[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Hezb-e-Islami party led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ... who used to be known in intelligence circles as The Most Evil Man in the World but who now seems merely run-of-the-mill evil... and the Afghan government are at odd regarding the confirmation of scheduled exit of foreign forces from the country to conclude a peace deal. Sounds like Hek's found a new source of funding.
An official of Hezb-e-Islami has told Radio Free Europe that certain issues remains unresolved between the party and the Afghan government to conclude the agreement.
The acting head and deputy of Hezb-e-Islami Mohammad Hakim Hakim has said the Afghan government must confirm a schedule for the exit of foreign forces.
Hakim has said the outstanding issue on the way to peace deal is the exit of foreign forces and the government must at least ascertain a schedule for the exit of the foreign soldiers.
He also added that the party supports peace talks with between the Afghan government and the Taliban group.
This comes as Hekmatyar said earlier last month that he has changed his conditions for grinding of the peace processor with the Afghan government by stepping back from his demands for the complete withdrawal of foreign forces.
Hekmatyar earlier demanded the complete withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan before officials talks begun between his party and the Afghan government.
However, ars longa, vita brevis... an official in his party said last month the "departure of foreign troops is not a condition, it is a goal."
In the meantime, the Afghan government officials said last week that there is no specific timeframe for the conclusion of peace deal with Hezb-e-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Deputy presidential front man Syed Zafar Hashemi told news hounds that grinding of the peace processor is always complicated and it would be a mistake to confirm a timeframe regarding the peace agreement.
Hashemi further added that small and big changes normally takes place every day, in every seconds and at the final seconds of grinding of the peace processor.
He said the Afghan government will update the Afghan people once the two sides reach to an agreement.
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Afghanistan National Security Council (NSC) approved in principle the strategy to fight the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group as the loyalists of the terror group are attempting to expand foothold in the country.
Chaired by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. , the NSC meeting, discussed regarding the strategy to fight the terrorist group in the country.
A statement by the Office of the President said the NSC meeting hailed the relevant security institutions for preparing the strategy to fight the terror group.
The statement further added that the relevant institutions were also instructed to take all necessary steps to hit and destroy the terror group in Afghanistan and prevent the terrorist activities of the group in the country.
This comes as the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces (ANSDF) together with the US forces in Afghanistan are regularly targeting the loyalists of the terror group.
The US forces stepped up Arclight airstrikes against the loyalists of ISIS after they were granted more authorities by the US President Barack Obama Dreams of My Sainted Father... The decision to step up fight against the terror group was taken amid concerns that the loyalists of ISIS are attempting to expand foothold in the country, establish a regional operational base in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province of Afghanistan and consolidate operations with the terror group in Iraq and Syria.
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] A breakaway Taliban faction is willing to hold peace talks with the Afghan government but will demand the imposition of Islamic law and the departure of all foreign forces from Afghanistan, a big shot of the group said on Sunday.
Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi told a group of around 200 followers in eastern Afghanistan that his faction had no faith in the government but was willing to negotiate without pre-conditions.
Niazi is deputy to Mullah Mohammad Rasool, who split from the Taliban last summer after Mullah Akhtar Mansour was chosen to succeed the group’s late founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Mansour was killed earlier this month in a US drone strike in Pakistain and was replaced days later by a little-known conservative holy man, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada ...Deputy to Taliban supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansour... The main Taliban faction has expressed similar demands, but says it will only enter peace talks after they have been met. The US and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... officially ended their combat mission more than a year ago, but thousands of foreign soldiers remain in the country, mainly carrying out training, support and counter-terrorism operations. Mansour had refused to participate in a grinding of the peace processor initiated by Afghanistan's Caped PresidentAshraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. The main Taliban faction’s front man, Zabihullah Mujahid, has branded Rasool’s faction "a government army in the shape of the Taliban".
Speaking on Sunday, he claimed that Rasool was supported by Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... and Washington. "For us he is nothing more than a local policeman or a puppet of Afghan intelligence," he said.
