Skip to main content

Home/ History Readings/ Group items matching "Extremists" in title, tags, annotations or url

Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url

Sort By: Relevance | Date Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
maddieireland334

Boko Haram Falls Victim to a Food Crisis It Created - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...boko-haram-food-crisis.html

Boko Haram crisis Nigeria UN

shared by maddieireland334 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • At first, the attack had all the hallmarks of a typical Boko Haram assault. Armed fighters stormed a town on the border with Nigeria, shooting every man they saw.
  • Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group terrorizing this part of the world, is on the hunt — for food.
  • After rampaging across the region for years, forcing more than two million people to flee their homes and farms, Boko Haram appears to be falling victim to a major food crisis of its own creation.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Across parts of northeastern Nigeria and border regions like the Far North, trade has come to a halt and tens of thousands of people are on the brink of famine, United Nations officials say
  • The hunt for food appears to be part of what is pushing Boko Haram deeper into Cameroon, according to an American State Department review of attacks in the first few weeks of this year.
  • A military campaign by Nigeria and its neighbors has chased fighters from villages they once controlled. Now, officials contend, the militants are left to scrounge for food in the sparse Sambisa Forest during the dry season, or go out raiding for whatever they can find.
  • But while some elements of Boko Haram may be battered, fighters still manage to carry out devastating attacks, the results of which are on full display at the hospital in Maroua, the capital of the Far North. Shrapnel and burn victims from recent attacks across various towns recuperate together.
  • Recent joint operations by the Cameroonian and Nigerian militaries have captured and killed numerous fighters and seized suicide belts, weapons and equipment for making mines. Officials hope to squeeze the fighters from both sides of the border so they have nowhere left to run.
  • The mass displacement caused by Boko Haram — and by the sometimes indiscriminate military campaign to defeat it — has left 1.4 million people in the region without adequate food supplies, the United Nations says.
  • In the Far North of Cameroon, this time of year is a moonscape of bone-dry river beds and clouds of dust so thick they look like misty fog. The region is moving into the so-called lean season, the in-between months when the fruits of the previous harvest are being depleted and next year’s crop is not yet ready.
  • Despite the influx of new people, officials closed the town’s market out of fear that it would be attacked. Boko Haram had struck a satellite village just days before. Residents now worry that the market will remain shut for weeks.
  • The food crisis is part of broader economic devastation in the area, adding to the burdens on Cameroon at a time when it is hosting thousands of refugees fleeing a religious war in nearby Central African Republic.
  • Even a religious leader who attends births and marriages in the Minawao Refugee Camp said the refugees needed to go home.
  • The United Nations accused Cameroon of sending tens of thousands of refugees back to Nigeria at the end of last year. The government has since said it would involve the United Nations in any plans involving the refugees’ return.
  • Tourism has plummeted in Cameroon, which has such diverse ecosystems and a range of wildlife that it refers to itself as Little Africa. Guides who once led visitors to see lions and elephants in Waza National Park in the north now scrape by with occasional work building new homes in the Minawao Refugee Camp
maddieireland334

Egypt's Parliament Expels Lawmaker Who Dined With Israel's Ambassador - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...d-with-israels-ambassador.html

Egypt Israel relations

shared by maddieireland334 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Egypt’s Parliament on Wednesday expelled a well-known television personality turned lawmaker over a dinner he had with the Israeli ambassador — a vote that exposed a raw nerve in the mostly tranquil relationship between the two countries.
  • Although Egypt and Israel enjoy close security cooperation, particularly in the struggle against Islamist extremists in Sinai, many Egyptians view Israel with hostility over its policies toward the Palestinians, and public interactions with Israeli officials are considered taboo.
  • That fear, he said, has its basis in a conspiracy theory: that Israel has secretly been helping Ethiopia build the dam as a means of hurting Egyptian interests.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Afterward, the speaker of Parliament, Ali Abdel-Al, said that Egypt respected all of its diplomatic commitments, including those with Israel, and that Mr. Okasha had been punished for meeting a foreign diplomat without permission.
  • After the shoe-throwing episode, Mr. Koren told Israel’s Channel 10 television in a telephone interview that he had spoken with Mr. Okasha, who assured him that he was undeterred.
  • Mr. Koren noted that he had met with Mr. Sisi and other Egyptian officials and that relations between the two countries were “very good.”
Javier E

