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“Unfortunately we are not able to comment further on the specific protective means and methods used to conduct our security operations at the White House,” said US Secret Service spokesman.

By Associated Press

The U.S. Secret Service said Monday it blocked a Muslim mayor from Prospect Park, New Jersey, from attending a White House celebration with President Joe Biden to belatedly mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Shortly before he was set to arrive at the White House for the Eid-al-Fitr celebration, Mayor Mohamed Khairullah said he received a call from the White House stating that he had not been cleared for entry by the Secret Service and could not attend the celebration where Biden delivered remarks to hundreds of guests. He said the White House official did not explain why the Secret Service had blocked his entry.

Khairullah, 47, informed the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations after he was told he would not be allowed to attend the event.

The group has called on the Biden administration to cease the FBI’s dissemination of information from what is known as a Terrorist Screening Data Set that includes hundreds of thousands of individuals. The group informed Khairullah that a person with his name and birthdate was in a dataset that CAIR attorneys obtained in 2019.

Khairullah was an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s travel ban that limited entry to the U.S. of citizens from several predominantly Muslim countries. He also has travelled to Bangladesh and Syria to do humanitarian work with the Syrian American Medical Society and the Watan Foundation.

“It left me baffled, shocked and disappointed,” Khairullah said in a telephone interview as he made his way home to New Jersey on Monday evening.

“It’s not a matter of I didn’t get to go to a party. It’s why I did not go. And it’s a list that has targeted me because of my identity,” he claimed. “And I don’t think the highest office in the United States should be down with such profiling.”

U.S. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi confirmed that Khairullah was not allowed into the White House complex, but declined to detail why. Khairullah was elected to a fifth term as the borough’s mayor in January.

“While we regret any inconvenience this may have caused, the mayor was not allowed to enter the White House complex this evening,” Guglielmi said in a statement. “Unfortunately we are not able to comment further on the specific protective means and methods used to conduct our security operations at the White House.”

The White House declined to comment.

Selaedin Maksut, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of CAIR, called the move “wholly unacceptable and insulting.”

“If these such incidents are happening to high-profile and well-respected American-Muslim figures like Mayor Khairullah, this then begs the question: what is happening to Muslims who do not have the access and visibility that the mayor has?” Maksut said.

Khairullah said he was stopped by authorities in 2019 and interrogated at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York for three hours and questioned about whether he knew any terrorists. The incident happened when he was returning to the United States after a family visit to Turkey where his wife has family.

On another occasion, he said he was briefly held at the U.S.-Canada border as he traveled back into the country with family.

The group said Khairullah helped the New Jersey Democratic Party compile names of local Muslim leadership to invite to the White House Eid celebration and over the weekend was a guest at an event at the New Jersey governor’s mansion.

Khairullah was born in Syria, but his family was displaced in the midst of the government crackdowns by Hafez al-Assad’s government in the early 1980s. His family fled to Saudi Arabia before moving to Prospect Park in 1991. He has lived there since.

He became a U.S. citizen in 2000 and was elected to his first term as the town’s mayor in 2001. He also spent 14 years as a volunteer firefighter in his community.

Khairullah said he made seven trips to Syria with humanitarian aid organizations between 2012 and 2015 as a civil war ravaged much of the country.

The post Muslim mayor blocked from White House Eid celebration appeared first on World Israel News.

India and Russia are discussing a free trade agreement (FTA), the Russian trade minister said, an announcement that could deepen bilateral commercial ties that have flourished since war broke out in Ukraine

The goal of the maneuvers was to neutralize the regime’s production of weapons and ammunition.

East China’s coastal city of Xiamen in Fujian Province saw its foreign trade with BRICS countries jump 57.3 percent year on year to 24.77 billion yuan (about 3.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2023

A terrorist opened fire on passing vehicles near the community of Avnei Hefetz.

By JNS

An Israeli man was lightly wounded by shattered glass on Tuesday morning when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on vehicles near the community of Avnei Hefetz, southeast of Tulkarem in Samaria.

The victim was evacuated to Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba.

A female driver whose vehicle was also attacked was treated at the scene for shock.

