Some turn violent in march to GOP convention (weasely AP title)
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Protesters attacked delegates, smashed windows, punctured car tires and threw bottles Monday, a violent counterpoint to an otherwise peaceful anti-war march at the Republican National Convention. Police wielding pepper spray arrested at least 56 people. Peaceful except for the violence? Brilliant, AP
The trouble happened not far from the Xcel Energy Center convention site, and many of those involved in the more violent protest were clad in black and identified themselves to reporters as anarchists. They wrought havoc by damaging property and setting at least one fire. Most of the trouble was in pockets of a neighborhood near downtown, several blocks from where the convention was taking place.
Police estimates of the crowd shifted several times during the event, ranging from 2,000 to 10,000. The crowd was clearly in the thousands. Late Monday afternoon, long after the antiwar marchers had dispersed, police requested and got 150 Minnesota National Guard soldiers to help control splinter groups near downtown. Now they can really feel some solidarity with their allies in Iraq, what few of the latter are still alive.
Members of the Connecticut delegation said they were attacked by protesters when they got off their bus near the Xcel Center, KMSP-TV reported. Delegate Rob Simmons told the station that a group of protesters came toward his delegation and tried to rip the credentials off their necks and sprayed them with a toxic substance that burned their eyes and stained their clothes. Any lefties out there care to defend this?
One 80-year-old member of the delegation had to be treated for injuries, and several other delegates had to rinse their eyes and clothing, the station reported.
Five people were arrested for lighting a trash bin on fire and pushing it into a police car, St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said. Authorities didn't have immediate details on the other arrests. The ACLU probably knows, they have observers and legal help booths everywhere the terrorists go.
The antiwar march was organized by a group called the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, whose leaders said they hoped for a peaceful, family-friendly event. But police were on high alert after months of preparations by a self-described anarchist group called the RNC Welcoming Committee, which wasn't among the organizers of the march. "We are peaceful, it's just an evil Rovian plot that anarchist thugs show up every time we have a march." Applying Occam's Razor: Fellow travelers, plausible (to friendly media) deniability.
About 20 people dressed in black tried to block a key intersection. Police quickly dispersed the group, then shot two tear gas canisters at them as the fled. Pictures taken by Associated Press photographers showed officers using pepper spray on people who appeared to be trying to block streets. Real authority; backed by courts, elections, the Constitution, etc.; versus presumed authority backed by Soros, drug culture, and the media. Guess who won?
Up to 200 people from a group called Funk the War noisily staged their own march. Wearing black clothes, bandanas and gas masks, some of their members smashed windows of cars and stores. They tipped over newspaper boxes, pulled a big trash bin into the street, bent the rearview mirrors on a bus and flipped heavy stone garbage bins on the sidewalks. Foraging for food?
One member of the group carried a yellow flag with the motto "Don't Tread on Me." The group chanted: "Whose streets? Our streets!" Wrong, moonbats, they are public streets. We'll talk about it when YOU manage to win an election.
At one point, people pushed a trash bin filled with trash and threw garbage in the streets and at cars. They also took down orange detour road signs. One of them used a screwdriver to puncture the back tire of a limousine waiting at an intersection and threw a wooden board at the vehicle, denting its side. Another hurled a glass bottle at a charter bus that had stopped at an intersection. The bottle smashed into pieces but didn't appear to damage the bus. So you see, no harm done (AP collaborator sub-text).
After the official march ended, police spent hours dispersing smaller groups of protesters, employing officers on horses, smoke bombs and tear gas. Clear the streets with a dash of pepper, as Napoleon might say.
Protesters put eye drops in each other's eyes after police used chemical irritants such as pepper spray and tear gas. Some wore bandanas and masks to protect themselves. You mean to keep their grandparents from seeing them on TV (mom lets them stay in the basement, so she would naturally hock the mini-van to pay their bail).
Protesters were seen lying on an interstate exit ramp to block traffic in downtown St. Paul and linking arms to block other roads. Corrie! Corrie! Corrie!
Terry Butts, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice who is a convention delegate, was on a bus taking delegates to the arena when a brick through the window sprayed glass on him and two others. Butts said he wasn't hurt. "It just left us a little shaken," he said. "It was sort of a frightening moment because it could have been a bomb or a Molotov cocktail." Fortunately, police seized a lot of the molotov supplies in a raid that has been uniformly denounced in the moonbat media.
