A severe drought in and around Somalia has left up to 2.1 million people in urgent need of assistance, a group monitoring food availability in the region has reported.
Sorry. Been there, done that, got the casualties to show for it.
The victims, many of whom fled their homes to escape militia violence, suffer from severely restricted access to food and income, the Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU), part of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Programme, said.
I'm sure there are lots of holy men around to comfort them, though...
Its report released on Friday blamed the situation on poor crop and livestock production, limited markets for their labour and produce, loss of cereal and livestock assets, and deteriorating terms of trade as a result of rising cereal prices and falling livestock prices. In the North, Central and Southern Regions of Somalia an estimated 1.7 million people are facing acute food and livelihood crisis or humanitarian emergency at least until June, the FSAU said after a visit to the country last month. An estimated 380,000 people who fled their homes to escape the violence in anarchic Somalia also need help, according to the group which works with UN, US and European aid groups.
If you're that crummy at managing a country, perhaps you need to hire somebody else to do it for you.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 01:49 ||
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Maybe they can hijack a few grain ships.
Posted by: ed ||
01/29/2006 2:00 Comments ||
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The holy men are too busy harranguing the ummah for being insufficiently Islamic to offer much comfort...
#3
I suppose it never occurred that all that praying to Allah didn't work so good.
Drought is supposed to be Allah's will?
So obey Allah and die already, don't fight Allah's will and survive the drought sent specificly to kill you.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/29/2006 12:22 Comments ||
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#4
Gee, maybe we should send in some UN/US troops (without adequate armourment) and hunt down a war lord?
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/29/2006 12:34 Comments ||
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#5
Yes, send money. Somalia has given soooooo much to the world that we cannot turn our backs on them in their hour of need. Those starving drought stricken warlords desperately need your help to feed and nurture their scurilous bands of murderers and pirates.
#6
If you're that crummy at managing a country, perhaps you need to hire somebody else to do it for you.
Heh. I know that was meant as a snark, but it's really not a bad idea. Hiring a company like Haliburton with large project management experience might be just the ticket for fixing up pissant failed states like Somalia. Expecially if they had some private security for armed ass-kicking.
I don't know about crickets in general, although my mother was once offered chocolate covered ants as a treat (well, she was living in New York City at the time), but the particular species of locust common in the Middle East is the only kind of insect listed in the Bible as kosher for eating, according to God's commandment.
Opposition Islamist lawmakers have walked out of Egypt's parliament to protest against the expulsion of a fellow MP who had criticised the government for letting a French warship through the Suez Canal. The Muslim Brotherhood said on its web site that parliament speaker Fathi Sorour had expelled Mustafa Mohamed Mustafa on Saturday "to deny the Muslim Brotherhood MPs the chance to reveal new scandals of the Egyptian government in the matter of the French ship Clemenceau".
The Clemenceau is a 27,000-tonne aircraft carrier which is heading to India to be scrapped. Environment group Greenpeace says the ship contains hundreds of tonnes of hazardous materials, including 500 tonnes of asbestos. The government this week allowed the Clemenceau through the Suez Canal en route to India and said the ship did not pose an environmental threat.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 01:43 ||
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Yemen has detained 19 people on suspicion of planning attacks against Westerners on the orders of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, according to the official September 26 website. The website quoted government sources as saying those held would be questioned before possibly standing trial for planning sabotage and terrorist attacks in the port of Aden.
Several members of the group had returned from Iraq after Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi told them to go back to Yemen and carry out terrorist attacks, including killing American citizens, the site quoted a source as saying. It said one of the targets was the Aden Hotel and the suspects had bought arms, explosives and detonators. This group was planning to carry out terrorist operations, including attacks on places frequented by Americans such as Aden hotel, the website said, quoting an unidentified security official. Some of the suspects came back from Iraq after Al-Zarqawi had directed them to go back to Yemen for terrorist operations, including assassinations of Americans, the website claimed.
One of the suspects who came back from Iraq, Ali Abdullah Asyan, [who called himself Abu Ali Al Harethi Jr,] and other returnees planned to take revenge for the killing of Abu Ali Al Harethi who was murdered in November 2002, said the official. Before being arrested on May 9, 2005, the group headed by Jamal Saif Abdullah Saleh, also known as Abu Obaid, had purchased weapons, explosives and remote control devices; and they designed charts and maps showing the targets. An official said the group had forged various official documents, including identification cards with fake names, and rented flats to carry out their operations. Meanwhile last Monday, files of six Al-Qaeda suspects, including four turned over to Yemen by the US, were also referred to the general prosecution. The suspects include Walid Shaher Al-Qadasi, Salah Salem Qarw, Mohammed Saleh Abdullah Al-Asad, and Mohammed Faraj Basumaila.
Mohammed Hamdi Al-Ahdal, accused of being a finance officer, and Ghaleb Al-Zaidi, both arrested in Sanaa on December 2003, are also suspects. Al-Ahdal, alleged to be second man after Al-Harithi in the Al-Qaeda organization in Yemen, admitted he received hundred thousands of dollars through persons in Kuwait and in another country. According to the investigation report, Al-Ahdal would give money to the families of the detainees, prisoners, and victims.
Al-Ahdal is alleged to be one of the most active members of Al-Qaeda, and is said to have fought in Chechnya and Afghanistan. After one of his legs was damaged, he is alleged to have moved into supervision and financing, and is said to have become a key link in financing Al-Qaeda operations, particularly in Yemen. He is alleged to have to received half a million dollars in 2002 for the buying of arms and explosives to conduct terrorist acts in Yemen. Yemen has cracked down on Al-Qaeda-linked militants following attacks including the bombing in 2000 of the U.S. warship Cole and an attack in 2002 on the French supertanker Limburg, but some ordinary Yemenis still support Al-Qaedas campaign against the West.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/29/2006 13:22 ||
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Jan 28: Kuwait has strongly condemned the publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the Prophet Mohammad (SM). "Kuwait strongly condemns and denounces what was published in one of the Danish newspapers," a senior foreign ministry official was quoted as saying in a statement published by Kuwaiti dailies.
"It is a great harm" to Prophet Mohammad, he said Saturday, adding: "this is one of the forms of despicable racism which has caused disasters for the entire international community." The official said Kuwait has started measures to summon the Danish ambassador, who resides in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, over the matter.
You excised the parts of the Qu'ran that described the Jews as pigs, right?
And accordingly, Kuwait will summon the Danish ambassador over the "despicable racism" of the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons. Meanwhile, Kuwaiti Parliament Speaker Jassem Mohammad al-Khorafi addressed Saturday MPs during a meeting in Kuwait City to discuss the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons deemed offensive to Islam's Prophet Mohammad.
#1
Youngest wife of Mohamed was 8 yrs old. Some swedish preast was beaten or claimed death penalty (like the guy who wrote "Satan verses") for calling Mohamed a pefofil.
It's unbelievable how tolerant are scandinavians to parasites. They don't understand that this kind of tolerances is not the solution and will cost them billions as well as human lives.
#2
this is frikkin RIDICULOUS!!! What a double standard!!!
If western countries summoned arab diplomats for publishing "despicable racism" about Judaism and Christianity, there'd be a line of 'em down the block in every country every week.
#3
It's shit like this that steers me toward the conclusion that it's going to be either them or us: there'll be no getting along with these people.
More and more, I'm coming around to idea that our enemy is not "Islamic extremism" or "Wahhabism" or any other small part of Islam, but rather Islam itself. All of it.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/29/2006 8:35 Comments ||
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The EU and the West summon ambassadors from every muslim nation in the world.
We strongly condemn the spew of hatred, rascism and violence that emmenates from every mosque - every day. Particularly on Fridays.
We condemn the call to slaughter infidels that drives your "religion".
We wave in your faces all the published articles in the muslim world that promote rascism and hatred against non-muslims and "the wrong sort of muslims".
Contemplating the CogDis of endless Muzzy hate spew with simultaneous uber-sensitivity to anything even remotely approaching criticism or even clarification of the tenets and history of Islam.
