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Syrian rebels launch offensive on pro Syrian troops in Latakia
Today's Headlines
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Afghanistan
Masoud believes the ongoing process for peace talks with Taliban is ISI's game
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Ahmad Zia Masoud, the Special Envoy to President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
for reform and good governance, believes that the ongoing process for peace talks with Taliban is the game of Pakistain's intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence
...the Pak military intelligence agency that controls the military -- heads of ISI typically get promoted into the Chief of Army Staff position. It serves as a general command center for favored turban groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, tries to influence the politix of neighboring countries, and carries out a (usually) low-level war against India in Kashmir...
(ISI).

While talking to a gathering in Takhar province on Wednesday, Masoud said that the purpose of this process is to place Taliban in the government.

He went on to say that if Pakistain brings one group to the negotiation table it will strengthen another group for fighting.

During the government of former President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
's, High Peace Council came into shape, bombardment of foreign forces, night raids and the use of heavy weapons against Taliban stopped but nothing of this added up to the optimism for peace, Masoud added.

While criticizing government policies, Masoud expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
s over the country's future.

With current policies of government for peace, it is possible that the fighting will further explore, he said.

Pointing to the quadrilateral process started by Afghanistan, Pakistain, the United States and China for bringing Taliban to the negotiation table, Masoud said that "it is waste of time" for keeping Afghan government heedless so they can increase attacks.

President Ghani's Special Envoy also said that a Resistance Shura (Council) needs to be formed under the leadership of the former Mujahideen commanders which would be able to maintain security of the country in one year, he added.

Masoud elaborated that a similar decision was also made in the meeting of the National Security Council that command of the fighting needs to be given to the former Mujahideen commanders.

This is first time government faces a very strict criticism from the President's Special Envoy for reform and good governance.

Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Mojaddedi: President Ghani has no experience of governance
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Professor Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, the former President of Afghanistan and a Jihadi leader who backed the incumbent President in his election campaign and asked the nation to vote for him, apparently regrets his support.

He has said that President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
has no experience of governance.

Mojaddedi has told Ariana News in an interview published on its website on Thursday that the incumbent President reached to power because of his support.

According to Mojaddedi, the country would move towards crisis and the situation would be out of control if fundamental reforms are not made in the government.

Mojaddedi seemed doubtful over the ongoing efforts for peace talks with Taliban saying that Pakistain's spy agency would continue shedding the blood of soldiers and civilians in Afghanistan.

He has warned Islamabad to eject its hand of interference from Afghanistan or he will announce 'Jihad' against Pakistain as it was declared against the former Soviet Union.

Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Harried by Police, Egypt's Brotherhood Torn by Divisions
It couldn't happen to a more deserving fascist organization.
[AnNahar] On the night of August 13, 2013, Moslem Brüderbund front man Gehad Haddad sat in a stairwell of a building next to Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, and said: "We need a miracle."

Police moved in to disperse a sprawling Islamist protest camp in the mosque and an adjacent square the next morning, and within 12 hours about 700 demonstrators had been rubbed out.

Gunmen among the crowds killed around 10 coppers.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/12/2016 00:00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood


Egypt says Libya must lead any attack on IS
[Libya Herald] Egypt has warned that attacks on IS in Libya should be spearheaded by Libyans and that the international community should not intervene militarily before a unified and stable government has been formed.

Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told Rooters today that precipitate international action against IS could end up replicating the NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
intervention against Qadaffy that produced Libya's present troubles.

Shoukry said that, on past experience, Libyans would be a little bit concerned at a further foreign military involvement. He echoed the stance of UNSML chief Martin Kobler that Libya should have a unity government that was operating from Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
as soon as possible.

Kobler had been endorsing the view of House of Representative president Ageela Saleh, who earlier this week was in Cairo where he met Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. Sisi has reportedly also maintained close touch with Government of National Accord prime minister-designated Faiez Serraj, whom he met for the first time last December.

Egypt has long called for the lifting of the UN arms embargo to allow the Libyan army led by Khalifa Hafter to re-equip to take on terrorist who continue to hold out in Benghazi. Hafter has repeatedly announced the imminent conquest of the western parts of the city and the port area where IS, Ansar al-Sharia
...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet...
and the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shoura Council continue to hold out.

The international community is still sending mixed messages about any military intervention. Though the official line remains that no action will take place until formally requested by the new Libyan government, there is growing frustration at the delays in the selection of GNA ministers, which cabinet will then have to be approved by the HoR. Some politicians, including Italian defence minister Roberta Pinotti have suggested that military intervention might be necessary in an emergency, even without a request for counter-terrorist support from the new government.

