Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Julie Delpy aka Celine in "Before Sunset (2004)" aka Celine in "Before Sunrise (1995)" aka Sherry in "Broken Flowers (2005)" aka Marion in "2 Days in Paris (2007)" aka Sabeth in "Voyager (1991)" aka Wendy in "MacArthur Park (2001)" aka Erzebet Bathory in "The Countess (2009)" aka Marion in "2 Days in New York (2011)" (age 43)
A roadside bomb has killed five Polish soldiers in a NATO convoy in eastern Afghanistan. Polish media said the soldiers were on patrol near their base in Ghazni province when the explosion happened. Three soldiers died at the scene. Two more are reported dead from their injuries at a military hospital.
#2
History and its neighbors have not treated Poland well. Might be embarrassment at the huge part the Poles played in keeping various Central Asians out of Central and Western Europe.
See, for example, Jan Sobieski at Vienna,1683.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
12/21/2011 22:03 Comments ||
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(Xinhua) -- Fifty Talibs laid down arms in Taliban birthplace southern Kandahar province, 450 km south of Afghan capital city Kabul on Tuesday.
That's nice. For the winter or for good?
"These former Taliban fighters under Hajji Malim had been active in Panjwai district and Kandahar city over the past couple of years and we expect other cut-throats to follow them and lay down arms," Kandahar provincial governor Tooryalai Weesa told newsmen at the ceremony to welcome the former fighters.
All the former bully boyz also handed over their weapons to the authorities and vowed to defend the government from now on.
Speaking on the occasion, Hajji Ata Mohammad, the head of High Peace Council, appreciated the former Death Eaters' decision, saying joining the grinding of the peace processor by Hajji Malim and his men would further strengthen the security in Panjwai and adjoin areas.
Talibs fighting Afghan and 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... -led troops have yet to make comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Thousands of Egyptian women have poured on to the streets in the capital city of Cairo to protest the security forces' brutal crackdown on female demonstrators.
The protest took place in the landmark Liberation (Tahrir) Square on Tuesday, days after army soldiers harshly beat a woman and ripped off her clothing while dragging her along the ground during a demonstration in the square.
Released footage and images of the half-naked female protester has sparked outrage among Egyptians.
"Our honor is a red line," the women demonstrators shouted while gathering in the square, which has been the site of deadly festivities between Egyptian military forces and protesters since Friday.
"They know that people who don't care about their own lives they care about their mother, wife and sister. So they wanted to humiliate the whole Egyptian people by humiliating women because they know it's very sensitive," said a demonstrator, referring to the humiliating conduct of security forces toward female protesters.
They also rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud against the Head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, calling him a traitor.
"[The ruling generals] have to go, they are traitors," the protesters said.
The Egyptian military's violence against protesters in the past five days has left at least 14 people dead and hundreds more injured, according to the country's health ministry.
The demonstrators call on the junta to immediately transfer power to a civilian government nearly one year after the country's revolution toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Egypt's military on Tuesday "strongly regretted" what it called "transgressions" against protesters, in a statement addressed to women after soldiers beat and stripped a female demonstrator.
The military would take legal action against those responsible for the abuse, said the statement, which came after a women's march in Cairo denouncing attacks on female protesters.
"The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces expresses its strong regret to the great women of Egypt over transgressions that occurred during recent incidents in the protests outside parliament and the cabinet," it said in the statement.
The military respected women's right to take part in protests and had taken "all legal measures to hold accountable the people responsible for these violations," said the statement posted on the military's Facebook page.
Pictures and video of soldiers beating and partly stripping a veiled woman as they dragged her sparked outrage in Egypt, where festivities between anti-military protesters and security forces marked their fifth day on Tuesday.
A military front man told Agence La Belle France Presse that the soldiers who beat protesters were not acting on orders and had been enraged by attacks on themselves.
Pictures of troops kicking the woman, as one soldier apparently grinned, sent shockwaves among activists and the independent media.
"The forces that violate the honor (of women)," read a headline in the independent daily Al-Tahrir above a picture of a soldier grabbing a woman by the hair as another raised a club over her.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Woman to Call at 3 a.m. and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another George C. Marshall ... on Monday accused Egyptian authorities of failing women as she denounced the stripping and beating of the female protester as "shocking."
In unusually strong language, she accused Egypt's new leaders of mistreating women both on the street and in politics since the popular revolt that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... in February.