Wading through the smarmy faux moral posturing of those who haven't taken the train to the end of the line and realized, internally accepted, and acknowledged the cold hard facts - rather than the knee-jerk parade of their preferred worldview and comfort zone - as if considered opinion, all substantive and objective evidence to the contrary.
Boggling the indisputable fact that we are but cattle to Islam and our sanctioned death and demise is written in the Haddiths, trumping all of the RoP blather, enabling and demanding any and all Muzzies called to support, to action, to jihad.
The blinding realization that this is, literally, for all the marbles, that we have been given no choice but to defend our way of life, and that they will never, ever, stop.
And the deep overwhelming pain upon reaching the inevitable conclusion that it is, indeed, Us or Them.
These crucial questions and the inexorable and unpalatable conclusions which answer them used to worry me deeply and caused me much lost sleep. Then I discovered Mylanta.
#8
SPoD
When the wife and her sister were just young'uns they went to visit their daddy building a petrochemical center in Indonesia. They just jumped on a plane with a few critical items and went to visit. Daddy could see them through the plate glass at customs but couldn't talk to them or help them and he seemed to be having a heart attack. They couldn't figure it out but were having a fun time. The inspectors would ask them about the different Chinese foods they were carrying and they would answer in broken english. They couldn't figure out what the wife was saying about this one big long thick item. It wasn't in their dictionary ... but the girls were too cute and they let them through.
When daddy got to them he whispered "What possessed you to try and bring a HAM through customs?" They were like... why would that have been a problem... seems "Ham" didn't translate...
British spies have acknowledged major gaps in their knowledge of the July 7 London transit bombings, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
The Sunday Times said a leaked memo acknowledged that the domestic intelligence service MI5 had learned little about how the attacks were planned or whether the al-Qaeda terrorist network was involved.
"We know little about what three of the bombers did in Pakistan, when attack planning began, how and when the attackers were recruited, the extent of any external direction or assistance and the extent and role of any wider network," said the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre memo, which the newspaper said was prepared for Prime Minister Tony Blair and other ministers.
The Times said the report was delivered in October, but sources had said "the situation has changed little since then."
Blair's office refused to comment on the document.
The memo also said it was not clear whether the July 7 bombs and a failed attack two weeks later were connected. No one was hurt on July 21 when explosives aboard three subway trains and a bus failed to detonate.
Spy chiefs admitted "we still do not know whether we are dealing with an orchestrated campaign or coincidental/copycat attacks," the newspaper said.
"Whilst investigations are progressing, there remain significant gaps in our knowledge," the newspaper quoted the report as saying.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/29/2006 13:23 ||
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#1
By the time MI5 finally gets it figured out, Radical Islam will have taken over the government or totally neutralized it. Where are the radical mosque shutdowns? Where are the deportations? **chirp chirp**
Come to think of it, we cousins across the pond have some catching up to do, too.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/29/2006 15:08 Comments ||
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This is just the symptom of the real problem. It's related to a certain part of the current UK mindset in law enforcement. They simply refuse to see evil as evil and to do anything about it. Things are black and white, wrong or right. Hardly anything is neutral in this world. Shades of grey don't exist. If it is grey it's by default tainted with evil.
If you are looking for the cause and linkage of the 7/7/05 bombings and the 7/21/05 bombs look at Suras 2 through 9.
It's time to take an unimpassioned and bias free look at certain political-religious group as adults. To analyse understand it's history and writings. To look carefully what they believe and stand for. If you come away thinking it's a "religion of peace" and you can coexist safely with it, your IQ is low and your are pretty dull.
Mosty of the wests political, social and "intelligence" leadership fall into this category right now. We are in serious danger and most are totally ignorant of it.
#5
I think that MI5 people know better than send a memo through political channels with informations on what they really do and don't know. IMHO it's safer to pretend to be dumb.
North Korea has warned of nuclear war and has vowed to strengthen its deterrent forces, as it demanded that Washington show evidence backing its allegation that the communist regime is counterfeiting US money. North's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said: "Dark clouds of a nuclear war are hanging low over the Korean Peninsula."
"The ever-more frantic moves of the US to ignite a new war against (North Korea) would only compel it ... to bolster its deterrent for self-defence in every way," it said in a commentary carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on Saturday.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:05 ||
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#1
if nuke hits US from north korea
1) Instant glassing of PyongYang
2) Instant glassing of Mecca, and Tehran.
Claim it was all three.
Seriously, if a nuke, any nuke, even a suitcase nuke goes off in US capital, immediate retaliation and blame it on another power.
#5
I think that Kimmie was going for increased assistance (handout). Maybe the Chicoms are giving him welfare in return for some natural resources, like uranium and coal. Anthracite is high class coal.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/29/2006 15:10 Comments ||
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#6
This is going to sound off the wall so excuse me.
Kimmie had a meeting with people from Iran on his trip to China. Some kind of purchase/deal was made that moves up the date Iran can unleash a war that starts with a Nuclear incident of some type. Kimmie is in on the deal and will create trouble as well.
I hope Japan is workng on a few devices of it's own right now.
THE nation's most senior Islamic woman has attacked Muslim religious leaders who condone "wife-beating" and other forms of domestic violence.
Aziza Abdel-Halim, the only female member of the Prime Minister's Muslim Advisory Council, has warned that Islamic women are being "put down" by imams and their rights ignored.
"Women have suffered from sometimes ill-informed imams ... who have tried to put down women and negate some of their rights or activities," she said yesterday.
"And some of them (imams) have condoned men beating women, which is un-Islamic."
The comments, unusually outspoken for a female Muslim leader, have surfaced amid concerns that no female community representatives had been invited to the coming national imams conference in Sydney.
The conference is likely to see moderate spiritual leaders attempt to crack down on radical clerics and their extremists views and to develop a national board of imams.
The imams meeting will be attended by 10 community representatives and 62 imams, including firebrand cleric Mohammed Omran, who has come under fire from the Federal Government and moderate Muslim leaders for espousing radical views, including that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is not a terrorist but a "good man".
Sister Abdel-Halim, president of the Muslim Women's National Network Australia, said the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, the conference host, was being "unjust" by not inviting female community representatives to attend.
"Women are half of the community and they bring up the other half, so you shouldn't really exclude them from anything," she said.
"There should be some women observers who have a background in ... Islamic studies, and these women will represent the women within the community and should have an input."
She said the women may "raise a few points of concern that the imams may not be aware of or may be aware of and may be reluctant to address".
Sister Abdel-Halim's comments about cruelty towards Muslim women were backed by Jamila Hussain, a lecturer in Islamic Law at the University of Technology Sydney, who said many imams were out of touch with issues concerning Muslim women.
She worried that some spiritual leaders were indifferent to the cruelty being experienced by some women at the hands of aggressive partners.
"We don't know what imams are telling the men," Ms Hussain said. "Are they taking a stand for example against domestic violence? They should be, but we don't know whether they are or not. We suspect that some are, but probably the majority are not."
Sister Abdel-Halim told The Australian that "imams wield a great deal of power over the community".
"When people go to congregation, the imam for them is the source of religious knowledge and what he says to a lot of them is indisputable," she said.
She said that, along with the imams who would be present at the conference, male and female academics and youth leaders should also be invited to share their views.
She said she thought the AFIC board of executives "find educated women very threatening because women are ... very good community organisers and high achievers when it comes to (setting up initiatives)".
The federation has recently come under attack from community youth representatives and other Muslim leaders for not being representative of the Islamic community in Australia.
The Australian's phone calls to the federation yesterday were not returned.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/29/2006 13:25 ||
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Aziza Abdel-Halim, the only female member of the Prime Minister's Muslim Advisory Council, has warned that Islamic women are being "put down" by imams and their rights ignored.
DENMARK'S Prime Minister said his government could not act against satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed after Libya closed its embassy in Copenhagen amid growing Muslim anger over the dispute.
The newspaper Jyllands-Posten had not intended to insult Muslims when it published the drawings, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, referring to an editorial on the paper's website in Danish and Arabic.
But while Mr Fogh Rasmussen tried to assuage Muslim anger, Libya yesterday closed its embassy in Denmark in protest at the drawings.
Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Denmark and Saudi religious leaders have urged a boycott of Danish products.
"Because the Danish media had continued to show disrespect to the Prophet Mohammed and because the Danish authorities failed to take any responsible action on that, Libya decided to close its embassy in Copenhagen," the Libyan Foreign Ministry said.
It also threatened to take unspecified "economic measures" against Denmark.
EU trade chief Peter Mandelson met a Saudi minister at a meeting in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos yesterday and "urged the minister to convey the seriousness of this issue to his government", his spokesman said.
"Any boycott of Danish goods would be seen as a boycott of European goods," spokesman Peter Power said.
Islam considers images of prophets disrespectful and caricatures of them blasphemous.
Since Jyllands-Posten published the drawings in September, the Danish government has repeatedly defended the right of free speech.
"The government can in no way influence the media. And the Danish government and the Danish nation as such can not be held responsible for what is published in independent media," Mr Fogh Rasmussen said.
The newspaper has not apologised for publishing the drawings, which have caused widespread anger among Muslims around the world.
In a demonstration on the West Bank, members of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades threatened Danes in the area and told them to leave immediately, the Danish news agency Ritzau reported.
The demonstrators burned the Danish flag and called on the Palestinian authorities to cut diplomatic ties with Denmark, Ritzau said.
"We are sorry the matter has reached these proportions and repeat that we had no intention to offend anyone, and that we as the rest of the Danish society respect freedom of religion," the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Carsten Juste, said in the editorial.
Mr Fogh Rasmussen was speaking at a joint news conference with visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who said he was satisfied with the newspaper's explanation and the Danish Government's view.
"Prime Minister Rasmussen explained Denmark's position on that (the drawings), which was very satisfactory to me as a Muslim," Mr Karzai said.
The Danish Government has broad public backing for it stance on the cartoons.
An opinion poll showed that 79 per cent of Danes think Mr Fogh Rasmussen should not issue an apology and 62 per cent say the newspaper should not apologise.
#3
If the Danes are growing a pair, it is highly localized. Danish Trade Group Challenges Newspaper Denmark's main industry organization, fearing a loss of business in the Muslim world, sought to distance itself Friday from a newspaper that published contentious drawings of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
Also some preemptive groveling: Norway Apologizes over Muhammad Cartoons The left-wing government in Norway apologizes to Muslims worldwide for the publication of twelve Muhammad cartoons [see them here] in the Norwegian newspaper Magazinet. Oslo sent out instructions to all the Norwegian embassies on how to respond to queries about the cartoons.
Tobbacy spit in the eye for the Norge.
Posted by: ed ||
01/29/2006 23:12 Comments ||
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#1
This is a big deal. When I was visited Gymnasium in the 1980's it was fantastic. They EUnichs must have been working overtime to have screwed up German schools so much.
#2
It wasn't the EU getting involved in German schools that was the problem. The problem was inherent in the German education establishment, which was going for equality rather than excellence. In the 90's (we left Germany in 1995, so it may have changed since, although I doubt it) schools were teacher-, rather than student-, oriented. School days were very short (in the elementary grades the children were often done by 10 or 11 in the morning), and starting in the first grade the children were expected to sit quietly and absorb lectures -- if they had questions they could ask their mothers at home, later (A decade ago, only some 30% of German women ever had held a paying job... and there was no tradition of volunteerism. Hence the extraordinary number of housewives qualified to teach at the college prep. level). If a child was extraordinarily gifted, or handicapped, no provision was made to accomodate that. So the bright were bored, the non-academic were lost (until they escaped to the trade school track after 4th grade), the truly handicapped sent to institutions, and the big group in the middle learned to absorb masses of information without questioning. Granted, some 70% of German students went on to university, but as there had been no significant increase in professorial staff since the '70s, that learning experience was considerably less than ideal as well. And I'm not certain, but I believe home-schooling was illegal.
In Frankfurt there was an American-style international school, but it taught to the International Bacchalaureate, not the German curriculum -- and in English with German as the primary foreign language. Nonetheless, there was a plentiful sprinkling of German kids enrolled there, amongst the genuine foreigners. I suspect there were Germans enrolled at the French and British schools as well, but then Frankfurt is the banking center of Germany, and several of the wealthiest communities in Germany are suburban to Frankfurt.
German authorities have prohibited foreign travel by a far-right-wing lawyer, Horst Mahler, amid fears that he may attend a Holocaust denial conference in Iran, an official confirmed Thursday. Mahler, 70, who has been convicted in German courts of sedition and glorifying crime, defends neo-Nazis and has anti-Semitic views.
Hartmut Piecha, a spokesman for the mayor's office in the small town of Kleinmachnow outside Berlin, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur on Thursday that an order had been served to Mahler's wife invalidating Mahler's passport for six months with immediate effect. During that time, Mahler can only travel to the so-called Schengen nations of Europe which admit German nationals without passports.
On a previous occasion, Mahler's passport was withdrawn to prevent him travelling to Auschwitz in Poland and denying there the genocide of the Jews. The interior ministry of Brandenburg state, where Mahler lives, said the purpose this time was to prevent him participating in a conference announced by Tehran to back claims by that country's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust is a "fairy tale".
The state said it would gravely damage Germany's honour in the world if Mahler took part. It said German passport laws allowed the withdrawal of travel papers in case of danger to German interests. It described Mahler as a "fanatical anti-Semite and falsifier of history".
No date has been disclosed for the Tehran conference, according to the ministry.
In January a year ago, Mahler was sentenced in Berlin to nine months in prison for sedition, but has not entered jail because he is appealing. Mahler, who in the 1970s supported far-left terrorism in Germany, has also been fined by German courts for praising the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
President Bush will use his new budget to propose cutting the size of the Army Reserve to its lowest level in three decades and stripping as much as $4 billion from two fighter aircraft programs.
The proposals, likely to face opposition on Capitol Hill, come as the Defense Department struggles to trim personnel costs and other expenses to pay for the war in Iraq and a host of other pricey aircraft and high-tech programs. Bush will send his 2007 budget to Congress on Feb. 6.
he proposed Army Reserve cut is part of a broader plan to achieve a new balance of troop strength and combat power among the active Army, the National Guard and reserves to fight the global war on terrorism and to defend the homeland.
The Army sent a letter to members of Congress on Thursday outlining the plan. A copy was provided to the Associated Press.
Under the plan, the authorized troop strength of the Army Reserve would drop from 205,000 -- the current number of slots it is allowed -- to 188,000, the actual number of soldiers it had at the end of 2005.
Because of recruiting and other problems, the Army Reserve has been unable to fill its ranks to its authorized level.
Army leaders have said they are taking a similar approach to shrinking the National Guard. They are proposing to cut that force from its authorized level of 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, the actual number now on the rolls.
Some in Congress have vowed to fight the National Guard cuts. Its soldiers and resources are controlled by state governors unless Guard units are mobilized by the president for federal duty, as Bush did after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"I remain convinced that we do not have a large enough force," Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) said in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Proposals to cut funding in two key jet fighter programs were described by defense analysts and congressional aides, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the reductions have not been announced.
One plan would eliminate funding for an alternative engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, the military's next-generation combat plane.
The second would cut money for F-22 fighters during 2007. But it is actually a contract restructuring that would add that money back -- and more -- over the long run by stretching out the program for an additional two years and buying as many as four more planes.
The new plan calls for buying 60 aircraft through 2010, rather than 56 in the next two years.
The Joint Strike Fighter engine is being built by General Electric and England-based Rolls Royce, and the plan to dump them as suppliers has triggered intense lobbying, including a handwritten note from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Bush.
On the home front, the close to $2 billion cut would hit General Electric engine plants, and possibly jobs, in Ohio and Massachusetts and a Rolls Royce plant in Indiana. The proposal would benefit Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney, which got the original contract for the Lockheed Martin aircraft, and delivered its first engine last month.
