Fourteen people have been arrested in Nigeria after this week's attacks on police stations and a church in the northern city of Maiduguri.
At least 14 people were killed in three explosions, including three people outside St Patrick's Catholic Church. In another incident on Tuesday, a Christian preacher was gunned down by gunmen on motorcycles.
The attacks have been blamed on the Boko Haram sect, which is fighting to overthrow Nigeria's government. Boko Haram gunmen on bikes have killed dozens of police officers and politicians during the past year.
Preacher David Usman and one of his secretaries at the Church of Christ in Nigeria were the latest victims of such shootings.
On Monday, Ibrahim Birkuti, a cleric from a different Muslim tradition who had criticised Boko Haram, was gunned down outside his home in the town of Biu, some 200 km south of Maiduguri.
North Korea's National Defense Commission on Thursday threatened to release tapes of a secret inter-Korean meeting last month where the North says the South offered money for a series of cross-border summits. Amateur hour from the Norks...
An official from the commission's policy department who was at the meetings warned Pyongyang will "release voice recordings of the entire meeting to the world" if South Korea "refuses to disclose the truth." The official was quoted by the state-run KCNA news agency.
A Unification Ministry official challenged the North to omit nothing. "As Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said in the National Assembly on June 2, we don't have transcripts of any voice recordings. The government's position is that the North should disclose everything and distort nothing if these voice recordings really exist," he said.
"Publish and be damned," is the traditional response.
Former lawmaker Jang Sung-min, who headed the Cheong Wa Dae situation room said on Thursday "North Korea has always taped meetings, so it probably taped the secret inter-Korean meeting using a recorder pen. But it is unlikely that it will release the recordings. The threat looks like a mere tactic to achieve its real aim."
But Democratic Party lawmaker Park Jie-won on Thursday tweeted the North should "immediately cancel its plan" to release the tapes. "Doing so will make it subject to international reproach, as well as enrage and disappoint those who are making efforts for genuine peace on the Korean Peninsula." On June 3, Park had been the first to suggest that there are transcripts of voice recordings from the meeting.
The commission's policy department is believed to be an arm of the General reconnaissance Bureau, which masterminds attacks against the South.
A ministry official said North Korea's aim in making the secret meetings public and threatening to release the recordings is "to cause conflict in the South and drive our government into the corner." Instead, it united them...
Pyongyang denied the South Korean claim that the aim of the meeting was to get an apology from the North for last year's attacks on the Navy corvette Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island. "Unification Ministry official Kim Chun-sik said the secret meeting was arranged with direct instruction and approval from President" Lee Myung-bak "to realize a summit," the North Korean official said.
The regime tried to embarrass the South Korean government by saying the South Korean delegates "entreated" and "begged" for a summit. It claimed that when the meeting came to a rupture, National Intelligence Service official Hong Chang-hwa, took an envelope of money from a suitcase on the instruction of Kim Tae-hyo, the presidential secretary for national security strategy. Perhaps if he had pulled out a ham sandwich...
He said Hong tried to put the envelope into a North Korean delegate's hand, but the North Korean threw it away, and Hong blushed and became nervous. Hong then clumsily picked it up and he was so ashamed he could not even say goodbye properly, the official said. Definitely not KCNA style propaganda...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/10/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] China and North Korea have formally started construction of two joint economic zones near their border, on the North Korean islands of Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa on the west, and the Rajin-Sonbong area on the east.
Ceremonies marking the start of the projects took place during consultations held in China's northeastern provinces of Liaoning and Jilin from Tuesday to Thursday, the Chinese commerce ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
The sides agreed that the economic zones should be developed along "government-guided, enterprise-based and market-oriented" principles, the ministry said.
Present at the event were: Chen Deming, the Chinese commerce minister; Jang Song-thaek, the vice-chairman of North Korea's powerful National Defence Commission and brother-in-law of the North's leader Kim Jong Il; and various officials of the local district councils, it said.
