After Paris Attacks, a Darker Mood Toward Islam Emerges in France

PARIS — November is not January. That thought has been filtering through the statements of most French politicians and the news media, and most people seem to understand.

Unlike the response in January after attacks at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and elsewhere left 17 dead, there were no grand public appeals for solidarity with Muslims after the Friday attacks that left 129 dead in Paris. There were no marches, few pleas not to confuse practitioners of Islam with those who preach jihad.

Instead, there was a palpable fear, even anger, as President François Hollande asked Parliament to extend a state of emergency and called for changing the Constitution to deal with terrorism. It was largely unspoken but nevertheless clear: Secular France always had a complicated relationship with its Muslim community, but now it was tipping toward outright distrust, even hostility.

The shift could be all the more tempting because the government is struggling to find its footing politically as it is threatened on its far right by the anti-immigrant National Front party

Already, tough talk from officials in the government shows them shifting rightward, calling for new scrutiny of mosques, extending the state of emergency and possibly placing restrictions on the 10,000 or more people loosely indexed as possible threats to the state. France needs to “expel all these radicalized imams,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared Saturday.

France had already been expelling handfuls of imams in recent years. But the attacks have not ceased, and experts point out that the paths to radicalization more typically run through the prisons or the war in Syria, not the mosques. At the same time, there are whiffs of hardening feelings — mosque desecrations over the weekend, and harsh words between non-Muslims and Muslims in the crowds mourning.

The concern among Muslims in France is palpable. “We’re already feeling the backlash. It started right away,” said Latetia Syed, 17, whose family gathered on Sunday near the Bataclan concert hall, where 89 people were killed on Friday, to pay respect to the victims. “There was a flood of violent language on Facebook to kill Muslims.”

France’s imams “are all worried,” said Hassen Farsadou, the head of a group of Muslim associations in the Paris suburbs. “We are trying to figure out how to handle this.”

Fear and suspicion are pervasive. “Today, I went to the gym, and I was wearing my helmet,” said Aykut Kasaroglu, a shop worker in the immigrant-rich Montreuil district. “The policeman stopped me and told me to take it off so they could see me. Everyone is suspicious.”

The grim public mood, with hardened jaws and frowns on the emptied streets, is bubbling up. Deep shades of distinction that previously separated France’s political groupings — left, right and far right — on how to handle the terrorist threat, or even how to deal with France’s large Muslim community, are blurring.

“We know, and it is cruel to say it, that on Friday it was French who killed other French,” Mr. Hollande told a rare joint emergency session of Parliament on Monday. “There are, living on our soil, individuals who from delinquency go on to radicalization and then to terrorist criminality.”

Similar words, references to France’s “enemy within,” recently have provoked an uproar, particularly on the left. But this time Mr. Hollande’s speech was met with universal applause, a singing of the national anthem and some rare praise from the far-right National Front leader, Marine Le Pen.

As for the audience newly receptive to Ms. Le Pen, “certainly it will grow,” said Bernard Godard, a leading French expert on Franco-Muslim relations and former Interior Ministry official.

Anti-Muslim feelings that had been kept under wraps may no longer be so discreet, Mr. Godard suggested. On Sunday, tensions flared when a Frenchman, approaching a group of Muslim women in head scarves who were paying homage to the Bataclan victims at a makeshift shrine, began inveighing against the Quran as a source of inspiration for extremists.

“The Quran says that nobody can take a life,” said one of the women, Abiba Trabacke, who was wearing a blue head scarf. She likened the killers to Nazis, adding: “They have nothing to do with us.”

But the man persisted, and several women in the entourage burst into tears. “We are calling for peace and love,” one said.

“Shut up!” a bystander yelled at them. “This is not the time to get into this.”

Mrs. Trabacke turned to the growing crowd. “You see this head scarf that I’m wearing?” she asked. “This is my conviction; it comes from God.”

How this might play out in coming weeks is hinted at in rapidly evolving propositions for how best to use the notorious “S files,” an index of thousands of people considered possible threats to the state — on the basis of dubious associations, for instance, or even online threats? At least one of the attackers at the Bataclan, Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, was on the S list; so were the two brothers who shot up Charlie Hebdo in January and a train attacker thwarted by three Americans in August.

Each time, there has been an outcry in France over why a dangerous individual known to the state was not stopped beforehand. Each time officials have explained that a place in the S files is not the basis for an arrest.