Only Trump Can Trump Trump - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...nly-trump-can-trump-trump.html

demagogue 2016 election

shared by Javier E on 09 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Most voters do not listen through their ears. They listen through their stomachs. If a leader can connect with them on a gut level, their response is: “Don’t bother me with the details. I trust your instincts.”
  • Trump’s Republican rivals keep thinking that if they just point out a few more details about him, voters will drop The Donald and turn to one of them instead. But you can’t talk voters out of something that they haven’t been talked into.
  • G.O.P. elites sold their own souls and their party so many times to charlatans and plutocrats that you wonder when it’s going to show up on closeout on eBay: “For sale: The G.O.P. soul. Almost empty. This soul was previously sold to Sarah Palin, the Tea Party anarchists, Rush Limbaugh, Grover Norquist, the gun lobby, the oil industry, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and Fox News. Will bargain. No offer too low.”
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Normally smart people, like Mitt Romney, discarded all their best instincts to suck up to this ragtag assortment of self-appointed G.O.P. commissars, each representing a different slice of what came to be Republican orthodoxy — climate change is a hoax; abortion, even in the case of rape or incest, is impermissible; even common-sense gun laws must be opposed, no matter how many kids get murdered; taxes must always be cut and safety nets shrunk, no matter what the economic context; Obamacare must be destroyed, even though it was based on a Republican idea; and Iraq was a success even though it was a mess.
  • Democrats take Trump lightly at their peril. He is still sitting with three aces that he hasn’t played yet. They could all come out in the general election.
  • One ace is that if he wins the nomination he will have no problem moving to the center to appeal to independents and minorities.
  • His second ace is that given the position he staked out on terrorism, if, God forbid, there is a major terrorist attack on our soil between now and Election Day, Trump will reap enormous political benefits.
  • His third ace is that he will indeed go after Hillary Clinton in ways you never heard before and that will delight and bring back a lot of disaffected Republicans, whose hatred of Hillary knows no bounds.
  • the only good thing about extremists is that they don’t know when to stop — and in the end, they often do themselves in
  • Trump’s other joker is that among those attracted to his gut are racists and fascists with a taste for violence at his rallies. One day they may go too far
redavistinnell

Vladimir Putin's New York Times op-ed, annotated and fact-checked - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...-ed-annotated-and-fact-checked

putin new york new york times politics history crisis culture

shared by redavistinnell on 23 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Vladimir Putin’s New York Times op-ed, annotated and fact-checked
  • It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.
  • Putin here is implicitly defending Russia's right to use its veto to block the United Nations from any action on Syria, including simple press releases condemning the use of chemical weapons.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • After World War II, getting the world's five remaining great powers (the United States, United Kingdom, France, China and the Soviet Union) to consent to this newfangled United Nations system required granting them veto power so they'd be comfortable with it
  • Putin has also been supplying Assad with heavy weapons. It's a bit rich for him to decry violence or outside involvement at this point.
  • Many of his points are defensible and have been made by American analysts, such as the risk to U.S.-Iran negotiations and the fear that strikes would exacerbate extremism
  • But what rankles many analysts about this paragraph is that it ignores Putin's own role in enabling the already quite awful violence, as well as the extremism it's inspired.
  • If the United Nations can survive the unilateral Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. intervention in Vietnam, among many other wars large and small, it will survive cruise missile strikes on Syria.
  • There is no one in the world better positioned than Vladimir Putin to force Assad to the negotiating table. Instead, Putin has shown every indication that he wishes for Assad to defeat the rebels totally and outright, as his father Hafez al-Assad did in 1982 when he crushed an uprising in Hama.
  • Still, the concern about Syria breeding extremist violence is likely an earnest one for Putin, who surely knows that some Chechens have been fighting in Syria and could very plausibly cause trouble back home in Russia.
  • Russia has blocked the United Nations from simply condemning Assad's attacks on civilians or the use of chemical weapons in Syria, much less taking action to punish or stop those crimes.
  • and a real dilemma for Obama, given that he is attempting to portray strikes against Syria as meant to uphold international law against the use of chemical weapons.
  • An investigation by Human Rights Watch pointed to the Assad regime as responsible. The United Nations investigation, while not permitted to formally assign blame, is expected to amass lots of evidence indicating Assad regime responsibility -- a story that broke mere minutes after Putin's op-ed went online.
  • utin knows the memory of Iraq is weighing heavily on the United States right now and wants to r
  • emind us why. Russia, for its part, vehemently opposes Western intervention in foreign countries, which it sees as a continuation of Western imperialism and an indirect threat to Russia itself.
  • Let's follow through on the Russian plan to have Syria give up its chemical weapons in exchange for the United States not attacking. And Obama is clearly interested.
  • "American exceptionalism" is a complicated idea but it basically boils down to a combination of simple nationalism and a belief that the United States can and should play a special role in shaping the world.
  • Putin's Russia has obviously lost the ability to play the role of a superpower, but he still cultivates a sense of nationalism and national greatness.
  • It's a reminder to American readers that Russia is a predominantly Christian nation. And it could also be, as World Politics Review editor Matt Peterson pointed out to me, an implicit argument for sovereignty, that all nations are equal and so no one country should go interfering with another.
katyshannon

