Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Eva LaRue aka Natalia Boa Vista in "CSI: Miami (TV Series 2002– )" aka Carrie in "Cries in the Dark (TV 2006)" aka Lt. Morgada in "Lakeview Terrace (2008)" aka Daphne in "One Hell of a Guy (2000)" aka Kara in "The Barbarians (1987)" (age 45)
Sandra Taylor aka Mickey Cohen's Mambo Partner in "L.A. Confidential (1997)" aka Debutante in "Batman & Robin (1997)" aka Model Shelby in "Runaway Bride (1999)" aka Kelly, Barmaid in 'Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)" aka Nurse Nancy in "Tomcats (2001)" aka Raylene Stein in "Keeping Up with the Steins (2006)" (age 45)
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] British detectives are in Kenya to help track down beturbanned goons and dismantle their terror network.
Paging Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes to the white courtesy phone.
This follows the arrest last week in Mombasa of a Briton said to be the Al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... bomb expert.
Security sources said police want Scotland Yard to help them dig into his past and establish if he has links with Al-Qaeda and unmask the people he has been working with since he came into the country.
The Anti-Terrorist Police Unit raided the suspect's house and seized material and chemicals believed to be used in bomb-making. The officers also questioned his wife, a Kenyan of Somali origin.
Items seized included dynamite, detonators and timers that are easily available on the market and are used in mining and quarrying industries.
Police described the Briton as a technician with expertise in making explosives.
On Saturday, police front man Eric Kiraithe directed dealers in laboratory chemicals to vet their clients and report any suspicious characters.
He said such chemicals, readily available and widely used in school and college laboratories, could be bought by Orcs and similar vermin to make explosives.
The chemicals listed as dangerous include Sulphuric acid, sulphur-based compounds, urea and other ammonium-based compounds, lead nitrate and hydrogen peroxide.
Eight people locked away
Police have so far locked away eight people in Mombasa, Nairobi and Nakuru on suspicion that they planned to carry out attacks over the festive period.
The ATPU is also questioning Mr Sylvester Opiyo aka Musa Osodo and Mr Hussein Nderitu Abbas aka Mohammed.
They were locked away when they presented themselves to the police on Saturday, hours after Mr Kiraithe flagged them as wanted criminals. (READ: Anti- terror police detain Kenya Shabaab suspects)
"Police have cause to believe they have information, which can assist us in unravelling any intended criminal activities by the Al-Shabaab in the country," Mr Kiraithe said.
On the eight suspects, who are scheduled to be arraigned in court tomorrow, Mr Kiraithe said: "They are being interrogated on offences relating to preparation of illegal explosives. We believe that by Wednesday we shall produce them in court for the offence of attempting to make explosives."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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An Egyptian newspaper reported Monday that EgyptÂ’s Public Prosecution Office indicted two Israeli Arabs and one Ukrainian for smuggling weapons from Israel into Egypt. According to EgyptÂ’s Seventh Day newspaper, the three are charged with smuggling weapons, bullets and artillery. One of the weapons smuggled was Israeli-made, while several others are the kind used by Egyptian security forces.
According to the report, one of the suspects is an Israeli Arab from Kfar Kara, who was caught inside a wooden crate while attempting to smuggle the weapons through the Taba Crossing, south of Eilat. He is currently being held alongside a Ukrainian citizen in Egypt. The other indicted Israeli is outside of Egypt.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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One is Arab, the other Ukrainian (Rus mafia?), and the third...? Is the target Egyptian? or Israel?
Egypt's Attorney General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud ordered a Ukrainian and two Israeli nationals to be tried at the Supreme State Security Emergency Court over smuggling firearms into Egypt, state media reported on Monday.
Not sure if the Israelis are named 'Moshe' and 'Ari', or are Arab Israelis named 'Muhammad' and 'Mahmud'...
Investigations showed one of the Israelis was arrested while crossing the Taba border terminal from Israel into Egypt, carrying weapons and ammunition in a wooden case, official MENA news agency said. An automatic rifle and 59 bullets were found when the wooden structure was placed on the scanning machine, Xinhua reported.
