[Iran Press TV Latest] The US administration should brief Congress on any ties between Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother and the CIA or drug traffickers, Senator John Kerry says.
You think Jahwn has found a new cause?
I understand why he fussed inappropriately when George W. was in the White House, but why is he causing trouble for his dear friend, Barack?
"The appropriate congressional committees must be immediately provided with the most comprehensive and untainted information about his alleged entanglements," said Democratic Senator John Kerry, a key Obama ally.
Kerry's comments came after Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is said to have ties to Afghanistan's lucrative illegal opium trade, denied a New York Times report that he has been on the CIA payroll for most of the past eight years.
Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said top US officials had "repeatedly" assured him that "there is no hard evidence" to substantiate the narcotics allegation. "However, after reading press accounts which allege that Mr. Karzai has been on the payroll of the CIA, one of the agencies gathering intelligence about narcotics trafficking in Afghanistan, I have serious questions about the information that Congress is receiving," said Kerry.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
why is he causing trouble for his dear friend, Barack?
Jawn is helping prepare the battle space by laying down covering fire for Dear Leader's eventual retreat.
#2
However, after reading press accounts which allege ...
And we know that press reports are never inaccurate or biased, right?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/29/2009 7:09 Comments ||
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#3
What a dip shit.
We missed a direct round by not having him as a president, we caught a direct round now.
The Enemy are with talent and nefarious options.
This POS will be useless for the rest of his life and he knows it. Better a true enemy take pole position that way he can somehow stay in the arena, though hiding behind some ahole that knows less than this frog knows.
Sorry state of affairs this.
I like Frogs from the Moses era, but this one makes me want to squish it.
#2
There have been various reports that piracy in Somalia is attracting big-time criminals from all over the world; that it is being orchestrated from London; that the ship owners themselves are involved.
BBC reporting vague conspiracies because it doesn't have a real story. The pirates are paid in cash. No need to launder the money.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Al-Qaeda is using Somalia to train, regroup and plan further attacks, the Somali prime minister said Wednesday, warning it was also beginning to threaten regional stability.
"Somalia has now clearly become a haven for the pariah that is al-Qaeda," Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke said in a speech in London.
"We cannot be certain of the precise size of their presence in our country but al-Qaeda are here, they are training and planning in our land. Somalia is serving as an ideal place for them to re-group and redeploy."
" We cannot be certain of the precise size of their presence in our country but al-Qaeda are here, they are training and planning in our land. Somalia is serving as an ideal place for them to re-group and redeploy "
Somali PM Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke
The al-Qaeda inspired-Shebab group and allied hard-line Islamists control large swathes of southern and central Somalia, and Sharmarke said defeating them was important not only to his country but "to the whole world".
He said the insurgency was also spreading to other countries and "al Shabab is now starting to threaten regional stability".
"And Somalia does risk being taken over by al-Qaeda, just as Afghanistan was the haven of al-Qaeda in the 1990s," he told the Royal Institute of International Affairs think-tank at Chatham House in London.
Sharmarke said that an exclusively military response would not work, saying strong government and regeneration was needed to provide an alternative.
"An insurgency needs chaos, discontent and poverty and we must take that away," he said.
Sharmarke is part of a Western-backed transitional government headed by President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed that took over earlier this year, but has faced a renewed campaign by the hard-line Islamist Shebab.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] A Lebanese national, in Cairo's custody for allegedly plotting terror attacks, has accused Egyptian prison authorities of "brutal torture."
I'm shocked. Even more so that Iran PressTV thinks torture a bad thing.
It's only bad when WE do it ...
Mohammed Mansur, who is on trial with 25 other defendants, said during a court session in Cairo that he and all the other inmates had been "brutally tortured" since their arrest.
The defendants are charged with "conspiracy to murder, spying for a foreign organization with intent of conducting terrorist attacks and weapons possession."
"All the detainees have been tortured. I lost hearing in my right ear because of the constant torture. I was electrocuted and beaten," AFP quoted him as saying on Wednesday.
Egyptian officials say the men -- arrested between late last year and January -- were plotting attacks against ships in the Suez Canal and tourist sites. Cairo also claims that the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah recruited the group for acts of terror in the country, and sending operatives to the Gaza Strip to help resistance groups fight Israel.
The men have vehemently denied the charges. Hezbollah has also dismissed the allegations and described them as a politically-motivated campaign against the movement.
This article starring:
Mohammed Mansur
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I lost hearing in my right ear because of the constant torture
[Iran Press TV Latest] After Yemen accused Iran of sending a ship carrying weapons destined for Yemeni fighters, Iran says documents can be provided to prove the claim is a sheer lie.
