Frances Martel

Frances Martel - Page 217

Articles by Frances Martel

Turkish President Calls for More Trade in China amid Uyghur Tensions

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is currently in Beijing, where he met with President Xi Jinping on Wednesday and called for the expansion of bilateral trade. While Chinese state media attempted to make trade the center of the meeting, the international community watched for signs of tension between the two nations given Turkey’s support of China’s Uyghur minority.

NG HAN GUAN/AFP/Getty Images

Genocide, Starvation, LGBT Attacks take Backseat to Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe

Cecil, a 13-year-old lion that was, for many Zimbabweans, the sole source of pride in an otherwise hellish dictatorship, is dead. His death at the hands of an American dentist has done what the deaths of tens of thousands of Zimbabwean humans have failed to do since Robert Mugabe’s ascendance to head of state: get Americans to care about Zimbabwe.

The Associated Press

‘Largely Symbolic’ NATO Meeting Concludes with ‘Strong Solidarity’ with Turkey

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) issued a statement in “strong solidarity” with Turkey following that nation’s emergency meeting to address a new anti-terrorism campaign against the Islamic State and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has stretched out of Ankara as far as northern Iraq in less than a week.

AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert

Venezuela Runs Out of Birth Control

Venezuela’s socialist government has run the OPEC nation’s economy to the group, prompting shortages of goods as varied as toilet paper, coffin materials, beer, and water. The shortage has now hit pharmacies, with most pharmacies having completely run out of most forms of contraceptives, particularly birth control pills.

Frank May/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Report: ‘Faction’ of Boko Haram Approaches Nigeria for Peace Talks

A group of Boko Haram fighters has reportedly approached the Nigerian government requesting “peace talks,” hoping to trade in their weapons for some clemency from President Muhammadu Buhari, despite the group’s mass murder of thousands of Nigerians in village raids and suicide bombings.

Boko-Haran-Leader-AP

Gaddafi Son Sentenced to Death in Absentia, Rebels Don’t Trust Tripoli Will Kill Him

The Islamist government of Tripoli, one of two competing national governments in Libya, has sentenced Saif al-Gaddafi, son of slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi, to death. Few expect that sentence to be rendered, least of all the rebels that have kept Gaddafi in captivity and fear handing him over to be killed will only result in his escape.

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Not Just Syria: Turkey Launches Airstrikes Against Kurdish PKK in Iraq

The Turkish government announced at the end of last week that it would begin an airstrike campaign in Syria, in tandem with the United States, to create an “ISIL-free zone” in the war-torn nation, following an Islamic State bombing within Turkish territory. Turkey has rapidly expanded its operations to focus more on its Kurdish enemies than ISIS, with reports that Turkey is far outside the “ISIL-free zone” bombing Kurdish positions in Iraq.

Umit Bektas/Reuters

Reports: Turkey’s ‘Anti-ISIS’ Operation Bombing Kurdish Strongholds in Syria

The Syrian Kurdish YPG/YPJ–or People’s Protection Units–issued a statement on Monday condemning Turkish airstrikes on strategic Kurdish posts. The Turkish government announced a new campaign, accompanied by the United States, against the Islamic State in Syria, but the Kurds and anti-Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) Syrian militant claim they are the real targets of the campaign.

AP Photo

Iraqi Kurdish Leader Sides with Turkey Against ‘Arrogant’ PKK

The President of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, Masoud Barzani, has appeared to take the side of the Turkish government regarding recently launched airstrikes against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), calling the U.S.-designated terrorist group “arrogant” and praising Turkey for taking a “positive” role in attempting peace talks with the PKK.

SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images

Refugee Influx: Up 408% this Year so Far, Crushing the Greek Economy

As Greece struggles to regain some economic strength at it continues to negotiate a solution to its debt crisis with the European Union, the flood of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and other ravaged areas east of the Hellenic republic has continued unabated, threatening an economy that has for years been on the brink of disaster.

AP Photo

Victims of 1998 Al-Qaeda Embassy Bombing Protest Obama in Kenya

As Kenya gears up for President Barack Obama’s historic speech on Sunday in its capital, Nairobi, victims of the 1998 al-Qaeda bombing of the American embassy in that city are charging “neglect” on the part of both the American and Kenyan governments, and hoping their plights are addressed by the American head of state.

AP Photo/Ben Curtis

Expert Witness Uses Animation to Prove Argentine Prosecutor Nisman Was Murdered

The family of Alberto Nisman, a top Argentine prosecutor who was found dead of a bullet wound in his home the day before he was to testify against the President of Argentina before the nation’s legislature, claims there is evidence in the home that the shooter washed his hands in Nisman’s bathroom before leaving.

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Germans Unearth Long-Discarded Giant Lenin Head for Cold War Exhibit

A long-buried 3.5-ton head of Russian communist icon Vladimir Lenin has been unearthed from its burial place in a Berlin forest to be featured in a new exhibit on German sculptures, decades after Berlin’s residents toppled the statue following the fall of the Cold War.

DPA/AFP/File Andreas Altwein

Nigerian President: US Human Rights Law ‘Aided and Abetted’ Boko Haram

Speaking at the United States Institute for Peace during his trip to Washington, D.C., this week, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari accused the United States of unintentionally “aiding and abetting” Boko Haram by denying weapons support to the Nigerian military following accusations of human rights violations.

