Three men and one woman robbed, beat, and poisoned Sagheer Masih, a 35-year-old Christian auto-rickshaw driver. "He was well-mannered, polite and very friendly. Knowing he had the responsibility of taking care of three younger siblings... he ensured that he always got to work early and left late in order to gather as much money as he could to care for them.... Instead of killing him in on the spot, they forced him to drink poison and acid and left him there to die...." — International Christian Concern, June 20, 2019, Pakistan.

"Their tactic is to befriend someone when they come in [to prison]. If they don't convert, they will then start spreading rumours about them, that the person is a snitch, so that they will be ostracised. Then the beatings follow." — An inmate, according to a Ministry of Justice report; The Times, June 7, 2019, United Kingdom.

"We cannot allow the Christians... to allege that Jesus is the Son of God," explained one mosque leader; "this [is] a serious blasphemy to Muslims." — Morning Star News, June 3, 2019, Uganda.

In one of those delicious ironies that add flavor to history, as the G7, which ended up including Russia after the fall of the USSR, saw its real power to affect global trends decline while its ambitions to rule the world spiraled. The group could do nothing about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the disintegration of the USSR, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the seizure of power by the mullahs in Iran, China shifting gears towards a capitalist system, the wars triggered by Saddam Hussein and the rise of international terrorism in the name of religion. More importantly, perhaps, the "global politburo" had no role in the dramatic technological changes that dragged the world into something bigger than the Industrial Revolution.

By the mid-1990s the G8 summit, as it was before Russia was kicked out, had morphed into a talking shop and a photo-op for political leaders in search of relevance in a new world they could no longer control. In one of the summits, hosted in Lyon by France, the participants made "decisions" on almost everything under the sun, knowing all along that they had neither the intention nor the power to act on any of them.

Well, how relevant is the G7 today? The short answer is: not very much.

The controversy surrounding the crackdown on illegal workers and businesses, and the increased fear in Lebanon that the Palestinian protests could plunge the country into violence and anarchy, are likely to escalate in the coming days: the Lebanese authorities appear determined to continue.

Lebanon's discriminatory and apartheid laws and measures against Palestinians are not new. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Palestinians in Lebanon are excluded from key facets of social, political and economic life. Palestinian refugees face legal restrictions that limit their rights, including the prohibition to work in 39 professions and to own property. Moreover, they have limited access to state-provided services such as health and education. Professions that remain prohibited for Palestinians include healthcare, engineering, transport, fishing, and the public sector and law.

It takes little imagination to predict the global uproar were, say, Israel to ban Arabs from working as engineers, can drivers, nurses or physicians. The international community and pro-Palestinian groups, however, seem distinctly indifferent about the plight of Palestinians in an Arab country.

While the Lebanese people's fear of Palestinian violence in their country is warranted, there is no reason why any Arab country should be subjecting Palestinians to discriminatory and apartheid regulations. The story of the mistreatment of Palestinians in Lebanon is a microcosm of a bigger problem: the Arab "betrayal" and "abandonment" of Palestinians.

It is time for the Arab countries to replace lip service to the Palestinians with deeds. It is also time for the international community and so-called pro-Palestinian groups to start reckoning with the real suffering of Palestinians, particularly in Lebanon.

It is important... to note that, in recent years, many Muslims have openly and firmly come out to oppose all forms of Jewish hatred and anti-Zionism.

In the West, they are the best integrated, and therefore and should be given the greatest support from social agencies and governments.

On April 24, 2014, thirty French imams signed an open letter in Le Monde, in which they denounced antisemitism and terrorism... Similarly, [in] May 18, 2018, a group of prominent British Muslims placed an open letter... in the Daily Telegraph to urge other Muslims to come out against antisemitism whenever it can be seen.

"[W]e also admit and have to be honest that there is a substantial set of people within Muslim communities who circulate anti-Semitic tropes and who use the Palestinians and their quest for statehood, as a means of targeting Jewish communities. This is not acceptable...." — 'Muslims Against Antisemitism' website (United Kingdom).