#4
I gather that a lot of career Armed Forces people went to the Reserves when the Forces were downsized under Clinton... and a good many are choosing to re-up as Regular [Army/Marines/etc.], now that they can serve again. So at least some of those Reserves bodies aren't leaving at all, just being filed differently. ;-)
As for the unfilled slots, givenwhat's going on now, and what's likely to come in the near future, I'd personally much rather the Army concentrate on expanding it's trained fighting force, not on less-trained back-ups, however gung-ho. Of course, I am just a little civilian housewife, so perhaps I am not clear on the subtleties understood by certain members of Congress.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) International General Secretary Pravin Togadia has reportedly received a death threat from Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden warning him on his anti-Muslim stand.
The Ahmedabad unit of the VHP today confirmed receipt of a letter in this regard. They said the letter warned Togadia of dire consequences for his anti-Muslim stand. The sources added that the police had been informed and further investigations were on.
Togadia has received death threats in the past also and is under double secret probation Z-plus security cover. Togadia is one of their most radical and controversial leaders of the VHP.
Togadia began his career by working with Narendra Modi to create a strong political base for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat in the early 1990s. He then left active politics to work entirely for the VHP. He was the face of the VHP in the 2002 sheela daan standoff in Ayodhya, when thousands of VHP activists sought to perform a ceremony at the disputed site where the destroyed Babri mosque once stood.
Togadia has provoked huge criticism by hailing the infamous Gujarat riots of 2002 as the natural response of Hindus to fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. More than a thousand people were killed in the riots. Togadia is also known for his anti Pakistan stand and of late has criticized d the BJP, for failing to bring an ordinance to ban cow slaughter, construct the Ram Temple at Ayodhya, and proclaim a Hindu Rashtra in India.
He has also been critical of BJP leader LK Advanis secular comments on Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/29/2006 13:26 ||
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Via JihadWatch
Prevarication by the Pakistani government cost America the chance to kill Osama bin Laden in an airstrike near the Afghan border two years ago, the Sunday Telegraph has been told.
A CIA lead that the al-Qaeda leader was hiding in a remote province was squandered because the Pakistani government delayed giving permission for the attack on its soil, according to a senior Western diplomat. By the time US officials got the go-ahead, bin Laden had left the suspected hideout in Zhob, in the Baluchistan province of south-west Pakistan.
The near-miss was cited by the diplomat as the reason why America chose not to consult Islamabad before the US missile strike in Pakistan's Bajaur region two weeks ago. The January 13 attack, prompted by a tip that bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was hiding in a local village, killed 13 civilians.
Speaking of the Zhob attack, the diplomat, who asked not to be named, said: "For unknown reasons, Pakistani officials delayed in giving permission...which ultimately gave these militants time to move to an unknown location."
According to his account, which was backed by sources within Pakistani intelligence, the CIA picked up electronic traffic suggesting that bin Laden and his bodyguards had sought temporary shelter in Zhob, which is dominated by Pathan and Baloch tribesmen sympathetic to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Fearing that a commando raid would cause massive casualties to both sides, with no guarantee of success, the US decided to launch a strike by laser-guided missiles, fired from Predator drones.
The reason for the delay is not clear. While Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, has vowed to eliminate terrorists operating within his country, elements within Pakistan's ISI intelligence service may have sought to protect bin Laden.
If he was in Zhob at the time it would have been the first known occasion that he had been firmly in America's sights since his escape from Tora Bora in Afghanistan, where he slipped through a cordon of US troops in 2001.
Gen Musharraf last week described the strike against al-Zawahiri as a "violation of sovereignty", although he said other al-Qaeda figures had died in the raid. Al-Zawahiri is thought to have cancelled his visit, possibly after spotting CIA drones in the area.
Posted by: ed ||
01/29/2006 09:20 ||
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#1
There is more than a hint of a game of chicken in which Musharraf limits cooperation with the U.S. claiming domestic political difficulty and the U.S. says, fine, we'll deal with the next guy the same way we dealt with you.
#4
"For unknown reasons, Pakistani officials delayed in giving permission...which ultimately gave these militants time to move to an unknown location."
I have a few suggestions..
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/29/2006 16:09 Comments ||
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#5
"For unknown reasons....." I can buy you a clue if you need one.
picturesque ain't it
Nawab Akbar Bugti sits in a cave in Balochistan, guarded by his poorly-attired, heavily-armed tribesmen. whew..whats that smell
With anti-personnel mines encircling his mountain hideout, the octogenarian warrior mixes 17th century guerrilla tactics with modern weaponry to take on the might of Pakistan's security forces. whache yer ste...BLAM-O!
Mir Ahmadan Khan Rahija Bugti, chief of his clan and former district council chairman, has accused Bugti tribe chief Nawab Akbar Bugti of conniving with foreign powers to keep Pakistan an undeveloped state. Mir Ahmadan alleged that Akbar Bugti, his sons and grandsons were responsible for 152 murders and they had established their own prisons where they detained and tortured hundreds of people. He claimed the Bugtis were responsible for killing 35 members of the Kalpar clan, 16 people of the Rahija clan and seven people of the Masoori tribe. He claimed that Ata Muhammad and Abdul Wahid, relatives of Haji Ghulam Qadar alias Kakki Deenari, former general secretary of the PPL Sui gas union, had been in Akbar Bugtis custody for nine years even though ransom of Rs 2.1 million had been paid for his release.
The Rahija clan chief alleged that the chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Dera Bugti, Amanullah Khan, and two of his partys activists were slaughtered at the dera of Nawab Akbar Bugti. An FIR was registered by Sui police, because Dera Bugti police were not allowed to register a case against Nawab Akbar Bugti, he said. He claimed that the murdered JI leaders father Haibat Khan was later kidnapped and tortured and fined Rs 800,000 for registering a murder case against Akbar Bugit. Haibat Khan was still in custody because he could not pay the fine, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:58 ||
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The United States has refused Pakistans demand that it should be offered the same kind of nuclear cooperation deal that has been signed with India, according to two nuclear experts. Zia Mian of Princeton University and MV Ramana, a Banglore-based scientist, writing in the current issue of Arms Control Today, a publication of the Arms Control Association, contend that despite the many claims that the social, economic and political well-being of the people of India will be enhanced by this deal (the July 2005 agreement signed by Bush and Singh in Washington), there has been little attention paid to the issue of whether India needs nuclear weapons at all, the costly failures of the Indian nuclear energy enterprise, and the possible harm for the people of India from a continued expansion of the nuclear complex.
According to the authors, the US sees India as a major prize and support for its military buildup and its nuclear complex seems to be the price the Bush administration is willing to pay. The goal, it seems, to be pursued regardless of how it will spur the spiral of distrust, political tension, and dangerous, costly, and wasteful military preparedness between the United States and China, between China and India and between India and Pakistan. This last dynamic is already coming into view, as Pakistan has demanded (and been refused) the same deal that is being offered to India, and China wants any exemptions for international nuclear cooperation and trade to be offered not only to India but to be open to others, ie its ally, Pakistan. In all these countries, containing about one in three people on the planet, many of whom are very poor, this will amount to a tragic distortion of values and priorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:55 ||
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#1
"You are all allies, and allies are all equal, but some are more equal than others."
The political authorities of Mohmand Agency said on Saturday there were no terrorists in the agency and the law and order situation in the area was satisfactory. Talking to reporters at the Mohmand Press Club in Ghalanai, Dr Jamal Nasir, the administrative chief of the tribal territory, said the Mohmand tribe had successfully kept foreigners away, which resulted in swift completion of development projects in the area.
Meanwhile, trade between the Mohmand Agency and the Afghan city of Jalalabad came to a halt after a row between two sub-tribes, Kodakhel and Haleemzai, of the agency over transport control. The Haleemzai tribe has been controlling the majority of trade with Jalalabad. The Kodakhel tribe reportedly hampered trade with the neighbouring country on the plea that they should have an equal share in trade. They want their vehicles to be used to transport goods.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:49 ||
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Politicians and people have to join hands to start a movement to overthrow the military-led government, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) President Qazi Hussain Ahmad told Supreme Court Bar Associations (SCBA) programme Encounter at the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) on Saturday. Qazi said the parliament was a strong platform for the opposition, adding that there was no need to resign from the upper house. He said that resignations could affect the ongoing anti-government movements. He said that resignations from the parliament could only be effective when the parties having 15 to 20 seats in the house would lead the campaign.
