Parents Release Photo of Daughter Born at 24 Weeks to Stop Late-Term Abortions

/0 Comments/in , /by

Parents in England have released a beautiful photo of their daughter, born prematurely at 24 weeks, with the hopes that it will demonstrate the humanity of unborn babies who can be legally killed in abortions in the U.K.

Emily Caines, 35, has released photograph of birth of daughter Adelaide, born at 24 weeks but who was too small to survive even though that is within the 22-24 week time period that is the earliest for premature babies to survive. Caines hopes the photo will raise awareness of neonatal death and she hopes it will prompt lawmakers in Parliament to re-open debate around the 24 week legal abortion limit.

The mother also previously lost daughter Isabelle, born at 23 weeks and she is now pregnant again with a baby she hope will live.

The London Daily Mail reports the story:

The current law allows babies to be terminated up to 24 weeks gestation – the point at which Adelaide was born.

Read more from this story HERE.

Venezuela on Alert Over Mysterious, Deadly Disease? 10 Dead

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: The Extinction ProtocolThe deaths of 10 people in the past week of a mysterious disease in several cities in Venezuela, including the capital of Caracas, have caused panic within the population and has prompted doctors to sound the alarm. A government spokesman minimized the warnings and described efforts to notify the public of a disease that has killed four adults and four children as a “campaign of disinformation and terrorism.” Despite the government’s indifference, the country’s doctors insist there is plenty of reason for concern about a highly dangerous and contagious disease of unknown origin. “We do not know what it is,” admitted Duglas León Natera, president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation. In its initial stages, the disease presents symptoms of fever and spots on the skin, and then produces large blisters and internal and external bleeding, according to data provided week stop by the College of Physicians of the state of Aragua, where the first cases were reported. Then, very quickly, patients suffer from respiratory failure, liver failure and kidney failure. Venezuelan doctors have not been able to determine what the disease is, much less how to fight it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Scotland Referendum: Scots Reject Independence in Historic Vote

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox NewsScotland voters have decided to remain part of the United Kingdom, rejecting independence in a historic referendum.

The decision prevented a rupture of a 307-year union with England, bringing a huge sigh of relief to the British political establishment. Scots voted 55 percent to 45 percent against independence in a vote that saw an unprecedented turnout.

“The people of Scotland have spoken,” Alistair Darling, leader of the “Better Together” campaign said early Friday after the result was confirmed. “We have chosen unity over division.”

Despite major victories for the “Yes” campaign in Dundee and Glasgow, the “Better Together,” a majority of voters did not embrace Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond’s impassioned plea to launch a new state, choosing instead the security offered by remaining in the United Kingdom.

Salmond conceded defeat, saying “we know it is a majority for the No campaign” and called on Scots to accept the results of the vote.

Read more from this story HERE.

Australia Thwarts Beheading Plot, says Islamic State Threat Persists

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Joel Carret / European Pressphoto AgencyAuthorities in Australia have charged a 22-year-old Sydney resident with preparing to sow terror in the country by seizing a person at random and beheading him in a videotaped execution, Australian media reported Thursday.

Omarjan Azari exhibits “an unusual level of fanaticism,” Prosecutor Michael Allnutt told a Sydney court in a successful attempt to deny bail for the bearded young man, who is facing a possible life sentence.

The plot to carry out a random terrorist attack was foiled after a four-month surveillance operation revealed a network of violent Muslim extremists allegedly being directed by a former Australia resident, Mohammad Ali Baryalei, now a major figure in the Islamic State militant group in Syria, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. Raids carried out in two Australian cities Thursday resulted in more than a dozen arrests, officials said.

Authorities expressed concern over the scores of Australians being drawn into the violent culture of Islamic State, which has seized broad swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and proclaimed it a Muslim “caliphate” ruled by a harsh and medieval version of Sharia, or Islamic law.

Read more from this story HERE.

New Alliance from Hell: Boko Haram and ISIS

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: WNDThe Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram, known for its kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls, has deepened its connection to the Middle East terror army ISIS by forming an information and materiel-support alliance, according to sources.

A Nigeria staff member for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a non-profit foundation promoting democratic institutions, says leaders Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS and Abubakar Shakau of Boko Haram “have been sharing military strategy and other information back and forth.”

Kristina Baum says the alliance will empower Boko Haram.

“Boko Haram is hopeful that this will give them more financial support,” she said. “Before, Boko Haram has been getting their money from kidnapping, ransom and extortion from local governments.”

Maha Hamdan, an analyst for Consultancy Africa Intelligence and IntelligenceCommunity.com, confirms the link-up, calling it a dangerous development.

Read more from this story HERE.

Excitement, Apprehension Build As Scotland Prepares for Vote on Independence

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Leon Neal / AFP / Getty ImagesFor Scots, Wednesday was a day of excitement, apprehension, and a flood of final appeals before a big decision. In a matter of hours, they will determine whether Scotland leaves the United Kingdom and becomes an independent state.

A full 97 percent of those eligible have registered to vote — including, for the first time, 16- and 17-year-olds — in a referendum that polls suggest is too close to call.

A phone poll of 1,373 people by Ipsos MORI, released Wednesday, put opposition to independence at 51 percent and support at 49 percent, with 5 percent of voters undecided.

That means neither side can feel confident, given the margin of error of about plus or minus three percentage points.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself a Scot, told a No campaign rally that the quiet majority of pro-Union Scots “will be silent no more,” while pro-independence leader Alex Salmond urged voters to seize a democratic opportunity 307 years in the making.

Read more from this story HERE.

World War E

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Jack MooreBy Jeff Mason and James Harding Giahyue.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday called West Africa’s deadly Ebola outbreak a looming threat to global security and announced a major expansion of the U.S. role in trying to halt its spread, including deployment of 3,000 troops to the region.

