#2
Best possible endorsement of the policy. NM and AZ should follow suit. CA Guard is perfectly capable but won't because we are governed by idiots and worse.
[Tolo News] Local residents in Kunduz province are growing more concerned about advances made by turban groups, causing some in the area to flee their homes in search of safety.
Many residents have said provincial security officials are proving inadequate in maintaining local security. Reports of similar gains by Lions of Islam have also emerged from a number of northern provinces such as Takhar and Badakhshan.
"Taliban have surrounded Kunduz, only the city is left, but they might come," one resident named Hakeem told TOLOnews. "Dasht-e-Archi district is at war, so is Char Dara, we ask the security institutions to bring security to Kunduz."
The general sentiment among locals seems to be that the central government is ignoring their plight. "Our area is very insecure, and the government is paying no attention," Kunduz resident Mesbah-u-din said. He went on to say that the government has released some of the Lions of Islam it captures, and then in turn those gunnies rejoin the efforts to take territory in the province.
Ongoing fighting between gunnies in Kunduz and security forces has displaced an unknown number of families. "Our house is now destroyed, four missiles hit our home, and the Taliban forced us to leave," Muhammad Nabi told TOLOnews.
"The Taliban are harassing us, bothering our kids, and we are afraid of bullets so we came to the city," another Kunduz resident named Abdul Naser said.
While not denying the recent increase in insecurity in Kunduz, provincial officials have said that some of the armed opposition groups have entered the province from other areas of Afghanistan as well as neighboring countries.
"The Taliban are trying to take leadership of the future of Afghanistan and they want to stay in this country and have a government and be involved in politics," Kunduz Governor Ghulam Sakhi Baghlani said on Friday. "This is clear, but in some areas, their activities have increased and in some areas their influence and activity has decreased," he maintained.
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Livia grabbed for Jane's hair to make her point. Jane elbowed her in the face in rebuttal... the local police have focused on their own successes rather than the worrying reports being made by residents.
"As a result of our operations in Kunduz in the past two days, 22 enemies have been killed, with their bodies lying on the battleground, and six other enemies have been maimed," said General Mustafa Mohseni, the Kunduz Police Chief. He blamed the Lions of Islam for the rising civilian corpse count.
Earlier this week, security officials acknowledged that six of their security check posts had been surrounded by gunnies and would likely fall into their hands if not reinforced.
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08/16/2014 00:00 ||
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Intelligence officers and soldiers of the Somali National Intelligence & Security Agency have this morning stormed and raided the private compound of Shabelle Media Network in Mogadishu.
"Mr. Holder! Mr. Holder! Did you see this?"
"Yes I did. I need a position paper on the shutting down of radio stations right away."
"Should the position paper deplore what happened?"
"No, not exactly..."
The government soldiers are currently in control and have seized the compound building and cordoning off the roads that lead to Shabelle Media Network's headquarters in Mogadishu's Hodan district. A number of journalists and media workers were arrested in the raid and are reported to currently being held in detention in the compound and not transferred to Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Mogadishu as procedure.
The Chairman of Shabelle Media Network, Abdimaalik Yusuf Mohamud, is among the people arrested and being detained by intelligence officers and government soldiers. Witnesses described media equipment was being looted by "careless government soldiers".
Shabelle Media Network was also raided by National Intelligence & Security Agency officers on the 26th October 2013 in which several journalists were detained and the equipment of the media outlet was trashed; causing it to stay off-air for a month. 36 employees were held in detention at that time and then later released.
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08/16/2014 00:00 ||
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Mogadishu(Sh M Network) The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has criticised the security forces of the Federal Government of Somalia for abusing their power and the law by raiding and closing independent radio stations and arresting journalists in the wildest media attack.
"Mr. Holder! Mr. Holder! Did you see this?"
"Yes, my lad, I did. Gives me ideas, it does."
Around 09:30am on Friday, heavily armed security forces raided and shut down both Radio Shabelle and SkyFM, which are owned by Shabelle Media Network, and arrested at least eight journalists, including Shabelle chairman Abdimalik Yusuf Mohamud.
The raid and closure of media houses in addition to the arrest of journalists happened in what journalists have perceived as retaliation of news reports and interviews broadcasted by both Radio Shabelle and SkyFM last night in which they talked about an interview President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud gave US-based PBS television.
Journalists and politicians interviewed by Shabelle strongly criticized President’s response to question regarding attacks on independent media including Shabelle Radio in which the President Mohamud cited Al-Shabaab’s “infiltration” in some media houses. Some government officials accused Radio Shabelle of badly depicting President Mohamud’s visit in Washington to attend US-Africa leaders summit.
“We deplore the raid and closure of Radio Shabelle and SkyFM and the arrest of their journalists,” said Omar Faruk Osman, NUSOJ Secretary General. “We stand for and defend media freedom and freedom of expression and clearly consider this a flagrant attack on freedom of expression and freedom of speech”.
NUSOJ has warned such violent actions could have a terrifying effect on hard-hitting journalism and the ability for Somali journalists and their media houses to operate independently in the country.
“We call for the immediate release of detained journalists, the two radio stations to be allowed to resume their operations freely and the on-going intimidations to end,” Osman.
Shabelle Media Network has fallen afoul of federal government several times over some of their reporting. In October last year, it was forcefully removed from the premise it operating in Mogadishu. In November 2013, two of Shabelle journalists were arrested over alleged rape story.
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08/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[MAGHAREBIA] His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... 's call for all jihadists to swear allegiance to his so-called caliphate is dividing al-Qaeda's Maghreb branch.
Sahel security may now hinge on whether regional terror groups shift their loyalty from al-Qaeda to the self-declared "Islamic State" (ISIS).
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is split between those who see al-Baghdadi as their new leader and those who remain under the banner of the parent al-Qaeda organization led by Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
The infighting started in mid-July, when AQIM chief Abdelmalik Droukdel ... aka Abdel Wadoud, was a regional leader of the GSPC for several years before becoming the group's supremo in 2004 following the death of then-leader Nabil Sahraoui. Under Abdel Wadoud's leadership the GSPC has sought to develop itself from a largely domestic entity into a larger player on the international terror stage. In September 2006 it was announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al-Qaeda and in January 2007 the group officially changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.... (alias Abou Moussaab Abdelouadoud) decided not to ally his group with al-Baghdadi's terror organization in the Levant.
He refused to recognise the Islamic State and instead renewed his allegiance to al-Zawahiri.
