A radical Muslim cleric who preaches in Britain has said in the wake of the deadly attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine that Muslims are obliged to defend the honor of the Prophet Muhammed, and do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression.

"Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone," Anjem Choudary wrote in a piece published by USA Today on Thursday. "Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires," he said.


Choudary has also tweeted since the killings with criticism of the Western concept of freedom of expression, arguing that in the West itself, freedom of expression is limited is certain cases. In Thursday's article, he wrote, "The truth is that Western governments are content to sacrifice liberties and freedoms when being complicit to torture and rendition - or when restricting the freedom of movement of Muslims, under the guise of protecting national security."

The Islamist Boko Haram group has attacked the town of Baga in northeastern Nigeria for the second time in a week, the BBC reported Friday citing local officials.

According to the officials, the raids on the civilian population began late on Tuesday and continued through Wednesday.
Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official in the area, told the BBC that the town had been burnt down. He also said that the fleeing residents had been unable to bury the dead, and corpses littered the town's streets.

According to the official, more than 2,000 people were killed in the raids but other reports put the number in the hundreds.

On January 4, Boko Haram seized the town of Baga and the local military base. The group is already controlling 16 neighboring towns, Mr Bukar said. Nigerian lawmaker Maina Maaji Lawan told BBC that Boko Haram controlled 70% of the Borno State.

Undercover police in an elite unit tasked with infiltrating left-wing groups stole a dead newborn child's identity, the Metropolitan Police Service has confirmed.

The baby is among a number of children whose identities were stolen by the Met's covert Special Demonstration Squad.

Other children aged one, four, 14, 16 and 17 were also harvested for their details to provide police covers.

Only the ages of the children have been released to ensure the identities of the officers are not compromised.

Liberal Democrat MP for Chippenham, Duncan Hames, who procured the information following repeated Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, hoped to console a constituent who feared his 15-year-old daughter's identity might have been stolen.

While no 15-year-olds were identified, it has taken Hames nearly two years since February 2013 to obtain the children's ages.

Two men suspected of murder 12 people in Paris during an attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo have been killed, according to the AFP.

The brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, were holed up at a small printing business in Dammartin-en-Goele, a small French town near Paris, and had taken an employee hostage.

The suspects "came out firing on security forces" after being surrounded, the AFP reported.

The hostage was reportedly freed and safe.

Police also killed a gunman who opened fire on a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris and then took at least five hostages. Two people were killed in the initial attack. It is unclear if any other hostages were harmed.

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The two suspects behind the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris have been on a US No Fly List 'for years,' a US official said. According to different revelations, one of the suspects trained with Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen.

Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his older brother Said Kouachi, 34, French-born sons of Algerian parents, were both logged in the US government's Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) system, a database on known or suspected international terrorists, US counterterrorism sources said on condition of anonymity. TIDE contains over one million names.

The sources added that the brothers were considered to be dangerous enough for their names to be sent to the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, which put them on a No Fly List, the most restrictive of the lists.

Wednesday marked the anniversary of the first democratic election in America, held in 1789.
Over the past half century, America has descended from a popular democracy into an inverted fascist democracy. An inverted fascist democracy is the new American system, because its self-proclaimed ideologies directly oppose its actual policies. The United States' government may claim liberty and justice for all; however, in practice, it exhibits all four major characteristics of a fascist state: a one party government, extravagant economic inequality, a totalitarian police state at home and militarism abroad, and a strong reliance on propaganda.

Political philosopher, Sheldon Wolin, has provided a devastating critique on how America is increasingly becoming a totalitarian state. The U.S. operates via the impression of a multi-party state. Nobody should have any illusions. The United States essentially has a one-party system; and the ruling party is the corporate party.

Elections present the population with two variants of a pre-designed policy: free-market, neoliberal capitalism. This benefits the elite at the expense of the majority by promoting privatization of public services, frozen wages, job losses, and reduced social benefits.

America's inverted fascist system has evolved without the need for traditional hard power tactics, such as ballot-rigging, coercion and force; it is based on soft power policies and the illusion of choice.

The nation requires its citizens to make a choice between personalities, rather than genuine political alternatives. For instance, the top three candidates for President have all inherited their political status through family: Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and Hillary Clinton.

The Bush-Clinton families may potentially occupy the White House for a staggering 28 out of 36 years. The narrowing ideological gap between the policies of major political parties reflects the decay of the nation's democratic system.