Meanwhile,
...back at the comedy club, Boogie sadly admitted that he was a better peeping Tom than he was a comedian...
though the British defence minister Philip Hammond has denied reports that the UK is prepared to commit a thousand combat troops, a foreign office minister, Tobias Ellwood this week told a British parliamentary committee that the Royal Air Force had been flying surveillance missions in Libya airspace.
Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Africa Subsaharan
Nigeria Struggles To Protect Citizens As Boko Haram Death Toll Climbs
[HUFFINGTONPOST] It took murderous Moslems a few hours to burn the small Nigerian village of Dalori to the ground. At least 86 people were killed in the hail of bullets, fire bombs and suicide kabooms that engulfed the village on Jan. 30, officials said.

Nigerian troops showed up about an hour after suspected members of Islamist Death Eater group Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
sped into the village on cars and cycle of violences that Saturday evening. They were outgunned by the armed bad boys, and the assault continued until better-armed reinforcements could arrive about four hours later, local soldiers and residents who survived the attack told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named. Some Dalori residents criticized forces for not showing up in time to stop the massacre, The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
reported.

At dawn on Tuesday, the bad boy group struck yet again, this time at a camp for people who had already fled its violence in the northeast. Two jacket wallahs killed over 60 people at Dikwa camp. That grisly toll could have been even higher -- a third bomber refused to detonate her explosives when she realized her parents and siblings were in the camp, Nigerian officials said.

Nigeria has invested huge resources in fighting Boko Haram over the past years, and has recaptured a lot of territory previously held by the Death Eater group. But the carnage in northeast Nigeria
... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border...
highlights how vulnerable civilians remain to Boko Haram attacks and that authorities still face huge obstacles keeping people safe from the bad boy group.
Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


Bangladesh
BNP-Jamaat-backed panel sweeps Chittagong Bar election
[Dhaka Tribune] The BNP-Jamaat backed panel Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Oikya Gay Pareehad bagged 10 out of 19 posts in Chittagong District Bar Association (CDBA) elections held on Wednesday.

Three panels-Awami League backed Chattagram Sommilita Ainjibi Somonnay Gay Pareehad, progressive and left-leaning Somomona Ainjibi Sangsad and BNP-Jamaat backed Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Oikya Gay Pareehad vied for the posts.

The CDBA sources said a total of 45 candidates contested for the posts of 19 office-bearers including 10 executive committee members. Out of 3,406 voters, 2,828 lawyers cast their votes in the elections.

The Chief Election Commissioner announced the result of the polls around 12:30am yesterday.

BNP-Jamaat backed candidate Md Kafil Uddin Chowdhury was elected president defeating his nearest rival AL-backed candidate Ratan Kumar Roy.
Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Caribbean-Latin America
Ahead of Pope's visit, Mexico gang violence targets priests
A show of hands from the politicians who are supposed to represent us, please. Who thinks we don't need a wall?
When Pope Francis arrives in Mexico on Friday he will land in the most dangerous country for priests in Latin America, with dozens killed in the past decade.
Bring the Popemobile with the RPG-proof glass.
The drug war that has killed tens of thousands of people in the past 10 years has also claimed the lives of at least 36 priests, targeted by criminal organizations, according to the Catholic Multimedia Center.

The latest victim was Father Erasmo Pliego de Jesus, whose burned body was found in November in Puebla, one of the most religious states in the world's second largest Roman Catholic country.

In April, Father Francisco Javier Gutierrez was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head in Guanajuato, another central state.

Alejandro Solalinde, a priest famous for his defense of migrants at a shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca, had to temporarily flee Mexico in 2012 after receiving death threats.

"We will kill you," said one of the blunt messages that Solalinde received.

"One of them even had a price on my head. They offered five million pesos ($400,000) to have me killed," said the 70-year-old priest.

Solalinde is now watched over by four bodyguards day and night while police guard his shelter.

In addition to the 36 priests assassinated since 2005, two more have disappeared, joining the macabre list of 26,000 missing people across the country.

Mexico is "the most dangerous country in Latin America to be a priest," ahead of other notoriously crime-riddled countries like Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela, according to the Catholic Multimedia Center.

Nelson Arteaga, sociologist at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, said the deaths of dozens of priests since the government declared war against drug cartels in 2006 shows that they have not escaped the violence.

"Priests and nuns are targeted because we have gotten involved more and more in the human rights crisis of this country," Solalinde said.