Was the ink dry?
On Monday, Yemen claimed to have impounded an Iranian-crewed vessel carrying weapons off the Yemeni coast near the Houthi fighters' stronghold.
Reacting to the report, an informed source with the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that no Iranian cargo delivering anti-tank shells to the fighters had been intercepted by Yemeni officials. The Foreign Ministry source described the report as a "media fabrication" made public with "political motivation."
The source said Sana'a officials are "expected to prevent the spread of such baseless propaganda" which is against the interests of both countries.
Meanwhile, in a separate reaction to the report, the Iranian Embassy in Sana'a issued a statement on Wednesday rejecting the claim as "baseless and fabricated"
"The cited vessel was destined for the Caspian Sea through the Red Sea, Mediterranean and the Black Sea for business activities," read the statement.
According to the embassy, the vessel had not been carrying any consignment from its origin (Sharjah-United Arab Emirates) and official documents can be provided to prove the matter.
"Furthermore technical characteristics of the vessel are more proof that the report is unprofessional in its entirety and has solely been publicized for propaganda purposes," added the statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2009 00:00 ||
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LONDON -- An inquiry into an air crash that caused the British forces' worst loss of life in decades concluded Wednesday that corner-cutting on safety led to the fiery explosion of a Nimrod surveillance aircraft over Afghanistan in 2006 that killed all 14 crewmen aboard.
The report was severely critical of the Defense Ministry, the Royal Air Force and two of Britain's largest defense contractors, BAE Systems and QinetiQ, for failing to correct longstanding design flaws in the Nimrod aircraft. A variant of the Comet, a British-built aircraft that became the world's first jetliner in the early 1950s, the Nimrod was built for an antisubmarine role but has been used in Afghanistan and Iraq for patrolling over battle zones and aiding communications among ground troops.
Reaffirming the findings of earlier inquiries, the latest review concluded that midair refueling had put fuel aboard the Nimrod in contact with a hot-air duct while the aircraft was patrolling at high altitude over southern Afghanistan, causing it to catch fire and plunge to the desert near Kandahar.
But the aviation law specialist appointed by the government to conduct the inquiry, Charles Haddon-Cave, went beyond previous reviews by using his 582-page report to deliver a scathing indictment of the defense policy of the Labour government. His principal conclusion was that cost-saving measures instituted after a defense review in 1998, the year after the Labour Party came to power in the first of three successive general election victories, were at the root of the crash.
The report said the 1998 defense review had introduced "a shift in culture and priorities" in the armed forces, substituting "business and financial targets" for "functional values such as safety and airworthiness." The report quoted one senior Royal Air Force officer as having told the inquiry that while concern for air safety had been a major criterion for promotion up to the 1990s, under Labour policy "you had to be on top of your budget if you wanted to get ahead."
The report's conclusions made headline news in Britain, compounding a controversy over Labour's defense spending that has contributed to the plunge in the party's popularity before a general election expected in May. The Conservatives, with a double-digit lead in the polls, have accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown of underfinancing Britain's forces during a decade in which they have had major combat roles in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The inquiry also showed that the R.A.F., BAE Systems and QinetiQ, as well as the Defense Ministry, had been aware for years of the fire risk to the aircraft after midair refueling, but had failed to take effective steps to eliminate it.
The report identified 10 individuals as sharing responsibility for the failure, including a general and an air marshal, and five officials working for the defense contractors. And it described as "lamentable" a safety review that the Defense Ministry and the contractors conducted a year before the Nimrod crash. That safety review, the report said, was "a story of incompetence, complacency and cynicism."
The report concluded that the changed priorities from the 1998 defense review had led to a "systemic breach" in the "sacred and unbreakable duty of care" that Britain's armed forces owed to its service members. That prompted a quick apology in the House of Commons from the defense minister, Bob Ainsworth. "We failed," he said. "Nothing can bring back these 14 men," he said, adding, "I will do everything in my power to prevent anything like this happening again."
"So long as it doesn't involve actually spending any money," he added. "We have dole payments to terrorists to be made, after all."
Although Britain's last combat forces withdrew from Iraq this summer, the country has more than 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, where 223 British service members have died. The Conservatives, calling Britain's $60 billion defense budget inadequate for the demands, have forced a number of recent defense policy reversals on Mr. Brown, including an announcement on Wednesday that he was scrapping a $33 million cut in the training budget for military reservists that he announced only last week.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/29/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
No question the Brits are trying to run their military on the cheap, but they have been flying Nimrods for what - decades? You would think that a fuel on a hot duct problem would appear long ago. Operational issues? Another case of the facts being run thru 'journalism'?
