Israel reluctant to accuse Islamic State over bar shootings despite hallmarks

It appeared to have hallmarks of the first Islamic State attack in Israel: A Muslim citizen opened fire on a Tel Aviv bar days after the militant group threatened the country, and left behind a black ISIS banner.

But security officials, given pause by the erratic conduct of the slain gunman and wary of aggravating strains with Israel's largely quiescent Arab minority, are steering clear of definitively linking him with Islamic State.

"This really was not a classic ISIS terrorist attack," a security official told Reuters on Thursday after the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency and Justice Ministry issued their findings on the Jan. 1 shooting rampage by Nashat Melhem that killed three people.
The 31-year-old died a week later in a gunfight with police. The attack fell six weeks after 130 were killed in militant attacks on bars, cafes and a concert hall in Paris.
An Israeli indictment against three Arab citizens for abetting Melhem's escape said he had "sought to help the enemy, including the ISIS group, fight Israel". He left a black banner in Tel Aviv with the group's name in handwritten Arabic and Hebrew as well as a flag with Koranic text, the indictment says.

In selfie recordings released by the authorities, Melhem is seen holding a bullet and vowing to hit "the Jews" again in Tel Aviv, cursing Shia Islam and telling U.S. President Barack Obama: "Become a Muslim, you Crusader, if you want to be saved."

He also uses foul language and is seen drinking from a beer bottle, smoking and bragging about taking drugs. Relatives said Melhem, previously jailed for assaulting an Israeli soldier, had psychiatric problems.

The security official described Melhem's behavior as inconsistent with Islamist piety and a reason the Shin Bet believed he acted alone. Another was the absence of any evidence he received direct instruction from Islamic State.

By contrast, the Shin Bet last year arrested several Israeli Arabs it said were trying to form an armed cell under orders from two fellow citizens fighting with Islamic State in Iraq.

Israel faces more active threats from armed Palestinian factions like Hamas, as well as from Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon, though officials point to Islamic State affiliates in the Egyptian Sinai as having the potential to launch cross-border attacks too.

What constitutes genuine Islamic State action outside its Middle East fiefdoms is a question bedevilling security agencies worldwide. They must weigh media outreach, which is designed to inspire "lone wolf" strikes, but are reluctant to exaggerate the scope of the threat.

Yoram Schweitzer, a terrorism expert with Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel was especially mindful of the impact of Melhem's actions on fellow Arabs citizens, who make up a fifth of its population.
While often sympathetic to the Palestinians, Israeli Arabs seldom resort to political violence - a fact often noted by the Shin Bet. But with dozens of Israeli Arabs having left to join Islamic State, authorities worry the domestic danger is growing.

"I think that while the ISIS menace cannot be ignored, what is more important is not to inflate it," Schweitzer said.

"Israeli authorities have an interest in this regard, as no one wants to see Melhem copycats - not least because he managed to kill three people and get away, in what made them look like a bit of a circus."