AQIM's rejection of the Islamic caliphate was reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical Islamists' internet activities.
The AQIM statement said: "We confirm we still adhere to our allegiance to our sheikh and emir Ayman al-Zawahiri. This is a sharia-based bay'ah, which we are committed to, and we haven't seen anything that would make us revoke it."
But deep disagreements within AQIM following the renewed pledge may lead to the removal of Droukdel.
According to Algerian daily El Khabar, several members of the al-Qaeda Council of Elders have already backed ISIS. Other Droukdel defectors were reportedly preparing to pledge allegiance to al-Baghdadi and establish a branch of the Islamic State in the Maghreb.
"It's natural that Droukdel would reject that caliphate, given that he heads an organization that has its own way of planning and setting goals," says Sid Ahmed Ould Tfeil, an analyst of salafist ...also known as Wahhabis, salafists are against innovation in religion or in anything else. They eat the same things every meal of every day and all their children are named Abdullah or Mohammed. Not all salafists are takfiris, but all takfiris are salafists. They are fond of praying five times a day and killing infidels... ideology.
"Droukdel receives his legitimacy from his loyalty to the parent al-Qaeda, which the late Osama bin Laden ... who is no longer with us, and won't be again... established and which still has affiliates in the Maghreb," the analyst adds.
Another cause for disagreements is the behaviour of al-Baghdadi's terror group.
"The Islamic State uses harsher, crazier, more heinous and aggressive ways; something that is causing much harm to the image of jihad adopted by most other groups, which focus on specific targets, such as soldiers, military leaders, barracks, etc.," Ould Tfeil says.
"ISIS' methods tarnish Islam by targeting various Moslem and non-Moslem sects," he adds.
According to some observers, Droukdel's refusal to swear allegiance to al-Baghdadi sets AQIM apart from other jihadi groups in the Maghreb and Sahel. ISIS allies now include Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet... in Tunisia and Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... in Nigeria.
Maghreb countries have stepped up security measures around embassies and western interests to protect them against possible attacks by ISIS-affiliated elements.
ISIS will not easily find sympathisers in the Maghreb region because of its methods and violence, analysts suggest. But those terrorist groups that support al-Baghdadi could decide to unify their efforts.
Several countries have increased their aerial and satellite surveys of Sahel skies to identify the location of an expected summit of top Sahel jihadist groups, El Khabar reported.
Indeed, ISIS' declaration of the caliphate might have been made to precede the declaration of the Islamic state in Africa, the paper quoted a security source as saying.
There is another factor at play: the return of ISIS jihadists from Syria and Iraq to their homeland in the Maghreb.
Jamal Laribi, an Algerian media observer of security issues in the Sahel, says that the returnees "are many and security forces in the Maghreb countries do not possess accurate databases about them".
"They are more dangerous than AQIM because they have experience fighting in the ranks of the leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... , and they have experience in the use of various types of weapons," he says.
Libya in particular is seeing a remarkable flow of ex-combatants of ISIS and those loyal to its ideology, he adds.
"Most of the supporters of ISIS in Libya are active in the ranks of Ansar al-Sharia. If these components meet, they can form the human and geographical factor, which can threaten the Sahel and even directly threaten Europe."
The Algerian media specialist warns that the idea of terrorist organizations in the region pledging allegiance to ISIS was not far-fetched. He cites the meeting in the Libyan port city of Derna between Abou Iyadh, the leader of Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, and jihadi returnees from Syria.
The purpose of the talks was to establish a new organization allied to ISIS.
It was to be called ISIM, or the "Islamic State in the Islamic Maghreb".
These jihadist organizations "are fighting and competing with each other", the Algerian analyst says.
"These disagreements began to intensity with the return of some elements from Syria, especially since some of the returnees dared to criticise the policies of AQIM, and have come to see it as not committed to the teachings of jihad adopted by ISIS. They are saying that it will not win because it is not committed to the Sharia," Laribi adds.
"Since terrorist organizations are always looking for a powerful umbrella to give them any kind of legitimacy, it was natural that they declared allegiance to al-Baghdadi and ISIS," Mauritanian analyst Abdallah Ould Sidi Mohammed tells Magharebia.
"This constitutes moral support after the tremors they suffered lately, whether in the form of military strikes or internal erosion and struggles for leadership," the analyst adds.
[AAWSAT.NET] The Moslem Brotherhood are no longer capable of carrying out large-scale protests on the Egyptian street, a senior Egyptian Interior Ministry official said.
Head of the Interior Ministry's Public Relations and Media Department, Maj. Gen. Abdel-Fattah Osman, told Asharq Al-Awsat: "The capability of the Moslem Brotherhood to gather [on the street] and protest has completely ended, however their disruptive acts are ongoing, particularly related to vital institutions in order to spread panic and fear among citizens."
"The Ministry is set to announce the foiling of a large operation by murderous Moslems to destroy the electricity grid in a number of provinces," he added.
Cairo designated the Islamist group as a terrorist organization in December 2013, just months after Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohammed Mursi had been ousted.
Osman's comments come after the Brotherhood called for nationwide protests on Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of the clearing of the pro-Mursi Rabaa Al-Adawiyah protests during which hundreds of people were killed. A heavy police presence meant that only hundreds of Brotherhood supporters erupted into the streets in Cairo, rather than the thousands expected. At least four people were reported killed in festivities between the Brotherhood supporters and police in Cairo as protesters sought to block highways and roads.
The Interior Ministry official said that the Brotherhood's calls for widespread protests on Wednesday failed for two factors; the presence of security forces on the street and the increasing unpopularity of the Islamist group.
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08/16/2014 00:00 ||
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North Korea's collapse will be brought about not by external pressure or the economic malaise but by widespread crystal methamphetamine abuse, say North Korean defectors who have recently arrived in the South.
How serious the problem is can be gleaned from a special instruction issued by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's son and heir Fat Boy Jong-un, who earlier this year ordered the security forces to round up drug users, "regardless of rank" -- implying that addiction is widespread in all strata of society.
Defectors say that youngsters at an elite school in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province attended by the children of senior officials were caught by security officers having sex acts while watching a porn video under the influence of the drug. Widespread drug use has also been reported at major universities such as Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies and Kim Chaek University of Technology.
North Korean sources say many security officers are themselves in thrall to the highly addictive drug. Rumors say that at an officers' school under the North Korean Army near the border area, senior officers are enticing female soldiers under their command to use the drug and siphoning off the school's food to raise money for drugs.
