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ISIS militants blow up Prophet Jonas’ tomb in Mosul – (video)

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(Reuters) People walk through the rubble of the Prophet Younis Mosque after it was destroyed in a bomb attack by militants of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Prophet-younis-mosqueIslamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the city of Mosul, July 24, 2014.

The shrine of Jonas – revered by Christians and Muslims alike – has been turned “to dust” near Iraq’s Mosul. Footage of the event was posted online, and witnesses said it took ISIS militants just an hour to stuff the mosque with explosives.

“ISIS militants have destroyed the Prophet Younis (Jonah) shrine east of Mosul city after they seized control of the mosque completely,” an anonymous security source told the Iraq-based al-Sumaria News.

The extremist group ISIS changed its name from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) to just the Islamic State (IS), after formally declaring a new caliphate in Syria and Iraq at the end of June.

Muslims know the tomb as the shrine of Younis, whereas Christians refer to it as the tomb of Jonas.

Jonas is renowned for having been swallowed by a fish or a whale in the Bible’s Old Testament, with a similar story being present in the Koran. The site upon which the mosque had been built dated back to the eighth century BC.

“[The] Islamic State completely destroyed the shrine of Nabi Yunus after telling local families to stay away and closing the roads to a distance of 500 meters from the shrine,” an anonymous official from the Sunni Endowment, which manages Sunni religious affairs in Iraq, told AFP.

Video: Shejaia massacre’ in Gaza prompts urgent UN Security Council meeting

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RT Report

Following and Israeli forces’ shelling of a Gaza City district which killed at least 60 civilians, including children, Palestinian president Mahmoud Palas-2014Abbas has called for an emergency session of the UN Security Council over the “massacre in Shejaia.”

I am calling for an urgent session tonight of the UN Security Council,” he said in a televised speech from the Qatari capital Doha. “The situation is intolerable,” he said. “What the occupation forces did today in Shejaia is a crime against humanity,” Abbas said. “Those who committed it will not go unpunished.”

As the IDF continues the operation in Gaza, Abbas arrived in Qatar on Sunday to discuss a potential ceasefire with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

Ban condemned the “atrocious action” in Shejaia and urged Israel to “exercise maximum restraint.”

“Too many innocent people are dying (and) living in constant fear,” he said at news conference in Doha.

WARNING: Graphic video of the shelling aftermath in Shejaia

“At least 60 dead in Shejaia alone, and hundreds wounded,” Medhat Abbas, Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza told mondoweiss.net. He added, “I don’t have the number now because there is no electricity, no nothing.”

“The Israeli aggression against civilians should be stopped,” said al-Shifa’s hospital administrator.

So far the official death toll stands at 62 Palestinians, as Israel heavily shelled Gaza’s eastern suburb of Shejaia battling the alleged Hamas militants in the bloodiest fighting in the 13-day offensive, medical spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP. Officials said 35,000 people fled the fighting in Gaza on Sunday as the artillery bombardment began.

The ambulances and fire trucks moved in to Shejaia at 10:30GMT after the announcement of a two-hour truce to retrieve the dead and wounded.

Inside the shelled neighborhoods, scores of people lay dead, others were wounded with scenes of entire buildings destroyed. Houses were still ablaze from the IDF onslaught, with corpses burnt almost beyond recognition, with the dead being both young and old, including children.
But in a few hours, the shelling resumed as the IDF announced Hamas had breached the truce and it was responding “accordingly.”

The injured from Shejaia were rushed to Gaza City’s central Shifa Hospital. Chaos reigned inside the hospital as wounded children were brought to the overflowing emergency room, forcing the medical staff to treat the wounded in a hallway. Those who could still walk fled to some of the 61 UN shelters with more than 81,000 people from all over Gaza strip taking sanctuary in them, the refugee agency said.

Video ISIS recruit, kidnap children as young as 10 year old

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Sunni ISIS jihadists are recruiting children as young as 10 years old to fight for an Islamic state in Iraq and Syria. While there are boys who voluntarily join the isis-.siISIS, there are many more who are being forced to fight for jihad.

10-year old Abdullah is the youngest known volunteer fighting with the ISIS in Iraq’s Mosul, according to The Daily Beast. It describes the moment of Abdullah casually walking into a local grocery store. This would be a common picture, except that the boy was masked and had a heavy machine gun, “about as big as him.”

Abdullah is reportedly hopeful about the prospects for the ISIS.

 

“We believe they will conquer all of Iraq and Persia and that they will liberate Jerusalem,” a gunman, who the news website assumed was responsible for the boy, said. “They have a dream and their dream is to establish an Islamic state.”