"We are side-by-side with the victims and that makes us vulnerable to organized crime and its political arm."

- Bulletproof vest -

The violence worries Mexico's Roman Catholic Church.

"It has been terrible. Many priests are continuously affected by organized crime because there are people who see priests as a symbol of certain values that they don't agree with," Archbishop Norberto Rivera told AFP.

In Mexico City, a metropolis of 20 million people, at least 400 priests have faced extortion and threats, Rivera said.

The most dangerous areas for priests are the states of Guerrero in the south and neighboring Michoacan in the west.

Pope Francis will visit Michoacan's capital, Morelia, on Tuesday.

The avocado and lime growing region is known for a conflict that erupted in 2013 between vigilante militias formed by farmers to combat the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel.

Authorities had to provide security to Miguel Patino, the bishop of Apatzingan, a city once controlled by the cartel, over fears that he faced an imminent attack in 2013.

A priest in the same city at the heart of Michoacan's so-called "Hot Land," Gregorio "Goyo" Lopez, wore a bulletproof vest during mass.

- Mass grave -

While Francis is not visiting Guerrero, which became infamous following the disappearance and presumed massacre of 43 students, the state has seen horrific violence against priests.

A Ugandan priest, John Ssenyondo, was kidnapped as he left mass in a mountain region and his remains were found later in a mass grave with 12 other bodies in November 2014.

A month later, at Christmas, the body of Father Gregorio Lopez Gorostieta was found with a bullet hole in the head, three days after he was kidnapped by gunmen at a seminary.

"Enough already! We don't want more blood. We don't want more deaths," the Mexican Episcopal Conference pleaded after Gorostieta's murder.

Pope Francis sent a letter to condemn the killing and urge that Mexican priests "continue with enthusiasm their ecclesiastic mission, despite the challenges, following Jesus' example."
Posted by: gorb || 02/12/2016 11:06 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russia raises specter of interminable or 'world war' if Syria talks fail
[REUTERS] Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev raised the specter of an interminable or a world war if powers failed to negotiate an end to the conflict in Syria and warned against any ground operations by U.S. and Arab forces.

Medvedev, speaking to Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper on the eve of talks between major powers on Syria in Munich, said the United States and Russia must exert pressure on all sides in the conflict to secure a ceasefire.

Asked about Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
's offer last week to supply ground troops if a U.S.-led operation were mounted against Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
, he said:

"This is bad as a ground offensive usually turns the war into a permanent one. Just look at what happened in Afghanistan and many other countries."

"The Americans and our Arab partners must think well: do they want a permanent war?" It would be impossible to win such a war quickly, he said according to a German translation of his words, "especially in the Arab world, where everybody is fighting against everybody".

"All sides must be compelled to sit at the negotiating table instead of unleashing a new world war."
Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  US oil triggered the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor. The embargo was intended to force Japan's hand in China. It forced hand in an unexpected direction.

Today, it can be argued that low oil prices impact Iran and Russia's ability to project force. I wonder if this too might backfire....
Posted by: Sven the pelter || 02/12/2016 8:13 Comments || Top||

#2  U.S. Allies Now Fighting CIA-Backed Rebels
Posted by: Sven the pelter || 02/12/2016 12:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Is this part of the flexibility that Ohoho said he'd have after the last election?
Posted by: AlanC || 02/12/2016 12:27 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Want to know when North Korea's next aggressive act will be? Check British newspapers and a birthday calendar
North Korea is as unpredictable a regime as a political scientist might imagine. Its decision-making is secret. Its leader is a posterchild for the madman theory: the idea that simulating insanity may be a useful tool of intimidation.

Yet, a new paper by economists Andy Kim, Hyoung Goo Kang, and Jong Kyu Lee suggests that North Korea's aggressive military and diplomatic actions do follow some predictable, though surprising, patterns.

The authors analyze 287 of the country's military and diplomatic interactions between 1999 and 2012. They assign different levels of hostility to these actions, with missile tests as the most aggressive category. They then examine whether a range of different variables can predict the more aggressive acts. Two findings stand out.

Read British newspapers

The first standout finding comes from their coding of print journalism. The authors collected more than 70,000 newspaper reports about North Korea. For each article they used automated text analysis to code how negative the tone of the article was. They then examined whether highly negative reports were correlated with an aggressive North Korean action one or two days later.

It turns out that the tone of newspaper reporting did help the model predict North Korean aggression, improving its predictive value by as much as 47 percent.

