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Muslims pray for strength in quake-hit Indonesian city

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PALU, Indonesia — As the sun slipped behind the mountains and a gentle breeze blew onshore, hundreds of people gathered on an Indonesian beach Friday to chant a Muslim prayer — and remember those they lost — one week after a massive earthquake and tsunami ravaged the area, killing more than 1,500 people.

One woman wiped tears from her eyes while mouthing the words as the voices rang out in unison. Another rocked quietly behind her on the same sand where a festival with hundreds of people was being held when the disaster struck.

The chanting marked the end of a day filled with prayers and more burials as many survivors leaned on their faith to help them overcome grief and confusion.

“I hope my dead son has gone to heaven because he was in the middle of praying,” said Abu Shamsuddin, who attended Friday prayers in the afternoon outside the damaged Agung Mosque in Palu city. “Allah willing, heaven for him. I have faith in that.”

Men with skull caps sat on prayer mats in an open field, some weeping openly. Others braved the scorching sun as they listened to the mosque’s imam encouraging them to be courageous.

The national disaster agency said the confirmed death toll from last Friday’s magnitude 7.5 earthquake increased slightly to 1,571.

Six more victims were buried Friday in a mass grave, bringing the total to 643.

Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a briefing in Jakarta that the search will continue for hundreds still missing, including many buried in deep mud and debris from collapsed houses and buildings.

But hopes are dim for any survivors.

Frustrated French rescuers resumed their search at the Mercure Hotel in Palu on Friday but failed to detect the possible sign of life that was picked up by their sensors a day earlier. The equipment can identify breathing and heartbeats, but gas leaks and other factors can result in false positives.

“We are perplexed and frustrated mostly. We strongly believed in it yesterday. Now we have nothing at all. … We tried everything and have no response,” said Philippe Besson, president of the International Emergency Firefighters team.

Local rescuers continued to dig at the collapsed four-star hotel. The French rescuers said on their Facebook page that 40 people, including six workers, were still missing there.

But some residents refused to give up hope.

“I am hoping for a miracle,” said Bambang, who has been searching daily at the hotel site for his pregnant wife.

Thousands of others were injured and more than 70,000 people have been moved to shelters and makeshift tents that have sprouted across Palu, the provincial capital that’s home to 380,000 people, and its surrounding areas. After days of initial chaos and looting by desperate survivors, some stability has returned to Palu, with shops slowly reopening and electricity restored in some parts of the city.

Nugroho said about 67,000 military and police have been deployed to the area to maintain security and accelerate distribution of aid to survivors in outlying areas. Ships and more than two dozen military transport planes, including ones from Japan, New Zealand and India, have arrived in Palu carrying hundreds of tons of food and badly needed supplies and heavy equipment.

Television footage showed personnel loading boxes of food into trucks that will be delivered to outlying areas, where many evacuees are still complaining that aid has been slow to arrive. Officials have listed tents, water treatment equipment, electric generators and disinfectants to fog campsite areas to prevent disease as immediate needs.

Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, who arrived Friday in Palu to assess the situation, said it will take at least two years to reconstruct the disaster zone.

He said the government will ensure that affected children return to school within a month. The United Nations has said some 200,000 people, including tens of thousands of children, are in need of help.

International volunteers said many camps lack adequate sanitation, sparking fears of the spread of disease. Fuel remained another concern, with villagers forced to queue at pumps for more than six hours.

Many villagers remained traumatized as aftershocks continued to jolt the region.

“I grabbed my children and fled to the hills when the earthquake happened. I didn’t manage to take any valuables but we are alive and that’s most important,” Yuli, who goes by one name, said on local television. “I don’t want to ever go back to the village. It’s too terrifying.”

Tatan Syuflana, The Associated Press

















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Alleged Human Traffickers arrested in Red Deer, Montreal, and Edmonton

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Human trafficking suspect arrested in Red Deer, July 2024

From Alert, the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team

Three human traffickers arrested in Project Endgame

Three men have been arrested and stand accused of running a human trafficking operation that stretched across Canada; operating throughout Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Quebec.

Project Endgame was a year-long investigation led by ALERT’s Human Trafficking unit, and also relied on the assistance of the Edmonton Police Service, RCMP, and the Quebec joint forces Anti-Pimping team known as EILP.