"This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform, and is not worthy of a great people," said Clinton.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
So where did Egyptian police get their attitudes?
Why do they feel comfortable behaving in such a manner in front of the camera?
Will it happen again?
How about male protesters? Should they have to continue to suffer similar abuse?
[An Nahar] Bahraini riot police on Tuesday dispersed several hundred Shiite demonstrators who gathered on a highway leading to Manama in one of increasingly frequent anti-regime protests.
Police fired tear gas at protesters who flocked to the Budaiya highway from the village of Abu Saiba, west of Manama, an Agence La Belle France Presse journalist reported.
The protest began following a memorial service for Shiite youth Ahmed Radi al-Qassab, who was run over by a car while allegedly crossing the highway to escape a riot-police patrol last week.
Police beat protesters back into the village and fired tear gas at the cemetery and inside the village as some youngsters hurled stones at security forces.
Shiite youth groups had called for a series of consecutive protests on the highway which links Shiite villages with Manama's former Pearl Square, the focal point of a month-long pro-democracy uprising that was crushed in March.
The crackdown comes even after Bahrain's government promised reforms following the publication last month of a highly critical report into the Shiite-led pro-democracy protests in February and March.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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[Yemen Post] Thousands of Taiz youth started on Tuesday a long march from the Freedom Square in Taiz city 'march of life'.
The march is heading to the capital Sana'a demanding the prosecution of President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... and his aides. Calling the World and the international community not give them any kind of immunity against prosecution.
The Yemeni youth are accusing them of involvement in killings and repression against peaceful demonstrators during the last ten months protests.
The march will be on foot for 250 kilometers passing a number of cities in the governorates of Ibb, Dhamar and Sana'a. It will join the youth of Sana'a in Altaghyeer Square 'Change Square' at the center of Sana'a city.
The march aims to convey the message of youth revolution, to all media, international community, United Nations ...an organization whose definition of human rights is interesting, to say the least... , Security Council agencies and organizations and the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... , their entire refusal of immunity included in the Gulf initiative.
The Gulf initiative which gives Saleh and his aides immunity from any ask for prosecution in the future regarding the killing, torture crimes committed against the demonstrators and civilians in Yemen during the last ten months.
Youth consider the Gulf initiative immunity a strong violation against all principles of humanity and all aspects of life.
The march on foot has reached the city of al-Qaeda in the province of Ibb, and had the reception there by a rally of Ibb youth who welcomed them in their city.
Is scheduled for the march to stay overnight in several cities to take comfort, and the youth from the provinces will join them that will stage a march, which will pass them on behalf of their provinces.
It is expected that the march to Sana'a will take five days to join Sana'a city youth in Altaghyeer Square.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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For a map, click here. For a map of Coahuila state, click here.
By Chris Covert
A total of eight individuals died Friday and Saturday in Coahuila state, according to Mexican news accounts.
Four unidentified armed suspects were killed by a Mexican Army unit on patrol in the Zona Centro of Sabinas Saturday, when armed suspects opened fire on the soldiers.
Following the exchange of gunfire, the army unit seized six rifles, 64 weapons magazines, one fragmentation grenade, 1,171 rounds of ammunition and various tactical gear.
Friday evening four prison guards were shot to death after they were abducted from a Christmas party in Torreon, Coahuila. The guards were later found dead near the intersection of calles Abedul and Margaritas at 1730 hrs.
The guards were identified as Ruben Rojas Rodriguez, 43, Mario Aguirre Bridges, 39, Juan Antonio Guzman Ramirez, 37, and Jose Antonio Garcia Seanez, 30.
Torreon, part of the area in southern Coahuila known as La Laguna, is where a major security operation -- named Segura Laguna -- involving local state and federal security forces, has been in operation since late October.
Despite those efforts, numerous shootouts, most intergang fighting have taken place in Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila several kilometres to the east as well as in La Laguna itself.
The La Laguna region sits on a major east-west highway soon to be improved by the Mexican federal government to aid commerce between the coasts.
(Xinhua) -- A U.S. man was on Tuesday convicted by a federal jury in Boston, Massachusetts of conspiring to support al-Qaeda, conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and lying to federal agents.
According to a report by The Boston Globe, the convicted, Tarek Mehanna, was from the Boston suburb of Sudbury. He was of Egyptian descent and had a doctorate degree from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. The 29-year-old has been held without bail since he was indicted on terrorism charges in Nov. 2009.