But here's what's really surprising: South Korean and U.S. coverage didn't correlate with North Korean action. Only British news stories did. This doesn't imply that the articles' attitudes prompted those actions -- only that we can systematically observe those negative British articles coming before the aggressive actions.

The authors suggest that this is so because British journalists may have more information about what's happening in North Korea. The United Kingdom has an embassy in North Korea, unlike either South Korea or the United States. That's consistent with another finding by Andy Kim and Hosung Jung that British hedge funds show the most significant abnormal short-selling of the South Korean stock market (KOSPI) index two to three trading days before North Korean military actions.

Another possibility (not suggested by the authors) is that British news stories reveal stronger attitudes, period -- whether positive or negative -- than do either South Korean or U.S. reporting, and are therefore easier to code using automated techniques.

Take note of Dear Leader birthdays

The second key finding is that North Korea is more likely to undertake aggressive acts within five days of a past or present "Dear Leader's" birthday. That wasn't true for organizational anniversaries, such as the establishment of the North Korea government (Sept. 9), the Army (April 25), or the Labour Party (Oct. 10).

A note of warning: Kim Jong Il's birthday was Feb. 16, so we're in the danger zone.
It is rumored that Pudgy chose the day of his birth.
That's a reminder -- in case we had forgotten -- that North Korea is a personal dictatorship, with an agenda focused much more on entertaining the "Dear Leader" than upholding the country's institutions.

So how does this matter?

North Korea's recent satellite launch, which apparently flew over the Superbowl site last Sunday, illustrated once again that the country will continue to take actions that are threatening to South Korea and the international community. We don't know if the South Korean and U.S. governments have predictive models based on classified information that perform better than this one.

Whether or not they do, the rest of us -- citizens, businesses, and other non-governmental actors -- also have an interest in knowing when to expect aggression. This analysis shows that even these highly secretive and seemingly random actions follow somewhat predictable and publicly observable patterns.
Posted by: gorb || 02/12/2016 14:29 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  British hedge funds show the most significant abnormal short-selling of the South Korean stock market (KOSPI) index two to three trading days before North Korean military actions.

Hmmm - insider trading at its finest?
Posted by: Raj || 02/12/2016 15:05 Comments || Top||


The latest rumor from North Korea: Another general executed
Yet another North Korean general is killed by the evil Pyongyang regime.
Excellent! More! Faster! The more generals Pudgy executes, the more the remaining ones will question whether they're next, and act accordingly...
That's the story that's been doing the rounds this week after a South Korean news agency quoted an anonymous South Korean official from an unnamed South Korean agency as saying that Ri Yong Gil, chief of the Korean People's Army [KPA] general staff, had been executed for corruption.

It fit with the pattern that has emerged since Fat Boy Kim Jong Un took over the leadership of North Korea from his father at the end of 2011: Aging member of the old guard dispatched by young upstart leader.

After all, it happened with Hyon Yong Chol, the defense minister executed by anti-aircraft gun for insubordination and treason. And to Pyon In Son, head of operations in the army, said to have disagreed with Kim. The 33-year-old corpulent leader even had his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, shot for amassing too much power.

This rumor about Ri may well be true. But as with almost everything related to North Korea, very little is clear.
That didn't stop our intrepid reporter...
A memo from South Korea's National Intelligence Service, obtained by the Washington Post, said that Ri was executed on Feb. 2 or 3 for factionalism and corruption charges.

"Even though corruption and factionalism were given as reasons behind his execution, Ri had been considered a man on principle so it is more likely that these reasons were just given to justify his execution," the memo said. "This is another sign of Suet Face Kim Jong Un's reign of terror," it said.

But the South's spy agency has a history of being wrong about North Korea almost as often as it's right,
...so they're like the CIA...
and the Daily NK, a Seoul-based news service with informants inside Norh Korea, Friday reported that Ri had been arrested rather than executed.

Ri was "going against the Party's monolithic teachings and monolithic military system" by "exercising privileges and partaking in factional bureaucracy," a source told The Daily NK. He was arrested at a party meeting and dragged out in handcuffs, the site reported.
'Factional bureaucracy' sounds like he was setting up his own power center...
There is also recent precedent for top officials being given a time-out: Choe Ryong Hae, Secretary of the Korean Workers' Party, went missing for three months last year, reportedly because of corruption, then returned to the public eye last month. North Korea's state media reported he gave a speech at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League in Pyongyang.