Since Friday, there have been the customary calls from the right and far right for crackdowns on the lists’s members, with a top National Front functionary on television Monday seeming to call for imprisoning all of them. The former President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested electronic monitoring. But this time the left-wing government was careful not to dismiss a heightened role for the S files.

“You can’t dismiss any tool,” Mr. Valls, the prime minister, said on radio about the files. “We are not setting aside any solutions.” As his boss, Mr. Hollande, put it to lawmakers on Monday, “With the acts of war of Nov. 13, the enemy has crossed a new line.”

The question, rights advocates say, is how far the government can go in restricting the rights of a mostly law-abiding minority without further alienating its more marginal members and driving them to the militants.

The Socialist government, with its intensified bombing campaign in Syria and its promises of an internal crackdown, is trying to stay ahead of a deeply uneasy public. But experts say its efforts may not be enough
.

Ms. Le Pen’s criticism of Mr. Hollande on Monday may be more significant than her unusual praise. The president had failed to mention the “fight against Islamism” or the “indispensable cleaning out of the cellars and suburbs gangrened by criminality,” she said. In the National Front lexicon, Ms. Le Pen’s words — “suburbs” and “criminality” — are often code for Islam and Muslims.

“There is a serious risk, in public opinion, that people will become more radical,” Mr. Godard said. “Maybe people will now say, ‘No, no, no Islam in the public space, not anymore.’”

Nossiter, Adam and Alderman, Liz. "After Paris Attacks, a Darker Mood Toward Islam Emerges in France." 16 Nov. 2015. The New York Times. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/europe/after-paris-attacks-a-darker-mood-toward-islam-emerges-in-france.html?_r=0 >.

Comment:

The article is about the public reaction to the attacks at Paris that killed 129 people and many more injured. The Public reaction seems to tilt towards hostility and distrust towards the Muslim residents in France. Both political and public reactions towards the terrorism is bitter and suspicious about everyone. The hostility of many French people towards Muslims also seems to affect the overall mood and tension between the French and Muslims. The author does not seem to provide biased information about the issue but rather presents both sides in an informative way, using quotes from multiple people. The further reaction and happenings in France will definitely be interesting and bringing changes to the international relations that France has with other countries as well. Meanwhile, something must be done about the attacks that doesn't cease to happen. 

North Korea runs short of ingredients for winter kimchi stores

North Korean households are facing a winter without their traditional supply of kimchi after a year in which droughts and then floods have affected vegetable harvests.

As the kimjang season begins, when the fermented cabbage dish is made to last families though the winter, market prices for radishes and cabbages are escalating. Even ingredients such as chillies, garlic, onions and salt used for seasoning are in short supply, say sources inside the country.

Harvests from collective farms are expected to have halved because of the effects of the adverse weather conditions, a source said, with residents fearing that household allocations will be considerably lower than last year.

“At Chongjin’s Sunam Market, 1kg of cabbage now goes for 3,000 North Korean won ($0.35), which is up 1,000 won from before,” a source said. “Radish prices have climbed by 500 won but they’re still selling at a rapid pace,” the source added. “If people see someone with radishes and cabbages on an ox cart going by, they will chase after it and offer a higher price to buy the produce, creating a scene.”

“Back in August, a lot of vegetable fields in the Hamgyong Provinces and parts of Yanggang were lost to extreme downpours,” she said, “so a lot of households are giving up on kimjang for the year.”

Central authorities have prioritised supply for the Rason area, which was particularly hit hard by devastatingly torrential rains, meaning some other regions have not received a single head of cabbage. Farmers ordered to send supplies to military bases and flood-hit areasare worried about procuring their own kimjang supplies.

The source said that North Koreans are reliant on kimchi as a staple food during the winter, and there are already fears of widespread hunger.

For an average four-person family, a minimum 350kg of cabbages and 200kg of radishes are required during kimjang. A winter’s supply of the fermented cabbage dish also requires 3kg of garlic and 18kg of salt. Usually, this amount of kimchi would cost roughly 1.5m North Korean won, but the source put this year’s estimated cost at 3m , adding that even with this money it is hard to secure the right supplies.

Song Min, Choi. "North Korea runs short of ingredients for winter kimchi stores." 10 Nov. 2015. The Guardian. 10 Nov. 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/10/north-korea-runs-short-of-ingredients-for-winter-kimchi-stores>

Comment:

This article is about the current North Korean crisis where they do not have enough supplies to make their traditional Kimchi. It is also providing information on how North Korea does not have enough ingredients for normal food and if they did have ingredients, their prices had radically gone up. This makes it harder for normal citizens of North Korea to not be able to make their annual Kimchi storage or even provide their families with simple ingredients like cabbages and radishes. The writer does not seem biased against any particular side of the issue. It seems that the North Korean government will have to give their citizens  lower priced cabbages and other ingredients needed. The raised prices of ingredients causes a big impact on the citizens lives because they would not be able to make kimjang, which is their biggest part of their daily nutrition.  