Mali hotel attack: 10 dead in Radisson Blu; attackers still inside, army says - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

mali hotel army cnn crisis death terrorist

shared by katyshannon on 20 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Assailants with guns blazing attacked a hotel hosting diplomats and others in Mali's capital on Friday morning, leaving at least 10 people dead and trapping dozens in the building for hours, officials in the West African nation said
  • Malian and U.N. security forces launched a counterattack at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako and escorted guests out. By late Friday afternoon, no hostages were believed to remain in the building, though attackers still were inside, Malian army Col. Mamadou Coulibaly told reporters.
  • At least 10 bodies have been found in a hall of the hotel, Coulibaly said. At least six people injured in the attack have been hospitalized
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The assault began around 7 a.m., when two or three attackers with AK-47 rifles exited at least one vehicle with diplomatic plates and entered the hotel with guns firing, said Olivier Saldago, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali.The attack, Saldago said, came as the hotel hosted diplomatic delegations working on a peace process in the landlocked country, a former French colony that has been battling Islamist extremists with the help of U.N. and French forces.The Radisson chain said that as many as 170 people -- 140 guests and 30 employees -- had been there as the attack began.
lenaurick

Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin huddle in wake of Paris attacks - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

barack obama putin paris attacks politics US crisis obama syria

shared by lenaurick on 07 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Later an Obama aide said the two men appeared to reach an agreement on political path forward in Syria --
  • "The killing of innocent people based on a twisted ideology is an attack not just on France, not just on Turkey, it is an attack on the civilized world,"
  • Obama said, adding later that he and Erdoğan discussed ways to fortify Turkey's border with Syria and a strategy for addressing the refugee crisis.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • He said airstrikes could be scaled up, as well as targeting of ISIS leadership
  • In a meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his French counterpart, the men "agreed concrete steps the U.S. and French militaries should take to further intensify our close cooperation in prosecuting a sustained campaign against ISIL," according to a Pentagon statement.
  • "We don't believe U.S. troops are the answer to the problem," Rhodes said.
  • the White House is still not considering a ground combat role for U.S. forces in Iraq or Syria.
  • Turkey has been pressing the U.S. to help establish and enforce a no-fly-zone or "safe zone" at its border with Syria, and Sunday's meeting between Obama and Erdogan led to speculation that that might be an upcoming change in policy.
  • White House official said the two men "agreed on the need for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition, which would be proceeded by UN-mediated negotiations between the Syrian opposition and regime as well a ceasefire."
  • But the deadly Paris attacks, paired with the recent downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and bomb attacks in Beirut this week, illustrate the continued extremist threat.
  • authorities arrested 20 suspected ISIS members in the town last week.
Megan Flanagan

Paris teacher stabbed by masked man who yelled support for ISIS - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by Megan Flanagan on 14 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • A masked man yelled support for ISIS as he stabbed a French kindergarten teacher in the throat Monday morning,
  • eacher, who is hospitalized with nonlife-threatening injuries, was in class in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers when the man attacked
  • the unarmed attacker had on a balaclava, and used a sharp item found in class to slash the teacher
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • "This is a warning, this is only the beginning," the attacker said, according to a statement from Bobigny district prosecutor's office.
  • France remains under a state of emergency following last month's Islamist extremists attacks that left 130 people dead in Paris.
  • ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks
  • Francois Hollande vowed to destroy the terror group and intensify an international military campaign against ISIS territory in Syria and Iraq.
anonymous

Obama says U.S. hitting Islamic State 'harder than ever' - LA Times - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...a-pentagon-20151214-story.html

u s history ISIS

shared by anonymous on 15 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • “harder than ever”
  • not waged a “single successful major offensive operation”
  • acknowledged that progress needs to come faster, and said diplomatic efforts are just as critical in seeking to end the 5-year-old civil war in Syria that has complicated the fight there.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • In November, the U.S. dropped more bombs on Islamic State targets than in any other month, while U.S. forces working with local partners have taken out senior leaders of the extremist group, also called ISIL or ISIS.
  • our next message to them is simple: you are next,” Obama said.
  • losing up to 40% of its footprint in Iraq and thousands of square miles in Syria.
  • deploy about 100 more special operations troops to Iraq
  • move came weeks after the military said fewer than 50 U.S. special operators would be sent to Kurdish-controlled areas in northeastern Syria to advise vet Syrian and Kurdish rebel groups.
  • The army has been unable to break through hundreds of booby traps and other defenses built by a small force of Islamic State fighters holed up in the city, about 60 miles west of Baghdad
  • American fighter jets and drones take off daily from the Incirlik air base on bombing runs against Islamic State
lenaurick

Geneva terrorism arrests: - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

geneva terrorism crisis

shared by lenaurick on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Swiss police have arrested two people and found traces of explosives in a car as security remains high around Geneva amid a terrorism alert
  • They were arrested on suspicion of the manufacture, concealment and transport of explosives or toxic gases, as well as on suspicion of violating the prohibition of groups such as al Qaida, ISIS and similar organizations.
  • The Swiss alert came after a tip from U.S. intelligence officials, who told their Swiss counterparts that they had intercepted communications among extremists discussing the idea of attacking Geneva, as well as Chicago and Toronto,
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "the possibility of the presence of an Islamic State [ISIS] terror cell in Geneva."
mcginnisca