#1
It's beyond time to stop this sort of attack on society. It has progressed well beyond adolescent tantrums and we have a right to defend ourselves vigorously against it.
#5
Paintball guns. Mark them for later arrest, not to mention current humiliation when their natural reaction to actually being shot at occurs. Paintball counts as a plaything anyway, and why should the idiots have all the fun?
#6
not a chance, TW - bags of cement on overpasses and excrement buckets constitute assault at least and attempted (if not the real thing) murder at best. Club em, and cuff em. Let their trust-fund parents try and bail their carcasses out. They are playing at a level where they don't pause to figure the possible damages. A bag of cement on a 80-passenger RNC bus could kill them all. I'm all for clubbing these fucks back to 1967
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/01/2008 21:41 Comments ||
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#7
"A bag of cement on a 80-passenger RNC bus could kill them all."
I think that was the idea, Frank. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/01/2008 21:56 Comments ||
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#8
We will not get a grip on this kind of terrorism until the courts and the Constitution, rather than the media and their activists allies, are once again allowed to define what is, and what is not, free speech:
-Assault is not free speech.
-Vandalism and looting are not free speech.
-Blocking a public thoroughfare is not free speech.
-Conspiring to sabotage the electoral process is not free speech.
-There is no Constitutional guarantee of immunity from criticism, disagreement, and political opposition, for moonbats or anyone else.
-Journalists are not not a lawfully consituted government and they are not above the law.
#9
Part of the intelligence effort is to infiltrate the groups and go for, arrest, and take out of circulation the leaders that instigate the riots. We should know who they are.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/01/2008 22:06 Comments ||
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#10
The simple solution for this is to install a gun locker at the entrance to the convention. As delegates arrive, they check their weapon with the "gun check girl", then when they leave, she gives them their gun back.
Imagine the surprise when some anarchist with a brick charges a little old lady and suddenly gets air conditioned by said lady.
Five Sudanese men accused of murdering a U.S. aid worker are religious extremists who plotted to attack foreigners at New Year's Eve gatherings, Sudanese prosecutors told a court on Sunday.
The five defendants chanted "God is great" as they walked into the East Khartoum court and were greeted by a crowd of supporters who shouted religious slogans and "Down, down, USA".
All five men wore beards and traditional white gowns, and a Reuters reporter at the court saw two of them spit in the faces of two Western women journalists before walking into the building with iron shackles on their ankles.
John Granville, a 33-year-old officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, was shot dead while returning home from New Year celebrations in Khartoum early on Jan. 1. His driver, Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama, 39, was also killed. Granville was the first U.S. government official to be killed in Khartoum in more than three decades.
Prosecutor Mohamed Al Mustapha Moussa told the court the five men last year rented a property in Atbara, a town north of Khartoum, trained there and bought weapons, including a Kalashnikov, a G3 rifle and pistols, according to a copy of the prosecution's opening statement seen by Reuters.
Later they moved to a house in Omdurman, a Khartoum suburb, where they rented a vehicle and started identifying New Year's Eve celebration venues to attack, the prosecutor said.
On New Year's Eve they drove out but found the venues either empty or too heavily guarded, said the prosecutor. "The prosecutor said it was then that they decided to drive around and look for victims who were coming out of New Year's celebrations," Adil Abdel Ghani, one of the five's defense lawyers, told Reuters after the 30-minute hearing.
The prosecution said that the five young men were religious extremists who had been misled by "Satan" into thinking their attack was in line with the teaching of the Koran, and that they chanted religious slogans after killing Granville and Rahama.
The prosecutor asked the judge to find the men guilty of a charge under Chapter 130 of Sudanese law -- engaging in a common criminal venture -- and to try them under firearms laws, according to a copy of his opening address seen by Reuters. The offence could carry the death penalty, said Abdel Ghani.
The judge adjourned the case to Sept. 11 to allow Granville's family to appoint a lawyer and to find a larger courtroom, at the request of the defense.
At an earlier hearing, the defendants were identified as Mohamed Osman Yusuf Mohamed, 29, a former Sudanese army officer, Abdel Raouf Abu Zaid Mohamed, 23, a merchant and son of an Islamic preacher, Mohamed Makkawi Ibrahim Mohamed, also 23, a civil engineering student, Abdel Basit al-Hajj Hassan, 29, a trader and Morad Abdel Rahman, 35, a driver.