Rasool’s followers met in the mountainous Shindand district, near the border with Iran. Snipers on hilltops surveyed dirt roads leading to the area, which serves as the main base for the mobile fighters.
The encampment where the meeting was held is only accessible by cycle of violence or horse. The turbaned followers of Rasool appeared to be armed with new weapons, including automatic rifles and grenade launchers.
The Taliban have continued to launch major attacks on government forces despite the internal conflict, and the war has shown no sign of abating over the past year.
The Taliban attacked checkpoints in the southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province late on Saturday, killing four coppers, according to the provincial governor’s front man, Omar Zawaq.
Among those killed was local police commander Safar Mohammad, who in recent years had successfully kept highways in the area open to traffic. Zawaq said another nine coppers and one soldier were maimed in the attack.
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A political party in Afghanistan has called on the Afghan government to take immediate actions in hanging the Death Eaters that have been sentenced to death on terror offences.
Najibullah Kabuli, the head of National Partnership Party, said the Death Eaters are killing the Afghan security personnel who are serving to protect the nation.
He was speaking during a gathering in capital Kabul to declare support to the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces (ANSDF).
The remarks by Kabuli comes as the Afghan government hanged six Death Eaters sentenced to death over terror offences earlier this month.
The execution of the Death Eaters followed days after the myrmidon groups carried out a deadly suicide kaboom in capital Kabul leaving at least 64 dead and 347 others maimed.
The deadly attack forced the Afghan government to change stance against the myrmidon groups by pursuing strict military operation.
The Afghanistan's Caped President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. asked for a list of Death Eaters sentenced to death over terror offences and approved the execution of at least 6 Death Eaters who were involved in major attacks in the country, including the liquidation of former President and High Peace Council Chief Burhanuddin Rabbani ... the gentlemanly murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan... .
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#1
Reduces guard-assisted escapes and the resulting recidivism.
[Al Ahram] The UAE's supreme court on Monday acquitted a Libyan-US citizen and his son of terrorism charges, almost two years after their arrest on allegations they financed hard boy groups.
Businessman Kamal Eldarat and his son Mohammed were locked away Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! in August 2014, along with other suspects of Libyan origin.
The pair, who later lived in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, before moving to settle in the United Arab Emirates, had faced charges of financing and links to Islamist "terrorist" groups in their native Libya.
US embassy officials were present when the verdict was announced on Monday, capping a four-month trial.
"We welcome the court's decision and we are pleased that the Eldarats will be reunited with their family soon," said David Duerden, a front man for the US embassy in Abu Dhabi.
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Yemeni peace talks in Kuwait have witnessed positive progress regarding the issue of the detainees and prisoners, as close sources to the negotiating parties said U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has received lists of a total of 6390 prisoners, detainees and kidnapped people to review them, check their validity and the fate of each one of them.
Sources from the negotiating parties said the Yemeni government's delegation submitted a list that includes 2630 names of which the most important is Major General Mahmoud al-Sobeihi, the minister of defense detained by the rebels since March 25, 2015. The rebels' list included 3760 names of which the most important is Brigadier General Ahmad 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... , son of the deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Sources from both delegations said on Thursday that they've agreed to a prisoner exchange before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in early June.
Sources from the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... militia’s delegation said 1,000 prisoners would be swapped, while a government source said the agreement entailed the release of "all detainees," who number more than 4,000.
On Sunday, the U.N. envoy said he met with the rebels' delegation to discuss with them the details and mechanism of militias' withdrawal from Yemeni areas as well as mechanism to hand over their weapons, resume political talks and restore state institutions' work.
Also on Sunday, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond welcomed "progress" in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... peace talks, saying a solution to the conflict in the battered Arabian Peninsula country must be political, not military.
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Would-be al-Qaeda murderer who plotted to carry out a suicide kaboom at airport tossed in the calaboose for 40 years
A British would-be al-Qaeda terrorist who plotted to carry out a suicide attack at Heathrow airport, targeting passengers returning from Israel and America, has been tossed in the calaboose Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! for 40 years.