The Ukrainian national, manager of a tourist company in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, had asked the other Israeli to send him some weapons, it added.
The Ukrainian and the Israeli national who transported the weapons were under custody in Egypt, but the other Israeli national remains fugitive.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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[Nigerian Tribune] HIGH-LEVEL security activities took place in Abuja on Monday amidst fears of more Boko Haram attacks on churches in parts of northern Nigeria in days to come.
Security sources told the Nigerian Tribune on Monday that intelligence reports across some of the attack-prone states indicated that terrorists could be planning fresh attacks, hence certain proactive measures were being taken to contain the menace.
The source said government was moving to ensure that the remaining days of the yuletide period were safe for Nigerians, just as security agencies had stepped up efforts to penetrate the Boko Haram terror ring.
It was further learnt that security top shots engaged in a flurry of activities in Abuja, on Sunday, to review the Christmas Day bomb blasts in Niger, Yobe and Plateau states alongside other intelligence gathered on the activities and plans of the terrorists.
While security agents across the country have been put on red alert, the concern of the security high command was said to be how to stop the terrorists from spreading their carnage to other states.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Christian shops were burnt and hundreds of residents sought to flee one violence-torn city in Nigeria's northeast, residents said Monday, after deadly Christmas attacks shook the country.
In the northeastern city of Potiskum, residents and a police source said about 30 Christian shops burned on Sunday night, while a supermarket and the home of a local Christian leader were also set ablaze.
"Thirty shops in all were burnt," said one resident.
"A supermarket was also burnt. A one-story building belonging to a Christian was also set on fire. We succeeded in putting out the fire at the house of the Igbo (Christian) chief. There was minimal damage to the house."
Nobody was reported hurt in the fire, which a police source confirmed on condition of anonymity.
"It's unfortunate that we could not make any arrests because the arsonists decamped as soon as they set the buildings on fire," the source said.
In the nearby city of Damaturu, hit by deadly festivities between Islamists and authorities in recent days as well as a suicide kaboom on Christmas, hundreds of residents gathered at bus and taxi stations to flee.
The city was momentarily calm on Monday after more sporadic gunfire broke out on Sunday afternoon.
"I have nowhere to stay," said a 42-year-old trader with his wife and three young children as he waited along the roadside for a taxi or bus.
"The situation in the city is frightening. You never can tell where will be the next target. My house was burnt in the attacks."
Another man who waited at a bus station said, "I can't stay here any longer."
"It's peaceful today, but it's no guarantee that in the next hours it will remain the same," the 31-year-old said. "People have been killed and it could be me next."
Nigeria was hit by a wave of kabooms blamed on Islamist group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... on Christmas day that killed at least 40 people, including a blast that destroyed a crowd of worshippers leaving a church outside the capital.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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MADALLA, Nigeria: At a Nigerian Catholic church where a terror attack killed 35 people on Christmas, women tried to clean the sanctuary ahead of Mass on Monday while one man wept uncontrollably amid the debris.
Outside the St. Theresa Catholic Church, crowds gathered among the burned-out cars in the dirt parking lot, angry over the attack claimed by a radical sect and fearful that the group will target more churches.
Rev. Father Christopher Jataudarde told The Associated Press that SundayÂ’s blast happened as church officials gave parishioners white powder as part of a tradition celebrating the birth of Christ. Some already had left the church at the time of the bombing, causing the massive casualties. In the chaos after the bombing, Jataudarde said one mortally wounded man, cradling his shredded stomach, begged him for religious atonement.
“Father, pray for me, I will not survive,” the man said, according to the priest.
At least 52 people were wounded in the attack, said Slaku Luguard, a coordinator with NigeriaÂ’s National Emergency Management Agency. Victims filled the cement floors of a nearby government hospital, some crying in pools of their own blood.
On Christmas, attacks by the radical sect Boko Haram
No, Mr. AP Writer, they are not a 'radical sect', they are an Islamicist terrorist group looking to implement Sharia.
left 39 dead across AfricaÂ’s most populous nation. A bomb also exploded amid gunfire in the central Nigeria city of Jos and a suicide car bomber attacked the military in the nationÂ’s northeast.