ISIS that has seized large parts of northern Iraq is, according to different estimates, between 7,000 to 10,000 fighters.
In Mosul, which the group overran two weeks ago, the group is believed to have 4,000 troops and is desperate for more foot soldiers, the Daily Beast reported.

As soon as the ISIS took over the city, Sunni jihadists started looking for young men aged between 10 and 30 “both to control the territories they have and to join the fight on other fronts within Iraq.”

While the 10-year old Abdullah voluntarily joined ISIS, following in his father’s and brother’s footsteps, there are boys who are taken away from their families and forced to be in the group.

In neighboring Syria, a 14-year-old from Raqqa was lured into one of the ISIS camps, The Syria Deeply reported.

Mohammed was convinced the camp, specially designed for boys 15 and younger, had been established to teach Quran and the foundation of Islam.
However, it turned out to be more than just that.

“The training was divided into two parts. In religious classes, they taught us their version of Islam, the extremist methods they follow, and the necessary foundations of creating an Islamic caliphate state – their ultimate goal. They also try to convince us of jihadist ideology, like the greatness of martyrdom,” Mohammed said.

The camp’s “curriculum” also included combat training and lessons on how to use arms. The “course” lasted for 25 days.

Abdullah and Mohammed are, obviously, far from the only children in the ISIS ranks.

Last week footage appeared online showing young boys holding what appeared to be assault rifles and sitting in trucks full of militants parading through captured Mosul, ITV reported.
There are cases of children being kidnapped and “brainwashed” by ISIS. Abducted in May in the city of Aleppo, Syria, the fate of 133 of 159 teenagers remain uncertain.

Two of the boys who escaped told the media that ISIS was forcing the children to undergo lessons in Sharia and jihadist ideology. Jihadists beat children who misbehaved.

In its report published on June 24, the Human Rights Watch said that in Syria, ISIS specifically recruited children through free schooling campaigns that included weapons training, and have given them dangerous tasks, including suicide bombing missions.

In its annual report issued mid-May, the UN also said that “children fighting with ISIS [in Syria] are reportedly paid like adults (35,000 Syrian pounds, approximately $200) and undergo both weapons and jihadist indoctrination training.”

Video: Nagorno-Karabakh is “Blessed”

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The “Happy” phenomenon that has toured the world with over one hundred million views, under the now famous Pharell Williams, also installed in Artsakh to the chagrin of Azerbaijan. A beautiful lesson of optimism arton101271-440x305is nice to see!

“Is it necessary to live in a country recognized to be happy? Absolutely not! In addition, people with unrecognized Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) countries prosper, create and …… are happy there, “it is written in this video.

Fukushima creates its own Pharrell Williams HAPPY video and it’s really inspiring

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From tsunamis to radiation, Fukushima has been inundated with bucketloads of bad news over the last three years. But one h-1media-savvy local has reimagined Pharrell Williams’ smash hit “Happy” to bring the beat back to the “island of good fortune.”

“Fukushima is also happy!!” Hitomi Kumasaka, the founder and CEO of Fukushima-based Social Media Labs, which is behind the funky remake, wrote on her YouTube page.

With a cameo from Fukushima’s mayor and a cast of characters showcasing the region’s social vibrancy, Kumasaka’s clip put a Japanese spin on Pharrell Williams’ global chart topper.

For anyone not familiar with the original video, just imagine a lot of really “happy” people dancing to a neo-soul jam carried by a Curtis Mayfield-inspired falsetto.
With the help of over 200 people, 214 gigabytes of footage were compiled over two weeks to distill four minutes of pure bliss from Fukushima City.

Kumusaka said she was trying to dispel the image of Fukushima as a gloomy and disaster-hit town where people shuffle by in masks fearing for their lives. She makes no bones about trying to appeal both to a domestic market and the international stage, where negative news of Fukushima has been unrelenting. Noting that the video has been viewed by 121 countries worldwide, she said it was not her intention to create “a tourist propaganda video,” though alluring street scenes to the Noji Onsen (hot springs) perched 1,200 meters above sea level might certainly pique the interest of a few intrepid travelers.

But from dumping radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean to irradiated fish, Fukushima-fever is so prevalent in Japan that even cooking-themed comic books have been infected with fear. When the troubles confronting your backyard are apocalyptic in nature, sometimes the only thing you can do is keep calm and dance on.

The Japanese government has done its best to get people to return to the affected area, though even the manager of the Fukushima nuclear plant has admitted that efforts to bring the disaster-stricken plant under control have resulted in an “embarrassing failure.”

Kumasaka, however, believes these lingering issues should not rain on anyone’s parade.

“Many people might think that Fukushima has been unhappy after 3/11,” Kumasaka said on her YouTube Channel referring to March 11, 2011, when the devastating earthquake and tsunami stoke Japan’s eastern coast. “But it’s not true. With this video I want you to know that we are also happy and healthy just like you. Please enjoy our dance and share our happiness!”