#2
Labor is, basically, destroying British military---both physically and morally by sending them to war inadequately equipped/supplied and with impossible operation rules. Now Obama is going to do the same to US military.
#3
I think that's right. Labour has been bleeding the military to support their social welfare schemes from the NHS to immigration. And those schemes always require more cash -- or at least the pols running them do.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/29/2009 9:49 Comments ||
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#4
With the recent relevations concerning Labour's lax morals, or should that be complete lack of the above, I would investigate thd whole story foq corruption. Any monies changing hands for half-a$$ed reports with a nod and a wink comes tnder that. All responsible are traitors to ALL of our Service men and women, and should be shot at first light.
And, yes, PlayWithIt, I do have a strange nym, some place you never heard of. You are the sort who would Vote4Mugabe, maybe that's what your true name should be.
The military is under a hail of criticism over a man's flight to North Korea on Monday through a stretch of border guarded by the 22nd Division in Goseong, Gangwon Province. This is the same area where an unidentified man defected to North Korea in September 1996.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff on Wednesday dispatched a team to investigate the incident, check the preparedness of soldiers and to find out whether they were guilty of negligence.
What the JCS has found out so far is that a man appears to have defected to North Korea, judging by the direction of the hole cut through the border fence, and that the military found out about the breach only after hearing about it through the North Korean media. "It's unheard-of for a breach in the fence to remain undetected for more than a day, since the fences are patrolled 24 hours a day," said one military officer.
Yet if the man, identified as Kang Tong-rim, defected to North Korea through the military demarcation line on Monday as the North Korean broadcast says, this means that South Korean patrols failed to find the breach for a whole day. "This is impossible," the officer said.
That would suggest that soldiers discovered the breach not an hour after the North Korean broadcast but at a much earlier point but did not report it for fear of punishment. The military intends to investigate the possibility.
Kang strolled past a checkpoint that keeps civilians from reaching the border area some 10 km from the military demarcation line, cut through the fence and entered the demilitarized zone, which is strewn with land mines. The military completely failed to detect or deter Kang from moving through the area.
After embarrassing breaches of the border fence in 2004 and 2005, the military set up thermal detection devices along the border. The area guarded by the 22nd Division was using the devices, but they failed to detect Kang and their utility is now in question. There have been three breaches of the border fence so far -- in 1996, 2004 and 2005.
In border surveillance, one platoon usually handles a 1-1.5 km stretch of the fence. During the day, the fence is guarded from an observation post with a clear view by a two-man team. At night, the size of the patrols is adjusted according to the situation. Wedged between the links on the fence are rocks or cans so that any movement makes a noise.
"The distances between observation points vary from 30 m to 300 m, but 1-1.5 km stretches are monitored during the day and 400-500 m stretches are monitored at night," said a Defense Ministry official. "The problem is that depending on the area, the fence could be located along deep ravines that create blind spots."
To deal with such problems, the ministry is seeking to install sensors on the fences, in which case soldiers will no longer have to patrol the fence on foot but check for potential breaches on monitors at a surveillance center further back. The system was tested by the Fifth Division, but the results are said to have been less than satisfactory. "Machines can only augment what people can do," said on officer. "The only solution is for our sentries to be more alert."
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/29/2009 00:00 ||
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[Kyodo: Korea] Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday met with Choe Thae Bok, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, in Beijing.
It is the first time for Hu to meet with a senior North Korean official since the North conducted its second nuclear test in May.
In his opening remarks at the meeting held at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Hu referred to Choe as an ''old friend of China'' and referred to his visit as yet another significant meeting between both countries.
''Your visit in leading a delegation from the DPRK's Workers' Party of Korea is another important interaction between both parties after Premier Wen Jiabao's successful visit to your country,'' Hu said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Wen made a high-profile visit to Pyongyang earlier this month, during which he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who is also the general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea.
Shortly after that visit, Wen told his Japanese and South Korean counterparts at a meeting in Beijing that Kim had said he hoped to hold multilateral talks, including the stalled six-party talks on its nuclear program, while watching developments related to a proposed direct dialogue between the United States and North Korea.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported late Tuesday that the North Korean delegation led by Choe is in China as part of a visit to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.
China is North Korea's closest ally and is also its largest trading partner and the main source of food and fuel aid for the impoverished nation.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
WORLD NEWS > ANALYSIS: [US]JAPAN ALLIANCE FACES CHALLENGE OF CHINA'S RISE; + JAPAN DEMONSTRATES ITS NEW 24/7 ABILITY TO SHOOT DOWN NORTH KOREA'S MISSLES [also read, CHINA'S].
