‘The Taliban Have Never Come for a Small Girl’: What Brave Pakistani Schoolgirl Malala Told Friend Before She was Shot in the Head (+video)

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai told her friend not to worry because the Taliban ‘have never come for a small girl’, shortly before she was shot in the head by a militant.

The 16-year-old was gunned down last year on her school bus after angering the Taliban with her brave and outspoken pleas for girls to be educated.

In her autobiography, I am Malala, she describes the moment she was shot on her way home from school in the valley of Swat in north-west Pakistan on October 9, 2012.

Malala was travelling with about 20 other girls when a masked man approached their school bus and said: ‘Who is Malala?’

Although no one said a word, some girls looked at Malala and she as the only one with her face uncovered.

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U.S. Raids in Libya and Somalia Strike Terror Targets

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Photo Credit: New York Times By David D. Kirkpatrick, Nicholas Kulish and Eric Schmitt.

American commandos carried out raids on Saturday in two far-flung African countries in a powerful flex of military muscle aimed at capturing fugitive terrorist suspects. American troops assisted by F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents seized a suspected leader of Al Qaeda on the streets of Tripoli, Libya, while Navy SEALs raided the seaside villa of a militant leader in a predawn firefight on the coast of Somalia.

In Tripoli, American forces captured a Libyan militant who had been indicted in 2000 for his role in the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The militant, born Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai and known by his nom de guerre, Abu Anas el-Liby, had a $5 million bounty on his head; his capture at dawn ended a 15-year manhunt.

In Somalia, the Navy SEAL team emerged before sunrise from the Indian Ocean and exchanged gunfire with militants at the home of a senior leader of the Shabab, the Somali militant group. The raid was planned more than a week ago, officials said, after a massacre by the Shabab at a Nairobi shopping mall that killed more than 60 people two weeks ago.

The SEAL team was forced to withdraw before it could confirm that it had killed the Shabab leader, a senior American security official said. Officials declined to identify the target.

Officials said the timing of the two raids was coincidental. But occurring on the same day, they underscored the rise of northern Africa as a haven for international terrorists. Libya has collapsed into the control of a patchwork of militias since the ouster of the Qaddafi government in 2011. Somalia, the birthplace of the Shabab, has lacked an effective central government for more than two decades.

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsUS military forces conduct 2 major terror raids, seize Al Qaeda leader behind 1998 embassy bombings

The Pentagon confirmed Saturday night that U.S. special forces had captured an Al Qaeda terrorist wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The secret operation occurred in Tripoli, Libya, where an elite team of Special Operators swooped in and captured alive Abu Anas Al Liby.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement that Abu Anas Al Liby “is currently lawfully detained by the U.S. military in a secure location outside of Libya.” Sources told Fox News that he will be read his rights by an elite FBI unit that was sent out for that purpose. US officials say that the Justice Department plans to prosecute him in a U.S. court.

Al Liby is on the FBI’s most-wanted list with a $5 million bounty on his head. He was indicted by a federal court in the Southern District of New York, for his alleged role in the bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, on August 7, 1998, that killed more than 220 people.

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Christians Under Threat in Syria as Islamist Extremists Gain Influence

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Photo Credit: Youssef Badawi/EPA

Photo Credit: Youssef Badawi/EPA

When radical Islamists tore down a cross and hoisted a black flag above a church in the northern Syrian city of Raqqah last week, their action underscored the increasingly hostile environment for the country’s Christians.

Although Syria is majority Sunni Muslim, it is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse countries in the Middle East, home to Christians, Druze, and Shiite-offshoot Alawites and Ismailis. But the country’s conflict, now in its third year, is threatening that tapestry.

While the primary front in the war has pitted Sunni against Shiite, Christians are increasingly caught in the line of fire. The perception that they support the government — which is in many cases true — has long made them a target of rebel groups. Now, Christians say radical Islamist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an affiliate of al-Qaeda, are determined to drive them from their homes.

“The Christian community in Syria is stuck between two fires,” said Nadim Nassar, a Syrian from Latakia who is director of the Awareness Foundation, an interfaith charity based in Britain. “One fire is a corrupt regime, and everybody agrees there needs to be a change. And on the other hand, there’s a fragmented and diverse opposition on the ground who can’t control jihadist forces coming from outside the country.”

Syria is not the only place in the wider region where Christians are being targeted. Coptic churches in Egypt have been attacked, and Pakistan last week experienced the deadliest church bombing in the country’s history. The militants who attacked a mall in Nairobi last month singled out non-Muslims.

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Iran Named to UN’s Disarmament and International Security Committee

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Photo Credit: FrontPageMag

Photo Credit: FrontPageMag

Like an abomination from Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, the United Nations seems to exist mainly as an argument for why it shouldn’t exist.

Iran is the world’s top sponsor of international terrorism, it’s currently involved in conflicts in at least three countries and it’s pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

So in the United Nations, where every day is Backwards Day, it’s time to reward it with a spot on the Disarmament and International Security Committee.

Because when you think of disarmament and international security, you think of Iran, in the same way that when you think of genocide prevention, you think of Nazi Germany. If the Third Reich had only held out long enough, Hitler Jr. could have been sitting on the Genocide Prevention Committee.

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Iran Military Official: Obama has Surrendered

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

President Obama’s statement to the United Nations last week that America is not seeking regime change in Iran is not merely a kind remark, but a recognition of U.S. inability to bring change to Iran, the head of Iran’s Quds Forces, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, said.