There were also rumors in South Korea that Hwang Pyong So, director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean Peoples' Army, had been knocked off at the end of last year after three weeks passed without him putting in an appearance. Then he showed up next to the size XXL Kim during a trip to a tree nursery operated by the army (yes, in North Korea trees are a military issue.)
They're also food...
Further obscuring the truth about Ri, the elderly general had appeared on state television in recent days, alongside the ailing Kim Jong Un, an unlikely occurrence if Ri had in fact been executed. Those who've been put to death are usually edited out of official news broadcasts.

Ri, who has (or had) held a number of top military positions, was ranked number 76 on the national funeral committee formed after Kim Jong Il's death in December 2011, according to Michael Madden's biographical notes on his Web site, North Korea Leadership Watch.

In 2012, Ri delivered a speech at a Korean People's Army rally commemorating the one-year anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il, and the following year accompanied Fat Boy Kim Jong Un on several field inspections.
Not hard to ride the tiger -- the trick is the dismount...
He was appointed Chief of the General Staff in August 2013, according to Madden. But he did not appear during footage broadcast this week of Kim celebrating North Korea's latest long-range rocket launch.

What is clear is that the Pyongyang regime is in a state of upheaval ahead of the Congress of the Korean Workers' Party, scheduled for May. It would be the first time such a shin-dig has been held in 36 years, and many of Kim's recent moves -- including the nuclear test and rocket launch -- are considered preparation for the Congress.

"The head of the party congress is going through the files of everybody in senior positions in the government, military or party very closely," Madden said. "This is where someone like Ri Yong Gil could possibly get in trouble. I think that's one of the reasons we've seen a lot of secondary personnel changes too."

What that means is that there is plenty more change in and brinksmanship from North Korea over the next three months, Madden said.
Posted by: gorb || 02/12/2016 13:54 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  The more generals Pudgy executes, the more the remaining ones will question whether they're next, and act accordingly...

Careful, Sad Panda will think you're calling for the assassination of an innocent human life . . . .
Posted by: gorb || 02/12/2016 14:38 Comments || Top||

#2  No one who wears a general's uniform in that country is innocent...
Posted by: Steve White || 02/12/2016 21:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Have we identified the tumbling satellite pudge's boys launched last week?
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 02/12/2016 23:29 Comments || Top||


North Korea's Generals Could Turn Against Kim Jong Un
[THEDAILYBEAST] Heavy are the burdens of the men wearing four stars in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Ri Yong Gil, the chief of the General Staff of the North Korean military, has been executed, according to Yonhap News Agency and Rooters. CNN reports that a South Korean government source confirms the top general was put to death.

The general, according to CNN, was killed for "factionalism, misuse of authority, and corruption."

Kim's increasing willingness to execute some of the most senior figures in his military would suggest the young leader is struggling to impose control. Analysts are beginning to wonder how much more the military will put up with.

Ri was last seen in public on Jan. 5, at about the same time as the North's claimed "hydrogen" bomb test, when he participated in an "inspection of coastal artillery" with North Korean leader Kim Pudge Jong-un
...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished...
The apparently abrupt termination of his stellar military career was hardly a surprise. General Pyon In Son was put to death, probably in January of last year, for insubordination, specifically for refusing to replace certain junior officers.

Then, General Hyon Yong Chol, the DPRK's defense minister, was executed for napping at a public event--disrespecting Kim who was present at the time--and for disobedience. The specific charge was advocating "militarism-oriented bureaucracy."

Many Korea watchers consider these killings and others to be proof that Kim Jong-un is in command, that he is powerful enough to get rid of anyone. In reality, it is proof that the situation at the top of the regime is fluid. After all, if Kim were truly in control, there would be no need for the continual bloodletting.

Hyon's execution was particularly revealing. It was reportedly carried out by anti-aircraft fire at close range, in front of an audience of hundreds at a military academy near Pyongyang. The spectacle, at the end of last April, was meant to send a message, and the fact that Kim had to do so is a clear indication he was not in firm command of the Korean People's Army.

Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  The creators of Team America: World Police were not that far off the mark.
Posted by: Sven the pelter || 02/12/2016 0:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Do you know how bIZZy I am?
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/12/2016 15:05 Comments || Top||


S.Korea cuts off power, water into Kaesong zone in N.Korea
[IN.REUTERS] South Korea has cut off the supply of power and water into the Kaesong industrial zone run jointly with North Korea, it said on Friday, hours after the North kicked out the South's workers and froze the assets of companies operating there.
If they've got any sense at the national level they'll leave it turned off and the assets frozen.
The suspension of the factory park, operated for more than a decade as a symbol of cooperation, deepened the confrontation between the rivals by all but shutting down the last remaining window of regular interaction for the divided Koreas.