UK lawmakers wary of government plan for Syria airstrikes

LONDON — An influential group of lawmakers says launching British airstrikes against Islamic State group militants in Syria would be “incoherent” and ineffective without a plan to end the country’s civil war.

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee has dealt a blow to Prime Minister David Cameron’s attempts to expand British military action against the militants from Iraq into Syria.

Committee chairman Crispin Blunt, a legislator from Cameron’s Conservative Party, said he feared the government was “responding to the powerful sense that something must be done ... without any expectation that its action will be militarily decisive, and without a coherent and long-term plan for defeating (IS) and ending the civil war.”

The Royal Air Force is part of a U.S.-led campaign of airstrikes against militant targets in Iraq. But in 2013 British lawmakers unexpectedly rejected the government’s proposal for military action in neighboring Syria.

Cameron and his defense minister, Michael Fallon, have said they favor expanding the strikes to Syria, but only with the approval of Parliament.

In a report published Tuesday, the foreign affairs committee said Russia’s intervention in the conflict in support of Bashar Assad’s government “has complicated even further any proposed action in Syria by the U.K.”

It said that without “a coherent international strategy” to end Syria’s civil war, “taking action to meet the desire to do something is still incoherent.”

The committee said the government needs to answer fundamental questions about the proposed airstrikes — including their legality without United Nations approval and whether they would have support from regional powers including Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Until then, it said, “we recommend that it does not bring to the House a motion seeking the extension of British military action to Syria.”

The committee’s report is not binding on the government, but its warnings will make it harder for Cameron to gain lawmakers’ approval for airstrikes.

Lawless, Jill. "UK lawmakers wary of government plan for Syria airstrikes." 3 Nov. 2015. The Washington Post. 3 Nov. 2015. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/uk-lawmakers-wary-of-government-plan-for-syria-airstrikes/2015/11/02/8d12372a-81be-11e5-8bd2-680fff868306_story.html> 

Comment: The article is about the British government's view of the problems of the Iraq militants that are going into Syria. The Prime Minister David Cameron proposes that they take more action towards Syria in expanding their strikes to them. Others are saying that the action of striking Syria wouldn't solve any of the problems since they don't have an ultimate solution for the matter and attacking them without a specific plan would cause more problems than solutions. I agree with the author in that the British government should be careful in their involvement or their actions since they may aggravate Syria and Iraq if they do not have a specific plan or solution for the matter. I feel that the author was not particularly biased towards one side but he does seem to show more support to the side of not attacking Syria without a specific plan.  

Twelve dead in ELN rebel attack on Colombian troops

Colombia's second-largest rebel group, the ELN, killed 12 members of the security forces in the central province of Boyaca on Monday, the government said, as the troops transported votes from the country's regional elections.

The National Liberation Army, or ELN, attacked the soldiers with explosives and shots in mountainous Guican municipality, in an area belonging to the Uwa indigenous group, Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas told reporters.

The 11 soldiers and one police officer who were killed were transporting votes from Sunday's gubernatorial and mayoral elections.

Three soldiers were injured. Two soldiers, a police patrolman, two election officials and one member of the Uwa tribe remain missing, the defense ministry said in a statement.

The 2,000-strong ELN is smaller than the country's more famous rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has been in peace talks with the government for 3 years.

The ELN, founded by radical priests inspired by the Cuban revolution, has been engaged in closed-door talks with the government to draw up terms for a formal peace process. The preliminary negotiations were kept under wraps for months and first revealed in June 2014.

"This shows that the ELN has not understood that this is the time for peace and not for war," President Juan Manuel Santos said.

"If the ELN think that these acts will win them political space or strengthen them in an eventual negotiation, they are completely wrong," he said, adding that he had ordered the military to intensify its efforts against the rebels.

The group has battled a dozen governments since it was founded in 1964 and has continued kidnapping and attacks on infrastructure even amid the exploratory talks.

The ELN has sought peace before, holding negotiations in Cuba and Venezuela between 2002 and 2007. Experts say there was a lack of will on both sides to agree a final peace plan.

Colombia's five decades of conflict between leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and government troops has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions.