Many officials of the State Security Department, the key North Korean agency charged with protecting the regime, are drug abusers themselves, sources claim, and reportedly work themselves up into frenzies of violence under the influence. Instead of disposing of drugs they confiscate, officials either use them themselves or make money selling them on.
That happens in a few North American cities...
Some North Koreans allegedly use drugs as currency, with high school students exchanging them as birthday gifts and people even giving them as wedding presents.
The drugs in circulation are made in the North. The North reportedly began producing them in the early 1980s to earn the hard currency for the regime.
Rather like the new opium trade...
But crackdowns abroad have made export more difficult, especially in China, so the drugs are now sold in the North itself. Once the taboo was broken, drugs became rampant. Even scientists at academies of sciences have begun secretly making drugs in their laboratories to earn money on the side as the economy goes from bad to worse.
A former senior North Korean official who recently defected to South Korea said the number of drug addicts has soared since a botched currency reform in late 2009. A rumor among senior officials in Pyongyang in recent days is that Kim Jong-il's younger sister Kyong-hui is among the addicts, and Kim father and son too use the drug.
So the whole country is being run by a group of twisted hop-heads...
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08/16/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
The drugs in circulation are made in the North. The North reportedly began producing them in the early 1980s to earn the hard currency for the regime.
Unlike here, where the drugs go 'North' and the money goes South. The regime connection remains amazingly similar.
Opium grown near North Korea's border with China is flooding the Northeast Chinese market, according to an activist group.
Smuggling opium into China? I remember the Chinese weren't too pleased the last time someone tried that...
Dream Makers for North Korea, led by former lawmaker Park Sun-young that aids North Korean defectors, on Monday unveiled a picture of an opium poppy field in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province. The group says it was taken in July last year by a source in China who infiltrated North Korea. Park said in order to avoid detection by U.S. satellites, the North cultivates the poppies in many different areas along the border.
Among the three South Korean drug smugglers who were executed in China recently, two were nabbed while trafficking North Korean opium in northeastern China’s Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces.
The raw opium is usually smuggled into the towns of Helong and Chiangbai in Jilin province to transport to the three northeastern provinces, because the two towns are located at the upper reaches of the Tumen and Yalu river, which are shallow points, making it easy for smugglers to cross.
A source in China said one reason why Chinese security forces have set up barbed wire fences along the two border towns and closely monitor North Koreans wading across the rivers is to crack down on drug smuggling.
Drug dealers on both sides of the border have forged close relationships, which allows for rapid distribution. North Korea's Workers Party operates an agency known as Room 39, which manages Kim Jong-un's illicit funds that is spearheading illegal activities, while the military and state security are also involved in drug production and distribution.
North Korean drug dealers fill broken LCD TVs with narcotics and send them to China under the pretense of having them repaired. They also pack them together with pungent kimchi to mask the smell of the drug.
Chinese drug dealers have so far mostly bought narcotics from the Golden Triangle, which covers jungle parts of Burma, Laos and Thailand. But North Korea has recently emerged as a new supplier.
The Chinese journal Legal Daily recently published an in-depth article on North Korean drugs and reported that the three Chinese provinces bordering the North have become "disaster zones" impacted by the illicit drug trade.
The North started opium poppy cultivation back in 1992. A Chinese military journal reported that the North produces around 40 tons of opium a year as well as some 3,000 kg of synthetic drug that generate US$100-200 million a year in revenues. The North Korean towns of Chongjin and Heungnam are believed to house narcotics factories.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry flatly denied the allegations, claiming that production and distribution of illegal drugs is "strictly prohibited."
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08/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Turkey's relief agency said Friday it was time for the world to start "sharing the burden" for the 1.2 million Syrian refugees it is hosting, especially those living outside of refugee camps.
You built this bed with your own dear little hands, Turkey. Do enjoy lying in it, as you pray to Allah that the Kurds will be able to hold the line at the Iraq end.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have fled the civil war to neighboring Turkey in the last three years after Prime Minister and now president-elect Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... announced an open-door policy.
Some 285,000 Syrian refugees are now living in refugee camps concentrated in southeastern Turkey, according Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).
But a far larger number of 912,000 are living outside of camps in cities across the country, according to AFAD, and their presence has become an increasing source of tension with local residents.
AFAD's head Fuat Oktay told news hounds in Istanbul that the international community should do more to help Turkey cope.
"The international community has to come to an understanding that they should become part of the solution," he said.
"They (the international community) should start sharing the burden," he said.
Turkey has spent some $3.5 billion (2.6 billion euros) managing the situation but has received only $224 million in international assistance, AFAD said.
Oktay said other nations could help Turkey by building, and even running, new refugee camps inside the country.
Other countries could also help building schools, a huge priority given that a quarter of refugees are of school age, and ensure that the young are not left on the streets, he said.
Tensions between local Turks and Syrian refugees living outside of camps boiled over into violent protests this week in the southern city of Gaziantep.
Reports said that some 2,000 Syrian refugees were subsequently moved from Gaziantep to refugee camps but Oktay insisted that no Syrian was forced to move as long as they were within the law.
He said the authorities were however keen for all those sleeping on the streets or in parks to be moved to camps.
Asked if Syrians were free to choose whether they lived in camps or outside, he said: "They do have a choice, as long as it is within the same legal framework that Turks are also under."
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again... Turkey is also dealing with another influx of refugees after some 2,000 members of the Yazidi religious minority fled over the border from Islamic holy warriors.
However Oktay said Turkey's "main policy is to help refugees inside Iraq" and that it was building three camps inside Iraqi territory for displaced Yazidis and Turkmens.
[DAWN] LAHORE: The Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... 's youth force and loyalists remained absent from the protecting layer around the container carrying party chief Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... when it was attacked by a mob in Gujranwala.
The Insaf Youth Wing had constituted a 3,000-member quick response force called "Insaf Youth Special Services Group" (IY-SSG) to give cover to the leaders as well as other long march participants.
PTI's central joint secretary Shabbir Sial had told a news conference that the party had registered 4,000 "shrouded loyalists" to protect Imran Khan and other leaders and participants in the Azadi March.
An IYW member told Dawn that the youth wing activists had moved fast on GT Road when the caravan got late in Lahore. Still, he said, a few IYW and ISF activists were covering the party chief's container. During the attack, he said, four IYW and three ISF activists got injured.
"Since we are holding a peaceful march, the youngsters did not even carry clubs," he added.