South Korea said on Wednesday that it was suspending the operation of the industrial zone as punishment for the North's rocket launch on Sunday and last month's nuclear test. The North called the move "a declaration of war."

The 280 South Koreans who had remained in Kaesong rushed to vacate the industrial park on Thursday evening, completing the pullout at 11:05 p.m. (1405 GMT), said the South's Unification Ministry, which handles ties with the North.

A few minutes before midnight, the South shut off the supply of electricity into Kaesong that powered the factory zone, the ministry said early on Friday. The action also cuts off water supply, it said.

The United States, Japan and South Korea said Sunday's launch was a ballistic missile test, and like last month's nuclear test, a violation of United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
resolutions. They are seeking tougher sanctions against the North.
Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies


Europe
Medvedev lambasts 'stupid' Merkel migrant policy
[NEWS.YAHOO] Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has condemned German Chancellor Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom...
's liberal policy on migrants as "quite simply stupid", in an interview due to appear this weekend.

"It's quite simply stupid to open Europe's doors wide and invite in everyone who wants to come to your country," Medvedev said in an interview with the economic daily Handelsblatt.

"European migration policy is a total failure, all that is absolutely frightening," Medvedev added.

Merkel's immigration policy has sparked a heated public debate in Germany about the country's ability to integrate the nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers it took in last year.

In late summer 2015, she announced that Germany would stop expelling Syrian refugees and in September agreed with Austria to let in tens of thousands of migrants who were stuck in Hungary, which rejected asylum requests.
Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Then he signed off on shipping another shipload of barrel bombs to Syria, and then went to his lunch appointment with Schroeder.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/12/2016 9:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Master of the obvious!
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 02/12/2016 9:52 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Congress Works to Shutter Palestine Liberation Organization D.C. Office
[Free Beacon] Congress is working to shut down the Palestine Liberation Organization's Washington, D.C., office as punishment for breaching agreements barring it from sponsoring terrorism and inciting violence against Israel, according to a copy of new legislation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

An executive waiver signed by former president Bill Clinton in 1994 nullified laws prohibiting terrorist fronts from operating on U.S. soil and allowed for the establishment of the PLO office in D.C. The Palestinian delegation was tasked with helping to facilitate the implementation of the Oslo Accords peace agreement with Israel.

Lawmakers charge that, since its establishment, the PLO--which was designated by the United States as a terror group in 1987--has violated multiple agreements with Israel and the international community, thereby violating waivers permitting it to operate with immunity on U.S. soil.

The new legislation would alter U.S. anti-terrorism laws to classify the PLO mission in D.C. as illegitimate, according to a copy of the legislation, which was jointly filed in the House and Senate Wednesday by Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.) and Mark Meadows (R., N.C.).

The bill would further mandate that to retain its right to exist in the United States, the PLO must stop paying terrorists a salary, end its incitement against the United States and Israel, and enter into good-faith peace negotiations with the Jewish state.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/12/2016 05:49 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: PLO

#1  But, but, but the Hildebeest has called for 'the establishment of a Palestinian State.' In the late 1980s, the Hildebeest served as chairman of the New World Foundation which help fund the PLO and other vitally important leftest causes.

Say there...Beltway Party, after all of these years, what's the rush? Might we simply hold off on the 'shuttering' until the local PLO office financials and emails have been thoroughly examined? Who knows what might turnip.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/12/2016 6:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Wait for Bambi to get wind of this; he will E.O. the PLO office into being the DC branch of the Brack Obumble Dictatorial Library.
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 02/12/2016 8:47 Comments || Top||

#3  trouble with Executive Actions, O, is that they can and should be vacated immediately after the oath of office of his successor
Posted by: Frank G || 02/12/2016 8:57 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
ISI, LeT funded terror operations in India: Headley
[Daily Excelsior] Making fresh disclosures on the brazen 26/11 attacks, Pak-American terrorist David Coleman Headley today exposed how ISI and LeT majorly funded terror operations in India and financed him from time to time and that Pakistain native Tahawwur Rana visited Mumbai before the terror strikes.

Resuming his deposition before a court here today via video-link after a day's break due to a technical glitch at the US end yesterday, the LeT operative also said that RBI has turned down a request to open a bank account for their office in India.

Giving details of his funding, he said, "Before coming to India in September 2006, he received USD 25,000 from ISI's Major Iqbal."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 02/12/2016 00:35 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel police to appoint first Muslim deputy commissioner
[IsraelTimes] New unit to combat disproportionate amount of crime in Arab community, will include 1,300 officers, dozens of new stations

Jamal Hakrush has been tapped to become the first Arab Muslim promoted to deputy commissioner in the Israel Police.