We Talked to One of the World Trade Center Bombers About ISIS and Mass Shootings | VICE | United States - 1 views

www.vice.com/...lamic-state-and-mass-shootings

world trade center US politics history ISIS terrorism

shared by mcginnisca on 08 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Eyad Ismoil is one of the half-dozen men convicted for carrying out the World Trade Center bombings in 1993
  • sentenced to 240 years in prison for driving a rental van packed with a bomb into a garage, killing six and injuring about 1000 more
  • for someone who's supposed to "hate the infidels," he shows no signs of loathing towards the many prisoners and staff who openly despise him.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • when I first asked Ismoil about ISIS after the Paris attacks, he asked me one question back: "Why do you think they did it?" I responded with the only thing I knew: "They hate us."
  • He said that to resolve the conflicts between extremists in the Middle East and the West, it was important to talk "human to human," but he also made it clear that he empathizes at least somewhat with the Islamic State. Unsurprisingly, many of his views would be considered appalling to the vast majority of Americans, but our conversation gave me a window into the worldview of people who think the US is to blame for terrorism.
  • So, the question should be who is the first to be blamed? Tell both sides of the story.
  • You don't have to recruit people for ISIS. They're Muslims from all over the world that have seen an injustice after 25 years and want to help their brothers. What you have to understand is the Iraqi people are the most stubborn of the Muslim world. They won't accept occupation or humiliation.
  • People over in America ask why ISIS did this. [But] people in the Middle East ask, "Why is the US doing this to us?" Put yourself in their shoes—France is dropping bombs for a year in Iraq and [more recently] Syria, destroying everything, women, children, buildings... A bomb doesn't discriminate between ISIS or women and children—it just destroys.
  • Imagine the Iraq and Syrian people. After a year of bombing, you see your people killed, land destroyed, children scared to do anything more than hide in the corners all day. All this coming from bombs in the sky and you can't stop it. What would you do?
  • ISIS is not jihadists recruited from all over to fight. They are the Sunni Muslims that have lived through 25 years of wars, torture, and rapes. They are the Iraqi and Syrian people that have suffered from unjust wars started by the US government. And when the US government [mostly pulled out of] Iraq in 2010, the Shia and Maliki government started killing the Sunni day and night under the watch of the Americans.
  • My religion prohibits attacks on civilians. Unfortunately, many Muslims don't know much about Islam
  • What about the Planned Parenthood attack?What this man did is worse then what the doctors do. If this is what he's angry at, taking life, he did worse. Islam doesn't believe in abortion—all life is precious....[But] what he did was kill adult people who are grown. How is he trying to solve the issue?
  • For every action, there's a reaction. If you throw a ball against a wall, it's going to come back at you. If you throw a ball hard, it's going to come back at you hard. This is the problem with all sides in these wars. We hit you, you hit back. We hit you hard, you hit back harder. Back and forth, back and forth. Nobody wins. Both sides end up with death and destruction.
  • To solve the problem from the root, everyone has to become human. They need to talk, human to human. Let the people decide what they want. Leave them alone. Everyone can come together and say enough is enough. How long are we going to keep this action up? For the rest of our lives?It's the law of the jungle that we're living in right now. We were given more sense than this. We walk on two legs, with our heads high. But right now, we are walking with our heads down. We need to lift our heads up, and use the brains God created for us.
  • The only thing that keeps us just is Islam. Because in Islam, the peace, the justice, comes from the sky. The one who created earth and man, he knows best.
  • The Arabs are not radicalizing themselves. Your government action is radicalizing the Arabs
  • "hate the infidels,"
katyshannon

Connecticut to Ban Gun Sales to Those on Federal Terrorism Lists - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...n-federal-terrorism-lists.html

