1. US suspends funding to UNWRA



The video below from Honest Reporting, asks, “Should America Stop Funding UNRWA?”



2. Iran's Deal With Bombardier Nears Conclusion

Canadian planemaker Bombardier has submitted a draft contract for 10 brand-new CRJ-900 NextGen regional jets to Iran’s Qeshm Free Area Organization for review and finalization, Reza Baqerinejad, the CEO and Chairman of Qeshm Investment and Development Company told the Financial Tribune on Monday, noting that the final contract will be officially unveiled within a month. “The planemaker has obtained the sales license from the US Treasury’s Office for Foreign Assets Control and is ready to finance 80% of the order. The remaining 20% would be funded by Qeshm Free Area,” he said without providing further details about the total value of the contract. The contract with Qeshm Free Area marks Bombardier’s first foray into the Iranian market as no Iranian airline has ever operated planes manufactured by the Canadian company. Deliveries are expected to begin ten months after the deal is unveiled, Baqerinejad said. “Bombardier is expected to deliver two planes every three months.”





3. Muslim husband found guilty of murdering convert wife and burning her body after he had banned her from seeing her family

A Muslim man who killed his convert wife by bludgeoning her with a claw hammer and then stabbing her was today found guilty of her murder. Akshar Ali, 27, murdered 26-year-old Sinead Wooding with friend Yasmin Ahmed, 27, before dumping her body in woodland and setting it on fire, Leeds Crown Court was told. A jury today unanimously found the pair guilty of murder after five days of deliberations. The court had previously heard mother-of-four Miss Wooding had been attacked at her home in Leeds with a hammer and had been stabbed six times.

4. France: Families of captive French jihadis sue to bring them home

Six families of French jihadis captured during Islamic State's retreat filed a complaint Wednesday demanding that the government bring them home, a week after a video of two notorious European extremists renewed the debate over how hundreds of foreign Islamic State fighters should be handled. The complaint, filed by families of French women and children held by Kurdish militias, condemned what it called "deliberate inertia" by French authorities, saying it had left mothers and children — including infants — vulnerable to the risks of living in a war zone. [...] A veteran of France's jihadi movement, Konig was famous for provocative public appearances in a fully-body niqab, which she referred to as a "second skin" just before leaving for Syria in 2012 to join the Islamic State group. She also was filmed in two propaganda videos the following year. She called on French Muslims to attack their homeland and is listed as a key recruiter for IS by the U.N. and the U.S. government.

5. Bulgarian court opens trial for 2012 bus bombing

A Bulgarian court has opened the trial of two men charged with terrorism for their alleged involvement in a 2012 suicide bombing that killed five Israeli tourists and their bus driver and injured 35. [...] On July 18, 2012, Mohamad Hassan El-Husseini, a French-Lebanese national, blew himself up on a tourist bus at the airport in the Black Sea resort of Burgas. [...] An investigation found that the attack was the work of the military wing of Hezbollah, leading the European Union to declare it a terrorist organization.

6. "Evil" builder, 33, "raped his niece, 20, then slit her throat and hid her body in a freezer he installed in a client's home two days earlier - after he and a friend, 28, kidnapped two women and took them to the £1.5m house"

An “utterly wicked and obsessed” builder raped his niece before slitting her throat and hiding her body in a padlocked freezer, a court heard today. Builder Mujahid Arshid, 33, and his employee Vincent Tappu, 28, allegedly kidnapped Celine Dookhran, 20, and another victim on July 19 last year. The pair stuffed socks into the women's mouths and bound their hands and feet before Ashid put them in the boot of a car wrapped in dust sheets and took them to a £1.5 million six-bedroom south west London house he was working on, the Old Bailey heard.

Newsreader video has images and explanation of motives.



7. Guards’ Rage at Europe's Largest Prison Spills to Streets Over Islamist Violence

About a hundred prison workers gathered at the Fleury-Merogis Prison in the suburbs of Paris on Monday night, protesting last week's assault on guards at the Vendin-le-Vieil prison in northern France, which saw three guards injured in a scissor attack by an Islamist militant. A Sputnik France correspondent was at the scene, showing a group of men, many of them wearing Union Federale Autonome Penitentiare (UFAP) vests, linking arms, shouting and chanting slogans as riot police made use of smoke grenades. [...] The rep explained that with rare exceptions, the terrorists are simply mixed with the ordinary criminal population, and that the Islamists' designation as “radicalized” is essentially meaningless when guards are tasked with handling nearly a hundred other inmates.

Below is a translation of the interview with the prison guard in the video above:

“Penitentiary staff (guards) want better and more humane working conditions, a complete review of recruitment methods, additional staff is urgently needed.

They are also asking for new training methods for all the guards.

There isn't a day that goes by that a prison guard isn't spat on, hit, kicked...

The Fleury-Mérogis prison population is increasingly radicalized and the guards don't have adequate training skills to deal with them.

They are prison guards and not sub-citizens. They also are entitled to security.

As of January 15, two-thirds of prisons were under blockade and there is great solidarity among them. They won't quit until their demands are met.

They need additional security measures in place, including staff, materials, and equipment.

The Fleury-Mérogis facility is at 150% over-capacity, thus 90 inmates per guard. The prison houses the highest rate of terrorists in France, in this case, 120 detainees.

They need additional skills to deal with the situation. Also, these terrorists are placed with the general population and each guard must pay particular attention to the terror detainee among its load of 90 prisoners. It's not humanly possible to deal with the situation.

They set up many prison barricades throughout the country that will go up in flames, one after another.

Although they all work in law enforcement, they must now deal with police officers who are sent in to face off with them. It's a very sad situation for the Republic. ‘They are law enforcers for the State and so are we. We should be united among ourselves.’

'Nowadays, we have police officers that are assaulted on the streets. Where do the attackers end up? Behind bars, and for that reason we are asking for solidarity.'”

The man at the 6:30 mark, is saying, “The Government is releasing funds to provide inmates with phone service in every cell. It will be very costly and require much work. However, when it comes to our security, they seem unwilling to assist us. Visibly, there are citizens who are more important than others.”

At the 10:45 mark, the man is reminding the police officers that they, the prison guards, are working among inmates that, once released, will target these officers. He's asking the police officers to side with them and not against them.

8. First Somali Police Officer In Maine Arrested At Concert

The first Somali person to become a police officer in Maine was arrested Saturday night for disrupting a concert and heads to court Wednesday to face multiple charges for her behavior. The 24-year-old police officer, Zahra Munye Abu, was arrested Saturday night at Palladium Nightclub in Worcester, Mass., for assault and battery and was charged with three other counts of misdemeanor, according to the Portland Press Herald. Abu was bailed out of jail at 1 a.m. Sunday, but the bail amount has not been disclosed.

Swearing in video of Zahra Abu:

News report on arrest:

In a related story, the relatives of an Australian national, Justine Ruszczyk Damond, shot to death in the US by an affirmative action hire, Mohamedd Noor, asked for another examination of the events after Hennepin County Attorney, Mike Freeman, last week complained that he doesn't have enough evidence to charge Officer Mohamed Noor in the killing of the woman.

9. Horror as teenager stabbed in tram stop attack - suspect on run

The incident happened in Cottbus, which is in the east of the country and close to the border with Poland. According to the German news website LR Online, the teenager was stabbed by a Syrian teenager. The stabbing happened at the tram stop Blechen-Carre at around 3pm this afternoon.

10. France: Migrants caught chasing trucks at the French-English border:

From the Youtube page:

Migrants were caught trying to embark trucks crossing the border to the UK near the Ouistreham port in Calvados, Wednesday.