“The reality is that this epidemic is going to get worse before it gets better,” Obama said at the Atlanta headquarters of the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“But, right now, the world still has an opportunity to save countless lives. Right now, the world has the responsibility to act, to step up and to do more. The United States of America intends to do more,” he added.
The U.S. plan, a dramatic expansion of Washington’s initial response last week, won praise from the U.N. World Health Organization, aid workers and officials in West Africa. Experts said it was still not enough to contain the epidemic, which is rapidly spreading and has caused already-weak local public health systems to buckle under the strain of fighting it.

U.S. officials said the focus of the military deployment would be Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves that is the hardest hit of the countries affected by the crisis.

Read more from this story HERE.

_____________________________________________________________

EBOLA SURVIVOR: NO TIME TO WASTE AS OBAMA UPS AID

BY LAURAN NEERGAARD AND JIM KUHNHENN.

An American doctor who survived Ebola said there’s no time to waste as President Barack Obama outlined his plan to ramp up the U.S. response to the epidemic in West Africa.

“We can’t afford to wait months, or even weeks, to take action, to put people on the ground,” Dr. Kent Brantly told senators Tuesday.

Obama called the Ebola crisis a threat to world security as he ordered up to 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the region along with an aggressive effort to train health care workers and deliver field hospitals. Under the plan, the government could end up devoting $1 billion to containing the disease.

“If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people affected, with profound economic, political and security implications for all of us,” Obama said after briefings in Atlanta with doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from Emory University, where Brantly and two other aid workers with Ebola have been treated.

Obama acted under pressure from regional leaders and international aid organizations who pleaded for a heightened U.S. role in confronting the deadly virus. He called on other countries to also quickly supply more health workers, equipment and money.

Read more from this story HERE.

Top General says Half of Iraqi Army Incapable of Working with US Against ISIS

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHallThe U.S. military’s top officer said Wednesday that almost half of Iraq’s army is incapable of working against the Islamic State militant group, while the other half needs to be rebuilt with the help of U.S. advisers and military equipment.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey made the remarks to reporters while traveling to Paris to meet with his French counterpart to discuss the situation in Iraq and Syria. The general said that U.S. assessors who had spent the summer observing Iraq’s security forces concluded that 26 of the army’s 50 brigades would be capable of confronting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Dempsey described those brigades as well-led, capable, and endowed with a nationalist instinct, as opposed to a sectarian instinct.

However, Dempsey said that the other 24 brigades were too heavily populated with Shiites to be part of a credible force against the Sunni ISIS.

Sectarianism has been a major problem for the Iraqi security forces for years and is in part a reflection of resentments that built up during the decades of rule under Saddam Hussein, who repressed the majority Shiite population, and the unleashing of reprisals against Sunnis after U.S. forces toppled him in April 2003. Sunni resistance led to the relatively brief rise of an extremist group called Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. That group withered but re-emerged as the Islamic State organization, which capitalized on Sunni disenchantment with the Shiite government in Baghdad.

Read more from this story HERE.

ISIS Wants to Assassinate the Pope

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APBy Nick Squires.

Pope Francis is at risk of an assassination attempt by the Islamic extremists of Isil, the Vatican has been warned, ahead of his first visit to a Muslim-majority country this weekend.

As the 77-year-old pontiff prepares to travel to Albania on Sunday for a one-day visit, Iraq’s ambassador to the Holy See said there were credible threats against the pontiff’s life.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church could also be vulnerable when he travels to Turkey in November, the ambassador said.

Jihadists from Isil have in recent weeks boasted of wanting to extend their caliphate to Rome, the heart of Western Christendom, and have talked of planting the jihadist black flag on top of St Peter’s Basilica.

Read more from this story HERE.

_______________________________________________________________________

Islamic State shoots down Syrian war plane

By Reuters.

Islamic State fighters shot down a Syrian war plane using anti-aircraft guns on Tuesday, the first time the group has downed a military jet since declaring its cross-border caliphate in June, a group monitoring the civil war said.

The plane came down outside Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa city, 400 km (250 miles) northeast of Damascus, during air strikes on territory controlled by the group, a resident said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group which gathers information from a network of activists on the ground, reported five air raids on Raqqa on Tuesday. Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the organization, cited sources close to Islamic State as saying the plane had been shot down.

Read more from this story HERE.

Egypt: Don’t Limit Action to ISIS; Islamists Elsewhere Share its Ideology

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Interdependent By Patrick Goodenough.

During Secretary of State John Kerry’s weekend visit to Cairo, his Egyptian counterpart pushed for the new international focus on countering terrorism to go beyond Syria and Iraq, arguing that the same ideology espoused by the jihadists there is driving other Islamist extremists, including those in Egypt’s neighboring territories.

During his current travels in the Middle East and Europe, Kerry is seeking support for a coalition to tackle the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL), and he said Sunday he has received offers from some countries to take part in the military element of that campaign.

But while the administration’s focus has been largely centered on ISIS, Cairo sees the problem as a far broader one.

A spokesman for President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi said that in talks with Kerry the president had “stressed that any international coalition against terrorism must be a comprehensive alliance that is not limited to confront a certain organization or to curb a single terrorist hotbed but must expand to include all the terrorist hotbeds across the Middle East and Africa.”

Read more from this story HERE.

_____________________________________________________________________

US launches first offensive strikes against ISIS in Iraq

By Fox News.

The U.S. military launched airstrikes against the Islamic State militants in Iraq Monday in its first move in the newly broadened mission authorized by President Obama to go on the offensive against the terror group.
The U.S. Central Command said in a press release that the strikes were conducted to provide support for Iraqi security forces fighting the militants southwest of Baghdad.

Read more from this story HERE.