Joining in that view, an outlet of the Quds cyber forces officers posted an image of a surrendering Obama in military uniform under the title “In a not too distant future.”

The image has Soleimani on top overlooking the defeat of America with a note at the bottom: “One Qasem Soleimani is enough for all the enemies of this country (Iran).”

That claim was underscored this week by Seyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, a member of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, who said that while “Iran complies with the Non-Proliferation Treaty rules and regulations and cooperates within that framework, it will never accept the Additional Protocol.”

That protocol allows the IAEA to verify whether countries are complying with nuclear regulations.

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Netanyahu In UN Address Decries Iran’s Rouhani as ‘Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’

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Photo Credit: Fox

Photo Credit: Fox

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to the world community not to be fooled by the new Iranian president’s conciliatory words, using a U.N. address to decry him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Netanyahu, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly session on Tuesday in New York, sought to counter the positive reviews Iranian President Hassan Rouhani got over his debut at the international gathering. As the U.S. reaches out anew to Iran under its new leadership, the Israeli prime minister suggested Hassan Rouhani is no better than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Rouhani didn’t sound like Ahmadinejad, but when it comes to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the only difference between them is this: Ahmadinejad was the wolf in wolf’s clothing. Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Netanyahu said. “A wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community.”

Netanyahu spoke after meeting in person with President Obama on Monday in Washington.

Netanyahu is wary amid efforts to re-launch diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Iran, and following a historic phone call on Friday between Obama and Rouhani. The Obama-Rouhani phone call was the first between an American and Iranian president since the Iranian revolution of 1979, which sent U.S.-Iranian relations into a deep freeze.

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Belgian Transsexual, 44, Elects to Die by Euthanasia after Botched Sex-Change Operation; 1 in 50 in Country Die from Doctor Assisted Suicide

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Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

A Belgian transsexual has chosen to die by euthanasia after a botched sex change operation to complete his transformation into a man left him a ‘monster’.

Nathan Verhelst, 44, died yesterday afternoon after being allowed have his life ended on the grounds of ‘unbearable psychological suffering’.

It is understood to be the first time someone in Belgium has chosen euthanasia after a sex-change, and comes soon after it emerged that it is now the cause of nearly one in 50 deaths in the country.

Born a girl named Nancy, his transformation into a man began with hormone therapy in 2009, followed by a mastectomy and finally an operation to construct a penis last year.

But the procedures did not go according to plan.

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Critics Dispute Global Warming Assertions Made by IPCC

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Critics of a new United Nations report on global warming say their skepticism is based on discrepancies between the UN’s climate models and actual, observable conditions.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its full report on Monday. It expresses 95% certainty that human activity is primarily responsibly for an observed rise in global temperatures over the past century. Environmentalists have said that even mild criticism of such reports on global warming as science “denial.”

Skeptics have already pointed to what they say are flaws in the report’s methodology and resulting problems with its findings.

Past discrepancies between the IPCC’s models and either subsequent environmental conditions or contradictory scientific work at the time demonstrate why those models should not be taken at face value, the critics say.

The IPCC predicted in 1995 that global sea levels would rise by up to 55 centimeters by 2100 “for the range of emissions scenarios.”

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U.S. to Teach Mexicans to Game American System

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

It’s an expenditure of only $100,000 – mere pocket change in the vast labyrinth of federal spending – but the funds are for the creation of a manual to teach people how to get more money from the U.S. government.

And the recipients aren’t even citizens of the United States.

The U.S. Trade & Development Agency, an independent White House agency, is laying the foundation for the government of Mexico to infuse hundreds of billions of dollars into modernizing its roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure.

While it remains to be seen how much direct financial assistance the U.S. will provide, even the looming threat of a government shutdown has failed to curb President Obama’s plan to cut U.S. Treasury checks for the Mexican endeavor.

The industry-crafted report likewise will serve as a corporate-welfare roadmap for U.S. businesses seeking future contracts awarded under the massive project, according to a USTDA planning document that WND located via routine database research.

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Israel’s Netanyahu to Warn US, UN about Iran’s ‘Smiley Campaign’

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Photo Credit: Fox

Photo Credit: Fox

Just days after the first conversation between the leaders of the U.S. and Iran in 34 years was hailed as a “breakthrough” in relations between the two countries, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking an unpopular message to the White House and the United Nations: Don’t be fooled by Tehran’s “sweet talk.”

Netanyahu, who contends Iran is using conciliatory gestures as a smoke screen to conceal an unabated march toward a nuclear bomb, will meet with President Obama Monday to deliver strong words of caution to the U.S.

“I will tell the truth in the face of the sweet talk and the onslaught of smiles,” Netanyahu said before boarding his flight to the U.S. on Sunday. “Telling the truth today is vital for the security and peace of the world and, of course, it is vital for the security of the state of Israel.”

Netanyahu also plans to offer up fresh intelligence in his attempt to persuade the U.S. to maintain tough economic sanctions and not allow the Islamic republic to develop a bomb or even move closer to becoming a nuclear threshold state.

Israeli leaders watched with great dismay what they derisively call the “smiley campaign” by Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, last week. Rouhani delivered a conciliatory speech at the United Nations in which he repeated Iran’s official position that it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon and declared his readiness for new negotiations with the West.

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