Cobb, S. Julia. "Twelve dead in ELN rebel attack on Colombian troops." 26 Oct. 2015. Reuters. 27 Oct. 2015. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/27/us-colombia-rebels-idUSKCN0SL00B20151027>

This article is about the ELN rebel attack that happened very recently and the reactions of different people and groups to ELN. The article seems to provide one side's reaction and the other side's viewpoint. Since ELN is a radical group of people who do not agree with the government. Honestly I think that the ELN should recognize that things don't only have to be done by killing people who aren't really involved in what they are trying to do. What they are doing seems to be more of a terrorist rather than those who are trying to make things right because are killing innocent people who can't do anything to change what they are in. The author's goal seems to be pass on the information without a biased point of view.

Stranded in Serbia

Thousands of refugees and migrants are stranded in Serbia on Monday after Hungary sealed off a border for the second time this year.

Hungary has constructed razor-wire fences along its borders with Serbia and Croatia to prevent the entry of people who have fled their homes in the Middle East and Africa and entered Central Europe in record numbers. The fence along the border with Serbia went up in September, leading migrants and refugees to turn to Croatia to continue their journey northward. The barrier along the Croatian border went into effect early Saturday.

The latest closure has forced refugees west; on Saturday, 5,000 people entered Slovenia, which says it will accept 2,500 refugees per day. The closure has also created a huge bottleneck along Serbia’s border with Croatia.

“It is like a big river of people, and if you stop the flow, you will have floods somewhere,” Melita Sunjic, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told Reuters of the backlog. “

That’s what’s happening now.”

More than 10,000 people entered Serbia from Macedonia on Sunday, according to the UN refugee agency, Reuters reported. On Monday, 6,000 were stranded along the Serbia-Croatia border after a cold night of rains. UNHCR reports a shortage of food and blankets there. Reuters photos show some refugees burning shoes to create bonfires to warm themselves. Many are “out in the open, they cannot sleep on the ground because of knee-deep mud,” says Sunjic. One doctor in Serbia said some were suffering from hypothermia. “We don’t have a chance to treat; we don’t have the actual medicine to be given out; we don’t have any more raincoats,” he told the BBC. At least 2,000 people slept on a train held on the Croatian side of the border.

Central European countries are passing around the blame for the bottleneck. Slovenia says Croatia ignored its quotas for migrants and is transporting large groups of people to their border. Croatian officials say Slovenia has changed several times the number of migrants it says it is willing to accept, and accuse Greece of not doing enough to slow the flood of people entering the region. Serbia quarreled with Croatia last month over the latter’s border restrictions, which have since been lifted. And Hungary blames pretty much everyone.

The bottleneck is expected to only get worse. More than 5,000 people cross into the region from Greece every day.

 NA. "Stranded in Serbia." 19 Sept. 2015. The Atlantic. 19 Sept. 2015. <http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/serbia-croatia-hungary-crisis/411220/>.

Comment: The article is about the refugees and migrants that have been "stranded" in one country or other because countries would not take them in. There seems to be no bias in this article as to taking one side or the other but it does seem like the author is bringing out the viewpoints of the refugees more than the political reasons of each country. The article seems to lead its readers into the conclusion that something must be done about the current crisis because of the situations that the refugees are in even if a country can transport them into the country, due to the lack of sufficient space.  

Syria crisis: Russia calls for coordinated resolution to Islamic State conflict

Monday, October 5, 2015

9:41 AM

Russia appeared to seize the initiative in international efforts to end the conflict in Syria on Sunday as Washington scrambled to devise a new strategy for the war-ravaged country and France sent warplanes to bomb Islamic State targets.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Moscow, which this month sent tanks and warplanes to a Russian military base in Syria, was itself trying to create a “coordinated framework” to resolve the conflict.

“We would welcome a common platform for collective action against the terrorists,” Putin said in an interview on Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes programme.

He derided US efforts to end the Syria war, which has driven a tide of refugees into neighbouring states and Europe.

It was announced in Baghdad that Russian military officials were working with counterparts from Iran, Syria and Iraq on intelligence and security cooperation to counter Islamic State, which has captured large areas of both Syria and Iraq.

The move was seen in the region as potentially giving Moscow more sway in the Middle East.

As leaders gathered in New York at the UN general assembly, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, discussed Syria with the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. He said that while it was vital to coordinate efforts against Islamic State militants this was not yet happening.

“I think we have concerns about how we are going to go forward,” Kerry told reporters. US officials said Kerry was working on a new political initiative in New York that would include Russia and key regional powers.

