Ah, Fox News. As an American, I apologize to the world for Fox News. (Or should I demand that Australians apologize to us?) An actual news organization, the BBC, reports on a faux pas from yesterday.

An American terrorism commentator has apologised for describing Birmingham as a “Muslim-only city” where non-Muslims “don’t go” during a Fox News interview.

Steven Emerson told the channel that in London “Muslim religious police” beat “anyone who doesn’t dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire”.

He later issued an apology for his “terrible error”.

His comments have come in for ridicule, with the hashtag #FoxNewsFacts trending on Twitter.

Ridicule? Can you do that? Someone might misunderstand.

On social media, Mr Emerson has been the

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The BBC reports that Nigeria estimates the body count in Baga as 150, not 2000 or “hundreds” as it reported over the weekend.

150 of course is still a large number of people, and then of course Nigeria has a motive to undercount…

The defence ministry said this figure included “many of the terrorists” who had attacked the town in Borno state and faced resistance by troops.

Local officials earlier estimated the number of deaths at as many as 2,000.

Nigeria has often been accused of underestimating casualty figures to downplay the threat of Boko Haram.

And, one would assume, to minimize Nigeria’s own culpability in totally failing to protect its own citizens.

The ministry dismissed higher estimates for

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The BBC provides a 2 minute video of the Paris march and others in Rio, Moscow, Berlin, and London.

Via Twitter –

Tim ‏@Beertheist 5 minutes ago
The Simpsons’ ending tonight. #JeSuisCharlie

Lea’s Album ‏@GleeIsAllINeed 2h
Just for this gesture she deserves all the awards.

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France 24 reported on Friday that resources were being showered on Charlie Hebdo to enable it to continue.

“Stupidity is not going to win,” said Patrick Pelloux, one of the magazine’s columnists as well as a practising doctor who delivered first aid in the aftermath of the attack, which left 12 dead.

That’s important. The murderers were striking a blow for stupidity in what they did, in addition to all the rest of it. Stupidity mustn’t win.

On Friday, Pelloux and other surviving staff members were seen heading into the offices of the French newspaper Libération, which has offered the magazine’s employers use of its premises for “as long as necessary”.

“We are hosting them because they don’t even have

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And another French informant speaks up:

I would like to explain a few things, about charlie Hebdo and about how things work in my country. It might feel insulting, but unless you are fascinated with french culture, have especially studied it or lived some time in France, you don’t know us. You don’t know our history, our politics, even our geography. That’s fine, I myself have a pretty sketchy knowledge of all these stuffs for many countries in the world.

Not knowing is fine. Spreading false informations, or giving your opinion about things you don’t know, is not.

It’s important to try to notice when you don’t know enough. Really.

You have no idea how much the french community

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Dan Fincke shared Salty Current’s guest post on Facebook and there are some comments on his post that should have been made here (kidding, kidding) so Ima quote a few.

I’ve been tirelessly pointing this out over and over again. I can’t imagine how it would feel to have fought rightwing xenophobia and racism all your life and then to be maligned by your “own side” in another part of the world. Not to mention a lot of imposition of America-centric cultural/political mores on a completely different political landscape. That in itself is a form of American cultural imperialism a lot of these people decry.

I think that’s why the maligning is bothering me so much – because these were… Read the rest

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Olivier Tonneau attempts to explain to his Anglophone friends that it doesn’t work to just read all the French things through Anglophone lenses, any more than it would the other way around. Hell, many Americans are baffled by Monty Python and that’s not even a different language (mostly).

Three days ago, a horrid assault was perpetrated against the French weekly Charlie Hebdo, who had published caricatures of Mohamed, by men who screamed that they had “avenged the prophet”. A wave of compassion followed but apparently died shortly afterward and all sorts of criticism started pouring down the web against Charlie Hebdo, who was described as islamophobic, racist and even sexist. Countless other comments stated that Muslims were being ostracized

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Kaveh Mousavi alerted me to this explanation of the context of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon depicting Boko Haram sex slaves as welfare queens.

Jean-Baptiste Froment, toulousain

This cover is mixing two unrelated elements which made the news at about the same time:
– Boko Haram victims likely to end up sex slaves in Nigeria
– Decrease of French welfare allocations

In France, as in probably every country who has welfare allocations, some people criticize this system because some people might try to game it (e.g., “welfare queens” idea). Note that if we didn’t had it there would probably be much more people complaining because the ones who really need it would end up in extreme poverty.

