Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad expressed Monday their continuous opposition to an attack against Iraq and called on the UN Security Council "to force Israel to implement (international) resolutions and withdraw from the land it has occupied" in the West Bank since mid-June after a wave of suicide bombings. The two leaders "stressed the need to strengthen the international current opposed to a strike on Iraq so that reigning dictators the people of the region can avoid a disaster," said a joint statement published at the end of Assad's three-hour visit with Mubarak, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said. Just more of the same, but they have to keep saying it to try and keep the pot stirred...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/30/2002 02:32 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Time to re-evaluate the benefits our foreign aid gets us on a nation-by-nation basis....seems to me that we pay Hosni to allow weapons to be smuggled to Gaza, criticize us as much as his "street" needs and defy us on mideast initiatives, no?
#2
And to think that we live in a time where George Bush single handedly destroyed, or should I say rendered insignificant, the U Freaking N. A hero in my book, its laughable that Syria and Egypt want the un to enforce its resolutions against Israel when it can't even enforce the ones (16, remember) it passed against Iraq!
The Muslim countries want to deny their pre-mohoMad culture, when they would do well to deny that culture that befell them in 600AD, and the giant steps backward ot has taken them.
#3
I've been to Egypt, and let me tell you, the people there have a very complex attitude towards the U.S. Here's why:
The U.S. gives Egypt $2.2 BILLION annually in foreign aid (Israel gets $2.8 billion, the Palestinians $500 million!)
In Egypt about 40% U.S. dollars go to "economic" aid, the rest to their military. The trouble is that most of the nonmilitary aid is for infrastructure improvements that Mubarek takes credit for. So, the average Egyptian really can't see the money we provide. We need to change that.
They do know our money helps his military and that, they see, props up his repressive regime(though it is NOTHING like Saddam's)
That aid is there for one reason: to keep Egypt from attacking Israel.
Frankly, the problem with ALL our foreign aid is that we are way, way too low profile about what it's used for in the recipient countries. The people basically don't know they're getting money from us, and since we don't advertise it, they either think we're propping up evil governments (which is sometimes true) or we don't help them at all...this may help explain another thing...
In 1999, a Heritage Foundation study found that "73 percent of US foreign aid recipients voted against the United States a majority
of the time on average over the past five sessions of the UN General Assembly."
They get our money and then they don't support us.
Think about what happened at the UN's Sustainability conference last month...our reps had to scream and shout again and again that we are by FAR the world's most generous nation when it comes to purely humanitarian aid.
We need to go DIRECTLY to the people who live in these countries. ALL food aid should be clearly marked that it came from us. All water projects should have "Gift of the U.S." stamped everywhere. Every tractor, every piece of equipment should have the same label...that should be required of all our aid.
Turkish authorities Sunday released two men accused of attempting to smuggle a quantity of uranium, saying the amount in their possession was only a fraction of what officials originally estimated. Turkish officials announced Saturday they had seized a box filled with nearly 35 pounds (15 kilograms) of uranium. But Muzaffer Dilek, the mayor of Sanliurfa, a Turkish city near the Turkey-Syria border, said Sunday that the material amounted to only 140 grams — about five ounces. The two men arrested with the material were released due to lack of evidence and have since disappeared, Dilek said. Beat it, did they? I think that's what I'da done, too. In fact, I'm sure of it...
The material is being taken to a nuclear research facility in Ankara to determine its composition, Turkey's Ministry of Internal Affairs said. That analysis was expected to be complete by Monday.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/30/2002 02:32 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
After splitting into small groups, Chechen killers independence activists crossed back into Chechnya from the neighboring Caucasian republic of Ingushetia Sunday. This came following three days of fierce fighting with Russian troops near the Ingush village of Galashki. In Soviet days, Chechen-Ingush was an autonomous region. When the Soviet Union split up, the two went their separate ways, since the Ingush aren't for the most part lunatics...
Maierbek Vashagaiev, spokesman for Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, said he was in contact Sunday afternoon with Ruslan Gelaev, the commander of the troops fighting the Russians at Galashki. Gelayev said three Chechen detachments returned to base in the mountains above Ashkhoy-Martan. He said 13 Chechens had been killed and wounded and about 50 Russian soldiers died. Russian officials, for their part, claimed they killed 117 activists from a force of up to 300 that entered Ingushetia via the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Russia admitted to losing 17 soldiers. The tolls have not been independently verified. It's doubtful they will be...