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08/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Friday was a test of patience for many marchers, as rallies of both Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) and Pakistain Awami Tehrik (PAT) spent all day on the road before arriving in the capital just before midnight.
But what began as another sweltering day turned into a rain-soaked August evening, bringing much-needed relief for supporters of both parties who had been waiting for their leaders' caravans to arrive in the city.
The PTI rally — which culminated at the Kashmire Highway, near the Serena Hotel on the edge of the Red Zone — was held up by heavy rain and other incidents. PAT's progress was quicker during the day, but by the evening, their rally had been overtaken by the PTI contingent, which marched into the capital barely an hour ahead of Dr Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, and would-be dictator, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran and Pakistain Awami Tehrik. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... 's supporters.
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[DAWN] The residents of various areas, mainly Model Town, Faisal Town and Garden Town, felt relief after departure of Qadri-led 'Inqilab March' to the federal capital on Thursday.
Those who had been facing massive problems because of barricades and short supplies of eatables due to containers placed on various spots, heaved a sigh of relief after the government announced allowing the march to proceed.
The officials, as soon as the marchers left Model Town, started removing containers with the help of cranes. "Thanks to Allah Almighty who freed us from our confinement to a 'town of containers'. And now we are leaving for buying national flags and other Independence Day paraphernalia to decorate our house," says Muhammad Naseem, a resident of Model Town.
He said that besides Model Town, the residents of Faisal Town, Garden Town, Township, Johar town and adjoining localities were much worried because of the containers placed on all roads leading to residential areas.
"Yesterday, I went to a department store to buy milk. But the shopkeeper said his stock had finished a couple of days ago and there had been no fresh supplies since because the containers supplying food items to Lahore from other cities were impounded by police and placed at various spots in the city to stop the marchers," he said. Life would return to normality by Friday (today) evening in case the government removed all containers.
A police official, deputed at a picket near Barkat Market (Garden Town), said the officials had started removing containers following the government instructions to the effect.
This relief after many days brought people to city markets for buying flags, banners etc.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter awoke groggily, his hand still stuck in the Ming vase... the Azadi and Inqilab marches disrupted the traffic flow on various city roads.
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[DAWN] The Pakistain Awami Tehrik, led by Dr Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, and would-be dictator, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran and Pakistain Awami Tehrik. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... , kicked off its 'Inqilab' march on Islamabad on Thursday afternoon after the Shahbaz Sharif ...Pak dynastic politician, brother of PM Nawaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab... government delayed even a conditional permission to the marchers.
Cranes started removing the containers placed around Model Town, the neighbourhood housing PAT and sister organization Minhajul Koran's offices, at 2pm after the police manning the barriers were withdrawn.
Residents of the locality, besieged along with PAT activists for the past week and facing problems of mobility and shortage of essential items, heaved a sigh of relief as the government decision averted a feared showdown between the charged workers and law-enforcement personnel.
Enthusiastic and jubilant activists helped the crane operators remove the barricades.
A large number of workers were seen walking because of inadequate transport facilities. Only the vehicles that had transported workers from across Punjab for a "deaders' day" held by the party on Aug 10 were at hand to take the activists to Islamabad.
The Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... and the PAT were to launch a joint march as agreed during PTI vice-chairman Shah Mehmood Wormtongue Qureshi's meeting with Dr Qadri on Tuesday. Under the plan, Dr Qadri was to join PTI chief Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... at the latter's Zaman Park residence for jointly leading the marchers.
But to the shock of the PAT chief, Mr Khan left his residence without waiting for him.
A slighted Dr Qadri changed his route but without complaining. "I'm not hurt by Imran Khan's act of leaving for Islamabad alone," he told the media.
The second shock for him was Awami Moslem League chief Sheikh Rashid's failure to keep his promise of riding with him instead of Mr Khan.
The PAT chief, instead of following the 'Azadi march' on The Mall, took the Allama Iqbal Road that runs parallel and, stepping up the convoy's pace, overtook the PTI procession.
He was a couple of kilometres ahead of Mr Khan on the GT Road by midnight.
Among around 10,000 participants of the PAT march, a big chunk comprised boys and girls carrying backpacks containing mats, clothes and eatables like roasted gram and dates since they expect a prolonged stay in the capital.
Many of them were also carrying masks and goggles to protect themselves in case of tear gassing by police.
In an attempt to belie a perception that students of Minhaj institutions were taking part in the march without their parents' permission, a student, Ahmed Pervez, told Dawn: "We've full backing of our families in following our leader Dr Tahirul Qadri."
Notwithstanding assurances given to the government that the marchers would not carry clubs and other weapons, some young women had sticks in their hands.
"The club is meant for protecting myself in case police try to force me away from the protest venue in Islamabad," one of them said. "We'll do everything for the cause of revolution and bear any type of torture."
Fayyaz, another participant, said: "I'm sure that the march will achieve what the poor of this country have been dreaming of."
He said Dr Qadri had promised to control price hike and provide basic necessities to every citizen and "our leader is known for keeping his promises".
Abdul Qadri, from Kasur, said: "Our passion will make the rulers flee Islamabad. We have already forced them to remove all the obstacles in Lahore."
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[DAWN] The activists of Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) and Pak Awami Tehrik (PAT) reached Islamabad late Friday to protest against alleged rigging in the 2013 general elections and to present their demands of electoral and administrative reform.
PTI Chairman Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer... spoke to a large gathering of supporters at 4AM, and said that he will not leave till PM Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... resigns. At the end of his speech, he invited supporters to reconvene at the same place at 3pm Saturday.
Dr Qadri delayed his address to supporters due to ill health.
The government which was initially reluctant to allow the marchers finally gave its nod on Thursday evening, formally permitting the supporters and activists of both parties to march on the capital but warning over crossing any red lines and telling the marchers to stay away from the capital's Red Zone area.
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Clashes broke out on Friday as protesters led in convoys by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and a Canada-based cleric advanced on the Pakistani capital to try to topple the government they say was elected by fraud.
Khan and cleric Tahirul Qadri say the May 2013 general election that brought Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to power in a landslide was rigged, and are demanding he resign and hold new polls. They plan to rally in Islamabad to press their claims, at the end of a "long march" — in reality a motorised cavalcade — which set off on Thursday from the eastern city of Lahore, around 300km away.
The clashes raised tensions ahead of the protesters' arrival in Islamabad, which has been on a virtual lockdown in recent days. Police and witnesses said activists from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party clashed with supporters of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) in Gujranwala, some 200km southeast of Islamabad.