Qazi said the judiciary legitimised the dictatorship, adding that courts in Pakistan were not free. He said the MMA would meet soon to evolve a strategy to change the government, adding that opposition parties help would also be sought in this regard.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:43 ||
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The United States indicated on Friday that a controversial civilian nuclear agreement with India might not be ready by the time US President George W Bush makes his first visit to New Delhi in March. Its very hard to say, Nicholas "Monty" Burns, the chief US negotiator of the deal, told reporters in Washington, when asked how far along would the landmark bilateral pact be when Bush made the trip. But he said that a complex plan requiring India to separate civilian and military nuclear programmes, a key component of the agreement, might happen before the presidents visit.
Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed on the basic outline of the civil nuclear cooperation initiative in Washington in July last year and the two countries had hoped to seal an agreement before the presidents visit. That remains our plan. And Ive been in touch with the Indian government this week. I expect to be in touch with them in the coming days, and we hope to reach that goal, Burns said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:41 ||
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#1
This whole thing with India is ridiculous. Of course we aren't going to do this nuclear deal with them, unless they support referring Iran to the UN Security Council. To not exert our influence to stop Iran would be a critical mistake. If you want a textbook design of what not to do in foreign policy- just look at what the Clinton Administration did...... which was ultimately nothing. North Korea now has nuclear weapons, Saddam stayed in power, and Iran is still a(n increasingly bigger) thorn in our side.
Police in eastern Pakistan have arrested around 100 Islamic activists after they threatened to block a mixed-sex marathon this weekend. Those arrested on Saturday were from the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a six-party alliance which favours Taliban-style fundamentalist laws and which banned male coaches from training female athletes in North West Frontier Province in 2003. Police spokesman Nayab Haider Naqvi said: "More than 100 MMA workers and activists including students have been arrested by Lahore police for attacking and injuring policemen."
The MMA, which has vowed to disrupt Sunday's marathon in Lahore if women take part, disputed the police figures and said more than 1000 workers had been arrested. Amirul Azeem, the MMA's Lahore chief said: "So far police have arrested more than 1000 MMA workers from Lahore and different cities of Punjab province. "The government is trying to stop our protest over the mixed marathon race."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:03 ||
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The former deputy of the Iraqi air force, General Georges Sada, revealed on Saturday that that former dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, ordered him during the first Gulf War to bomb Israeli population centers with chemical weapons.
I'm not too sure at which point that would have been, seen we started out by clobbering their air force...
The ousted dictator, said Sada in recently published book, Saddam's secret's, ordered 96 Russian fighter jets to be armed with chemical weapons and sent to bomb Israel.
Right. They coulda gotten 96 aircraft off the ground. At a time. And I'm a six-foot-two ski instructor named Sven.
According to Sada, who recently served as a national security advisor to the temporary prime minister and was in the midst of a book tour in the US, said he succeeded in convincing Hussein to reconsider his order. Sada said he convinced Saddam to abort the mission by telling him that the Iraqi pilots could not complete the mission with the equipment at their disposal, and that the Israelis had radar that could detect them before they reached their target.
I can actually believe that. Remember before the latest Gulf War, Sammy suggested mounting machine guns on their tanks...
In his book, which was written four years ago, Sada also claims that Iraq's chemical weapons were taken to Syria aboard civilian Iraqi "Boeing" airplanes just prior to the US invasion. The 65-year-old Sada said that 56 flights of this type took place, but went largely unnoticed because they were flying under the guise of humanitarian aid.
I doubt if they went unnoticed. I'll betcha there's a log that lists every takeoff and landing inside Iraq for the six months leading up to the war at least.
Prior to the second Iraq war Israel warned that Iraq was moving chemical weapons from its territory into Syria. Chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction were never found in Iraq by US-led allied forces.
Reda Jawad Taqi, the official in charge of political relations in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI), an influential Shia party that is led by Abdel Aziz Hakim and part of the United Iraqi Alliance, has underlined the nomination of vice-president Adel Abdel Mahdi to head the next government. Meanwhile, Dr. Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni), asserted that no serious or detailed meeting has been held so far with the other entities about forming the next government. Taqi pointed out that official talks concerning the structure of the government would start early next week when Massoud Barzani, the Kurdistan Democratic Party leader and president of the Kurdistan region, arrives in Baghdad to take part.
Speaking on the phone to Asharq Al-Awsat from his office in Baghdad yesterday, Taqi said: "Abdel Mahdi is SCIRI's candidate and his rivals are the current Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Dr. Nadim Jabiri, secretary general of Al-Fadilah Party. Serious talks will take place over the next two days so that the United Iraqi Alliance will decide on this matter and nominate the person who will form the cabinet. The Alliance won a majority of the votes in the recent elections that qualify it to nominate one of its members to be the next prime minister." He added, "Within the Alliance, we are seeking to nominate the prime minister by consensus and are not expecting any disagreements over this issue."
Asked whether Al-Jaafari would insist on being nominated and on remaining prime minister, Taqi said: "We will vote inside the Alliance and it will decide whoever wins in this vote. The name of Hussein al-Shahristani, alliance member and deputy speaker of the outgoing National Assembly, will be added to the list of candidates." Taqi stressed that the "competition within the Alliance in the end will be between Al-Jaafari and Abdel Mahdi." He did not rule out, however, the withdrawal of Al-Fadilah Party from the Alliance if its secretary General Jabiri is not nominated, adding, "This is a possibility."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:27 ||
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Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director Plans and Policy in the United States Central Command, said that the multinational forces are working on "driving a wedge between insurgents in Iraq and terrorists" so that all Iraqis may participate in the political process. General Kimmitt's remarks came during a meeting with Arab journalists in London, after which he gave exclusive statements to Asharq al-Awsat, in which he stressed that "there is no place in Iraq for militias", warning of the spread of the "seeds of sectarian divisions" there. Kimmitt went on to say that his country, along with its allies, is waging a "long war" on terrorism that will rage on for years to come, and which will not end with the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, even though he considered him "the greater threat" to the world today.
General Kimmitt said that the United States is focusing its efforts on "driving a wedge between the terrorists in Iraq, and those who feel left out of the political process". However, he went on to stress: "we will not negotiate with terrorists who have blood on their hands." He added, "A lot of people are still sitting on the fence. We wish to persuade these people to participate in the political process." The general went on to say that, the United States is reaching out to "groups that might have contributed to limited operations, or might have provided assistance to other groups. We must distinguish between those who have blood on their hands, and those who provided limited assistance. All 25 million Iraqis have to be (politically) represented, not a few thousand terrorists."
General Kimmit warned that "the seeds" of civil war have found their way into Iraq, but "are not being spread on fertile ground, which is in the form of 25 million Iraqis who do not want war." He added, "There are those who wish to sowthese seeds and divide the country. This is what Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (leader of the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers) wants. Greatest way to prevent that is by the 25 million Iraqis who want to live in peace not to allow it to happen". Kimmitt voiced concerns over the possibility that "brothers might raise arms against one another because the United States is no stranger to this scenario, which we do not want to see happen in Iraq because it divided our country and it divides our country up to this point".
Kimmit maintained that "there is not a place in Iraq for militias and extra-governmental security forces. Militias have to be gradually disbanded and absorbed into a single national Security apparatus." He added, "The presence of militias gives meaning to the notion that this is not one national country, but is a collection of pockets of groups and tribes that are responsible for their own well-being. This is not what national sovereignty is about." The general went on to say that the Coalition Provisional Authority (which ruled Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime) sought to dissolve the militias "when clear directives were issued regarding the need to disband militias in the long run. The process of demilitarization, demobilization and reintegration of some groups started, but it is not as far along as one would have hoped at this point. Clearly this is the long-term aspiration, not only for the Coalition but for the government themselves, that there would be no militias in the country".