Russian armed forces continued Sunday their search for Chechen groups and cut off their escape routes into Chechnya, Interfax news agency said. Chechen fighters withdrawing from Galachki attempted to contact Saudi Arabia by cellular phone, an unnamed Russian military source told Interfax. "Hello, Mom? It's Mahmoud! You'll never guess where I am..."
Russia describes its three-year war in Muslim Chechnya as an "anti-terrorist" campaign to suppress an Islamic insurgency backed by Arab countries. It regularly claims to have uncovered evidence of contacts between the Chechens and Islamic backers. Probably because the Bad Guys don't make much effort to conceal them...
A federal spokesman said surviving rebel groups were attempting to reach Bamut in southwestern Chechnya and that two had been killed Friday outside the village of Nesterovskaya. Russian missiles and artillery pounded a forest near the village of Bamut overnight, ITAR-TASS quoted Ingush officials as saying. Ummm... Generically hitting a forest usually doesn't do much good, not even with Russian artillery tactics...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/30/2002 02:33 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A Swedish Muslim has been released without charge after being held on suspicion of trying to hijack a London-bound Ryanair plane. Kerim Sadok Chatty, 29, was arrested last month after trying to board the jet near Stockholm with a gun in his hand luggage. Police said they released him on Monday. "Ya, sure. Ve had some t'ings to dö, and nobody vÀnted to hang around the cÞp shÞp över the veekend..."
A probe was launched into possible attempts to hijack the plane, but chief prosecutor Thomas Haggstrom said in a statement: "The investigation of that suspicion continues. Nothing in the investigation indicates that Chatty would have intended to crash the plane against any target in Sweden or in any other country." "Ve're sÌre he yust vÀnted to hijack it tÞ gÞ fÌr a ride..."
The Muslim, of Tunisian origin, must remain in the Stockholm area and report regularly to the police, Haggstrom added. "And nÞ television fÌr you, young mÀn!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/30/2002 02:51 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Organizers have disqualified a woman from a beauty pageant in Tokyo after Pakistani officials objected to her representing the country, saying participation in the contest denigrated Islam and brought shame to Pakistan. Pakistani authorities told contest officials to prohibit Neelum Noorani from participating in the Miss International competition scheduled to start Monday, Pakistan's Culture Secretary Tariq Janjua told The Associated Press news service. Janjua said the 21-year-old woman had falsely identified herself as Miss Pakistan. Beauty pageants are prohibited in Pakistan, an overwhelmingly Muslim country that's absolutely lacking a sense of humor. In Tokyo, a spokesman for the International Culture Association hosting the competition said he was unaware that Pakistan had not formally offered a candidate and assumed her candidacy was valid until they were contacted by Pakistani officials. She just figured, as long as no one else in Pakistan was pretty, she'd do it...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/30/2002 03:07 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yep, gang raping, setting on fire or throwing acid at women is okay, but having one enter a beauty pageant is 'shameful'
Posted by: Paul ||
09/30/2002 20:36 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Hey - I just realised that this is a great weapon in the war against Islamic Fundamentalist nutcases everywhere. We should invite the porn industry to make some 'Islamic' stuff! Saddam lookalikes doing very naughty things to big eyed Middle Eastern girls. 1001 Nights with a bit of spice kind of thing. It'd sell like hot cakes on the Arab 'street' and help to undermine all that we have come to know and love about them.
Posted by: Patrick ||
10/01/2002 4:47 Comments ||
Top||
#3
It'd probably make some money here, too... Call it "Under the Burka"... Not that I'd ever know, of course... (Yes, dear!)
Posted by: Fred ||
10/01/2002 5:53 Comments ||
Top||
Steve made me dig to find this...
A Pakistani businessman denied Monday a report in Time magazine that implies he had a homosexual affair with John Walker Lindh, the American who joined the Taliban. Khizar Hayat said he did not tell Time his relationship with Walker Lindh was sexual. "Really. We were just good friends..."
Their relationship, he told CNN, was "the kind of relationship any good Muslim should have with another." Hayat, who said Walker Lindh shacked up stayed with him about a month, denied having sexual relations with the young American. "That's nonsense," he said. "We never had any such relationship." Pakistanis are very straight-laced. They don't do that sort of stuff without at least an engagement ring...
The Time article, which explores how a young man from suburban America ended up with the Taliban, contains the following passage: I'm not gonna snicker! I am NOT gonna snicker...!
