[DAWN] A leading Taliban peace negotiator has been sent to his room in the United Arab Emirates, officials said on Thursday, dealing a blow to President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... 's efforts to jump-start a nascent Afghan grinding of the peace processor before leaving office.
Agha Jan Mutassim, a finance minister during Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, has been missing for over a week, according to the Afghan government, disappearing after arranging a meeting in Dubai between Afghan and Taliban officials in February.
"Mutassim ... one of the key Taliban leaders and who supported Afghan peace initiative, was put under house arrest in the UAE where he lived," the Afghan High Peace Council, a body formed by Karzai to engage in peace talks with the Taliban, said on Thursday.
"The Afghan government has made requests to the UAE authorities to lift all the restrictions," it said in a statement.
A Western security source in Kabul confirmed Mutassim had been put under house arrest, and that the UAE was considering deporting him to Afghanistan.
It was not immediately clear why Mutassim was confined to his home, or who was behind his arrest.
Authorities in the UAE declined to comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2014 00:00 ||
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Sounds like he wasn't being politically correct.
[Beirut Daily Star] Gulf foreign ministers met Thursday at an extraordinary meeting in Riyadh in a bid to defuse tensions between Qatar and three other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an official said.
Heavyweight Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar last month, accusing it of meddling in their internal affairs and supporting the Moslem Brüderbund.
The Gulf official said that the impromptu meeting aimed to settle differences, but pointed out that there was no clear idea as yet about how the foreign ministers will go about doing it.
The GCC also includes Kuwait and Oman, and the move against Qatar was an unprecedented measure among the six-nation group.
Al-Hayat daily cited Thursday Oman's Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi as saying that the crisis has been "ended" and that the dispute including belongs to "the past."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2014 00:00 ||
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BERLIN -- A German court has sentenced a Somali man to 12 years in prison for helping lead a group of pirates who seized a German-operated oil tanker in 2010.
The Osnabrueck state court said in a statement that the man was convicted Thursday of kidnapping and extortion in the hijacking of the Marida Marguerite off Somalia. In keeping with German privacy rules, it didnât give the 44-year-oldâs name.
There's a dumb rule...
The defendant was arrested last May at a center for asylum seekers in Germany.
And there's a dumb pirate, seeking asylum in the same country that flagged the ship...
The court says the Marida Margueriteâs 22 crewmembers were tortured during the hijacking â which ended after more than seven months with a $5 million ransom payment. It says the defendant was one of the last pirates to leave the ship.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/18/2014 00:00 ||
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He get 12 years of room and board. The money launders who backed these operations keep their stash. If there was a justification for some 'wet jobs' in the shadows, those behind all of this seem to come close to qualification.
SOMALI pirates who hijacked a Spanish Naval vessel after mistaking it for a private civilian boat are facing tougher sentences following a Supreme Court ruling.
The pirates are, of course, lucky to be alive...
The six men, who invaded the PatiĂąo in the Indian Ocean in 2012, were said to be âsufficiently armedâ and to âhave the intention to take over control of the shipâ and âdemand a ransomâ.
Initially, they were facing between eight and 12 years in jail for an attempted hijack, but a Supreme Court judge in Spain considers that the hijack was in fact achieved even though the fact the ship turned out to belong to the Armed Forces meant the intruders did not get as far as kidnapping the occupants and calling for ransom money.
A First Officer who was on night duty warned officials at around 03.00hrs local time on January 12, 2012 that a passenger boat was trailing the PatiĂąo along its side, and that the occupants were armed and trying to board the ship.
When the Naval officers reacted, the pirates fired a volley of shots at the vessel, making contact with the hull in six places.
Eventually, after what was described as an exchange of gunshots between the two boatsâ occupants lasting about two minutes at most, the pirates fled.
Spanish navy needs work at the gunnery range...
The Naval officers pursued them and managed to detain them about an hour after they were first seen. Those on board the PatiĂąo say the pirates had âhand grenades, bags, ladders and an indeterminate number of riflesâ.