ban gun sales federal terrorism lists new york times politics us crisis

shared by katyshannon on 11 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • “Like all Americans, I have been horrified by the recent terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris,” Mr. Malloy, a Democrat, told reporters. “This should be a wake-up call to all of us. This is a moment to seize in America, and today I’m here to say that we in Connecticut are seizing it.”
  • Connecticut to Ban Gun Sales to Those on Federal Terrorism Lists
  • While Democrats in Congress have been calling almost daily for a fix to the so-called watch list loophole, Republicans have succeeded in defeating measures that would prevent people on the lists from buying guns. Democrats say they intend to keep pushing the issue, and on Thursday the House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, introduced a motion demanding a vote to restrict the sale of guns from anyone on a federal terrorism watch list. House Republicans swiftly shelved it.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • “What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semiautomatic weapon?” Mr. Obama said. “This is a matter of national security.”
  • “Seems to me that the greatest importance of this is to get the ball rolling so more people follow, and ideally the federal government,” Mr. Webster said. “I suspect more states will do this.”
  • own a gun.
  • Connecticut has passed some of the strictest gun laws in the country, including measures enacted after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, when a gunman killed 20 schoolchildren and six staff members before killing himself.
  • The National Rifle Association “does not want terrorists or dangerous people to have access to weapons,” said Jennifer Baker, a spokeswoman for the organization’s lobbying arm. “But this is a constitutional issue,” she said, adding that mere suspicion should not be enough to take away the righ
  • The no-fly list is a subset of the watch list.
  • Correction: December 10, 2015 An earlier version of this article, using information from state officials, erroneously attributed a distinction to the proposed measure in Connecticut. It would not be the first such law in the nation; at least one other state has such a ban.
  • “These are everyday Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican candidate for president, told CNN. “They wind up on the no-fly list, there’s no due process or any way to get your name removed from it in a timely fashion, and now they’re having their Second Amendment rights being impeded upon.”
  • Abe Mashal, a former Marine and a Muslim of mixed Palestinian-Italian background who lives in the Chicago area, was on the no-fly list until last year, for reasons he said were still a mystery to him.
  • “Never had any trouble with that,” he said of the gun purchase.
  • Since 2004, there have been 2,233 people who, like Mr. Mashal, landed on the government’s no-fly list because of terrorism suspicions and applied to buy a gun, according to a recent review of F.B.I. data by the Government Accountability Office.
  • But only rarely are legal reasons found to prohibit the sale, according to federal auditors. Since the F.B.I. began tracking the data, only 190 gun sales to people on the list — or 8.5 percent of all the attempted sales — have been blocked for other reasons, including mental illness or criminal convictions, auditors found.
  • But Democrats say increased fears of domestic terrorism stoked by the recent gun attacks in San Bernardino and in Paris are reason enough to stop people on a watch list from being able to buy a gun.
  • Mr. Malloy has lobbied federal lawmakers on the issue. “I have previously written to Congress on this matter,” he said. “But inaction is not an option. So here in Connecticut, we are acting.
  • The federal government’s terrorism watch list is a database maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, an arm of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
  • “Like all Americans, I have been horrified by the recent terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris,” Mr. Malloy, a Democrat, told reporters. “This should be a wake-up call to all of us. This is a moment to seize in America, and today I’m here to say that we in Connecticut are seizing it.”
  • With his decision, Mr. Malloy has stepped into a fiery debate that has stretched from the Oval Office to the contest to become its next occupant: Should being a terrorism suspect prohibit a person from buying firearms? At the moment, it does not.
  • With the mass shooting in California last week focusing attention on terrorism and guns, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut announced on Thursday that he intended to sign an executive order barring people on federal terrorism watch lists from buying firearms in the state.
  • President Obama has moved it to the front of his continuing push for stricter gun restrictions. “Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun,” he said in
  • While Democrats in Congress have been calling almost daily for a fix to the so-called watch list loophole, Republicans have succeeded in defeating measures that would prevent people on the lists from buying guns. Democrats say they intend to keep pushing the issue, and on Thursday the House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, introduced a motion demanding a vote to restrict the sale of guns from anyone on a federal terrorism watch list. House Republicans swiftly shelved it.
  • What some critics have called a startling gap in the law has gnawed at counterterrorism officials for years. But it has now emerged as a flash point following the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., in which a married couple who the authorities believe were inspired by foreign extremists killed 14 people using legally obtained firearms.
  • But the argument, gun rights advocates say, is a matter of due process. They say that the no-fly list — with tens of thousands of names on it — is unreliable, with innocent people like Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts senator who died in 2009, and other well-known Americans wrongly placed on the list.
  • While federal gun control legislation has gone nowhere in recent years, certain states have had more success. Connecticut has passed some of the strictest gun laws in the country, including measures enacted after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, when a gunman killed 20 schoolchildren and six staff members before killing himself.
  • Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said it was unclear what the practical implications of Connecticut’s proposed ban would be in stopping someone who is determined to carry out an act of terrorism. That person could simply travel to another state.
horowitzza

France Votes to Keep Up ISIS Air War - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...s-to-keep-up-isis-air-war.html

france votes keep air war ISIS

shared by horowitzza on 26 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • ontinue airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State, the group that claimed responsibility for the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130 people in the Paris area
  • ermany’s chancellor said her country would do more in the global fight against the group.
  • s joined the American-led coalition against extremists of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL
Megan Flanagan