Prosecutors alleged that Mehanna traveled to Yemen in 2004 seeking terrorism training, so he could carry attacks against US soldiers in Iraq. After failing to find training there, he returned to the United States, translating and distributing propaganda promoting the terror network's ideology on the internet.
Defense lawyers argued that Mehanna did not provide support to al-Qaeda, but expressing his own views in opposition to U.S. foreign policy, particularly to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But a series of Mehanna's former friends testified against him that he had promoted extreme ideology, endorsed the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. FBI agents also told jurors that a search of Mehanna's computer uncovered countless documents promoting al- Qaeda, including materials that Mehanna had translated into English.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] A single-member bench of the Beautiful Downtown Peshawar High Court on Monday dismissed the bail plea of a police head constable set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock for conniving with Death Eaters for the escape of two undertrials and subsequent killing of three coppers.
Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan also directed the provincial government to register a case against the prison and police department officials found responsible for the incident during an inquiry conducted by a committee headed by senior member Board of Revenue Waqar Ayub.
Directions were also issued to police for departmental action against them.
During the hearing, the chief justice said hardened criminals had been operating from inside provincial prisons through cellphones and that jailers seemed to be in league with them.
He said the accused, head constable Ilyas Khan, was not entitled to grant of bail for freedom and therefore, his plea was being turned down.
On August 12, 2011, Nadeem Abbas and Zakeem Shah, of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistain, Dara Adamkhel, beat feet after Death Eaters from their group fired at the coppers escorting them to the Khyber College of Dentistry (KCD) for treatment. The firing killed three of the four coppers accompanying the two undertrials. However, a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all... the head constable remained unhurt as Death Eaters didn't fire a single bullet at him. This provoked the suspicion of his bosses, who ordered his arrest over possible connivance with beturbanned goons.
Following the incident, the government suspended the then superintendent, a deputy superintendent and the doctor of the Peshawar Central Prison.
The petitioner's lawyer said his client had been falsely implicated in the case as there was no evidence on record to prove his connivance with Death Eaters over the undertrials' escape.
The chief justice asked why the two undertrials were shifted to the dental facility in a private vehicle when special vans and vehicles were there for moving gunnies and hardened criminals out of prisons and back.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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Thai security forces yesterday impounded a cache of weapons, ammunition and other terrorist insurgent supplies from a shack at a rubber plantation in Narathiwat's Rueso district.
Abdulromae Hare, a Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK) member who surrendered after battling police on Monday, led a 100-man team of police and paramilitary rangers to the plantation. The team found four M16 rifles, an HK33 rifle, a carbine, more than 200 rounds of assorted ammunition, two bulletproof vests, 94 firecrackers, spare parts for various types of weapons, combat boots and canvas shoes and documents likely to be of use to terrorists insurgents. The cache had been buried under a hut.
Rueso police chief Col Sathanfa Wamasing said forensic tests showed some of the recovered weapons had been stolen from four soldiers who were killed in a clash on Sept 28 while escorting teachers to school. Abdulromae allegedly told police the items in the cache were to be used for attacks during the New Year holidays.
In Pattani, four police officers yesterday clashed with two terrorists insurgents in Khok Pho district. The two gunmen fled but left their motorcycle behind. Police later found a crash helmet, a single flip-flop, a gun case and an ID card with the name of Aleeya Paetae, 22, who police believe was one of the gunmen.
Meanwhile, army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha yesterday told forces in the deep South to tighten security during the lead-up to the New Year. Gen Prayuth was meeting with officers at the Internal Security Operations Command's base in Pattani's Yarang district.
He also sought cooperation from local residents to keep an eye out for terrorists insurgents and alert authorities to any suspicious activity. The number of checkpoints will also be increased in the three southern border provinces.
(Xinhua) -- A vice mayor of a town in the southern Philippine province of Zamboanga Sibugay was rubbed out Tuesday afternoon, police said.
Philippine National Police front man Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr. said Carlito Bayawa, vice mayor of Siay town was shot to death by two unidentified cycle of violence riding suspects at around 4:50 p.m. local time outside the Development Bank of the Philippines Building in Poblacion in Ipil town of the same province.