A senior State Department official told reporters: “It was a very thorough exchange of views on both the military and the political implications of Russia’s increased engagement in Syria.“

Kerry also discussed Syria with Iran’s foreign minister during a meeting at theUnited Nations on Saturday.

Putin, who will meet the US president, Barack Obama, in New York on Monday, branded US support for rebel forces in Syria illegal and ineffective and said Damascus should be included in international efforts to fight Islamic State.

He mocked US plans to train up to 5,400 Syrian rebels to fight the group. “It turns out that only 60 of these fighters have been properly trained, and as few as four or five people actually carry weapons,” he said.

Putin said Russia had no current plans to deploy combat troops. “Russia will not take part in any field operations on the territory of Syria or in other states; at least, we do not plan it for now,” he said.

Referring to the risk of radicalised fighters returning home after fighting for Isis, he said: “There are more than 2,000 militants in Syria from the former Soviet Union. Instead of waiting for them to return back home we should help President al-Assad fight them there, in Syria.“

Critics have urged Obama to be more decisive in the Middle East and Syria – where the UN has said 250,000 people have died after four years of conflict – and say lack of a clear American policy has given Islamic State opportunities to expand.

Divisions over the role of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, remain critical.

The president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, like Russia a big military supporter of Assad, told reporters any discussion of political reform in Syria should come only after the threat of “terrorism” had been removed.

The US, Britain and some other allies in recent days have softened demands that Assad immediately leave power, raising the possibility that he could stay during a transition.

The US under secretary of state ,Wendy Sherman, said on Friday: “We do not think it is credible for Assad to remain for any length of time as the leader,” but added: “We appreciate there may be a political solution here where Assad is there for some period of time in some capacity while a transition takes place.“

The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, however, told ARD television on Sunday that the formation of a transitional Syrian government should be kept separate from discussions on the future of Assad.

A senior State Department official said if the Russians were going to play a greater role in the fight against Islamic State, it was essential to have talks on “de-confliction” – measures to avert inadvertent clashes between the militaries.

“We are just at the beginning of trying to understand what the Russians’ intentions are in Syria, in Iraq, and to try to see if there are mutually beneficial ways forward here. We have got a long way to go in that conversation,” the official said.

France said it had launched its first air strikes in Syria, destroying an Islamic State training camp in the east of the country to stop the group from attacking French interests and to protect Syrian civilians.

France had until now struck Islamic State targets in neighbouring Iraq only.

France had feared strikes in Syria could be counter-productive and could strengthen Assad, but it was shaken by a series of deadly attacks by Islamic militants this year.

In addition, Paris has become alarmed by Islamic State gains in northern Syria and the possibility of France being sidelined in negotiations to reach a political solution in Syria.

A French diplomatic source said Paris needed to be one of the “hitters” in Syria – those taking direct military action – to legitimately take part in any negotiations for a political solution to the conflict.

Israel, which borders Syria and has previously attacked sites in Syria, carried out at least three air strikes against Syrian army targets on the Golan Heights on Sunday, rebel sources and a monitoring group said.

NA. "Syria crisis: Russia calls for coordinated resolution to Islamic State conflict."28 Sept. 2015. theguardian. 5 Oct. 2015.  <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/28/russia-syria-crisis-call-for-coordinated-resolution-conflict>

Comment: This article talks about the various political issues between multiple countries with the Islamic State. The author of this article seems to criticize the United States' actions on the matter of the expanding of the Islamic State and the "indecisiveness" of the US president.  Syria seems to be deeply involved with the Islamic State and it's "threats of terrorism." The author does not give further information about what the involved countries should do in order to stop the Islamic State's expansion, other than that President Barak Obama should be more "decisive" in dealing with the matter. The article is highly informational with a glimpse of bias of the author, but it is not apparent to the readers. I think that the stopping of the expansion of the Islamic State is needed because of the safety issues of the continuous threats of "terrorism" from the Islamic State.-Tiana Park

North Korea says it can miniaturize nuclear weapons

By Harry, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong 
from: http://www.asiaobserver.org/asian-political-cartoons 