Syrian Kurds plan big attack to seal Turkish border: source

The powerful Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and its local allies have drawn up plans for a major attack to seize the final stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border held by Islamic State fighters, a YPG source familiar with the plan said on Thursday.
Such an offensive could deprive Islamic State fighters of a logistical route that has been used by the group to bring in supplies and foreign recruits.
But it could lead to confrontation with Turkey, which is fighting against its own Kurdish insurgents and sees the Syrian Kurds as an enemy.
After a year of military gains aided by U.S.-led air strikes, the Kurds and their allies already control the entire length of Syria's northeastern Turkish frontier from Iraq to the banks of the Euphrates river, which crosses the border west of the town of Kobani.
Other Syrian insurgent groups control the frontier further west, leaving only around 100 km (60 miles) of border in the hands of Islamic State fighters, running from the town of Jarablus on the bank of the Euphrates west to near the town of Azaz.
But Turkey says it will not allow the Syrian Kurds to move west of the Euphrates.
The source confirmed a report on Kurdish news website Xeber24 which cited a senior YPG leader saying the plan includes crossing the Euphrates to attack the Islamic State-held towns of Jarablus and Manbij, in addition to Azaz, which is held by other insurgent groups.
The source did not give a planned date, but said a Jan. 29 date mentioned in the Xeber24 report might not be accurate.
The YPG has been the most important partner on the ground of a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, and is a major component of an alliance formed last year called the Syria Democratic Forces, which also includes Arab and other armed groups. The alliance is quietly backed by Washington, even as its NATO ally in the region, Turkey, is hostile.
The political party affiliated with the YPG, the PYD, has been excluded from Syria peace talks the United Nations plans to hold in Geneva on Friday. The PYD and its allies say their exclusion undermines the process and have blamed Turkey.
Ankara fears further expansion by the YPG will fuel separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish minority. It views the Syrian Kurdish PYD as a terrorist group because of its affiliation to Turkish Kurdish militants.
The United States and Turkey have for months been discussing a joint military plan to drive Islamic State from the border, but there has been little sign of it on the ground.
The border area is being fought over by several sides in the complex, multi-sided civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes.
At the western end of the Islamic State-held stretch of frontier, Syrian insurgents backed by Turkey have been fighting Islamic State near Azaz in a to-and-fro battle that has not yielded major shifts, said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory Human Rights.
Tensions between the YPG and its allies on one hand and other insurgent groups backed by Turkey on the other have spilled into conflict near Azaz in the last three months.
Separately, the Syrian army and allied militia, supported by Russian air strikes, are meanwhile edging closer to the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab, some 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Manbij in the Aleppo area.

Nigeria suicide blasts 'kill 13' in Chibok

At least 13 people were killed on Wednesday when three suicide bombers blew themselves up in the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok, where Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls.
"Ten died on the spot and another one died on the way to hospital," said health worker Dazzban Buba, who volunteered to treat the injured at hospital.
"A woman and a child died as they were being admitted (to hospital), so now the death toll stands at 13. Thirty others were injured, 21 critically."
The blasts bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has repeatedly hit "soft" civilian targets such as markets, mosques and bus stations as well as military and civilian vigilante checkpoints.
Chibok came to prominence in April 2014 when Islamist fighters stormed a boarding school and kidnapped 276 girls, causing global outrage.
Fifty-seven girls managed to escape in the immediate aftermath but 219 are still being held and have not been seen since they appeared in a Boko Haram video in May that year.
Chibok was briefly overrun by the Islamic State group-allied rebels in November 2014 but recaptured by the military after several days.
Ayuba Chibok and Buba both said Wednesday's blasts were suicide attacks and had prompted terrified residents to lock themselves inside their homes or flee in fear of repeat attacks.
Buba said the first explosion, at a checkpoint where people coming into the town were being searched, was thought to have been carried out by a young boy.
But identifying the attacker's age was difficult, as only his legs were recovered.
The second, at the market, and a third nearby were carried out by women, he added.
- Lull in attacks -

Buba said he rushed to help his brother who was injured in the first blast in the Bamzir Road area of the town.

The second blast happened shortly afterwards, fitting a pattern of Boko Haram suicide attacks with multiple bombers setting off their devices almost simultaneously.

But Buba said it was still unclear whether the third bomber deliberately detonated her explosives or whether the device was triggered when troops opened fire as he fled.

The 30 injured were mostly suffering from burns and fractures, and that nine had been discharged, he added.

President Muhammadu Buhari, in Kenya on a three-day state visit, made no direct mention of the Chibok attack at a memorial service to commemorate Kenyan soldiers killed by Shebab militants.

But he told the congregation: "Terrorists should not have a place in our communities, villages, towns, cities and countries.

"We must all rise against the culture of intolerance, hatred and extremist ideologies, which drive terrorism."
Recent weeks have seen a lull in Boko Haram attacks, with only three recorded in Nigeria this month but those that have occurred underline the difficulty in protecting hard-to-reach rural areas.
The insurgents raided a village in Yobe state on Sunday, killing one man, while on January 11, another raid in the Adamawa state town of Madagali left seven dead.
Seven people were killed in a raid and suicide bomb attack in Izgeki village on January 5. Gunmen also looted food and burnt a large part of Nchiha village near Chibok earlier the same day.
On December 6, there was a similar attack in Takulashi village, also near Chibok, which again saw fighters raid food and steal more than 200 cattle.
Buhari on December 24 declared the rebels were "technically" defeated but at least 66 people were then killed in raids and suicide bombings in the days following.
According to an AFP tally, more than 1,650 people have been killed since Buhari came to power in May last year, vowing to crush the insurgency, which has left at least 17,000 dead since 2009.