#2
FREEREPUBLIC > REPORT: NORTH KOREA'S LATEST MISSLES TESTS FAILED [TWO CRASHED, TWO FAILED, ONE DUD].
Again, there's always PAKISTAN for Kimmie.
FREEP POSTER > opined that its becom clear that ECONOMIC-[super]POWER WANNABE CHINA no longer cares about NOKOR as much as before, that it now views NOKOR as a thorn in its side = ambitions???
Switzerland's biggest Jewish groups have described a far-right push to ban mosque minarets as a threat to religious harmony and the integration of Muslims.
The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities and the Platform of Liberal Jews in Switzerland said a November 29 referendum on minaret construction ''poses a threat to peaceful relations between the religions and inhibits the integration endeavours of Muslims in Switzerland'' as well as infringing religious freedom, ''a concept enshrined in the constitution''.
Islam is the second largest religion in Switzerland after Christianity with 310,000 followers out of a population of 7.5 million. Four minarets have been built and the construction of a fifth is planned.
#2
Somehow a mistranslation crept into Jewish learning and "Do into others as they would do into you" become "Do into others as you wish they would do into you".
#3
Actually the Jewish Golden Rule is: "Do not do unto others, what you what not have others do unto you." The Christian Golden rule is active; the Jewish is passive.
#4
Well, Abel took care of Cain. Ishmael was pandered to by the family under the guise of Isaac.
Abraham was given a wide berth.
Yet in every inning, Ishmael takes the out because they take advantage of the Father.
That is no position of pride.
Ishmael has a promise, yes he does, but that is traditionally based upon conduct.
Ishmael is supposed to hold the east side of the Temple which is the garden, in future reparations for the runius adventure with Abel.
Lot must continue to run the earth with that mark upon his head and he is angry about it.
Tip for Barack: If you take the missus with you, please get her to tone it down a bit. And don't forget your lapel pin this time.
The flag-draped coffins of at least 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan are scheduled to arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware early Thursday, government and military officials said.
President Obama, who arrived to Dover Air Force Base on Marine One, along with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and acting DEA administrator Michele Leonhart will witness the transfer of the bodies, according to the Justice Department.
The bodies will include three Drug Enforcement Administration special agents and 15 U.S. troops who died in Afghanistan on Monday.
The DEA agents were returning from a raid on a compound believed to be harboring insurgents tied to drug trafficking when their chopper with seven troops aboard went down in western Afghanistan.
The military transport will also include eight U.S. soldiers killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the Arghandab River Valley.
The DEA identified the agents as Forrest N. Leamon, 37, of Woodbridge, Virginia; Chad L. Michael, 30, of Quantico, Virginia; and Michael E. Weston, 37, of Washington.
Leamon and Michael were members of the DEA's Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams, and Weston was assigned to the agency's Kabul Country Office.
#5
What the F^&K will will he say? How can he stand there and be whitness to this when three days ago he was in no hurry to release a strategic pilicy and was OK delaying any Afghan policy even though he said the current one was not working. How dare he use Americans that paid the ultimate price for our nation as a backdrop for his latest speach.
SPIT, KUSS, SPIT. His lack of morals and oportunism has truely no limits.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/29/2009 8:15 Comments ||
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#6
His motives may not be pure but it's still a right thing to do. It would be more right if he kept it private. It will only become wrong when he makes it into a political 'event' and photo op.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/29/2009 17:38 Comments ||
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#19
As for respect for a commander-in-chief, that is earned by doing acts that benefit our country, not a granted privilege. Read up on differences between Democracy vs Monarchy.
#21
This is not good. He is setting up so he can screw the military. He is a media whore and that is the only reason he would meet those soldiers coffins at Dover.
#24
Ummm Hey there play4 keeps,whats the matter with my ASSUMED name, I guess you never head of deliberate misdirection?
Because you fell right in the shit-splat.
You wanna play FOR keeps, Keep your head down and listen.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/29/2009 18:38 Comments ||
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#25
play4keeps: there is no disrespect that this man has not lowered himself beneath.
cheaply? well... gotta go cheap, as he seems to like it based on his friends and i can think of no person who as done more to cheapen the office he holds.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
10/29/2009 22:06 Comments ||
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Pakistan Army troops have found a passport of a member of Hamburg cell, a group of radical Islamists known to have plotted the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, in northwestern Pakistan, DawnNews reported Thursday.
The Pakistan troops advancing to South Waziristan for an offensive against Taliban seized the passport of Said Bahaji, a German of Moroccan origin, in a village near the Afghan border on Oct. 17, the television report said.