Teaching resumes at Kenya's Garissa University - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics teaching kenya

shared by Megan Flanagan on 12 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • dormitory where the attackers went room to room killing students has since been renamed.
  • police station has been set up at the school and security presence has upped from four officers to 30.
  • Classes resume Monday at Garissa University College, nine months after the school experienced one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks Kenyan soil.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • separated Muslims and shot Christians to death
  • dead students lay in rows, others shot in the back of the head.
  • students are still haunted by the massacre and one wonders if it is not too soon for classes to restart.
  • attending early morning prayers when Al Shabaab militants threw a grenade into the room and sprayed the room with bullets
  • murder 148 people, the worst terrorist attack in Kenya since the 1998 embassy bombings.
  • And while she received money from the government and the college, she is still struggling to pay medical bills along with her school fees at her new university
  • "Those of us who lived. We still have not healed," she says.
  • Across the country, there have been efforts to improve school security
  • no escaping the atmosphere of fear the attacks have created
  • The Islamist extremist group is based in Somalia, but it hasn't confined its terrorism to the nation that shares a border with Kenya
  • militants have vowed to continue with attacks until Kenya withdraws troops from neighboring Somalia, where they are helping fight the terror group.
  • If we closed the school then Al Shabaab would have won because they would have shut down a center of higher learning,"
Megan Flanagan

San Bernardino Couple Spoke of Attacks in 2013, F.B.I. Says - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...n-bernardino-massacre-fbi.html

crisis US politics attack

shared by Megan Flanagan on 14 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • had been radicalized before their marriage, and the husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, might have plotted an attack as far back as 2012 with one of his longtime frie
  • were considering violent action before the Islamic State rose to prominence in 2014 and began trying to inspire sympathizers to carry out attacks in the West.
  • two killers were starting to radicalize towards martyrdom and jihad as early as 2013
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • F.B.I. still believed that the couple had been inspired by foreign extremist groups but that it had not found evidence the husband and wife team was ordered to attack by the Islamic State or any other group.
  • two assault rifles used in last week’s attack on county public health workers in San Bernardino, has told the authorities that in 2012 he and Mr. Farook had plans for an attack at that time
  • Because he provided two of the four weapons used by the attackers, some investigators have questioned his credibility, thinking that he might exaggerate what he knows about the couple to win favor with the authorities
  • Mr. Marquez is said to have mental health issues
  • he checked himself into a mental health facility in California
  • had radicalized at least as far back as two years ago.
  • investigation to date shows that they were radicalized before they started courting or dating each other online.”
  • the couple may have decided to commit terrorism in the name of the Islamic State late in the planning process
  • if in the context or in the process of the review we find things that we can do, we’re not going to wait for the review to be complete before we make the changes.”
  • “we’re going to keep an open mind about the program going forward and make whatever changes we need to make.”
  • spent the previous three or so years living with her mother at the family home in the southern Pakistani city of Multan, where she obtained a degree in pharmacology from the city’s largest university, and studied part-time at an Islamic center for women that teaches a literalist version of the Quran.
  • the couple had not finished building at least some of the dozen pipe bombs that were found in their home, leading investigators to believe they had a much larger attack planned for the future
  • While officials do not believe these people were involved in the massacre, the connections have suggested to investigators that Mr. Farook was associating with like-minded people.
Javier E

David Frum Responds to Liberal Critics of His Cover Story on Trump and the GOP, "The Great Republican Revolt" - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...423387

GOP reform populism

shared by Javier E on 09 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Ethnic and racial resentment are always with us. The Donald Trump candidacy is like nothing American politics has seen since 1945.
  • Trump has become more inflammatory as he has campaigned, and has only risen in the polls as a result. What’s changed?
  • The United States—and other developed countries too—are becoming rapidly more ethnically diverse at the same time as they are becoming more economically insecure.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Many old-stock inhabitants see immigrants not only as competitors for jobs, but also as rival claimants on government resources.
  • These voters have turned to Trump because no other political actor offers them anything at all.
  • to condemn the concerns themselves as mere bigotry is to deny some important truths about American life in the 21st century. Immigrants really do compete with natives. Sometimes they displace them. Immigration has costs as well as benefits, and those costs fall more heavily on those who are already losing ground.
  • As in Europe, as in America: the refusal of responsible leaders to address real and important voter concerns does not banish those concerns: it only opens the door to extremists and demagogues who will promise to address issues that the mainstream won’t acknowledge.
  • if 2015 has a political message for Republicans, it is that the rank-and-file of the party does not think that the “Republican reform” agenda as advanced by the GOP’s internal policy elite goes anything like far enough.
  • Republicans have spent half a decade talking about the need to develop new ideas at some point in the future. And it is ideas that are needed—plans that might make a difference—not mere messaging exercises. If nothing else, the Jeb Bush campaign should mark the limits of the post 2012 strategy that you can rebrand the Republican pizza while making no changes to the recipe
qkirkpatrick

