Belgium security forces are currently investigating a “suspicious” white powder that was found at a well known mosque that is located close to the European Commission building.
According to Reuters, a person inside the Islamic and Cultural Centre of Belgium called into the local fire department saying that they thought they had found anthrax powder.
“Reuters journalists saw about a dozen emergency vehicles, including police, outside the Islamic and Cultural Centre of Belgium, a large Saudi-established institution including a mosque situated 200 meters from the European Commission.
A spokeswoman for the fire service said it had taken a call from the mosque from a person saying they believed that they had found anthrax powder, prompting the deployment of specialist crews. There was no immediate word on what the substance was.”
More to come. Stay with Rise News.
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Pope Francis Makes Stand For Tolerance Of Islam After Brutal Killing Of French Priest
Pope Francis has said it is “not right and not true” to identify Islam with violence following the brutal murder of a Catholic priest by extremists in France, which was claimed by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). The 79-year-old Argentine pontiff, was speaking on his return flight from Kraków, Poland, where he had led a… Read More
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Study: Reading On Tablets, Laptops May Hinder Abstract Thinking
Amy Olson, Dartmouth College Tablet and laptop users beware. Using digital platforms such as tablets and laptops for reading may make you more inclined to focus on concrete details rather than interpreting information more abstractly, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of ACM CHI ’16, the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing… Read More
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In The Neighborhood: Bashar Al-Assad makes Surprise Trip to Moscow
For the first time since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made a visit to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin. But this time, it was a bit of a surprise, for the US anyway.
Assad flew to Moscow on Tuesday to personally to thank President Putin for Russia’s ongoing military support. The Syrian leader said that Russia’s involvement has stopped “terrorism” from becoming “more widespread and harmful” in Syria.
The Kremlin has stated that it had invited President Assad to visit Moscow, but kept the visit quiet until Wednesday morning when President Assad returned safely to Damascus.
While in Moscow, three rounds of talks were held between Assad and the Russian leadership. The first was a closed meeting between Assad and Putin alone, and the other two included the Russian Foreign and Defense Ministers.
President Putin told Assad that it was his hope that progress on the military front would soon into movement toward a peaceful political solution to the Syrian Civil War.
The Kremlin is likely to use the visit to reinforce its domestic narrative that the intervention in Syria is just and has been effective at fighting the expansion of terrorism throughout the region. Moscow maintains that its intervention in Syria was a common sense move that was designed to roll back international terrorism as a result of what it says is ineffective action from the United States.
Putin has remained hesitant about sending Russian ground forces for fear of an entanglement similar to the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Russia has a combined force of around 50 jets and helicopters inside of Syria protected by Russian marines, as well as military advisers working with the Syrian army. Russian officials claim to have flown over 700 sorties against more than 690 targets in Syria since the air campaign began Sept. 30.
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Cover Photo Credit: Alberto Cabello/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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