempts to tether them to reality. Until recently “solidarity” fell into this category. At best it was deployed as code by politicians seekin...

» Immune system
11/06/15 10:51 from The Economist: Europe
ROMANIA is on the front line of the European Union’s battle against corruption. Rankings put the country alongside Bulgaria as the most corrupt in the EU. But its National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) has made strides, convicting ov...

» Jessica Alba Talks Transformation From Actress to Billion-Dollar Businesswoman
11/06/15 10:50 from ABC News: ABCNews
Alba was a box-office bombshell who went on to build a billion-dollar business.

» Head of Russia World Cup lashes out at investigations into Fifa - The Guardian
11/06/15 10:49 from world - Google News
BBC News Head of Russia World Cup lashes out at investigations into Fifa The Guardian As allegations of widespread corruption continue to shake Fifa, Alexei Sorokin, head of the organising committee for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, has ...

» Poll: Most Americans Expect Supreme Court to OK Gay Marriage
11/06/15 10:49 from ABC News: ABCNews
Poll: 65 percent of Americans expect Supreme Court to back gay marriage in upcoming ruling

» Green Beret critiques hostage policy, faces court martial
11/06/15 10:49 from Latest News
Jennifer Griffin reports

» Look closely: Photo or a painting?
11/06/15 10:49 from CNN.com

» Rapper arrested
11/06/15 10:47 from CNN.com
Rapper Rick Ross was picked up by sheriffs in Fayette County, Georgia, on suspicion of marijuana possession Wednesday afternoon, according to the Fayette County Sheriff's Office.

» Dallas Woman, 92, Adopts 76-Year-Old Cousin
11/06/15 10:47 from ABC News: ABCNews
Judge approves 92-year-old Dallas woman's adoption of 76-year-old cousin

» Japanese Garden Featuring Sculpture Is Opening in Michigan
11/06/15 10:47 from ABC News: ABCNews
Japanese garden featuring contemporary sculpture is opening at Meijer Gardens in Michigan

» U.N.'s Ban urges probe into Kyrgyzstan's 2010 ethnic clashes
11/06/15 10:47 from Reuters: International
BISHKEK (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Kyrgyzstan on Thursday to hold an impartial investigation into ethnic clashes that killed over 400 people five years ago and still divide the nation.

» Pupil hunted after teacher stabbed
11/06/15 10:47 from BBC News - World
A teacher is stabbed with a knife and a pupil is being hunted by detectives in Bradford.

» Rupert Murdoch to Step Down as CEO of 21st Century Fox - New York Times
11/06/15 10:47 from Google News - Top Stories
New York Times Rupert Murdoch to Step Down as CEO of 21st Century Fox New York Times Rupert Murdoch, the 84-year-old chief executive of 21st Century Fox, is planning to hand over the media company's reins to his son James, two people...

» Manhunt for killers who made daring New York prison escape spreads into ... - Washington Post
11/06/15 10:47 from Google News - Top Stories
TIME Manhunt for killers who made daring New York prison escape spreads into ... Washington Post The manhunt for two convicted killers who made a brazen escape from a maximum-security prison in upstate New York continues to grow, with mo...

» Spain Formally Buries Cervantes, 400 Years Later
11/06/15 10:46 from ABC News: ABCNews
Spain formally buries 'Don Quixote' author Miguel de Cervantes 400 years after his death

» Saudi-led air strikes kill at least 20 Yemeni civilians - DAWN.com
11/06/15 10:46 from Google News - World
DAWN.com Saudi-led air strikes kill at least 20 Yemeni civilians DAWN.com SANAA: Witnesses and officials in Yemen say a Saudi-led air strike hit a public bus on a highway north of the southern city of Aden, splitting the vehicle in half ...

» Number of Passenger Airplanes Expected to Double in 20 Years
11/06/15 10:45 from ABC News: ABCNews
Boeing predicts a need for 43,560 airplanes worldwide by 2034, double the existing fleet

» Quiet end to China graft trial: Ex-official gets life term
11/06/15 10:45 from Los Angeles Times - World News
After nearly two years of intense speculation and secret investigation, Chinese authorities said Thursday that former domestic security czar Zhou Yongkang had been sentenced to life in prison on corruption charges after a closed-door tri...