Days after the attack, a previously unknown group calling itself Ansar al-Tawhid (Supporters of Monotheism) in Sudan, posted a message on a Web site used by militants claiming responsibility for the killings.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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An Indian-born doctor arrested in Australia in July 2007 and accused of helping the men behind the bungled bombings in central London and the Glasgow airport that summer has been cleared of any wrongdoing, the Australian Federal Police said late Friday.
At the time of the arrest in 2007, the police told the court that a cellphone SIM card belonging to the doctor, Mohammed Haneef, had been found in one of the cars used in the planned attacks. Dr. Haneef had given the card to his cousin, Sabeel Ahmed, one of the suspects in the bombings, the year before when the two were living in Britain. But the police later admitted that the card had not been found in the vehicle.
The case against Dr. Haneef fell apart when other irregularities surfaced. Charges were dropped, but immigration revoked his visa. His lawyers said Friday that Dr. Haneef, now living in Dubai, wanted a formal apology and damages in the case.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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Several US officials have expressed concern over reports that PPP chief Asif Ali Zardari, who was diagnosed with mental problems as late as last year, will have partial control over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if elected president, a media report said on Monday.
Though Zardari's spokespersons contend that he had been cured, the American officials were wary of Zardari having a partial control over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if elected to the post in the September six presidential polls, Newsweek reported.
"Typically (the US) would not want that kind of person involved in a nuclear chain of command," said Pete Hoekstra, ranking Republican on the US House Intelligence Committee.
Doctors hired by Zardari had reportedly diagnosed him with problems like including dementia, depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Lawyers for Zardari, the report noted, argued in London's high court that he was too ill to testify in corruption- related cases, and they submitted recent mental health evaluations as evidence.
In March 2007, the Financial Times reported, New York psychologist Stephen Reich concluded Zardari was "chronically anxious and apprehensive" and had thoughts of suicide, though he had not acted on them. The newspaper wrote that a New York psychiatrist, Philip Saltiel, found that Zardari's long imprisonment in Pakistan while facing corruption probes had left him with "emotional instability" as well as memory and concentration problems
Posted by: john frum ||
09/01/2008 09:39 ||
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#1
a Pak with mental problems? Whoda thunk it?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/01/2008 10:40 Comments ||
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#2
For the region that sems a rather normal abnormality, I'd consider him "Normaly Deranged" and provide intensive "Correction, such as issuing a Koran with perforated tear-out pages, and no toilet paper.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/01/2008 12:13 Comments ||
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#3
So on the one side of the coalition we have Zardari, whose party helped Musharraf sack the Islamicist judges.
On the other side we have the Islamicists barely disguised within Sharif's party the Muslim League-N who withdrew from the government and went into opposition late last week because the PPP did not act to restore those judges to power.
Musharraf was many unpalatable things but this is what we get with his absence. And with the intrigue in Islamabad about internal power, all pressure is off the Afghan border regions and the Taliban there.
#4
Zadari will never even see a nuke, far less have partial control over one.
The Pak military keeps control no matter what civilian government is supposedly in power.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/01/2008 13:18 Comments ||
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The government has re-opened the Jamia Faridia madrassa following a deal with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Fazlur Rehman, a senior Islamabad Capital Territory official said on Sunday.
He denied the government had reached any agreement with the Lal Masjid administration before opening the madrassa late on Saturday night.
Lal Masjid deputy cleric Amir Siddique also said no agreement had been reached with the government for the opening of the madrassa, which was closed in July 2007. He added, however, that the government had a few reservations, which he claimed had been addressed through dialogue.
"The government had demanded that we reduce the number of madrassa students ... we considered their demand and agreed to it," Siddique said. He said political pressure had convinced the government to open the madrassa.
He denied that Jamia Hafsa -- a madarassa for female students adjacent to Lal Masjid -- would be rebuilt at an alternative site. "The Lal Masjid administration will never allow the madrassa's relocation."
Siddique said the mosque administration and madrassa students demanded the government release their former chief cleric Abdul Aziz before Ramazan.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Check out the modern solar-grey Sunglasses, definately NOT a ridgid follower of Mo ham Head,
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/01/2008 13:59 Comments ||
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Bahrain's King Hamad on Sunday named career diplomat Salah al-Maliki as the Gulf state's ambassador to Iraq, and the envoy said he expected to go to Baghdad soon.