These reform-minded individuals and groups deserve our full support.

"As long as Iran has money, we will have money...." — Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of the Lebanese paramilitary party; CNSnews.com.

"Iran Executed 110 In Six Months, Including Minors" — Radio Farda, July 5, 2019.

It is not hard to track Iran's aggression and quest for regional dominance in the Middle East.

What should come as a surprise, is that the Democratic presidential candidates have apparently not learned a thing from the damage their nuclear deal inflicted -- in Iran, in the region and even as far as Venezuela -- under the leadership of their former president.

While the persecution of a Christian can be motivated by particular circumstances -- conflicts, sexual attraction, convenience, gain, and so on -- attacks on inanimate symbols would seem to reflect a hatred for Christianity and its followers that needs no "reason" and seemingly gains nothing.

From one end of the Middle Eastern world to the other -- and in Arab, African and Asian nations, and increasingly in the West -- this sort of hate has become a regular occurrence, seemingly "normalized."

Although so-called "mainstream media" reported some of the desecrations -- probably mostly because the Islamic State had already publicized them -- they rarely report that "everyday" extremists also engage in this macabre practice.

Sadly, despite the Western establishment's insistence that religiously-inspired terror is a product of anything and everything but teachings, doctrines and text, the widespread appearance of people desecrating Christian graves and their crosses speaks of something else.

While Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib is using the controversy surrounding her visit as an excuse to launch scathing attacks on Israel, Palestinians seem to be more worried about failed leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This concern is not something that Tlaib seems to share with Palestinians because for her the only wrong-doing is coming from Israel.

"Praising suicide bombers and pushing blood libel is not 'criticizing Israeli policy.'" — Charles Sykes, The Bulwark, August 19, 2019.

As a Congresswoman, Tlaib should have been worried that a US Embassy was forced to cancel an event to help Palestinians because of threats and calls for a boycott.

It would have been helpful had the Palestinian-American Congresswoman made an effort to persuade Palestinian Authority officials to resume their relations with the US administration and explore ways of boosting the Palestinian economy and improving living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As a Congresswoman, she should be working to build, and not destroy, bridges between her people and the US. Her fierce attacks on Israel and the US administration, however, embolden Palestinian hardliners and fuel hate against Israelis and Americans.

If Tlaib really cared about the Palestinians, she should be campaigning against the PA and Hamas leaders engaged in a power struggle over money and power. Moreover, she should be calling for reforms and democracy under the PA and Hamas. The least she could do is demand an end to human rights violations by the PA and Hamas or demand that they hold long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections. She could also demand an end to crackdown on freedom of speech under the PA and Hamas.

In the short term, al-Qaeda evidently wants to pressure the United States to withdraw from direct involvement in the Middle East. ISIS, on the other hand, wants to cleanse the region's Arab regimes of secular dictatorships, corrupt ruling elites and insufficiently devout Muslim intelligentsia.

There is, however, a serious complication. The Taliban-al-Qaeda coalition is now being challenged by increasingly strong ISIS forces in several Afghan provinces. The United Nations recently estimated that ISIS still have roughly $300 million at their disposal. Moreover, some "disaffected" or hardline Taliban fighters opposed to ongoing negotiations with the U.S. are defecting to ISIS.

The West should take no pleasure in the global competition between al-Qaeda and ISIS. It is a competition that incentivizes each terrorist network to upgrade its recruitment appeal for the next generation of jihadists.

In its effort to sustain a pro-Western regime in Afghanistan, the United States might instead take advantage of an opportunity already in place. In an area of such unrest, and where it is still unclear what the word of those making promises is worth, it might be wise to keep a modest footprint rather than withdraw all troops. To abandon the area totally, as President Obama abandoned Syria and Iraq, and then find it overrun with terrorist groups, would be, as one saw, a catastrophic mistake.... Although admittedly less than ideal, it still be might be far less costly in life and treasure, as with the Middle East, to safeguard the area and gather intelligence, rather than to leave and then have to go back. It is an opportunity that would be foolhardy to give up.