» Quiet end to China graft trial: Ex-security czar gets life term
11/06/15 10:45 from Los Angeles Times - World News
After nearly two years of intense speculation and secret investigation, Chinese authorities said Thursday that former domestic security czar Zhou Yongkang had been sentenced to life in prison on corruption charges after a closed-door tri...

» Britain Surveillance Law Reform Urged in Government-Ordered Report - New York Times
11/06/15 10:44 from Google News - World
Channel 4 News Britain Surveillance Law Reform Urged in Government-Ordered Report New York Times LONDON — Amid growing debate in Europe over electronic spying, an independent report on Thursday called for changes to Britain's surveil...

» Expelled for life
11/06/15 10:43 from Le Monde diplomatique - English edition
Nasser Nawaj'ah held Laith's hand as, beside me, they walked down the dirt and pebble path of Old Susya. Nasser is 33 years old, his son six. Nasser's jaw was set and every few moments he glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was ap...

» Syria's Al-Qaida Branch Kills 20 Minority Druze Villagers - New York Times
11/06/15 10:43 from Google News - World
TODAYonline Syria's Al-Qaida Branch Kills 20 Minority Druze Villagers New York Times BEIRUT — Al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria has killed at least 20 villagers belonging to the minority Druze sect after a confrontation in northweste...

» 15-year-old intern discovers new planet
11/06/15 10:42 from CNN.com - World

» 2015-06-11Middle East News
11/06/15 10:41 from Mike Nova - Google+
2015-06-11 Middle East News "Your new widget 1" Powered by RSS Feed Informer _______________________________________________ Archive Middle East News "Your new widget 1" Powered by RSS Feed Informer _____________________________________...

» Delayed astronauts return to Earth
11/06/15 10:40 from BBC News - World
Three astronauts return from the International Space Station after their original departure was delayed by a month by a spacecraft failure.

» Three Astronauts Land In Kazakhstan After Delayed Return From ISS
11/06/15 10:40 from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
A Russian Soyuz capsule returned three people to Earth on June 11 after a mishap with the spacecraft earlier this week affected the position of the orbiting International Space Station (ISS.)

» Space station crew returns to Earth after 200 days
11/06/15 10:38 from Home - CBSNews.com
Three ISS astronauts landed safely back on the ground after a marathon mission

» Azerbaijanis Paying Price For Aliyev’s 2015 European Games
11/06/15 10:38 from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
With dozens of opposition activists and independent journalists behind bars, domestic criticism of Baku’s hosting of the 2015 European Games is hard to find. But complaints from upset Azerbaijanis are still being heard.

» US FDA Testing Nestle's Maggi Noodles After India Recall
11/06/15 10:37 from Voice of America
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is testing samples of a Nestle instant noodle brand that was recalled from stores across India last week, a spokeswoman for the Swiss food group said on Thursday. Nestle, the world's largest fo...

» Biz Beat 061115 Grexit
11/06/15 10:37 from Voice of America
What would happen if Greece left the euro for the drachma?

» Why America is raising a glass to the French
11/06/15 10:36 from CNN.com - World

» Will Shrimp Safety Questions Pose Jumbo Problem For Trade Deal?
11/06/15 10:36 from ABC News: ABCNews
Use of antibiotics, presence of bacteria, persistent problems as imports soar.

» Sir Christopher Lee: Screen legend dies aged 93 - BBC News
11/06/15 10:35 from Google News - Top Stories
BBC News Sir Christopher Lee: Screen legend dies aged 93 BBC News Sir Christopher Lee, the veteran actor and star of many of the world's biggest film franchises, has died aged 93. The English-born actor, who made his name playing Dra...