Stylistically and thematically, the infectious tune lends itself to imitation. As of May, more than 1,500 videos had been created in homage to the global hit, which itself has generated 284 million views on YouTube so far.

People across Japan have also made similar videos for other prefectures, including Tokyo, Okinawa and Kyoto.

But while those thousand-plus fans were likely playing their part in the viral phenomenon merely for the love of the song, a place like Fukushima can’t help but make a broader statement with a simple declaration of happiness.

It remains unclear if Kumasaka was commissioned by the government to craft a viral hit that could generate some positive PR, or if she did it for the sake of her beleaguered region. At the time of writing, Kumasaka was not immediately available for comment.

If anyone needs a cheer-up in Japan, then it is indeed the Fukushima province. Despite three years having passed since the devastating earthquake and tsunami, the crippled nuclear plant is still plagued with controversy and scandals. At the end of May, it emerged that 90 percent of the employees escaped the facility after the quake and the tsunami initially damaged it in contrary to earlier reports.

READ MORE: 90% of Fukushima crew fled failing nuclear power plant

While TEPCO, the plant operator, has started work on a giant underground barrier wall of ice set to isolate the water build-up – in spite of the warnings that the ground may sink.

Sibil another award to Pektorosoğlu “Armenian World Entertainment Awards” (Video)

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Late last month, the California for the first time, the ‘Armenian World Entertainment Awards’ found their owners.’ Global Arts International ‘and’ usarmenia’s held together at nm_sibil_1239the ceremony of Turkish-Armenian musician Sibila Pektorosoğl Diaspora of the year, best female singer award was awarded.

Late last month, the California United States  for the first time, the ‘Armenian World Entertainment Awards’ found their owners.’ Global Arts International ‘and’ usarmenia’s held together at the ceremony of Turkish-Armenian musician Sibila Pektorosoğl Diaspora of the year, best female singer award was awarded.

Armenian actors and singers in the world that brings together award ceremony for the victims of the proceeds collected will be given Kesab.

Feriköy Church Choir, which started in the music of the Sibyl Pektorosoğl, their album was released in 2010. Majak of Toşikyan (Cenk overflow) compositions consisting of ‘Sibyl’ Armenian named all the songs on the album.
 

Source: Agos

Video: Did Turkish PM Erdoğan slap a protester in Soma?

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Many social media users have suggested that the image shows Turkish PM Erdoğan ‘punching’ a protester.

n_66508_1New footage emerged May 15 apparently showing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan engaging in a scuffle in a crowd in the mining disaster-struck town of Soma.

The crowd surrounding Erdoğan in the footage, which has been widely circulated on the Internet, makes it difficult to discern the exact circumstances. However, at the beginning of the video several people are heard booing and whistling at Erdoğan, who then appears to single out one protester, telling him to “Come and boo me here to my face.”

Armenian Wedding – Shant & Anash Pasadena, CA

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Shant-anoshCongratulations, to Shant & Anash! Wishing you a happy and healthy family, a huge house along the way and generations of beautiful children!
Congratulations on your Union! From this day you was given another shoulder to lean on. All the best to you and your new family on this special day and always.

Heartfelt wishes on your marriage! May you be as rich in life as you are in love.

Wally Sarkeesian

 

Saudi Arabia bribes Lebanese politicians: Lahoud (Video)

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PressTV Lebanon’s former president, Emile Lahoud, says Saudi Arabia has been exerting its influence in Lebanon’s politics by bribing politicians over long years, Press TV reports.

Lahoud said in an interview with Press TV that many Lebanese politicians switch sides because they have pledged allegiance to foreign countries.

He said after he was appointed as Lebanon’s commander in chief, the then president of the republic and chief of intelligence approached him with “a suitcase full of USD 100” bills.

They “said this is half a million dollars that we give every month to the commander in chief who goes along our policy,” Lahoud added.

“I said why don’t you give it to the government and the government gives it to the army. He said no…. He said this has been done since 1982,” the veteran politician further noted.

“I said who is doing that. He said Sheikh Rafei and that he brings them from Saudi Arabia,” he added.

Lahoud stressed that Lebanon must have strong resistance backed by its national army to overcome problems.

The country needs to replace its sectarian-based electoral law with a national law to get rid of foreign-backed politicians, he added.

People in Lebanon have staged several demonstrations to slam what they called the divisive role of Saudi Arabia in the region.

Protesters accuse Riyadh of fueling unrest and sectarianism in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. They say the Al Saud regime has been using its petrodollars to finance al-Qaeda-linked and Takfiri groups with the sole aim of destabilizing the region.