"Hayat met Lindh and took him on a tour of various madrasahs, searching for the perfect one from Karachi in the south to Peshawar in the northwest. The young American rejected them all and preferred remaining at Hayat's side. He helped Hayat at his store, a prosperous business dealing in powdered milk. Hayat, who has a wife and four children, says he had sex with Lindh. "'He was liking me very much. All the time he wants to be with me,' says Hayat, who has a good though not colloquial command of English. 'I was loving him. Because love begets love, you know.'" It sounds so... so... romantic? No, that's not the word I'm looking for... Ucky. That's it: Ucky!
Lindh's lawyers deny that their client engaged in any homosexual relationships. 'Course, they also said he wasn't a traitor...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/30/2002 03:08 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So....America wasn't the only one getting screwed here?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/30/2002 17:41 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I think we can safely assume that little john will get a whole lot of that loving where he's going.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/30/2002 18:32 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Now we know where all that powdered Iraqi "Baby Milk" winds up.
Saudi Arabia has recalled its ambassador to the neighboring Gulf state of Qatar in a spiraling dispute worsened by accusations against the kingdom on the Doha-based Al-Jazeera satellite television station. Ambassador Hamad al-Tuaimi flew back to Riyadh Monday. A short statement carried by the official SPA news agency late Sunday, September 29, announced that the Saudi ambassador had been recalled from Doha for "consultations". It did not give further details. It was the first time the kingdom has publicly announced the summoning home of an envoy posted in a fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state. I think al-Jazeera, whether one agrees with them all the time or not, has this "free press" idea down pretty well. In the space of a month or two, they've managed to cheese off the USA, al-Qaeda, and the Soddies. Not bad at all...
Tensions surfaced between Doha and Riyadh in recent months after Al-Jazeera aired programs deemed offensive to Saudi Arabia. The row between the Gulf neighbors was triggered by a June 25 live debate on Al-Jazeera in which participants criticized Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's Middle East peace initiative, accused Saudi Arabia of having "betrayed the Palestinian cause", and made disparaging remarks about the kingdom's founder. "Saudi officials and ordinary citizens alike were angered by the hostility to the kingdom's founder, King Abdul Aziz al-Saud, that transpired from that debate," a Saudi official told AFP Monday, requesting anonymity. "Well, he did have a big nose, and his B.O. was overwhelming, and he cheated at cards..."
Qatari leaders use Al-Jazeera "to score political and personal gains at the expense of Gulf and other Arab states," he charged. They're winning my heart, at least until the next time they cheese me off, and I don't even speak Arabic...
A diplomat from a Gulf Arab state based in the Saudi capital said Riyadh had delivered a protest to Doha in early July after Al-Jazeera persisted in offering a platform to Saudi dissidents and critics of Saudi policy. Oh, horrors! Can't have that. Nope, nope. Couldn't possibly have that... Heh heh.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/30/2002 02:33 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Have to admit I'm a bit fond of al Jazeera.
I think you are spot on with : "...al-Jazeera, whether one agrees with them all the time or not, has this "free press" idea down pretty well."
Chortling...
Posted by: Kathy K ||
09/30/2002 17:24 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I think it's a principle that pays off, though. If there's only one source available, and that one doesn't make sense, people tend to think they're missing a point someplace and agree with it anyway. "They must know something I don't know..."
If there are multiple sources, and none of them make sense, it's doubtful they all agree on the details. This induces confusion and a tendency to discount them all.
If there are lotsa sources, and most don't make any sense, but a few do, the ones that do will gain influence. Al-Jazeera's a first step on a long road, but it's a necessary step. I'm all for it.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/01/2002 5:57 Comments ||
Top||
Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Monday that Jakarta has obtained approval from the United States for a joint questioning of an alleged senior al-Qaeda operative arrested in Indonesia but now detained in Afghanistan. "Politically, we would like to say that Indonesia's interest in the questioning of Omar al-Faruq is very crucial and the US government has agreed with this request," Yudhoyono told reporters as quoted by AFP. Finally got around to wondering if there was anything to it, huh?
Yudhoyono gave no details of the composition of the interrogation team or their itinerary. However, he asserted that questioning al-Faruq would "help us in making sure whether al-Faruq's statement (to US officials) was true, half-true or even modified." Time magazine reported in its issue dated Sept. 23 that al-Faruq, 31, had admitted to being al-Qaeda's senior representative in the region. That'd make him a fairly important personage in the al-Qaeda scheme of things...
The report, greeted with skepticism here, said al-Faruq had lived near Jakarta until government agents arrested him in June and deported him to a US-held air base in Afghanistan. And now he lives in a shipping crate labeled "long-term storage."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/30/2002 02:32 pm ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
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.
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.