The Bahraini monarch issued a decree appointing Maliki head of the Bahraini diplomatic mission in Iraq with ambassador rank, the official BNA news agency reported.
Maliki, 34, told AFP he expected to go to Iraq immediately after taking the oath before King Hamad. "This will not take longer than a week," he said, adding that he expected to be stationed in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone compound which houses government offices and the U.S. embassy.
The nomination of Maliki, who has served at the United Nations in New York, was reported by Bahraini newspapers in early July, but his appointment only became official on Sunday.
Bahrain is among a string of Sunni-ruled Arab states to announce that they are sending ambassadors to Baghdad amid pressure from Washington to upgrade relations with Iraq's Shiite-led government as a counterweight to Shiite Iran.
Kuwait, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have all recently named ambassadors.
But at present no Arab ambassador is actually in his post in Baghdad because of the lack of security. Bahrain's charge d'affaires Hassan an-Ansari was repatriated after he was wounded in July 2005 when gunmen tried to kidnap him in the Iraqi capital.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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Arab sources report that Hamas recently laid a pipeline for supplying the blockaded Gaza Strip with fuel from Egypt.
In a move that indicates that Hamas is trying to place the smuggling operation between Egyptian and Palestinian Rafah on an official footing, the pipeline was laid in one of several tunnels dug specifically for this purpose.
Cuts the competition for smuggling at any rate ...
At a conference last week in Rafah to discuss the smuggling tunnels phenomenon, Hamas government officials made it clear that they mean to prevent any new tunnels from operating, and to increase oversight of some 200 tunnels already in use. Hamas wants to thwart use of the tunnels for drug smuggling, and the exploitation of child labor in digging the tunnels.
The conference was organized by a Gazan human rights group under the banner: "The tunnels - advantages and disadvantages." Speakers, including Rafah Mayor Issa al-Nashar and Hamas' civil defense chief Yousef al-Zahar, praised the tunnels as important conduits for weapons for the "resistance," but also pointed to the dangers inherent in their operation. Nashar noted that numerous civilians were recently hurt by the collapse of tunnels in the Rafah area. He blamed some of these incidents on Egypt, which he accused of blowing up some tunnels and flooding others.
Egypt has indeed ratcheted up its anti-tunnel efforts lately, and is making impressive strides in locating tunnels and shutting them down.
Nashar demanded that a committee be appointed to supervise the materials entering Gaza through the tunnels, as well as the tunnel diggers' workload.
And to ensure that the top guys each get their cut ...
Yousef al-Zahar reported that his personnel had recently participated in rescue efforts at 16 collapsed tunnels, in which 19 people were killed and more than 100 injured. He said there are four reasons tunnels collapse: a fuel leak (in which case the tunnel should not be used for six months because of flammable fumes), poison gas piped in (which Hamas accuses Egypt of doing), improper digging and water flooding.
Better get some remedial training going at the Gaza Tunnel Authority ...
The national security commander for the border region, Ibrahim Abu al-Najar, reported that there are 200 tunnels in operation. He said that Hamas policemen are preventing new tunnels from opening, and are keeping an eye on the others to prevent drug smuggling.
So as to encourage ammo smuggling ...
One of the tunnel proprietors at the conference estimated that the industry is providing employment for some 4,000 people.
Arab sources say that children are frequently used in the digging process, and carry birds as an early-warning system to indicate a lack of oxygen. If the bird passes out, air is pumped into the tunnel.
And if the kid passes out?
Various estimates put Hamas' monthly profits from the tunnels at $20 million. Hamas levies a special tax on tunnel proprietors, and also collect fees for every bit of contraband - whether goods or people (wanted gunmen, people who need to go abroad for study or medical treatments, etc.) Besides explosives and metals for fashioning rockets, the array of products smuggled through the tunnels is staggering: ammo livestock, ammo drugs, ammo electrical appliances, ammo fuel, ammo cigarettes, ammo clothing, ammo toys and ammo much more.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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#6
When we were kids, my brothers and I dug a "Cave" in hard packed red clay. all was OK until father found out(He was horrified) and made us fill it in.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/01/2008 12:17 Comments ||
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#7
A peaceful society and a functioning economy would be a disaster for these people. They simply wouldn't know what to do with themselves.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Israel's idea of an interim peace agreement at a Sunday summit, a Palestinian negotiator said, insisting on an all-or-nothing approach that virtually ruled out an accord by a January target date. The latest meeting between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was their shortest, lasting less than an hour. Neither side pointed to progress.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Playing Olmert like a fish.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/01/2008 22:07 Comments ||
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Israel wants to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of the year but postpone a final agreement on the future status of Jerusalem, a senior government official said on Sunday.
