Boko Haram Burns Children Alive in Nigeria, 86 Dead, Officials Say (GRAPHIC)

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Book Haram Burns Children Alive in Nigeria, 86 Dead, Officials Say (GRAPHIC)

Editor’s Note:

Some readers may be disturbed by the images in this story; discretion is advised. (Story by the Associated Press; curated by Dave Urbanski.)

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DALORI, Nigeria (AP) — A survivor hidden in a tree says he watched Boko Haram extremists firebomb huts and heard the screams of children burning to death, among 86 people officials say died in the latest attack by Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremists.

A man walks past burnt out houses following an attack by Boko Haram in Dalori village near Maiduguri, Nigeria, Sunday Jan. 31, 2016. (AP Photo/Jossy Ola)

Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night’s attack on Dalori village and two nearby camps housing 25,000 refugees, according to survivors and soldiers at the scene just 3 miles from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in Nigeria’s northeast.

The shooting, burning and explosions from three suicide bombers continued for nearly four hours in the unprotected area, survivor Alamin Bakura said, weeping on a telephone call to The Associated Press. He said several of his family members were killed or wounded.

The violence continued as three female suicide bombers blew up among people who managed to flee to neighboring Gamori village, killing many people, according to a soldier at the scene who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to journalists.

People gather around a dead animal and burnt out houses following an attack by Boko Haram in Dalori village 3 miles from Maiduguri, Nigeria, Sunday Jan. 31, 2016. (AP Photo/Jossy Ola)

Troops arrived at Dalori around 8:40 p.m. Saturday but were unable to overcome the attackers, who were better armed, said soldiers who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. The Boko Haram fighters only retreated after reinforcements arrived with heavier weapons, they said.

Journalists visited the carnage Sunday and spoke to survivors who complained it had taken too long for help to arrive from nearby Maiduguri, the military headquarters of the fight to curb Boko Haram. They said they fear another attack.

Eighty-six bodies were collected by Sunday afternoon, according to Mohammed Kanar, area coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency. Another 62 people are being treated for burns, said Abba Musa of the State Specialist Hospital in Maiduguri.

People gather around the body of a man and his children killed following an attack by Boko Haram in Dalori village 3 miles from Maiduguri, Nigeria, Sunday Jan. 31, 2016. (AP Photo/Jossy Ola)

Boko Haram has been attacking soft targets, increasingly with suicide bombers, since the military last year drove them out of towns and villages in northeastern Nigeria.

The 6-year Islamic uprising has killed about 20,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes.

College Announces Plans of a Dorm Only For Black Men — And Students Reacted

Jan. 31, 2016 9:58am Kaitlyn Schallhorn

In order to help black males graduate, the University of Connecticut is constructing a dorm with a living space only for them.

Called the ScHOLA2RS House, the living community for African American males is set to open in 2016. According to UConn’s website, the ScHOLA2RS House is “a scholastic initiative to groom, nurture, and train the next generation of leaders to address grand challenges in society through the promotion of academic success in undergraduate programs at the University of Connecticut and in competitive graduate programs.”

Dr. Erik Hines, an assistant professor of educational psychology and the future faculty advisor to those in the dorm, said UConn will implement the living space as a “forward-thinking” solution to the fact that black male students graduate at a lower rate.

University of Connecticut (UConn) main campus. (Photo by Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

“It is a space for African American men to one, come together and validate their experiences that they may have on campus. Number two, it’s also a space where they can have conversation and also talk with individuals who come from the same background who share the same experience,” Hines told WTIC-TV.

However, some students have taken issue with the idea.

“I was not pleased, my immediate thought was ‘What?’” Haddiyyah Ali, a fourth-semester Africana studies and political science major told the Daily Campus. “I know there had to be a lot of research that went into it…but just for me coming from a student perspective, my initial thought was what about black women and girls – what about us?”

“Just this idea that 43 black men get retention programming and everyone else is left in limbo,” Ali continued. “I will always contest to the fact that black men on the campus aren’t given enough resources, I will in no way dispel that fact, but my questioning isn’t if they need, but is if they need it in this way.”

David Ouimette, executive director of first year programs and learning communities, told the Daily Campus that UConn received a grant specifically for a living-learning community.

“It’s interesting this hang up on the living part. I don’t really understand the hang up,” he said. 