Eastern Ukraine is nearing a humanitarian catastrophe, as residents struggle to get food and medicine, rights group Amnesty International told Reuters. The UN refugee watchdog added that the elderly in the region could be severely hit by Kiev's policies.

People in the southeastern Lugansk and Donetsk regions are struggling financially and are barely scraping by, according to the deputy director of Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International, Denis Krivosheev.

"While it may be too early to call this a humanitarian catastrophe, it's clearly progressing in that direction," Krivosheev said, adding that pensioners are the most vulnerable part of the population.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also expressed major concern for the elderly, pointing to Kiev's dangerous decision to transfer payouts of social benefits and pensions to government-controlled areas.

UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said that not everyone is able to pick up and leave their homes in southeastern Ukraine. So, the most vulnerable are neglected as they fail to receive needed financial support.

According to UN figures, around 5.2 million people in Ukraine are living in conflict zones. Of that number, 1.4 million are in very vulnerable conditions and require assistance as they struggle with the cold winter, money problems, and lack of services.

Moreover, Krivosheev stressed that aid sent to southeastern Ukraine from Russia and other countries - such as food and medicine - is often stifled by pro-Kiev private armies that are preventing it from reaching those in need, with the goal of starving the population there.

United States Senator Rand Paul has introduced a Congressional bill that would cut off assistance to the Palestinian Authority so long as it seeks admission to the International Criminal Court.

The so-called "Defend Israel by Defunding Palestinian Foreign Aid Act of 2015" was the second anti-Palestinian bill introduced by Paul in as many years, according to the National Journal. Last year, he introduced the "Stand with Israel Act," which would have terminated U.S. aid until the Palestinians agreed to a cease-fire and recognized the state of Israel.

The PA submitted the necessary documentation to become a member of the world's permanent war crimes tribunal last week. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday its the member ship would become official on April 1.

As a member of the court, the PA will be able to pursue war crimes charges against Israel.

Hours before introducing the bill, Rand met with a group leading Jewish donors to the Republican Party, including casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the Journal reported.

Paul's bill would eliminate all U.S. foreign assistance, loan guarantees, and general aid to the Palestine Authority so long as it seeks to join the international court, according to an aide to the senator.

Interviewed by Fox News, Paul argued that it "hardly seems to me a good idea to give American taxpayer money to a country or an entity that is now saying that an ally of ours - that their soldiers need to be investigated for war crimes."

The loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 served as a cornerstone of Western propaganda targeting Moscow and its allies in eastern Ukraine. In the initial whirlwind of baseless rhetoric launched before any sort of investigation began, Russia was squarely accused of gunning the civilian airliner from the skies of Ukraine in a cold, callus display of inexplicable evil. Despite the otherwise illogical nature of this narrative, it was hoped that it would serve as the first of many strikes against Russia's credibility and standing globally.

MH17 would continue to serve as a point of contention for weeks and months to follow. A stacked investigative committee was formed comprising of NATO members, NATO allies, and potential culprits in MH17's downing, the regime in Kiev itself. Excluded, bizarrely, was Malaysia, to whom the aircraft was registered to, and the nation which lost the second largest number of nationals in the disaster. After much protest, Malaysia was finally admitted to the investigation, and with its inclusion, MH17 has predictably dropped from the headlines, and piecemeal, biased "conclusions" based on tenuous or non-existent evidence have all but ceased.

This is in part because of the finite nature of Western propaganda and its impact upon an increasingly well-informed global public. It is also in part because Malaysia is not a willing accomplice in skewing MH17's investigation, obstructing NATO's agenda to spin any investigation's conclusion into implicating Russia as part of its greater agenda against Moscow.

Al Qaeda militants in Syria are plotting attacks to inflict mass casualties in the West, possibly against transport systems or "iconic targets", the head of Britain's MI5 Security Service said on Thursday.

Speaking after gunmen killed 12 people in an assault on a French satirical newspaper, MI5 boss Andrew Parker warned a strike on the United Kingdom was highly likely.

"A group of core al Qaeda terrorists in Syria is planning mass casualty attacks against the West," Director General Parker said in a rare public speech at MI5 headquarters in London. His last public speech was in October 2013.

In the speech, planned before the killings in Paris, Parker said seasoned al Qaeda militants in Syria aimed to "cause large-scale loss of life, often by attacking transport systems or iconic targets" in the West.