The officials said the ceremony was held "in the historical period [following a recent visit to China by] Kim Jong Il ... recording a new chapter in the history of the traditional DPRK-China friendship", North Korea's official KCNA news agency reported, also on Thursday.
DPRK refers to North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Elusive projects
Little is known about plans for the development projects and what they will have to offer.
Both countries have divulged little information, save for the fact that the zones will improve freight transportation by opening up access to sea for China's northeast provinces.
The Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands on the Yalu River near the Chinese city of Dandong, have "favourable conditions for emerging a world trade and investment hub connecting Northeast Asia with Europe and North America," officials said in their congratulatory remarks, KCNA reported.
"... it is linked with the DPRK, China and Russia bordering on the Tumen River and has [the] East Sea.
"Smooth progress in the joint development and operation of the zone would promote from a new angle the economic development, in not only the two countries but also Northeast Asia, and give affirmative effect on the global economic development," they said.
KCNA said that the ceremony at the Rajin-Sonbong special economic zone, often abbreviated as "Rason", broke ground for the construction of a road and a cement factory and saw the launch of Chinese domestic freight transportation via Rajin Port, and a private car tourism project as the first phase initiatives.
Rason, located near China's northeastern Yanbian county, could bring "about a turn in freight transit transportation and tourism by speedily solving the issue of electricity and winding up the projects for modernization of Rajin Port and reconstruction of Rajin Port-Wonjong road through positive cooperation within this year," the report said.
Unclear prospects
The joint projects follow Kim's visit to China last month, his third within a year, which was seen a sign of desperation for the reclusive North's ailing economy.
Pyongyang has been hit by various UN sanctions, imposed after a May 2009 atomic test, in order to pressure it for a return to six-country nuclear talks.
China, the North's closest and most crucial ally, has pressed Kim to adopt changes to revitalise his nation's industry and agriculture, but is unclear how far he is willing to go.
Beijing has been careful to forestall the regime's collapse, as it could unleash political chaos and send waves of refugees across its border.
At the same time, China has increased its investment in improving the economy in its northeastern provinces along the border shared with North Korea, looking for a way to access the sea on the Korean peninsula's east, and allow transportation of goods.
North Korea has been attempting to follow the Chinese economic model, introducing various laws, tax breaks and special economic zones like the Rason, which was first established in 1991 to introduce foreign investment.
It attempted at a second special economic zone in the border city of Sinuiju, but the plan was abandoned after China tossed in the slammer Yang Bin, the Dutch-Chinese businessman who was leading the project.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/10/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Compare wid CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > FOUR EAST CHINA PORTS [Shandong region] ALLY WID ROK'S LARGEST PORT [Busan].
Shandong's Qinghao,Yantai, Rizhao, + Weihai/Wiehu Chinese ports.
AND
* FREEREPUBLIC/TOPIX > CHINA: US DEFAULTING ON DEBT.
* SAME > [Examiner.com]IDAHO TO BE THE FIRST CHINESE [US] STATE.
ARTIC = Besides IDAHO, China desires to do same to OHIO, MICHIGAN, + PENNSYLVANIA, which for the latter may explain in part why a large percentage of PA Voters want to dump POTUS BAMMER come 2012 Elex.
In an escalation of rhetoric towards Syrian President Bashar Assad yet unseen from Ankara, Turkish Prime Minsiter Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the Syrian crackdown on protesters "inhumane," and described it as barbaric, Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reported on Friday.
As some 2,500 refugees have fled to Turkey in recent days from Syria's northern region where troops and tanks are amassing ahead of an expected offensive, blasted the tactics employed by Syria's elite army units, led by President Assad's brother, Maher.
"Sadly, they don't behave like humans," Erdogan said of the Syrian army's 4th Division, commanded by Maher Assad Erdogan would know: he's been studying humans---from the outside, all his life.