Charlie Hebdo is known

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Via HuffPostUK on Twitter –

HuffPost UK ‏@HuffPostUK
BREAKING NEWS: Officially the largest demo in French history http://huff.to/1C4dGeR #ParisMarch #JeSuisCharlie

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Via Natasha Fatah on Twitter –

Natasha Fatah ‏@NatashaFatah
The largest of rally in the history of France. #JeSuisCharlie #CharlieHebdo #ParisMarch

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Via Twitter –

Nadine ‏@sooojune 37 minutes ago
“They wanted to bring France to its knees. They brought Europe to its feet.” #JeSuisCharlie

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Reporters Without Borders has a different take on the question of unity.

Reporters Without Borders welcomes the participation of many foreign leaders in today’s march in Paris in homage to the victims of last week’s terror attacks and in defence of the French republic’s values, but is outraged by the presence of officials from countries that restrict freedom of information.

On what grounds are representatives of regimes that are predators of press freedom coming to Paris to pay tribute to Charlie Hebdo, a publication that has always defended the most radical concept of freedom of expression?

Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the presence of leaders from countries where journalists and bloggers are systematically persecuted such as Egypt

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The Beeb also has a live report on the Paris march, so we can see commentary and news as it rolls in.

17:49

Peter Miller emails: It feels as if all of Paris is in the streets. We are still 1km away from Place de la Republique but the street is full of people. It is important the whole of society unites together now in solidarity for the freedom of speech and against hatred that wants to divide us.

I think that uniting bit is what the murderers don’t want.

Remember: they aren’t particularly bright. They have some cunning, but they’re not sharp. They didn’t plan for unity.

18:20

German ministers have accused the anti-immigration movement Pegida of exploiting

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The BBC reports on the massive Paris march today.

More than 40 world leaders joined the start of the march, linking arms in an act of solidarity.

“Paris is the capital of the world today,” French leader Francois Hollande said. “The whole country will rise up.”

The marchers hope to demonstrate unity after the attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, police officers, and a kosher supermarket.

The rally, led by relatives of the victims of last week’s attacks, began at the Place de la Republique. It is thought that more than a million people are taking part.

More than a million people. That’s a huge march – I’ve never seen one that big.

World leaders, including British Prime Minister David

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A couple of cartoons via Lejla Kurić on Facebook –

via Facebook

Via Facebook… Read the rest

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Amnesty International says, not surprisingly, that the attack on Baga may be Boko Haram’s worst massacre so far.

“The attack on Baga and surrounding towns, looks as if it could be Boko Haram’s deadliest act in a catalogue of increasingly heinous attacks carried out by the group. If reports that the town was largely razed to the ground and that hundreds or even as many as two thousand civilians were killed are true, this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram’s ongoing onslaught against the civilian population,” said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.

“Disturbing” seems like a silly word there. Everything Boko Haram has done has been horrifying; to say this latest slaughter is disturbing … Read the rest

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Bill Donohue says we should all convert to Catholicism and then everything would be fine.

In an ideal world, Muslims who interpret the Koran to justify violence would convert to Catholicism, and artists who think they have an absolute right to insult people of faith would follow suit. If both did, we would have peace and civility.

Catholicism teaches that it is immoral to intentionally kill innocent persons, beginning with life in the womb. It is not a pacifistic religion—it believes in just wars—though it naturally inclines towards non-violence. It most certainly does not counsel violence as a right remedy to insolent behavior. Muslims who say it is morally justified to kill obscene artists, citing the Koran as their impetus,

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Originally a comment by artymorty on A French style of anarchic left-wing social commentary.

There’s so much confusion and disagreement among liberals about whether CH’s cartoons are punching up (lampooning religious authority) or punching down (needlessly mocking an already marginalized group of people).

Many Muslims are marginalized in France, but Islamists and conservative Muslim leaders are not powerless. Quite the opposite: they derive a great deal of power by claiming to speak for Muslims as a whole, and they’re actively working to enrich their power by undermining secular values in the West.

They accuse those outside the religion who dare to challenge their power of intolerance, of racism, of punching down, as if criticism of any part of the … Read the rest

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From World.Mic, some more cartoons about Charlie Hebdo

From the English-language newspaper Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed in Qatar:

From Makhlouf, a young cartoonist in Egypt:

… Read the rest

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From a comment by sff9 on A French style of anarchic left-wing social commentary:

It’s really not that complicated, CH’s staff are left-libertarians who enjoy over-the-top childish humor and practice hipster racism/sexism a lot. They fought racism by reproducing racist tropes with the intent of mocking them. All the sympathy that I had for Charb, Cabu, Tignous, and Wolinski, whose cartoons and comics I read or have read for years, does not change the fact that in a lot of ways CH’s spirit was akin to 4chan’s.

So while saying that the artists were racists is probably excessive, pointing out that a lot of CH’s cartoons are racist/sexist/islamophobic etc., or at least are problematic in this regard, and thus

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