On Monday, 32 people were killed when at least three suicide bombers blew themselves up at a market in Bodo village in northern Cameroon.

A Muslim and a Christian in a taxi

A Christian Science perspective: No points of contention. Only love.

My taxi driver at busy Heathrow Airport met me with a friendly greeting followed by an announcement that he was Muslim. At first, I was unsure why he would feel the need to share his religion with me. But then, sensitive to the fact that there are those who might feel fear and hate toward those of his faith in a climate of heightened security in Britain (and elsewhere), I reciprocated his handshake with a sincerely warm and friendly greeting.

This simple meeting between me and this driver – a Christian and a Muslim – was more than a symbolic gesture of human unity amid the confrontational mood and events in the world. To me, it went beyond even social courtesy. I felt a genuine desire to bring every moment under the direction of God, whom I have come to know from the Bible as Love, and that this meeting was an expression of that Love.

At his prompting, we spoke of the urgent need to demonstrate the brotherhood of man. Together we acknowledged God as the Father of all – making us all brothers and sisters. We spoke freely of our love for God, our children, and our mutual desire to treat everyone as we would want to be treated.
Our conversation was evidence to me that despite the hatred and violence so often depicted between those of differing beliefs, there is a spiritual impetus that operates universally, ready and willing to impel every receptive heart to love. As a Christian Scientist, I have come to identify this animating power as the kingdom of God within us. Christ Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is not a place but the goodness of God being expressed in our true nature as children of God, divine Love.
Though my Muslim acquaintance would not have defined His relationship to God in this way, the spirit to love one another was genuinely agreed on as drawn from God. We both shared experiences of learning how to love in the face of hate and prejudice. We agreed that anything less than love is not God’s will for humanity.
This hourlong taxi drive had a deep impact on me. It was a small but significant answer to my daily prayers to see the kingdom of God as “on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14). As I continue to pray, I carefully consider a prayer given by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, to the members of her Church: “ ‘Thy kingdom come;’ let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!” (“Manual of The Mother Church,” p. 41).
I see that acknowledging God’s presence – His authority to govern us, purify us, and enrich our affections – dissolves fear and hate. In praying to divine Love as the power that enriches our affections, we naturally find limitless opportunities to treat others as our brothers and sisters under the guidance of one universal Father-Mother God. With this as my daily prayer, it seemed divinely native to have this opportunity to recognize man’s spiritual nature as a child of God, of divine Love – and to express this love in our inspiring conversation.
By our deep recognition of the true brotherhood of man I felt we were tangibly counteracting the current of world thought that people should fear and hate one another – whether because of religion, sect, dogma, or culture. We were proving the spirit of love is all that is acceptable.

I believe our time together was a living prayer – the action of love fulfilling the law, as quoted in Romans 13:10: “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Understanding that love is the law of God, I could see that this same spirit of love is, in fact, present everywhere; that within every man, woman, and child there is the potential to recognize that we exist to share in the mutual blessing of divine Love, who enriches our affections.

 

Nigeria Violates Rights, Ignores Military Violations: HRW

Human Rights Watch says Nigeria's new government is violating rights on many fronts in its fight against Boko Haram's Islamic uprising and in bringing corrupt politicians to book.

The allegations in the New York-based organization's global report published Wednesday offers fuel to opponents who accuse President Muhammadu Buhari of acting as he did as a former military dictator.

The report says Buhari's inauguration in May "has not diminished the potency of the country's serious human rights challenges."

Buhari has not acted on promises to investigate allegations that the military is committing extrajudicial killings and illegally detaining people suspected of being Boko Haram fighters or supporters.

Human Rights Watch said the worst atrocity of 2015 in Nigeria was Boko Haram's slaughter of 2,000 civilians in Baga, a northeastern fishing settlement.