"Both sides are interested in reaching a full agreement by the end of 2008 and believe it is possible," the official said after the latest meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. "But since the question of Jerusalem is not solvable within this timeframe they will have to agree to postpone an accord on this issue and agree on a mechanism and a timetable for Jerusalem," the official said.
The remarks came amid mounting pressure to show progress in slow-moving U.S.-backed peace talks as Olmert prepares to step down to battle a graft scandal following a September 17 party leadership election. Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev insisted Olmert's early departure from office "would not interfere with the discussions."
There are media reports that Olmert is pushing for a "framework agreement" to present to U.S. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice next month in Washington.
The talks were launched in November with the goal of reaching a comprehensive peace deal by the time Bush leaves office in January 2009, but the two sides remain sharply divided on the core issues of the conflict. These include not only the future status of Jerusalem, but final borders, the fate of some 4.6 million U.N.-registered Palestinian refugees, and the future of Jewish settlements on Israeli-occupied territory.
Jerusalem
Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that Olmert has presented Abbas with a proposal that would lay out framework principles on core issues and create a five-year international mechanism for reaching an agreement on Jerusalem.
Palestinians have demanded mostly Arab east Jerusalem -- seized and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six Day war in a move not recognized internationally -- as the capital of their future state. Israel considers the entire city its "eternal, undivided" capital.
According to Haaretz, Olmert's proposal would have Israelis and Palestinians negotiate a solution for Jerusalem with input from the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, Russia, and perhaps Egypt and Jordan.
Officials close to Abbas neither confirmed nor denied the Haaretz report, but the Palestinians have always insisted they will not accept a partial agreement that does not resolve all the core issues. "President Abbas and the Palestinian leadership are determined to arrive at a complete agreement including all the issues, but this depends on how serious the Israeli side is," Nimr Hamad, an advisor to Abbas, told AFP.
The Haaretz report was slammed by members of Olmert's government, including the deputy prime minister and head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party. "This government has no public legitimacy, and certainly no legal legitimacy to sign any shelf accord or reach any understanding on Jerusalem," Eli Yishai said during Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting.
Yishai, a crucial coalition ally, has repeatedly threatened to pull out of Olmert's government if the subject of Jerusalem is raised in the talks.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads Israel's negotiating team and attended the meeting, did not comment on the report but warned against a hasty agreement. "Time consideration should not force us to make the grave mistakes of trying to bridge gaps in a way that will lead to a breakdown or give up critical issues for Israel only to reach some results," an aide quoted Livni as saying.
Livni is a front-runner to succeed Olmert at the head of their centrist Kadima party and perhaps as prime minister, as is Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, a hawkish former general.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka have accused the army of killing five civilians, including two children, in the rebel-controlled north. The rebels said artillery shells fired by the military fell inside a camp for internally displaced people near the northern town of Kilinochchi.
But a Sri Lankan military spokesman later denied the rebels' accusation.
On Saturday, the government accused the Tigers of planting a bomb in Colombo which wounded at least 43 people. The blast comes as the government is undertaking a large offensive against the rebels in northern areas of the island.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
ION SRI LANKA. CHINESE MIL FORUM > CHINA'S SOUTHEAST ASIA EXPANSION. THE LATEST "GREAT GAME" INVOLVES THE INDIAN OCEAN - A SRI LANKAN PORT BUILT BY CHINA POINTS TO BEIJING JOCKEYING AGZ INDIA FOR REGIONAL INFLUENCE.
Also from SAME > WHY CHINA COULD NOT BACK/SUPPORT RUSSIA IN SOUTH OSETIAN CONFLICT. China broadly believes that any formal support of Russ action(s) will affect and induce various minority separatist movements [e.g. UIGHURS, KAZAKHS, MONGOLS, etc.]within China to intensify interna; calls for independence or greater autonomy[delinkage] from Beijing. China also fears that any overwhelming Russ in CENTRAL ASIA will also have ripple effects on China's econ vv trade and
"undesirable" refugees???
The Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, has called off an operation aimed at infiltrating and sabotaging Iran's weapons industry due to an assessment that a US attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is imminent, according to a report in the country's De Telegraaf newspaper on Friday. The report claimed that the Dutch operation had been "extremely successful," and had been stopped because the US military was planning to hit targets that were "connected with the Dutch espionage action."
Damnation. I finally get the Dutch to take on Operation Lemony Snickett and now this. Delays, delays, always with delays ...
The impending air-strike on Iran was to be carried out by unmanned aircraft "within weeks," the report claimed, quoting "well placed" sources. The Jerusalem Post could not confirm the De Telegraaf report.
According to the report, information gleaned from the AIVD's operation in Iran has provided several of the targets that are to be attacked in the strike, including "parts for missiles and launching equipment." "Information from the AIVD operation has been shared in recent years with the CIA," the report said.
According to the report, whether the United States and Western countries succeed in thwarting the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions diplomatically, through sanctions, or whether a US strike on Iran is eventually decided upon, Jerusalem has begun preparing for a separate, independent military strike.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/01/2008 13:55 ||
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#1
Does this make sense to any of you mil intel types? I can't tell who is spoofing and who is serious here. Doesn't make sense to me that the AIVD would reveal all this under any circumstances. Seems like it helps Iran, Syria, Russia, et. al. more than anyone else, so why talk about it unless you're with them?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/01/2008 16:21 Comments ||
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#2
Have to throw the BS flag on that one. While they do have an excellent commando facility on the Island of Texel, I doubt the Dutch have either means or the motivation to undertake such an endeavor. While scanning The Telegraaf, I did find an interesting article on Russia providing police training to Afghani police.
#8
I immediately assumed that if there were actually a Dutch agent present that they were probably attached to a commercial vendor / construction company working on the nuclear program. Odd story though, it just sounds a bit off.
Former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam said Sunday that a life jail term issued against him for "treason" is proof the Damascus government is transforming the country into a prison for its people. "This verdict does not worry me or affect my determination," the former senior official turned opposition figure, who now lives in exile in Paris, said in a statement. "That sentence is in Damascus. This is Gay Paree. You got no jurisdiction here. I scoff: Haw haw!"
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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Self-exiled former Vice President of Syria Abdul-Halim Khaddam has been found guilty by a military court of lying to U.N. investigators about the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, and was sentenced to hard labor for life. "Judge Mohammed Kaddour Assad of the Damascus first military criminal court has handed Abdel Halim Khaddam 13 sentences, including hard labor for life," lawyer Hossam Eddine al-Habash said.
The court has ordered that Khaddam, in his seventies, be stripped of his civil rights and prevented from residing in Damascus or Tartus, his native town, Habash said.
Khaddam, who resigned as Syria's vice president in 2005 to join the opposition and now lives in Paris, is accused of "slandering the Syrian leadership and lying before an international tribunal regarding the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri," according to the charge sheet obtained by AFP.
He is also accused of "conspiracy to unlawfully seize political power" and of having "illegitimate links with the Zionist enemy, undermining the prestige of the state and of national sentiment and worst of all, plotting with a foreign country to launch an aggression against Syria."
According to Habash, Syrian authorities will ask Interpol to cooperate in a bid to bring Khaddam to face the courts at home.
Contacted by AFP in Paris, Khaddam's family said they were not aware of the court ruling.
In 2006, Khaddam charged that Syrian agents implicated by a U.N. probe into the February 2005 assassination of Hariri could not have acted without Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's approval.
The Damascus regime in turn accused Khaddam of treason, with parliament passing a motion calling for him to be brought to justice and tried for high treason.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2008 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Some turn violent in march to GOP convention 
Five Sudanese men accused of murdering a U.S. aid worker are religious extremists who plotted to attack foreigners at New Year's Eve gatherings, Sudanese prosecutors told a court on Sunday. 
The government has re-opened the Jamia Faridia madrassa following a deal with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Fazlur Rehman, a senior Islamabad Capital Territory official said on Sunday.
Arab sources report that Hamas recently laid a pipeline for supplying the blockaded Gaza Strip with fuel from Egypt. 
Israel wants to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of the year but postpone a final agreement on the future status of Jerusalem, a senior government official said on Sunday. 