Hakrush, a career police officer who hails from the Galilee village of Kafr Kanna, will take up the role at the helm of a new police unit aimed at fighting the disproportionate amount of crime within Israel's Arab community, police confirmed.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri refused to go into detail regarding the expected appointment, only saying that Hakrush was qualified and had many accomplishments. "He is a suitable candidate to do this job," she said.

Commissioner Roni Alsheich announced the new initiative on Tuesday during an "appreciation day" for police in the Knesset. He explained its necessity due to "frighteningly high" rates of domestic violence, murder, illegal weapons possession, and other crimes in the Arab sector.

At a meeting of the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee, Alsheich said that although Arabs constitute 21 percent of Israel's population, they account for 58% of total crimes, 55% of attempted murders, 47% of thefts, and 27% drug dealing.

"This picture is not only of concern to the police, but also to the Arab community itself," he said. "There is a strong desire to strengthen policing in the Arab community. I met dozens of heads of Arab local authorities and discovered that there was great willingness. 'Just send in the police already,' they told me."

The new program, the brainchild of Alsheich and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, seeks to recruit 1,300 new officers, and build dozens of new stations in Arab areas of the country.

Mujahid Awawida, the mayor of the Hakrush's hometown of Kafr Kanna in northern Israel, praised the program, particularly as it related to combating the prevalence of illegal firearms.

"Guns are a tool for killing, not a tool of peace," he told Army Radio Thursday. "I call on the prime minister to take the matter with the utmost gravity. There should be no guns in the home."

"Hakrush is a good and faithful man, and he can do the job properly," he said of the reported appointee. "He is a son of the village and my friend and I congratulate him on the appointment. There is no council head who is against participation in the project to confiscate firearms."
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/12/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Western diplomat on Syria conflict: 'It'll be easy to get a ceasefire soon because the opposition will all be dead'
The Syrian Civil War has reached a turning point.

Over the past two weeks, the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seized several villages north of Aleppo, the country's largest city and one of the last remaining strongholds of Syria's non-jihadist rebels.

The advance cut off Aleppo's anti-regime groups from their last remaining supply lines into Turkey, and put Assad in a position to retake a fiercely contested city that had a pre-war population of over 2 million.

The regime's advances, backed through an infusion of Iranian manpower and heavy Russian airstrikes around the city, come as efforts to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means have stalled in Geneva. And a recent quote from an unnamed western diplomat shows how facile the current diplomacy really is.

"It'll be easy to get a ceasefire soon because the opposition will all be dead," Reuters quoted the diplomat as saying. "That's a very effective ceasefire."

It's an astonishing statement that speaks volumes on the current realities in Syria. In mid-2012, opposition forces were claiming high-level defections from the government's Syrian Arab Army, sweeping through major cities, and gaining ground in Damascus.

Now, they've been so decimated that representatives of western governments are comfortable publicly discussing the rebel movement's extermination.

The quote also reflects a shift in official western perceptions of the rebel movements' capabilities.

President Barack Obama famously dismissed the Syrian rebels as "former farmers or teachers or pharmacists" in 2014, in spite of groups like the Free Syrian Army's success in holding strategic territory and counterbalancing the influence of jihadist groups in the country.

Western policy decisions told a more complex story.

Suspected CIA assistance for the Syrian rebels, matched with occasionally strong US rhetoric on the need for Assad's removal, suggested that the US and its partners wanted to support anti-Assad groups enough to keep the rebellion from collapsing entirely -- and enough to sustain a viable non-Assad, non-jihadist alternative in case an opening for a negotiated solution to the conflict ever emerged.

The diplomat's quote all but declares that policy a failure.

In the diplomat's view, the key to peace isn't sustaining the rebel movement. It's letting Assad and his partners win.

The quote also reflects the west's exhaustion with the Syria conflict, which has dragged on for over four years and killed an estimated 470,000 people.

The war's threat to western democracies has increased even as the prospects for Assad's ouster wane: on February 5th, French ambassador to the US Gerard Araud tweeted that "The Syrian Civil War is becoming an existential threat to the EU," presumably because of the strain that refugees from the conflict have put on the Union's internal border control system and relations among the union's member states.

It could be considered flippant to characterize the death of Syria's non-jihadist rebel movement -- which is, after all, fighting a regime accused of serial human rights abuses -- as a prerequisite for "an effective ceasefire." But it might also be an accurate reflection of the current mood in the US and Europe.