» Giant great white shark circles diving cage near Guadeloupe – video
11/06/15 10:34 from World news: World news + Video | guardian.co.uk
A video posted to social media by Mauricio Hoyos Padilla shows a large great white shark circling a shark-proof diving cage off the coast of Guadalupe. The great white shark can reach 6.4 metres (21ft) in length and 3,324kg (7,328lb) in ...

» Sir Christopher Lee dies aged 93
11/06/15 10:34 from BBC News - World
British actor Sir Christopher Lee, who played Count Dracula and starred in The Lord of the Rings, has died aged 93.

» Besieged by ISIS: Photographs From Inside the Syrian City of Deir ez-Zor
11/06/15 10:34 from TIME: Top World Stories
Syrian government troops hold out against the militant group in the city of Deir ez-Zor

» Photos: A Sneak Peek at LOOK3
11/06/15 10:34 from ABC News: ABCNews
The premiere photo festival begins June 10th

» Macedonian Police Find 128 Migrants Hiding in Border Village
11/06/15 10:34 from ABC News: ABCNews
Macedonian police raid finds 128 migrants hiding in border village

» Austria, Switzerland probe spy claims in Iran nuclear talks
11/06/15 10:33 from CNN.com - World
Swiss and Austrian authorities are investigating claims of potential espionage during recent nuclear talks between Iran and world powers including the United States, officials from each nation said Thursday.

» Serbian Protestors Push For Recognition Of Srebrenica Genocide
11/06/15 10:33 from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
In the Serbian capital, Belgrade, nongovernmental organizations asked the parliament to declare July 11 as Genocide Victims Remembrance Day in honor of those killed in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. Bosnian Serb and Serb paramilitary f...

» Rival Challenges Clinton to Say Where She Stands on Trade
11/06/15 10:32 from ABC News: ABCNews
Rival Sanders calls on Hillary Clinton to say where she stands on trade before Congress votes

» Napolitano: Has the Fourth Amendment become meaningless?
11/06/15 10:32 from Latest News
Judge Napolitano on 4th Amendment

» Super PAC rolls out new ad supporting Rick Perry
11/06/15 10:32 from Latest News
Carl Cameron reports

» China Sends Most Lethal Bombers Near Taiwan, Philippines
11/06/15 10:32 from The National Interest
Zachary Keck Security, Asia China's H-6K particiapted in a drill near the Bashi Channel. Chinese bombers participated in a joint air-sea military exercise near Taiwan and the Philippines this week. On Wednesday China announced that the P...

» Israel denies bugging Iran talks
11/06/15 10:31 from BBC News - World
Israel denies it bugged talks on Iran's nuclear programme, after a security company said a computer virus hacked the venues of the negotiations.

» Turkish officer ordered to plant trees for gassing protester - Washington Post
11/06/15 10:31 from Google News - World
NDTV Turkish officer ordered to plant trees for gassing protester Washington Post ANKARA, Turkey — Media reports say a court has ordered a policeman who was photographed spraying tear gas from close range at a woman wearing a red dress d...

» Sea level rise should scare the s^*# out of you
11/06/15 10:30 from CNN.com
I'm recently back from the Marshall Islands -- one of the low-lying Pacific island nations that literally could be wiped off the map by climate change and rising seas.

» VA Nomination on Hold in Senate Over Agent Orange Dispute
11/06/15 10:29 from ABC News: ABCNews
2 Democratic senators block vote on Veterans Affairs health post, citing Agent Orange dispute

» With House Override, Some North Carolina Officials Can Refuse to Perform Gay Marriage Duties
11/06/15 10:29 from ABC News: ABCNews
With House override, some North Carolina officials can refuse to perform gay marriage duties

» Virginia 17-year-old pleads guilty to providing support to Islamic State - Reuters
11/06/15 10:29 from Google News - Top Stories
CNN Virginia 17-year-old pleads guilty to providing support to Islamic State Reuters WASHINGTON A Virginia 17-year-old pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to charges of conspiring to provide support and resources to Islamic State milita...

» Jerry Seinfeld doesn't get political correctness
11/06/15 10:29 from CNN.com

» Prison escapees' rage will get them caught
11/06/15 10:29 from CNN.com
The question on everyone's mind is: What are the chances that the two escaped murderers from the Dannemora prison can stay on the loose?

