Middle East - UN says 25,000 foreigners have joined IS group, al Qaeda

The panel of experts monitoring U.N. sanctions against al-Qaida said in the report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press that its analysis indicates the number of foreign terrorist fighters worldwide increased by 71 percent between mid-2014 and March 2015.

It said the scale of the problem has increased over the past three years and the flow of foreign fighters “is higher than it has ever been historically.”

The overall number of foreign terrorist fighters has “risen sharply from a few thousand ... a decade ago to more than 25,000 today,” the panel said in the report to the U.N. Security Council.

The report said just two countries have accounted for over 20,000 foreign fighters: Syria and Iraq. They went to fight primarily for the Islamic State group but also the Al-Nusra Front.

Looking ahead, the panel said the thousands of foreign fighters who traveled to Syria and Iraq are living and working in “a veritable ‘international finishing school’ for extremists,” as was the case in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

A military defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq could have the unintended consequence of scattering violent foreign terrorist fighters across the world, the panel said.

 And while governments are focusing on countering the threat from fighters returning home, the panel said it’s possible that some may be traumatized by what they saw and need psychological help, and that others may be recruited by criminal networks.

Read more: Middle East - UN says 25,000 foreigners have joined IS group, al Qaeda - France 24

Computer Technology: Apple's music streaming under EU investigation

European Union antitrust regulators are investigating Apple's deals with record labels and online music streaming services to see if it is blocking rivals' access to its music planned streaming platform, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The move by the European Commission comes as iPhone maker Apple expands into the fast-growing music streaming business to offset a decline in iTunes sales.

Streaming music has also attracted the attention of online retailer Amazon.com, while singer Jay Z last month launched the Tidal service, amid stiff competition from Spotify, Pandora Media, Google and others.

Read more: Apple's music streaming under EU investigation

Spying is bad for business: NSA spying caused 9 percent of foreign firms to dump U.S. clouds - by Mike Wheatley

In the weeks following Edward Snowden’s revelations of the NSA’s massive web surveillance program PRISM, speculation was raised about the negative implications it could have on U.S. cloud companies.

Now, Forrester Research has taken the time to see just what kind of impact it has had, asking a host of foreign firms whether or not PRISM has caused them to scale back their spending on U.S. cloud services, and the answer makes for some uneasy reading.

A total of 1,668 non-U.S. business technology decision makers were quizzed in Forrester’s survey. The exact question asked was “In the past year, has your company explicitly halted or reduced your spending with US-based companies for Internet-based services (e.g., cloud, online service/outsourcing) due to these security concerns?”, with 26 percent of respondents answering in the affirmative.

Forrester followed up by asking the 427 who said yes what their reasons for doing so were, and found that 34 percent cited “fear of the intelligence community spying”. A quick sum of the math shows that 9 percent of foreign firms have therefore ditched U.S. cloud companies due to the NSA, not an insignificant number by any means, despite The Register’s insistence that “Snowden didn’t scare off many”.

It’s worth nothing that the respondents held, on average, only about a third of their company data in U.S. clouds anyway, so their decision to pull out may not be as significant as it first seems. But even so, U.S. cloud firms will still want to take notice of the survey, which indicates that most foreign companies simply don’t trust them all that much anyway, irrespective of the NSA. In total, 53 percent of respondents said they would not trust any of their critical data with a U.S. cloud company, end of story.

Read more: NSA spying caused 9 percent of foreign firms to dump U.S. clouds | SiliconANGLE

Easter 2015: Start Of Passover, Good Friday Fall On Same Day

This Friday marks the first time in many years that both the Christian holiday Good Friday and the start of Jewish Passover have fallen on the same day.

Processions like the Way of the Cross over the Brooklyn Bridge Friday morning will be held worldwide to remember the day Jesus was crucifie by the Romans.

As CBS2’s Andrea Grymes reports, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the Way of the Cross bridge. Anyone is welcomed to join in the walk, which started at 10 a.m. at the Cathedral-Basilica of Saint James in Brooklyn. The march ends at Saint Peter’s Church in downtown Manhattan around 1:30 p.m.

