Obama Plans 250 More U.S. Troops for Syria, Boosting Force to 300

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President Barack Obama will announce on Monday he plans to send as many as 250 additional U.S. troops to Syria, a sharp increase in the American presence working with local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State militants, U.S. officials said.

The deployment, which will increase U.S. forces in Syria to about 300, aims to accelerate recent gains against Islamic State and appears to reflect growing confidence in the ability of U.S.-backed forces inside Syria and Iraq to claw back territory from the hardline Sunni Islamist group.

Obama will explain his decision in a speech at 11:25 a.m. (0925 GMT) in Hanover, where he discussed the Syria crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday. They will meet with other major European leaders after his remarks.

Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, controls the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria and is proving a potent threat abroad, claiming credit for major attacks in Paris in November and Brussels in March.

While Obama has resisted putting U.S. troops into Syria, where a five-year civil war has killed at least 250,000 people, he sent 50 U.S. special operations forces to Syria last year in what U.S. officials described as a “counterterrorism” mission rather than an effort to tip the scales in the war. (Read more from “Obama Plans 250 More U.S. Troops for Syria, Boosting Force to 300” HERE)

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London Mayor Describes Obama as ‘Part-Kenyan’

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obama-356133_960_720London Mayor Boris Johnson offered a cold welcome to President Obama on Friday as the president opened his visit to the city with a call for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union.

Johnson, a member of the Conservative Party and an advocate for Britain’s exit from the EU, published an article noting Obama’s “part-Kenyan” roots while highlighting the often repeated claim of the Obama administration returning a bust of Winston Churchill to the British embassy in D.C.

“Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire — of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,” Johnson wrote in an op-ed published in The Sun, referencing Obama’s father, who was born in Kenya.

“For the United States to tell us in the UK that we must surrender control of so much of our democracy — it is a breathtaking example of the principle of do-as-I-say-but-not-as-I-do,” Johnson wrote . . .

The Guardian reports that Johnson has come under fire for the comment on Kenya, with Labour Party politician Yvette Cooper saying, “As ever, it’s more bad judgment from Boris Johnson. Is this really how a man who wants to be prime minister should be talking about the president of the United States?” (Read more from “London Mayor Describes Obama as ‘Part-Kenyan'” HERE)

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Islamist Turkey Seizes ALL Christian Churches in City

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cross-66700_960_720 (1)President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken control of six churches in the war-torn southeastern city of Diyarbakir in his latest move to squash freedom of speech and religious movement.

The state-sanctioned seizure is just the latest in a number of worrying developments to come out of increasingly hardline Turkey, which is in advanced talks with the EU over visa-free travel for its 80 million citizens.

Included in the seizures are Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches, one of which is over 1,700 years old.

They have now effectively become state property – meaning they are run by the government – in a country with a dire human rights record where about 98 percent of the population is Muslim.

The order to seize the churches was made on March 25 by Erdogan’s council of ministers, according to the website World Watch Monitor. (Read more from “Islamist Turkey Seizes ALL Christian Churches in City” HERE)

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European Nations Join Transgender Jihad Against North Carolina, Mississippi Stand for Traditional Values

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Respect_and_Equality_for_All_Trans_People_(4764133272)_(2)The Foreign Office has updated its travel advice for the United States, warning gay and transgender travellers to be careful in the US due to legislation in North Carolina and Mississippi.

Newly-passed laws in both states allow businesses to refuse service to LGBT people, and the so-called “bathroom law” – a ruling that transgender people must use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender on their birth certificate – has sparked waves of protest and business boycotts.

“The US is an extremely diverse society and attitudes toward LGBT people differ hugely across the country,” the update states. “LGBT travellers may be affected by legislation passed recently in the states of North Carolina and Mississippi. Before travelling please read our general travel advice for the LGBT community. You can find more detail on LGBT issues in the US on the website of the Human Rights Campaign.”

Ty Cobb of the Human Rights Campaign described it as “both frightening and embarrassing that one of our nation’s staunchest allies has warned its citizens of the risks” of travelling to the US.

He added: “It is now more clear than ever that these terrible measures are not only harming individuals and taking an economic toll on the states, but are also causing serious damage to our nation’s reputation, and the perceived safety of LGBT people who travel here.” (Read more from “European Nations Join Transgender Jihad Against North Carolina, Mississippi Stand for Traditional Values” HERE)

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New Powerful Earthquake Strikes Ecuador

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1024px-Chuetsu_earthquake-earthquake_liquefaction1A powerful earthquake measuring 6.0 magnitude struck off Ecuador’s disaster-stricken coast on Thursday, as survivors of an earlier deadly quake that killed 587 people clamored for food, water and medicine in parts of the disaster zone.

The latest quake’s epicentre was 100km (62 miles) north-northwest of Portoviejo and at a depth of 10km (six miles), said the US Geological Survey (USGS).

President Rafael Correa said on Twitter that three aftershocks were registered on Thursday night, adding “have strength!”

Meanwhile Cesar Navas, the security minister, reassured his compatriots that so far there is no threat of tsunami. There are no reports of damage so far.

On Saturday the Andean nation was struck by a 7.8-magnitude quake, the worst to hit the South American country in decades, causing hundreds of buildings to collapse and damaging roads and other key infrastructure in tourist areas. (Read more from “New Powerful Earthquake Strikes Ecuador” HERE)

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Obama Admin. Fails to Designate Pakistan as Hostile to Religious Freedom Despite Recent Massacres of Christians

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maxresdefault (97)The United States Department of State has released its official blacklist of countries guilty of egregious violations of religious freedom, and for the 14th consecutive year has left Pakistan off the roster.