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:15 ||
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Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has told the heads of the Palestinian security services that they are subordinate to the Presidential Office and not the Hamas-led government that will be established in the next few weeks. In a meeting at the Muqata on the weekend, Abbas explicitly instructed the security chiefs to report to him personally, as the "supreme commander of the security forces," an official from the Palestinian security services in Ramallah told Haaretz.
Wonder if he ordered any gold braid for his suit? That would help.
Abbas made it clear that, in the event of a constitutional crisis in the PA between the Presidential Office, and the parliament and government, the security forces must be loyal to the PA chairman. Abbas also emphasized that the jobs of the security heads are secure and that the government will not take steps to fire them.
This will last until the Hamas gunnies light up the Presidential Office.
Fatah activists and PA police officers pledged their loyalty to Abbas on Sunday, briefly taking over the parliament buildings in Ramallah and Gaza City. After the Abbas meeting in Ramallah, participants met with policemen and officers under their command to tell them what was discussed.
According to the PA constitution, the cabinet and the Interior Ministry are in charge of the security forces, but the chairman is their supreme and direct boss. The temporary constitution states that the chairman is also responsible for the PA's foreign relations and other critical issues, such as the negotiations with Israel.
According to the official who spoke with Haaretz, Abbas' directive was aimed at preventing the security forces from disintegrating during the interregnum and to prevent a situation in which all centers of power within the PA are transfered to Hamas after it forms the government.
#6
I suspect it will end up with the Fatah/PLO police force against the Hamas army, while those unaffiliated cower in their cellars -- until they're dragged up into the sunlight to be killed for it. Nothing new, really, just bigger, and with better uniforms.
Senior Hamas officials, following their victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, are demanding to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is slated to kick off her first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Sunday, Israel Radio reported.
However, Merkel plans to shun Hamas on her trip and will meet only with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when she visits Ramallah on Monday, her spokesman, Ulrich Wilhelm, told reporters. "Our partner in dialogue is not Hamas, but Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian territories," Wilhelm said.
Abbas, an army of one.
Merkel vowed Israel would be one of her first destinations abroad even before she was elected. Jerusalem follows Brussels, Washington and Moscow on Merkel's agenda of diplomatic visits as chancellor. Merkel will meet Sunday with Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who will hold a dinner in her honor in the King David hotel in Jerusalem. On Monday, she will meet with MKs Amir Peretz and Benjamin Netanyahu, Olmert's opponents in the upcoming general elections, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
Merkel will take a two-hour tour of Holocaust Museum of History at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, after which she will head to the West Bank, where she will meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
Assuming he hasn't gone into hiding.
The chancellor's trip had been in doubt because of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's incapacitation since his January 4 stroke, but she decided to ahead with it. Her visit marks the first by a high-level international personality since Sharon's absence.
Olmert will officially thank Merkel, who is considered very friendly toward Israel, for the German decision to provide Israel's navy with a new submarine with which to strike Iran. The two leaders will discuss the special relations between the two countries and upcoming events to mark 40 years of their diplomatic relations.
Merkel's meetings in Jerusalem will address the upheaval in the Palestinian Authority following Hamas' sweeping victory in last week's legislative elections as well as efforts to thwart the development of Iran's nuclear program.
After securing a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council that exceeded all its expectations (76 out of 132 seats), the HAMAS movement finds itself with the responsibility of forming a government, which it prefers to be a government of national unity or "political partnership".
Curious. They've got a clear majority, but they still feel constrained to share the boodle. Must be the al-Aqsa Martyrs' influence...
Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas (Abu Mazin) announced that he would invite Hamas to form the government since it is the party with the majority in parliament. Ismail Haniyah, who topped the HAMAS list of winners and one of the movement's senior leaders in Gaza who worked as the secretary of its late founder Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, said he agreed with President Abu Mazin to meet during the next two days. Speculations increased meanwhile on who would be forming the government. Some circles say Haniyah is the strongest candidate while other parties mention Dr. Mahmud al-Zahhar as the likely one to occupy this post. Third parties rule out Al-Zahhar because they say he suffers from health problems believed to be stomach cancer.
Hopefully fatal stomache cancer, but we should be so lucky...
However, a Hamas official in Damascus told Asharq al-Awsat that the movement has not decided yet whether it would accept to form the government or not despite Abu-Mazin's talk about his intention to ask it to form one. He added, "The movement is still in the stage of consultations and is supposed to make up its mind in the coming two days. If it does agree to form a government, it will consult with and talk to the other factions and figures. We would be repeating a failed experiment if we do not consult."
They're used to being the opposition. It's kinda like Yasser, when he was presented with the Camp David agreement. He turned it down because he knew how to be a revolutionary, but he had no idea how to govern a state.
The official ruled out the likelihood of Khalid Mishal, the chairman of the movement's political bureau, forming the government, even if he returned to the homeland, something which is unlikely to happen at present, despite what the Jerusalem-based "Al-Quds" newspaper reported yesterday. He said that Khalid Mishal is not after the post.
Yep. Better at being a revolutionary.
Citing sources close to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas that it did not name, "Al-Quds" newspaper said contacts were underway between Mishal, the EU, and the PA to facilitate his return to Gaza and noted that the EU promised to ask the United States to intervene with Israel not to prevent Mishal's return to Gaza.
Meshaal's the actual head of Hamas, as head of the politburo. As such, he's a prime candidate to eat a couple yards of missile next time a bus booms.
It added that it also learned "that next week might see a meeting between Mishal and Abu Mazin in Gaza" and stressed that HAMAS would be reorganizing its internal affairs and political programs so as to shoulder its responsibilities after its big victory in the elections and that this could not be achieved without the return of its leaders to the Palestinian territories to exercise authority. However, the Damascus source denied categorically that there are such contacts and said such talk is premature. It did not however rule out efforts by the movement to return the largest possible number of capable members to take up their positions.
Yeah. It'll be interesting to watch them try to run the Paleo territories from Damascus. And instructive.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:18 ||
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Iran has formed a top secret team of nuclear specialists to infiltrate the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, the UN-sponsored body that monitors its nuclear programme, The Daily Telegraph has been told.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/29/2006 20:47 ||
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The international dispute over Iran's nuclear programme is heading for a showdown this week as American and British officials make a last-ditch bid to secure Russian and Chinese support for referring Teheran to the United Nations Security Council.
Iran is engaging in a characteristic display of diplomatic brinkmanship as it gives off mixed signals about a Russian compromise proposal ahead of Thursday's emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.
Yesterday, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary struck a conciliatory note by insisting that military action against Iran was "genuinely" not on the table, despite a growing groundswell of support for that option in America.
as in, the President saying he did not rule it out
A Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg poll conducted last week showed 57 per cent of Americans backed military intervention if Iran pursued a programme that could allow it to build nuclear arms, despite public concern over mounting US casualties in Iraq.
Senator John McCain, a potential 2008 Republican presidential contender, said last night that it was important to maintain the "leverage" of the military option.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Straw said: "I have never had a discussion with any senior American from the very top downwards, except to say the military option is not on the table."
tells you who he speaks with - and doesn't
Mr Straw said that Iran was among the most difficult countries in the world to negotiate with, but that he was keen for a solution that did not "involve humiliation of either side".
good luck, Jack
He said the country had been badly treated by the international community in the past - notably in the support for the previous regime of the Shah and the backing for Iraq in a bloody war against its neighbour - leaving a lingering sense of "humiliation" that partly explained its position.
Yesterday, the head of Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Guards, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, warned on state television that they would retaliate with missiles if attacked.
At a meeting of Security Council foreign ministers in London tomorrow, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, will insist that the time has come to refer Iran to the UN for further action after it removed the seals on centrifuges that can enrich uranium.
Mr Straw and the French will back the Americans, but China and Russia's approaches remain in doubt. Beijing last week urged further talks over Moscow's offer to enrich uranium on Iran's behalf at Russian plants - a deal supposed to allay fears that Teheran would use the material for nuclear weapons.
Ms Rice and Mr Straw will try to assuage Russian and Chinese concerns by insisting that referral to the Security Council is only the first step in ratcheting up the diplomatic pressure on Teheran, and will not automatically be followed by the imposition of sanctions.