Arrests and search warrants had taken place in Edmonton, Montreal, and Red Deer. A total of 23 charges related to human trafficking offences have been laid against Clyde Elien-Abbot, 31, Kevin Dorcelus-Cetoute, 31, and Jean Rodnil Dubois, 31. Elien-Abbot was arrested on January 31, 2025 in Edmonton, while the other two accused were arrested on July 23, 2024.

“Project Endgame exhausted all resources and avenues to bring charges against the suspects and end this cycle of sexualized violence and degradation,” said Staff Sergeant Chris Hayes, ALERT.

A number of human trafficking victims were located and provided resources and assistance through ALERT’s Safety Network Coordinators. ALERT believes there are additional victims and encouraging them to contact police.

Project Endgame revealed a cross-Canada network of sex trafficking that has been in operation for over a decade by the accused and possibly others. ALERT’s investigation saw the perpetrators work in the communities of Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Lloydminster, Red Deer, Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, Cold Lake, and Estevan, Sask.

The perpetrators allegedly controlled the victims through coercion by forcing them to perform multiple sex acts on multiple clients every day. If the victims question the traffickers or dispute the situation, they were often violently assaulted, degraded, and/or threatened of further loss, violence, and isolation.

Project Endgame began in May 2023 following a 911 call placed to police detailing a sex worker being violently assaulted. The investigation has connections to a 2021 ALERT human trafficking investigation in which Dorcelus-Cetoute was charged.

Clyde Elien-Abbot, 31-year-old from Montreal, is charged with:

  • Trafficking in persons;
  • Procuring;
  • Material benefit from sexual services;
  • Advertising sexual services;
  • Money laundering; and
  • Animal cruelty.
Kevin Dorcelus-Cetoute, 31-year-old from Montreal, is charged with:
  • Sexual assault;
  • Assault;
  • Trafficking in persons;
  • Procuring;
  • Material benefit from sexual services; and
  • Uttering threats.
Jean Rodnil Dubois, 31-year-old from Montreal, is charged with:
  • Sexual assault;
  • Assault;
  • Trafficking in persons;
  • Procuring;
  • Material benefit from sexual services; and
  • Uttering threats.
Elien-Abbot remains in custody and has a bail hearing scheduled for February 19, 2025. Dorcelus-Cetoute and Dubois were both released from custody and are scheduled to appear in court on March 7, 2025.

Project Endgame involved the assistance of a number of agencies from across the country, including: Edmonton Police Service, City of Edmonton Animal Bylaw, Service de Police de a Ville de Montreal (SPVM), RCMP ‘C’ Division, RCMP ‘K’ Division, and RCMP ‘D’ Division.

ALERT was established and is funded by the Alberta Government and is a compilation of the province’s most sophisticated law enforcement resources committed to tackling serious and organized crime.

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All 6 people trying to replace Trudeau agree with him on almost everything

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Liberals are choosing a new face, but all six contenders seem likely to continue forcing Canadians down the same path as the PM they’re out to replace

With the Liberal leadership election just over a month away on March 9, Canadians are examining the six final contenders and questioning if they will bring change to the Liberal Party or carry on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s radical legacy. 

The six contenders for Liberal leader and consequently, the next prime minister, are: Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gould, Jaime Battiste, Frank Baylis and Ruby Dhalla.  

While all the above candidates are promising to turn the Liberal Party around, their policies, both past and proposed, suggest little difference from the radical, anti-life and globalist agenda embraced by the Trudeau government.

Former Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney 

Carney appears to be the frontrunner for Liberal Party leader, with many mainstream outlets tacitly promoting him as a solution for Canadians, and numerous MPs having endorsed his campaign.

However, as LifeSiteNews has previously reported, Carney’s history suggests he would be an even more radical version of Trudeau.

While his impressive work experience certainly raises him in the estimation of Canadians, especially compared with Trudeau’s pre-political career as a drama teacher, the former Governor of the Bank of England, like Trudeau, openly supports abortion, the LGBT agenda and many of the tax and fiscal policies of the Trudeau government, such as the carbon tax.

Carney’s endorsement of energy regulations go even further than Trudeau’s, with the candidate having previously blasted the prime minister for exempting home heating oil from the carbon tax. 

Carney has also been a longtime supporter of the globalist World Economic Forum, attending their infamous annual conference in Davos, Switzerland as recently as January 2023.