According to a preliminary report, a terrorist exited a car with Palestinian Authority license plates and began firing at oncoming traffic before returning to his vehicle and driving away.

The Israel Defense Forces launched a manhunt for the perpetrators.

Last week, Israeli forces thwarted a Palestinian terrorist attack at the Gitai Avisar Junction near the city of Ariel in Samaria. According to the IDF, a soldier shot and “neutralized” the terrorist, who attempted to carry out a car-ramming attack before exiting his vehicle armed with a knife.

Earlier that week, a 28-year-old Israeli man was moderately wounded in a shooting attack in the Binyamin region of Samaria.  The victim was among a group of runners participating in an event commemorating fallen soldiers on Memorial Day. He was shot in the hand from a passing car.

A day earlier, five Israelis were wounded when a terrorist drove his vehicle into a crowd near the busy Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.

The perpetrator was identified as Hatem Nejima, a 39-year-old Arab Israeli resident of Beit Safafa in eastern Jerusalem. He was shot and killed by a civilian passerby.

The post Israeli injured in Palestinian shooting attack in Samaria appeared first on World Israel News.

Economy Minister Nir Barkat comes out swinging against global soft drink titan, demanding financial transparency and justification for price hike from Coca-Cola’s Israeli branch.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

As the cost of living in Israel soars, with prices for everything from housing to milk soaring while wages stagnate, the Minister of the Economy has set his sights on one specific company that he claims is fleecing the Israeli consumer: Coca-Cola.

Minister Nir Barkat (Likud) has publicly declared that he believes the soft-drink powerhouse is taking advantage of Israelis,. “The days of bullying are over,” he wrote on Twitter.

His office has sent an open letter to Nir Levinger, the CEO of Coke Israel, demanding greater transparency into how its prices are determined in the country.

A senior economist from Barkat’s ministry, Dr. Yonatan Bezalel, informed Coke that the Israeli government is intending to “supervise” the product – meaning that it will set a maximum price for Coke and ban the company from selling the beverages above that rate. This would mean that the government essentially subsidizes the product for consumers, ensuring that it will remain affordable.

There is only one company that acts as an authorized distributor of Coke in Israel, which functions as the Israeli branch of the global titan, and therefore it has a monopoly over pricing for the soft drink in the Jewish state, Bezalel wrote in the letter, according to a Ynet report.

“From the information we have, it appears that the prices of the main Coke products that you produce and market are the most expensive in the category. In a comparative examination with international markets, there are indications that the cola products in Israel are among the most expensive in the world,” he wrote.

He noted that after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich slashed a tax on sugary drinks, the price of Coke should have gone down, or at the very least remained stable. But instead, the company decided to implement a price hike of 6.7 percent.

Bezalel concluded the letter by demanding that Coca-Cola Israel turn over its financial dealings from 2018 through 2022 and provide a justification for the price increase.

But Barkat’s crusade to stabilize Cola prices wasn’t embraced by all those fighting for a lower cost of living in Israel.

“I admit that the first thing that went through my mind was that maybe he was confused, or that…this was a joke. But, apparently not,” Rachel Gor, an attorney and the director of the Lobby 99 public advocacy group, told Ynet.

“It’s quite amazing…that just a few weeks ago we had a tax on sugary drinks in order to reduce costs on the public health system resulting from diabetes and other diseases caused by excess consumption of sugar…and now we have a government that’s proposing to subsidize Coca-Cola as a basic consumer good.”

The post ‘No more bullying’: Barkat blasts Coca-Cola for ‘exploiting’ Israeli customers appeared first on World Israel News.

“The Palestinian people will not let this crime pass by in silence and will respond accordingly. The path of revolution and resistance will escalate.”

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Terrorists in the Gaza Strip launched a volley of rockets at Israel on Tuesday morning after a senior leader from the Islamic Jihad terror group died in prison, triggering air raid alarms in communities bordering the coastal enclave.

According to the IDF, all of the rockets landed in open areas within Israel’s southern Negev region. As this area is not populated, no Iron Dome rockets were fired to intercept the projectiles.

No injuries or property damage were reported.