Secretary of State John Kerry has re-designated Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs, under the International Religious Freedom Act, and has added the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan for the first time.

State Department spokesperson John Kirby announced this year’s list of countries of particular concern at a press briefing last week, underscoring that these designations “help us shine a spotlight on countries and conditions that require the international community’s attention.”

Nonetheless, despite persistent urging from the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the list omits mention of Pakistan, despite recent incidents that have drawn world attention to the country.

The Easter-Day massacre targeting Christians in Lahore saw the death of 72 victims, mostly women and children, along with at least 320 injured. (Read more from “Obama Admin. Fails to Designate Pakistan as Hostile to Religious Freedom Despite Recent Massacres of Christians” HERE)

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REVEALED: Imams Preaching Saudi-Imported Hate Texts in British Jails

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Lecumberri_Prison_CellMuslim chaplains working within Britain’s prison system have been routinely distributing Islamist hate literature, leaving extremist pamphlets preaching death to non-believers and hatred of the West within easy reach of inmates, a leaked review has revealed.

The Ministry of Justice, who has oversight for chaplaincy appointments within prisons, is understood to have issued an urgent internal alert warning of “severe reputation damage” thanks to the extremist nature of the material.

The compact discs (CDs) and leaflets, some of which were imported from Saudi Arabia, contain homophobic and misogynistic messages, as well as inciting hatred against non-Muslims and Western culture. Yet it was left by the Muslim chaplains on library bookshelves where inmates were free to come and peruse it, The Times has reported.

Lack of scrutiny inside the jails paired with weak corporate guidance meant that there was very little or even no assessment of the material before it was released to “impressionable minds”, the leaked report said.

And it found that the chaplains at several jails had been encouraging inmates to raise funds for Islamic charities with links to extremist organisations and international terrorism, warning that failings at senior levels within the prison service had created a breeding ground for Islamic radicalisation. (Read more from “REVEALED: Imams Preaching Saudi-Imported Hate Texts in British Jails” HERE)

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Wife of Chinese Church Leader Reportedly Buried Alive and Killed After Protesting Church’s Demolition

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summit-cross-225578_960_720 (1)Two members of a church demolition team in China’s central Henan province buried a house church leader and his wife alive Thursday when the pair tried to prevent the destruction of their church, according to local news sources. Though the church leader managed to escape, his wife suffocated to death before she could be freed.

The couple had petitioned the destruction of their church, China Aid reported Monday.

On April 14, a government-sponsored company sent workers to bulldoze Beitou Church in Zhumadian. The order came after a local developer expressed interest in the church’s valuable land.

When the demolition crew showed up, Li Jiangong, the church leader, and his wife, Ding Cuimei, stepped in front of the bulldozers to protest the demolition.

“Bury them alive for me,” one of the workers said, according to China Aid. “I will be responsible for their lives.” (Read more from “Wife of Chinese Church Leader Reportedly Buried Alive and Killed After Protesting Church’s Demolition” HERE)

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Once Seen as White House Triumph, New Nation of South Sudan Descends Into War, Misery

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Village_in_South_SudanJust five years ago, celebrities such as George Clooney and Don Cheadle hailed the creation of a new African nation as one of President Obama’s foreign policy success stories, but now South Sudan is looking like a failed state.

The nation, sought as a means of bringing peace to Sudan’s long-running civil war, was promoted as a potential U.S. ally and was formed following a referendum passed with 98 percent of the vote to secede from the northern part of Sudan and the Khartoum government. But hope has given way to desperation, as South Sudan has descended into bloodshed and chaos.

“The euphoria has faded and South Sudan is an embarrassment for the administration, and that comes with reputational costs,” Joshua Meservey, policy analyst for Africa and the Middle East at The Heritage Foundation, told FoxNews.com. “Bringing attention to it is not in the White House’s interest.”

Meservey said the U.S.-backed solution was based on a “very superficial” grasp of the war between Sudan and South Sudan, and the deep divisions that existed in the nascent nation . . .

The civil war that rocked Sudan from 1983-2005 started in what is now South Sudan, and would eventually see more than 2 million people die as a direct result of war or of famine and disease related to the conflict. Twice as many people were displaced before a peace agreement was signed in 2005 and laid the groundwork for the creation of the new nation. (Read more from “Once Seen as White House Triumph, New Nation of South Sudan Descends Into War, Misery” HERE)

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Obama Did Not Press Putin on Recent Military Provocations

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Vladimir PutinPresident Obama did not raise Russian military provocations against a Navy warship and Air Force intelligence jet last week during a Monday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House disclosed Monday.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the president had “an intense discussion” by telephone with Putin, but not about two dangerous aerial actions by Russian warplanes.

The conversation instead was limited to Russian activities in Ukraine, where Moscow has militarily annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, and the conflict in Syria.

“We have ample opportunities to express our concerns about these kinds of provocative actions to the Russians and it did not necessitate a presidential level conversation,” Earnest told reporters at the White House.

Two Russian Su-24 jets buzzed the guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea on April 14, flying dangerously close to the ship as it was conducting operations. (Read more from “Obama Did Not Press Putin on Recent Military Provocations” HERE)

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