How does a society deal with religious institutions that profess values which are the very opposite of the value system of the Western society in which they live?

"When I was in high school, there were around 50,000 people with a non-Western background in Denmark. Today, there are almost half a million. In one generation, our country has changed". — Lars Løkke Rasmussen, then prime minister of Denmark, January 1, 2019.

The Integration Barometer -- which measures the degree of assimilation in the municipality among young people with a non-Western background -- showed that almost one third of 18-29 year-olds (31%) believe that "religious and cultural laws must be adhered to, even though they may be contrary to [Danish] law". The issue, then, is whether these young people believe that Islamic sharia law should take precedence over Danish law.... In addition, the number of youths who view democracy in a positive light has fallen from 86% in 2016 to 79% in 2018.

It recently came to light... that a committee under the government's Ministry of Church Affairs, which is responsible for formally approving mosques in Denmark, has been handing out approvals for them without knowing "whether they [the mosques] were ruled from abroad, whether women's rights were suppressed, or there were other problematic conditions". Formal approval of a mosque means that the mosque becomes eligible for tax benefits and is permitted to bring foreign preachers to Denmark on a special visa.

When the association behind the mosque [asked]... to be approved as a religious community, it had in its statutes a provision saying it operated under the supervision of Iran's 'Supreme Leader', Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At first, this news was a matter of concern for the Ministry of Church Affairs, but then Ahlul Bait simply rewrote its statutes and the ministry gave its approval.

Rashida Tlaib had asked to go to "Palestine," which so far does not exist, on a trip arranged and co-sponsored by a Palestinian not-for-profit organization, Miftah, headed by longtime Israel-antagonist, Hanan Ashrawi. The group is described by Becket Adams in the Washington Examiner as "an exceptionally anti-Semitic group that praises Palestinian terrorists and claims Jews used the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover. The organization also publishes Neo-Nazis and calls for the destruction of Israel." Miftah has also called female suicide bombers heroes.

"I have never felt more Palestinian, than I have felt in Congress", she defiantly declared to the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights in April 2019. That does seem a bit rich, coming from the same woman who has taken succour in tweeting that Senators who supported a pro-Israel bill "forget what country they represent."

She simply seems uninterested in any type of protest that does not involve either noisy eviction or arrest, or in which she cannot get attention or be regarded as a victim. It is hard not to wonder what she is doing for her constituents. Is the wish to bash Israel actually what keeps the good voters of Michigan awake at night? And is anti-Semitism now the accepted new face of the Democrat party?

"I have to tell you, we have to understand first, what is the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement? It's an anti-Semitic, basically genocidal movement that wants to see the end of Israel. So make no mistake, these are not moderates coming to visit Israel. Israel per its 2017 law has a right to prohibit activists, especially those who want to see it wiped off the map, from coming in." – M. Zuhdi Jasser, Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

The legislation's main barriers to Spanish citizenship have been obligatory exams on Spanish language and socio-cultural history, the need to travel to Spain and exorbitant fees and costs — all without any guarantee of success.

"We want to express our disappointment because this law, which was supposed to restore justice, has become increasingly complicated. If we observe the procedures, the prerequisites, the number of documents to be submitted, the certified translations, the fees, the language and culture exams and the need to travel to Spain, we cannot but wonder about the reason for all of these hurdles." — Jon Iñarritu García, a congressman representing the Basque Country.

Although official data on the number of Sephardic Jews who will have obtained Spanish citizenship under the 2015 law will not be available until all applications are processed... initial indications show that the law has failed to "right a wrong."

Let me be clear: I never met Virginia Giuffre, who is now 36 years old. There is documented evidence that until she met her lawyers in 2014, Giuffre never accused me.... In one email, a well-known journalist urged her to include my name because of my fame, writing that although there is "no proof " that Dershowitz had sex with you, he is a "good name for your pitch." Giuffre then included me, but as someone who she met and did not have sex with.