Donald Trump May Not Be a Fascist, But He Is Leading Us Merrily Down That Path | David Neiwert - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...e-a-fascist-but_b_8973768.html

donald trump history culture politics US

shared by qkirkpatrick on 16 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • People who have studied the extremist right as a historical and sociopolitical phenomenon in depth are acutely aware of a simple truth: America has been very, very lucky so far when it comes to fascistic political movements.
  • Fascistic elements and tendencies have always been part of America's DNA. Indeed, it can be said that some of the worst traits of fascism in Europe were borrowed from their American exemplars - particularly the eliminationist tendencies, manifested first in the form of racial and ethnic segregation, and ultimately in genocidal violence.
  • Hitler acknowledged at various times his admiration for the American genocide against Native Americans, as well as the segregationist policies of the Jim Crow regime in the South (on which the Nuremberg Race Laws were modeled) and the threat of the lynch mob embodied in the Ku Klux Klan. According to Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler was "passionately interested in the Ku Klux Klan. ... He seemed to think it was a political movement similar to his own." And indeed it was.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Those of us who study fascism not just as a historical phenomenon, but as a living and breathing phenomenon that has always previously maintained a kind of half-life on the fringes of the American right, have come to understand that it is both a complex and a simple phenomenon
  • In many ways, Trump's fascistic-seeming presidential campaign fills in many of the components of that complex constellation of traits that comprises real fascism. Perhaps the most significant of these is the one component that has been utterl
  • There is little doubt that Trump is tapping into fascistic sentiments, which is why so many observers are now beginning to finally use the word in describing Trump's campaign.
  • Eliminationist rhetoric is the backbone of Trump's appeal. His opening salvo in the campaign - the one that first skyrocketed him to the forefront in the race, poll-wise, and proved wildly popular with Republican voters - was his vow (and subsequent proposed program) to deport all 12 million of the United States' undocumented immigrants
Javier E

How Joko Widodo Responded to the ISIS Attacks in Jakarta - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...424242

terrorism international

shared by Javier E on 16 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • On Thursday, militants affiliated with ISIS set off a series of explosions in the Indonesian city of Jakarta, killing at least two civilians. The country’s president, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, responded in a remarkable way.
  • Three days after the rampage, the French president stood before Parliament and proclaimed that “France is at war.
  • “The people do not need to be afraid and should not be defeated by these terrorist acts,” he added. “I hope that people remain calm because it is all controllable.”
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • On Friday, as the authorities heightened security and anti-terror forces conducted raids, Jokowi visited the site of the attack and approvingly noted that things had returned to “normal.”
  • First, notice the subdued yet serious way Jokowi describes the impact of the attacks: They disrupted public security. They disturbed the peace. The government’s response is characterized as a policing matter.
  • He focuses on counteracting the primary goal of terrorism—to terrorize the broader population, to mess with people’s heads.
  • Then there’s what Jokowi omits: He does not declare that Indonesia is at war with the Islamic State, radical Islam, or terrorism. He does not suggest the future of Indonesia is at stake. He does not sound alarms.
  • “We condemn actions that disrupt public security and disturb the peace of the people and sow terror,” Mr. Joko said
  • Linger on Hollande’s words, and they become less reassuring than they first appear: France must destroy terrorism and its otherworldly practitioners, he seems to be saying, because otherwise terrorism could destroy the Republic and endanger the world.
  • But Indonesia arguably has as much to fear from such a terrorist attack as France does, if not more. Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, and ISIS is aggressively trying to recruit supporters there.
  • And yet Jokowi, a Muslim himself, advocates combining military might with a “soft approach” to Islamic extremism that leverages religious and cultural forces.
  • This involves working with moderate Islamic organizations in Indonesia on educational and public-awareness campaigns about Islam and the ways it can be perverted, and addressing socioeconomic sources of terrorism.
  • Asked about ISIS and how he’d assess the current terrorist threat in Indonesia, he responded, “I think [the threat is] more or less declining.” (Jokowi is more alarmist and hardline about other criminal activities in the country, such as drug trafficking.)
  • Mayor Joko Widodo told us that he continues to work on efforts to deradicalize militants and others in Solo. Widodo said he holds constant meetings with the Solo public to educate them on the threat posed by terrorists and extremists. (
  • Jokowi’s approach isn’t necessarily the “right” one, or the one he’d adopt if Indonesia were to experience an attack on the scale of Paris’s. But it serves as a reminder that there’s more than one way to respond to terrorism—that societal resilience can be emphasized just as much as military resolve, that the threat of terrorism can be scoped and contextualized alongside the various other threats a country faces.
sgardner35