AFP / STRINGER

Pro-Iran Research Group: Turkish President’s Daughter Runs Secret ISIS Hospital

The Center for Research on Globalization, a Canada-based research group that claims to be “committed to curbing the tide of globalisation and disarming the new world order,” has released an alleged interview with a Turkish nurse who claims to have worked in a clandestine Turkish hospital for wounded ISIS jihadists run by the daughter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

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Uruguay Relaunches Syrian Refugee Program After Domestic Abuse Leads to Shutdown

The small Latin American nation of Uruguay has agreed to accept 72 Syrian refugees from Lebanon, relaunching a program for relocating refugees and giving them dramatically new lives that was shut down in part due to the government’s apprehension that Syrians were culturally incompatible with Uruguayans.

Reuters

Six Missing After Massive Crackdown on Human Rights Lawyers in China

After a mass roundup of hundreds of human rights attorneys and employees at a human rights law firm, reports suggest at least six individuals are unaccounted for, believed to have been taken into Chinese police custody for interrogation and, some fear, torture.

AFP PHOTO / ANTHONY WALLACE

Dr. Sebastian Gorka on Fox: It’s Time to Ditch the ‘Lone Wolf’ Jihadi Label

On Saturday, Breitbart National Security contributor and Major General Horner Chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University Dr. Sebastian Gorka told Fox News viewers that the key to defeating jihadism is to target it as an ideology. On Fox News today, Dr. Gorka expanded that concept, calling for law enforcement and media to “ditch” the “lone wolf” label, as it obscures the one thing that ties all independent American jihadists to each other: ideology.

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Will Obama Solve His Guantánamo Problem by Returning It to Cuba?

During Monday’s flag-raising ceremony at the newly reopened Cuba embassy in Washington, D.C., Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez made a point to note to reporters that the reestablishment of diplomatic relations would not be complete for the communist dictatorship without the “return” of the entire Guantánamo Bay military base to Cuban sovereignty.

guantanamo-bay-fence-AP

‘A Victory for Our People’: Communist Icons Take over D.C. for Cuban Flag Raising

The State Department has raised the Cuban flag over the new embassy in Washington, D.C. while the American embassy remains barren in Havana, though operating officially as an embassy. It released its first press release today as an official embassy and not the Office of American Interests. It will be run by interim head Jeffrey DeLaurentis as Congress gears up to oppose the appointment of any ambassador to the communist dictatorship so long as the Castro regime continues to flagrantly violate human rights.

Members of the media and onlookers watch the raising of the Cuban flag over their new emba

Report Claims ISIS Leader Commands Only ‘Initial Slitting’ Appear in Beheading Videos

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed “Caliph” of the terrorist group Islamic State, has reportedly issued an edict limiting the kind of graphic material that may appear in ISIS propaganda, out of concern that Muslims who would otherwise be inclined to join the cult change their minds after being “disgusted” by extensive depictions of beheadings.

beheading british muslims

Dr. Sebastian Gorka on Fox News: White House Must Fight Idea that ‘Jihadism is Cool’

On Fox & Friends Sunday Morning, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Breitbart National Security contributor and Major General Horner Chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University, confronted repeated statements by the Obama administration conflating jihadism with generic extremism, objecting that to defeat an enemy is to ultimately defeat their ideology.

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More than 60 Dead in Nigeria as Boko Haram Bombs Eid Celebrations

Twin suicide bombings executed between Thursday evening and the beginning of the celebration of the Muslim holiday Eid have left at least 64 dead in northern Nigeria, with Boko Haram the likeliest suspect. At least one of the suicide bombers, police have confirmed, was a ten-year-old girl.

Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters

ISIS Attacks Australian Reality Show Participants Visiting Refugees in Syria

The participants on Australian reality show Go Back Where You Came From experienced a hail of real gunfire from Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) militants while attempting to visit a refugee camp in Syria. Portions of that attack have been released as a trailer for the show’s premiere at the end of July.

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Cameroon Imposes Burqa Ban in Boko Haram-Ravaged North

Following a similar initiative covering the entirety of Chad, the nation of Cameroon has imposed a ban on the Islamic burqa in the nation’s northern territories, which have been the target of repeated attacks by Boko Haram jihadists, who often use the burqa to disguise explosives.

AP Photo

Pope on Communist Repression in Cuba: Europe Has Human Rights Problems, Too

Pope Francis, who was revealed as a major collaborator in the dialogues that have led to President Obama yielding major concessions to the communist regime of Raúl Castro in Cuba last December, responded to a question requesting comment on that nation’s human rights crisis by stating that, in some European countries, religious insignia is banned in public places.

Pope Francis speaks during a mass at the Manila Cathedral

Venezuelan Socialists Demand Two-Thirds of the Territory of Guyana

The government of Venezuela, intent on finding a solution to its economic woes that do not involve changing its socialist economic system, has taken up a campaign to annex two-thirds of neighboring Guyana, a jungle territory known as the Essequibo. Guyana is soundly rejecting that Venezuela has any claims to its territory.

Venezuela President Maduro

‘I Did Not Lie’: Tsipras on the Ropes Championing New, More Austere Debt Deal

Following a referendum in which the Greek people largely rejected a debt deal with the EU and IMF requiring further austerity measures, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has been cornered into selling the Greek Parliament an agreement even stricter than the one the referendum rejected. In doing so, he faces the herculean challenge of proving his new demand is not a complete about-face for him or his leftist party.

Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)