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‘I Started the Arab Spring. Now Death Is Everywhere, and Extremism Blooming’

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It is hardly surprising that when Faida Hamdy wonders whether she is responsible for everything that happened after her moment of fame she is overwhelmed.

Mrs Hamdy was the council inspector who, five years ago today confiscated the vegetable stall of a street vendor in her dusty town in central Tunisia.

In despair, that young man set himself on fire in a protest outside the council offices. Within weeks, he was dead, dozens of young Arab men had copied him, riots had overthrown his president, and the Arab Spring was under way.

As the world marks the anniversary, Syria and Iraq are in flames, Libya has broken down, and the twin evils of militant terror and repression stalk the region . . .

Hers is a voice that has been rarely heard: the family of the young man, Mohammed Bouazizi, became unwilling celebrities in the weeks after his lingering death, but a nervous regime arrested Mrs Hamdy when the protests began. (Read more from “‘I Started the Arab Spring. Now Death Is Everywhere, and Extremism Blooming'” HERE)

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Obama’s Arab Spring Continues: Now the Kurds Fighting Al Qaeda-linked Rebels in Syria, Receiving Fire from the Turks, Too

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Photo Credit: ReutersIslamist-Kurdish fighting spreads in rebel-held Syria

By Erika Solomon. The local commander of a Syrian rebel group affiliated to al Qaeda was freed on Sunday after being held by Kurdish forces in a power struggle between rival organizations fighting President Bashar al-Assad, activists said…

Sporadic fighting over the past five days in towns near the frontier with Turkey has pitted Islamists trying to cement their control of rebel zones against Kurds trying to assert their autonomy in mostly Kurdish areas…

To the north, activists reported Turkish troops reinforcing their side of the frontier near Tel Abyad, but the army could not be reached for comment. Turkish forces exchanged fire with Syrian Kurdish fighters in another border region earlier in the week…

The ethnic Kurdish minority has been alternately battling both Assad’s forces and the Islamist-dominated rebels. Kurds argue they support the revolt but rebels accuse them of making deals with the government in order to ensure their security and autonomy during the conflict.

The Kurdish people, scattered over the territories of Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, are often described as the world’s largest ethnic community without a state of their own. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: BBC/GettySyria’s Assad is stronger now, says David Cameron

By Nicholas Watt. David Cameron has admitted that the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has strengthened his position in recent months, and warned that the country faces a “depressing trajectory”.

In an interview on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, the prime minister gave his clearest indication to date that Britain will not be supplying arms to the Syrian rebels despite pressing for the lifting of the EU arms embargo.

Cameron insisted he was still committed to helping the Syrian opposition, but admitted its numbers included “a lot of bad guys”. He also acknowledged that Assad had strengthened his position.

The prime minister said: “I think he may be stronger than he was a few months ago, but I’d still describe the situation as a stalemate. And yes, you do have problems with part of the opposition that is extreme, that we should have nothing to do with.”

But Cameron said it would be wrong to abandon the opposition, although he indicated Britain would provide only non-lethal equipment. Read more from this story HERE.

Intelligence Director: Surprise! ‘Arab Spring’ Has Benefited Islamists

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Photo Credit: AP

The “Arab spring” has benefited Islamists rather than democracy advocates, while political transitions and unrest in the region have provided opportunities for terrorists to mount attacks against U.S. interests, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told lawmakers Tuesday.

Delivering the intelligence community’s annual report on threats facing the United States, Clapper gave what amounted to a downbeat assessment of the upheavals that many initially viewed as a promising movement towards greater democracy in a region dominated by long-ruling autocrats.

“Islamist actors have been the chief electoral beneficiaries of the political openings, and Islamist parties in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco will likely solidify their influence in the coming year,” he told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in a written statement.

“Although some countries have made progress towards democratic rule, most are experiencing uncertainty, violence, and political backsliding. The toppling of leaders and weakening of regimes have also unleashed destabilizing ethnic and sectarian rivalries.”

Clapper said the transitions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, and unrest in Syria and Mali had offered opportunities for terrorists to target American interests.

Read more from this story HERE.

Why China’s Property Market Is Getting Scary

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Worries that China’s home market is over heating are spreading beyond mainland policymakers — who recently unveiled a slew of cooling measures — with key industry players including the head of the country’s largest real estate developer warning of huge risks in the sector.