#2
hi my name is fRED I m the editor of this chichenhawk oriented blog hope all of you that come here like my intent to BS you stilling from other news sites and showing my patriot dutty calling Great Britan and France Britania and La Belle France
Members of the banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and Indian Mujahideen (IM), nabbed from Jabalpur and Bhopal earlier this week, used the internet to recruit and train young men for jihad.
The Madhya Pradesh ATS on Sunday arrested eight alleged terrorists from the Indian Mujahideen and the SIMI from Jabalpur and Bhopal. Out of the eight arrested alleged terrorists, four were nabbed from Jabalpur and the rest from Bhopal.
According sources in the ATS, the arrested militants circulated jihadi literature and video CDs among youth of 15 to 18 years. The police have also recovered many CDs, pen drives and jihadi literature from those arrested. They also used jihadi blogs to reach the young minds.
Dr. Abu Faizal and Wasim, who were among the eight nabbed terrorists, had Facebook accounts through which they spread propaganda and encouraged them to join the holy war. The suspects have revealed that they had recruited several young men from Indore, Ujjain and Bhopal into their army to fulfill their nefarious aims. They targeted young men in mosques.
[Dawn] Although the military commander of the area has denied any immediate plan to launch an operation against cut-throats in North Wazoo, civil departments and United Nations ...what started out as a a diplomatic initiative, now trying to edge its way into legislative, judicial, and executive areas... agencies are preparing for an influx of displaced persons from the area.
"It has been decided to establish a big camp in Domail area of Bannu district that can accommodate 265,000 persons from North Waziristan Agency," officials of UN agencies told Dawn here.
They said a contingency plan was chalked out after a meeting of Provincial Disaster Management Authority, World Health Organisation, Unicef, World Food Programme, UNFPA, UNHCR and representatives of health and other line departments of Federally Administered Tribal Areas was updated about the situation two days ago.
The officials said that total population of North Waziristan Agency was 351,246, according to the last census conducted in 1998. Plans would be made to establish more camps in the nearby districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... to cope with mass exodus in the event of military action, they added.
"We didn`t receive any instructions from government to make immediate arrangements but indications show that government will ultimately go for military operation against cut-throats in North Waziristan," a senior UN official said.
Efforts were afoot to identify more sites for establishment of camps, he said, adding that extreme caution was being taken to set up camps in relatively peaceful area in view of the danger of terrorism.
He said that about 158,000 displaced families were living with their relatives in Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... and 55,000 in Tank for the last one year owing to military operation in South Waziristan Agency.
"The displaced persons are living in pathetic condition there but camps could not be established owing to lack of security clearance from the agencies concerned," he said.
An Islamabad-based official of WHO told this correspondent that they had already completed assessment of health facilities in Bannu. "We have sent medicines and other items to Bannu and more supplies will be sent when the operation starts," he said. Other UN agencies have also presented their plans to government.
The officials said that WHO was also in contact with health departments of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata to know about the strength of their staff in Bannu and provide them with manpower in case of deficiency.
"We have also planned to train health staff in Bannu so that they can perform duties in the camp. The staff requires to be imparted training in dealing with medical emergencies," they said.
Other UN agencies, including Unicef, WFP, UNHCR and UNFPA had also started preparations to cope with problem of displacement, they said.
They said that government had already hinted at vacating Jalozai camp, which housed 15,000 families from Mohmand ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Bloody Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... , Bajaur and Khyber agencies. The Jalozai camp would be vacated by mid June and its dwellers would be shifted to camps in their native areas, they said.
"There is no solid information about launching of offensive against Taliban but government has asked us to prepare contingency plan for the operation," UN officials said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/10/2011 00:00 ||
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The members of National Assembly across the board condemned the killing of a young man by Rangers personnel in Bloody Karachi and urged Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... here on Thursday to give exemplary punishment to the accused.
The members were of the view that the barbaric act was a matter of shame for the country, the parliament, public representatives and law enforcing institutions.