“The white portion of the University of Connecticut is probably not ready for it,” Isaac Bloodworth, a puppetry major, said of the criticisms. “You have people who are going to go against it because they are just racist and they see this as a form of segregation or that we’re getting better things than they are.”

Bloodworth continued to say that while he’s supportive of the community, he’s fearful that the living space could lead to a racial divide on campus.

ScHOLA2RS House will be housed in a more than 200,000-square-foot dorm set to open in 2016, according to WTIC.

Here is what you need to know about Obama's visit to a Baltimore mosque and it's significant.

The US Mosque Obama Has Chosen For His First Presidential Visit Has Deep Extremist Ties

Posted By Chuck Ross On 4:33 PM 01/30/2016 

The Baltimore mosque President Obama has chosen as the first U.S.-based mosque to visit during his presidency has deep ties to extremist elements, including to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The White House announced on Saturday that Obama will visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) on Wednesday. He has visited several mosques overseas as president but has resisted visiting one in the homeland. The purpose of the trip, according to the White House, is to “celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.”

But ISB is a curious choice for Obama’s first domestic visit.

The mosque is a member of a network of mosques controlled by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a Muslim civil rights group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror case. Several executives with that organization were convicted of sending money to aid the terrorist group Hamas. (RELATED: Here’s A Map Of Radical Mosques In The U.S. [Interactive])

An imam who served at ISB for a total of 15 years has also been a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood network and has worked for an Islamic relief group that was designated as a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department in 2004.

Mohammad Adam el-Sheikh, who served two stints as ISB’s imam, from 1983 to 1989 and from 1994 to 2003, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan in the 1970s. He also co-founded the Muslim American Society, a Falls Church, Va.-based group that is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

While in Baltimore, el-Sheikh served as a regional director for the Islamic American Relief Agency. That group’s parent organization is the Islamic African Relief Agency, which the Treasury Department says provided funds to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

After leaving Baltimore, el-Sheikh served as imam at the infamous Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church. That mosque has a lengthy roster of known terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. Its imam during much of the 1990s was Mohammed al-Hanooti. He was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people.

Dar al-Hijrah came under the control of Anwar al-Awlaki in 2001. He’s the American al-Qaeda recruiter who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Nov. 2009, is said to have attended the Virginia mosque when al-Awlaki served there. The pair also reportedly exchanged emails. Two of the 9/11 hijackers also attended Dar al-Hijrah during al-Awlaki’s tenure.

El-Sheikh took over at Dar al-Hijrah in Aug. 2003, a little over a year after al-Awlaki left. While there he defended Palestianian suicide bombings against Israel.

“If certain Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves, except through these kinds of means, and their local religious leaders issued fatwas to permit that, then it becomes acceptable as an exceptional rule, but should not be taken as a principle,” he said in 2004, according to a Washington Post article at the time.

As The Post reported Saturday, ISB’s website states that it seeks “to be the anchor of a growing Muslim community with diverse backgrounds, democratically governed, relating to one another with inclusiveness and tolerance, and interacting with neighbors in an Islamic exemplary manner.”

But that desire for tolerance — which President Obama frequently touts as well — does not appear to be a virtue shared by ISB’s resident scholar, Yaseen Shaikh.

A 2013 Youtube video shows Shaikh, who previously served as imam at a mosque in Plano, Tex., speaking out forcefully against homosexuality in Islam.

During an hour long diatribe, Shaikh called homosexuality a psychological disorder that has no place in Islam or society. He also lamented that gay rights groups have “hijacked” political discourse.

“This whole subject of homosexuality in the public sphere…is no longer a religious issue, unfortunately, as much as we want to use the religious card and try to defeat this, now it’s become a politicized issue,” Shaikh says in the video.

“Politicians are highly influenced by people who back them, and we find that these politicians who are calling for gay rights and marriage and supporting gay rights are lobbied and campaigned by gay activists, by gay groups. And they are throwing money at it left and right to gain some acceptance in society, to be considered normal people, to be treated normally.”

Obama is one such politician who has supported gay rights.

“We have to counter the efforts that are taking place elsewhere,” Sheikh says in the video, advising that “if our children are taught that [homosexuality is] okay, we have to teach them it’s not okay.”

OMG: NAACP leader uses F-word to apologize for using T-word after N-word meeting. Just another I'm better then you white liberal showing his class.

