Hi there, !
Today Thu 05/28/2015 Wed 05/27/2015 Tue 05/26/2015 Mon 05/25/2015 Sun 05/24/2015 Sat 05/23/2015 Fri 05/22/2015 Archives
Rantburg
531698 articles and 1855974 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 59 articles and 60 comments as of 13:45.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Opinion           
Syria: IS executes hundreds in Palmyra
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 3: Non-WoT
8 20:40 trailing wife [] 
5 20:35 JohnQC [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
1 07:13 Bright Pebbles [] 
2 09:05 Procopius2k [] 
0 [] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
0 []
0 []
0 [2]
0 []
0 []
0 []
1 01:27 Shipman [1]
2 09:11 Procopius2k []
2 13:22 Pappy [2]
0 []
0 []
0 []
3 20:18 JohnQC [1]
0 []
0 []
0 [1]
0 []
0 []
0 []
0 []
0 []
10 20:29 Blossom Unains5562 []
1 17:14 g(r)omgoru []
0 []
0 []
Page 2: WoT Background
4 19:44 JosephMendiola []
0 []
2 13:24 Pappy []
2 13:27 Pappy [1]
0 []
2 07:58 Airandee []
0 []
0 []
3 21:23 JosephMendiola []
2 01:34 Shipman []
2 17:12 g(r)omgoru [1]
6 23:04 SteveS []
0 [1]
0 []
0 []
2 17:57 Pappy []
0 []
0 []
0 []
0 []
0 [1]
0 []
Page 4: Opinion
0 []
0 []
0 []
0 []
Britain
British PM to Start Talks on EU Renegotiation
[ALMANAR.LB] Prime Minister David Cameron
... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ...
meets European leaders in Latvia Friday to start talks that he admits will not be easy on renegotiating Britannia's ties with the EU ahead of a referendum by 2017 on leaving the bloc.

Ahead of his first foreign trip since retaining power at this month's general election, he said that by "working together", European countries could "improve the EU as a whole".

"Today I will start discussions in earnest with fellow leaders on reforming the EU and renegotiating the UK's relationship with it," Cameron said in comments released by his Downing Street office.

"These talks will not be easy," he added before a summit in Riga on ties between the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
and six former Soviet states.

"But by working together in the right spirit and sticking at it, I believe we can find solutions that will address the concerns of the British people and improve the EU as a whole."

Cameron has promised a referendum on whether Britannia should leave Europe by the end of 2017. He backs staying in as long as Britannia can secure a string of reforms which he has yet to spell out.

Legislation paving the way for the referendum is expected to be published next Thursday, the day after Queen Elizabeth II reads out the government's legislative program at the state opening of parliament.

Cameron says that changes to EU treaties are necessary to secure the changes he wants.

These include controlling migration by making it harder for EU migrants to claim state benefits in Britannia, opting out of the EU's commitment to "ever closer union" and handing some powers back to national parliaments.
Posted by: Fred || 05/25/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  hahaaha
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 05/25/2015 7:13 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Putin signs Russian law to shut down 'undesirable' organizations
h/t Gates of Vienna
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill Saturday giving prosecutors the power to declare foreign and international organizations "undesirable" in the country and shut them down.
Bully for Russians. Transnational Progressivism is a cancer on the body of Humanity.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/25/2015 06:14 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Champ must be so envious!
Posted by: Bobby || 05/25/2015 7:15 Comments || Top||

#2  our Putin Fanboi cheers
Posted by: Frank G || 05/25/2015 11:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Zero doesn't need a law. He's got the IRS.
Posted by: PBMcL || 05/25/2015 12:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Name calling is a favorite strategy of?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/25/2015 14:16 Comments || Top||

#5  I hate to say it, but my sympathies kinda sort lie with Putin here. Yeah, I know it's a slippery slope and open to abuse and all that. But it does bring up the question: What to do about well funded NGOs trying to destroy your society? Yeah, I'm looking at you, George Soros.
Posted by: SteveS || 05/25/2015 16:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Well, at least it's a law and not another katyn forest...
Posted by: Pappy || 05/25/2015 18:00 Comments || Top||

#7  What to do about well funded NGOs trying to destroy your society?

It's not just Russia and Israel. Apparently a few wealthy American groups spent something like $17 million over some years to persuade Ireland to vote for gay marriage.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/25/2015 20:27 Comments || Top||

#8  One group. See here for details, courtesy of a Catholic academic of my acquaintance.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/25/2015 20:40 Comments || Top||


Rebel say Ukrainians massing forces for attack


For a map, click here. You can enlarge the map, if you open it separately.

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Russian backed rebels in Donetsk said Sunday that Ukraine has massed a force on their western front amounting to 45,000 effectives and almost 400 tanks, according to Russian language news accounts.