» Eric Cantor: Democrats are in a 'civil war'
11/06/15 10:29 from CNN.com
Spend just a little time watching what has been described as a "civil war" within the Democratic Party over the issue of trade policy and you get a real sense of the predicament Hilary Clinton finds herself in.

» Why Vince Vaughn is wrong about guns
11/06/15 10:29 from CNN.com

» Joe Root calls for England encore at the Oval
11/06/15 10:28 from News | The Times
Joe Root today challenged England to consistently hit the highs of Tuesday as the team prepared for the second one-day...

» 'Lord of the Rings' Actor Christopher Lee Dies at 93
11/06/15 10:27 from World news
The veteran actor Sir Christopher Lee has died aged 93 after being hospitalized with respiratory problems, the Associated Press and Reuters reported.

» Spike in Heroin Overdoses Takes Toll on Ohio Town's Psyche
11/06/15 10:27 from ABC News: ABCNews
12 days in May: Spike in overdoses overwhelms authorities, magnifies crisis in Ohio town

» What Chicago Democrats tell us about President Obama's problems on trade. - Washington Post
11/06/15 10:26 from Top Stories - Google News
Reuters What Chicago Democrats tell us about President Obama's problems on trade. Washington Post CHICAGO — When Barack Obama launched himself on the fast track to the presidency, running for a U.S. Senate seat in 2004, Rep. Danny Da...

» Switzerland Investigates Suspected Cyberspying at Nuclear Talks Hotels
11/06/15 10:26 from WSJ.com: World News
Swiss authorities have launched a criminal probe into suspected cyberespionage at hotels that hosted nuclear talks with Iran.

» Kurds Hail American 'Martyr' Keith Broomfield, Killed Fighting ISIS - NBCNews.com
11/06/15 10:25 from Google News - Top Stories
U.S. News & World Report Kurds Hail American 'Martyr' Keith Broomfield, Killed Fighting ISIS NBCNews.com Hundreds of people lined the streets of a Kurdish town in Syria on Thursday as the body of an American man who was killed fi...

» Nobel laureate resigns over remarks on the 'trouble with girls' in labs - USA TODAY
11/06/15 10:25 from Google News - World
Channel 4 News Nobel laureate resigns over remarks on the 'trouble with girls' in labs USA TODAY Sir Tim Hunt , an English biochemist and Nobel laureate, has resigned his position at University College London following an outcry ...

» Despite recruitment struggle, Pentagon confident 'Sunnis will come to them' this ... - Fox News
11/06/15 10:25 from Google News - Top Stories
Fox News Despite recruitment struggle, Pentagon confident 'Sunnis will come to them' this ... Fox News The Pentagon is ready to try what appears to be a "Field of Dreams" strategy in Iraq, hoping to entice Sunnis to joi...

» Vicar cleared in school sex abuse trial banned from teaching for life
11/06/15 10:25 from News | The Times
A vicar who worked as a primary school teacher has been struck off for life by a misconduct panel for repeatedly...

» Wal-Mart guilty of not paying millions of dollars in wages, federal judge rules
11/06/15 10:25 from The Independent - World RSS Feed
Wal-Mart again finds itself on the wrong side of the labour debate after a federal judge ruled that the retail behemoth has not paid truckers for all the tasks they do. The company could end up having to pay up to $150 million.

» Islamic State says blows up two warplanes at seized Libyan base
11/06/15 10:24 from Reuters: International
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The militant group Islamic State said on Thursday it had blown up two warplanes at an air base it seized near the central Libyan city of Sirte.

» Rupert Murdoch preparing to step down as Fox CEO: CNBC
11/06/15 10:24 from Reuters: Top News
(Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch, the 84-year old chief executive of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc, is preparing to step down and name his son James as successor, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing sources close to the Murdoch family.

