Family Of Former Marine Kidnapped In Mexico Speaks Out, Hopes He’s Alive

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Photo Credit: TORRES FAMILYThe family of a former U.S. Marine is hoping he’s still alive despite not having heard from him since he was kidnapped in Mexico.

The whereabouts of Armando Torres, 27, who served in Iraq in 2009 as a mechanic fixing military vehicles, are still unknown. The FBI and Mexican authorities are investigating the case and a fellow Marine continues lobbying for congressional help.

Torres’ relatives told Fox News Latino in an exclusive interview that he was likely taken, along with his father and uncle, by gang members or a drug cartel. They were kidnapped in Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas.

The FBI is investigating Torres’s disappearance as a kidnapping and are working with local Mexican officials to find him, according to the FBI.

Armando Torres crossed the border to Mexico last week on Tuesday night to visit his father. His relatives, who spoke to Fox News Latino on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said they were last seen being escorted out of the father’s home by armed men. Family members describe seeing a white truck outside.

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Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister: Iran Could Produce Dozens of Nuclear Bombs a Year

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Photo Credit: algemeinerIf Iran is not stopped from developing the capability to build a nuclear bomb, the Islamic Republic could become a “nuclear superpower” that produces dozens of bombs per year and has hundreds of bombs in its arsenal, Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said Tuesday.

“This is a ramified nuclear industry that has been built not to produce a few bombs but to produce fissionable material for dozens and hundreds of nuclear bombs. The issue at hand is not a nuclear state but the possibility of creating a nuclear superpower,” Steinitz said according to an Israeli government communique. “Today, the Natanz facility has about 12,000 centrifuges and plans to reach 54,000. It will be able to enrich enough uranium to produce 20-30 atomic bombs per annum.”

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Sebelius Preaches to the World Health Organization: “Access to Health Care … is a Right”

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Photo Credit: The New American Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (shown) told the World Health Assembly (WHA) on Monday that “universal health coverage” is a “right” and that it is the responsibility of “national governments” to achieve this goal.

Speaking at a plenary session of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) governing body in Geneva, Switzerland, Sebelius said, “One goal that is particularly essential to health and development … is universal health coverage. Advancing the health of our nations is a fundamental commitment we make to all our people. As President Obama recently reminded us, access to health care is ‘not some earned privilege — it is a right.’’” (Emphasis in original.)

In other words, everyone is entitled to healthcare whether he can pay for it or not. This clearly is not a right in the sense of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — rights that every person can exercise without imposing on others. Instead, it is a government-granted privilege whereby some individuals are permitted to plunder others — and where the victims of this theft are penalized by the government for resisting.

It is clear that this is the kind of “right” that Sebelius has in mind.

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Historian Kills Himself in Paris’ Notre Dame to Make Statement Against Homosexual Marriage and Islam

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Photo Credit: CNNA right-wing historian and author killed himself inside the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Tuesday in front of horrified tourists, police said.

About 1,500 people at the cathedral were evacuated, CNN affiliate BFM reported. The site is one of the world’s most prominent churches and a huge tourist attraction in the French capital.

BFM identified the man as Dominique Venner, 78.

Le Monde newspaper quoted a rector at the cathedral, who said the man placed a letter on the altar and then shot himself.

On his blog, Venner has lashed out against same-sex marriage and what he called a future Islamist takeover of France.

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Obama Pushes $50 Million More for Kenya, but Officials Admit New Program Could Just Create More Corruption

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Photo Credit: WNDStrengthening Kenya’s county governments, at cost to U.S. taxpayers of millions of dollars, could spark the redistribution of political power across the African republic, whose national government is viewed as one of the most notoriously corrupt in the world.

Efforts to bring about such decentralization, however, may inadvertently create 47 equally corrupt county systems, the Obama administration has acknowledged.

Obama, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, nonetheless intends to dole out upwards of $50 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to help the Kenyans get it right, according to contracting documents that WND discovered via routine database research.

One potential obstacle to accomplishing the task is the relatively recent discovery of significant oil resources in Kenya, USAID says.

Corruption, therefore, could magnify due to the lack of transparency between the government and the “land and extractive industries.”

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Israeli Motorists Shocked when Nazi Flag Seen Flying Near Palestinian Mosque

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Photo Credit: Shneior Nachum Sochat, Tazpit News AgencyIsraeli settlers on their morning commute got quite the eyeful Monday morning when they saw a swastika-emblazoned red flag flying near a mosque in Beit Omar, a Palestinian village outside of Hebron.