The killing of Syria (Opinion) - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by sgardner35 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • The United Nations says 42,000 people in the area are at risk of starvation. And they make up only a fraction of the 400,000 in similar situations in other towns -- and millions more struggling in hard-to-reach areas -- because of the country's civil war, which is about to mark its five-year anniversary. Millions more Syrians have become refugees abroad.When a conflict lasts this long, when reports about the suffering it is inflicting become a relentless wave of depressing news, and when the forces at play are this complicated, many people are tempted to turn
  • The truth is that this war is not about to end anytime soon. It is a conflict in which the various sides are fighting for power, for territory, for sectarian advantage, for religion and ideology, but one in which no one seems to be fighting for the interests of the Syrian people themselves.Killing civilians, starving them, is a now common military tactic in the Syrian war.
  • The United Nations says it wants "unimpeded humanitarian access" to reach everyone who needs help in Syria. The latest word from the Assad regime is that it will allow food convoys. But pressure must be exerted so he keeps his word, and prevents the crisis from reoccurring here or elsewhere. One convoy, as we have already seen, does not end the siege.Assad has laid siege to other places before, notably Yarmouk, a Palestinian camp, and Eastern Ghouta, in the suburbs of Damascus. Yet for some reason the plight of the residents never seemed to reach the level of international concern expressed over fighting in Gaza or the actions of ISIS.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Just like the videos of children choking on chlorine gas, or of desperate relatives trying to dig their families from the rubble of homes demolished by Assad's barrel bombs, the images of starvation in Madaya are making their way across Syria and the Middle East. Those images are likely radicalizing the population, firing up emotions and creating pressure on other regimes to take action. They also add to the enmity between (pro-Assad, Shiite) Iran and (anti-Assad, Sunni) Saudi Arabia, fueling the fury that makes young men want to join violent sectarian groups, which in turn helps expand the ranks of extremist groups like ISIS.
  • is fueling the rage that keeps this conflict burning and growing. It is extreme human suffering that is helping to solidify a most extreme ideology, one filled with hatred and mistrust, one that is spilling out of Syria -- across the Middle East and into the streets of Paris and San Bernardino, California.
johnsonma23

ISIS steps up attacks far from its 'caliphate' - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

cnn Crisis attacks

shared by johnsonma23 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • ISIS steps up attacks far from its 'caliphate'
  • Istanbul, Jakarta, Philadelphia, multiple locations in Libya, the Russian republic of Dagestan: within the past two weeks all have been the target of attacks by ISIS supporters or affiliates, killing and wounding dozens of people.
  • Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is spreading its wings as it comes under greater pressure in its Iraqi-Syrian heartland
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Abu Bakr al Baghdad
  • rusader" countries and beyond.
  • indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets
  • , symbols of Western power or decadence
  • Beyond ISIS "branded" attacks -- those launched by affiliates and members -- ISIS also seeks to make political capital out of individuals who claim to be "inspired" by it, such as those in San Bernardino, California, in December and last week in Philadelphia.
  • stage of the investigation, there is no evidence accused gunman Edward Archer was part of an organized cell or that other attacks were in the works.
  • here is no doubting ISIS' lure to a fringe of extremist Muslims and Muslim converts
  • A year ago, ISIS was focused almost exclusively on carving out its self-declared caliphate. Overseas terror attacks in the style of al Qaeda did not appear high on the agenda
  • An early indication that ISIS' leadership favored overseas attacks came when the Belgian jihadist Abdelhamid Abaaoud -- a high-profile member of the group, if only a lieutenant -- plotted a series of gun and bomb attacks against police stations
  • "Know that we want Paris -- by Allah's permission -- before Rome and before Spain, after we blacken your lives and destroy the White House, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower."
  • the "caliph" himself, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, suggested ISIS will look for further opportunities to export its war to the "far abroad."
  • Throughout 2015, there was a steady stream of terror attacks that could be linked firmly to ISIS-associated groups, even if the relationship between them and the group's central leadership was often opaque
  • What, if any, role the central ISIS leadership had in the bombing of the Metrojet plane is still unknown. Its Sinai affiliate claimed the attack, and it was some time before the ISIS online publication Dabiq referred to it.
  • The suicide bomb attacks in Ankara were likely ordered by ISIS itself
  • The Paris attacks in November were a landmark: the first clearly organized and claimed by ISIS itself from Syria rather than the autonomous actions of affiliates or individuals.
  • t has a growing network of wilayat, or provinces -- places where it has an established presence such as Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan -- where government is weak and conflict endemic. In some instances it has sent fighters from Syria and Iraq to expand its presence in these places, most notably in Libya.
  • It also has a pool of experienced foreign fighters
  • The disappearance of one of the Paris attackers, Salah Abdeslam, and several alleged co-conspirators suggests ISIS may have a network of safe houses and travel facilitators in Europe
horowitzza

British Lawmakers Debate Banning Donald Trump From Entering United Kingdom - NBC News - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...ntering-united-kingdom-n499071

british debate donald trump banned

shared by horowitzza on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • British lawmakers on Monday engaged in a spirited debate about whether to ban Donald Trump from the U.K. over his remarks about Muslims
  • "His words are not comical, his words are not funny. His words are poisonous," said the Labour Party's Tulip Siddiq, who argued in support of a ban.
  • More than 500,000 people signed an online petition calling for Trump to be blocked for "hate speech" after he called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States in the wake of attacks by extremists.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • "We oppose Mr. Trump for demonizing his opponents. ... If we ban him from the country are we not in danger of doing the same?"
  • The government has the power to deny entry to people with criminal convictions or those whose presence is considered not "conducive to the public good."
  • horowitzza on 18 Jan 16
     
     British Lawmakers Debate Banning Donald Trump From Entering United Kingdom
« First ‹ Previous 161 - 180 of 333 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page