Khan said shots were fired on his march, telling ARY television news: "They threw stones at us while standing at police vans. They fired bullets at us."
However, police said there were no shots and an AFP photographer at the scene also heard no gunfire.
"Workers of PTI and PML-N clashed in Gujranwala and threw stones at each other," a police spokeswoman said. "There was no firing incident."
The AFP photographer said a group of up to 40 youths who were following the convoy and shouting slogans clashed with workers from Khan's party before being dispersed by police.
Marvi Memon, a PML (N) member of parliament and spokeswoman, said the events in Gujranwala were "regrettable" but said there was no shooting and her party's workers had been provoked by what she called Khan and Qadri's "violent speeches".
They cursed her mustache...
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, the premier's brother, ordered an investigation into the clashes and appealed for calm.
Supporters of PTI, which came third in last year's election, lined up to welcome the convoy in towns along the Grand Trunk Road which links Lahore and Islamabad. Exact numbers on the march were difficult to judge, and more people are likely to join it as it passes through towns along the route, but Khan already hailed it a success.
"I can only see that the monarchy is nearing its end," Khan said, referring to Sharif. "The people have decided as I had said that one million people will come to Islamabad, and they have come out."
A spokesman for Qadri, the head of his own Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) movement, said that their convoy was further along the road to Islamabad than PTI's, in the town of Jhelum, some 120km south of the capital.
"Security in Islamabad has been ramped up in recent days, with more than 20,000 police and security forces on the streets.
After days of speculation that the authorities would seek to stop marchers entering the city, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Thursday that both parties would be allowed to hold rallies.
Almost all roads into the city had been blocked with barbed wire and shipping containers, but many barriers were removed on Friday. Government officials have accused the march organisers of trying to derail democracy and Sharif said the marches were a distraction from more pressing issues.
PML-N spokeswoman Memon said Khan had ignored constitutional routes to address his grievances, including an offer by Sharif to set up a judicial commission to investigate rigging allegations. "All his efforts are undemocratic and unconstitutional and an effort to derail democracy," she said, adding that the march was a distraction from more pressing issues.
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[Ynet] The United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... Security Council took aim at Islamist holy warriors in Iraq and Syria on Friday, blacklisting six people including the Islamic State front man and threatening sanctions against those who finance, recruit or supply weapons to the bully boys.
The 15-member council unanimously adopted a resolution that aims to weaken the Islamic State - an al Qaeda splinter group that has seized swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate - and al Qaeda's Syrian wing Nusra Front.
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[FOXNEWS] A growing chorus of top Moslem leaders and Arab pundits around the world are strongly condemning the "cancerous" actions of bully boy Islamic State hard boys, saying the ruthless group's horrific campaign of murder in Iraq does serious harm to all Islam.
In the past, Moslem leaders have faced criticism from inside and outside the religion for being slow to condemn terrorism in the name of Islam. An editorial in the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi last month called on moderate Moslems to denounce the actions of the group formerly known as ISIS, which has killed thousands and left an estimated 1.5 million people displaced in northern Iraq.
"All we have to do to understand the high price that Moslems pay on all levels [for such actions] is to see how Westerners snatch up [such reports on] ISIS's conquests, invasions and despicable actions, and share them on social media in order to tarnish the image of Islam," the July 24 editorial read. "We haven't heard one single voice in the camp of moderate Islam condemning taking women prisoner or expropriating peaceful citizens' property and money for ISI in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , or any who distanced themselves from the shocking fatwas that seem to be carefully formulated for [maximum] service to the enemy."
The actions of the extreme murderous Moslems threatens "not only Christians or Iraq," but serves as a warning about the potential elimination of the region's ethnic and religious minorities, the editorial continued.
"Therefore, an Arab position that attempts to downplay the dangers of the cancerous spread of terrorist organizations in the region � in order to serve the political agendas will actually be an accessory to the crimes against humanity, and will morally legitimize criminals who have lost any vestige of their humanity," it read.
S'ad Al-Din Ibrahim, an Egyptian sociologist and human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... activist, likened the group to "neo-Nazis" who terrorized Christians, Iraq's "smallest and weakest" community.
No, nothing at all like neo-Nazis, who tend to be unsuccessful misfits playing at hate from the safety of civilization, but very much like the real Nazis, or like the Prophet Mohammed and his gang, who acted much the same as they expanded their empire.
"[IS leader] His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... gave them two days to [either] embrace Islam, leave without any of their property, or be killed and wiped out," Ibrahim wrote in the Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Yawm. "Had Islam's greatest enemies wanted to harm its [reputation] amongst all of mankind, they would not have succeeded like this savage, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has succeeded."
Columnist Ahmad Al-Sarraf took a more sarcastic approach against the hard boy group in his take in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas, calling on all Christians in the region to flee immediately so Moslems can "turn to killing" each other.
"Get out of our hair! Go, all of you! We hate you and do not want to see you among us," Al-Sarraf wrote. "We are tired of progress, civilization, openness, tolerance, love, brotherhood, coexistence and leniency � Leave, we have nothing in common. Go!"
On Friday, the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... sought to build a unified front against the hard boys. Several EU nations pledged additional humanitarian aid and raised the possibility of directly arming Kurdish fighters battling Sunni holy warriors.
"First of all we need to make sure that we alleviate humanitarian suffering," Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans told news hounds following an emergency meeting of the bloc's 28 foreign ministers in Brussels. "Secondly, I believe we need to make sure that IS is not in a position to overrun the Kurds or to take a stronger hold on Iraq."
Good lord, man -- if you're not aiming to wipe out IS to the last man, all you're doing is postponing the day Holland is conquered.
An estimated 1,700 radicalized Moslems from La Belle France, Britannia and Germany are believed to have joined the ongoing fighting. In May, a French Islamist who had fought in Syria was believed to have killed four people at Brussels Jewish Museum.
"These are crises ... that are of concern to our European neighborhood, to our security and stability," said Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini.
Earlier this week, Egypt's top religious authority also condemned Islamic State, characterizing it as a corrupt organization severely damaging Islam.
"An bully boy and bloody group such as this poses a danger to Islam and Moslems, tarnishing its image as well as shedding blood and spreading corruption," Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam said, according to state news agency MENA.
The grand mufti's view represents the opinion of Al Azhar, one of the world's oldest seats of Moslem learning, which influences the opinions of Moslems worldwide, Al Arabiya reports.
The largest Moslem civil rights organization in the United States has also rebuked the murderous Moslems and repudiated those who encourage Americans and others to join bully boy groups.