Most of the members were in favour of punishing the Rangers personnel.
Pakistain Mohammedan League -- Nawaz leader Khwaja Saad Rafique demanded the government to register a case against officials of Rangers under terrorism act for brutally killing the young man.
He also requested Prime Minister Gilani to take note of the incident and said the officials involved should be tried in the anti-terrorist court and the case should be decided in 30 days.
He condemned the statement of Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. after the incident and said the minister gave undue favour to the Rangers personnel, adding that Malik should apologise for his statement.
Saad Rafique was of the view that DG Rangers Sindh should resign over the incident and the control of Sindh Rangers must be given to Bloody Karachi police.
He said Rangers officials should properly be trained and educated before being deployed to the big city.
Senior PML-N leader Makhdom Javed Hashmi strongly condemned the incident and said the life and property of each and every Pak was important and respectable.
He said the government should show sensitivity over the issue and give strict punishment to the accused.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/10/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Pakistain's army chief says billions of dollars in US aid meant for the military's fight against faceless myrmidons should be diverted to bolster the economy and help ordinary Paks. Or maybe we should just put stop payments on the checks, since we're not gonna get what we're paying for...
The announcement could be seen as a snub to the US and an attempt to bolster the military's popularity following the American raid that killed the late Osama bin Laden. ... who sleeps with the fishes... Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... reiterated that the army has ceased its training relationship with the US and has restricted the scope of intelligence sharing.
He also said American drone attacks are unacceptable and declined US calls for an operation in the Islamic exemplar-infested North Wazoo tribal area.
Kayani's positions were outlined in an unusually detailed statement issued Thursday after a meeting with his top commanders.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/10/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
You mean it hasn't already been diverted ... to Pres. Ten-Percent and co.'s pockets?
Hamas claims record turnouts for its summer camps for children in 2011. The 'summer camps,' combining indoctrination, paramilitary exercises, and social activities, are set to start again this year. UN summer camps, considered competition by Hamas, are being openly scorned by jihadis.
Youngsters are an important target demographic for Hamas, from which its future terrorist army will be recruited. Summer camps are an valuble means for indoctrinating Gaza's youth with Hamas' jihadist ideology.
In 2010, Hamas ran camps for an estimated 100,000 campers, around the same number as in 2009. The Islamic Jihad terror group ran 51 camps with 10,000 participating children.
Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan said the objectives of the camps were to raise a generation with 'genuine Islamic values.'
Radwan said, "Children working for the interests of their homeland and to educate them to the culture of the Islamic faith so they will remember their goals, including Jerusalem and the prisoners."
In addition to propaganda, Hamas gives children paramilitary training. Banners are hung on the walls with slogans promoting jihad and 'death for the sake of Allah.'
Other prominent themes for this year are solidarity with Turkey in connection with the Mavi Marmara flotilla, a call for the release of Hamas prisoners (children carry posters with their pictures) and organized Islamic neo-Nazism expressions of hatred for Israel and the Jewish people.
The UNRWA summer camp system hosted 250,000 youngsters in 2010. This year, as with previous years, the camps were harassed by jihadist terrorists.
On May 23, 2010, a group of 30 armed men broke into an UNRWA summer camp site and burned it to the ground. On the night of June 28, 2010, armed men broke into another UNRWA camp site in central Gaza and set it on fire.
A UNRWA spokesman called on Hamas to investigate and determine who was behind the attacks. But the groups of armed men who attack the UNRWA summer camps every year are inspired by, and probably supported by, Hamas and other terror networks networks operating in Gaza who say the UNRWA camps are 'undermining Palestinian values.'
Israel has identified thousands of Hezbollah sites within Lebanon, making its "target bank" many times larger than it was in 2006, a senior IDF officer said just ahead of the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict.
