An 86-year-old priest has been 'beheaded' by two 'Islamic' knifemen who cut his throat after bursting into a French church and taking nuns and worshippers hostage before being shot dead by police.
Five people including the priest, two nuns and two parishioners were held by assailants who raided the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen in Normandy at 9am.
The clergyman, named as Jacques Hamel, is believed to have been beheaded during the attack while another hostage is 'hovering between life and death' in hospital.
The two attackers have been 'neutralised' by elite marksmen in a dramatic police operation while the building is being searched for possible explosives.
There were claims that the attackers shouted 'Daesh' – an alternative name for ISIS– as they ran into the church. At least one of the men was dressed in Islamic clothing, according to French media reports, and an anti-terrorist unit has already taken up the investigation.
It comes as it emerged that the place of worship was one of a number of Catholic churches on a terrorist 'hit list' found on a suspected ISIS terrorist last April.
The spokesman said the two men rushed into the church via a back entrance during a morning service, soon after 9am.
The two men seized the priest, two sisters from a local order, and two parishioners, said the spokesman
'A third nun escaped and raised the alarm, and anti-terrorists officers were on the scene within minutes,' said a source who lives locally.
'It appears that the priest who was celebrating the service was attacked first, and had his throat cut.
The historic nuclear deal that Iran and the P5+1 group of powers signed on July 14, 2015, marked its first anniversary amidst hopes and despairs. Designed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief, the deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has made little progress, contrary to hopes for a thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations and an ensuing period of calm and stability in the Middle East. The U.S. State Department, in a cautious statement, has termed the deal “fragile but working.” Some analysts claim that the deal has worked in that it has largely eliminated the dangers of war involving Iran, Israel and the United States, while others emphasize plugging “holes” to make the deal work.
Viewed realistically, such optimistic notes hold little water, as the deal is gradually approaching its endpoint.
The fear of a possible collapse of the deal has been stoked by a flurry of anti-deal actions, such as the U.S. imposition of new sanctions against Iran last October, in response to Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles; the seizure of Iranian assets at the behest of the U.S. Supreme Court in April; the Iranian navy’s capture and brief detention of ten U.S. sailors who drifted into Iranian waters in January; or the threats to renegotiate the deal by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. At a more fundamental level, Iran’s expectations for a post-deal economic windfall or America’s expectations for a change in Iran’s regional behavior have not materialized, at least until now.
Washington, to its deep frustration, has noticed that it simply made a series of unfounded calculations about Iran. Just three months after the deal was concluded, Khamenei closed the door to U.S.-Iranian cooperation by imposingan outright ban on further negotiations with the United States
It is starting to look more than just a little bit “apocalyptic” out there. If you follow my work closely, you already know that weather patterns in the United States have been going absolutely crazy and that last year was the worst year for wildfires in all of U.S. history. Well, this week things have gotten even worse. A “heat dome” has brought triple digit temperatures to much of the country, and an “unprecedented” wildfire is ripping through the hills north of Los Angeles “like a freight train." The so-called Sand Fire started on Friday, and since that time it has been burning 10,000 acres a day. An acre is approximately the size of a football field, so that means this fire has been burning the equivalent of 10,000 football fields every single day, and it is only “10 percent contained” at this point.
According to the latest count more than 51 square miles have been burned by this voracious fire, and on Sunday smoke from the fire could be seen 270 miles away in Las Vegas. Nearly 3,000 firefighters are currently battling the blaze, but the fire still seems to have the upper hand.
This five year drought is the worst multi-year drought in the recorded history of the state of California, and such dry conditions are ideal for wildfires. Normally we don’t see “explosive” wildfires of this nature until later in the year, and that is one reason why authorities are describing what we have seen up to this point as “almost unprecedented”. The following comes from NBC Los Angeles…
“This fire, what we’ve seen in 72 hours, is almost unprecedented,” said Los Angeles County Fire Department Battalion Chief Dennis Cross. “We’d have to go back a long way to compare a fire to this. And, we’re not through with this thing yet.”
Nearby residents are posting plenty of photos from this fire on Facebook and Twitter, and some of these photos look quite apocalyptic. Even with all of our advanced technology, this kind of thing can still happen in the United States of America today, and it shows us that we are not quite as “all-powerful” as we would like to think.
Turkey on Monday issued warrants for the detention of 42 journalists suspected of links to the alleged organizers of a failed military uprising, intensifying concerns that a sweeping crackdown on alleged coup plotters could target media for any news coverage critical of the government.
While the Turkish government said it is investigating the journalists for possible criminal conduct rather than their reporting, critics warned that a state of emergency imposed after the July 15 coup attempt poses a threat to freedom of expression.
This heightens the fear that the media is being completely silenced. In a country where the media is government media, this is saying a lot. As I reported, this would be the perfect way to bring all of the country to heel.
If you wanted a reason to destroy your opposition, silence uncooperative reporters and frighten everyone else, this would be a perfect way. With a quick and decisive victory over the orchestrated coup, you would then have public backing for strict and persistent action against these enemies.
There are a ton of emails and many people are still looking through them all, but they reveal that the DNC rigged the election in favor of Clinton in many ways. The DNC would only let news stations like CNN and MSN ask Hillary questions that were pre-approved and written by them, so the media were asking Hillary questions that she basically wrote herself.
The DNC was releasing and promoting stories that hurt Bernie Sanders and ones that made Hillary look good (which I bet was hard). The emails show that the DNC is absolutely terrified of Donald Trump and his movement, too.
The emails also show that Democrats are actually racist, and do not care about minorities like they claim they do. Here’s an email from Rebecca Christopher, a top DNC staffer, saying they need to increase their “taco bowl engagement” with Latino’s.
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