"American Moslems view the actions of ISIS as un-Islamic and morally repugnant," the Council on American-Islamic Relations ... the Moslem Brüderbund's American arm ... said in a statement earlier this month. "No religion condones the murder of civilians, the beheading of religious scholars or the desecration of houses of worship. We condemn the actions of ISIS and reject its assertion that all Moslems are required to pay allegiance to its leader."
"We here in America," he added, "firmly believe in the soft jihad of the law. At least until the day that we, the Muslims that Allah himself intends to rule America, firmly take the reigns of power like Mohammed Morsi did in Egypt, never to relinquish them."
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#1
Wonder where these guys got their ideas to do such things in the first place? /rhetorical question.
An Australian Islamist who proudly published a photo of his seven-year-old son holding a severed head in Syria is -- according to psychiatrists who treated him -- a paranoid schizophrenic who has hallucinated for years.
Days right after he was extensively described in Australia as "a lunatic", Dr Olav Nielssen, a leading Australian psychiatrist who treated Khaled Sharrouf, confirmed that the convicted terrorist was a paranoid, schizophrenic depressive who has suffered mental illness since the 1990s.
Dr Nielssen treated Sharrouf in 2005 right after he was charged with plotting terrorist attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.
Following Dr Nielssen's assessment, a court sentenced Sharrouf to 4 years in prison and concluded his condition "predicated him towards extremism and radicalisation by others".
Sharrouf has claimed he faked his illness to try to secure an earlier release &ndash a claim dismissed by the judge and healthcare specialists.
"Sharrouf now says, of course, that he tricked everybody, but I never believe that for a minute," Justice Whealy said.
"He was a really ill man and I think he nevertheless is."
Four senior Shiite lawmakers tell The Associated Press that Al Maliki has agreed to endorse Haider Al Abadi as the next prime minister following a meeting of Dawa party members in Baghdad late Thursday, ending the deadlock that has plunged Baghdad into a political uncertainty.
Hussein Al Maliki and Khalaf Abdul-Samad, lawmakers with Al Maliki and Al Abadi’s State of Law parliamentary bloc, say Al Maliki will support Al Abadi’s nomination in his speech Thursday night. Two other lawmakers also say Al Maliki will do so.
The government announced Al Maliki will speak Thursday evening.
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[IsraelTimes] After four weeks of a punishing Israel air and ground campaign that left nearly 2,000 dead (an estimated 1,000 of them gunnies, according to Israel) and much of Gazoo in ruins, Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has lived to see another day.
For Israel, that might not be the worst thing. That's because for all of Hamas's violent extremism, it also governs a territory, maintains a social service wing and controls smaller, more Lion of Islam factions. Through mediators, Hamas and Israel have reached agreements in 2011 and 2012, and are negotiating another one right now in Cairo.
But many of Hamas's fellow jihadi organizations in Gazoo don't have the same interests. For most, their sole goal is to fight — not just against Israel, but to spread Islamist rule across the whole world. That's why, in the thick of the conflict on July 28, outgoing US Defense Intelligence Agency head Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said ousting Hamas could bring on "something like ISIS," the radical Islamist group now conquering swaths of Iraq and Syria.
"If Hamas were destroyed and gone, we would probably end up with something much worse," Flynn said, according to Rooters. "The region would end up with something much worse."
Who are these groups? Here's a quick rundown of the other major organizations in Gazoo that seek Israel's destruction.
Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... — Sometimes known in Israel simply as Jihad, this is the second-biggest terrorist group in Gazoo after Hamas. Founded in 1979 as a break-away from the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad resembles Hamas in many ways. It's a Paleostinian national movement, it receives funding from Iran and has a small social service wing that includes schools, hospitals and family mediation services, according to the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... . It is also party to the negotiations taking place in Cairo.
A 2011 Rooters article estimated the Islamic Jihad's militia, the Al-Quds Brigade, at 8,000 fighters, compared to tens of thousands of Hamas fighters. Islamic Jihad executed a number of terror attacks during the second intifada a decade ago, including the 2001 abduction and murder of two 14-year-old boys in Gush Etzion. It has frequently fired rockets at Israel from Gazoo, including during the three rounds of conflict between Israel and Hamas in recent years.
Popular Resistance Committees — The Popular Resistance Committees, or PRC, is a break-away from the Paleostinian Fatah Party, which governs the Paleostinian Authority in the West Bank. The PRC was founded in 2000 and opposes Fatah's grinding of the peace processor with Israel. Unlike many groups operating in Gazoo, the PRC is not Islamist. In 2012, Yediot Aharonot estimated that it was the third-strongest militia in Gazoo and that it receives much of its funding from the Lebanese bully boy group Hezbollah, which is also backed by Iran.
The PRC also executed terror attacks during the second intifada. In 2006, it collaborated with Hamas on the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier.
Jihadi groups — There are a number of jihadi groups reported to be active in Gazoo and allied with, or supportive of, the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda agenda of reestablishing an international Islamic caliphate. Among them, the Army of Islam, which participated in the Shalit kidnapping and kidnapped BBC news hound Alan Johnston in 2007.
Another group, Tawhid wal'Jihad, has shot a number of rockets at Israel and is most famous for the 2011 kidnapping and murder of Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian activist with International Solidarity Movement. Another, Jund Ansar Allah, attempted to attack Israel on horseback in 2009 and declared Gazoo an Islamic emirate later that year, leading to a shootout with Hamas forces.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas official inadvertently acknowledged on Thursday that the group had strong-armed journalists in Gaza into a reporting style that suited its narrative, keeping many under surveillance and kicking out of the territory those who sought to film the launching of rockets at Israel.
In an interview with Lebanon's al-Mayadeen TV on Thursday, relayed and translated Friday by the Middle East Media Research Institute, the head of foreign relations in Hamas's Information Ministry, Isra Al-Mudallal, complained that "the coverage by foreign journalists in the Gaza Strip was insignificant compared to their coverage within the Israeli occupation (Israel)."
"Moreover," she said, "the journalists who entered Gaza were fixated on the notion of peace and on the Israeli narrative." She asserted that the foreign press was focused "on filming the places from where missiles were launched. Thus, they were collaborating with the occupation." (The Israeli army said last week that 600 of the 3,300 rockets fired into Israel over recent weeks were launched from residential areas, including schools, mosques and homes.)
"These journalists were deported from the Gaza Strip," al-Mudallal said. "The security agencies would go and have a chat with these people. They would give them some time to change their message, one way or another.