According to him, the IDF had approximately 200 pre-designated targets on July 12, 2006, when Hezbollah set off the war. Those targets included close to 100 homes and other storage sites where long-range missiles received from Iran had been deployed. Those targets were destroyed on the first night of the war.
Today the bank has thousands more sites throughout Lebanon that would constitute legitimate targets. Earlier this year, the IDF released a map showing 950 locations scattered throughout the country -- many of them bunkers and surveillance sites.
Hezbollah is also thought to have obtained more than 50,000 rockets and missiles. Most of these are stored in some 100 villages around southern Lebanon.
#1
Israel also has drones they didin't have in 2006, and vastly improved computers. I suspect it won't take much longer to wipe out Hizb'allah's explosives this time than last...
Admittedly, I haven't the knowledge to go beyond suspicions.
#2
What's mainly required is willingness to kill a lot of human shields, TW. And take the resultant fallout. Any bets on who'll exhibit more "righteous" wrath: EUros who are now bombing defenseless Libyans (who weren't harming them in any way), or "dronezap" Obumba?
[Iran Press TV] The unrest in Syria has been the outcome of a deal between the Turkish prime minister and Egypt's Moslem Brüderbund, a report claims.
According to informed sources in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... that cited an unspecific classified report, the "unprecedented intensification" of unrest in Syria stems from "a deal between Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Moslem Brüderbund."
The report also indicates that Soddy Arabia's intelligence agency has been behind festivities that took place in the city of al-Ramtha in Jordan, near the Syrian border, as well as armed skirmishes in al-Anbar in western Iraq.
According to the report, in view of such events, a number of new developments are likely to surface in the near future that would alter established norms not only in Syria and Leb, but in other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East region.
At least 120 Syrian soldiers were killed after gangs attacked police and security stations in the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughour on Monday, according to Syrian state TV. Some 200 others were also reported injured in the festivities.
The Syrian government says the weapons used during festivities in Jisr al-Shughour were smuggled into the country from Turkey.
Dozens of civilians were also killed and injured during the exchange of fire in the Syrian town. The gangs reportedly took over parts of the town and torched several government buildings.
Hundreds of people, including security forces, have been killed during festivities in Syria since the beginning of unrests in the country in mid-March.
The shadowy opposition accuses security forces of being behind the killings. But, the government blames armed gangs for the deadly violence, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.
Syrian President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... has vowed to bring those behind the killings to justice as several members of armed terrorist groups have been tossed in the clink so far. The detainees have confessed to receiving weapons and money from foreign organizations to kill Syrian civilians and security forces and incite chaos in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/10/2011 00:00 ||
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#2
This is a Sunni revolt against Alawite rule, possibly aided by Ikhwan infiltrators in the Syrian military, some of whom are showing their true colors. I have to wonder to what extent Syrian rebels are being aided by the Iraqi Sunni insurgents who fled American firepower in Iraq. This could be a case of blowback for Assad - in not sealing the border and allowing Syrian Sunnis to fight on behalf of their religious brethren in Iraq, he has created a cadre of Sunni rebels who are expert at guerrilla warfare. What didnât work against overwhelming American firepower has a much better chance of working against the Syrian military. Which is why Syriaâs Alawite rulers will have to resort to the same measures that Hafiz Assad once did, if it wants to put down this insurgency - the leveling of rebel strongholds with artillery and tanks.
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.
Fourteen people have been arrested in Nigeria after this week's attacks on police stations and a church in the northern city of Maiduguri.
North Korea
Wazoo
Mohmand
The members of National Assembly across the board condemned the killing of a young man by Rangers personnel in 
Hamas claims record turnouts for its summer camps for children in 2011. The 'summer camps,' combining indoctrination, paramilitary exercises, and social activities, are set to start again this year. UN summer camps, considered competition by Hamas, are being openly scorned by jihadis.
The unrest in Syria has been the outcome of a deal between the Turkish prime minister and Egypt's 
President-for-Life Bashir 