The rockets were fired at approximately 6:30 a.m., following news that Khader Adnan, who had been on an 86-day hunger strike that began in February, died in his cell in an Israeli prison.

Adnan, who had served previous prison sentences for acting as a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad terror group and providing material support to terrorists, was found unresponsive in Nitzan Prison in central Israel. He was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“The occupation will pay the price for [Adnan’s] death,” Islamic Jihad said in a statement shortly before the terror group launched rockets towards Israel.

“His death will be a lesson for generations, we will not leave this path as long as Palestine remains under occupation.”

Hazem Kassem, a Hamas spokesman, called Adnan’s death a “cold-blooded execution,” warning that Israel “bears full responsibility” for a likely deterioration in security.

“The Palestinian people will not let this crime pass by in silence and will respond accordingly. The path of revolution and resistance will escalate,” Kassem stated.

Palestinian Authority President Mohammed Shtayyeh called Adnan’s death a “deliberate killing.”

The PA regularly arrests Islamic Jihad terrorists and imprisons them, so the condemnation of Adnan’s death is likely viewed as a political opportunity for the entity.

Kan News reported that senior Israeli military and security officials are gearing up for a potential round of conflict and an increase in terror attacks originating from Judea and Samaria in the wake of Adnan’s death.

The post ‘Resistance will escalate’: Rockets explode inside Israeli territory after senior terrorist dies in prison appeared first on World Israel News.

It must have been in the summer of 1992, as a young man I was in the back of a pickup truck, driving down the highway of Cape Cod.  The sun was bright, the air streaming by me cool, and I was carefree.  Still in college, I was impressed by the fact that the Cold War was finally over.  The Soviet Union was no more, and the ideological pillars on which it had been built had crumbled.  Though many of us believed the conflict that had defined the latter 20th Century was over, today Putin’s war in Ukraine dispelled that notion.  His invasion is based on the phantasm of redeeming the power lost in the breakup of a Soviet Empire; an illusion he is vigorously pursuing at enormous cost in blood and treasure. 

We certainly had good reason to believe that the Cold War was over.  Yet in reality, it was put on the back burner; the heat turned to low.  The ideological part of the war may have concluded, with Marxism having failed in Russia and China slowly coming to seek out alternatives too.  But the fact of the matter is that the Cold War was not just about the defeat of a Marxist ideology.  The belief that a State-run economy is best for all consumers and their prosperity is an illusion, something revealed by the lack of ardent Communists in Russia and China today.  Even so, the zealous pursuit of a socialist utopia had left its indelible impact, for the Cold War was not only about economics, but also about democracy, and whether a genuine religious faith could support rule by the people.  In pursuit of Marxism, Russia and China had thoroughly repudiated both democracy and religion, championing an authoritarian state against the will of the people while denying the necessity of religious guidance and illumination for its people and leaders.  Decades after the demise of the old Soviet Union in December of 1991, the governments of Russia and China still do not believe in democracy.  Until those latter two factors are changed, diplomacy and solving the world’s pressing problems will be more difficult.

We must remember that full-fledged democracy and the need of its people to believe in and value something (religious or not) is essential to a nation’s legitimacy.  Capitalism on its own becomes corrupted without reference to transcendent principles and when people do not see their will reflected in government and fair business.  Marxist-Socialist interest in this country waxes whenever the capitalist’s dedication to fairness and justice wanes.  I believe firmly in a free market, but it must also be fair.    What precise economic arrangement is the most “fair” is a philosophical question, but a fair economy must avoid extreme inequality where the abuse of power is more likely, but also not fall into an egalitarian Marxist deception where political tyranny becomes inevitable.  Meanwhile, the Russian and Chinese people are deprived of participatory democracy, the free flow of information necessary for democracy, and must capitulate to this:  the authoritarian specter left by the Marxist vacuum, a ghost that believes in its right to power but has no lasting foundation in legitimate human beliefs, religious or otherwise.

