The Mayor of London is a Muslim.
The mayor of Birmingham is a Muslim.
The Mayor of Leeds is Muslim.
Mayor of Blackburn – Muslim.
The mayor of Sheffield is a Muslim.
The mayor of Oxford is a Muslim.
The mayor of Luton is a Muslim.
The mayor of Oldham is Muslim.
The mayor…
— Laurence Fox (@LozzaFox) May 4, 2024
h/t DS
It was a day that began with some hope – or was it wishful thinking – that Sadiq Khan might be ousted in London by his Tory rival, heralding a revival in fortunes for party and government.
But it ended with Mr Khan cruising to a comfortable victory and an unprecedented third term in City Hall.
Reality, cold and unflinching, began to dawn the moment results started to come in.
A warning …
There are millions who feel this way but who can’t articulate it so well.
Share if you agree. https://t.co/avul5m3G7x
— Laurence Fox (@LozzaFox) May 4, 2024
h/t Patti Jo
Erdogan, “the moderate”, said it clearly:
“Democracy is a tram, you take it as long as you need it and then you get off”.
Millions of Muslims in Europe, from where incredible videos arrive, must be thinking something along these lines.
You have to be afraid, very afraid. Maybe one day on Europe’s streets they will also flog women who don’t wear the veil?
Pro-Palestinian protesters taking part in an encampment at Princeton University began a hunger strike to raise awareness for starving people in Gaza.
The Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD) student organization posted a series of photos on Instagram announcing that pro-Palestinian protests would be launching a hunger strike “in solitary with Gaza.”
Islamic State fighters are pushed by armed guards through a labyrinth of windowless corridors. They trip over their tied ankles and tilt their heads to peek under their blindfolds, but see only the same dark hallway, with its peeling walls and broken tiles.
This is the notorious Hasakah prison complex in northeast Syria, now labelled “the world’s worst prison”. For years the media has been blocked from getting inside the facility and meeting its inmates, but The Times has been granted exclusive access.
Efforts have intensified to secure a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages, with talks resuming in Cairo on Saturday.
Hamas said its delegation was travelling in a “positive spirit” after studying the latest truce proposal.
“We are determined to secure an agreement in a way that fulfils Palestinians’ demands,” it said.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said “taking the ceasefire should be a no-brainer” for the militant group.
New York’s police department has declared that approximately 29% of the people it arrested at pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University were “not affiliated” with the institution, as the city’s mayor continues to face scrutiny over his claims that the hardline police response was due to the actions of “outside agitators”.
The NYPD also said 60% of arrestees at City College of New York (CCNY) on Tuesday night were unaffiliated with the college, though a CCNY spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian that these arrest figures applied to protesters both on and off the college’s grounds.
The statements came as police across the US have arrested almost 2,200 people at campus protests in 43 different locations during a week of heightened tension and unrest that has often been met with tough action from law enforcement.
Inside the Malmo Arena, Eurovision fans can expect a spectacular show brimming with colourful costumes and carefully rehearsed performances. Outside, the atmosphere may be darker: Swedish police are expecting Quran burnings, protests and a continued elevated terrorist threat.
A polarised debate surrounding the conflict in Gaza and Israel’s participation in the song contest have intensified the workload for law enforcement. About 100,000 visitors are expected in Malmo for the Eurovision week.
There must be worse ideas than admitting refugees from Gaza into the U.S., but none immediately come to mind.
According to CBS News, one proposal the Biden administration is considering is “using the decades-old United States Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with U.S. ties who have managed to escape Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt.” Another possibility is “getting additional Palestinians out of Gaza and processing them as refugees if they have American relatives.”
The Palestinian “resistance” (from the River to the Sea) has been exported globally. It spring-boarded from October 7, drawing in multitudes of followers and leading them to believe that they are part of a social justice movement. They don’t realize that they are being played for fools by a movement that is rooted in Islam’s 1,400-year history. The latest example of this is an incident in Oakville, Ontario’s largest town near Toronto: “HDSB investigates after ‘harmful’ language directed at student wearing keffiyeh,” CHCH, April 29, 2024 …
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ill-fated 2024 presidential campaign was much criticized for being “too online.” But Democrats are no less prone to fall into that same trap. Now-Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign, which generated considerable initial buzz before it abruptly sputtered, was infamous for listening too much to left-wing TV hosts and social media blue checkmarks — not actual Democratic primary voters.
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said universities should be places where ideas are debated but they also need to be safe for students, as a growing number of encampments protesting Israel’s war in Gaza have been set up at Canadian schools.
“Universities are places where the freedom of speech, the freedom of ideas, the challenge of debate, of dialogue, of discussion about how to shape the world, how to see the world, how to go on out after university or college and lead the world are a core part of what campuses are all about,” Trudeau told reporters while visiting Hamilton, Ont. on Friday.
The terrorist threat to Europe from the Islamic Republic of Iran — and Hamas and Hezbollah, its proxies — is growing. European leaders, however, are absorbed with trying to prevent Israel from eliminating the military capabilities of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, even though that would diminish the ability of these terrorists to operate in Europe.
Even before the October 7 massacre in Israel by Hamas, Mossad Director David Barnea said in September 2023 that Israel’s intelligence services, in cooperation with their foreign partners, had prevented 27 terrorist attacks orchestrated by the Iran just over the last year, “all over the world, in Europe, Africa, the Far East and South America.”
The ongoing war in Gaza has prompted debates in Malaysia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia over what is seen as the West’s moral decline.
Bruce Gilley, a Portland State University professor, sparked a scandal in Malaysia late last month. Gilley claimed during a lecture in Kuala Lumpur that the Southeast Asian country could never be a trusted friend of the West because its leaders are supporting a “second Holocaust against the Jewish people.”
His comments referred to the Malaysian government’s public support of Hamas since the Gaza War began.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has twice spoken with the leader of the militant group, Ismail Haniyeh, since the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas.
Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the German government, the EU and the United States, among others.