According to the passport, Said Bahaji entered Pakistan via Karachi International Airport on Sept. 4, 2001 -- a week before the terror attacks in the United States.
Said Bahaji, born to a Moroccan father and a German mother, was a member of Hamburg cell, which is believed to have provided logistic and financial support to the hijackers of the Sept. 11 attacks. He has been on the wanted list of the United States in connection with the attacks and his link with al-Qaida.
Chief of Taliban movement in Pakistan Hakimullah Mehsud has blamed the controversial American private firm Blackwater for the bomb blast in Peshawar which killed 108 people, local news agency NNI reported Thursday.
The bomb exploded at a crowded market at Chowk Yadgar on Wednesday, also injured 150 people.
Hakimullah Mehsud told media that if Taliban can carry out attacks in Islamabad and target Pakistan army's headquarters, then why they should target general public.
He claimed that American security agency Blackwater and Pakistani agencies are involved in attacks in public places to blame the militants.
When asked that the people also think that the militants are involved in such attacks, the Taliban leader was quoted as saying, "Our war is against the government and the security forces and not against the people. We are not involved in blasts."
Azam Tariq, the Taliban spokesman, who was accompanying Hakimullah, warned that those media organizations could be targeted which are defaming Taliban.
Information Minister in Northwest Frontier Province Mian Iftikhar Hussain and the Pakistani army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas had blamed militants for the Peshawar blast, saying that the militants are facing defeat in South Waziristan tribal region and are now targeting the people.
#1
Same kind of claims were made in Iraq, and seemed to be received credibly by many until psycho Zarqawi surfaced (some still claim he was a CIA creation too.) The fundamentalist Pakiwackos have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to similar but smaller attacks. Maybe this one wasn't Mehsud's operation (he doesn't have a monopoly on violence over there), but I wouldn't even be confident about that claim.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Hamas told Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday they should not take part in January elections called by Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the rival Fatah movement. The move raised doubts about whether the vote decreed by Abbas would take place on Jan. 24 and threatened to further deepen the bitter rift between his secular Fatah party and its Islamist rivals.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Elections? I don't gotta show you any elections! We don't need no stinkin' elections!
#1
We should all fear a growing Islamic fundamentalism. Banning red lipstick, yoga, and cremation for Sikhs sounds like an Asian Taliban, with island guerillas to fight.
TEHRAN: Iran welcomes the idea of exchanging nuclear fuel and is ready to co-operate with Western powers, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last night.
Mr Ahmadinejad hailed what he said was a change in the West's approach to Iran's nuclear program from "confrontation to co-operation".
"We welcome fuel exchange, nuclear co-operation, building of power plants and reactors, and we are ready to co-operate," he said in the city of Mashhad.
The speech came as Iran responded to a UN plan on shipping the country's low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment. The plan curtails any covert nuclear arms-making abilities by Iran.
A hardline Iranian newspaper reported yesterday that Tehran would propose two amendments to the UN deal under which most of Tehran's low-enriched uranium would be sent abroad for conversion into nuclear fuel.
The deal drafted by the International Atomic Energy Agency envisages 75 per cent of Tehran's low-enriched uranium stock being sent abroad for higher processing and conversion into fuel for an internationally supervised research reactor in Tehran, according to Javan.
Tehran would propose two amendments to this deal, the paper said. Iran would offer its stock of LEU "gradually" in several batches rather than sending out the full 75 per cent in one go, the paper said, quoting an unnamed source.
Secondly, Iran wanted to receive highly enriched uranium fuel at the same time as it hands over its LEU stock "as per a formula to be calculated by the IAEA based on the need of the Tehran reactor".
[Al Arabiya Latest] Dozens of relatives of prominent reformers and other people detained after Iran's disputed election gathered outside the prosecutor's office in Tehran on Wednesday to call for their release, a witness said.
Family members, including wives of people arrested after the June vote, held pictures of detainees, among them former deputy interior minister Mostafa Tajzadeh and former government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, the witness said.
The gathering was peaceful and there was no sign of police, the witness said. The relatives did not chant slogans, but called for the detainees to be freed in writing on placards.
"The political court should be closed down," one placard said. "Where is the judiciary's independence?" asked another.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/29/2009 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.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The US administration should brief Congress on any ties between Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother and the CIA or drug traffickers, Senator John Kerry says. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] Al-Qaeda is using Somalia to train, regroup and plan further attacks, the Somali prime minister said Wednesday, warning it was also beginning to threaten regional stability.
[Iran Press TV Latest] A Lebanese national, in Cairo's custody for allegedly plotting terror attacks, has accused Egyptian prison authorities of "brutal torture." 