"We suffered from this problem very much," she added. "Some of the journalists who entered the Gaza Strip were under security surveillance. Even under these difficult circumstances, we managed to reach them, and tell them that what they were doing was anything but professional journalism and that it was immoral."
On Monday, the Foreign Press Association, an umbrella group representing foreign journalists working in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, issued a strongly worded condemnation of Hamas's intimidation tactics and its interference with their reporting in Gaza.
"The FPA protests in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month," the statement said. "The international media are not advocacy organizations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground."
As well as targeting journalists in Gaza, the press organization said it was aware that Hamas had been taking steps to vet those media personnel it did not approve of and to prevent them from reporting in Gaza.
"Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA," the statement said.
The FPA asserted that "in several cases, foreign reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned over stories or information they have reported through their news media or by means of social media."
In an article for Haaretz on Wednesday that highlighted the FPA condemnation, reporter Matthew Kalman said "Hamas repeatedly demanded a list of the names of correspondents" who were using a specially-chartered bus via a safe passage route into Gaza, "in order to draw up a blacklist of individuals and networks."
Kalman wrote that "Some reporters received death threats. Sometimes, cameras were smashed. Reporters were prevented from filming anti-Hamas demonstrations where more than 20 Palestinians were shot dead by Hamas gunmen."
In what Kalman called "perhaps the most serious incidents considered by the FPA," he said, "Hamas began firing mortars right next to the location of foreign reporters, in what may have been an effort to draw Israeli retaliatory fire."
Kalman noted that New York Times correspondent Jodi Rudoren disputed and criticized the FPA statement: "'Every reporter I've met who was in Gaza during war says this Israeli/now FPA narrative of Hamas harassment is nonsense,' Rudoren tweeted, referring to Israeli accusations that Hamas pressure on foreign reporters had helped massage the messages coming out of Gaza in the last month." And he said Rudoren's Tweet "was followed by a furious email exchange with the FPA, in which Rudoren denounced the statement as 'dangerous.'"
A numbers of reporters working in Gaza reported on Hamas's use of civilian infrastructure for military means, but said they were only able to do so once out of the Strip, for fear of Hamas reprisals.
A report by India-based NDTV last week on Hamas assembling and firing a rocket next to a hotel used by journalists was filed hours after the reporter left Gaza, because "Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired," NDTV's Sreenivasan Jain wrote.
[IsraelTimes] The Egyptian newspaper al-Shorouk on Friday published what it said were the 11 clauses of a ceasefire deal Egypt has proposed to Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and Israel:
Israel will halt all attacks on Gazoo — by land, air or sea. There will be no ground incursions into Gazoo.
All Paleostinian factions in Gazoo will stop all attacks against Israel by land, air or sea, and will stop the construction of tunnels from Gazoo into Israel.
The opening of crossings between Israel and Gazoo — the passage of people and goods will be allowed in order to rebuild Gazoo. The transfer of goods between Gazoo and the West Bank will be permitted, according to principles which will be determined between Israel and the Paleostinian Authority.
Israeli authorities will coordinate with the PA all issues of funds related to Gazoo and its reconstruction.
The elimination of the buffer zones along the security fence in the northern and eastern Gazoo Strip and the deployment of PA forces in those areas beginning January 1, 2015. This will be conducted in several steps: At first the buffer zone will be reduced to 300 meters from the border, then 100 meters and finally the removal of the buffer zone altogether with the deployment of PA troops.
The fishing zone off the Gazoo coast will immediately be extended to 6 miles, and will be gradually extended to 12 miles, in coordination between Israel and the PA.
Israel will assist the PA in rebuilding infrastructure destroyed in Gazoo, and will assist in providing basic necessities for those Gazoo residents who were forced to flee their homes due to the fighting. Israel will provide medical aid to the maimed, and will expedite the transfer of humanitarian aid and food through the crossings.
The Paleostinian Authority in coordination with Israel and international aid groups will provide the basic products needed to rebuild Gazoo, according to a predetermined schedule which will allow those driven from their homes to return as soon as possible.
Egypt implores the international community to provide swift humanitarian and monetary assistance for Gazoo's reconstruction, according to a set schedule.
Upon the stabilization of the ceasefire and the return to normal life in Gazoo, the sides will conclude their indirect negotiations in Cairo within a month after signing the deal. The exchange of prisoners and bodies will also be discussed at that time.
The possibility of constructing an airport and sea port in Gazoo will be considered in accordance with the Oslo accords and other previous agreements.
[FrontPage] The media has been getting its ghoulish Gaza death toll from Hamas and its employees. And it turns out they might not be that accurate. And the media is more than happy to manufacture and inflate any story that makes Israel look bad.
Daniel Greenfield has been doing crackerjack work at FrontPage Magazine to get the rest of the story on various aspects of radical Islam, and also miscellaneous other subjects. Check out his work here.
If shahada were said by a manatee,
Should it share in the Prophet's humanity?
A rational sea-cow
Could easily see how
Islam is sheer batshit insanity!
Our scruples would probably hinder
A laugh at dirigible tinder,
But when Muslim balloons
Fall in flaming festoons,
The Burg hoots as they burn to a cinder.
[AnNahar] Hardline Moslem guerrillas in the Philippines said Friday they have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, the Death Eater jihadists who now control large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Clips have been uploaded in recent weeks on the video sharing site YouTube showing both southern Philippines-based Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and the Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... rebels pledging support to the Islamic State (IS).
"We have an alliance with the Islamic State and His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... ," BIFF front man Abu Misry Mama told AFP by telephone on Friday, referring to the brutal jihadist group's leader.
Misry confirmed that a YouTube video uploaded on Wednesday, showing a purported BIFF leader flanked by gunnies reading a statement of support for the IS, had come from his group.
BIFF split in 2008 from the Philippines' main Moslem rebel group, the 12,000-member Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The latter signed a peace agreement with President Benigno Aquino's government last March.
BIFF, which is believed to have a few hundred fighters, has rejected the peace talks and pursued the decades-old armed campaign to establish an Islamic state in the southern Philippines which was begun by the MILF.
Abu Misry, described by the Philippine military as a BIFF front man, said his group had no plans to impose the radical IS brand of Islam in the Southeast Asian nation.
Beheadings, mass executions and the taking of child brides have marked the IS campaign across large parts of Iraq and Syria.
Abu Misry said his group had not sent any fighters from the Philippines to help the IS, nor was it recruiting people to join the IS.