Boy, 4, Saves His Mom's Life's Using FaceTime on His iPad

A little boy in New York is being credited with saving his mom's life with the help of his iPad.

Chadwick DePew was with his mother, who is diabetic, last week and playing on the tablet while she chatted on the phone to her mother.

While she talked, Alice DePew began to experience complications from the illness and eventually lost consciousness.'

"I was talking to my mom on the cell phone and she heard me starting to slur my speech and I started feeling a little sleepy," Alice told WBNG.

DePew's mother recognized something was wrong after her daughter began to slur her words. After her daughter passed out, her mother called DePew's husband, Stanley.

Stanley DePew immediately called the house. When he received no answer, he tried calling Chadwick's iPad.

To his shock, the little boy answered. “When I saw that green button I pushed it,” Chadwick said.

DePew was able to instruct his son to unlock the door when paramedics arrived, which he was apparently able to do.

The family believes he helped save his mom's life.

"This is a scary situation in general and it just puts me a little bit more at ease, to know that if something were to happen, at least I can rely on my son,” Stanley said.

Yet Another Woman Has Been Killed For Turning Down A Man Who Asked Her Out

Many women feel uncomfortable when men tell them to smile or make comments about how great they look while they walk down the street, a point that’s been underscored over and over again by the anti-street harassment movement. But even though some feel that catcalling is fairly harmless, many women know the truth: that rejecting a man in public could end up getting you bullied, beaten or even killed.

At about 2 a.m. on Jan. 22, that’s what happened to 29-year-old Pittsburgh woman Janese Talton-Jackson. Earlier in the evening, Talton-Jackson had been at a bar called Cliff’s, where a man named Charles McKinney, 41, reportedly approached her to ask her for a date. Police say the woman rejected McKinney’s advances shortly before closing time, then left the bar. When she did, McKinney followed her outside, shot her in the chest and fled. Talton-Jackson was found laying in the city street, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to CBS Pittsburgh, McKinney was apprehended after being shot by Pittsburgh police officers in the course of a shootout. (The officers involved in the chase have been placed on administrative leave for opening fire on the suspect.) He is in stable condition and has been charged with homicide. 

Were Talton-Jackson the only woman to be killed for daring to rebuff a stranger’s advances, her death might be considered a one-off act of violence committed by a lone maniac with a gun. But she’s far from the only woman who has lost her life for turning down a man who asked her out. In the past two years, at least four other women have been brutally murdered for turning men away, while many more have survived other violent attacks. 

In Oct. 2014, two women were attacked within two weeks of each other for rejecting strangers’ advances. One, an unidentified Queens, New York woman, survived having her neck slashed in the lobby of her apartment building after turning a guy down. The other, Detroit native Mary “Unique” Spears, was shot three times after she refused to give a man her phone number, eventually dying from her injuries. 

The following month, 30-year-old Dana Kimbro, who was eight months pregnant at the time, turned down Jesse Cervantes, a stranger she met on a San Antonio, Texas street. Cervantes then followed her, slammed her against the sidewalk and stabbed her in the abdomen. About six weeks later, in December, a Spokane, Washington woman survived an attempted murder by Avery Quin Zion Latham, an acquaintance who strangled her and slit her throat with a pocket knife. 

Again, that was just in 2014. 

The blog When Women Refuse is full of more stories of women facing violence for rejecting men’s advances, submitted by readers or taken from headlines. As Deanna Zandt, the activist who created the Tumblr, told Think Progress shortly after it launched, the goal was to highlight the fact that “we still don’t view gender based violence as a large cultural issue — we tend to think of these as isolated incidences." 

But as Talton-Jackson’s murder and each of the attacks that came before it show, that’s absolutely not the case.

Muslim woman thanks train passengers who defended her during racist rant

A Newcastle woman has thanked a number of train passengers who came to her defence after a man threatened her and her sister with anti-Muslim abuse last Saturday afternoon. In a Facebook post, 23-year-old Ruhi Rahman said a woman sitting next to her jumped in to help after a man started to make racially threatening comments towards her. After the woman intervened, most of the other passengers on the Tyne and Wear Metro also stepped in forcing the man to leave the train.
"It was so sweet to see how everyone in the metro got the man off and then clapped at the end. It really shows me how this world is full of such sweet people and some dogs too," Rahman said in the post on her Facebook page.
"It made me smile and appreciate how lovely they all were."

