Several pro-jihadist Twitter accounts on Saturday published gruesome pictures apparently showing Islamic State militants beheading another Lebanese army soldier, around ten days after the same group executed captive army sergeant Ali al-Sayyed.   “We executed another army soldier, Abbas Medlej, after he tried to escape,” Turkey’s Anatolia news agency quoted an unnamed IS leader […]

Naqsh-e Jahan Square is Isfahan, Iran, is the second largest public square in the world.

By: Ben Winsor – business insider

Since the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis of 1979, Iran has had antagonistic relations with the U.S. and other Western nations, with little official communication between heads of state, fierce rhetoric on opposing sides, and increasing sanctions.

Given this history, it’s not surprising that many Westerners fail to appreciate ways in which Iran is a relatively advanced and even liberal state.

I observed some of these incongruities myself when I travel to Iran myself in 2013 from my native Australia.

1) A Positive Opinion Of Westerners

If you’ve heard former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad describe the U.S. as the "Great Satan," then the warm feelings most Iranians have for Westerners may come as a surprise. In fact, opinion polls show the majority of Iranianans hold a favorable opinion of Americans, making Iran second only to Israel as the most supportive country in the Middle East.

  QAA, Lebanon –  Every day around sunset, dozens of residents of this small Lebanese Christian village on the border carry their automatic rifles and deploy on surrounding hills, taking up positions and laying ambushes in case Muslim extremists from neighboring Syria attack. "We all know that if they come, they will slit our throats […]

  BEIRUT: Beirut’s most beautiful people gathered at the Phonecia Hotel Wednesday evening to raise funds for the Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon. The party, hosted by MTV’s Chantal Saliba, included a walk-in closet of 165 Georges Hobeika dresses that the internationally renowned designer donated. There was also a fur fashion show by G. Nasrallah, […]

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi lamented on Thursday the ongoing vacancy in the presidency, urging lawmakers to exercise their duty and elect a president. He said: “Lebanon has been deprived of a president for factional reasons.” He made his remarks during a mass marking the eleventh anniversary of the inauguration of the patriarchate garden in al-Diman. […]

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – A proposal to dismantle Mohamed’s tomb in Saudi Arabia, and to anonymously bury the remains of the Islamic prophet in a common grave has sparked heated debate in Saudi Arabia and highlighted differences between mainline Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims and those following a small, but powerful fundamentalist sect.

Those calling for the destruction of Mohamed’s tomb are known as Wahhabi Muslims. They follow a two-century old sect of conservative Sunni Islam that calls for the purification of Islam and a strict adherence to the religion as it was practiced in the time of Mohamed and during the first three generations after his death. All teachings that follow this time, and all veneration of saints, objects and other artifacts of Islam are distractions-even heresies.

There is a striking similarity between Wahhabi Islam and the Puritan Christians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Puritans, as many remember, sought to cleanse Christianity of what was considered by some to be idolatry and heresy, returning Christian practice to how it was thought to be done during the time of Christ.

ABUUJA, Nigeria (Catholic Online) – While news reports give us the gruesome details of the Islamic State beheading one more American journalist in the land which was once a part of Iraq and Syria, the rising tide of Islamist evil spreads in Africa, under the banner of Boko Haram. Like the Islamic State, these Islamists have also proclaimed a Caliphate. And like the Islamic State (ISIS,ISIL), they especially hate Christians.

On August 22, 2014, the FIDES Agency reported that 11,000 people fled the town of Gwoza, in the State of Borno in Northern Nigeria. They had to abandon their home or face the sword of the evil Islamist movement called Boko Haram. According to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian affairs, 650,000 have fled the onslaught of these evil Islamists since May, 2013.

  The Catholic Church has lashed out at the Israeli government, after its property in East Jerusalem was bulldozed to the ground. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian flats were marked for demolition just before US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit.   Last week Israeli security forces arrived with bulldozers at a piece of property owned […]

  President Obama sent seemingly conflicting signals Wednesday about his ultimate goal in the fight against the Islamic State, saying at a press conference in Europe that the aim is to "degrade and destroy" the terror group — but moments later, claiming he wants to make it a "manageable problem."    The president spoke as […]

  Copenhagen police on Wednesday raided four addresses with ties to a charity suspected of selling stickers to raise funds for the Islamic State.   A 35-year-old stateless man born in Libya, a 30-year-old Danish woman of Lebanese origin and a 50-year old Danish woman were questioned over the sale of stickers that appeared to […]