ECM World News

ECM World News

NEPAL EARTHQUAKE DEATH TOLL CONTINUES TO RISE AS LOCALS WATCH, WAIT AND LOOK FOR WAYS TO HELP

By Bonnie Baranoff

April 27, 2015 (La Mesa) -- It’s a beautiful, sunny day in Southern California as patrons enjoy lunch and dinner at Himalayan Cuisine, and shopping at the Himalayan Bazaar in La Mesa. But on the other side of the world in Nepal and in parts of India and China, the scene is much different: it’s raining, it’s dark, and it’s destroyed.

Mr. Khem Kharel, owner of Himalayan Cuisine in La Mesa and a native of Nepal, says that his immediate family in Kathmandu--his 84 year old mother, his brother, brother’s wife and other family members--are thankfully “fine, just scared” and hungry. He has been in touch with his family, briefly, by phone, two times since the epicenter of the massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the remote village of Barpak, in the northern-central Gorkha District, about 50 miles northwest from Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu on April 25. The latest numbers report more than 4,400 deaths.


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DEATH TOLL RISES TO 3,700 FROM NEPAL QUAKE, INCLUDING CLIMBERS ON MT. EVEREST

By Miriam Raftery

Photo, left, by CalFlier 001 on WIkipedia:  Famed Dharahara Tower, Khatmandu in 2013, was reduced to a stump by the April 25, 2015 quake

Photo, right: Google executivfe Dan Fredinburg, who perished on Mt. Everest, reported on Instagram by his sister, Megan.

April 27, 2015 (San Diego) -- A devastating earthquake has struck Nepal on Saturday, April 25th,  killing over 3,700 people  in India,  Nepal, Bangladesh and the Tibetan region of China.  The quake measured 7.8 on the Richter scale,  stronger than the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the strongest to hit the Nepal region in more than 80 years.

An avalanche on Mt. Everest killed at least 18 mountain climbers and sherpas, including Google executive Dan Fredinburg,  whose father and stepmother live in Carlsbad in San Diego’s North County.

Cultural resources have also been devastating particularly in Khatmandu Valley, including the landmark Dharahara Tower, which collapsed. Multiple temples have also been damaged or destroyed.


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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

April 23 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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ISIS VIDEO SHOWS KILLINGS OF 15 CHRISTIANS IN LIBYA

 

By Miriam Raftery

April 18, 2015 (San Diego)—A video released by the Islamic State, or ISIS, shows the apparent killings of 15 Christians in Libya—half by beheading, the rest by shooting. The victims are believed to be Ethiopian Christians, CNN reports.  A message in the graphic 29-minute video makes clear the executions were motivated by religious hate, stating “Muslim blood shed under the hand of your religion is not cheap.”


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RAMADI UNDER SEIGE BY ISIS, ALLIES RECLAIM SEIZED REFINERY

 

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Ramadi mosque in 2004, U.S. Marine Corps

April 19, 2015 (San Diego)--The battle between Islamic State extremists, or ISIS, is intensifying in the Middle East. Here are the latest developments.


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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

April 15 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

April 8, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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MASS GRAVE FOUND IN IRAQ

 

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s palace in Tikrit; public domain image

April 7, 2015 (San Diego)--CNN reports that a mass gave containing up to 1,700 bodies has been found in the Iraqi city of Tikrit. The bodies are believed to be Iraqi soldiers slaughtered by Islamic State or ISIS forces last summer, according to Iraqi officials.


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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

April 2, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

 

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TIKRIT FREED FROM GRIP OF ISIS

 

Photo: Syrian monastery in Tikrit, public domain image from Wikipedia

April 1, 2015 (San Diego’s East County)—Iraqi forces backed by U.S. air strikes have been pummeling the city of Tikrit in Iraq, seeking to wrest control away from Islamic State terrorists, or ISIS.  Now the Iraqi Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi has declared a “magnificent victory” in the offensive.


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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS


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BILL TO EXPEDITE HELP FOR IRAQI REFUGEES INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS

 

By Miriam Raftery

March 25, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) - A bill introduced this week by San Diego Congressional members Juan Vargas, a Democrat, and Duncan Hunter, a Republican, would provide expedited processing for religious minorities in Iraq/Syria.


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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

March 19, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

March 11, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

 

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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

March 4, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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ISIS SEIZES HUNDREDS OF CHRISTIANS IN SYRIA

 

Trials by ISIS underway as some captives reportedly freed; local Chaldean leaders speak out on crisis

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Open Doors

March 1,2015 (San Diego’s East County) – Fears mount for hundreds of Assyrian Christians taken captive by ISIS last week, amid reports that the self-proclaimed Islamic State militants are putting hostages on trial, though some reports indicate that a handful have been freed. 