Image: Facebook Ruhi Rahman

Rahman, who has reported the incident to the police, told the Chronicle it was the "true Geordie" spirit that shone through.
"They were my angels that day and I can’t thank them enough,” she said.
Northumbria police sat they are investigating the incident.
“Northumbria Police take a hard stance against any form of attack on any minority group or individual and officers will be investigating this report,” the Chronicle quoted Metro Inspector Ian King as saying.
Last week, a London commuter stepped in to defend a young Muslim woman after she was racially abused in a rant on the tube. 22-year-old Ashley Powys wrote in a Facebook post that he was travelling on a Victoria line train on Nov. 16 when he saw a man in his 30s shouting at the teenager and calling her a terrorist.
Earlier this week, The Independent reported that there's been a sharp increase in hate crimes towards British Muslims after the Paris attacks. In the week following the killings, there have been 115 incidents mostly towards girls and women aged between 14 and 45.

British Muslim women hit back at David Cameron by tweeting their awesome achievements

Muslim women have organised a 'Twitter storm' against David Cameron to protest comments he allegedly made in private last week about, "the traditional submissiveness of Muslim women."

The comments were apparently made in relation to the English language test, which Cameron's government has recently announced as part of an effort to improve migrant integration.

See also: Muslim woman thanks train passengers who defended her during racist rant

"David knows that the traditional submissiveness of Muslim women is a sensitive issue," the Telegraph quoted a Government source as saying, "but the problems of young people being attracted by extremism will not be tackled without an element of cultural change within the community."

Unsurprisingly, the phrase "traditional submissiveness" didn't go down too well with a lot of Muslim women.

41-year-old author Shelina Janmohamed was one of the people who found the comments frustrating.

"There were a lot of ideas about Musliim women squashed together, which for me just do not represent the diversity, and the talents, and the achievements of Muslim women in the UK," she told Mashable. "For me they just re-enforce a particular stereotype."

She said she was saddened by the headlines and thought Cameron's purported statement would only make "life harder for Muslim women."

"So I responded in the most British way I could, which was with some sarcasm," Janmohamed said. "I tweeted some tweets with the hashtag #traditionallysubmissive — some fun examples and a bit of black humour — and it got picked up."

More and more Muslim women got involved with the hashtag, and Janmohamed planned Twitter storm for Sunday evening, with the aim to send a clear message to the Prime Minister.

Janmohamed described the response to the hashtag as overwhelming and incredibly inspiring.

"There was so much energy, it was so vibrant, it was so upbeat, it was so optimistic, it was so funny... they really took their response to the Prime Minister in a really upbeat, positive way that suggests that Muslim women really want to engage with the government," she said.

"There's such a huge diversity of opinion, of talent, of how Muslim women look, of what they do — all of them trying to make the point that there is no one submissive type of Muslim woman," Janmohamed said. "[T]hat really needs to be recognised by both the Prime Minster and the development of Government policy."

 But come to think of it all these women could say these because the are based in UK and Europe that protects the rights of all Humans to a very reasonable standard unlike most Arab countries that have relegated women to  being totally submissive with no voice.

Rat poison sales boom in Nigeria over Lassa fever fears

Sales of rat poison have taken off in Nigeria following an outbreak of Lassa fever that has left at least 76 people dead and sparked fears of contagion across the country.

In the northern city of Kano, the capital of one of 17 states where the haemorrhagic virus has been recorded, there have been "unprecedented" purchases of the pest control product.

The head of the city's chemicals traders, Shehu Idris Bichi, said sales have have increased four-fold since the outbreak was first announced earlier this month.

"Traders are doing brisk business because people are making unprecedented purchases of the product to rid their homes of rats that cause the disease," he told AFP.

Abubakar Ja'afar, who works in Kano's largest market, said he had never seen sales so high in his 20 years in the trade, with traders in other cities reporting similar increases in sales.

"I used to get between five and 10 clients a day but now I get at least 30 customers... people you don't expect because of their social status," he said.