Police have launched a manhunt operation against the suspects, said Cruz.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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Hattip to Drudge
Syrian troops assaulting a northwest town with machine gun fire and shelling have killed at least 100 people in one of the deadliest episodes of the 9-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime, activists said Wednesday.
Tuesday's attack on the town of Kfar Owaid in Idlib province showed the Syrian government was pressing ahead with its crackdown despite its agreement this week to an Arab League plan for bringing a halt to the bloodshed.
"It was an organized massacre. The troops surrounded people then killed them," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
He said troops on the outskirts of the town surrounded and fired on crowds of civilians and activists trying to flee out of fear they would be detained. The group, which uses a network of local activists to collect information on the crackdown, said 111 were killed in Kfar Owaid Tuesday.
(Xinhua) -- The United States remains steadfast in its call for Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... to step down, even as the Arab nation has agreed to allow in Arab monitors, the State Department said on Tuesday.
"No, our view has not changed that Assad needs to step down, that he is not the man to lead his country into the future," department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at a regular news briefing..
"This Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... proposal, we believe, offers the best opportunity to end the violence immediately so that Syria can move on to the next stage, which is a period that we hope will lead to real dialogue about a democratic future, which, frankly, we don't think Assad is capable of being part of," she said.
Syria signed on Monday a peace plan brokered by the vaporous Arab League aiming to end the violence in the Arab nation, under which the regional bloc will send monitors to conduct a field study of the situation in Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
They also want to confiscate all Syrian Army's weapons and sell them to drug cartels?
#3
Wouldn't it be nice if we really could go around the world deciding which world leaders can continue in office and which ones have to go? Wouldn't that be really, really nice? Gosh, I think I'd ask Barack Obama to step down.
[An Nahar] The Syrian navy and air force conducted live-fire man oeuvres on Tuesday to test their preparedness to repulse "any aggression against the homeland," the official SANA news agency reported.
"The air force and air defenses conducted maneuvers with live ammunition ... with a view to testing the combat capabilities of the air forces and to test their readiness to respond to any aggression" against the country, SANA said.
The agency added that naval forces had carried out similar exercises.
In early December, rockets and tanks were tested "as part of a 2011 training program ... to deter any enemy attack," SANA reported at the time.
The exercises were "a show of force designed to intimidate," according to a Syrian analyst.
Another analyst said the war games aimed to deter "any (Western) impulse to intervene militarily in Syria by showing that it is prepared to declare a regional war."
An opposition figure said it was an act of defiance to signal that "the regime is ready to up the stakes if serious pressure continues to be exerted on it."
Foreign ministry front man Jihad Maqdisi denied that the exercises were meant as a message "to anyone" but acknowledged that "Syria finds itself in a complicated situation."
Syria has come under U.S., EU and Arab sanctions over its suppression of anti-regime protests in which the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... says more than 5,000 people have been killed since mid-March.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
See also WAFF > RUSSIA SENS ADVANCED ROCKETS TO SYRIA DUE TO "THREATS FROM TURKEY".
[An Nahar] Up to 185 Syrians were killed on Tuesday, activists and a rights group said, as Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... faced demands to halt its bloody nine-month crackdown on dissent a day after signing an Arab peace plan.
The Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... said an advance team of observers would head Thursday to Damascus to lay the ground for monitors overseeing the plan, as Western powers and Gulf monarchs piled the pressure on Syria.
The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said 67 non-combatants were killed across the country, most of them in the northwestern province of Idlib and the central province of Homs.
The LCC published the names of 60 victims, saying 46 non-combatants were killed in Idlib, 10 in Homs, three in the central province of Hama and another in the southern province of Daraa.
For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 100 Syrian army deserters were killed or maimed in festivities with loyalist troops on Tuesday.
"After festivities that broke out this morning with the regular army, 100 deserters were besieged then killed or maimed between the villages of Kafruwed and al-Fatira" in the Idlib district of Jabal al-Zawiya, the rights group said.
"Dozens of civilians, including many activists, are also surrounded by the Syrian army in Kafruwed," the Observatory said in a statement received by Agence La Belle France Presse, quoting activists on the ground.
It also said 14 members of the regime's security forces were killed in southern Daraa province, where the protests broke out in mid-March.
The Observatory reported on Monday that up to 70 deserters were bumped off as they tried to flee their military posts in the Idlib towns of Kansafra and Kafruwed.
It also urged Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi to "intervene immediately to end this eventual massacre."
