90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Critics slam Vatican's 'disturbing' silence on abuse cover-ups

Vatican: 'We have no comment at this time'

The Vatican has declined to respond to an explosive grand jury report detailing decades of sexual abuse and cover-ups by priests and bishops in Pennsylvania, refusing even to say whether church officials in Rome have read the damaging documents.

"We have no comment at this time," Paloma Ovejero, deputy director of the Vatican's press office, said Wednesday.

But in the United States and elsewhere, pressure is mounting on Pope Francis to address a rapidly escalating crisis that has spread across several continents, from Australia to Latin America.

In the United States, both liberal and conservative Catholics displayed a rare unity in pressing the Pope to respond to the Pennsylvania grand jury report.

"The silence from the Vatican is disturbing," said Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. "I don't think the Pope necessarily has to say something today. He needs time to understand the situation. But someone from the Vatican should say something."

Faggioli noted that ...

...Is A Dead Communist...

British Police Arrest 31 Muslims Connected To Child Sex Ring

British police have arrested and charged thirty one members of a Muslim child sex ring in Huddersfield, England.

Thirty men and one woman were found to have trafficked and raped girls between the ages of 12 and 18, between 2005 and 2012.

Detectives believe the offences were committed in the Huddersfield area.

Fehreen Rafiq, 38, is the only woman accused. She is charged with two counts of facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.

BBC News reports:

Twelve men, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have been charged with “numerous offences in connection with the same investigation”, police said.

The accused are due at Kirklees Magistrates’ Court on 5 and 6 September.

West Yorkshire Police said the accused who can be named are:
Banaras Hussain 37, of Shipley, charged with one count of rape of a female over 16
Banaris Hussain, 35, of Huddersfield, charged with one count of rape of a girl aged 13-15
Mohammed Suhail Arif, 30, of Huddersfield, charged with rape of girl aged 13-15
Iftikar Ali, 37, of Huddersfield, charged with attempted rape of girl aged 13-15 and three counts of rape of a girl aged 13-15
Mohammed Sajjad, 31, of Huddersfield, charged with four counts of rape of a female age 13-15, one rape of a girl under 13 and facilitating the commission of a child sex offence
Fehreen Rafiq, 38, of Huddersfield, charged with two counts of facilitating the commission of a child sex offence
Umar Zaman, 30, of Huddersfield, charged with two counts of rape of a female aged 13-15
Basharat Hussain, 31, of Huddersfield, charged with two counts of rape of a female aged 13-15
Amin Ali Choli, 36, of Huddersfield, charged with two counts of rape of a female over 16-years-old
Shaqeel Hussain, 35, of Dewsbury, charged with rape of a female aged 13-15 and two counts of trafficking
Mubasher Hussain, 35, of Huddersfield, charged with rape of a female aged 13-15 and sexual assault
Abdul Majid, 34, of Huddersfield, charged with two counts of rape of female aged 13-15
Mohammed Dogar, 35, of Huddersfield, charged with two counts of facilitating the commission of child sex offence
Usman Ali, 32, of Huddersfield, charged with two counts of rape of a female aged 13-15
Mohammed Waqas Anwar, 29, of Huddersfield, charged with five counts of rape of a female aged 13-15
Gul Riaz, 42, of Huddersfield, charged with rape of a female aged 13-15
Mohammed Akram, 41, of Huddersfield, charged with two counts of trafficking with a view to sexual exploitation of a female and rape of a female aged 14-15
Manzoor Akhtar, 29, of Huddersfield, charged with trafficking and three counts of rape of a female aged 13-15
Samuel Fikru, 30, of Camden, charged with two counts of rape of a female aged 13-15

Chinese hackers targeted U.S. firms, government after trade mission: researchers

WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - Hackers operating from an elite Chinese university probed American companies and government departments for espionage opportunities following a U.S. trade delegation visit to China earlier this year, security researchers told Reuters.

Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future said the group used computers at China’s Tsinghua University to target U.S. energy and communications companies, and the Alaskan state government, in the weeks before and after Alaska’s trade mission to China. Led by Governor Bill Walker, companies and economic development agencies spent a week in China in May.

Organizations involved in the trade mission were subject to focused attention from Chinese hackers, underscoring the tensions around an escalating tit-for-tat trade war between Washington and Beijing.

China was Alaska’s largest foreign trading partner in 2017 with over $1.32 billion in exports.

Recorded Future said in a report to be released later on Thursday that the websites of Alaskan internet service providers and government offices were closely inspected in May by university computers searching for security flaws, which can be used by hackers to break into normally locked and confidential systems.

The Alaskan government was again scanned for software vulnerabilities in June, just 24 hours after Walker said he would raise concerns in Washington about the economic damage caused by the U.S.-China trade dispute.

A Tsinghua University official, reached by telephone, said the allegations were false.

“This is baseless. I’ve never heard of this, so I have no way to give a response,” said the official, who declined to give his name.

Tsinghua University, known as “China’s MIT,” is closely connected to Tsinghua Holdings, a state-backed company focused on the development of various technologies, including artificial intelligence and...

Dozens of daily newspapers are banding together to publish the same basic tirade against the chief executive's criticism of the presss

“Unprecedented” has become one of those terms grossly overused by the national news media in its nearly endless negative coverage of President Donald Trump. This week, however, it is accurate, not as it applies to the president, but rather to the media itself.

Scores of newspapers have agreed to make a preplanned attack on the White House Thursday under the guise of ‘coordinated response’ all using the same talking points. It’s certainly unprecedented in my lifetime to see groupthink take over more than 100 newspapers all at once.

The issue is the president’s ongoing war with the press and his recent comments referring to “fake news” as the “enemy of the people,” I agree with their anger and resentment at being labeled as such but aren’t these papers, including The New York Times, Washington Post and Detroit Free Press, underscoring exactly what is wrong with the institution in the first place?

I mean reciting chapter and verse from the very same anti-Trump hymnal and regurgitating nearly identical talking points underscores one of the very criticisms people have of the media today, which is they only care about destroying Trump, no matter what it takes.

Remember, these are many of the same papers that targeted Sinclair Broadcasting because that company sent talking points to it’s local affiliates to read concerning its news guidelines to ensure balanced coverage of stories and for dealing with ‘fake news.’

During its coverage of that story, the Washington Post described Sinclair as ‘the most insidious force in local news’ but this week will join more than 100 other papers in a mass display of groupthink and strangely will not believe it hypocritical at all.

Is the press the enemy of the people? Maybe not but having scores of newspapers duplicate nearly identical talking points for all isn’t exactly making you a champion of the people either. Where is this ‘independent press’ anyway?Many of these same papers have been the worst offenders when it comes to...