"Lassa doesn't discriminate between the rich and the poor".

Vendors using megaphones and hawking their wares on carts have become commonplace.

"I was making up to 500 naira ($2.5, 2.3 euros) a day but now I make between 2,000 naira and 4,000 naira every day," said one, Awwalu Aminu, 40, in Kano.

- 'Culture of silence' -
Nigeria's health minister Isaac Adewole said earlier this week 212 suspected cases have been recorded of Lassa, which is endemic in rats in west Africa.
Outbreaks are not uncommon and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are between 100,000 to 300,000 infections in west Africa every year, with about 5,000 deaths.
In 2012, there were 1,723 cases and 112 deaths in Nigeria. Last year, 12 people died out of 375 infected, according to the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control.
The virus is spread through contact with food or household items contaminated with rats' urine or faeces.

Africa's most populous country was praised for its containment of Ebola in 2014, despite initial fears it could spread rapidly in densely populated urban areas after the first case in Lagos.

But while the government maintains it has the spread of Lassa under control, specialists have voiced concern about under-reporting and Nigeria's capacity to deal with the outbreak.

The first case dates back to last August in the northwestern state of Niger but was not detected until late last year.

Public awareness campaigns have since been mounted and surveillance ramped up of primary and secondary contacts of those with the disease.
The government has also blasted a "culture of silence" and vowed sanctions against medical professionals who fail to inform the authorities of suspected cases.
- Refuse collection -
Lawan Bello used to ignore rats in his home, bothering more about the damage the rodents could cause to personal effects such as clothing, furniture and food.
But the latest outbreak -- and the wider publicity about its spread -- has changed his attitude.
"Every few days I buy rat poison and use it in my home to kill rats and I will continue until my house is free of them," he said.
"I'm scared of Lassa and that has made me hate rats the most."
Killing rats may be one solution to the problem but effective waste disposal has long been a major problem in Nigeria's big cities.
"Everywhere you turn you see heaps of refuse which provides a breeding ground for rats," said Idris Musa, a community health worker in Kano.
"Rats breed fast and it is very difficult to beat rats' breeding rate with rodenticide".

In 2007, Kano was producing 2,000 tonnes of garbage every day but refuse collectors could only clear 800 tonnes, according to the city's refuse disposal agency.

500 years after reformation, Pope knocks on Lutherans' door

Pope Francis will celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation by attending an ecumenical service in Sweden as a guest of the Lutheran church, the Vatican said Monday.

In a highly symbolic act of reconciliation that would even recently have been unthinkable for a Catholic pontiff, Francis will visit the Swedish city of Lund on October 31 for a commemoration jointly organised by his own inter-faith agency and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

The surprise move will see the head of the world's Catholics worship alongside the heirs to a religious tradition founded in opposition to the church of Rome and which once regarded the pope as the anti-Christ.

The modern-day Lutheran church in Sweden continues to uphold principles that are anathema to all but the most radical Catholic theologians: it has had a female archbishop, Antje Jackelen, since 2013; has ordained women pastors since 1960 and embraces homosexuality to the point of having both lesbian and gay bishops.

Jackelen said Monday she hoped the commemoration would "contribute to Christian unity in our country and throughout the world."
In a joint statement, the two churches said the event would "highlight the solid ecumenical developments between Catholics and Lutherans."
The event may nevertheless raise eyebrows among some conservatives on both sides -- Francis came under fire in November for suggesting a Lutheran could take communion from a Catholic priest.
At a service Monday in Rome, Francis asked forgiveness for the way Catholics had treated other Christian believers over the years, and also invited Catholics to pardon those who had persecuted them.
"We cannot undo what happened but we cannot allow the weight of the mistakes of the past to poison our relations," he said.
The service in Lund will take place exactly one year before the 500th anniversary of German monk Martin Luther nailing his famous written protest against the Church's abuses of its power to the door of a church in Wittenberg.
The act of defiance of papal authority resulted in Luther being excommunicated and declared an outlaw by Rome.
The posting of the "95 theses" is considered the starting point of the Reformation -- a dissenting movement that created a religious and political schism in Europe which took centuries to fully unfold and featured many violent chapters before Protestant churches became dominant across most of northern Europe.