Donetsk Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Colonel Eduard Basurin said in remarks at a press conference that his intelligence staff have detected the presence of more than 60 battalion sized formations of several types, as well as 380 tanks, 1,800 armor vehicles and 980 artillery tubes and launchers.

The build up has been commented on by Basurin in previous news conferences, saying that around 60 percent of the strength of the Ukrainian Army deployed in southeastern Ukraine is preparing for offensive operations.

The total amounts to about six maneuver brigades and ten artillery brigades. Previous remarks are that the Ukrainians have begun to move their heavy rocket artillery units closer to the front and to key areas, such as Mariupol, western Donetsk city and Gorlovka.

Basurin also noted that the Ukrainians have amassed a "strike group" near the western Donetsk town of Volnovakha.

The number of reports of ceasefire violations by both sides have been increasing over the last few days. The last time reports of ceasefire violations reached this level was last April 13th, in Spartak, a western suburb of Donetsk city, where rebels charged that two Ukrainian rifle companies launched an intense attack on their positions.

Since that battle, the rebels have continually charged that Kiev is preparing for a new offensive with one of its objectives being the airport. Ukrainian forces were forced to abandon the airport last January, and despite furious counterattacks, have been unable to regain that position.

Rebel forces, on the other hand, attempted to exploit the counterattack with one of their own, taking extreme eastern areas of Peski. A subsequent attempt to drive Ukrainian forces from Avdievka, less than one kilometer away, ended with severe losses for the rebels.

Since those battles the front lines in those areas more or less stabilized, with the April attacks nearly driving rebels back east, according to Ukrainian claims, until a local rebel counterattack restored the situation.

According to another news report which appeared on the rusday.info news website, the Ukrainians are grouping their forces, and once that grouping is complete, probes will begin as a prelude to a general offensive.

So far, rebel media has been very quiet on reporting news of artillery strikes and direct fire fights. It should be noted that the last time the rebels were this quiet was just prior to the operation to take the Donetsk airport in January.

The only rebel report available as of this writing was one of a vehicle carrying three Russian military officers, including Colonel General Alexander Lentsov, which was fired on by an unknown force using small arms near the front line somewhere south of Ukrainian held Artemovsk. The officers are three of several officers, including Ukrainians deployed at Soledar, near Artemovsk, who are assigned as observers for the ceasefire.

The vehicle the officers were riding was damaged, but no one was reported hurt in the incident.

One of the reasons why rebel media has been so quiet could be the artillery strike on Avdievka last Friday.

According to a news account on vest-ukr.com, rebel heavy artillery hit the coke plant and power transmission plants in Avdievka, shutting ther city's power off for a time. According to the article, a total of 47 shells hit Avdievka.

The Ukrainians claim the artillery came from rebel held territory. No one was reported hurt in the incident.

Ukrainian military analyst Dmitri Tymchuk said that rebel 122mm artillery and 120mm and 82mm mortars also hit the nearby towns of Opytnoye, Vodyane, Spartak and Peski. He also said three rebel tanks and three rebel AFVs left their fortifications between Opytnoye and Avdievka to fire on Ukrainian troops in Avdievka.

Meanwhile in Shirokino, Ukrainian forces say that rebel forces have been shelling parts of Shirokino using 122mm towed artillery, anti tank guided missiles (ATGMs), mortars and automatic grenades launchers. Only a week ago rebels said the Ukrainian tanks were used on their positions as artillery, in violation of the ceasefire.

Lugansk

Dymchuk said that rebel recon groups were spotted near Schastye and Stantsa Luganskaya attempting to probe Ukrainian positions, and directing artillery and small arms fire on Ukrainian positions.

Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com and on Twitter. You can read past articles about the 2014 war in southeastern Ukraina by clicking here.
Posted by: badanov || 05/25/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Moscow can't keep military spending as high
The Russian government cannot afford to maintain its current levels of military spending for long because its shift of resources to the military sector is threatening the rest of the Russian economy and because its reserve fund will be insufficient to pay for this spending for more than another year or two, according to Sergey Guriev.

Guriev, currently an economics professor at the Sciences Po in Paris and earlier the rector of the Russian School of Economics in Moscow, says that experts have known this for some time but that the Kremlin has gone ahead anyway, something that opens the way for radical shocks ahead.

The Russian government’s original budget for 2015 was based on the assumption that oil would be US $100 a barrel, that Russia’s GDP would grow two percent, and that inflation would not exceed five percent, he notes. None of those things has proven to be the case; and the government has cut overall spending by approximately eight percent.