Wang Shi, CEO of Vanke said on the CBS News’ “60 Minutes” show over the weekend that China’s property sector was already in a bubble state.

China has seen a boom in the property sector recently, with some cities seeing a 10-fold increase in prices, that have driven the average home buyer out of the market. According to estimates, the cost of a home in Shanghai would be around 45 times the average resident’s annual salary.

Shi added that if the property bubble were to burst, it would be a “disaster,” with a plunge in home prices sparking an “Arab Spring” type social unrest.

Real estate is among the most popular investment vehicles in the country, given volatility in the domestic equity markets, so a steep decline in prices would impact millions of local investors.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin Orchestrated The Arab Spring? (+video)

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photo credit: ak rockefellerBy most accounts, the Arab Spring went horribly wrong. The democratic elections that swept away dictators—for the most part friendly to the United States—have produced Islamic totalitarian government.

Mohammed Morsi, president of Egypt, is probably the example par excellence. He quickly nullified the constitution, neutered the judiciary, shut down any media that was critical of his government—branded as critical of Allah—and set up a macabre torture chamber.

Barack Obama, who championed this Arab Spring and even helped the Arab Spring along by arming and supporting the Libyan “rebels” (who were for the most part linked to Al Qaeda), apparently didn’t see this coming.

But Barack Obama is only human. He didn’t envision, like many others, that the people throughout the Middle East and North Africa would elect totalitarian Islamists that would become the Unites States’ enemy, right?

Although it is odd that Obama has embraced Mohammed Morsi with open arms. Mohammed Morsi is part of an organization—the Muslim Brotherhood—that has vowed to destroy the United States.

Read more from this story HERE.

Airstrike Embroils Israel in Syrian Conflict

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Photo Credit: muffinnJERUSALEM — With the attack in Syria, Israel took its first overt military step into the “Arab Spring” unrest that has destabilized its neighbors and left Israelis feeling more vulnerable than they have in decades.

Israel’s goal was apparently to deny sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, and may not have been intended to stir the pot in Syria. But whether by intent or circumstance, Israel has inserted itself into a civil war that thus far had very little to do with it — and which other Western nations, including the U.S., have kept at arm’s length out of concern that military engagement could only make things worse.

“Until now, Israel avoided becoming involved in this quagmire in Syria,” said Moshe Maoz, a former government security advisor and a Syria expert at Hebrew University. “Now this may be the first sign that Israel has decided to escalate actions to cause [President Bashar] Assad’s downfall.”

Other analysts disagreed that Israel was intending to undermine Assad, especially since any successor to the Syrian leader could prove to be even more hostile. Still, the Syria strike may signal a new willingness by Israel to intervene in the region’s problems.

Israel has not confirmed or denied the reported attack, which took place early Wednesday. News accounts based on anonymous sources from the United States and elsewhere suggested that Israeli fighters struck a military convoy with weapons destined for Hezbollah, which is closely allied with Damascus. The arms were said to include Russian SA-17 antiaircraft missiles, which could significantly boost Hezbollah’s defensive capabilities.

Read more from this story HERE

Egypt Cements Ties with Hezbollah

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WASHINGTON – Reports from Beirut suggest Egypt will seek to increase ties with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin documents.

According to Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon, Ashraf Hamdy, the new Muslim Brotherhood-backed Egyptian government intends to build “tight” relations with the resistance group, which the United States, Israel and Canada regard as a terrorist organization.

Hamdy said the Egyptian government was “stretching out its hand” to its neighbors to further its influence in the region.

“You cannot discuss politics in Lebanon without having a relationship with Hezbollah,” Hamdy said. “It is a real force on the ground. It has a big political and military influence in Lebanon.”

This change in policy stands in stark contrast to the severe strain in relations between Hezbollah and the Egyptian government under ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Read more from this story HERE.

Horrific Footage Shows ‘Syrian Rebels’ Forcing Boy to Behead Captive with Sword

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It is perhaps the most disturbing piece of video footage to emerge out of the Syrian crisis to date.

A young boy is egged on by a group of older men, believed to be rebel fighters, and filmed hacking the head off a man who is lying on the ground. An older man is then seen picking up the head before placing it on top of the body like a macabre trophy. In the background militants can be heard chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’, or ‘God is great’.