...the Vietnamese-British convert to Islam who was trained in the art of bomb making by AQAP's Anwar al-Awlaki himself...
was sentenced in New York for supporting the terrorist organization al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000... (AQAP) in 2011.
In January, Pham admitted three counts of terrorist-related activity based on his support for the group, Scotland Yard said, though he denied that he ever intended to carry out his plot or harm anyone. No attack ever occurred.
The former Vietnamese national was first nabbed You have the right to remain silent... in the UK in June 2012 and was extradited to the US in early 2015.
Scotland Yard said its Counter Terrorism Command provided key evidence that helped shape the case against Pham, also known as Amin, and led to this successful prosecution.
He pleaded guilty to one count of providing material support to AQAP, one count of conspiring to receive military training from AQAP and one count of possessing and using a machine gun in furtherance of crimes of violence.
Prosecutors say Pham was directed by al Qaeda leader Anwar Al-Awlaki to detonate explosives in Heathrow’s arrivals area, to coincide with arrivals from Ben Gurion airport.
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Omar Diaby, believed to be a leading French recruiter of jihadists in Syria, has declared himself alive after falsely announcing his death to receive medical treatment, La Belle France 2 television reported.
Speaking on Skype, Diaby, who also goes by the name Omar Omsen, told a La Belle France 2 journalist: "The emir Omar Omsen is not dead. His death was announced for a very precise reason."
The 40-year-old said his parents had announced his death on Twitter last year so he could "leave Syria to have major surgery in a neighboring country" while avoiding detection by security services.
La Belle France 2, which made contact with Diaby via intermediaries, is due to air a program Thursday showing footage of the Frenchie's camp in western Syria's Latakia province.
La Belle France has an international arrest warrant out on Diaby, whom the program showed running a cell of around 30 young French jihadists, most of them from the southern Nice region like himself.
Operating out of a pine forest, his cell has pledged allegiance to the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front.
A Syrian cameraman filmed Diaby's camp for three days, with the jihadist carefully controlling what could be filmed and which fighters could speak.
While Diaby is not suspected of any direct link with the terror attacks in La Belle France last year, he expressed approval for the deadly shootings at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo ...A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe... in January 2015.
"Those who insulted the prophet were executed," he said, referring to Charlie Hebdo's publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. "I wish I'd been chosen to do that," he added.
[AnNahar] Hungary said Monday it had begun reinforcing its anti-migrant fence on the Serbian border following an increase in arrivals after the evacuation of Idomeni camp on the Greece-Macedonia frontier.
Last week, Greek officials moved some 8,400 people from the squalid, makeshift Idomeni encampment to reception centres elsewhere in the country. But Hungarian authorities said some people had managed to make their way up the migrant route, despite the border closure imposed in mid February by many Balkan states in a bid to halt the influx to northern Europe. An AFP photographer on the Serbian side of the border spotted between 200 and 250 people waiting to enter Hungary on Monday.
An AFP photographer on the Serbian side of the border spotted between 200 and 250 people waiting to enter Hungary on Monday.
[AlAhram] Bulgaria has for the first time blocked around a hundred migrants colonists from entering through its southern border with Greece, sending a "strong message" to human traffickers, a minister said Sunday. Among them were 56 Afghans who were found hiding on board a freight train, as well as another group of some 40 Syrians and Iraqis.
Both groups were stopped on Saturday in what was the largest number of people caught trying to enter the eastern European country since the start of the migrant crisis. "Their return was carried out at a record speed for Europe," said Prime Minister Boyko Borisov after meeting border police and an army unit in the southwestern town of Blagoevgrad.
The Afghans were returned to Greece the same day, while the other 40 are being investigated and will likely be sent back in the coming week, Borisov said.
The migrants colonists had each paid traffickers 200 euros per person believing they were being taken into Macedonia, he said.