And later, after meeting her lawyers who are seeking millions of dollars of compensation, she suddenly "remembered" having had sex with me in seven different locations, despite incontrovertible documentary evidence that I could not have been at those locations during the relevant time periods. The bottom line: There is not a scintilla of evidence corroborating Giuffre's accusations against me.

Here is the truth: Secret Service and other records prove that the Gores and [Bill] Clinton were never on Epstein's island. She vividly remembered spending her "sweet 16" birthday celebration with Epstein, but her employment records prove – and she now concedes – that she didn't meet Epstein until a year after she turned 16. This means she was above the age of consent at the time she claimed to have had sex with Epstein's friends. It is not just me, the Gores and Bill Clinton that Giuffre falsely accused.

The time has come to investigate Giuffre's claims. Months ago, I published and op-ed asking the FBI to investigate me, as well as my accuser and her lawyers... Lying under oath is a crime. I want both of our accounts fully investigated and the person not telling the truth to be prosecuted. I believe that false accusations of sexual misconduct, deliberately made to obtain money, is a serious crime.

"I don't believe in these two words [human rights], there are no human rights. But in Western countries, there are animal rights. In Australia they take care of frogs.... Look upon us as frogs, we'll accept that — just protect us so we can stay in our land." — Metropolitan Nicodemus, the Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Mosul, National Catholic Register.

"Those people are the same ones who came here many years ago. And we accepted them. We are the original people in this land. We accepted them, we opened the doors for them, and they push us to be minorities in our land, then refugees in our land. And this will be with you if you don't wake up." — Metropolitan Nicodemus.

"Threats to pandas cause more emotion" than threats to the extinction of the Christians in the Middle East. — Amin Maalouf, French-Lebanese author, Le Temps.

Iran is one of few countries in the world where the list of celebrities at any given time includes a number of poets and where poetry recitals draw crowds that compete with those of pop-music concerts.

One of the first acts of Khomeini's regime was to have the young poet Saeed Soltanpour, abducted from his wedding ceremony, and executed on a spurious charge of "Communist militancy." Later, the poet Rahman Hatefi-Monfared, alias Heydar Mehregan, also a noted journalist, was put to death under torture in one of Khomeini's prisons.

Celebrating [Esmail ] Khoi's great poetical achievement would be a fit tribute to what three generations of Persian poets have achieved during almost a century of exceptional creativity. Nobel judges should not miss the opportunity to share the joy that modern Persian poetry has given lovers of poetry all over the world.

The People's Republic of China, nonetheless, is already an AI powerhouse, and for America to maintain its edge—and to prevent U.S. tech from being used for exceedingly disturbing purposes —Washington should force U.S. companies to end cooperative AI projects in China.

The West should be seriously concerned: whoever wins at AI will both dominate the global economy and field the most destructive conventional military force.

Unfortunately, American companies are helping China's leaders in what many call—correctly—crimes against humanity. For instance, AI researchers from Microsoft, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Michigan State University gave keynote speeches at the Chinese Conference on Biometric Recognition in Xinjiang in August of last year on facial recognition, a social-control technology.

Some of Google's research is in China. The company has three AI operations there: the Google AI China Center in Beijing, established in 2017, and partnerships with China's two premier educational institutions, Peking University and Tsinghua University....If the labs remain open, the net flow of AI learning will be out of the U.S. into China.

Moreover, Chinese researchers, if they could not work for American companies in China, would not, as Vox suggests, necessarily find employment in their homeland. Some of those seeking research slots would follow other Chinese to the United States, and that would exacerbate one of Beijing's big AI vulnerabilities. "China's Path to AI Domination Has a Problem: Brain Drain," is the title of an August 7 article posted by the MIT Technology Review. The U.S. can make that crucial problem even more severe.