OMG: NAACP leader uses F-word to apologize for using T-word after N-word meeting

JANUARY 31, 2016

BY OLAF EKBERG

The NAACP’s mission of political correctness and equality careened off the rails this week when a local president complimented a TV reporters breasts during an interview.

Don Harris, the president of the Maricopa County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, had just finished an event at Tempe Union High School District to discuss an incident at the school in which several girls wore black t-shirts bearing the letters “N-I-*-*-E-R” on them.

The outrage was instantaneous.

“The six students in question pulled ranks to spell out NI**ER on their own, smiling gleefully to pose for an Instagram picture. Their punishment was 5-days suspension,” a petition demanding their expulsion reads, EAGnews reports.

“This hurtful use of a racial slur is a complete disregard for the dignity of the black community in Arizona and across the nation and the punishment does not fit the total ignorance and cruelty of the crime.”

Harris was on hand to accept apologizes and demand action.

But after the meeting, while participants were speaking with the media, he was caught on camera saying Channel 12 reporter Monique Griego had “nice tits.”

“I can’t believe that someone in his position would not understand how inappropriate that comment was at the time that he made it,” says Ray Stern, a reporter for the Phoenix New Times, who was talking to Griego at the time.

“Here’s the leader of the NAACP talking about the N-word and then making this comment, that was more inappropriate than I could even believe,” he tells ABC 15.

The news station reports Harris doesn’t believe Griego heard him at the time and says he feels like he let down the NAACP. He calls his comment “ugly” and says it just slipped out “guy to guy.”

After the reaction, Harris now says he feels “down in the dumps.”

The New Times contacted Harris after that incident and reports the NAACP leader said, “I apologize if anyone was offended. I could have said nothing . . . I’m really f*cking sorry.”

He argued that the meeting was over when he complimented the reporter’s rack and then really blew a gasket (edited for a family audience):

“I’m going to slash my wrists,” he spews. “Better yet, I’m going to throw myself out of a f*cking window, except I’m on the first floor . . . I’m one of the best g*dd*mned people in the state.”

People criticized him when he first took over the NAACP chief post from the Reverend Oscar Tillman, who retired in 2014 after 22 years in the position, he says, because “I was the wrong flavor.

“They’ve seen me now, they’ve seen what I’ve done. I’ve given up my law practice. I’m down here six, seven days a week. That’s what my commitment is. I support NOW, the women’s organization — g*dd*mn! — are you sh*tting me? Are you going to write this up?”

Griego didn’t comment on the situation but Harris insists he wants to apologize face-to-face. (Of course he does.)

Last June, when white NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal was exposed for pretending to be black, Harris appeared on CNN and claimed “credibility” is one of the most important assets the organization has.

“This is a race-based organization — the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. And being a race-based organization, when you have a leader in any capacity, you’ve got to have credibility.

“Once you lose that credibility, the efficacy of your leadership fails,” Harris said.

There are now calls for Harris’s resignation and at least one minister seeking his ouster blames not Harris’s sexism, but his “white privilege.”

“Don can be a bit of a character, but I think he’s also a well-to-do, older, white male and he exhibited some of the signs of what we’ve called ‘white privilege,’ Rev. Jarrett Maupin says, according to KTAR. “He should know better than anyone, as the NAACP, to do what he did.”

Venezuela

Venezuelan opposition ups efforts to oust President Maduro

Venezuela's hyperinflation and related problems are breeding social unrest. That, in turn, is driving the political opposition, with a near constitutional majority, to find a way to oust President Maduro.

Venezuela's newly empowered opposition is intensifying efforts to find a legal means to oust President Nicolas Maduro, whose mandate runs until 2019.

The opposition MUD party thrashed Maduro's socialists in December's parliamentary election, winning 112 of the 167 National Assembly seats - giving it a constitutional majority.

That would have left an easy path for the opposition to remove Maduro, including by rewriting the constitution to allow for the president's impeachment.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

But Maduro maneuvered to have three of the MUD legislators suspended for possible electoral fraud. The move was backed by Venezuela's Supreme Court, which is packed with loyalists to the late socialist President Hugo Chavez.

Transparency International has dubbed Venezuela's judiciary the world's most corrupt.

Stripped of a straightforward path to removing Maduro, the opposition is searching for other constitutional or legislative means, as the country's economic turmoil continues to deepen.

"Someone said we should let the government finish its term so it can stew in its own juice," the opposition speaker of congress, Henry Ramos Allup said. "That would be irresponsible."