In any case, the "ceasefire" the diplomat describes wouldn't come close to ending the Syrian Civil War.

Jihadist groups like ISIS and the Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra are still among the more powerful fighting forces on the ground. It could be years before Assad fully consolidates control over Syria's populated areas, and even the reconquest of Aleppo could take the regime months or years.

As the past four years in Syria demonstrate, turns in battlefield momentum can say surprisingly little about where the conflict is actually going. A ceasefire with even a totally decimated rebel movement might not be enough to end the country's conflict.
Posted by: gorb || 02/12/2016 14:24 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


CIA director says IS group has used, can make chem weapons
CIA director John Brennan has said that Islamic State fighters have used chemical weapons and have the capability to make small quantities of chlorine and mustard gas, CBS News reported.

"We have a number of instances where ISIL has used chemical munitions on the battlefield," Brennan told CBS News, which released excerpts of an interview to air in full on the "60 Minutes" news program on Sunday.

The network added that he told "60 Minutes" the CIA believes that the IS group has the ability to make small amounts of mustard or chlorine gas for weapons.

"There are reports that ISIS has access to chemical precursors and munitions that they can use," Brennan said.

Brennan also warned of the possibility that the Islamic State group could seek to export the weapons to the West for financial gain.

"I think there's always the potential for that. This is why it's so important to cut off the various transportation routes and smuggling routes that they have used," he said.

When asked if there were "American assets on the ground" searching for possible chemical weapons caches or labs, Brennan replied: "US intelligence is actively involved in being a part of the efforts to destroy ISIL and to get as much insight into what they have on the ground inside of Syria and Iraq."

- 'Toxic chemicals in Iraq, Syria' -

The release of the interview excerpts comes two days after similar comments from spy chief James Clapper before a congressional committee.

"ISIL has also used toxic chemicals in Iraq and Syria, including the blister agent sulfur mustard," Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told lawmakers on Tuesday.

He said it was the first time an extremist group had produced and used a chemical warfare agent in an attack since Japan's Aum Supreme Truth cult carried out a deadly sarin attack during rush hour in the Tokyo subway in 1995.

President Bashar al-Assad's regime and rebel forces have accused each other of using chemical agents in the nearly five-year war that has killed more than 250,000 people.

After an August 2013 sarin attack outside Damascus that much of the international community blamed on Assad's government, the regime agreed to turn over its chemical arsenal.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) -- which oversaw the dangerous removal and elimination of Syria's avowed stockpile -- now says that declared arsenal has been completely destroyed.

But the global arms watchdog has still warned of the continued use of mustard, sarin and chlorine gas in the conflict, without blaming the regime, the rebels or the IS group for use of the weapons, which are banned under international law.

Last year, officials in the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan said blood tests had shown that IS fighters used mustard agent in an attack on Kurdish peshmerga forces in August.

Thirty-five peshmerga fighters were exposed and some taken abroad for treatment, officials said.

At the time of the attack, The Wall Street Journal cited US officials as saying they believed IS had used mustard agent.
Posted by: gorb || 02/12/2016 11:21 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State



Who's in the News
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2016-02-12
  Syrian rebels launch offensive on pro Syrian troops in Latakia
Thu 2016-02-11
  Female Suicide Bombers Kill 58 in Nigeria
Wed 2016-02-10
  New Hampshire primary: Trump, Sanders win
Tue 2016-02-09
  Russian police arrest 7 Islamic State militants
Mon 2016-02-08
  ISIS executes 300+ in Mosul
Sun 2016-02-07
  North Korea fires long-range rocket despite warnings
Sat 2016-02-06
  Yemeni Army's Tochka Strikes Saudi-US Aggression Camp in Marib, Kills 104
Fri 2016-02-05
  6 al Qaeda operatives die in Yemen drone strike
Thu 2016-02-04
  Head of AQAP killed in Yemen drone strikes: residents
Wed 2016-02-03
  Heavy Benghazi fighting as IS counterattacks
Tue 2016-02-02
  86 Dead as Boko Haram Burns Children Alive in Nigeria
Mon 2016-02-01
  50 Feared Killed in Boko Haram Attack in Nigeria
Sun 2016-01-31
  At least 60 killed in terror attack at Shi'ite holy site in Syria
Sat 2016-01-30
  Shibir men held for plotting religious unrest
Fri 2016-01-29
  Man Arrested in Disneyland Paris Hotel with 2 Handguns

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