- No to papal infallibility -

The numerous conflicts and waves of repression related to the Reformation left a legacy of deep mistrust between the Catholic and Protestant wings of Christianity which has only subsided in the last half-century.

Martin Junge, the LWF general secretary, said such divisions belonged to the past.

"I'm carried by the profound conviction that by working towards reconciliation between Lutherans and Catholics, we are working towards justice, peace and reconciliation in a world torn apart by conflict and violence," he said in a statement.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, the president of the Vatican's Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), said a "Christocentric approach" was required.
The Lund event is part of a dialogue in which the Lutheran and Catholic churches are attempting to agree on a common account of the painful events of the reformation.
The two Churches agreed in 1999 on a joint statement addressing the theological issues at the root of the upheaval.
These included questions such as whether humans could earn their place in heaven through good deeds or whether salvation comes exclusively through the grace of God.

Luther and his followers championed the Bible's translation into local languages and its status as the sole source of divine authority.

They also opposed the sale of indulgences and other forms of clerical corruption and challenged notions such as the idea of penance, the veneration of saints, the existence of purgatory and the infallibility of popes.

Trump visits Iowa church: gets a lesson in humility

On the second-to-last Sunday before the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump settled into a fifth row pew of an Iowa church for a lesson in humility.

"I don't know if that was aimed at me ... perhaps," Trump said after the hourlong service at the First Presbyterian Church.

Religious voters are a major factor in the opening contest on the presidential nominating calendar, and Trump has been working hard to build his appeal among them. His chief challenger in the Republican race is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a conservative preacher's son who's made deep inroads with evangelicals.

The service, which Trump's campaign invited several reporters to observe, included hymns, readings and a performance by the children's choir. Cream-colored stained glass in the window cast a golden glow.

At one point, Trump shared a prayer book with Debra Whitaker, an Iowa supporter seated to his right. She put her hand gently around Trump's waist as the congregation sang Hymn 409, "God is Here!" Trump could be seen by some mouthing the words of the hymn.

At one point, as church-goers offered each other wishes of peace, Trump received warm greetings from those around him.

When it was time to offer tithes, Trump was seen digging into his pants' pocket. Two folded $50 bills were later spotted in a collection plate that was passed down his pew.

One reading during the service, about the importance of humility, included a reference that caught Trump's ear.

"Can you imagine eye telling hand, 'Get lost, I don't need you' or hearing the head telling the foot, 'You're fired, your job has been phased out?'" the reader said. "You're fired!" was Trump's signature catchphrase when he hosted "The Apprentice" television show.

"I heard that," Trump later told reporters, when asked about the reference. "I wondered if that was for me. They didn't even know I was coming, so I doubt it. But it's an appropriate phrase."

In her sermon, the pastor, the Rev. Dr. Pamela Saturnia, also made several references with resonance for the 2016 race.

"Jesus is teaching us today that he has come for those who are outside of the church," she said, preaching a message of healing and acceptance for "those who are the most unloved, the most discriminated against, the most forgotten in our community and in our world."

Among those she cited were "the Syrian refugees" and "the Mexican migrants." Trump has advocated barring all Syrian refugees from entering the country because of potential security risks and deporting all of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally. He's said he wants to create a safe zone for refugees instead.

As a candidate, the thrice-married New Yorker has worked to foster relationships with Christian leaders. He received a glowing introduction last week from Jerry Falwell Jr., president of one of the country's most prominent evangelical Christian universities, and on Saturday he campaigned with the Rev. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas, a megachurch.

At times, Trump has appeared to struggle to affirm his Christian credentials. He often feels compelled to remind Christian audiences that he was raised as a Presbyterian. And he has waved a copy of his childhood Bible and a photo of his confirmation at some events as evidence of his upbringing.

"Well I'm proud of it. I mean I'm very proud of it," Trump said when asked about the practice. "And I do remind people, not often, but I do remind people when people ask."

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, left, speaks with a woman as he arrives for service  …

Asked whether he thinks people are aware of his religion, he said. "I think they know now. I think they didn't know at all at the beginning... it took a while."