“Nevertheless,” he continues, that has not prevented the government deficit from ballooning from 0.5 percent of GDP to 3.7 percent, “a serious problem” even though Russia’s sovereign debt forms “only 13 percent of GDP” because the Ukrainian war has increased spending and Western sanctions have made it harder to borrow.

As a result, Moscow has been forced to dip into its reserve fund. That fund currently amounts to six percent of GDP. Consequently, if the deficit continues at 3.7 percent, the Russian government will run out of money in about two years, forcing it either to withdraw from Ukraine in order to end the sanctions regime or change its budgets in fundamental ways.

Both steps would entail “major political risks for Putin,” Guriev says.

But in fact, the economist continues, that kind of train wreck may happen far sooner. During the first three months of this year, he point out, Russia’s military spending exceeded nine percent of GDP – or “twice more than planned.” If that level of spending continues, Russia’s reserve fund will be “exhausted before the end of the year.”

That military spending is eating up the reserve fund is the result of Russian decisions made four years ago, Guriev says. At that time, the government proposed increasing defense spending from three to more than four percent of GDP, something Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin suggested was impossible. He was summarily fired and that is what the Kremlin seeks.

According to Guriev, “the goal of the Kremlin turned out to be unbelievably ambitious both by Russian and by world standards.” Most European countries are not spending more than two percent of GDP on defense; the US spends 3.5 percent, and only nine countries in the entire world are now spending more than four percent.

Russia “simply is not in a position” to spend that way for long, the economist says. Moreover, its defense industry isn’t capable of modernizing that quickly. And that suggests that the Kremlin is less interested in that than in supplying its forces in Ukraine, something that could set the stage for a new attack in the coming months.

Or alternatively, Guriyev continues, it could simply be an indication that the Ukrainian war is costing Putin far more than he counted on and that he will have to find a way out.

Whatever proves to be the case, he concludes, “Kudrin’s economic logic today is even more just than it was on the day he was fired. If Russia in favorable times couldn’t allow itself to spend up to four percent of GDP on defense,” then it certainly can’t at a time when oil prices have collapsed and Western sanctions have been imposed.
Posted by: badanov || 05/25/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dictators always have money for their military.
Posted by: BernardZ || 05/25/2015 7:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Thank you American frackers in being more effective than Dept of State in restraining the expansionist tastes of the new fascists.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/25/2015 9:05 Comments || Top||


Top Kremlin Critics In The West Face Media Smears
The New Cold-War propaganda battlefield came into stark focus this week as two highly personal attacks on leading anti-Putin pundits came out in quick succession. Peter Pomerantsev featured as the main target in tandem with Michael Weiss – both now very prominent, both associated with The Interpreter, the relentless online gadfly against the Kremlin. There was a time when one could use the phrase ‘war of ideas’ but it lacks verisimilitude in the current context. The Soviet Union peddled ideas, universal ones, however thinly patched to justify Moscow’s power urge. These days, Moscow offers no universal ideology. Kremlin apologists are reduced to emitting a stridently one-note sound, that of condemning the West for every ill Moscow visits on the world. So it is with Mark Ames’s article about Pomerantsev in the web publication Pando and equally with an article in The Nation by James Carden entitled “Neo McCarthyism and the US Media”.

One must say, up front, that the attacks suffer from egregious factual inaccuracies. For example, Pomerantsev is not nor has ever been a ‘lobbyist’ for anyone. That word has a technical dimension and should be used very fastidiously because it suggests that you take money in order to advocate a particular position, specifically for that purpose, as a PR shill. To say this about Pomerantsev is like saying Orwell was a paid lobbyist against totalitarian systems. I won’t go into a list of detailed factual issues here because far deeper issues of principle take priority. You will see what I mean in short order.
Posted by: badanov || 05/25/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
11 schoolchildren, teacher injured in roof collapse
[DAWN] MULTAN: Eleven schoolchildren and a teacher were maimed when the roof of their school collapsed on Saturday.

Sources told Dawn that 37 students of class three and their two teachers were trapped under the rubble when the roof of a private school at Basti Allahwala on Muzaffargarh Road collapsed. Rescue 1122 teams launched the operation to extricate the children and their teachers from rubble with the help of locals.

The rescue staff provided first aid to 25 children and a teacher and shifted the remaining injured to the Nishtar Hospital. The injured were: Sahil, Mariam, Mustafa, Hafza, Zainab Zahoor, Sumeera Arshad, Zara Jamshed, Savaira Bibi, Noor Fatima, Danish Javed, Sadia Umer and school teacher Mansha Saeed. The doctors said the condition of the injured was out of danger.