After the bombings, a Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in an interview with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across NigeriaÂ’s Muslim north. The sect has used the newspaper in the past to communicate with public.
“There will never be peace until our demands are met,” the newspaper quoted the spokesman as saying. “We want all our brothers who have been incarcerated to be released; we want full implementation of the Shariah system and we want democracy and the constitution to be suspended.”
Boko Haram has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. The group, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 504 killings this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.
This Christmas attack comes a year after a series of Christmas Eve bombings in Jos claimed by the militants left at least 32 dead and 74 wounded. The group also claimed responsibility for the Aug. 26 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in NigeriaÂ’s capital Abuja that killed 24 people and wounded 116 others.
While initially targeting enemies via hit-and-run assassinations from the back of motorbikes after the 2009 riot, violence by Boko Haram now has a new sophistication and apparent planning that includes high-profile attacks with greater casualties.
That has fueled speculation about the groupÂ’s ties as it has splintered into at least three different factions, diplomats and security sources say. They say the more extreme wing of the sect maintains contact with terror groups in North Africa and Somalia.
Targeting Boko Haram has remained difficult, as sect members are scattered throughout northern Nigeria and the nearby countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Analysts say political considerations also likely play a part in the countryÂ’s thus-far muted response: President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south, may be hesitant to use force in the nationÂ’s north.
Speaking late Sunday at a prayer service, Jonathan described the bombing as an “ugly incident.”
“There is no reason for these kind of dastardly acts,” the president said in a ceremony aired by the state-run Nigerian Television Authority. “It’s one of the burdens as a nation we have to carry. We believe it will not last forever.”
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Clashes between loyalists of Yemen's 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 protesters from the defense ministry demanding an end to corruption left two people injured on Monday, witnesses said.
Hundreds of officers from the defense ministry's media arm, known as the Department of Moral Guidance, staged a sit-in outside their Sanaa headquarters, calling for General Ali al-Shater, who has headed the department since 1978, to be fired over corruption, witnesses said.
But the striking officers clashed with pro-Saleh demonstrators, some armed with kalashnikovs, who had organized their own demonstration, according to witnesses, who said that two people were maimed.
The festivities came as anti-corruption strikes spread across several military and government departments in the impoverished country where the economy is on the brink of collapse after nearly 11 months of anti-Saleh protests.
A military official said that soldiers from another department -- the officers' administration -- also began a sit-in calling for the dismissal of its head, General Qaid al-Ansi.
Similar anti-corruption strikes were continuing at the aviation and air Defence College, the state al-Thawra General Hospital, and national carrier Yemenia Airways.
Students and officers from the naval college in the port city of al-Hudaydah have also been on strike for the past four days.
On Saturday, thirteen people were killed in an attack by security forces and Saleh loyalists against a march of thousands calling for the embattled leader to face trial.
In November, the 69-year-old Saleh agreed to cede power in return for immunity from prosecution
Hundreds have been killed in an uprising calling for the departure of Saleh and his regime, as well as an end to his relatives' control over the military and security services.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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DUSHANBE: A Tajik court has jailed 53 people for terrorism, most of them members of a group closely allied with Al-Qaeda, and all of them involved in a suicide car bomb attack in September 2010, it said on Monday.
“Forty-three of those on trial had been identified as members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,” the court said, referring to a group that wants to create an Islamic caliphate in the region and has fought alongside the Taleban in Afghanistan.
It was the largest group of people sentenced by a Tajik court after a single trial since the Central Asian stateÂ’s independence from the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
The court in TajikistanÂ’s northern Sughd region, where the 53 defendants had been on trial since July, said in a statement it had jailed five people for life and handed down terms of between eight and 30 years in jail to 48 defendants.
All those convicted were involved in a suicide attack on a police building in the regional capital Khujand on Sept. 3, 2010, it said. An explosives-packed car rammed into the building of the organized crime department of the regional police, killing two officers and two civilians and wounding 28 people. The court said the suicide bomber had been identified as “a local resident named Akmal Karimov trained in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Khujand is located in the fertile but overpopulated Ferghana Valley which Tajikistan shares with other mainly Muslim ex-Soviet nations, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Authorities in Tajikistan jailed 158 Tajik members of banned religious groups last year, up from 37 in 2009, and, official data showed, jailed 92 in January-September this year.