Washington and London are confident that they can secure enough votes on the 35-member IAEA board to refer Iran to the Security Council, even if Russia and China abstain.
Iran, which claims its nuclear programme is for civilian energy purposes, last week expressed renewed interest in the Russian initiative, which it had previously rejected. Western officials are convinced that this is merely a delaying tactic.
"The Iranians are doing nothing but trying to throw up chaff and people shouldn't let them get away with it," said Ms Rice.
#2
Blair really needs to toss this loser. Making statements like that in public is "most unhelpful."
It's what one can expect from the unified EU position however.
The UK is on an inevitable parting of ways with North America and alingment with Germany and France. Enjoy the hole that they have pre-dug for you Mr Straw.
#5
At first read, I was ready to thump him for that opin; however since Britain is quietly increasing troop strength in Afghanistan to relieve the US, I'll give him a pass!
#6
Yesterday, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary struck a conciliatory note by insisting that military action against Iran was "genuinely" not on the table,..
#13
Blair has to contain sections of surrenderist leftist within his own Labour Party. But he is more aware than most both of the "Death to..." sloganering that goes on in Iran, and the fact that a nuclearized Iran could carry out those threats. I forsee the US alone, conducting massive crippling attacks on Iran, aimed both at de-proliferation and regime change. Persian blogs and news posts, reveal daily protests and riots against the tyranny. Yesterday, striking bus drivers smashed windows of vehicles that were driven by Basiji Gestapo members, revealing public contempt for the tyrants.
The Bush regime is well aware that the Euros are leveraged by the Teheran tyranny, on the oil supply issue. The US is somewhat independent of that influence. At the moment, most Euros are fed up with Muslims and would welcome a take-down of one of their more depraved elements.
Disregard public statements; the Iranian tyranny has to go. As the Officers' Club bloggers say repeatedly: Iran poses a "mortal threat" to the US Homeland. "Mortal threats" are dealt with, mortally. It is now or never. And never cannot be an option.
WND. Salt as needed.
While the U.S. and E.U. nations are scrambling to convince Iran to abandon its program of uranium enrichment and debating bringing the Islamic Republic before the U.N. Security Council, Tehran may be in the process of directly purchasing the plutonium it needs to make a bomb from North Korea, intelligence sources say.
As WorldNetDaily reported, North Korea made 30 pounds of plutonium last summer during the six-party talks hosted by China to end their weapons program by reprocessing 8,000 nuclear fuel rods. Beijing is currently working to restart a reactor capable of producing enough plutonium to manufacture 10 atomic bombs a year.
For the first time since the nuclear crisis began in 1994, reports the London Times, North Korea has sufficient fissile material to sell some to its ally while retaining enough for its own purposes. Recent reports of Iran offering North Korea oil for nuclear technology has U.S. intelligence experts concerned that a deal is being put together by the two nations for the "surplus" plutonium.
In 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discovered North Korea had sold 1.7 tons of uranium to Libya, demonstrating how difficult trade in nuclear weapons-related materials is to detect and stop.
While constructing a weapon from plutonium is more complicated, only 15 to 20 pounds of the material is needed to make each nuclear bomb a relatively small amount of material to transport between the two countries. Already, Iran is believed to be sharing results from its missile tests with North Korea in exchange for nuclear technology and, according to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Iran is building a research reactor "optimal for the production of weapons-grade plutonium."
Tehran sources say Iran's Revolutionary Guards has established its own links with North Korea, bypassing standard diplomatic channels. "Whatever they're up to, it's probably done through the Revolutionary Guards," said a western diplomat.
As WorldNetDaily reported, Iran's new hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad placed Iran's nuclear program under the control of militant commanders of the Revolutionary Guard shortly after taking office. Jalaleddin Namini Mianji, Iran's ambassador to North Korea who was appointed by the previous "reformist" government, is reportedly being recalled and his successor can be expected to be someone who will facilitate whatever nuclear deals the two countries are making.
The U.S. is sufficiently concerned the evidence points to a pending plutonium sale it has mounted a diplomatic offensive through China and South Korea to convey the message that transferring plutonium between the two nations would cross a "political red line."
Iran has asked the United States to allow direct flights between the two countries after a break of more than two decades, a senior civil aviation official said on Thursday.
The request comes as the United States and its European Union allies are pressing for the Islamic Republic to be reported to the United Nations Security Council where it could face possible sanctions for its nuclear program.
"We sent a letter to the relevant American officials on Wednesday, announcing Iran's willingness to resume direct flights," Nourollah Rezai-Niaraki, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, told state television.
He said the decision to make the request was taken by hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad due to demand from the large Iranian community living in the United States.
"They have repeatedly complained about wasting time and losing their baggage on connecting flights," the official said.
Iranian airliners have been barred from the United States since the US government broke ties with Tehran after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
An Iranian civil aviation spokesman said Ahmadinejad's decision did not signal any move to try to improve relations between the two old foes. "I hope American officials do not adopt a political stance in making a decision on this request," said spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh.
The United States and the EU accuse Iran of trying to make nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. Tehran says it needs nuclear technology to satisfy booming domestic electricity demand.
Iran is subject to US economic sanctions imposed in 1996, under the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Due to the sanctions, Iran has struggled to maintain its ageing fleet of aircraft, mostly US-built Boeing planes bought before the 1979 revolution. "Chutzpah of the Year" Award?
#1
"We sent a letter to the relevant American officials on Wednesday, announcing Iran's willingness to resume direct flights,"
That's nice.
He said the decision to make the request was taken by hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad due to demand from the large Iranian community living in the United States.
"They have repeatedly complained about wasting time and losing their baggage on connecting flights," the official said.
And we want their currency here, so we'd better fix this.
"I hope American officials do not adopt a political stance in making a decision on this request,"
Cause it's such a hassle trying to get suicide bombers into the States the indirect way ....
#5
Uh, Nope, no way, not a chance in hell. But I think if Iran continues acting the way they do they will get a few flyovers from the US and all the enriched Uranium they can stand, for free!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/29/2006 10:41 Comments ||
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#6
Did Rezai-Niaraki get a rim-shot when he said this?
#11
Iran has asked the United States to allow direct flights between the two countries after a break of more than two decades, a senior civil aviation official said on Thursday.
US President George W Bush said on Friday that sanctions against Iran were certainly a real possibility if Tehran does not do enough to ease fears that it is trying to develop nuclear weapons. A free world cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon; not just the US, but those of us who value freedom, Bush told CBS television in an interview. And that is why our strategy is to present and hold together a united front, to say to the Iranians: Your designs to have a nuclear weapon or your desire to have the capability of making a nuclear weapon is unacceptable.
Asked whether sanctions would work against Iran, Bush replied: I have said that is certainly a real possibility. Asked whether he had reviewed plans for possible military action, Bush said: I think its best I just leave it that all options should be on the table, and the last option is the military option. Weve got to work hard to exhaust all diplomacy. And thats what the country is seeing happen, Bush said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:34 ||
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#1
Use of rhetoric-bombs aren't in the cards. Something huge is in the works.
The Iranian tyranny organizes "death to America" and "death to Zionism" screamfests, and wants nuclear weapons. I detect a good pretext for major pre-emptive operations.
#2
I suppose I disagree with virtually everyone who reads these pages regarding the possibility of conflict with Iran. Donald Rumsfeld, in another context, once remarked that the U.S. was a country of people who, when they see something not working, want to do it themselves. This is particularly true with respect to the EU, which clearly is alarmed by the prospect of a nuclear Iran, but would react badly in response to a unilateral action on our part. Who would blame them? Oil will spike to $150 per barrel in the short run, and Iran ain't going to get the kid-glove treatment that was dealt Iraq and continues to this day. The only way an attack on Iran will occur is if the UK, France, and Germany are 100 percent on board -- unless the nervous nellie mullahs of Iran do something really stupid, like blocking the Straits of Hormuz.
#3
"Weve got to work hard to exhaust all diplomacy."
