Headlines 2015/06/24

Headlines

• The Terrorist Hysteria

• Greece turns to Russia

• UK Authorities Complicit in Radicalizing Muslims

Details

The Terrorist Hysteria

On the evening of June 17, a lone gunman shot and killed nine people at a Church in South Carolina in the US. The Church was attended predominantly by an African American congregation. Whilst the global media gave wall to wall coverage, the contradictions and double standard by the US media and US politicians were laid bare for everyone to see. As the perpetrator was white and not Muslim, very few US media outlets viewed the attack as a terrorist one, but rather a racist, hateful crime by a mentally disturbed individual. Before even knowing his motives, many US politicians described it as a criminal act and not a terrorist attack. Samantha Asumadu from Media Diversified, which aims to improve diversity in UK media, told Newsbeat that there has been a big media bias on who is considered a terrorist. "There's a long history to this," she said.

"I would say some of it is rooted in the fact that when white people are killed in a terrorist attack the whole world weeps, whereas when people of colour are, quite often there's barely a whisper.” This attack comes in a southern state with a recent history of racial tension. Earlier this year, there were protests after unarmed black man Walter Scott was shot eight times by a police officer.

The officer was later charged with murder. The Daily Beast, the US news and opinion website exposed US reporting of terrorist attacks in January, when it reported that the percentage of terror attacks committed by Muslims is miniscule. An FBI study looking at terrorism committed on US soil between 1980 and 2005 found that 94 percent of the terror attacks were committed by non-Muslims. It also reported that a 2014 study by University of North Carolina found, since the 9/11 attacks, Muslim-linked terrorism has claimed the lives of 37 Americans. In that same time period, more than 190,000 Americans were murdered. Despite these statistics, terrorism is applied mainly to Muslims and used by the US government and the west to intervene in the Muslim world.

Greece turns to Russia

It has now been many months Greece and the EU have squared off over the countries economic problems. Europe led by Germany, has demanded Greece make every cut possible, be it the government budget, public sector pay and prioritize the debt repayments it owes to German, French and British banks. With the emergence of the Coalition of the Radical Left party, or Syriza, who ran on a ticket of demanding a better deal than previous Greek governments with EU leaders, this has led to bigger, deeper and wider disagreements. Germany are now demanding reform of Greece’s bloated pension system, but the government refused and held a $1.8 billion debt repayment to the International Monetary Fund as a hostage to get his way. Just the week before the European Central Bank was forced to lend Greek banks money to stop a run on banks. Then, it appeared as if Europe was content to let the Greeks default, an event that could lead to the so-called Grexit: Greece getting kicked out of the European monetary club.

But the Greek government has now thrown a new ace. On June 19, Greek and Russian officials signed an agreement to build the Greek section of the Moscow-sponsored Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline. According to Russia's Energy Minister, Alexander Novak, the two countries will have equal shares in the pipeline, which will start construction in 2016 and should be ready by 2019. Due to this EU leaders have extended its deadlines and talks to negotiate a settlement. EU ministers and technocrats have all now been replaced with prime ministers and presidents, which all shows the issue is political rather than financial.

UK Authorities Complicit in Radicalizing Muslims

In a major speech at a security conference in Slovakia, UK Prime Minster David Cameron argued too many British Muslims ‘quietly condone’ extremism, he went on further, “parts of the Muslim community are guilty of normalising hatred of democracy and western values, making it easier for violent extremism to take hold.” Cameron and his government have long argued many Muslims are joining ISIS, he even used the recent example of 17-year-old Talha Asmal, who became Britain’s youngest suicide bomber when he detonated a car loaded with explosives in the northern Iraqi town of Baiji. Cameron said, “We’ve always had angry young men and women buying into supposedly revolutionary causes. This one is evil, it is contradictory, it is futile.” As Cameron was giving his speech news became public that the UK security authorities encouraged three sisters with 9 children to contact their brother who had gone to Syria. The husbands of two of the sisters confirmed officers encouraged the Bradford women to contact their brother - believed to be fighting in Syria - with "reckless disregard" for the consequences, they are now considered to be in Syria with their 9 children. But this is not the first time someone has gone abroad to fight and eventually information has come to light which showed the security authorities played a very murky role in encouraging and attempting to use so called terrorists to achieve other aims. David Cameron conveniently missed the fact that less than 2% of attacks every year in Europe are committed by Muslims! It is not Muslims who are radicalised and commits acts of terror, but mostly white, non-Muslims and separatists groups who have political aims.