11, September 2016
The Hajj: Pilgrims celebrate Day of Arafat 0
About 1.5 million Muslims from across the world have started to observe the Day of Arafat, an occasion for repentance and supplication considered as the pinnacle of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. On Sunday, the worshipers began day-long prayers and recitals of the holy book of Qur’an on a rocky hill known as Mount Arafat, east of the Saudi city of Mecca, where Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) gave his last Hajj sermon.
The Day of Arafat falls on Dhu al-Hijjah 9, the final month in the Islamic calendar. It comes one day before Eid al-Adha (the Feast of Sacrifice). After preliminary rituals this week at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the pilgrims moved eastwards on Saturday to Mina neighborhood and then several kilometers further to Mount Arafat. The worshipers are following in the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad, who performed the same rituals about 1,400 years ago. Muslim pilgrims mark the Day of Arafat on Mount Arafat, east of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, September 11, 2016.
For the first time in more than three decades, Saudi Arabia’s radical Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Sheikh will not be delivering this year’s Hajj sermon. He preaches Wahhabism, a radical “ideology” that inspires Takfiri terrorists across the world.
Iranians are not attending the Hajj pilgrimage this year because of the failure of Saudi authorities to ensure the pilgrims’ safety following last year’s human crush during the rituals in Mina. The tragic incident took place when two large masses of pilgrims converged at a crossroads during the symbolic ceremony of the stoning of Satan in Jamarat in September 2015.
Saudi Arabia claims that nearly 770 people were killed in the incident; however, Iran, which had the greatest number of deaths among foreign nationals, has put the death toll at about 4,700. The Hajj is one of the five pillars of the holy faith of Islam that every able-bodied and financially able Muslim is obliged to undertake during their lifetime.
Presstv
11, September 2016
Donald Trump Foundation has been collecting donations from charities and using them to benefit other charities in his name 0
The Donald J. Trump Foundation, established by the US Republican presidential nominee, has reportedly been collecting donations from charities and using them to benefit other charities in his name.
In fact, Trump has not personally contributed to his own supposedly non-profit foundation since 2008, when he “donated” $30,000 to the organization – $5,000 less than what he paid it the previous year,The Washington Post reported Saturday citing its own investigation into the finances of the foundation.
Trump’s foundation is “a charity that allowed a rich man to be philanthropic for free,” concluded the influential liberal newspaper affiliated with the Democratic Party. In 2007, Trump used the foundation’s money to pay for a 6-foot painting of himself that his wife purchased at an auction, in violation of regulations by US tax authority, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which prohibits a charity’s officers from using the group’s funds to purchase things for their own benefit.
Last week, the Post also reported that Trump paid a $2,500 fine for using the foundation to make a political contribution to a PAC supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2013, whose office at the time was considering an investigation into Trump University.
The foundation also misrepresented donations it made in the past and four charities that the foundation claimed it had donated to said they had never received any money. The Trump campaign has declined to comment on the report.
The development came as Trump took in an estimated $3 million at a single fundraising event on a farm outside Cleveland, Ohio, earlier in the week “The fact that people came in from out of town to go to that, I think said something,” The Hill reported, citing a source close to Trump’s presidential campaign.
According to the report, the controversial Republican presidential nominee has been slower to charm the donor class than any Republican nominee in recent memory largely because the billionaire spent the entire primary campaign telling rich conservatives he did not want their cash.
However, sources at the highest levels of Trump’s fundraising operation have described a turning point recently with Trump drawing closer to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the polls. The fundraiser was held on the farm of renowned GOP donor Eddie Crawford and attended by wealthy Republicans from the battleground state, the source said.
Presstv