Sounds like exhausting it is just part of the overall plan, doesn't it? He didn't say "Weve got to solve this through diplomacy." My read between the lines is "Weve got to work hard to exhaust all diplomacy... before the winter heating season ends and our attack begins."
#4
Perfesser, you get 1/3 credit. If the UK is on board, it's a go. At best France is an ally of our enemies. Their opinion counts for nothing. The Germans might get a consult call, but no veto.
I suspect the reality will be that they agree behind closed doors but that they squeal in public for their Muslim minorities. I care much more what Japan, India and Australia think than Germany and France. I suspect most Americans not in the State Department feel the same way.
#5
France can't bring anything to the party and all Germany has to offer would be air bases. Britain can bring moral support and some troops, but an unfortunate fact of the 21st Century is that if anything is to be done, the US has to do it. Everyone else is just along for the ride.
Iran would launch medium-range missiles if attacked, a military leader said, accusing Britain and the United States of arming rebels as international pressure mounts on Tehran over its nuclear plans. Yahya Rahim Safavi, commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guard, told state television on Saturday: "If we come under a military attack, we will respond with our very effective missile defence."
It wasn't very effective when they were trading SCUDs with Sammy.
Western states suspect Iran of secretly aiming to build a nuclear bomb.
Which would make it effective...
Tehran insists its nuclear facilities are intended to produce only electricity.
And its missiles are intended only for civil air transport...
The United States and Israel have said they would prefer to solve the stand-off through diplomacy but have not ruled out a military strike. Military experts reckon the Revolutionary Guard's Shahab-3 missiles have a range of some 2000 km, meaning Israel, US bases in the Gulf and foreign troops in Iraq lie within their range.
I'd guess many of them would be Tomahawked before they could be launched. The turbans don't have any idea of what they're playing with.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 01:57 ||
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#1
What scary payload are they claiming on those IRBMs?
#7
>i>The United States and Israel have said they would prefer to solve the stand-off through diplomacy but have not ruled out a military strike. Military experts reckon the Revolutionary Guard's Shahab-3 missiles have a range of some 2000 km, meaning Israel, US bases in the Gulf and foreign troops in Iraq lie within their range..
I dunno, with Iran's newly-developped "Inshalla" guidance system, could land anywhere.
A prominent Lebanese journalist who was maimed last year in an assassination attempt says she will run for a parliamentary seat that has become vacant after the death of a legislator. May Chidiac, an anchorwoman with LBC television, told a news conference in Paris, where she is receiving treatment, that she would run as an independent. Chidiac said she wanted to work in parliament "so that what happened to me does not happen to others and so that the series of crimes taking place in Lebanon are not repeated." "My sacrifices were at the level of the whole of Lebanon and I hope I will get the support of Lebanon as a whole," she said. Chidiac, sitting on a wheel chair, said in footage aired by LBC she hoped "that there will be accordance concerning my nomination."
Last September, Chidiac lost her left leg and arm in after bomb placed under her car exploded. The attack was one of more than a dozen have killed or wounded politicians, journalists and other Lebanese in the last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 01:46 ||
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A Muslim civil liberties group has demanded an apology from the host of a Los Angeles-area radio show for making fun of a stampede that killed hundreds of Muslims during the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. The Council on American-Islamic Relations on Friday asked for an apology from KFI-AM 640 host Bill Handel, who allegedly made fun of the deaths during a 12 January segment he called the "Annual Stampede Report".
Hey! That's our line!
A spokeswoman for KFI, which is owned by Clear Channel Communications, did not immediately return a message left on Thursday. Handel's producer, Michelle Kube, also did not return calls for comment. Handel had left work for the day and attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.
Handel's email is bill@kfi640.com if you want to send him a message of support.
At least 363 pilgrims were killed and hundreds injured in a stampede on 12 January near Makka, where thousands of people were rushing to carry out a symbolic ritual of stoning three pillars representing the devil in Mina.
Yeah. We remember. We called it before it happened, remember? Maybe we owe CAIR an apology for that, too?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/29/2006 02:09 ||
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#1
Meccan clerics show the love:
http://www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/9022.htm;
http://www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/823.htm;
http://www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/819.htm;
http://www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/411.htm;
http://www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/1807.htm;
http://www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/1628.htm;
http://www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/201.htm;
http://www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/2108.htm
Yeah, the carpet-humpers really deserve our respect.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A severe drought in and around Somalia has left up to 2.1 million people in urgent need of assistance, a group monitoring food availability in the region has reported. 
Opposition Islamist lawmakers have walked out of Egypt's parliament to protest against the expulsion of a fellow MP who had criticised the government for letting a French warship through the Suez Canal. The Muslim Brotherhood said on its web site that parliament speaker Fathi Sorour had expelled Mustafa Mohamed Mustafa on Saturday "to deny the Muslim Brotherhood MPs the chance to reveal new scandals of the Egyptian government in the matter of the French ship Clemenceau". 
Jan 28: Kuwait has strongly condemned the publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the Prophet Mohammad (SM). "Kuwait strongly condemns and denounces what was published in one of the Danish newspapers," a senior foreign ministry official was quoted as saying in a statement published by Kuwaiti dailies.
North Korea has warned of nuclear war and has vowed to strengthen its deterrent forces, as it demanded that Washington show evidence backing its allegation that the communist regime is counterfeiting US money. North's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said: "Dark clouds of a nuclear war are hanging low over the Korean Peninsula." 
German authorities have prohibited foreign travel by a far-right-wing lawyer, Horst Mahler, amid fears that he may attend a Holocaust denial conference in Iran, an official confirmed Thursday. Mahler, 70, who has been convicted in German courts of sedition and glorifying crime, defends neo-Nazis and has anti-Semitic views. 
Politicians and people have to join hands to start a movement to overthrow the military-led government, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) President Qazi Hussain Ahmad told Supreme Court Bar Associations (SCBA) programme Encounter at the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) on Saturday. Qazi said the parliament was a strong platform for the opposition, adding that there was no need to resign from the upper house. He said that resignations could affect the ongoing anti-government movements. He said that resignations from the parliament could only be effective when the parties having 15 to 20 seats in the house would lead the campaign. 
The United States indicated on Friday that a controversial civilian nuclear agreement with India might not be ready by the time US President George W Bush makes his first visit to New Delhi in March. Its very hard to say, 
Police in eastern Pakistan have arrested around 100 Islamic activists after they threatened to block a mixed-sex marathon this weekend. Those arrested on Saturday were from the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a six-party alliance which favours Taliban-style fundamentalist laws and which banned male coaches from training female athletes in North West Frontier Province in 2003. Police spokesman Nayab Haider Naqvi said: "More than 100 MMA workers and activists including students have been arrested by Lahore police for attacking and injuring policemen." 
Reda Jawad Taqi, the official in charge of political relations in the 
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has told the heads of the Palestinian security services that they are subordinate to the Presidential Office and not the Hamas-led government that will be established in the next few weeks. In a meeting at the Muqata on the weekend, Abbas explicitly instructed the security chiefs to report to him personally, as the "supreme commander of the security forces," an official from the Palestinian security services in Ramallah told Haaretz.
Senior Hamas officials, following their victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, are demanding to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is slated to kick off her first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Sunday, Israel Radio reported.
The official ruled out the likelihood of 
US President George W Bush said on Friday that sanctions against Iran were certainly a real possibility if Tehran does not do enough to ease fears that it is trying to develop nuclear weapons. A free world cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon; not just the US, but those of us who value freedom, Bush told CBS television in an interview. And that is why our strategy is to present and hold together a united front, to say to the Iranians: Your designs to have a nuclear weapon or your desire to have the capability of making a nuclear weapon is unacceptable.
Iran would launch medium-range missiles if attacked, a military leader said, accusing Britain and the United States of arming rebels as international pressure mounts on Tehran over its nuclear plans. 
A prominent Lebanese journalist who was maimed last year in an assassination attempt says she will run for a parliamentary seat that has become vacant after the death of a legislator. 
A Muslim civil liberties group has demanded an apology from the host of a Los Angeles-area radio show for making fun of a stampede that killed hundreds of Muslims during the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. The 
