RUTHFULLY YOURS

Unidentified gunmen stormed a Catholic-run retirement home in southern Yemen last Friday, killing 16 people, including four Catholic nuns. A priest was taken captive and is still missing. The retirement home, run by the Missionaries of Charity — an organization established by Mother Teresa of Calcutta — houses 80 elderly people in the jihadist-infested port city of Aden. The four gunmen reportedly entered the the home on the pretext that they wanted to visit their mothers at the facility.

Via the Guardian:

The gunmen moved from room to room, handcuffing the victims before shooting them in the head. A nun who survived and was rescued by local residents said she hid inside a fridge in a storeroom after hearing a Yemeni guard shouting “run, run”.

Khaled Haidar said that he counted 16 bodies, including that of his brother, Radwan. All had been shot in the head and were handcuffed. He said one Yemeni cook and Yemeni guards were among those killed.

Chikombedzi, Zimbabwe

My country’s government would rather see people starve than let them eat genetically modified food.

That’s the only conclusion to draw from the announcement in February that Zimbabwe will reject any food aid that includes a genetically-modified-organism ingredient—such as grains, corn and other crops made more vigorous or fruitful through GMO breeding. The ban comes just as Zimbabweans are suffering from our worst drought in two decades and up to three million people need emergency relief.

“The position of the government is very clear,” said Joseph Made, the minister of agriculture. “We do not accept GMO as we are protecting the environment from the grain point of view.”

In other words, my country—which can’t feed itself—will refuse what millions around the world eat safely every day in their breakfasts, lunches and dinners as a conventional source of calories. It doesn’t matter whether the aid arrives as food for people or feed for animals. Our customs inspectors will make sure that no food with GMOs reaches a single hungry mouth.The drought has devastated my family’s farm, which will produce almost no sorghum or corn this year. We’re short on money and the drought has caused prices to soar, even for the simplest goods. In the markets, cabbages the size of tennis balls sell for $1.

People are desperate for work. Last week I watched a man the age of my grandfather carry a hoe from house to house, trying to trade whatever labor he could offer for a meal. He wound up performing backyard chores for a cup of tea. The rejection of GMO food aid is a humanitarian outrage—a man-made disaster built on top of a natural disaster. Yet something even worse lies behind it: a denial of science. GMOs pose no threat to human health, as virtually every scientific and regulatory agency that has studied them knows.

They are also positively good for the environment, allowing farmers to fight soil erosion by planting high-yield crops that need less water, reduce greenhouse gases—and, most important, grow more food on less land. CONTINUE AT SITE

BERLIN—Germany’s federal police agency said that it had obtained files from Islamic State containing names and personal data of members of the extremist group that officials believe could help prosecute suspected militants.

The Federal Criminal Police, or BKA, believes the documents are authentic and would serve in prosecutions and in evaluating security measures, an agency spokeswoman said Thursday. She declined to say how the agency obtained the files or to disclose any details of the information in them.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière stressed the significance of the documents, saying they offered an opportunity to prove the participation of Germans in the terror activities of Islamic State. The records could help lead to speedier investigations and stricter prison sentences for any Germans who have participated in the Sunni Muslim extremist group’s activities, he said.
Confirmation that German authorities had a trove of Islamic State documents came after Sky News reported late Wednesday that it had obtained tens of thousands of similar documents containing 22,000 names, addresses, telephone numbers and family contacts of Islamic State members. It wasn’t clear whether the documents acquired by the German authorities were identical to those obtained by Sky News. CONTINUE AT SITE

I intend to put Kirralie Smith, representing the Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA), first on the Senate ballot paper for NSW at the next election. I am doing that for four reasons.

First, I believe that Islam represents a dire threat to civilised values. Second, Mrs Smith seems to me, having read about her and heard her speak, an excellent candidate. Third, the ALA is a party of traditional values and small government. Fourth, the ALA supports increasing defence expenditure.

Bear in mind that I will vote for the ALA despite one of the Party’s policy apparatchiks, ex-National Ron Pike, explaining his grand scheme to take the dividends from the Snowy Mountain Scheme, which presently go to the NSW, Victorian and the federal Governments, and use them to pay interest on new borrowings to fund a massive program of hydro-electric dam building. I won’t go into more detail. Rex Connor came to mind.

I have nothing against dams. I like them. But it is self-evidently Mr Pike’s pet scheme and the ALA would have been wise to leave it alone. It has nothing to do with the price of fish – no pun intended. Mr Pike should set up his own party, perhaps.

Too much policy detail leaves a new party hostage to pet schemes of those who have had no success in pushing them within the established parties. It is best, in my view, simply to establish philosophical positions which will guide policy choices, rather than get among the weeds. The exception in this case is the ALA’s position on Islam, which is its raison d’être and the basis of its appeal for electoral support. Those who do vote for it won’t have dams on their minds.