In order to manage any further incidents, a contingent of 65 soldiers equipped with 4x4 vehicles would be deployed along the western part of the Greek border to back up the border police, he said.
Bulgaria's border with Greece is nearly 500 kilometres (300 miles) long, and it also shares a 260-kilometre (160 mile) frontier with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... So far, Sofia has concentrated on buttressing its Turkish frontier, speeding up construction of a 132-kilometre (820-mile) fence which is some three metres (10 foot) high. But earlier this year, Borisov said the Greek frontier was "the major threat", saying if necessary, Sofia would erect a barrier there too.
Situated on the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... 's eastern flank, Bulgaria registered 5,010 asylum seekers this year, among them Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans.
[IsraelTimes] All seven defendants tell court they were duped into traveling to Syria and joining Islamic State
The French jihadi network that groomed one of the Nov. 13 Gay Paree attackers went on trial Monday minus its most infamous member, a man killed in the Bataclan concert hall on a night of bloodshed that left 130 people dead in the French capital.
The seven defendants, friends from the eastern city of Strasbourg, were nabbed You have the right to remain silent... in 2014 on suspicion of unspecified terrorist activity after returning from Syria. Court documents show no indication they were planning a specific attack at that time.
Two other members of the 10-person network died in Syria. And the final member of the Strasbourg group, Foued Mohammed-Aggad, remained on the lam and went on to participate in the Nov. 13 Gay Paree attacks.
The defendants in Monday’s trial in Gay Paree -- who include Mohammed-Aggad’s brother Karim -- insisted they had nothing to do with the Gay Paree attacks.
The men insist they went to Syria for humanitarian reasons and were forced to join Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... as one thing after another went wrong with their journey. All returned to La Belle France by April 2014, telling Sherlocks they were desperate to escape.
"Humanitarian or jihadist?" the judge asked each man sharply. With different levels of equivocation, each man said they went to Syria with the intention of helping.
Karim Mohammed-Aggad asked that the group be judged for what they had done, and not for the deadly Nov. 13 attacks.
The group was recruited by Mourad Fares, who once boasted of grooming dozens of French citizens to join jihadists in Syria and who was arrested separately in late 2014 by French authorities. The Strasbourg men uniformly blamed their plight on Fares, who was not among those on trial Monday.
Fares did not meet the group at the border as they arrived in Syria, they told Sherlocks -- instead, they said they were picked up by members of the group later known as Islamic State and said they had little choice but to go along.
"We were had by smooth talk. Islam was used to trap me like a wolf. When we arrived there, it was clear to me that the people there had nothing to do with Islam," Karim Mohammed-Aggad told Sherlocks, according to court documents.
He did not know, however, if his brother felt the same.
"It is obvious that the shadow of Fouad Mohammed-Aggad hangs over this case," said Eric Lefebvre, lawyer for defendant Mohammed Hattay. "(But) what this man did, that’s his responsibility, his guilt, and it wouldn’t be fair today to tell these people today that they are partly responsible for what happened (on Nov. 13)."
The defendants have told investigators that while they occasionally handled weapons when they were in Syria, it was only for training or propaganda photos, never for combat.
All seven face charges of criminal association with a view to commit acts of terrorism, punishable by up to 10 years in jail.
Last week, defense lawyers objected to the prosecutor's decision to use leaked Islamic State documents -- which list the defendants as "combatants".
The documents, acquired by Sky News television in March, include an estimated 173 names of French citizens or residents of La Belle France, said a source close the investigation, but the defence says their authenticity must first be investigated.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Two veiled women work the land while a man collects eggs in a bucolic Bosnian village ‐ now notorious for exporting fighters to Syria.
"This is how we finance terrorism," joked 50-year old Izet Hadzic as he opened his henhouse in Osve, which overlooks a peaceful valley in the Balkan country’s north.
A gray-bearded former rock musician, Hadzic founded this "dzemat" (religious community) in the late 2000s ‐ one of dozens in Bosnia that refuse to comply with the country’s official Muslim leaders.