Rakhmon has ordered Tajik students at foreign religious schools to return home and told his security services to tighten control over religious education and mosques in Tajikistan, which he said are often used to foment religious radicalism. His critics say it is poverty and repression that push many young Tajiks to seek consolation in radical Islam.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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Great! Let what will be an undoubtedly fair trial begin.
Posted by: American Delight ||
12/27/2011 19:02 Comments ||
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Green Party and Syrian opposition! A perfect example of Blair's Law in action:
"the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force"
A Green Party politician and Syrian opposition activist has been attacked and injured in an assault in Berlin. Authorities are looking into whether the attackers had links with the Syrian secret services.
German police say a local politician in Berlin who is active in the Syrian opposition has been injured in an attack by two men in his home.
The Green Party said it suspected the Syrian secret services of being behind the attack on Ferhad Ahma, who represents the party on a Berlin district council. Ahma is also a member of the Syrian National Council, an opposition coalition group.
Police said the 37-year-old Ahma suffered serious bruises and other wounds in the attack, but declined medical treatment.
Attack with metal bars
In a statement, the Greens said two men claiming to be policemen came to Ahma's flat at around 2 a.m. on Monday and beat him with metal bars and clubs when he opened the door.
The party said the attackers' Arab appearance and the fact that Ahma had received previous threats led it to conclude that the attackers had links to the regime in Damascus.
Police say it is still unclear who carried out the attack.
[Emirates 24/7] A suicide kaboomer in a vehicle packed with explosives killed at least five people at the interior ministry in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... on Monday as a worsening political standoff stoked sectarian tensions.
The blast, which left dozens maimed, came just days after the capital was struck by its deadliest violence in more than four months and as US Vice President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body... urged dialogue between Iraqi politicians to resolve their differences.
The attacker took advantage of guards opening the ministry compound's main gates to allow in electrical maintenance workers to ram his explosives-filled car through and set it off, a ministry official said.
At least five people were killed and 27 maimed, doctors at the Neurological and Al-Kindi hospitals, where casualties were taken, said.
The blast came after a wave of attacks across Storied Baghdad on Thursday killed 60 people, and violence in the provinces the same day claimed another seven lives. It was the deadliest day in Iraq since mid-August.
Iraq is mired in political dispute with authorities calling for the arrest of Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on charges he ran a death squad, accusations Hashemi denies.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has also called for the sacking of his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlak, who has denounced the premier as a dictator "worse than Saddam Hussein".
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Four people have been killed and 37 others injured in an attack on Monday against Iraq's Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, a security source reported.
"A booby-trapped car explosion targeting Iraq's Interior Ministry in Baghdad early on Monday has killed 4 people and injured 38 others, most of them seriously," the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The security source told Aswat al-Iraq early in the day that 3 persons have been killed and 14 others injured, including employees and bodyguards of the Ministry in a booby-trapped car explosion, driven by a suicide bomber at the entrance of the Ministry, in central Baghdad's South Gate.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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The Israel Air Force, working with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), fired a missile at Gazan terrorists involved in recent attacks on Israel, killing one and injuring two others, Israeli media reported Tuesday.
Hamas identified the man as Abdullah Telbani, an operative of Islamic Jihad's Saraya Al-Quds wing in his 20s. Merry Christmas
One soldier was killed and another injured by a bomb blast while escorting teachers to a school in Yala province on Tuesday morning. A team of six soldiers on three motorcycles was escorting the teachers to school. As they passed over a bridge, an improvised bomb buried nearby was detonated. The explosion seriously injured Sgt-Maj Pradit Soranatrai, 52, the team leader, and Pvt Yutthana Daraporn, 22. They were rushed to the hospital where Sgt-Maj Pradit was pronounced dead.