The oil-rich nation has been driven to economic ruin, at least in part by plunging oil prices. However, opponents would argue that 17 years of socialist rule have exacerbated the crisis.

World's worst inflation 

Venezuela is suffering shortages of basic foods and medicines, driven by the world's steepest inflation rate - 180 percent by some estimates. Three years of economic contraction have led to long lines for basic necessities nationwide.

MUD opposition leader Henry Ramos Allup 

Options for the multi-faction opposition include demanding Maduro's resignation, forcing a recall referendum, which is allowed half-way through his term, or reforming the constitution to trigger a new presidential election.

Maduro is not likely to resign, and for now the opposition is short of their constitutional majority. A recall referendum appears to be their best bet, as Maduro will reach the half-way point of his six-year term in April.

"I don't want this to last three more years, going from bad to worse," Ramos said. "If you can treat an illness before it kills you, then you obviously apply the treatment."

But a recall referendum is not without pitfalls, as the Maduro-backed judiciary and electoral institutions could delay the process into 2017, paving the way for his vice president to take over rather than there being a new election if he lost the vote of confidence.

Benigno Alarcon, a political scientist at Andres Bello Catholic University, said the opposition's hand is being forced by growing public anger.

"There have been attempts at looting and protests in various cities," Alarcon said. "That creates a lot of pressure on all those involved, especially on the opposition, which offered a change."

bik/gsw (AFP, Reuters)

National Association of Scholars Releases Report on the Purpose of Higher Education — Has Nothing to Do With ‘Safe Spaces’ or ‘Trigger Warnings’ The not very just attacks on free thought by the demented left.

National Association of Scholars Releases Report on the Purpose of Higher Education — Has Nothing to Do With ‘Safe Spaces’ or ‘Trigger Warnings’

Jan. 29, 2016 6:52pm Carly Hoilman

In an 11,000-word statement released by the National Association of Scholars this week, NAS President Peter Wood discussed at length the subject of academic freedom. The statement, titled “The Architecture of Intellectual Freedom,” was delivered following a season of particularly vocal and aggressive social justice movements addressing race, free speech and sexual violence on college campuses.

More specifically, Wood’s remarks address the emergence of “trigger warnings,” the push for “safe spaces,” the Black Lives Matter movement and other campus protests of recent months, and include a suggestion that many of these demands are not actually “just” at all but, rather, are an “assault on the concepts of both academic freedom and intellectual freedom.”

Wood asserts that these calls, though viewed by many as exercises in academic freedom, actually smother liberty.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology students and activists hold signs during an on-campus rally supporting affirmative action. (Douglas McFadd/Getty Images)

“In seeking to suppress images, names and ideas and prevent others from expressing their views, the protesters efface the promise of freedom,” Wood wrote.

The statement argues that, in addition to preparing students for their careers, colleges and universities should provide students with an education in culture, truth and character.

Above all, according to Wood, most people desire “a form of education that teaches young men and women how to be free.”

“Intellectual freedom is one of the foundational principles of higher education,” Wood said. “Colleges and universities exist to further the pursuit of knowledge, through teaching old truths and discovering new ones. Both tasks depend crucially on freedom.”

According to NAS, intellectual freedom, though a prominent value, must be joined with other principles. Intellectual freedom does not mean, for example, the freedom to block out ideas and points of view with which students disagree.

“Hearing directly from people you disagree and listening carefully to what they say is indispensable,” Wood said. “[Students] demand the right to protest but don’t realize that, on campus, such protest comes with the obligation to let others have their say.”

Wood also said that both advocates and critics of campus protests often violate the doctrine of academic freedom. “Freedom on campus is not just for speaking your mind. It is for listening to others, seeking truth, and shaping ideas worthy of respect.”

The statement suggests that those who declare free expression “a social evil that ought to be suppressed” typically see free expression itself as “a mask of oppression worn by privileged elites intent on subjugating others” or the intellectually strong reigning over the weak. But the solution, Wood added, is not to curtail is not to curtail or eliminate freedom.

Wood explained that intellectual freedom is like a stone in an arch.

“It cannot hold itself up in midair. But when it is buttressed by other stones, the arch is powerful. The other stones are a genuine diversity of ideas; the colleges’ curriculum; respect for individual independence of mind; treating those who disagree with civility; and pursuing the truth, no matter if runs against your prior beliefs.”

Read the full statement here.

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