China’s annexation of Tibet in 1951, its suppression of Buddhism there, and its vigilant monitoring of suspect religions is a clear rejection of traditional religious values.  Looking towards Russia, a truly Christian man, or a good man of any religion, dedicated to the ideals of love and justice, would not launch an offensive war on Ukraine.  He might defend against such a war, but not start it.  Neither would such a man, while trying to win such a war, brazenly threaten to use nuclear weapons.  Putin’s values are based on a residual Cold War calculus to restore Russia to its power in Soviet times when he rose to be a senior member of the KGB.  His whole vision is shaped by restoring the communist empire’s might.  Russia is the world’s largest country, it does not need more land, but only the value of a buffer protecting that small part:  Crimea as a warm-water military port, with affluent trade value, and geostrategic interest.  Putin may never have cared about Marx, but he does care about power.

Many years ago, Francis Fukuyama suggested in The End of History and the Last Man that the model of the democratic free state was the end of history.  I hope this progressive trend exists, yet it’s hard to ignore the evidence to the contrary.  The world’s largest country and its most populous seem to give no recognition of his thesis.  They do not advocate Marx anymore, yet Marxism paralyzed belief in freedom in both countries.  Isolationists who pretend this problem does not exist have found it comes back to haunt us in Ukraine and Taiwan.  For years our foreign policy aimed to prevent a Russian-Chinese alignment.  If we do not convince either country of the need for freedom and legitimacy, we will continue that juggling match.

The truly tragic thing is that there are urgent problems facing this world which necessitate cooperation between America, China, and Russia.  Climate change, preserving Earth’s biodiversity and food-resource base and other threats to the marginalized are all examples.  At a time when we desperately need cooperation among great powers, we see the true spirit of consensus a long way off.  It is important that the Ukrainian war end, but a just resolution seems nowhere near.  When countries do not align on the three essentials of basic beliefs, practices, and principles, real diplomacy and goodwill will be in short supply to solve the world’s most pressing problems.  Shooting down spy balloons and the rattling of military sabers is an inevitable but minor offshoot of such misalignment, a reminder that, ironically, the embers of the Cold War still burn.

When these three essentials are aligned in Russia, China, and the United States, perhaps we will be able to at last put the Cold War to rest.  It was founded on at least three pillars:  the belief in Marxism, which has been defeated, but also the belief in authoritarianism and the repudiation of religious values to inform society and government.  These last two factors are still very much in place in China and Russia.  Perhaps, in the future, another pickup truck ride awaits me, when I can say the embers of the Cold War at last and finally dead.

The post The Cold War Never Ended appeared first on Providence.

The small Oklahoma town of Henryetta is reeling after a tragedy that left two teen girls dead earlier this week. Ivy Webster, 14, and Brittany Brewer, 16, were reported missing on Sunday evening, and a search was underway to locate them. Tragically, they were found along with five other individuals and Jesse McFadden, a 39-year-old sex offender with a long criminal history, on Monday at a rural property in Okmulgee County.

McFadden had a long history of criminal activity and was scheduled to stand trial on Monday on charges of soliciting child pornography. He had previously served 16 years in prison for rape and was believed to have been with Webster and Brewer at the time of their disappearance. According to Webster’s father, she had previously spent time with McFadden and his family without any cause for alarm.

At the time of his arrest, he was facing charges of sexting an underage girl through a contraband phone while still incarcerated back in 2017. This prompted the authorities to issue a bench warrant for his arrest. When officers arrived at his home and property to search for the missing girls on Monday, the bodies of the two girls, McFadden, and the other five unidentified individuals were found.

The true details surrounding the deaths of Ivy Webster and Brittany Brewer remain unknown, and the investigation is ongoing. Their deaths have sparked a wave of profound grief and sadness among the Henryetta community. It is an important reminder that while we must take steps to protect our children, there are still dangers and risks in our society. It is essential that we keep their memory alive and remember the loss that their families have suffered.

The Corona Agenda’s “Abiding Ironies”: Freedom, Slavery and Singularity

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, May 01, 2023

I was astonished recently to hear, from a highly respected writer, an astute analyst of the Corona agenda, at a gathering of real …

The post Selected Articles: The Corona Agenda’s “Abiding Ironies”: Freedom, Slavery and Singularity appeared first on Global Research.