Continued on Page 49
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Turkey is offering to "join forces" with Washington for a special operation inside Syria on condition it doesn't include a Syrian Kurdish militia blacklisted by Ankara but seen as an ally by the US, the foreign minister said.
You guys are the same ones who wouldn't let our boys through to northern Iraq back in 2003, right?
Washington's support of Kurdish fighters in Syria in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists has angered Ankara, especially after pictures last week revealed US commandos wearing patches of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) outlawed by Turkey.
"If we join forces, they (the US) have their own special forces and we have our special forces," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told a small group of journalists at the southern holiday resort of Antalya.
"The subject we are discussing with the Americans is the closure of the Manbij pocket as soon as possible... and the opening of a second front," he said, referring to a backdoor border route favoured by ISIL for smuggling jihadists into and out of Syria.
"We say okay, a second front should be opened but not with the PYD," he said, referring to the Democratic Union Party (PYD).
Çavuşoğlu said Syrian Arab opposition forces opposing President Bashar al-Assad could be backed up with special forces from Turkey and NATO ally Washington as well as from France, Britain and Germany.
"Unfortunately, both Russia and the United States see a terrorist organisation as a partner and support it," he said of the YPG.
The minister also said that recent deal with Washington, which would have seen American light multiple rocket launchers deployed along its border with Syria to combat ISIL, had been delayed. Under the deal, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) was to have been deployed along the Turkish border by the end of May, but Çavuşoğlu said it would now only happen in August.
"The United States is unfortunately not keeping its promise," he charged. "We are completely ready. Not us, but the US is responsible for the delay."
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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[GEO.TV] MIRPUR: Pakistain People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Baby Bhutto Zardari ...Pak dynastic politician, son of Benazir Bhutto and grandon of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. As far as is known, Bilawal has no particular talents other than being pretty and being able to memorize political slogans, but he had the good luck to be born into the right family and he hasn't been assassinated yet... on Monday criticised the PML-N government for its foreign policy which he said pushed the country into isolation, demanding resignation of Prime Minister 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... ’s adviser on foreign affairs.
Addressing a rally, the PPP supremo asked the people of Azad Kashmire not to vote for the Pakistain Muslim League ‐ Nawaz as it would be tantamount to supporting government’s anti-Kashmire and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi-friendly policies.
"Terrible violation of human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... in the Indian Kashmiree comes into my mind when I talk about Modi," he said. "Our foreign policy is going towards destruction. We don’t have the same terms with Afghanistan like we had before, Iran is also not happy with us."
The PPP chairman also took an exception to government for its foreign policy that failed to strike F-16 aircraft deal with the United States, adding that drone attacks are now being carried out in the settled areas of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... He said China Pakistain Economic Corridor Projects had been made controversial due to the government’s poor policies, adding that the prime minister neglected the Charter of Democracy -- signed between Nawaz Sharif and former PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... -- after coming in power.
"But I cannot forget CoD because it has a signature of my mother," Bilalwal said, adding that his mother Benazir Bhutto faced fake cases and her bank accounts were freezed before being forced into exile.
The PPP chairman said the accountability was a threat to "throne of Raiwind" and not democracy. He said there was no need for the prime minister to avoid accountability if he was clean.
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Avigdor Liberman, a lightning rod for international criticism, became Israel’s defense minister on Monday as part of a political deal that widens the base of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fractious coalition government.
Later evening, Lieberman was officially sworn in as Israeli Defense Minister in a Knesset ceremony.
Parliament approved the appointment after two weeks of political upheaval in which Netanyahu dumped Moshe Ya’alon as defense minister and embarrassed opposition chief Isaac Herzog by retracting an offer to have him steer future Israeli peacemaking as foreign minister.
Mr. Herzog, of whatever the current iteration of the Labour Party is called, was the attempt of retired prime minister Tony Blair, soon-to-be-retired Secretary of State John F. Kerry, and should-have-known-better President Sisi to bridle and curb Bibi. They got played.