» Bayer Leverkusen sign Freiburg's Admir Mehmedi
11/06/15 10:24 from Deutsche Welle: DW-WORLD.DE - Top Stories
Bayer Leverkusen have confirmed the signing of Freiburg striker Admir Mehmedi on a four-year deal. The forward was relegated from the Bundesliga with Freiburg last season, scoring seven goals through 2014/15.

» China's Ex-Security Chief Zhou Yongkang Sentenced to Life in Prison
11/06/15 10:23 from WSJ.com: World News
China sentenced former state security chief Zhou Yongkang to life in prison for corruption and other crimes, cementing a Communist Party pledge to prosecute high-level malfeasance.

» RFE/RL Video Roundup -- June 11
11/06/15 10:23 from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
A suicide bomber targets police in Pakistan, Serbian women demand that the government acknowledge war crimes of the 1990s, and Tajikistan gets ready for the beginning of Ramadan, plus more news from Kyrgyzstan.

» Virginia 17-year-old pleads guilty to providing support to Islamic State
11/06/15 10:21 from Yahoo! News - Latest News & Headlines
A Virginia 17-year-old pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to charges of conspiring to provide support and resources to Islamic State militants, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday. Ali Amin, of Manassas, Virginia, used social ...

» 'Jurassic World' a worthy successor to 'Jurassic Park'?
11/06/15 10:21 from Latest News
Movie review: 'Jurassic World'

» Chris Hemsworth joins Ghostbusters
11/06/15 10:20 from BBC News - World
Chris Hemsworth will play the receptionist in director Paul Feig's female reboot of Ghostbusters.

» Macedonia detain 128 migrants hiding in five homes
11/06/15 10:19 from Reuters: International
SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonian police have detained 128 illegal migrants from Syria, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries sheltering in five houses in a village near the border with Serbia, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

» Suicide Bomber Attacks Police In Peshawar, Pakistan
11/06/15 10:19 from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
In Peshawar, northwest Pakistan, a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle attacked a police vehicle, killing two officers and one civilian. Local officials said that the bomber was targeting a deputy police commander, who was wounded in the ...

» Tiny dancer commands R-E-S-P-E-C-T
11/06/15 10:18 from CNN.com
Internet sensation doesn't just dance to R-E-S-P-E-C-T, she earns it. Jeanne Moos introduces the 6-yr old with the moves of a diva.

» Koch brothers and Republican Party go to war — with each other
11/06/15 10:18 from Yahoo! News - Latest News & Headlines
The Republican National Committee’s data arm last year called it a “historic” occasion when it struck a deal to share voter information with the Koch brothers’ rapidly expanding political empire.

» You can't negotiate with IS: Abbott - Sydney Morning Herald
11/06/15 10:17 from Google News - World
Sydney Morning Herald You can't negotiate with IS: Abbott Sydney Morning Herald The Australian Federal Police are assessing reformed Islamic radicals – including some turned back at airports when wanting to travel to the Middle East ...

» AFP assessing reformed Islamic radicals as potential counter-radicalisation ... - Sydney Morning Herald
11/06/15 10:17 from Google News - World
Sydney Morning Herald AFP assessing reformed Islamic radicals as potential counter-radicalisation ... Sydney Morning Herald The Australian Federal Police are assessing reformed Islamic radicals – including some turned back at airports wh...

» Teen pleads guilty to ISIS recruiting
11/06/15 10:17 from CNN.com
Ali Shukri Amin, from Alexandria, Virginia, pleaded guilty Thursday in a federal court to ISIS related charges and faces up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced Aug. 28.

» 'Shawshank' Killer 'Will Not Be Taken Alive'
11/06/15 10:17 from Sky News | World News | First For Breaking News
Wayne Schimpf says "there is no way" his half-brother Richard Matt will return to a life sentence as a manhunt covers two states.

» Nepal landslides triggered by heavy rain bury at least 21 people - Los Angeles Times
11/06/15 10:16 from Google News - World
NDTV Nepal landslides triggered by heavy rain bury at least 21 people Los Angeles Times A landslide triggered by heavy rainfall killed at least 21 people and left dozens missing as they were sleeping at night in six villages in Nepal'...