This political cartoon shows the North Korean leader, Kim Jung-un and his officials "miniaturizing" their nuclear weapons. The cartoon uses symbolism and exaggeration. Symbolism is shown through the general behind Kim Jung-un who is measuring Kim Jung-un's hear to make it become exact and straight. This symbolizes that Kim Jung-un seemingly has everything done for him by those who are near him. Exaggeration would be from the facial expressions of the characters of the cartoon. The cartoonist portrayed Kim Jung-un as a very "mean looking" and stubborn while the other generals look similar to each other, tired, and sad. By the techniques he used, the cartoonist seems to have a very strong opinion about the event that he wants to show. The event seems to be about the issue of North Korea having weapons that could be deadly to the world but them trying to make it look like "it not a big deal" by deceptive ways. The cartoonist's view on this seems to be that North Korea is cheating and tricking everyone to believing something that isn't true. It also seems like the cartoonist is saying that Kim Jung-un can't do much by himself. I feel like the cartoon is strongly bias, although there are true aspects to it. I think I would have agreed with the article much more if it didn't have so much bias in it in that it shows only a one sided view of the issue. I think what they could have used is analogy where they compared the issue to another one so that the audience can understand where the cartoonist's view is originating from. 

Deadly Car Bombing at Somalia's Presidential Palace Is Claimed by Shabab

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

8:44 AM

MOGADISHU, Somalia- A car loaded with explosives was detonated Monday at the gate of the presidential palace in Mogadishu, killing at least four people and wounding a dozen others, witnesses and officials said.

The Shabab, a militant Islamist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it targeted senior Somali and foreign officials.

Heavy smoke billowing from the explosion near the heart of the Somali government was visible across Mogadishu during evening prayers, as the sound of sirens and gunfire from troops trying to disperse crowds filled the air.

At least four people were hurt at the nearby SYL Hotel, according to witnesses. " My room's window fell to the ground in pieces," said one woman, Halima Ali. She said she had raced out of the room and had seen "huge smoke rising to the sky."

Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir condemned the bombing, calling it a terrorist attack aimed at shattering the peace in Mogadishu. "The explosion happened at a security checkpoint at the presidential palace, across from the SYL Hotel, and damaged nearby houses and business centers," he said. He declined to comment on the number of casualties.

Two days of meetings had drawn Somali federal and state leaders and United Nations officials, among others, to the presidential palace for consultations on the 2016 presidential election process. The sessions at the palace, known as Villa Somalia, wrapped up shortly before the explosion.

The attack also coincided with Mogadishu's commemoration of the United Nations' annual International Day of Peace.

The Shabab came to prominence as a nationalist movement combating the United States-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006, seizing control of large parts of the country, including Mogadishu, the capital. The Shabab recently gained ground after African Union and Somali troops withdrew from several villages and towns in central and southern Somalia.

Ibrahim, Mohammed. "Deadly Car Bombing at Somalia's Presidential Palace Is Claimed by Shabab." 21 Sept. 2015. The New York Times. 22 Sept. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/world/africa/deadly-car-bombing-at-somalias-presidential-palace-is-claimed-by-shabab.html?_r=0>

Comment:

This article informs the reader about a specific event that happened in Somalia. The author seems to be very informational and not bias towards any one side. The author's goal seems to be just to inform the readers about a situation and the details of the event from a general point of view instead of a one-side based view. The tension between the Somalian government and the Shabab seems to be constant if not increasing. Although this article doesn't give an opinionated information, it does make me think about the possible terrorist attacks that many countries have faced and will face by the Shabab. 

As human flood continues, Germany slaps controls on border with Austria

By Anthony Faiola and Robert Samuels

BERLIN — Facing an unstaunchable flood of migrants and refugees, Germany on Sunday said it was reaching a breaking point and would implement emergency controls on its border with Austria, temporarily suspending train service and conducting highway checks along the main pipeline for thousands seeking sanctuary in Western Europe.

The move signaled the extent of the crisis confronting Europe, a region where a decades-long policy of open borders, once a source of pride and unity, is eroding as nations struggle to cope with a record flow of migrants. Only last week, Denmark temporarily closed a highway and suspended trains on its southern border with Germany, and French authorities have searched for migrants on trains crossing from Italy.

Yet even as Germany moved to restore “order” to the chaotic inflow, the death toll continued to jump. Off a Greek island on Sunday, 34 refugees, including four infants and 11 boys and girls, drowned when their wooden boat overturned and sank. It appeared to mark the worst loss of life in those waters since the migrant crisis began.

[The saga of the Syrian family whose 3-year-old drowned ]

Berlin says the emergency on its southeastern border is a question of national security. Germany has thus far stepped in to take in the most asylum seekers of any European Union nation, but its ability to aid refugees is being tested amid a record surge of 40,000 migrants over the weekend — from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, among other countries. Officials in the overwhelmed state of Bavaria, for instance, declared they have run out of space to house refugees.