The Supreme Court considered that the shots which damaged the ship were enough to consider that the hijack had been âachievedâ rather than being âattemptedâ, meaning the six piratesâ sentences have been increased by five years to between 13 and 17 years each.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/18/2014 00:00 ||
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shoulda sunk their boats and let them swim for shore. Insh'allah!
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/18/2014 10:28 Comments ||
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[DAWN] Jamia Hafsa, a religious school for women in the Pak capital Islamabad connected to the notorious Lal Masjid has renamed its library in honour of slain al Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden ... who used to be alive but now he's not...
The seminary is run by controversial hardline holy manMaulana Abdul Aziz ...nutball holy man who runs the Lal Masjid in the heart of Pakistain's capital. After instigating a rebellion against the state in 2007, he was caught trying to sneak away dressed in a burka. He rejects democracy as un-Islamic, which it probably is... , the imam of the city's Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), once infamous as a hideout for hardliners with alleged krazed killer links.
The mosque was the scene of a week-long military siege against faceless myrmidons during former military ruler Gen (retd) Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... 's regime in 2007 which left more than 100 people dead and unleashed a wave of terrorist attacks across Pakistain.
Now the Jamia Hafsa seminary connected to it has named its small library, stocking Islamic texts, in honour of bin Laden, who criminal masterminded the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
"It is true that we have named the library after Osama bin Laden," a source told AFP Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered...
"He might be a terrorist for others but we do not consider him as a terrorist. For us he was a hero of Islam."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2014 00:00 ||
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A hero of Islam who killed six times as many Moslems as he killed kuffirs. It was the least they could do to name a Library after him. Only ONE book in the Library, of course. I think you can guess which one.
Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 ||
04/18/2014 4:26 Comments ||
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[DAWN] In a major development, the Pakistain army was asked to assist the civilian government by taking over security of polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... eradiction teams in militancy-hit Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... province.
A meeting was held Wednesday at the General Headquarter in Rawalpindi to coordinate details of the campaign with particular emphasis on security and access to affected areas.
Representatives from the World Health Organisation (WHO), and representatives of the federal and KP government and the FATA secretariat attended the meeting.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2014 00:00 ||
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[The Nation (Pak)] At her weekly news briefing today, Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said protecting this border is the shared responsibility of both the sides. Pakistain, however, has carried an extra burden regarding the protection and management of the border. We have more than twelve hundred posts and also undertake surveillance. She said Pakistain is also keen to introduce biometric system but we also want equally strong measures from NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... and Afghan sides for management of the border.
When asked to comment on the perception that Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... who is likely to become the next Afghan president is more pro-Indian and anti Pakistain, the spokesperson dismissed the perception that any Afghan leader is against Pakistain. She said it is up to the people of Afghanistan to elect their new government. Pakistain, she said, has repeatedly said that we are not supporting any Afghan party. We do not know who will form the next government there, but whosoever forms the government we will focus on building bilateral relations with the neighboring country and engage with their leaders for this purpose. She said Pakistain wants peace and stability in Afghanistan as it is in the self interest of Pakistain. Stability and and peace in Afghanistan will help us not only in countering terrorism and violence but also open new vistas for joint ventures and trade with the Central Asian States.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2014 00:00 ||
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We have more than twelve hundred posts and also undertake surveillance.
Not to mention, billeting, messing, communications, ammo resupply, and bus transport for the Taliban to major Pakistani cities and villages for R&R.
Efforts to reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on extending talks hit a snag on Thursday when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lost his majority for such a deal.
American mediators have been trying to broker an agreement in which Israel releases a fourth round of Palestinian prisoners. As a gesture to Israel for releasing Israeli Arabs as part of the deal, the US intended to commute the life sentence of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard.
The deal had a majority among the 23 members of the cabinet, thanks to support from Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, all of the Likud, five ministers from Yesh Atid, two from Hatnua and two from Yisrael Beytenu.
But Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch of Yisrael Beytenu surprised Netanyahu's associates when he told Army Radio that he opposes extending the negotiations if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas does not publicly condemn Monday's terrorist attack that killed senior police officer Baruch Mizrachi.
Abbas condemned the attack privately in a meeting with leftwing MKs in Ramallah on Wednesday. But he refused to come out to waiting Israeli journalists who accompanied the legislators.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2014 00:00 ||
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1. Somebody did something really, really stupid aboard that airplane.
2. The Malaysian government - never known for its willingness to admit error - panicked.
I suspect the Malaysians have a perfectly good idea as to what happened, but they're never going to admit it because that would be to admit fallibility, and in that part of the world that gets you in prison at best and at worst communing with Allan.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/18/2014 11:37 Comments ||
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At this point, I wouldn't trust the Malaysian govt to search for Malaysia. Or to admit it if they found it.
Spare a thought for the guy who told his wife that he was going on a business trip to China aboard that ill-fated Malaysian flight MH 370 and now can't leave his girlfriend's apartment!
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/18/2014 20:51 Comments ||
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WASHINGTON - The United States has taken steps to release a $450 million installment of frozen Iranian funds following a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifying that Iran is living up to its part of a landmark nuclear pact with world powers, the US State Department said on Thursday.
[Beirut Daily Star] A utility building suspected to be a weapons storage facility for Hezbollah was the probable target of an Israeli Arclight airstrike on Lebanese territory near Janta in the Bekaa Valley two months ago.
Newly updated satellite imagery to the Google ...contributed $814,540 to the 2008 Obama campaign... Earth portal dated March 6, 2014 -- 10 days after the Israeli air raid -- shows fire-scorched ground and possible debris where the building once stood beside a dirt track south of Janta. An earlier image of the same location dated Sep. 2, 2012, shows a 21 meter by 11 meter building with an angled roof and what appears to be two drive-through entrances.
The building lay in a Hezbollah-controlled security zone that includes training camps, accommodation buildings, a firing range and a small urban warfare training site that featured in a Hezbollah propaganda video last year.
On the evening of Feb. 24, Israeli jets reportedly fired four missiles in two separate sorties against an unspecified target, or targets, in the Janta area near the border with Syria.
Israel has staged seven Arclight airstrikes since January 2013 against suspected consignments of advanced weaponry allegedly destined for Hezbollah. The first six raids all occurred in Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2014 00:00 ||
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D *** NG IT, DON'T BE SILLY, HW CAN THAT BE GIVEN .... ...
* FREEREPUBLIC > [FrontPage Magazine] KERRY: OUR GOAL IS NOT ELIMINATING IRANIAN NUCLEAR CAPABILITY.
NOT - I repeat N-O-T - getting rid of Iran's NucProgs = future Iranian Bomb.
Iff one desires to know a good reason why Putin = Russia annnexed the Crimea from Ukraine, SEE THE ABOVE.
As per the Syria Crisis, when Obama allowed Baby Assad to stay in power + Iran to keep its NUcProgs in exchange for help agz the Qaeda Boyz, IN PUTIN'S = RUSSIA'S MIND, ONE THREAT NOW BECAME TWO [or more].
NUCLEAR SHIA IRAN = NUCLEAR AL-QAEDA = NUCLEAR ANTI-IRAN SUNNI MUSLIM STATE RIVALS = NO WAY IN HELL THE US-WEST = WESTERN JUDEOCHRISTIANITY CAN STOP THE NUCLEARIZATION OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD INCLUD BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE OWG CALIPHATE, GLOBAL-JIHAD HAPPY HARD BOYZ.
Iff the Bammer = US/US-NATO, EU won't take stand, RUSSIA WILL BY + FOR HER OWN-N-ONLY-HER-OWN INTERESTS + EASTERN CHRISTIANITY E.G. RUSSIAN, EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH.
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.
Pervez 