But Trump has also made what have been seen as several minor missteps on religion during the campaign, mistakenly referring to Second Corinthians as "two Corinthians" during a speech last week at Falwell's school, Liberty University in Virginia, and saying in an interview that he had never sought forgiveness from God.

Trump capped off the visit with a rally in Muscatine, where he was introduced by Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann — another sign that the Republican establishment is beginning to accept a potential Trump candidacy.

"I want to win Iowa, I want to really win it," Trump said before that rally. "I have a tremendous bond with the people of Iowa. We've struck a chord with evangelicals, the Tea Party. And I think we have a good chance."

Female Jihadi: Men Should ‘Get Off Their Couches’ and Kill

Male Islamic State militants are notorious for asserting their dominance over women living in their caliphate. But at least one female recruiter has stood up to would-be jihadists who talk online about committing terrorist attacks and then never carry them out.

On Sunday, a woman posting on a channel called Umm Isa Amrikiah on the Telegram messenger app called out male Islamic State sympathizers as hypocrites and urged them to “get off their couches” and kill Westerners.

“Get off your couches and do something instead of spending 24/7 on social media,” she wrote, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terrorist activity online.

Although estimates for the number of Westerners who have joined the Islamic State vary, more than 4,500 foreign fighters are believed to have joined the extremist group in recent years, and at least 550 of them are women. Many of the females who join the group are between the ages of 16 and 24, and traveled to Syria to join men who encouraged them in chatrooms. Men are also often radicalized online, and in November, Telegram shut down more than 75 channels believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State.
Although little is known about Umm Isa Amrikiah, she claims to be American and has previously been identified as a point of contact for women interested in traveling to Syria to join the Islamic State.
But apparently it’s not only women she is interested in encouraging. Her Sunday post mocked men who claim they want to kill unbelievers but never do, and disparaged them as lesser than their brothers in the battlefields who are “out in the cold dark night facing the enemies.”

“You cry out on social media ‘I want shariah’ ‘I want to make hijrah’ yet you are doing nothing about it,” she wrote. “You are not a man, just a male.”

IS planning for 'large-scale' attacks on Europe: Europol

The Islamic State group has honed the ability to launch global attacks and is set to focus more on Europe following the Paris massacre, the chief of the EU police agency Europol said Monday.

Rob Wainwright told a news conference that "the so-called Islamic State had developed a new combat style capability to carry out a campaign of large-scale terrorist attacks on a global stage -- with a particular focus in Europe."

"So-called Islamic State has a willingness and a capability to carry out further attacks in Europe, and of course all national authorities are working to prevent that from happening," he added.

Wainwright was unveiling the findings of a new Europol report on changes in how the jihadist group operates, coinciding with the launch of the agency's new counterterrorism centre in The Hague.

IS claimed responsibility for the November 13 Paris attacks in which 130 people were killed, releasing a video on Sunday purporting to show nine of the jihadists in which they threaten "coalition countries" including Britain.
A US-led coalition has been fighting IS in Iraq since August 2014, and in Syria since September that year.

"IS is preparing more terrorist attacks, including more 'Mumbai-style' attacks, to be executed in member states of the EU, and in France in particular," the Europol report said.
"The attacks will be primarily directed at soft targets, because of the impact it generates. Both the November Paris attacks and the October 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner suggest a shift in IS strategy towards going global."
IS had developed an "external action command" which was trained for "special forces-style attacks" internationally, the report said.
But the report played down fears that jihadists were smuggling themselves into Europe as part of the huge wave of refugees and migrants that the continent is dealing with, many of whom are fleeing the war in Syria.
"There is no concrete evidence that terrorist travellers systematically use the flow of refugees to enter Europe unnoticed," it said.
It warned however that many new arrivals were vulnerable to radicalisation or recruitment, with evidence that extremist recruiters were specifically targeting refugee centres.
One of the main tasks of the new Europol counter-terrorism centre was to collect details on the estimated 5,000 Europeans who have gone to fight with IS in Syria and Iraq, Wainwright said.
"We already have details on 3,700 fighters actively engaged in the conflict zone but that's not the full picture and it's something we will be addressing through priority work of the new centre," it said.