Thousands of residents of Jewish settlements near Hebron and Bethlehem in Judea (the southern West Bank) drive to and from work on the road from which the flag was visible.

The Tazpit News Agency, which photographed the flying Nazi flag, reports residents “were astounded” to see the symbol under which millions of Jews were massacred during World War II now being prominently displayed by residents of a Palestinian town.

Uri Arnon, who saw the flag, told Tazpit News Agency: “I felt we were going back 75 years, losing our hold on the land. The Arabs no longer feel the need to hide their murderous tendencies, announcing out loud that they wish to destroy us.”

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Myanmar’s Promises Unfulfilled as Leader Meets with Obama

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Photo Credit: APMyanmar’s leader will meet Monday with President Obama amid criticism that the Southeast Asian country has done little to end its war against ethnic minority rebels, protect stateless Muslims or institutionalize democratic reforms that have been promised since its military junta was dissolved in 2011.

Still, President Thein Sein’s visit to Washington will be the first by a leader of Myanmar since President Lyndon B. Johnson hosted military strongman Ne Win at the White House in 1966.

“This trip is premature and undeserved,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The Obama administration says, ‘We reward them for their reforms,’ but the problem is it seems to reward [Myanmar’s rulers] whether they reform or not. It is not calibrating its carrots and sticks correctly.”

Frank Jannuzi, deputy executive director for Amnesty International USA, said the administration must avoid treating Thein Sein’s visit as a “Mission Accomplished” moment, referring to President George W. Bush’s pronouncement about the Iraq war in 2003.

“This is a time for the Obama administration to underscore the continuing challenges that Myanmar faces in the areas of human rights, rule of law and transparency, and to develop an action plan with the government of Myanmar to address those concerns,” Mr. Jannuzi said. “We are not against high-level diplomacy with Myanmar, but it should be focused on a future-oriented agenda for reform … what it should not be is a premature celebration of job well done.”

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Middle East Tinderbox Getting Ready to Ignite?

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Photo Credit: AFPSyria has put its most advanced missiles on standby with orders to hit Tel Aviv if Israel launches another strike on its territory, The Sunday Times reported overnight Sunday.

According to the British newspaper, reconnaissance satellites have been monitoring preparations by the Syrian army to deploy surface-to-surface Tishreen missiles.

An Israeli official told The New York Times that Israel, which has launched three recent attacks on Syria, was considering further strikes and warned President Bashar Assad that his government would face “crippling consequences” if he hit back at Israel.

The Sunday Times said the deployment of the Syrian-made Tishreen missiles, each of which can carry a half-ton payload, marks a significant escalation of tension “in a region in which the United States and Russia appear to be preparing for a Cold War-style stand-off.”

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Al-Qaeda’s Syrian Wing Takes Over the Oilfields Once Belonging to Assad (+video)

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Photo Credit: telegraph.co.ukUp to 380,000 barrels of crude oil were previously produced by wells around the city of Raqqa and in the desert region to its east that are now in rebel hands – in particular Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda off-shoot which is the strongest faction in this part of the country.

Now the violently anti-Western jihadist group, which has been steadily extending its control in the region, is selling the crude oil to local entrepreneurs, who use home-made refineries to produce low-grade petrol and other fuels for Syrians facing acute shortages.

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Israel Warns Against Russian Arms Supply to Syria

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Photo Credit: REUTERSIsrael said on Saturday that advanced weapons supplied by Russia to war-torn Syria could end up in the wrong hands and be used against the Jewish state.

A Russian shipment of Yakhont anti-ship missiles to Syria was condemned by the United States on Friday and Israel is also alarmed by the prospect of Russia supplying S-300 advanced air defense missile systems to Damascus.

While Israel has declined to take sides in the civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebels trying to topple him, Western and Israeli sources say it has launched air strikes inside Syria in a bid to destroy weapons it believes are destined for the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told Army Radio: “(Weapons) could reach others in Syria or Lebanon and be used against Israel.”

“These are not just any weapons, they are tie-breakers, and that’s why there is a responsibility with all world powers, certainly Russia, not to supply such arms,” Livni said, adding that Israel had the right to defend itself.

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