The victim appears to be dead before the gruesome act begins as he is lying flat and unmoving with his head resting on a cinderblock.

The clip is one of thousands of graphic videos that have been uploaded onto the internet purporting to show the horrors of the ongoing conflict in Syria. Several videos allegedly to show Syrian rebel fighters carrying out summary executions on captured government soldiers or suspected informants have attracted strong criticism. Others show the dead bodies of dozens of civilians said to have been killed in Government attacks. It is impossible to verify if the footage is real.

The emergence of this latest clip comes just as Washington is said to have begun a secret operation to arm the Syrian rebel fighters following reports of movements at Syria’s chemical weapons sites.

Read more from this story HERE.

Welcome to the Arab Spring: Tunisian Woman Raped by Police Faces Jail for Indecent Exposure

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Tunisia’s minister for women has condemned the alleged rape by police of a woman who was later – together with her fiance – charged with indecency.

“Nobody is above the law,” the minister, Sihem Badi, told reporters.

A lawyer for the woman says she was charged with public indecency after being raped by two officers.

The Tunisian interior ministry says that before the alleged rape took place, the woman and her fiance were found in an “immoral position”.

The woman’s lawyer, Bouchra Belhaj Hmida, told AFP news agency that the governing Islamist Ennahda party bore a “political and moral responsibility”.

Obama’s “Bump in the Road” is Really a Pot Hole on the Highway to Hell

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In comments made during a CBS ’60 Minutes’ interview, Barack Obama described violent attacks on embassies in the Middle East and the murder of US ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, as “bumps in the road.”

When asked if recent events in the Middle East had changed his outlook on supporting the Arab Spring, Obama responded: “Well, I’d said even at the time that this is going to be a rocky path. The question presumes that somehow we could have stopped this wave of change. I think it was absolutely the right thing for us to do to align ourselves with democracy, universal right, a notion that people have to be able to participate in their own governance. But I was pretty certain and continue to be pretty certain that there are going to be bumps in the road because, you know, in a lot of these places, the one organizing principle has been Islam.”

A coordinated military maneuver, confirmed by the head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center as a terrorist attack, that employed rocket propelled grenades and other heavy weapons, which was launched on the anniversary on 9/11 against an American embassy that directly led to the death of four Americans, including an ambassador, is a “bump in the road”?

During the interview, Obama admitted that his campaign ads had made mistakes, but somehow, CBS News didn’t find that piece of information newsworthy enough to share with their viewers.

When asked if he was disturbed by fact checkers proving assertions in his ads were untrue, Obama responded: “Do we see sometimes us going overboard in our campaign, are there mistakes that are made, areas where there is no doubt somebody could dispute how we are presenting things? You know, that happens in politics.”

That happens in politics when a campaign cannot run on its record in office, is so desperate to win that it deems it necessary to employ every long used dirty “progressive” smear tactic and suffers from a severe shortage of ethics, morals and socially redeeming qualities.

Remember when the United States was unquestionably Israel’s strongest ally? Not anymore. According to Obama, Israel is merely “one of our closest allies in the region.”

Since his inauguration, Obama has attempted to appease the Islamist world with an “even-handed” approach. Now Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has serious doubts about American resolve to stand behind Israel.

For his part, Obama admitted to viewing Netanyahu’s requests for the U.S. to take a harder stance against Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as “noise” he must ignore when making American security decisions.

Is it sheer coincidence that the exact same word was used to describe Israel by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? “I have spoken about this topic at length, previously. We generally speaking do not take very seriously the issue of the Zionists and the possible dangers emanating from them. Of course they would love to find a way for their own salvation by making a lot of noise and to raise stakes in order to save themselves. But I do not believe they will succeed. Iran is also a very well recognized country and her defensive powers are very clear.”

Is this any way for America to conduct foreign policy? Does having cities in twenty different countries descend into weeks of anti-American violence and murder sound like a “bump in the road” or more like just cause for alarm? Does treating long-time ally Israel like they are simply “one of our closest allies in the region” sound like a recipe for successfully enlisting new allies in the future? Is this what Americans view as making America safer? Is this what Americans see as elevating America’s standing in the world view?

Is it accidental that a large number of Americans who are currently engaged in early voting are oblivious to this information?

I think we can all agree that America deserves much better than this.

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/