The hostages include at least 262 men, women and children taken from villages in northeastern Syria, CNN reports.  Open Doors USA, an organization serving persecuted Christians worldwide, reports the captives include 72 families.


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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

February 25, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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ISIL ATROCITIES MOUNT AS JIHADISTS SET SITES ON CONQUERING ROME

 

East County News Service

February 20, 2015 (San Diego)—Threats of Islamic State (or ISIL) forces spreading across northern Africa and into Europe are growing.  After establishing a caliphate in portions of Iraq and Syria, ISIL jihadists have reportedly burned 40 people alive  in Iraq’s Anbar province as well as a Jordanian pilot and beheaded 20 Egyptian Christians in Libya. This weeks, Turkish intelligence reportedly warns that ISIL may be plotting terror attacks in Turkey.


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ECM WORLD WATCH: GLOBAL AND NATIONAL NEWS

February 18, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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RISE IN VIOLENT ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS WORLDWIDE RAISES ALARM

 

By Miriam Raftery

February 17, 2015 (San Diego’s East County)—Last week,  a young Jewish man was shot and killed outside a Copenhagen synagogue. In Paris, as many as 250 Jewish graves were desecrated.  At the University of California in Davis, California earlier this month, swastikas were sprayed on a Jewish fraternity house after a demonstration by pro-Palestinian students, one of whom  proclaimed on Facebook that Hamas and Sharia law had come to the campus, prompting 23 organizations to demand an investigation to protect Jewish students’ safety. These are the latest in a string of hate crimes targeting Jewish people around the world.

It's a violent start to the New Year that continues a chilling trend.  Last year, 2014, was a year of unprecedented anti-Semitic violence worldwide, the Simon Wiesenthal Center reports. That report found that due to violent anti-Semitism, Jewish people worldwide now face the greatest challenges since the end of World War II, when 6 million Jewish people were exterminated in concentration camps by the Nazis.


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EGYPT STRIKES LIBYA IN RETALIATION FOR ISIS VIDEO SHOWING MURDER OF CHRISTIANS

 

By Miriam Raftery

San Diego (February 16, 2015) – Egypt has launched airstrikes at  Islamic State (ISIL) jihadists in Libya, CNN reports.  The attacks are in retaliation for ISIS claims of killing 21 Egyptian Christians, including approximately a dozen whose beheadings were shown in the latest gruesome video released by ISIL.

Mark Arabo, a national spokesman for Iraqi Chaldean Christians in San Diego, issued a statement to media voicing concern for other Christians in the wake of the murders, denouncing ISIL for conducting "Christian genocide."


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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

 

February 11, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S.

WORLD

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CHRISTIANS TAKE UP ARMS AGAINST ISLAMIC STATE IN IRAQ,

 

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Islamic State militants

February 10, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) --Hundreds of Christians in Iraq are taking up arms and training to fight against Islamic State forces and reclaim their towns, the Wall Street Journal reports.


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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

February 3, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include: 

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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

January 29, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

 

January 21, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

January 15, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

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FORMER LOCAL IMAM TIED TO MASSACRE IN FRANCE

 

East County News Service

Photo: Muhammad ud-Deen, creative commons

January 10, 2015 (La Mesa) –Anwar al-Awlaki, a former cleric at a mosque on the La Mesa-San Diego boundary and ex-student at San Diego State may have inspired the jihadist brothers who massacred 12 people at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.  Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in September 2011 and was believed by U.S. authorities to have been a terrorist mastermind tied to the 9/11 attacks and many other terror plots around the world.

Cherif Kouachi , one of two brothers who reportedly gunned down journalists at Charlie Hebdo, was later killed by police following a massive manhunt in Paris. Before he died, Koachi told BFM-TV, “I was sent, me, Cherif Koachi, by Al Qaeda of Yemen. I went over there and it was Anwar al Awlaki who financed me.” Reuters reports that the statement was recorded and aired on French television.


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POPE FRANCIS ISSUES RULING FOR LOCAL IRAQI CHRISTIAN CHURCH: WILL NOT SEND FATHER NOEL TO IRAQ

 

Ruling protects priests across U.S., overrules patriarch’s decision

East County News Service

Photo:  Father Noel with Congressman Juan Vargas late last year; photo by Miriam Raftery

(January 8, 2015)- In a landmark decision, Pope Francis has ruled in favor of St. Peter's Chaldean Church in El Cajon in its battle to keep Father Noel Gorgis safely here.


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ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

January 8, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S.

WORLD

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