In Jerusalem, the Via Dolorosa, the way of sorrows, retraces the path of Jesus Christ on his way to crucifixion. In New Jersey’s Upper Saddle River on Good Friday, there’s a bit of a twist.

Pastor Bob Stag leads parishioners from the Church of the Presentation on a 12-mile bike tour for the Stations of the Cross.

“It is a mini-pilgrimage and I’ve been to the holy land several times and most people won’t ever get to the holy land or ever get to pilgrimage to Rome or pilgrimage in northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. But everybody, well, almost everybody, can jump on a bike and follow me around,” he told WCBS 880’s Sean Adams.

For prayers, reflection and meditation, they stop at seven churches– three of them Protestant. The ministers come out and discuss their church’s architectural significance.

The eight-day Jewish holiday of Passover begins at sundown Friday night and commemorates the Israelites’ escape from Egyptian slavery more than 3,000 years ago.

During the first two nights, families gather for a Passover Seder, the ritual meal which features six symbolic foods, including matzo. Matzo is a cracker-like unleavened bread that symbolizes the exodus from Egypt, when there wasn’t enough time to let the bread rise.

Read more: Start Of Passover, Good Friday Fall On Same Day « CBS New York

Islam: Muslim population to grow fastest says new study

Mosque in Almere, the Netherlands

Muslim population worldwide is rising rapidly and could be nearly as much as the number of Christians in 2050, a new report called the "Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections 2010-2050" by the Pew Research Center has predicted.

The study, released on April 2, says that the world's religious profile is changing primarily due to differences in fertility rates among various communities and because of people switching faiths. "Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any major religion," the research says.

The number of Muslims will be equal to those of Christians by 2050, the report predicts, even though some Christian countries and areas, like Latin America, Brazil, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa, are also growing fast.

Islam will also replace Judaism as the second largest religion in the United States by 2050 and Muslims in Europe will constitute 10 percent of the overall population. India will also have the largest number of Muslims in the world by the mid- 21st century, Pew researchers say.

Read more: Muslim population to grow fastest says new study | Europe | DW.DE | 03.04.2015

Middle East:: Arab League summit wraps up with plan for pan-Arab force

Arab leaders have agreed to try to form a joint military force to tackle regional crises. Saudi Arabia is already leading a coalition of Arab countries that have been conducting airstrikes against rebels in Yemen.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi (pictured above), who hosted the two-day Arab Summit at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, told the final session of the gathering that the leaders had agreed in principle to form the pan-Arab force. He said a high-level committee would be formed to work out the details of implementing the force.

Other Egyptian officials said it was to include up to 40,000 elite troops backed up by fighter jets and warships. However, it wasn't immediately clear how many of the Arab League's 22 member states were prepared to contribute to the proposed force.

Much of the discussion over the past two days focused on Yemen, which the elected president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, fled late last week, before traveling to Sharm el-Sheikh.

With Shiite Muslim Houthi forces advancing on President Hadi's power base of Aden in the south of the country, Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, along with several other Arab nations, launched a bombing campaign against the rebels four days ago. So far though, there was little evidence that the air campaign had stopped the Houthi advance.

Read more:: Arab League summit wraps up with plan for pan-Arab force | News | DW.DE | 29.03.2015

Middle East - Mideast's religious minorities at risk of 'genocide'

Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities in the Middle East are being targeted and some are facing a possible "genocide" by Islamic State militants, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told the UN on Friday.

Speaking at a UN Security Council debate, Fabius said an "action charter" was needed to address the threat from the Islamic State group.

"We are witnessing a true genocide," Fabius said. "The Islamic State group in particular kills, enslaves or exiles people who don't think like them, especially Christians. It's not enough to raise awareness – we need to implement concrete solutions to protect these vulnerable populations."

Read more: Middle East - Mideast's religious minorities at risk of 'genocide' - France 24