Coupled with an expected move by Hungary on Tuesday to reinforce its southern border with Serbia, the German action suggested that migrants may now face tougher barriers as they seek safety and hope.

“The aim of this measure is to restrict the current flow to Germany and to return to an orderly procedure of immigration,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said Sunday. He implied that many asylum seekers were trying to reach Germany because of its generous refugee benefits and seemed to fault other European nations for not stepping up to do more: “Asylum seekers have to accept that they cannot just choose the member state of the European Union granting them protection.”

[In migrant crisis, German generosity comes under fire]

In Germany, the new measures were already taking force. The German state-owned railway company Deutsche Bahn announced that train traffic from Austria to Germany would be suspended until 5 a.m. Monday. Bavarian officials said checks were starting on highways linking Austria to Germany, while the German Federal Police said that “all available units” were being rapidly dispatched to the border to help carry out checks.

At the main train station in Vienna, hundreds of desperate asylum seekers were camped out and waiting for word on whether and how they could move on. Austrian authorities were telling them to board buses to overnight shelters, but many refused for fear they would miss their chance to leave in the morning for Germany.

“We came all this way because we want to live in Germany, and were so happy when we reached Austria, because in Hungary we were treated so badly, and now we have the message that the trains have been stopped,” said Kamal, 50, an Iraqi from Basra traveling with five other men. He declined to give his last name to protect his family back home.

[Refugees came searching for a new life. Then someone got lost.]

Ivo Priebe, spokesman for the German Federal Police, said he was not aware of any bottlenecks due to the new controls. He said that not every car would be checked but that officers would conduct stop-and-search patrols on highways, roads and at railway crossings. Several hundred police officers had been sent into the border region by car and by helicopter earlier Sunday, he said.

“We know the paths they are using and will carry out increased controls there,” he said. He did not know how long the checks would be in place, he said, calling them the result of a “political decision.”

Indeed, the move highlighted the backlash brewing against the open-arms policy on asylum seekers taken by Chancellor Angela Merkel. Within her ruling coalition, many are still smarting over her recent decision to allow in tens of thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary. As Germany struggles to cope — turning army barracks, schools and former hardware stores into impromptu shelters — some politicians have called Merkel’s decision into serious question, arguing that the nation cannot provide sanctuary to all.

On Sunday, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said at a news conference in Munich that cars would be monitored at the border in order to capture human traffickers and allow refugees to request asylum upon being stopped. But he said those who had already applied for asylum elsewhere in the E.U. — for instance, in Hungary or Austria — would be sent back to those countries in accordance with European laws.

“Unchecked immigration on the scale of the past days constitutes a serious threat for the public safety and order in Germany,” said Herrmann, a member of the Christian Social Union, sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Depending on how long the stricter German border measures last, the decision could potentially spark new bottlenecks in Austria that could ripple into Hungary as well as other countries transited by those fleeing conflict and poverty.

[European railways become ground zero for the migrant crisis]

The German decision amounted to the latest blow against open borders in Europe, a policy dating back to the 1985 Schengen Agreement that today allows free movement across 26 nations. Assuming the new German checks are limited in duration, they would not violate the agreement, which allows nations to institute border restrictions under certain circumstances.

Germany, for instance, has set aside the agreement in the past for major international summits, and Belgium did so in 2000 during a major European soccer tournament, said Pieter Cleppe, head of the Brussels office of Open Europe, a regional think tank.

The open-borders treaty, he said, is not in immediate danger. But, he warned, “if temporary closures start becoming a de facto permanent set of border controls, we may be seeing the end of Schengen.”

The 28-nation E.U. is deeply divided over a plan backed by Germany and France to issue new migrant quotas to all nations. De Maizière on Sunday said Germany, which is expecting 800,000 asylum applications this year, could not shoulder the burden alone.

“The German readiness to help must not be overstretched,” he said. “The measure therefore is also a signal to Europe.”

E.U. interior ministers are meeting Monday in Brussels to discuss the disputed proposal for quotas and other regional efforts to contain the crisis.

Migrants and refugees continued to stream into Hungary over the weekend, as thousands of families from the Middle East and Africa tried to reach Europe before Hungarian authorities initiate a crackdown next week.

Meanwhile, governments continued to bicker about how to cope with the influx.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, in an interview with German news magazine Der Spiegel, compared Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s treatment of refugees to the Nazis’ deportation of Jews.

“Sticking refugees in trains and sending them somewhere completely different to where they think they’re going reminds us of the darkest chapter of our continent’s history,” he said.