Carney routinely uses social media to advocate for achieving so-called “net-zero” energy goals, and even had his team bar multiple independent journalists from attending the press conference he held to announce his bid for Liberal leader.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland  

Freeland is perhaps best known internationally for her heavy-handed response to anti-mandate Freedom Convoy protesters, which saw the then-finance minister direct financial institutions to freeze the bank accounts of Canadians who participated in or donated to the protest. 

Freeland, like Carney, also has extensive ties to the WEF, with her receiving a personal commendation  from former WEF leader Klaus Schwab.   

Interestingly, at the same time as Freeland announced her Liberal bid, the WEF’s profile on Freeland was taken down from their website. Additionally, the majority of Freeland’s Instagram posts have been removed from public view. 

Many have speculated online as to the reason why these actions were taken, with some suggesting that Freeland desires to distance herself from the massively criticized group.  

Critics often pointed to Freeland’s association with the group during her tenure as finance minister and deputy prime minister, as she was known for pushing policies endorsed by the globalist organization, such as the carbon tax and online censorship.  

Former House Leader MP Karina Gould 

Gould, an avid abortion activist, is perhaps best known for telling American women that they can have their abortions in Canada following the Supreme Court of the United States’ overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.  

Gould is also known for continually advocating in favor of state-funded media, which critics have warned causes supposedly unbiased news outlets into de facto propaganda arms for the state.

In one example from September, Gould directed mainstream media reporters to “scrutinize” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has repeatedly accused government-funded media as being an arm of the Liberals. 

Gould also claimed that Poilievre’s promise to defund outlets like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would deny Canadians access to important information, ignoring the fact that the Liberals’ own legislation, which she voted for, blocked all access to news content on Facebook and Instagram.   

MP Jaime Battiste 

Voting records show that in 2021 Battiste opposed a bill aiming to protect unborn children from sex-selective abortions. Later that same month, he voted to pass Bill C-6, which allows parents to be jailed for up to five years for refusing to deny the biological sex of their gender-confused children.

Furthermore, Battiste struck down a motion to condemn incidents of arson and vandalism of churches across Canada. In October 2023, a Conservative MP put forward a motion to denounce the arson and vandalism of 83 Canadian churches, especially those within Indigenous communities.    

However, Battiste moved to adjourn the meeting rather than discuss the motion, saying, “I would like to call to adjourn debate on this if that’s what we can do, so we can hear the rest of the study, but if we have to, then I would rather discuss it in camera because it does have a way of triggering a lot of people who went through residential schools and the things they are going through.”  

The Liberal government is known to be extremely lenient in their rhetoric when it comes to attacks on Catholic churches, with Trudeau even saying such behavior was “understandable” even if it is “unacceptable and wrong.”  

Former MP Frank Baylis  

Baylis served as a Liberal MP in 2015 but chose not to seek re-election in 2019. Now, he has thrown his hat in the ring as Liberal leader. 

During his time as MP, Baylis was a staunch supporter of abortion. In 2016, he voted against a Conservative bill to provide protection to unborn children and pregnant mothers from violence.  

Interestingly, Baylis is the former owner of the Baylis Medical Company of Montréal which was awarded a $282.5 million government contract for now “useless” ventilators during the COVID “pandemic.” 

Former MP Ruby Dhalla 

Dhalla served in the House of Commons from 2004 to 2011. Interestingly, Dhalla, born to Indian immigrant parents, has promised to deport illegal immigrants and “clamp down on human traffickers.” Dhalla’s stance sets her apart from the other Liberal candidates on the issue.  

While Dhalla styles herself as an “outsider,” during her time as an MP, she worked to further abortion in Canada, voting against legislation to protect babies from violence in the womb.  

In conclusion

It seems that no matter who is selected as the next leader of the Liberals, the party will remain one which prides itself on being pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, pro-euthanasia  and globalist in vision.

While Trudeau may be taking the blame for the current state of the Liberal Party, with these 6 candidates it would appear that the party remains intent on pushing the same policies.

Although it is true that Trudeau’s political blunders, such as his repeated historical use of black-face or his inviting a Nazi-aligned World War II veteran into Parliament, have contributed to his popularity decline, it seems the policies behind the blunders are not his, but the Liberal Party’s itself.

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