Commissioner Asadullah Khan, District Coordination Officer Zahid Saleem Gondal, SSP Operations Muhammad Saleem, MNA Abdul Ghaffar Dogar, MPA Rana Mehmoodul Hassan and MNA Javed Ali Shah inspected the school.
Posted by: Fred || 05/25/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Body of girl found in sack
[DAWN] HARIPUR: The body of an eight-year-old girl stuffed in a sack was found near Jabba-Sirikot bypass here on Saturday morning.

According to police, the unidentified slain girl was wearing blue shirt, white trouser (shalwar) and white scarf (dupatta). She also bore some visible marks of rope around her neck.

Talking to Dawn by telephone, Abdus Sattar, Station House Officer of Ghazi cop shoppe, said he was informed by the people that a sack containing something was lying near the Jabba-Sirikot bypass.

"I drove straight to the place and got opened the sack, which contained the body of a girl wearing school uniform."

It seems that some miscreants had kidnapped and killed her somewhere else and dumped her body here to conceal their crime, he said, adding that so far no one had come to collect the body.

To a question, the police official said it was too early to establish that the innocent girl was molested before her murder because the hospital had yet not sent them a medical report in this respect.
Posted by: Fred || 05/25/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
The next step in LBGT warfare: thought crime
h/t Instapundit
So, a Canadian Christian jeweler custom-made a pair of engagement rings for a lesbian couple, Nicole White and Pam Renouf, at their request. Later, when they found out that the jeweler personally opposes same-sex marriage, they went to pieces and demanded their money back. The couple now believes the rings they ordered will have been tainted by having been fashioned by jeweler Esau Jardon's hands, given what impure thoughts he holds in his mind.
Althouse has a different take.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/25/2015 06:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I posted the following comment on this matter on Insty and at Chicagoboyz -
"Gee, it’s almost like believing Christians should always wear some kind of visible sign or something, to indicate a warning to all right-thinking, tolerant and upright citizens thinking of doing business with them, or initiating a friendly conversation, or renting property to them, or anything. I know! Maybe a fabric patch or armband, with a cross embroidered on it, in yellow, or some other bright color. This would spare the poor dears the awful embarrassment, y’know – of having to deal with those icky judgmental Christianists.
Yes, I am being heavily sarcastic … but you never know, these days; very likely there are people around who will think it a perfectly splendid idea."

Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 05/25/2015 10:04 Comments || Top||

#2  More likely you will have to have a certain mark, in an obvious location like your forehead or wrist, to show that you have all the appropriate thoughts and beliefs. And are tolerant of everyone else who toes the LBGT line and bows to the gods of multiculturalism, political correctness, climate change, and liberalism.

This jeweler was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/25/2015 10:32 Comments || Top||

#3  A guy I went to college with is way ahead of Ann and Sgt Mom. He suggested this about a month ago but he was serious. I said, " it will be so much easier to identify the Christians then when Christianity is outlawed. Send them all off to the camps! He wasn't amused.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 05/25/2015 18:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Althouse is a female version of a wanker. Her love of all things homosexual knows no bounds.
Posted by: badanov || 05/25/2015 18:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Force acceptance?
Posted by: JohnQC || 05/25/2015 20:35 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
20[untagged]
10Islamic State
6Govt of Syria
4al-Qaeda in Pakistan
3Taliban
3Govt of Pakistan
2Govt of Iran
2Govt of Saudi Arabia
2Hezbollah
2Houthis
1Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
1Govt of Iraq
1Abu Sayyaf
1al-Shabaab
1Commies

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2015-05-25
  Syria: IS executes hundreds in Palmyra
Sun 2015-05-24
  Prayer leader explodes in mosque
Sat 2015-05-23
  Kunar Drone Strike Kills Four Taliban
Fri 2015-05-22
  Air strikes kill 15 militants in North Waziristan
Thu 2015-05-21
  Kurds advance against Islamic State in northeastern Syria
Wed 2015-05-20
  IS Attacks Syria Druze Village, Battles for Palmyra
Tue 2015-05-19
  US drone strike in North Waziristan leaves six 'militants' dead
Mon 2015-05-18
  ISIS confirms Ramadi capture
Sun 2015-05-17
  US special forces kill senior IS leader in Syria: Pentagon
Sat 2015-05-16
  Jury sentences Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for marathon attack
Fri 2015-05-15
  Belmokhtar's Jihadist Group in N. Africa Pledges Allegiance to IS
Thu 2015-05-14
  ISIS acting leader al-Afri killed by US-led airstrike
Wed 2015-05-13
  Iraq Blast Kills Four including Peshmerga General
Tue 2015-05-12
  Drone Strike Kills 4 Qaida Suspects in Yemen's Mukalla
Mon 2015-05-11
  Terror recruiter with roots in Minn. linked to Texas shooting

Better than the average link...



Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
44.192.247.144
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (25)    WoT Background (22)    Opinion (4)    (0)    (0)