Arabi's deputy Ahmed Ben Helli told news hounds in Cairo that "an advance team (of observers) will head to Damascus on Thursday."
The team would include security, legal and administrative observers, with human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... experts expected to follow, and would be headed by fellow assistant secretary general Samir Seif al-Yazal.
The Arab bloc has also named General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi -- former head of Sudanese military intelligence and state minister for security arrangements -- to head the mission, said Ben Helli.
After weeks of prevaricating, Syria on Monday signed a deal at Arab League headquarters in Cairo to allow in observers as part of a broader plan to end months of deadly violence.
Damascus has pledged to cooperate fully with the terms of the agreement.
But the promise seemingly failed to persuade many world powers.
Rulers of the energy-rich Gulf Cooperation Council on Tuesday urged Syria to immediately halt its "killing machine" as well as end the bloodshed and "lift all signs of armed conflict."
The United States also expressed doubt that Syria was genuine in its promise to allow in observers.
"A signature on a piece of paper from a regime like this, that has broken promise after promise after promise, means relatively little to us," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday.
The observer mission is part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria on November 2, which also calls for a halt to the violence, releasing detainees and the withdrawal of the military from towns and residential districts.
But despite signing the accord, Syria has failed to convince either the opposition or Western governments pushing for tough U.N. action that it is willing to follow up its words with action on the ground.
"Violence must immediately end, the military withdraw, political prisoners be released and unhindered humanitarian access be granted," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.
"We will therefore judge the agreement of the Syrian leadership with the vaporous Arab League not by its words but only by actions, namely their immediate implementation," he added.
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... was "deeply worried" about the violation of human rights and has called on Damascus to stop violence against civilians as well as against army deserters, the German government said.
The opposition Syrian National Council charged that Damascus's acceptance of observers was merely a "ploy" to head off a threat by the pan-Arab bloc to go to the U.N. Security Council.
"It's all about implementation," said Britannia's U.N. ambassador Mark Lyall Grant.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem pledged his government's full cooperation with the observer mission and expressed hope the bloc would lift sweeping sanctions it imposed on Damascus last month.
"Signing the protocol is the start of cooperation with the Arab League and we will welcome the observers' mission from the Arab League," Muallem said on Monday.
Syria blames the unrest on "armed terrorist groups" -- not peaceful protesters as maintained by Western powers and rights groups -- and Muallem said he expected the observer mission to vindicate that position.
On Monday the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning human rights abuses in Syria, where the U.N. estimates more than 5,000 people have been killed in the crackdown since mid-March.
Syria meanwhile introduced a law imposing the death penalty on anyone arming "terrorists", state media reported Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
likely figured that they could escalate with the attention on Egypt's protesters getting bonked
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2011 8:36 Comments ||
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#2
I don't think Syria cares much for world, Arab or US opinion at this point.
The for the regime issue is regime survival.
I wonder how many of the massacred deserters were victims of Hezbollah hard boys working for Assad.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/21/2011 12:50 Comments ||
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#3
"corpse count hits three digits for the first time"
That we know of.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/21/2011 14:56 Comments ||
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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.
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.
A roadside bomb has killed five Polish soldiers in a NATO convoy in eastern Afghanistan. Polish media said the soldiers were on patrol near their base in Ghazni province when the explosion happened. Three soldiers died at the scene. Two more are reported dead from their injuries at a military hospital.
"These former Taliban fighters under Hajji Malim had been active in Panjwai district and Kandahar city over the past couple of years and we expect other 
[Iran Press TV] Thousands of Egyptian women have poured on to the streets in the capital city of Cairo to protest the security forces' brutal crackdown on female demonstrators.
Hillary Clinton
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
(Xinhua) -- A U.S. man was on Tuesday convicted by a federal jury in Boston, Massachusetts of conspiring to support al-Qaeda, conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and lying to federal agents.
[Dawn] A single-member bench of the 
(Xinhua) -- A vice mayor of a town in the southern Philippine province of Zamboanga Sibugay was 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[An Nahar] The Syrian navy and air force conducted live-fire man oeuvres on Tuesday to test their preparedness to repulse "any aggression against the homeland," the official SANA news agency reported.
[An Nahar] Up to 185 Syrians were killed on Tuesday, activists and a rights group said, as 
For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 100 Syrian army deserters were killed or 