"But if they need our help, why not?" he added.
Colonel Dickson Hermoso, front man for a southern Philippines-based army division, described BIFF as a "terrorist" group engaged in extortion to finance its activities.
"There's no evidence that Filipino fighters are being sent there (to Syria and Iraq)," Hermoso told AFP, while adding that both BIFF and IS followed an "extreme" brand of Islam.
A purported Abu Sayyaf video has also been uploaded on Youtube showing one of the group's most big shots, Isnilon Hapilon, mentioning al-Baghdadi as he read out a statement that pledged allegiance to the IS.
He was filmed linking arms with more than a dozen men, some with faces swathed in fabric, as they stood at a forest clearing to pray and listen to his statement.
Hapilon carries an $5 million reward on his head by the United States which considers his group a "foreign terror organization" engaged in beheadings, bombings, and kidnappings.
Philippine military front man Lieutenant-Colonel Ramon Zagala dismissed the video clips.
"This is propaganda and we will not give these snuffies the satisfaction by commenting," Zagala told AFP.
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#1
Again, not that far away from Guam.
As per TOPIX + WORLD NEWS, INDONESIA IS PREPARING FOR ISLAMIST = ISIS? DOMESTIC TROUBLES ANYWAY.
[AnNahar] In a house with a gutted facade, one Syrian soldier strums a guitar, another plays an accordion he found and six comrades join them to belt out a popular song.
They sit around a table sipping bitter "mate" tea popular with soldiers, celebrating their victory over rebels in the town of Mleiha, 10 kilometers (six miles) southeast of Damascus, after months of fighting.
"My country, you are beautiful and God made ââyou beautiful even if the whole world is against you," they sing, clapping their hands.
The joyful song contrasts with the desolation which now reigns in the streets outside.
Before Syria's civil war began more than three years ago, Mleiha had 25,000 residents.
Now it is deserted, its streets rubble-strewn, power cables hanging from gutted buildings, its shops shattered and homes destroyed.
The country's most important medicines plant, Syria Tameco, is in the area and was destroyed a few months after the crisis erupted in mid-March 2011.
On Thursday, government forces retook Mleiha, a strategic town on the capital's outskirts near the main road to Damascus international airport.
The army said Mleiha would now serve as a springboard for its bid to regain control of Eastern Ghouta, an important rebel bastion outside Damascus that has long been in its sights.
For a year, government forces besieged and bombarded Mleiha before they launched their assault in April.
The flashpoint town used to be a middle class area, but now it is a battlefield where a raging conflict focused, the military said, on an impressive network of tunnels.
Another difficulty faced by the government forces was that Mleiha is surrounded by wooded areas which favored rebel tactics, and taking the town was a long and laborious venture.
Agence La Belle France Presse journalists who went to Mleiha on Friday on a visit escorted by the army saw five tractors removing rubble from the streets, and a signpost declaring "Main Mleiha Square" in the town center.
Some 300 meters (yards) away, a plume of smoke rose, and soldiers said the army was clearing buildings of mines.
The journalists saw three parked tanks as pickup trucks sped through the streets.
Jihad Defdaa, a member of the pro-regime National Defense Forces militia, told AFP he had come from Kfar Batna "ten minutes' walk from Mleiha" and that he was "very happy".
"I hope my country will be liberated, and that I can return to my home," he smiled.
Defdaa said he had taken up arms after rebels fighting against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... 's regime killed his two brothers.
An army lieutenant who identified himself as Ahmad told AFP: "This is a strategic area which allows access to Eastern Ghouta, from where gunnies attack the citizens of Damascus."
"They fire shells and rockets they manufacture in the area at Damascus, affecting the lives of peaceful citizens," he added.
The lieutenant said that in taking Mleiha, "the Syrian army has destroyed the last hopes of the terrorist groups of entering Damascus," using the official term for those who oppose the regime.
He said army units had "penetrated Mleiha along several axes, killed a large number of gunnies and seized their weapons.
"Those who were able to escape withdrew into Eastern Ghouta," he said.
The army's operating to take Mleiha was supported by fighters from Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... , and aimed to cut off Eastern Ghouta from Western Ghouta and southern Damascus.
The army could then bypass Jubar, a strategic area in the east of the capital held by the bad boys, and attack nearby villages.
A resident of the mainly Druze and Christian southeastern suburb of Jaramana, which the rebels have been shelling for months, said their area could now breathe more easily.
"Even so, yesterday evening two shells landed near my house, fired from Ain Tarma" village in Eastern Ghouta, he said.
According to Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, "retaking Mleiha will allow the regime to protect certain zones in Damascus from rebel rocket fire".
Government forces have a secure hold of the Syrian capital, but rebel positions around the city target Damascus with frequent mortar fire.
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano is scheduled to visit Iran on Sunday, Press TV reported.
The August 17 visit is aimed at discussing the issues regarding Tehran's nuclear energy program with Iranian officials. The development comes ahead of the IAEA's August 25 deadline for Iran to provide the agency with a new set of information on its nuclear energy program.
On July 20, the IAEA's monthly report verified Iran's compliance with the terms of its interim nuclear deal with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China - plus Germany. The Islamic Republic has eliminated its most sensitive stockpile of enriched uranium gas under the nuclear accord, the report included.
Iran has agreed to provide the IAEA with mutually agreed relevant information and managed access to the Saghand uranium mine in the city of Yazd and the Ardakan concentration plant.
Iran will also provide mutually agreed relevant information and arrange for a technical visit to Lashkar Abad Laser Center.
The country will further submit an updated Design Information Questionnaire (DIQ) for the IR-40 Arak heavy water reactor and take steps to agree with the IAEA on the conclusion of a Safeguards Approach for the IR-40 Reactor.
Iran and the IAEA signed a joint statement in November 2013 to outline a roadmap on mutual cooperation on certain outstanding nuclear issues. Under the deal, Iran agreed, on a voluntary basis, to allow IAEA inspectors to visit the Arak heavy water plant and the Gachin uranium mine, south of Iran.
All of which means that the Persians have hidden the good stuff elsewhere. It's a big country...
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/16/2014 00:00 ||
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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.
Zawahiri
[DAWN] The Pakistain Awami Tehrik, led by Dr 
Clashes broke out on Friday as protesters led in convoys by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and a Canada-based cleric advanced on the Pakistani capital to try to topple the government they say was elected by fraud. 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano is scheduled to visit Iran on Sunday, Press TV reported.