Earlier, one of Netanyahu coalition partners had threatened to block the planned expansion of the alliance by voting against it in parliament, possibly sparking fresh elections, unless demands for procedural reform were met.
But a compromise between Netanyahu and his rival, Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett, was reached late Sunday, a Likud statement said.
The religious nationalist Jewish Home holds eight seats, enough to block Netanyahu's proposed new line-up.
Now that it was approved by parliament as expected, the deal would form what is seen as the most right-wing government in Israel's history.
The world has changed. Israeli voters, perforce, have changed as well.
Jewish Home had demanded the creation of a military liaison for the government's security cabinet, a smaller forum of cabinet members which decides on matters of national security.
Bennett says such a post is needed to avoid security cabinet members being kept in the dark on important developments, pointing to aspects of the 2014 conflict with Paleostinian Lions of Islam in Gazoo, among other concerns.
Under the compromise brokered by Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, of the United Torah Judaism alliance of ultra-Orthodox parties, security cabinet members will receive frequent personal briefings from Israel's National Security Council as an interim measure, while a committee of experts looks at ways to improve procedure.
While some analysts say such a change is needed, Bennett's demand is also seen as political maneuvering ahead of the next elections, due by 2019 at the latest.
Bennett is widely seen as aspiring to replace Netanyahu, whose Likud party is currently the largest in parliament.
Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party will add five politicians to Netanyahu's previous razor-thin majority, giving it 66 of the 120 in parliament.
The move to hand the defense ministry to the 57-year-old hardliner has sparked deep concern among Israeli centrist and left-wing politicians, as well as among some of Netanyahu's Likud colleagues.
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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Life Under the Islamic State: Fines, Taxes and Punishments the NYT gives examples:
You can be fined for wearing a cloak that is too tight ($25), not wearing socks or gloves ($30), possessing a pack of cigarettes ($23) or showing your eyes ($10).
You can be taxed for each irrigated hectare of farmland ($46 per year), the wheat you produce (10 percent) and any crops you sell at your local market. You can also be punished if your sheep wear bells
You can be fined if your car does not have an official Islamic State license plate ($43), for failing to correctly answer religious questions at checkpoints ($20), for giving a ride to violators ($23 per passenger) or for driving on the wrong side of the road ($25). DeBlasio and Obama will look at this less as human rights violations and more as a 'how to' manual.
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05/31/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"Failure to answer religous questions" brings to mind the bridge attendent in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
"What's your favorite color?"
"Red"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! No, no blue!"
Basma Abdel Aziz was walking in downtown Cairo one morning when she saw a long line of people standing in front of a closed government building.
Returning hours later, Ms. Abdel Aziz, a psychiatrist who counsels torture victims, passed the same people still waiting listlessly — a young woman and an elderly man, a mother holding her baby. The building remained closed.
When she got home, she immediately started writing about the people in line and didn’t stop for 11 hours. The story became her surreal debut novel, “The Queue,” which takes place after a failed revolution in an unnamed Middle Eastern city. The narrative unfolds over 140 days, as civilians are forced to wait in an endless line to petition a shadowy authority called The Gate for basic services.
“Fiction gave me a very wide space to say what I wanted to say about totalitarian authority,” Ms. Abdel Aziz said in a recent interview. More at the link
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.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Niazi is deputy to Mullah Mohammad Rasool, who split from the Taliban last summer after Mullah Akhtar Mansour was chosen to succeed the group’s late founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Mansour was killed earlier this month in a US drone strike in Pakistain and was replaced days later by a little-known conservative 
The main Taliban faction’s 
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A political party in Afghanistan has called on the Afghan government to take immediate actions in hanging the 
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
Turkey is offering to "join forces" with Washington for a special operation inside Syria on condition it doesn't include a Syrian Kurdish militia blacklisted by Ankara but seen as an ally by the US, the foreign minister said.