An assistant village leader was seriously wounded in a shooting at a teashop in Yala province Tuesday morning. Rormuelee Maseng, 47, was drinking tea at a teashop on when a gunman walked in and shot at him three times. Rormuelee fired back but missed and the attacker fled. Rormuelee was hit three times and taken to the hospital.
[Iran Press TV] A front man for the Iranian Navy during the Velayat 90 drills says the domestically-built Jamaran destroyer has rescued a Saudi oil tanker from an assault by unknown boats in international waters.
Iran's Navy launched massive 10-day naval exercises codenamed "Velayat 90" on Saturday, December 24, covering an area from the east of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden.
Iranian Navy's Deputy Commander Rear Admiral Seyyed Mahmoud Mousavi said on Monday that the Saudi oil tanker sent a distress call after it detected a number of unknown boats approaching.
"The Jamaran destroyer was immediately sent to the area [to help the oil tanker] and its presence caused the unknown boats decamped the area which then came under the control [of the Iranian Navy]," he added.
Mousavi also noted that the Iranian naval forces monitor all the activities of trans-regional vessels.
"In addition to surface vessels, foreign aircraft including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are also monitored [by the Iranian Navy]," the commander added.
The Iranian Navy launched its first domestically-manufactured destroyer, Jamaran, in the waters of the Persian Gulf in February 2010, which completed its first international mission on Sunday, December 18, after conducting counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.
The 1,420-ton destroyer, which is part of the 16th fleet of Iranian warships, is equipped with modern radars and electronic warfare capabilities.
It has a top speed of up to 30 knots and a helipad. The destroyer features highly advanced anti-aircraft, anti-surface and anti-subsurface systems. The vessel has also been equipped with torpedoes and naval cannons.
The Iranian Navy has been conducting patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008 in order to safeguard merchant containers and oil tankers owned or leased by Iran or other countries.
The Gulf of Aden, which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea, is a strategic energy corridor, particularly because the Persian Gulf oil is shipped to the West via the Suez Canal.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
So, in other words, there are unknown boats cruising around the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranians have no idea who they are? Tut, tut, unprofessional.
#3
I think this report has to do with the Shia inferiority complex and their effort to "fit in" & prove their worth with the Sunnis.
Posted by: American Delight ||
12/27/2011 19:00 Comments ||
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#4
Personally I think the Iranians sent the 'number of unknown boats' themselves
I dunno about that; wile i think the Iranians are as crazy as a sh!thouse mouse, this is at least the second reported incident in recent times where they took on ( or out) some miscreants, without a lot of hand wringing and poll searching.
More than I can say for President 'Present.' Maybe that POS could learn a thing or thre from tehse guys about dealing with piracy (on a not-to-interfere-with-his-golf-game-basis, of course)
(KUNA) -- 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... dismissed here Monday that any member of its mission of observers in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... was maimed in an attack in Baba Amr neighborhood.
Assistant Secretary General of the vaporous Arab League Ambassador Adnan Khudeir denied the reports as ungrounded.
He said he had contacted the chief of the league's mission of observers in Damascus Mohammed al-Dabi, who affirmed that all the team's members were safe and sound.
Around 50 Arab League monitors, headed by Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, began arriving in Syria to start inspecting areas gripped by violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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(KUNA) -- 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... Secretary General Dr. Nabil Al-Arabi met here Monday with 50 observers from the vaporous Arab League Mission to Syria, heading to Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... this evening to monitor and assess the situation in the troubled country.
Al-Arabi told the press that the delegation mission will commence Tuesday, when they will be accompanying head of mission General Mohamed Al-Dabi, who arrived in Damascus several days ago.
Al-Dabi, who has considerable experience in such operations, has been preparing for functions of the mission in Syria, namely places for their movement and sketching maps of the flashpoints.
The mission will be divided into teams, each to be assigned to search for facts in each of the troubled regions.
Moroccan media expert Talea Al-Atlasi said that during the meeting, the members of the mission discussed technical details for work of the mission and extent of coordination between the Arab League and Syrian authorities.
The mission will monitor the Syrian government implementation of the protocol, recently signed with the Arab League. "This is the first time the Arab League works on such a task," he noted.