Hungary’s foreign minister retorted that such comments were “totally unworthy of any leading 21st-century European politician” and counterproductive to solving the crisis, according to the Associated Press.

Faiola, Anthony and Samuels, Robert. "As human flood continues, Germany slaps controls on border with Austria." 13 Sept. 2015. The Washington Post.15 Sept. 2015. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/migrants-coming-into-europe-reach-record-highs/2015/09/13/5c2732e9-dc33-4528-850d-94361c7b0917_story.html>

The above article shows the current situations of Germany and many other European countries who are experiencing mass numbers of immigrants. Although Germany has taken in mass numbers of people, it seems like they have reached a point where their own public safety and stabilization is at risk. The authors seem to acknowledge that Germany has offered help to the immigrants but also points out that the process has put their own country at risk. It also seems like the others empathize to the cause of Germany's help to the immigrants but not completely agree to the degree of Germany's help. Overall the article seems to encourage Germany's closing of the trains for a short period of time but it also empathizes to the immigrants who came all the way to Austria in order to live in Germany. The quotes that the authors use like "the German readiness to help must not be overstretched" show that the German help may have gone a little too far as to putting causing destabilization (Faiola, Robert).

Pakistan’s Burraq Drone Kills Three Militants, Officials Say

By Qasim Nauman

ISLAMABAD—An indigenously-developed drone killed three militants in Pakistan on Monday, marking the first use of the missile-firing aircraft in combat, the military said.

One of Pakistan’s Burraq drones, which carry two laser-guided Barq air-to-ground missiles, hit a suspected militant target, killing three people, in the North Waziristan tribal region near the border with Afghanistan, military officials said.

“1st ever use of Pak made Burraq Drone today. Hit a terrorist compound in Shawal Valley killing 3 high profile terrorists,” Major Gen. Asim Bajwa, the military spokesman, said in a message on his verified Twitter account.

The casualties in the Monday drone strike couldn't be independently verified as access to the area is restricted.

Before the drone strike on Monday, the U.S. and Israel were among the few countries to have ever used armed drones in combat, according to the New America Foundation, an independent Washington-based think tank.

Pakistan has been developing the drones for several years. The attack announced Monday, however, was the first time the country has admitted to using them in its battle with militant groups.

The Pakistani military has been engaged in an operation in North Waziristan for over a year trying to eliminate certain groups. The Shawal Valley is one of the last remaining pockets of militant presence in the area, military officials said.

The U.S. has been operating drones against militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas for more than a decade, with hundreds of strikes that have killed more than 2,000 people, according to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

While Islamabad’s official position is that the U.S. attacks are a violation of its sovereignty and counterproductive, some Pakistani officials have privately supported them in the past.

Military officials didn't immediately respond to queries about the Burraq’s range and cost or the number of them that are in service. The military successfully tested the Burraq for the first time in March this year, and said at the time it is an all-weather unmanned aerial vehicle, capable of hitting static and moving targets.

 Nauman, Qasim. "Pakistan’s Burraq Drone Kills Three Militants, Officials Say." 7 Sept. 2015. The Wall Street Journal. 7 Sept. 2015. <http://www.wsj.com/articles/pakistans-burraq-drone-kills-three-militants-officials-say-1441632088> 

The article seems to be strongly pointing at the "success" of the Pakistan's military of being able to make a drone that can fire at a specific target. The author's intention of this article seems to be to announce the advancement of Pakistan in this area with a tone that is covered in a sense of accomplishment. Although the drones can be an advantage in times of war, it can also be seen as a way that can easily lead to mass murder. This is because it stirs up the idea of merciless killing by something that does not have the human emotions which would take away the chance of people making their own choices according to their conscience. In the other hand, this article does bring out the hopes of less damage to the country that uses drones because it would require less humans for war, meaning less deaths to the country. This article strongly brings out the two sides of the different views because it stirs up the ethical issues of human killing drones. 

                Tiana Park.

My name is Tiana Park and I am  from South Korea. I have lived in Africa (Tanzania to be more specific…) for 10 years and  now am a Junior in Rift Valley Academy. RVA is a boarding school placed in Kenya, and is mostly attended by international students around the continent of Africa. I came to Tanzania when I was 7 years old and I call Tanzania home rather than South Korea. I am a typical third culture kid but I rather enjoy being one because it enables me to face and connect with the different views of the different cultures. I tend to have a passion for people and I enjoy being around people, helping people, and specially laughing with people.