The mission is tasked with ensuring the regime's compliance with the Arab plan for ending the nation's political violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Ah!! the brave Arab League observers. I'm surprised they haven't already skedaddled back to their respective Arab League country so that they can abuse their Indonesian housekeeper.
(KUNA) -- La Belle France on Monday called on Syria to provide immediate access to the city of Homs by 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... observers and expressed deep concern about the military operations in that city.
"La Belle France expresses deep concern faced with the continued deterioration of the situation in Homs, where bombardments by the military security forces again killed (a dozen) people among civilians yesterday during the day and the Bab Amro district is currently under fire from heavy weapons by the Syrian army," an official statement said.
The Foreign Ministry here noted that the repression in Syria has gotten worse over the past weeks.
In view of this, the statement said, "the authorities in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... must imperatively this afternoon allow access by observers to Homs, where violence is particularly bloody, in conformity with the vaporous Arab League plan." Gay Paree recalled that the deployment of observers aims to register if the Syrian government was ending the violence and that Damascus had accepted this as part of the Arab League agreement.
Syria must also release political prisoners, send the army back to barracks and allow foreign journalists into the country, the statement added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] 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... observers have arrived in the flashpoint Syrian city of Homs but are unable to do their job, the head of the country's main opposition group said on Monday.
Syrian National Council (SNC) head Burhan Ghalioun told news hounds at a Gay Paree news conference that some of the observers were in the besieged city "but they are saying they cannot go where the authorities do not want them to go."
He also sought U.N. and Arab League intervention "to put an end to this tragedy," and urged the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... Security Council to "adopt the vaporous Arab League's plan and ensure that it is applied."
Heavy gunfire killed 23 people in the besieged city on Monday.
On Sunday, the opposition SNC said Homs was under siege and facing an "invasion" from some 4,000 troops deployed near the city that has become a focal point of the uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... .
The observers are due to oversee a deal aimed at ending the crackdown, which the U.N. estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since March.
The mission is part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria on November 2 that calls for the withdrawal of the military from towns and residential districts, a halt to violence against civilians and the release of detainees.
Since signing the agreement, Assad's regime has been accused of intensifying its crackdown.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Head of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) Burhan Ghalioun denied on Monday that the collapse of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... regime will not lead to the deterioration of relations with Iran and Hizbullah.
"The relations with Iran and Hizbullah after the toppling of Assad will be normal and not strategic as they are right now," Ghalioun told the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.
He stressed that no one can demand "special ties" with the Syrian opposition unless they believe in the importance of "the Syrian people's freedom."
Asked about Friday's two deadly bombings against Syrian security forces in Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... , which killed 44 people and maimed another 166, Ghalioun said: "The bombings have the signs of the Syrian intelligence, but this will not stop the Syrian people from going ahead with their revolution to topple the regime."
He told the daily that the Syrian authorities are seeking to manipulate the Arab observer mission.
"The Syrian people are determined to topple the regime at all costs... We want to stop its blackmail and the Arab league should head to the United Nations ...Parkinson's Law on an international scale... Security Council," he stated.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Heavy gunfire killed more than 30 people in Syria's besieged city of Homs on Monday as newly arriving 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... observers were urged to head immediately to one of the country's most serious hot spots. I tried rephrasing that headline as "More than 40 dead as besieged Huntington, W.Va. shelled." Maybe it makes better sense in Arabic, with an Arab city included.
Media reports said an initial group of 50 observers arrived in Syria Monday evening to oversee a deal aimed at ending a bloody crackdown on anti-regime dissent, while other reports said the monitors' arrival was yet to be confirmed.
Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... a man identifying himself as Mustashar Mahjoub and claiming to be a member of an advance team of Arab observers appeared on Al-Arabiya TV and described the Syrian regime's bloody crackdown on dissent as "genocide."
The regime is "taking Dire Revenge™ on its people," the man said, adding that the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amro was being "shelled by heavy artillery."
Earlier on Monday, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, reported that security forces shot and maimed a member of the Arab team of observers, without mentioning his name or the site of the shooting.
However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... the vaporous Arab League later denied the report, saying that "after contacting the head of the team of observers in Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... , General Mohammed al-Dabi, it appeared that the report was untrue and that all the members of the team of observers were safe."
On the ground, more than 40 people were rubbed out at the hands of security forces across Syria, most of them in Homs which was "heavily bombarded" throughout the day, according to the LCC.
In a statement received by Agence La Belle France Presse, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "rocket fire and heavy machineguns in the Baba Amro quarter killed at least 15 people and maimed dozens."
"The situation is frightening and the shelling is the most intense of the past three days," it said.
Six civilians died in other parts of the central Syrian city, while another three, including a 14-year-old boy, were rubbed out when security forces opened fire on a demonstration in Khattab in neighboring Hama province.
On Sunday, the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said Homs was under siege and facing an "invasion" from some 4,000 troops deployed near the city that has become a focal point of the uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Sonny, disguised as Fredo, trying to be Mike... .
"The observers must head immediately to the deaders' district of Baba Amro to stop the liquidations and meet with the Syrian people so that they witness the crimes being perpetrated by the Syrian regime," the Observatory said on Monday.
That demand was echoed by La Belle France.
"The Damascus authorities must imperatively, in accordance with the Arab League plan, allow observers access this afternoon to the city of Homs, where the violence is particularly bloody," foreign ministry front man Bernard Valero said.
Syrian foreign ministry front man Jihad Makdisi said the observer "mission has freedom of movement in line with the protocol" Syria signed with the Arab League last week.
Under that deal, the observers are to be banned only from sensitive military installations.
Ironically, the Observatory said the authorities had changed road signs in another hot spot, Idlib province, to confuse the observers, and urged them to make contact with human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... activists on the ground.
An advance team of Arab monitors arrived on Thursday to pave the way for the observer mission to oversee the deal aimed at ending the crackdown, which the U.N. estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since March.
Opposition groups have said the observers must stop their work if they are blocked by the authorities from traveling to places like Homs.
"We hold the Arab League and the international community accountable for the massacres and bloodshed committed by the regime in Syria," the SNC said.
General al-Dabi, a veteran Sudanese military intelligence officer who is heading the observer mission, arrived in Damascus on Sunday evening, a source told AFP.
In a meeting with AFP in Khartoum last week, the 63-year-old Dabi distributed a curriculum vitae that outlined a hardcore military background, including three years as chief of military operations against the insurgency in what is now South Sudan.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said he expects the observers to vindicate his government's contention that the violence is the work of "armed terrorists."
Western governments and rights watchdogs blame Assad's regime for the bloodshed.
Opposition leaders charge that Syria agreed to the mission after weeks of prevarication in a "ploy" to head off a threat by the 22-member League to go to the U.N. Security Council over the crackdown.
Muallem met the advance team of Arab League officials on Saturday, in talks his front man called "positive."
The observers will eventually number between 150 and 200, Arab League officials say.
The mission is part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria on November 2 that calls for the withdrawal of the military from towns and residential districts, a halt to violence against civilians and the release of detainees.
But since signing the agreement, the Assad regime has been accused of intensifying its crackdown.
The SNC and rights activists have charged that the government was behind twin suicide kabooms in Damascus on Friday that killed 44 people.
Assad's regime blamed the attacks on "terrorist organizations," including al-Qaeda, although it has not said how it reached the conclusion.
The SNC said "the Syrian regime, alone, bears all the direct responsibility for the two terrorist kabooms."
It said the government was trying to create the impression "that it faces danger coming from abroad and not a popular revolution demanding freedom and dignity."
Violence continued through the weekend, with security forces pounding Baba Amro with mortar and heavy machinegun fire on Sunday, killing an undetermined number of people and wounding 124, the Observatory said.
The plight of Syrians was a focus of Pope Benedict XVI's Christmas Day prayers.
"May the Lord come to the aid of our world torn by so many conflicts ... May he bring an end to the violence in Syria, where so much blood has already been shed," the pontiff told pilgrims in Vatican City.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
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
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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.
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Joe 
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Four people have been killed and 37 others injured in an attack on Monday against Iraq's Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, a security source reported.
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[Iran Press TV] A 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
